Abandoned Shelter of the Week
Felines from far and wide apparently find the postmodern architecture of the slanting porch at 4556 24th St. a perfect lounging spot. Kitty litter is abundant, with a full bag resting nearby. A well-worn path leads nosy reporters to an unlocked piece of wood posing as a door that opens with a creak. An overwhelming…
Jazz, lofty & otherwise
Sampling the scene, from the outcats to the mainstream….
The Well
The Well is a favorite hangout for after-work revelry. For a really amazing time try one of the bartenders special “Purple Rains.”
Gov’s race: home stretch
Nobody likes to admit this, but the most important election in Michigan this year is the Aug. 6 primary, not the one in November. In most cases and most races, the primary is where everything is really decided; the general election is pro forma. Right now, for example, John Dingell and Lynn Rivers are bankrupting…
Cathedrals of light
Going into Bob Sestok’s studio while waiting for him to return from up North was a resolution of something that had been worrying me for some time. His wife was a little uneasy about letting me see the new work while he wasn’t there, but she said, “I don’t think he’ll mind if you look.”…
The Sexual Life of Catherine M.
It isn’t every day that a respected art critic gets nasty and naked in a tell-all memoir. In a dramatic shift from the observer to the observed, French art critic and author Catherine Millet strips down for the world in her autobiography, The Sexual History of Catherine M. Her book became a best seller last…
Pistol grip
Well-wishers bid farewell to legendary Motown trapsman….
Alice
Tom Waits fans are used to having their man all to themselves. It’s been fairly easy so far. Waits has been perfecting his role as the irresistibly creepy medicine man for nearly 30 years. He’s the kind of sly huckster who attracts not just the gullible, but also those who enjoy being deceived. Interesting stuff?…
The Stripes’ bottom line
Omitting bass lines from pop songs cheats the listener. Bass-driven counterpoint melodies make songs sing and make the singer sound bigger. Bass lines glue the drums harder into the pocket and help choruses find their home. Bassist Steve McDonald, of the terminally underrated Redd Kross, understands this. Redd Kross is a band that — unbeknownst…
The Bloodthirsty Lovers
In 1999 Dave Shouse was fronting Those Bastard Souls, whose well-received V2 album Debt & Departure was as vividly progadelic as Shouse’s earlier work with Memphis lo-fi kings the Grifters was bluesily avant-indie. But working on the next TBS record a year later (significantly, with only the band’s rhythm section in tow), Shouse realized, as…
"Remarkable zeal"
Wayne County Circuit Court judge keeps his cool under requests for recusal…
Storytelling
Pretty doesn’t even begin to describe it. Belle and Sebastian have cornered the market on late ’60s Gallic/British Invasion twee since early 1996, and the group just gets better. The album started life as a sound track for the Todd Solondz movie Storytelling. Some of the band’s original material did end up in the film…
Lone crusader
West Village resident votes yes on districts for City Council…
Major Stars
Nebula Dos E.P.’s Meteor City The kids don’t know, but the old record collectors understand: While clueless, college-age record store clerks freeze up like spotlit deer when you utter the dreaded phrase, “Do you have any psychedelic music here?” and start praying some techno-hunting hipster will tap ’em on the shoulder, psych will always be…
Final deeds
Gov. John Engler cuts Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality budget by 30 percent…
Sherry Rich & Courtesy Move
Sherry Rich deserves to be a big alt-country star with major league talents akin to such luminaries as Lucinda Williams, Aimee Mann, or Maria McKee. She pens stellar autobiographical lyrics about longhaired user boyfriends (“Is That All You Wanted”), her disdain for wasteful self-destruction (“Beautiful, Talented, And Dead”) and intimate details about love’s labor lost…
Finders weepers
Artwork stolen from detroit contemporary gallery…
Republic of Dreams
It seems odd to describe a doorstop like Republic of Dreams as a brisk read, but indeed it is. Too brisk, in fact — the story rushes to a conclusion just as it’s getting good. Blame it on the sprawling subject matter, the author’s approach to telling his story, and tragedy. Village Voice contributing editor…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I’m not sure what to make of the strange and wonderful abilities you’ll exhibit in the coming week. You could temporarily lose your self-control in a most productive way. You might summon a hauntingly beautiful meditation on grace while cleaning a toilet, might make a dizzy plea that actually changes an…
Question authority
Give your input regarding the Michigan Department of Transportation’s proposed truck and train shipping yard…
Pumping irony
When I was considering setting myself up as a church in order to enjoy tax-exempt status — writers frequently are nonprofit organizations without ever intending to be — the only thing I could think of that I believed in was irony. Irony is like God or germs or voice mail: You can’t see them but…
Getting to first base
Q: I’m an 18-year-old college student who has never been on a date, let alone had a girlfriend. I’m not a wallflower; girls have danced with me and talked with me at parties. Although I can talk with girls, even girls I like, I choke when I want to ask them out on a date.…
Chemo
Abandoned house of the week – 7/10/02
Great White myths
This mythic neorealist film, the first feature-length drama in the Inuktitut language, is a marriage of Inuit culture and the exceptionally honest filmmaking of director Zacharias Kunuk. The Atanarjuat legend burns as brightly now as it did a thousand years ago; in today’s context of savage national revenge, its message of reconciliation is radically noble.
Come together, right now, over Z
Hastings Street Ballroom gives Detroit a taste of true cabaret with Zabaugh’s Follies.…
Dharma delicacies
Responding to Sex, lies and the dharma, my interview with two Detroit-area Buddhist teachers (P’arang Geri Larkin of Still Point Zen Buddhist Temple and Rinpoche Nawang Gehlik of Jewel Heart Center) about scandals and improprieties within spiritual teacher-student relationships, a reader offered the following: I read with interest your article on abuse of authority by…
Sunshine State
There’s much to admire here — nuanced dialogue, especially at moments of emotional crux — and plotting that’s intricate without being baroque. But the old balance between the didactic and the dramatic that runs through John Sayles’ oeuvre goes askew, and the 140-minute running time is felt in full.
The Notorious O.O.P.S.
Warped Tour? Yawn. Ozzfest? Predictable (’cept Andrew WK, of course). “Rock Never Stops”? Mullet Nation unite! Area 2? Very nice with a chilled $9 Chardonnay. Promoters don’t put together package tours to catch your ears off guard. Usually. And they certainly don’t put them together to make you feel like there’s a giddy ferret using…
July 10-16, 2002
11 THU • MUSIC The Get Up Kids at Clutch Cargo’s — The Get Up Kids have long since crossed the threshold into the territory of "cultural phenomenon." What started out as a bunch of Midwestern kids piggybacking the "emotive" (read as "almost ballsy enough to scream") grooves of underground heroes like Native Nod and…
The Powerpuff Girls Movie
Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, those three animated princesses of hipness with little sausage limbs and nose-less beach-ball heads, are not only stars of the popular Cartoon Network TV series, but bellipotent beauties of the big screen as well.
Waste is a terrible thing to waste
A 5-year-old follows her mother into the store. Stopping quickly, she sweeps her large brown eyes across barrels of pieces of picture frames, laundry detergent bottle caps and tile samples. She surveys a wall covered in other children’s creations, trying to take in every inch of the colorful, cluttered mess. To her, this is a…
Mother and child rebellion
Why Lennette Williams can’t stop biting the hand that feeds her….
Like Mike
It seems all the little shorties in the hood love Lil’ Bow Wow, ya’ feel me? Like Mike is nearly everything you usually get in a kid’s movie: fantasy, laughs, pint-sized David vs. Goliath adventure and tear-jerking melodrama with a feel-good ending. But it’s also a sneaky and expensive sneaker ad.
Safety in numbers
Q: I am an attractive 25-year-old female and I often fantasize about having sex with two men at once. The guys I’ve dated wouldn’t even consider it. But perhaps it is best to do this with strangers, in case you feel like it was a huge mistake afterward and never want to see them again.…
Wolf Eyes
Wolf Eyes weaves electronic truth for Oops! The Tour…
CQ
Written and directed by Roman Coppola, son of Francis and brother of Sofia, this is determinedly light fare. But the scenes from Dragonfly, the movie within the movie, are a priceless re-creation of a certain brand of Euro-camp. A good summer movie for people who don’t much care for summer movies.
Letters to the Editor
Distaff dissenters? I really loved Curt Guyette’s article on expanded spying ("Big Brother comes home," Metro Times, June 26-July 2). He interviewed some very key people with significant insights. I did wonder where the women were, however. I realize the ’60s were when women were beginning to realize that their voices weren’t being heard. Anyway,…
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
By exposing this potentially malignant cancer, News Hits hopes to be the chemotherapy that saves this otherwise healthy East Side neighborhood. Midnight vandals have set this house at 5203 Bedford ablaze twice in the last four months. Broken glass and the ever-growing weeds overshadow evidence of previous restoration attempts. The backyard has been turned into…
MIIB: Men in Black II
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, this sequel to the 1997 monster hit is still incredibly entertaining. But any tidbits of storyline (they are minimal) work as an excuse to introduce more freaky (derivative) aliens-effects, turning the film into a feature-length chase decorated with slimy eye candy.
