Letters to the Editor
Health care coverage Re: “Ill begotten” (Metro Times, March 31), I’m impressed at the depth of your coverage. At the same time, your analysis reveals how sick this health care system really is. The amount of money going into insurance companies, administrative costs and litigation does not begin to fix the problem of 44 million…
Hellboy
Guillermo del Toro’s latest offering is definitely the best of the three movies by him that I’ve seen, but this should not inspire you to go see it. Hellboy begins in WWII as the Nazis attempt to open a portal to another world. A decent premise turns into a cliché love story with PG-13 fight…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): If forced to decide between having a bigger penis and living in a world where there was no war, 90 percent of men would pick universal peace. So says a poll conducted by *Glamour magazine* and MensHealth.com. I predict that fate will soon ask you, Aries, to choose between two possibilities…
Talking about toys for twats
Q: I’m a 23-year-old female. I always had big, amazing orgasms, from sex and oral sex. My sex life was perfect. I decided to get a vibrator, and my boyfriend and I started using it, which was also great. After a while, though, I stopped having orgasms. It got harder and harder for me to…
Curry favored
Some people say Detroit lacks the great, affordable restaurants that are plentiful in other major American cities. This gets my blood boiling. There are outstanding eateries all over Detroit and its suburbs — you simply must know where to find them. I love food. I cook every day. I make pizza three or four times…
N&D Center
8 THU • MUSIC Movement 2004 Launch Party — Organizers of Detroit’s Movement — the largest free music festival in the country — will commence their first fundraising event of the year in Ann Arbor. Headlining the festivities will be techno artist Stacy Pullen, Chicago native Traxx and Derek Plaslaiko. Show your support for the…
Mixed media
“God is in the details,” architect-legend Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (designer of the residential complex at Lafayette Park in Detroit) used to say. Janet Hamrick may not have found God but she did find inspiration several years ago in the Beaux Arts details adorning the cast-iron and limestone buildings of lower Manhattan. Incorporating motifs…
Down on the farm
Characters in the Detroit Repertory Theatre’s production of The Drawer Boy make so many sandwiches you’ll lose count. Sandwiches are made, stolen, eaten, and provide a distracting obsession for a sweetly obedient and obviously brain-damaged farmer. That’s Angus, portrayed by veteran Rep actor Harold Hogan. A man-child, Angus hops around the farmhouse kitchen with hyperactive…
World Trade Center woes
If the guys in Anthrax thought their name meant trouble in the wake of 9-11, just imagine Amy Dykes and Dan Gellar’s concerns. In 1999, long before a pair of hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers, the electro-pop couple dubbed themselves I Am the World Trade Center as a nod to both their New…
Capable of honor
The hot political whispers are that Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain, the guy who took on George W. Bush in the primaries four years ago, might stun the world and accept the Democratic nomination for vice president. Such a deal would cause tremendous excitement. Last week, a New York Times poll said McCain was the…
Monkin’ around
T.S. Monk (born Thelonious Sphere Monk Jr.) is used to answering questions about his pop, bebop pianist/composer Thelonious Monk. The 54-year-old jazz drummer, vocalist, composer and record label owner began talking about his iconic dad in newspaper and magazine interviews decades ago. The questions often overshadowed the drummer’s own multifaceted career. Still, Monk Jr. has…
The man who knew too much
Take this any way you want to take it, but Geoff Farina is too good to get famous. Pangs of irrelevant music-journo hyperbole? Try this one: Geoff Farina — an overschooled pencil-neck who sings/speaks over “jazzy” guitar chords — plays music that’s too intelligent to understand, too musical to sell and way too progressive to…
Tressed to kill
A tall, striking young black man strides downstage, his broad shoulders wrangled in by designer couture, a red glow cast on his chiseled face from the colorful stage lights. As rapid-fire beats thump, an army of scantily clad seductresses files in behind, their hair sculpted into purple swirls, fuchsia spirals, turquoise tendrils. Hair artist and…
A deathly silence
AIDS is attacking the black community with a vengeance, but despite the outspokenness of the Congressional Black Caucus and a number of other high-profile black leaders on the issue, the black community as a whole still seems relatively silent on the matter. We all know AIDS is a problem, but for the most part we’d…
Pot, pain and politics
Tim Beck challenges anyone to explain “how, exactly, a cancer patient using marijuana is a danger to the republic, a danger to civilization in the City of Detroit.” Beck chairs the Detroit Coalition for Compassionate Care (DCCC), the organization sponsoring the Detroit Medical Marijuana Initiative. Detroit voters will decide the initiative’s fate in August. If…
Pontiac pull
On a Thursday evening in Pontiac’s popular club district, a steady stream of people wanders into a large building — not the site of another trendy club or restaurant, but the home to three new art galleries holding their inaugural opening as the Oakland Art Center. The space was launched by local artist Jef Bourgeau,…
Intent deferred
Along with the 13 paintings from James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) hanging at the Detroit Institute of Arts and 50 works from American painters who picked up on his strident “aestheticism” and “art for art’s sake” vibe is a cruel lesson in the irony of fate. For all of Whistler’s attempts to strip his work…
Late-breaking news
When he gets excited, Bobby Rush refers to himself in the third person. “The whole world is watching Bobby Rush,” he says from a hotel room in Florida. Rush is no bloviator. His life has taken a strange turn since his appearance on Martin Scorsese’s 2003 documentary series, “The Blues,” on PBS. This singer/guitarist/harp player…
Jersey Girl
If Kevin Smith wasn’t behind Jersey Girl, I wouldn’t have been interested. A decade ago, Smith slipped through the movie industry’s backdoor with Clerks. Made with little more than $27,000, Clerks became a cult classic. Smith’s hallmarks can be found in Jersey Girl, but they’re softer. In the end, Jersey Girl simply can’t escape its…
Darci, we hardly knew ye
Was she canned? Did she quit? News Hits is speculating about why — and on what terms — the Detroit News and its hard-hitting City Hall reporter, Darci McConnell, parted ways last week. Did the paper fire McConnell? Or did she clear out her desk in a huff, giving a sure kick to a nearby…
Silence Filled
Welcome to an annual rite of spring for music and film freaks, a three-man ensemble that writes and performs original music for silent cinematic gems. The Alloy Orchestra features Roger C. Miller on synthesizer, Ken Winokur on junk percussion and clarinet, and Terry Donahue on junk percussion/accordion/saw/banjo. This time around, the orchestra will accompany The…
The horror
Detroit Free Press journos are wringing their hands — and privately laughing their asses off — about a typo that appeared in a Monday story about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. A chuckling source at the Freep called News Hits to make sure we hadn’t missed the boo-boo. The second paragraph of the report titled,…
Record of a Tenement Gentleman
Yasujiro Ozu’s 1947 work is a quiet film that slowly creeps up on you with meaning and import. It’s so restrained and subtle that one hardly notices as events add up to much more than just a cranky old woman taking care of a homeless child. This film is about war and its after-effects in…
Out of their trees
You’d think that planting hedge maples, dogwoods and other trees in Hamtramck would be as welcome as free pierogis. But then again, we’re talking about a city where the choice of design of a public trash bin caused a six-month skirmish among civic leaders not so long ago. Last Saturday, about a dozen volunteers planted…
The Reckoning
Set in England in 1380, this medieval murder mystery features a priest on the lam and a group of traveling actors. The troupe, led by Willem Dafoe, puts on a play dramatizing the murder of a boy, allegedly by a deaf-mute woman, hoping that it will loosen tongues.
Shameless self-promo
Two Metro Times writers have been cited for journalistic excellence by Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc., a professional trade organization. News editor Curt Guyette and arts editor Lisa M. Collins were both named finalists in the annual Investigative Reporting Contest sponsored by IRE, a prestigious group that helps journalists improve their investigative skills. IRE named…
Latter Days
There once was a young, blond, strapping Mormon missionary who ventured into the big city to spread the good word. He quickly catches the eye of a homosexual, sparking debauchery. The film displays male nudity like dime-store candy, yet Latter Days is funny, tragic, occasionally cheesy, endearing and, ultimately, heartwarming.
