Brain dead
Monsieur Hire Kino International It seems like all of Patrice Leconte’s movies deal, in one way or another, with strangers colliding by fate, and his Monsieur Hire is no exception. Short on length (79 minutes) but not pathos, Leconte’s 1989 adaptation of the Georges Simenon crime novel follows the title character (Michel Blanc), an antisocial…
The Raw Shark Texts
First-time novelist Steven Hall is probably at a crossroads. With The Raw Shark Texts, he’s come up with a spooky, fascinating premise for a novel. The story opens on a blank page — literally — and progresses as the central character tries to piece his life together while avoiding a memory-devouring shark. Hall’s imagination is…
Letters to the Editor
A building problem Thank you for the story about bricklayer Salvatore Viviano (“Nightmare on Highbury Court,” Metro Times, Dec. 12). It’s too rare to see exposure like this in the media. I am the secretary of a national consumer advocacy organization, and we get thousands of complaints a year on bad builders. These are not…
The author thinks it’s nonfiction
“Stories are one way of sharing the belief that justice is imminent,” writes John Berger in Hold Everything Dear, his new, raggedly uneven collection of recent essays. A humanist concern for justice marks these texts, which range in length from two pages to 20 and are characterized by Berger’s messianic sense of conviction. His fervor…
Night and Day
Wednesday-Sunday • 19-23 Forbidden Christmas TOAST OL’ RED EYES Gasp — it’s sacrilege to sully Sinatra, ‘specially around eggnog season. But the satiric Forbidden Christmas revue, based on the Forbidden Broadway production, does exactly that. The uproarious show pokes fun at holiday staples like Frank and Bing, as well as at pop trash (Britney Spears…
House of Meetings
The cynically belletristic bad boy of 1980s British literature has gone off and done the last thing anybody quite expected of him: Martin Amis penned a controlled, subtle, moving and modest piece of fiction. House of Meetings chronicles a love triangle between two brothers, who both end up in a gulag during Stalin’s Soviet Union,…
Info squeeze
Lansing pols consider exemptions that would keep state business from public scrutiny.
Water shout
New system would help maintain quality and track down polluters.
December’s Chillin’
April may be the cruelest month for taxpayers, but for rockers, the month of purported “peace on earth, goodwill toward man” and the birth of Jesus (the young and hip son of God) also happen to be the goddamned worst month for rock ‘n’ roll tragedies? Don’t believe it? Well, buy yourself a generic calendar…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Keep your socks on
With all the higher-tech options everywhere, it’s endearing that, even today, inserting a hand into a sock and pretending it can talk enchants children, who happily suspend disbelief. But puppets can charm us at any age. And even the simplest ones, transformed by movement, can act out fables, poke fun at taboos or demonstrate basic…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #150 presents the best records of 2007! James Hyman — A Quentin Tarantino Mash-Up (Audio Shrapnel) :: This unrelenting aural canvas of carnage ’n’ comedy proves that James Hyman is the all-time undisputed modern master of the mash-up, alright? Spacekitti — Galaxy (Dart) :: Spacekitti is Jilli Dart, and Jilli Dart…
Celebrating old masters
Most of the professors who gather every Friday afternoon at Borders in Birmingham are octogenarians who don’t look a day younger. Yet each still follows his lifetime passion for painting, ceramics, sculpture, photography, design or jewelry making. They’ll never retire from the work that gives them enthusiasm for life and perspective on the human condition.…
Staying power
Enjoy waxed-paper-wrapped burgers, sandwiches and bar food with chunky crisp steak fries and creamy coleslaw sides. The hearty soups are house-made with a cheese-and-broccoli that’s tangy, and a tomato that’s silky-smooth and deftly seasoned. The savory chili is laden with meat and mildly hot. For a modest $5.75, you can have a cup of soup…
Jesus of Suburbia
Late November. Maybe. No, wait. Early December. Hungover. Gray rainy light in the window. The phone rang. It was that voice. “This is it,” he mumbled. “Huh? Doug?” “This is it,” he repeated. His tone was deep and sour, the usual; but different. Hushed and cryptic this time, burnt as almonds; and it wasn’t just…
Words of Our Own
Local poet Norene Cashen on freefall in verse.
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
I Am Legend
By day, Robert Neville, military scientist (Will Smith), and his trusty dog Sam roam the deserted streets of Manhattan, scavenging supplies, waiting for someone — anyone — to answer their radio broadcast call for survivors and struggling to find a cure for the vampiric disease. By night, man and dog retreat to their fortified townhouse…
Sin duty
Many people think the Coen brothers’ No County for Old Men will nab the Best Picture Oscar in 2008. In fact, the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures just gave the bloody flick their top award, the first major award of the 2007 season. In a post-Miramax world, where multimillion-dollar awards campaigns can unseat…
Deft Daft
If you’re on the fence about a band everyone else loves, it’s often best to check ’em out live. The music sometimes can’t fully connect when it’s just you alone with your iPod, but it can suddenly spring to life in the spontaneous atmosphere of a club, especially when surrounded by the band’s adoring throngs.…
People to people
In the era of big philanthropy, giving can still begin small.
Shotter’s Nation
The Libertines Time for Heroes: The Best of the Libertines Rough Trade It’s actually a shame that Pete Doherty is best known in this country as Kate Moss’s junkie boyfriend. But if Amy Winehouse proved anything this year, it’s that one can be a walking, talking Physician’s Desk Reference and still create some brilliant music.…
Motor City Cribs
Robert Sestok sculpts a home in Detroit.
Welcome to the Minority: The A&M Years 1988-91
There was a time when Soul Asylum was more than just a gateway between the college-dazed rawness of the Replacements and the adult contemporary stylings of the Goo Goo Dolls. Before frontman Dave Pirner started dating Winona Ryder and singing about “Runaway Trains” and all that other genius pop-rockery, Soul Asylum was simply four dudes…
Home for the holidays
Rock ‘n’ roll Christmas albums and songs were around long before Phil Spector found that link between joyous pop-rock (with glockenspiels and sleigh bells piled on) and the historical, mostly romantic notions associated with the holiday season. Beginning with 1957’s truly wonderful Elvis’s Christmas Album (including one of the best pop Christmas tunes ever in…
War and lies
The new World War II romance has gaping, pus-filled wounds, love forbidden by social status, horses shot in the head, sibling sexual rivalry and bitter truths that go untold until they’re no longer able to do anyone any good. If you’re unfamiliar with Ian MacEwan’s book — or the film’s sweeping trailers — you might…
Attorney general getting the Blues
Why is Mike Cox going after the big nonprofit?
Dutch gold
Veteran Dutch novelist Cees Nooteboom’s work traces the inner spaces of globetrotting protagonists disconnected from their places of origin, so the deceptive synopses of his novels often sound either uneventful or strangely convoluted. Lost Paradise, his latest, belongs to the latter camp, revolving around multiple chance encounters between two very different world travelers — and…
Star savaged
In the summer of 2001, some five weeks before the World Trade Center towers toppled and Manhattan became a still life, Central Park’s Delacorte Theater was hosting yet another season of Shakespeare in the Park. This year in particular was especially remarkable because, with a possible Screen Actors Guild strike looming over the film industry,…
Poor People
Most of us couldn’t hang with William T. Vollmann’s approach to tourism. The man lingers in the poorest slums of the world’s poorest nations until he’s sampled that region’s most devastating drugs, most exotic diseases, and, yes, its most downtrodden women-of-the-evening. He’s courted much criticism in the past for his fascination with prostitutes — and,…
