Peggy Lee: 1920-2002
Remembering nights around the turntable with that sultry, saucy sound.
Gotcha!
I’m swiftly becoming a fan of this guy. Without descending into the no man’s land of so-called smooth jazz (a music that should never have been associated with any form of jazz whatsoever), Jamaican-born Ranglin plays a style of music on his guitar that is easy on the ear without being infantile. Simple, pleasurable music…
White-collar crooks
MCA Financial Corp. executives are trading their business suits for jail uniforms
Pause
With the entrance of Fridge onto the scene in 1997, a virtual cult emerged around the diced, spliced, then refabricated sounds the trio had to offer. Kieran Hebden, the one man behind the project Four Tet, and also a member of Fridge, set out on his own path alongside the group, and he’s at it…
Bombs away
Is the Pentagon hiding something from journalists?
Count on it
The 19th movie version of Alexandre Dumas’ 19th century literary classic is a romance in every sense of the word, filled with marvelous adventures, harrowing martyrdom and the suspense of love — with James Caviezel in the title role.
Rat trap
Along with much positive feedback (y’all rock!), News Hits has received a few hits of its own in recent weeks from miffed readers asking what purpose is served by our new “Abandoned House of the Week” feature. They suggest that we’re needlessly contributing to a negative image the city is desperately trying to shed. As…
La Cienaga
Argentine director Lucretia Martel’s feature debut (which translates as “the swamp") takes place during an oppressively hot and humid summer as an extended family slogs its way through the disruptions of soggy passion and the heated spasms of existential defeat.
Transit sacked
SEMCOG decides not to make publice transportaion a priority … again.
I Am Sam
Sean Penn, who puts his whole psyche and soul into a role, plays a man the intellectual age of a 7 year old who moves through the world riding on Beatles analogies. Though it has a slightly Hollywood-formulaic aura, this film is a labor of love on all levels — with Michelle Pfeiffer and precocious…
When the flow slows
• You’re right that both the quantity of ejaculate and the force with which it’s expelled do diminish with age. And you’re also right in suggesting that a man who notices a sudden major change in either is best served by seeing a urologist. • I have been a reproductive health teacher for the past…
Progressive tilling
Upcoming concert will benefit urban gardening
The Mothman Prophecies
Based on John Keel’s personal account of paranormal events that occurred in Point Pleasant, W.Va. in the late ’60s, director Mark Pellington’s jarring artistic vision is "submitted for your approval" in a beautifully horrific way — with Richard Gere, Debra Messing and Laura Linney.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Scads of holidays are coming: Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, Carnival, Chinese New Year, Purim, Lent, Black History Month and the pagan Brigit’s Day, celebrating the return of the light. According to Chase’s Calendar of Events, February also brings I Hate Financial Planning Awareness Week, and is Return Shopping Carts to the…
Why we’re suing John Ashcroft
We don’t know whether the government’s suspicions about Rabih Haddad are justified. But he has a right to a fair and open trial — and that’s why we’re going to court.
ABC Africa
Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami’s documentary on the plight of millions of Ugandan children orphaned by AIDS focuses on everyday life — children in school, young mothers getting nutritional instructions — eliciting a sadness much deeper than a series of more grisly sequences would.
The gift of art
A new collection at Cranbrook astonishes and overwhelms with “Three Decades of Contemporary Art.”
Blair
A driving rhythmic insistence pulsates through everything Blair does, which is certainly his most defining character trait. Not unlike the rhythmic sustenance fueling the early work of Ben Harper, Blair’s material never wavers from this beating core. Deliberately testing the stylistic waters, his tracks take root in a multifold of genres: Pop, Latin, garage, electronia,…
Soul sisters
“What is it that I owe myself?” asks Sudha, one of the central characters in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s latest novel. The sequel to 1999’s Sister of My Heart continues the story of Anju and Sudha Chatterjee, cousins born on the same day who consider themselves twins. Though the new novel delves into the same themes…
This way out of the closet
Counseling an anguished young man about his debut … What’s a marriage worth? … & Saying “No way” to a three-way.
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
Along with much positive feedback (y’all rock!), News Hits has received a few hits of its own in recent weeks from miffed readers asking what purpose is served by our new “Abandoned House of the Week” feature. They suggest that we’re needlessly contributing to a negative image the city is desperately trying to shed. As…
Playing in the street
It’s a bright afternoon in late winter, and inside the intimate Bailey’s nightclub at the Sheraton Biscayne Bay in Miami, the joint is jumping. Bebo Valdes and Israel “Cachao” Lopez, two Cuban-born octogenarian musicians who star in Calle 54, filmmaker Fernando Trueba’s loving tribute to the joys of Latin jazz, are in the heat of…
Staying alive
For Fred Thomas, one of the Detroit area’s most prolific songwriters and producers, music is a matter of life or death.
Happiness
Fridge is honest about its songs. Read a song title (“Cut Up Piano and Xylophone,” for example) and you know its composition. Happiness, the fourth release by the London trio, is straightforward and engaging. It sucks you in and keeps you interested with only a hastily scattered trail of breadcrumbs. Like Pole and Tortoise, Fridge…
Letters to the Editor
A necessary evil Kudos to Metro Times for it’s necessary features about abandoned homes in Detroit. As a lifelong Detroiter, I’ve seen neighborhood after neighborhood fall into disrepair. This problem can no longer be ignored or swept under the rug. Your paper is performing a service with this new feature. I’ve got other ideas, such…
Alive to Every Smile
The story of the Trembling Blue Stars is an oft-told tale: Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl form OK jangle-pop band called the Field Mice. Boy and girl break up, as do Field Mice. Boy develops pathological addiction to girl, forms new band called Trembling Blue Stars and writes…
Hell is for heroes
Patriotic or not, war movies take us to the front lines of the soul. Arts editor George Tysh leads a freewheeling discussion about the reality of war and its cinematic counterpart.
Hard Feelings
When’s the last time you totally lost it — not under the sway of drink or drugs, but just pure rage flowing right up out of the old unconscious — and wailed on someone uncontrollably? Well for your sake, bud, let’s hope never. Anyone who thinks that violence is “cool” or just part of the…
Letters to the Editor
The human solution I am writing to thank you for your article on Rabih Haddad. It is so important that we have a lens of humanity during times of crisis. That is the only way we, as human beings, will solve our differences. I hope and pray that we see more and more articles and…
Lantana
Directed by Ray Lawrence (Bliss), this Australian film is a modern-day, stylistically pleasing film noir with solid acting and an intense depiction of the very serious repercussions of fear — with Barbara Hershey and Geoffrey Rush.
A Guantanamo gulag
You have to hand it to the Bushies. It would seem impossible to make the Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathetic figures, but our leaders have found a way to do it.
When We Were Small
In his short story, “The Child Screams and Looks Back at You,” Russell Banks (that lucid conjurer of memory and redemption), addresses the nature of the state of forgiveness, protection and grace we bestow upon those we love, particularly family. In doing so, he zeroes in on the essence of the tired cliché, “You don’t…
Rock the Parti
Gold Chains — it’s anything but Chain Reaction-inspired laptopology … A great evening at the Necto with Traxx & Twonz … & Porter Street welcomes new residents Heckle & Jeckle on Thursday nights.
Big Boi & Dre Present … OutKast
A little more than a year ago, Andre 3000 and Big Boi of OutKast christened themselves “the coolest motherfunkers on the planet.” That declaration of funkadelic supremacy was accurate, given that Stankonia, the album on which said declaration appeared, had more bounce to the ounce and assumption-smashing bravado than just about any other record released…
Mayors, piñatas & P. Diddy
A little talk with Kwame about the future of the downtown scene … The mother of all birthday parties features the best in Detroit rock (lucky girl) … & esQuire and the Wildbunch show off.
Skin
Problematic is the evolution of an out-of-control ego. Luckily, Melissa Etheridge found an appropriate career match for her psychosis. The woman boils in a stew of obsession — fanatical on obtaining, maintaining and regaining (once lost) the possession of a lover. This monomania verges on ostracizing the audience because it’s so utterly one-dimensional. Oblivious to…
