Finding a No. 2 in your No. 1
Q: I’m a woman in an LTR. Recently I had a discussion about anal sex with my guy. Knowing that I was a little nervous, he was GGG and let me experiment on him first. Well, it worked out great, and we both found pleasure in anal play. However, last time I was fingering him,…
Viva Pablo, Viva la vida
Pablo Davis still believes in the revolution, as only an artist can. He was a communist when you could get your head cracked open for it (he did, actually) and he’s still a communist now, when it seems harmless and antiquated. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate beautiful women (enough of them still seem starry-eyed…
A Very Long Engagement
Actress Audrey Tautou and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet of *Amelie* fame are reunited for a very different sort of movie. The setting is World War I, and Tautou plays a woman who refuses to believe her fiance was killed in combat. There’s plenty of graphic footage of the horror and absurdity of war, which makes Jeunet’s…
My life, according to me
Michael Steinberg had a story to write, and the main character was himself — not a character based on him, but the real Michael Steinberg, the Michael Steinberg who grew up in New York loving baseball and awkwardly trying to fit in with the cooler kids around him. But why should we care about this…
Money in, money out — money gone
Considering Detroit’s looming layoffs in 2005 and considerable financial crisis (see “Detroit faces massive layoffs in 2005,” p. 13), it strikes News Hits as pretty disturbing that the City Council gave itself a raise this year. While most departments, including the mayor’s office, cut spending in the continual deficit situation, council boosted its budget to…
Spanglish
There are a million inspiring, richly meaningful stories about those who follow the exodus out of Mexico and strike out for a life in the United States. Spanglish is not one of them. This overly schmaltzy entry from director James Brooks depicts the saintly Flor, an immigrant housekeeper who teaches a shallow and dysfunctional California…
Mutilation station
Nothing brightens a day like a wave of mutilation. But while killing for a cause can be fun, like anything else in life, there are aesthetic considerations. Capital punishment, for example, is best executed in spotless, antiseptic rooms in a manner that limits bloodletting. But where’s the fun in that? And isn’t that what movies…
Dumbing down
Woe is Detroit. Another study, another dis. The latest academic smack to our struggling city comes from “America’s Most Literate Cities,” conducted by Prof. John W. Miller, chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and was released earlier this year. It ranks the country’s most reader-friendly cities with populations of 200,000 or more citizens. Can you…
Bosco Prime Cuts, Vol. 2: The Devil in Miss James
For Round 2 of their Bosco-branded compilation series, the brains behind Ferndale’s sleek three-treed nightspot sidestep the pitfalls common to lounge-friendly collections. Instead of an imperfect ratio of jams to empty beats, the Bosco’s Devil in Miss James is a cohesive, near perfectly sequenced set of hazy soul, flinty hip-hop sheen, and lingering crackle and…
Pop swap
Thanks to the wonder of technology, music over the past few decades has become available to the masses in new and increasingly smaller forms. Yet, for many music lovers, nothing beats the austere beauty of vinyl, and the true collector never passes up a chance to hunt for that much-sought-after record. The Magic Stick Record…
Size matters
Our friends at the Michigan Campaign Finance Network have been looking at the results of the last election. What the numbers show is that, to paraphrase Mel Brooks, it’s good to be the incumbent. There was no serious competition in any of Michigan’s 15 congressional races. The closest contest involved Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of the…
Nikki Sudden & the Last Ban
The long, sometimes-illustrious, sometimes-checkered career of former Swell Maps/Jacobites savant Nikki Sudden resumes on the first Sudden studio album in more than five years. With Sudden and his Last Bandits draping themselves in pirate attire for the sleeve and booklet photos, the music is appropriately swashbuckling, bolstered by such telling song titles as “Treasure Island,”…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
I’ve made up a list and I’ve checked it twice! MB14 feels naughty not nice! • Diana DeGarmo — Blue Skies (RCA) :: And you thought Jewel was stacked. • Mix Master Mike — Bangzilla (Scratch) :: I knew Steinski. Steinski was a friend of mine. Beastie Boy, you’re no Steinski. • Gym Class Heroes…
Putting the oi in joy
Last Saturday, I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus. Then I saw Santa grope Mommy. Then I saw Santa dangling upside down from a rail fence, slurping from a beer bong, stumbling through the streets slurring indecipherable expletives, and finally, horking his guts up by the curb. Just another successful installment of Detroit’s Santarchy. A national,…
Classified
Sure you’ve heard the hype (“These Bond girls put the ass back into classical music”) and wondered, “Are these ELO bimbos for real?” Or are they the brainchild of some marketing whiz who walked into Decca, said, “Charlie’s Angels with violas,” and got three albums of Hooked on Classics made? I’ll admit I approached this…
The decks and the halls
The year was 1980, and John Acquaviva was just beginning his long, fruitful relationship with sound machines and records. He was a high school DJ in London, Ontario, still nine years away from his famed partnership with Richie Hawtin on their Plus 8 label. (Seven years Acquaviva’s junior, in 1980 Hawtin was still in elementary…
Hot type, damp thighs
A news item last week got me to thinking about long-ago monks, sitting in their cold cells and hand-copying the Bible and other holy books with pen and ink, illuminating the text with intricate artwork, some of them distracted by images of dew-covered thighs while absently running a hand over the shaven tonsure atop their…
Street Disciple
Nas’s albums always have a funny way of catching listeners off guard. Whether it’s his sonic jumps from Nasty Nas to Escobar to Nastradamus, or his evolving views on life, the Queensbridge MC keeps fans on their toes. Along with his multiple personas, two things have remained constant since 1994’s Illmatic: his hood-hero status and…
Beautiful nightmares
Taxidermy birds in space-suit helmets. Smooth and delicate babies with male and female sex organs. Sunshine-yellow hazmat suits that open at the crotch to reveal genitalia and flames. These are objects both of dream and nightmare, and artist Luisa Kazanas crafts them with careful design and a bold and gorgeous minimalism. In her first solo…
Head cheese
Newbie Mustard Plug bassist Richard Johnson is an admitted nerd. In addition to touring with said Michigan ska giants (and his own self-titled Richard Johnson’s Rock ’n’ Roll Machine band), the one-time Skeptic and Temple of Doom man also collects vintage Moog records, video game systems and is keen to get into flying airplanes (models,…
Nymphetamine
First of all, it goes without saying that Nymphetamine is the undisputed heavyweight album title of the year. This is the kind of magnificent moniker that should have adorned a 1967 AIP sexploitation movie written by Lou Reed and directed by Russ Meyer. And speaking of movies, y’know that scene in The Wizard of Oz…
Art Bar
Give the gift of a comfy tush during this season of good will. We all know there’s nothing worse than spending a couple of hours with your rear parked on a rock-hard seat — just ask patrons of the venerable Detroit Film Theatre, who oft suffered from a terrible case of numb butt. Though the…
Mas dazzling Mexican cinema
Screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu title their raw and wrenching creation 21 Grams as a bit of ironic understatement, a reference to the supposed weight that every human loses upon their departure to the hereafter. Using an unusual and highly effective realist narrative style, 21 Grams can be hard to watch, but…
Recontructing rhymes
Black Lagoon’s Kaingoe and E-Money are sipping vodka and cranberry juice, their eyes and hands fixed on a cutthroat game of NBA Live 2004. E-Money’s Miami Heat are kicking ass on Kaingoe’s San Antonio Spurs; the score is 68-50 late in the third. “Check up, Kain,” E-Money yells as Shaq throws down a monstrous dunk…
Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain
is haunted by the earmarks of a TV mini-series, namely, a gooey romance set against the foggy and smoky backdrop of war. Jude Law and Nicole Kidman give strong performances, and of note is the acting debut of Detroit darling Jack White of the White Stripes. White composed a couple of songs he…
N&D Center
Wednesday • 22 MUSIC George Winston He made New Age waves in the early ’80s when his seasonally themed albums Summer, Winter into Spring and December hit the shelves. This week, pianist George Winston brings his textured piano playing and jubilant sounds to the Max M. Fisher Music Center for a special holiday performance with…
Big Fish
Adapted by John August from a novel by Daniel Wallace, Tim Burton’s latest is the story of a habitual fantasist, a man who has reconstructed his personal history as a series of tall tales and who has told them so often he believes them. Yet the underpinnings of Big Fish are more whimsical than dark.…
The only proper french fry
Why, somebody recently asked in a surprisingly urgent and ardent tone, don’t you write about french fries? Well, all right then. So, I’m about to get all dogmatic on you. There’s only one correct and proper way to make simple pommes frites, and because this little bit of doctrine is lost on more people than…
Game of chance
There’s something childish in William H. Macy’s features, but the creases and sags under his eyes suggest an adult’s measure of sadness. With The Cooler, Macy adds another loser to his highlight reel — Bernie Lootz, a man who spreads bad luck for a living at a downtown Las Vegas casino. Alec Baldwin plays the…
Sharing the pain
When it comes to facing crippling deficits, Detroit is far from alone. The federal government is more than $7.5 trillion in debt, according to a U.S. Treasury Department Web site that posts daily updates on the nation’s debt. Liz Boyd, a spokeswoman for Governor Jennifer Granholm, says the state of Michigan is facing a deficit…
Happy family
An unusually homey setting for a Japanese restaurant, the prices are a bargain. The $13.50 combination dinner includes a bowl of miso soup, a salad (American-style), a California roll, chicken teriyaki made with breast meat, two shrimp tempura and an assortment of vegetable tempura, rice and dessert. Offers half a dozen noodle soups, including udon,…
Crunching numbers
A comparison of Detroit’s municipal work force with three other cities City Population Number of workers Ratio of workers to residents Detroit 911,400 18,743 1 per 50 residents Chicago 2,800,000 37,171 1 per 75 residents San Diego 1,100,000 11,269 1 per 100 residents Indianapolis 731,000 4,079 1 per 180 residents Sources: Most recent available numbers…
Exclusive! Stefani *Saves* America
Don’t speak — I know just what you’re thinking. Because one way or another, she’s the one we’ve all been waiting for. At long last, Love.Angel.Music.Baby marks Gwen Stefani’s acceptance of her solo platinum tiara and the title of America’s truest pop star. She deserves the throne on the album’s cover, the blinging scepter in…
Tome tomb
The old Roosevelt Warehouse on the edge of Corktown has the aura of a graveyard. It’s as if this is the place where knowledge went to die. Located at 2025 14th St., it sits in the shadow of the hulking Michigan Central Station. Once owned by Detroit Public Schools, the four-story structure was sold “as…
Happy hunting ground
Ave atque vale By now most of D-town’s rock ’n’ roll community has heard about the bizarre car wreck/explosion that took down two of the good ones Dec. 8. Tim Van Esley, 24, and Scott “Shwaac” Head, 34, leave behind two loving families and — based on the enormous turnout of those who’ve paid their…
The not-so-dirty show
There’s something going on with this year’s annual roundup of supposedly “sick and twisted” animation that may portend the demise of this once-satisfying and unique presentation of dirty shorts, über-violent critters and turn-your-head-away shockers. When hippie-in-a-blender jokes and a fly that does a shitty re-creation of Tony Montana’s last moments against the “cockroaches” in Scarface…
Comics
This Modern World Red Meat Comix
Letters to the Editor
Animal charm I was touched by Jack Lessenberry’s column, “Our animals, ourselves” (Metro Times, Dec. 8). It immediately reminded me of an excerpt from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being: “True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind’s true moral…
Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events
This adaptation of the first three Lemony Snicket books is a triumph of production design. Director Brad Silberling has imagined a beautiful and fantastical world where things constantly go wrong for the Baudelaire brood. Jim Carrey stars as Count Olaf, the kids’ fiendish and inheritance-hungry uncle. Depending on your level of tolerance for Carrey’s mugging,…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Your assignment in 2005 is to wage a revolution in the sphere where you have the most power. Your home? Your marriage? Your workplace? Local government? Wherever it is, Aries, arm yourself with tact and compassion as you overthrow the stale status quo by manifesting your shining ideal. Let this advice…
Detroit faces massive layoffs in 2005
With the City of Detroit facing a financial crisis of staggering proportions, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is preparing for massive layoffs in the new year to plug a deficit that could surpass $360 million in the next six months. But it might not take six months for the ax to swing. If the City Council fails…
Flight of the Phoenix
A remarkably buff and toned Dennis Quaid stars in this dopey-but-enjoyable remake of the 1965 stranded-in-the-desert adventure. Despite some annoyingly trendy techniques and an even more annoying sound track, director John Moore generates some admirably old-fashioned suspense. But it’s Giovanni Ribisi’s left-field supporting performance that truly rescues the film from anonymity.
