Attention Span
ROOBY ROOBY … YUK Whoever decides when a cartoon begins its hip retro-renaissance has determined “Scooby-Doo” as deserving of its day. In addition to all the T-shirts, toys and even a “South Park” parody, the Scooby-Doo merchandising machine is cooking up Scooby Snacks. At $4.99 a box, it seems reasonable to expect these treats to…
Blarney Rumble
Pittsburgh by way of Ireland. A slight detour from the source of a music’s roots can make all the difference. Case in point: Ploughman’s Lunch. The Steel Town quartet has all the markings of a traditional Celtic folk outfit. As evidenced on its most recent, self-titled live recording, the boys in the band work the…
We all need Amnesty
Mordechai Vanunu is a hero to some, a traitor to others, but to Detroit’s small but dedicated Amnesty International chapter, he is just a man who has been in prison for 13 years, most of it in solitary, and who now, his knowledge hopelessly out of date and his sanity starting to look shaky, ought…
Fresh juice and pancakes
The Breakfast Club does lots of things right: fresh orange juice and fresh daisies on the tables, delicious breakfast, quick service, a kids menu. It’s a small place, with only eight tables and four stools at the counter, and it’s usually close to full, but the wait, if any, is brief. They even bring you…
Shop? Drop.
Maybe it’s from the radio, maybe there’s an ad on television or in the newspaper. Doesn’t matter. Somewhere in the collective semiconsciousness that is the media at large are the portentous words: “shopping days until.” “Nooooo!” I shout, trying to bury my head under the enormous stack of glossy mail-order catalogs that have all arrived…
The Apple
The Apple, another slight and offhandedly poetic film from Iran, is the true story of a pair of 12-year-old twin sisters who have been kept imprisoned in their home in a poor section of Teheran. Part docudrama and part therapeutic acting out, the film features the actual twins and their actual parents. Directed by Samira…
Blues, boys and bar stools
THANKSGIVING BLUES Uncharacteristically sans family, I decided to share Turkey Day with the folks who always know my name – Hamtown bartenders. But Fast Eddie was apparently fast asleep, as the Norwalk’s lights were out. So it was the Attic instead, where beatific bartender Johnny Pero greeted me like long-lost family. Who needs turkey anyway,…
Joy in repetition
Has it really been almost three years since blue-eyed waif Fiona Apple punched through with “Shadowboxer” and the other powerfully poppy gifted-girl expressions on her appropriately titled “Tidal” debut? Hungered by the wait, Apple fans will jump on the 10 progressions that fill “When the Pawn.” (The official title is an obnoxious 96 words long;…
News Hits
The Jayebird backs down In case you were wondering, the distinct possibility of getting his ultraconservative butt kicked next November is not why state Sen. Dave Jaye, R-Washington Township, decided against a congressional race against U.S. Rep. David Bonior, D-Mt. Clemens, two weeks ago. Honest. Really. Jaye, the champion of all things right-wing, said he…
The Legend of 1900
Now, in a time of preoccupation with numbers and symbols (perhaps more than names), Giuseppe Tornatore thrusts this early-20th century myth like a thin, antique sword into the unconscious center of our premillennial anxiety. His metaphors loom as large as the charm of his quirky, moving genius of a main character. 1900 is not a…
Surf denial
People keep telling me they don’t randomly surf the Web anymore. “No aimless hyperlinking for me,” a friend recently announced. “Whenever I use the Net, I have a purpose and get things done!” This comment is typical of recent chats I’ve had with Internet-savvy pals — the same crowd who traded their regular TV habits…
Toy Story 2
The first Toy Story (1995) confirmed what generations of kids had long suspected: that toys do have a life of their own, which begins the instant their owners are out of sight. It was also a landmark in computer animation, with the inventive work of Pixar Studios highlighting the possibilities of this new medium. So…
Pitch’d
SYST3M SOUND CLASH Saturday night, Nov. 20, Detroit. I am standing in the middle of 2,000 people who are freaking out to John Acquaviva playing “Blackout,” the Y2K rave anthem. The venue is Studio 95, former home to the New Dance Show, and the event is the sold-out Syst3m three-year anniversary. The crowd is thick…
Mutha time
It’s a minor revelation that the brilliant cynics who oversee the Motorbooty collective have decided to believe that, indeed, the world will survive past Dec. 31, 1999 at all. But evidence of their faith is now available for you to consume. The United Booty Workers have built their calendar around the theme: “Usher in a…
Eaters Digest
TASTY AND TANGY Perfect Vinaigrettes: Appetizers to Desserts By Linda Dannenberg, photographs by Zeva Oelbaum (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $19.95, 112 pp.) Tossed with salad greens, drizzled over poached fish, pooled around a nest of steamed vegetables, marinating a rib roast or glossing a plateful of sliced potatoes — in this cookbook, Linda Dannenberg explores…
Disco bloodbath
Filmmakers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey are as detached as their subject, New York club kid-turned-murderer Michael Alig, tracing Alig’s very public rise and fall in the mid-’90s NY club scene, and giving Alig and his fellow drugged-out misfit scene-makers enough rope to hang him/themselves, which being the drama queens they are, they do: A…
Limeys in America
There are many fine moments in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992). One in particular stands out. Sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) is relaxing after a busy Fourth of July. Sitting in his jail is English Bob (Richard Harris), an aging snob and ersatz gunslinger come to town to collect the bounty placed on the heads…
Rollin’ in the Hyundai
Odelay + Earth Wind & Fire + Prince + R. Kelly + too many miles logged on the celebrity freeway = Midnite Vultures. When was the last time you laughed really, really hard both at an album and with an album? Prepare yourself, then, for full-frontal Beck before you spin the latest from Mr. Counterculture cut-and-paste.…
Tipping the scales
With a bundle of newly passed, business-friendly laws tucked in its vest pocket, corporate Michigan looked across the political landscape in the mid-1990s and saw what it considered an ominous cloud darkening an otherwise golden-hued horizon: the state Supreme Court. With Gov. John Engler firmly in control of the executive branch, there was no need…
Rodney’s roots
Burning Spear’s leader-songwriter-vocalist-prophet, Winston Rodney is the most enduring and prolific performer in the history of reggae. With more than three decades of music making under his brightly colored belt, Rodney has been spreading his special brand of Rasta gospel the world over. Lyrically, Rodney often memorializes back-to-Africa idealist Marcus Garvey and preaches the highest…
Chic, schmeek
It’s Saturday night in the city: Cranked-up ravers spill out of abandoned warehouses on East Grand; blue-jeaned white Zinfandelers cruise franchised bars searching for sing-along acoustic music; somewhere, lovers touch hands and whisper. I’m sitting in a futuristic/medieval-themed basement bluffing with a pair of deuces as my poker companions drink dyed-black Mountain Dew (what they…
Some funk stank
Ever heard of the “new construction blues”? It’s like you buy a newly constructed home because it looks great and feels warm, and no one’s lived there previously. But you’re moving in while the foundation is settling. This means the house will eventually come loose at the seams a bit. You still love the place,…
Cool by design
Target is the coolest store in America. Period. Because this is what cool amounts to — seeing the design of things. And that’s what Target is doing, revealing the design that makes things cool. Start with the corporate logo and name. There’s a self-reflexive joke built right in. The logo — a red target —…
D’you like American music?
Yeah, I know already. Five stars is as high as we’re supposed to go with these reviews. So sue me. But before you do that? Get this. No, I’m not just talking to the blues crowd this time. I’m talking to any literate human being reading this page who appreciates the importance and significance of…
Openly gay, on the line
Autoworker Robert Burrell had made many friends during 26 years at Ford’s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne. That didn’t make it any easier to let everyone know he was gay. The quality inspector, now 48, came out at work in the summer of 1997 by attending a supervisor’s wedding with his partner. Burrell says he…
Michigan Guild Gallery
There exists a cozy little space along 4th Avenue in Ann Arbor which houses the Michigan Guild Gallery. Michigan Guild is a non-profit organization which promotes awareness and appreciation of the arts, showing the work of emerging local and regional artists in all visual media from paintings to installation.
Sensation lite
DIA flap is not the event of our dreams…
End of Days
Arnold looks old and tired on the screen: a middle-aged hero with a hush-hush history of heart failure. For him, End of Days is the end of an era whose Terminators have slowly melted into kind-hearted kindergarten cops, pregnant scientists and baffled last action heroes. Arnold Schwarzenegger – or the institution Arnold has become –…
Gallery 212
Gallery 212 is an example of the reason why art will never die. In a section of the business district in downtown Ann Arbor, this locale is actually one half art gallery and one half clothing and tailor shop. Showing work by local and regional emerging artists selected by jury, this gallery welcomes the roaming…
In the grip of letting go
A unintentional primer on smack for unwilling disciples….
Anti-Music, Anti-Heroes
Faith No More may be no more, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Foremost, it frees FNM frontman, Mike Patton, to create crazier craziness. Making Mr. Bungle sound like Mr. Mister, Fantomas specializes in ultra-precise bursts of hardcore noise, yet another menace to attention span unleashed by Mr. Patton. Imagine the sound of a…
Nineteen Point Five Collective
The world is a sound source to the shadowy figures lurking in Nineteen Point Five Collective, and they’re not afraid to use it thusly. Combining elements of the visual, aural and ether, Nineteen Point Five Collective’s debut album boasts individual cuts that are little soundworlds unto themselves, populated by hallmarks of techno, ambient, avant-electronic, found-sound…
A matter of ‘color’
The DIA rediscovers over 100 paintings and drawings by American master Bob Thompson….
As We Go Up, We Go Down
Searching for some of the greatest hooks in all of rock ‘n’ roll, but don’t have time to waste on songs lasting longer than a minute and a half? Well, then Guided by Voices is the group for you! The poster band for an attention-deficit-disordered world, Robert Pollard and bandmates (why name them? They’ll probably…
