The Enduring Revolution
“With your whole body, with your whole heart, with your whole conscience, listen to the revolution.” Alexander Blok’s words are the backbone for Revolution Gallery in Ferndale, a gallery that is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a stalwart in the Detroit art scene. From visceral paintings unafraid of formalism, such as Brenda Goodman’s triptych “Untitled…
Answer key
Roots 1. c) Carter G. Woodson, pioneering African-American historian and founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH), founded Negro History Week in 1926, placing it in the week of Frederick Douglass’ and Abraham Lincoln’s births. The week caught on with African-American newspapers, civic and social groups and in the…
Eric Reed named retail ad director
The casual observer can be forgiven for cracking wise about “homecoming days” at Metro Times. With former Metro Times sales executive Lisa Rudy assuming the role of publisher, the alternative newsweekly now welcomes former metro Detroiter Eric Reed as its new retail advertising director, following former director Lee Berry. A Farmington Hills native, Reed, 36,…
Letters to the Editor
Banking on reform Your story on the new Land Bank legislation (“Land bank statement,” Metro Times, Feb. 4) states that the land bank could sell land at below market value. But selling land cheaply to organizations that will use the land for the good of the city has always been an option for the City…
N&D Center
11-14 WED-SAT • FILM 10th Annual International Festival of Experimental Film and Video Art — The world of avant-garde filmmaking is not nearly as esoteric as it used to be. With technology’s gargantuan leaps in availability and utility, what was once a pipe dream for the armchair film lover is now a trip to the…
Majestic mix
Contemporary American and European specialties served in an open, airy setting. Filet mignon with both blue cheese mustard sauce and sun-dried cherry sauce … Pork tenderloin stuffed with mango, pistachios, a juniper berry crust and port wine ginger sauce … Pasta dishes and salads. Outdoor seating on Woodward can accomodate a half-donzen diners
The rise of Troy
Troy Gregory had his first rock band before he had hair in his pits. While most boys his age were busy burning ants with magnifying glasses, Gregory was holed up in his Warren home spinning records and playing guitar. “I started my first band when I was 9 years old,” says the 37-year-old. “I would…
The Best of the Complete Pablo Solo Masterpieces
Dear Brian: If things go well, music editor, this will be my last review. I’m taking the Tatum cure. Or, rather, I’m taking the Tatum cure again. Last time I relapsed. But I’ve been listening to this new Tatum best-of collection, and I think I know what went wrong. Here’s what happened last time: I…
Queer eye for sci-fi
Science fiction has long been associated with faster-than-light travel, world-dominating aliens and futuristic cities with humans dressed in long flowing robes. Or one might associate the literary genre with dirty streets, megacorporations and gritty protagonists navigating cyberspace. Not many think of gay scientists trying to save the world, or tough lesbian freedom fighters shaking down…
Stompin’ Ground
Everyone loves a Southern gal, right? Even if you don’t buy into the whole “demure by day, naughty by night” stereotype that’s dogged our fair belles since plantation days, there’s always going to be a certain mystique about these creatures with earthy twangs and veiled sensibilities. Once in a while the music biz falls under…
Mask backlash
Q: Your advice to Femme Teasing Mask, the woman who wrote in about her cross-dressing, female-latex-mask-wearing boyfriend, was bullshit. You told her to break up with him, “[but] don’t tell him the real reason why you’re leaving — let him think that it’s not the cross-dressing and the latex masks, but his breath or his…
New artists & the oldest profession
Many young artists assume that if they work hard at creating their magnum opus, someone will march into their studio, wave a wand and presto, instant fame and fortune. But, alas, no. Not for mere mortals. Even Pygmalion had to go to the altar of Venus to ask for help when he fell in love…
17th century giggles
A cuckolded husband. A scorned lover. A woman disguised as a man. Sound familiar? John Strand’s Lovers and Executioners is based on the 17th century French play La Femme Juge et Partie by Antoine Jacob de Montfleury, a contemporary — and rival — of Molière. And though, like me, you’ve probably never heard of Montfleury’s…
La Commune (Paris, 1871) Part Two
While the first part of Peter Watkins’ six-hour docudrama focuses on the euphoric rise of the Paris Commune, part two tells the story of its quick decline. The commune, an aftershock of the French Revolution, saw the working poor and leftist intellectuals seize control of the government. The movie reverberates with emotional relevance. In French…
The truth about the caucuses
The bottom line is, we had the second-highest turnout in history. —Gov. Jennifer Granholm, spinning nonsense Anyone watching or reading the local news last weekend came away with the impression that the Democratic caucuses drew an enormous flood of voters who overwhelmingly picked John Kerry as their choice for president. Misleading statements like the…
The Company
Robert Altman’s latest film concerns Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet. The characters are dramatically under-written, but the dance sequences are mostly excellent. This is modern ballet, and the music and staging are edgy and kinetic. The most emotionally-direct, sensual performance is a dance sequence set to a piano/cello rendition of “My Funny Valentine.”
Hale-bent
Bareda aka Mr. Wrong can’t relax. At least not until he finds his weed, which is misplaced somewhere inside the small Detroit flat of his business partner/manager, Ali Wheeler. The two men launch a somewhat frantic hunt for the lost ganja — through the kitchen and living room — that lasts a good 10 minutes.…
Barbershop 2
Media headlines, world events and politics—which provide fodder for discussion and debate in countless urban-grooming establishments—also served to widen the field of jokes and social commentary in the slice-of-life sequel, Barbershop 2: Back in Business. Barbershop the original was so novel a portrait of the titular black urban neighborhood institution that it seemed unlikely the…
Dis in the D
There are two ways to interpret the three empty chairs that occupied the stage of the Paul Robeson Theatre at Detroit’s Northwest Activity Center last week. One view is benign, the other malignant. As is often the case in politics, the truth probably contains a mixture of both. The town hall meeting in residential Detroit…
The Perfect Score
Only a portion of the teenage experience is presented in this movie— a kind of 90210 for the big screen. The plot, stealing answers to the SAT, is a sure bet for a studio looking for a teen hit. Unfortunately, the filmmakers let acting ability, direction and cinematography fall through the cracks. Scarlett Johansson plays…
Tour De France Soundtracks
VS. Kylie Minogue Body Language EMI [FADE IN] Howard Cosell: Welcome back to Las Vegas where we have just been witness to one of the most stunning upsets in the history of the human eardrum. With me is sports authority Bert Randolph Sugar, and, Bert, they billed this misshapen match up as being The Beat…
Confession catch-up
In an appeal that was expected to be filed Tuesday, the attorney for Vidale McDowell contends that, among other things, an erroneous decision by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Ulysses W. Boykin resulted in his client being wrongfully convicted of the murder of Detroit resident Janice Williams. McDowell’s case was the subject of a recent…
Body Language
VS. Kraftwerk Tour De France Soundtracks EMI [FADE IN] Howard Cosell: Welcome back to Las Vegas where we have just been witness to one of the most stunning upsets in the history of the human eardrum. With me is sports authority Bert Randolph Sugar, and, Bert, they billed this misshapen match up as being The…
Rockin’ round City Hall
If the Detroit City Council formed a band, what would it be called? Lonnie Bates and the Love Train? How about Kay Everett’s Big Hat Band? Even more interesting would be trying to imagine what that band would sound like. Considering all the bluster and hot air, we picture more than a few tubas, lots…
Whirlwind Heat (Live Show Review)
Saturday, Jan. 31, 2004 Girls in Brighton don’t usually flash their breasts. Certainly not on such rainy nights, and certainly not to young American rock groups playing the last night of their UK tour wearing matching tour T-shirts and peddling jagged, frantic, synth-driven music that veers somewhere between the left-field angst of Gossip spin-off band…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Happy Valentine Daze, Aries! Here’s a bulletin from poet Emily Dickinson: "Until you have been in love, you cannot become yourself." I’d like you to try that revolutionary idea on for size, Aries. Do this experiment. For a given period — say the coming week or the next ten years —…
Tour de Abandonment
Jennifer Snyder, a recent transplant to our fair burg, wrote to News Hits with a confession. Drawn to Detroit from New York City to be with her boyfriend, she came thinking deep down that “Detroit is not a city you live in, but a city you run from — after all, people have been doing…
Feels Like Home
Light the candles, stoke the fireplace and pour us some wine, honey. The new Norah Jones CD is out. This sophomore effort carries a big risk for the darling of the adult pop/jazz crowd. Albums that follow recordings as successful as her debut can send an artist spinning toward irrelevance if they’re deemed inferior to…
American dreaming
Courtney Love, it goes without saying, ain’t the person she used to be. It’s not just that cut ’n’ paste face of hers, either: Once rock’s most notorious anti-heroine, the onetime Hole frontwoman has since transformed herself into the sorta self-obsessed, Anna Nicole Smith-style celebrity she once mercilessly mocked. For Cody Critcheloe, however, Courtney’s evolution…
Hole of a place
Here’s one home that won’t be part of Tour de abandonment. The house that once existed at 15717 Patton is now history thanks to the Motor City Blight Busters. Members of the nonprofit organization headed by Detroiter John George regularly hit the streets with pickaxes in hand, ready to, as he says, “stabilize, revitalize, rebuild…
Exquisite destiny
Destino is a collaboration between Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali, and American animator Walt Disney, circa 1946. In 2001, Walt’s nephew, Roy Disney, resurrected the project. It’s seven minutes of glorious cinema. This is a taste of classic Disney, a vacation from rational thoughts. Like most vacations, it’s far too short.
Worshiping Venus
It’s a quandary every musical group has faced at some point: playing with shitty bands. Sometimes, you just gotta do it — to fill out a lineup, to secure a gig, to get in with a particular venue; it goes with the territory. Even in such a musically rich city as Detroit where the talented,…
Americana in Black
1. Black History Month is February because: a) Southern congressmen insisted it be placed in the shortest month of the federal calendar. b) Supporters of Malcolm X started the event as a mournful remembrance of his assassination on Feb. 21, 1965. c) February includes the birthdays of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln. d)…
