Bad-ass beanbags
Behold the antithesis of Beanie Babies…
Coffee squared
Who cares if you can hold it — it looks cool…
Skirting the issue
Frilly bibs protect sloppy brides…
Do not pass go
Alice Cooper’s backstage pass is a little outdated…
Magic money minder
Presto! Where did your dollars go?…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): The renowned Spanish painter Francisco Goya (1746-1828) had two different careers. In the first, he produced skillful but tame portraits and pastorals. Sweetness and light were his specialties. Following a healing crisis at age 46, however, he mutated into a searing satirist, painting scenes that ridiculed a corrupt elite and raged…
Films that mattered
The Metro Times movie mavens pick their film faves and pet peeves of the year 2000 — all presented in the name of a brave new cinema (and a healthy discussion thereof).
Bang, bang! You lose
Detroit Police shootings investigated, strikes settled, racetrack plans fell through (again) … here’s a look back at some of the year’s top local and state news stories.
News Hits pipe dream
The News Hits team ponders what the past year would have been like had we been able to actually dictate events rather than merely report on them….
Music for the masses
The year 2000 in sound and fury … MT editors and writers review their top hits for recordings and all-around musical experiences.
Millennium bug strikes back
“Flori-duh” phenomenon brings America to its knees!…
Farewell to shining stars
Pause a moment to mark the passing of some of our favorite people — whether they were worldwide celebrities or local artists, we are all the worse for their departure.
Home for the holidays
Tour Eminem’s house online (or buy it)…
Twenty-to-wife
Q: I’ve been seeing a very special woman for about six months. We hit it off quickly and fell head over heels for each other. We are now seriously considering marriage. She is divorced and has three kids from two different fathers. The oldest she had with a boyfriend more than 10 years ago. She…
Predict the future
What will Year One of the Shrub presidency be like? That’s only one question in this year’s P&P news quiz.
Stretching the truth
Q: I am a 38-year-old male, married and with two children. I have a spandex fetish that I have had to hide from my wife because it would hurt her if she knew I wore the stuff in public. I often wonder if I have an abnormal behavior? She thinks it’s perverted. Typically, I will…
Well, we survived
Best thing you can say about 2000? It’s over….
A stroke of potluck
A bountiful office-party buffet gets one MT staffer thinking about the origins of the word “potluck” … and the unselfish holiday spirit that inspires us to get together in the first place.
First annual Annie Awards
Named in memory of painter Ann Mikolowski (1940-99), our subjective panel hands out kudos and recognitions for the year in visual arts.
Renaissance director
He’s found a way to bring his outsider’s perspective with him into the mainstream … Finding Forrester’s Gus Van Sant offers some private thoughts on a public medium.
Big bad Web
Reflecting on a year of the Web filled with growth, mergers, mischief, and plummeting profits.
Letters to the Editor
Unhealthy problem Jane Slaughter mentions the registered nurses strike over mandatory overtime in Massachusetts against Tenent, the second-largest health care corporation in the nation, in her story ("Nurses strike back," MT, Dec. 13-19). At the same time, there was an eight-week RN strike in California and a five-month RN strike in rural New York. This…
Snow party like a Detroit party
Holiday stress released at the Edge’s employee Christmas party … Big fun at Ritual’s annual holiday shindig at Small’s … & the Unfriendlys to open for the Violent Femmes on Dec. 31.
New Year fantasy
Bush resigns. Says he was just foolin’. Al Gore’s emotion-control secrets are finally revealed. (OK, we can dream, can’t we?)
New Year’s resolution
Ear plugs are our friends … Expensive cab rides and braving the subway system in New York … & things to look forward to in the new year.
Say it ain’t so
Dave’s Comics moves out of Royal Oak storefront…
He’s a Web wizard, too!
Don’t screw with Harry Potter’s domain…
Last year’s leftovers
Our predictions for the television miniseries of 2001:…
Bad decisions of 2000
Some things just should’ve been left undone. But no, the following decisions — or their repercussions — will survive the year 2000 well into the future.
Coastal comeback
With his multiplatinum comeback, 2001, Dr. André Young did much more than move units, produce hit songs and give Eminem a chance to holler “Detroit What!!” on our TV screens 18 times a day — he brought back a whole damn coast. Sure, other LA groups have made noise, but they don’t exactly recall the…
Side of raunch
Sex as entertainment? Snore (after the obligatory post-coital cigarette, of course): Been there, seen that. But sex as serious topic of journalistic investigation? Snort. “Sure, give me that assignment,” cry legions of writers. “Let me be the one to go to Amsterdam’s red light district, Montreal’s strip shows, Paris’ burlesque theaters, even the porn Oscars…
Freedom then & now
Jazz of the ’60s and ’70s unlocked some wonderfully fertile spaces within the music, some of which are revisited and harvested by Ernest Dawkins and his fellow deep diggers on this new disc from the Windy City. The byword of those decades was “freedom”: free jazz, free improvisation and, in the struggles of African-Americans and…
Advanced reading group
There are really too damned many “children’s books” out there. Not that kids shouldn’t read; it’s just that most books are obviously written by adults and that’s obvious even to kids. Sure, you have to consider different levels of intellectual development, but too often “children’s book” means painfully unimaginative stories about fuzzy bunnies illustrated by…
Beyond boundaries
All you really need to know about this two-CD collection is that it contains some of the best recorded material performed by one of the greatest jazz guitarists of all time: George Benson. Jazz critics and enthusiasts, not to mention the musicians themselves, are notoriously difficult folks to please, which explains the ongoing, heated disagreements…
Taking requests
What do you do after founding your own theater, performing with Second City Detroit or studying theater at Wayne State? Well, grab a guitar, set up a tape recorder on a coffee table and chronicle your life as a rock star, of course. Pat Loos, Dustin Gardener and Topher Owen (aka “Three Guys Named Joe”)…
Coastal comeback
With his multiplatinum comeback, 2001, Dr. André Young did much more than move units, produce hit songs and give Eminem a chance to holler “Detroit What!!” on our TV screens 18 times a day — he brought back a whole damn coast. Sure, other LA groups have made noise, but they don’t exactly recall the…
A Hard Day’s Night
If some of the Beatles’ 1964 feature debut (low-budget, seemingly off-the-cuff and filmed in cheeky black-and-white) now seems quaint, the music still has the ability to charm. Even though as a film it’s only good, as a cultural artifact it remains essential viewing.
Cast Away
The key to Cast Away, which is nearly a one-man show, is Tom Hanks alone on a tropical island, improvising survival tactics to keep himself alive even when hope for rescue runs out. It’s hard to imagine another American actor who could pull this off as gracefully.
Chocolat
The main conceit of Lasse Hallström’s film is that chocolate is not just the mood-altering sweet that we all know and crave, but also a liberator of the essential life force as well as a powerful aphrodisiac. Though well-filmed and desperate to please, it’s flat and predictable — with Juliette Binoche, Alfred Molina and Johnny…
