Dis/Passion
The death of desire in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut….
Reform party acid test
I knew it would be weird. After all, Ross Perot was going to be involved. There are some who would argue that the Texas billionaire is crazy like a fox. I’ve always thought he’s crazy like the nephew in Arsenic and Old Lace, the one who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt, tootin’ his horn and charging…
Downtown time capsule
Fading echoes fill Detroit’s Capitol Park….
Hooks, lines and singers
Detroit’s experimental pop underground throws one helluva coming-out party….
Help save the schools!
As every metropolitan region in America is discovering, its future is tied inextricably to its central city. The future of central cities rests foremost on their school systems. So it is in Detroit. – David Adamany, CEO, Detroit Public Schools Coal boilers. That was the image I couldn’t get out of my head after I…
Location, location, location
The Lizard of Fun rustles through the pages of this week’s paper, flipping quickly from the back to here, Page 12. "So that’s where you went!" it says, a note of relief in its voice. "I thought maybe you decided to skip town with the rent check. Or got swallowed by a casino. Or just…
Fashion, fame and film
Birmingham by storm Thunder and windstorms rolled in fast and scared the bejesus out of everyone last Friday night, forcing Birmingham Jazz Fest ’99 to start an hour or so late. A Rolls-Royce here, a cigar smoker there – add a few hundred pairs of Bermuda shorts, Oxford shirts and penny loafers and you have…
Permanent record
Lately, every flashy new media publication – and even some of the crustier news rags – has been dialing a wake-up call about the Net’s lack of privacy. I figure it’s probably my turn to phone in. If you haven’t heard by now, here’s the latest: • Your e-mail is about as secure from prying…
Pitch’d
Sonar 99: Making the Impossible Happen Picture this: You’re in the middle of a dance floor packed with 10,000 people (none in baggy pants!). The light and sound envelop you. The DJ, who’s spinning on three turntables and working a 909 drum machine, has total control as he brings in perhaps his best known record…
Sore at Channel 4
About 60 union employees and supporters picketed WDIV’s downtown offices last Friday with signs that read "Turn off Channel 4, it’s bad news for workers." According to Dan Morgan, a video editor in the news department and spokesman for the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) Local 43, the station is trying to…
Food stuff
CRITICAL MASS Here is what some restaurant critics say about their work: It isn’t fun. They work weekends, and spend a lot of time on the phone making reservations, canceling reservations and keeping track of their fake names. Phyllis Richman, food critic for the Washington Post, says the job is "invasive" because "it’s something you…
Drop Dead Gorgeous
What exactly is the satirical target of Drop Dead Gorgeous? Although this mockumentary appears to spoof small-town beauty pageants, it quickly unveils its true nature: a broad comedy about middle American strivers in all their provincial glory. Screenwriter Lona Williams and director Michael Patrick Jann, veterans of television sitcoms and sketch comedy, are aiming for…
Free speech brimstone
In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school-sanctioned prayer was a violation of the First Amendment. But obviously the residents of Pontotoc County, Mississippi, didn’t hear the news. In 1978, students at North Pontotoc High School started their day by bowing their heads for a Christian prayer over an intercom. It’s what the ACLU…
The last kazoo
If it were not for Scott Brooks and Jeff Ellison, two Detroit labor lawyers, I may never have learned about working class hero Eugene V. Debs – or had so much fun in the process. Like hundreds of others, I began to appreciate the 20th century labor leader while I attended a Detroit Tigers baseball…
SHAKE IT UP
I’ve read too damned many reviews that praise Detroit’s Demolition Doll Rods as mere cross-dressing modern primitives! There’s been a whole lot of useless ink spilled about pasties being part of their stage presence (about which all I’ll say is, yup, they’re pretty much naked – more later). And, in case you hadn’t read it…
M-LAW smoked out
Since Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch first came on the scene in 1996, questions have been raised about whether it is truly the grassroots organization it claims to be. Among those raising questions has been the Michigan Trial Lawyers Association, whose members stand to be on the losing end should M-LAW succeed in its goals of…
JAZZ
Violinist Regina Carter has built a reputation for fusing jazz with elements of funk, Latin and R&B. With her last album, Something for Grace, she proved she can play different genres of music without smothering her jazz sensibility. On Rhythms of the Heart, her third album and first for the Verve label, she returns to…
Better bets
You probably didn’t hear about the Metro Times casino bid. It was in the early days of the Great Casino Bidding Wars of ’98, and, frankly, we didn’t get very far. Maybe Mayor Dennis Archer has some reticence toward the paper. Maybe it was something we wrote about the other developers. We’ll never know. But…
Small party, big ideas
Back in the early ’70s, a student at the University of Michigan asked Human Rights Party leader Zolton Ferency whether he had ever smoked pot. "‘I’m already high,’" was his response, recalls Regina "Reggie" McNulty, a 75-year-old Oak Park resident who was Ferency’s running mate in Michigan’s 1974 gubernatorial race. "We were all high on…
The Haunting
Take a moment and consider this simple-minded question: Is there a difference between Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Snow White, Alien, Night of the Living Dead, Pet Sematary and the Nazis? At first glance, the distinction is clear: art-horror versus natural horror. To put it more precisely, horror…
Inspector Gadget
Inspector Gadget is an almost-human Swiss Army knife in a trench coat. He comes equipped with so many gizmos and whatchamacallits he doesn’t even need to be a character. What a wonderful break from acting this was for Matthew Broderick, whose triple role as Inspector Gadget, his nemesis RoboGadget and the hatchback-driving security guard John…
Twice Upon a Yesterday
In Twice Upon a Yesterday, the flip side of love is regret, that incessant pining for what might have been. Victor Bukowski (Douglas Henshall), a self-absorbed, struggling actor in London, can’t accept that his former girlfriend, Sylvia (Lena Headey), is marrying another man. Dave (Mark Strong), a compassionate and socially conscious environmentalist, is in many…
Proceed With Caution
GZA/Genius doesn’t appear in public very much. He seldom interviews, and laces the liner notes of his albums with one-liners that thank all and none simultaneously. His concern has always been the spoken word and how to make it cut to the artery. You won’t dance to GZA’s second album, Beyond the Surface. You won’t…
Durned Good, Then
You say you like alternative country, huh? Supposing that’s the case, let’s make sure that y’all are down with Souled American. Emerging in the late ’80s, Souled American anticipated the alt-country phenomenon by at least five years and put out three classic albums in the space of 18 months. Those records, Fe, Flubber and Around…
Chanteuse-Juiced Drum ‘N’ Bass
Jungle innovator Roni Size is trying it with Breakbeat Era, and such groups as Baxter and Everything But the Girl have, with varying degrees of success, married the warm spontaneity of vocals onto the nervous turns of drum ’n’ bass rhythm sections. But the trouble so far with most drum ’n’ bass records featuring divas…
Grand Entrance
Truly great debut albums from important young artists are relatively rare. The Doors made one. Bob Dylan didn’t. And when a debut is independently released, cheap production values can make things worse. Often, songs flow unevenly together, track sequencing is poor and the record runs needlessly long – even when the artist has great material.…
