Irony deficiency
The name of the Web site alone will snatch your attention: black peopleloveus.com. Oh, really? The first time I heard about this rather quirky cyberspace way station was a little over a week ago on NPR’s morning talk program “The Tavis Smiley Show.” What I heard sounded pretty interesting, but there were other issues crowding…
Terms of investment
Brownfields, Renaissance Zone, Empowerment Zone. These programs are key tools in downtown development. Here are some of their immediate benefits. The brownfields designation offers a variety of benefits, including capping the taxable value of an obsolete property at its pre-improvement value for 12 years, as well as a credit of up to 10 percent on…
Feel-good history
Stephen Ambrose’s final book is a curious legacy. It is a book that, like Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs, its author wrote against the big clock, knowing that it would serve as his last testament about his prosperous career as an American historian. Death was not the only shadow under which he wrote, however. In the…
Connekt4 the hard way
Young L., APX, Half-Raized and Lee Sane walk into the Paris Café on Detroit’s east side, and I’ve gotta laugh to myself. “Definitely not coffee shop cats,” I think. Sweat suits, boots and big coats on big dudes clash with the quaint decor of the Lafayette Park eatery. If I were given to stereotypes, I…
Letters to the Editor
Do the homework Metro Times’ Abandoned House of the Week feature has certainly been a controversial one, as you are no doubt well aware. But while intentions and motivations can be debated, sloppy researching cannot. There is no secret as to the ownership of the house on Eleventh Street in Corktown recently featured ("Faded queen,"…
Pay to play version 6.0
Whores under the guise of rock criticism….
Wrenfields
The Wrenfields’ roots run deep and stretch wide across a Southern rock landscape that spans from rowdy Allman Brothers-style guitar noodlings and riffs to folky skips and laid-back country attitude. The relaxed and eerily pretty vocals of Noreen Novrocki are a highlight, as are the warm acoustic elements.
Pick your poison
A ZP grab bag….
An Honest joint
Three reasons (not the only ones) to go to Honest ? John’s Bar and No Grill:
1) Owner John Thompson is likely to be there, and, as he puts it, “Everybody wants to watch a fool.” 2) You’ll be contributing indirectly — and directly, if Thompson ropes you in — to charity programs that…
The nightmare scenario
What did she know? And when did she know it? Imagine this scenario: Sometime this winter, as Gov. Jennifer Granholm struggles to cope with the immense state budget deficit, the indictments start rolling in. That’s not likely to be fiction. The feds are finally after her political godfather, Wayne County Executive and political boss Ed…
Guns N’ Parodies
Should you visit the ancient ruins of the Buddhist Borobudur Temple in central Indonesia, you can’t miss the great, layered structure’s solemn majesty as it rises gradually and ominously above a lush valley, an hour’s drive from Yogyakarta. As you leave the parking lot and head to the temple, the ephemeral, expectant air of spirituality…
Dec. 4-11, 2002
5 THU • LECTURE Robert Atkins — As initiator of 911: the September 11 Project, founder of Visual AIDS, columnist for the Village Voice, and author of Artspeak: A Guide to Contemporary Ideas, Robert Atkins had donned many hats. Lecturing across the globe on hot topics such as homosexuality, AIDS and the cyber-arts, his notable…
Holy roller
Clutch Cargo’s, housed in a former church, is a 1,400-person capacity club that books a variety of national big-name acts during the week. On Saturday nights, the club is a four-level entertainment megaplex, offering up live swing and rockabilly in the lower level martini lounge, retro alternative on the main level, old-school funk on the…
Once upon a glaze
Surrealist chief of staff André Breton, in his novel Nadja, tells of finding an object in a Parisian flea market that suggested a number of stories without exactly telling any. It was an “irregular, white, shellacked half-cylinder covered with reliefs and depressions … streaked with horizontal and vertical reds and greens,” and Breton scarcely knew…
Private angst
What more can/needs to be written about Kurt Cobain? We all know that the Nirvana front man, with the assistance of two slightly more settled pals, single-handedly and brilliantly ushered in the New Boss, thereby killing Reaganomic rock dead in its tracks. We also know that he left behind a wife and daughter when he,…
And don’t hit back
A private school in Bloomfield Hills. A girl with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and a rockin’ ass. An ass that would get her some work, give her something to do for the next 10 years. There’s an International House of Pancakes on Woodward just north of 12 Mile Road, but I would never recommend…
The margins of silence
John Ashbery once wrote that artists are no fun once they have been discovered. Maybe his poetry is his way of never being discovered. At least not without turning the spotlight back on the reader. Uncommon knowledge and drifts of odd objects fill his 20th book of poems, Chinese Whispers, leaving imprints of their soft…
Apartheid’s mirror
At Planet Ant Theatre we see ourselves in South African guise….
Silent witness
During the deconstruction of the post-Civil War Reconstruction dream of 40 acres and a mule, African-Americans, after only the briefest of sightings, disappeared from the horizon of history. From the late 1860s through the early 1900s, they were neither little noted nor long remembered except as famous firsts — or as the statistical victims of…
Afghan dreams
Visions of feasting and revelry probably warm your holiday dreams. Visions of scorpions and assassins haunt Detroit attorney Khalid Sekander these nights as he prepares to leave his wife, family and home to travel to Afghanistan, where he will help write the country’s constitution and national laws. As I sit with Sekander in the living…
Somewhere in the night
Here’s a big, oversized book full of dames, gats, thugs, stoolies and screaming meemies. Sleek and deadly as a pair of silk stockings, it’s one long look back into the high-contrast darkness of film noir — not a sampling of stills from the movies themselves, but a full-color collection of 338 posters and PR images…
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
In keeping with the holiday spirit, the Abandoned Structure Squad offers up a special treat this week. Look closely at the above photo. And then picture yourself living in this hovel, forking over $275 a month in rent for a place that has no furnace or toilet. This week’s gem is owned by none other…
Ciné-personal
Don’t let the word “dictionary” in the title mislead you. If you’re looking for a good film reference book, then this definitely isn’t it. What you’re probably looking for is something like Ephraim Katz’s The Film Encyclopedia, which is brimming with raw information. Then there’s the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) which has every film fact…
Skinning copycats
At the risk of biting the hands that often feed us documents, we must confess feeling an ecstatic shiver upon learning last week that some brave souls are suing Wayne County over the exorbitant fees it charges to provide copies of court records. Although it has been on file since midyear, the rest of the…
Happy birthday to Bond
James Bond’s movie run turns 40 this year with his 20th adventure. We love him for allowing us into his exclusive high life and hate the insanely wealthy madmen he fights: He allows us to share his rich cake and eat it too. Maybe that’s why we’ll let him die another day — with Pierce…
Kissed off
When the ridiculous becomes reality, satire is superfluous. That’s the hard lesson being swallowed here at News Hits, which last week attempted to put in context just how bizarre it was for the Bush administration to consider a serial despoiler like John Engler for appointment to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s top spot. Among other…
Mad Love
Spanish director Vicente Aranda’s hybrid of romance novel, historical drama and sumptuous period piece is lovely to look at, well-acted and ultimately as tedious as its central character’s obsessive jealousy. It’s an unromantic story told in romantic terms, which may account for the synthetic feel of its emotional intent.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Expect the unexpected or you won’t find it.” That’s an epigram formulated by the ancient Greek sage Heraclitus; it’s also the name of a book by creativity expert Roger Von Oech; now it’s the centerpiece of your horoscope. Your steel-trap mind sometimes closes prematurely. You can’t afford to let that happen…
Joy to Detroit
In keeping with the holiday spirit, the Abandoned Structure Squad offers up a special treat this week. Look closely at the above photo. And then picture yourself living in this hovel, forking over $275 a month in rent for a place that has no furnace or toilet. This week’s gem is owned by none other…
Extreme Ops
Where to begin? The sad, sorry, downward trajectory of Devon Sawa’s so-called career? The pathetic attempt to insert what can only charitably referred to as plot in what is essentially one long commercial for winter-sports gear? Or that despite shooting half of it on handheld digital video, the movie still cost more than $40 million?
Traditional furniture
Q: I find childbirth sexually arousing. I watch TV programs that show childbirth while I masturbate. I don’t think I have a problem, since I am not attracted to the babies. Are there others out there like me? —Wanting Others Masturbating (to) Birth A: Sorry, WOMB, but as compelling/revolting as your problem is, I just…
Back from the background
Not exactly shy, but selective and thoughtful with his remarks, Mark Dawson is not afraid of sounding stupid. Not at all. He is, however, afraid of sounding like those he despises: the blowviators, the booze hounds, the scenesters. When asked whether he likes people, he responds without hesitation, “No.” Then he elaborates. “I am a…
The Cherry Orchard
If Chekhov’s story of a Russian family in the last days of decline seems to sputter and spurt in director Michael Cacoyannis’ adaptation, the film remains worth seeing for its performances — with Charlotte Rampling, Alan Bates and Owen Teale.
Once more with meaning
It’s the year of giving relevant, thoughtful, beautiful books….
Sunrise Boulevard
Washington Boulevard’s darkest days may be over….
Wes Craven Presents: They
They
is a horror tease that never puts out. It leads us on with scary mysteries that end up failing as horror-show turn-ons — and when it finally leads us into its unknowns, it turns out the lights, fading to black as if to say, "I’ll never tell."
