Dan’s plan hits the fan
Q: I’m sure this won’t be the only response you receive regarding your advice to OBGYN, the pro-choice girl whose pro-life boy refused to have intercourse with her unless she agreed to have the baby if she got pregnant. Why? Because your advice was totally fucked-up. I take 95 percent of what could be considered…
No more puppetry
I was at a school fair the other Wednesday. It was an internship fair. My school prides itself on such things, so I had to be there. My internship is, you see, at Metro Times. But, I didn’t have anything exceptionally riveting to present other than my Metro Times work and that I was a…
Sharon McPhail’s Detroit
If Sharon McPhail becomes Detroit’s next mayor, she promises that within four years she’ll slash property taxes by at least 20 mills, or by almost a third; eliminate half of the crime in the city within one year (!) and guarantee paid college tuition for anyone who graduates from a Detroit high school. Does all…
Kick out the home movies
With the 2004 MC5 documentary film A True Testimonial apparently shelved permanently — it was withdrawn last year by its distributor, RCA Victor Group/BMG and there are currently no plans for its release — fans still seeking to scratch their archival 5 itch can raise a toast to a newly excavated MC5 DVD. Kick Out…
Billow talk
For a complete reversal of aesthetic programs from the architecture and design exhibition downstairs, check out the outrageous “Cloud” by artist Inigo Manglano-Ovalle in the museum’s main gallery. As a technological marvel and as a portentous, protean image yielding almost uncontrollable, metaphorical readings, Manglano-Ovalle has upped the ante on contemporary art. The large sculpture is…
Rhymes with weird
It’s been a beardless century for American men. To the American eye, unless you’re Jesus, Santa or Burl Ives, beards mean trouble. It arguably began in 1901, the year Boston inventor and salesman King Gillette introduced his safety razor to the American public. Ever since, American culture has never really taken to facial hair —…
Art Bar
Loving Al — Detroit-born artist Al Loving, who recently died from cancer at 69, has been described as one of the first African-American artists on the national scene whose work was not about the black experience. But it may be more appropriate to say it was not received that way. Loving was influenced by his…
¡Americano!
In the lazy parlance of 21st century rock snobbery, “Americana” means “literate rock with a folk-country waft.” Not only is that definition unfair, it’s un-American, because it excludes the ground-level, grab-what-you-can rock band from the equation, a cornerstone of country music since Ritchie Valens recorded “Come On Let’s Go” in 1958. ¡Americano! is Roger Clyne…
Ticker shock
The grim calculator keeps ticking. Up and up and up. The cost of our war in Iraq soars with mind-bending rapidity, helping to drive America deeper and deeper into debt with no end in sight, a tunnel with no light. That’s the real message of the televised speech George Bush delivered last week. With jaw…
Havana good time
Familiar elements from the Caribbean are here — plantains, yuca, papas rellenas, thin beefsteak and lots of black beans and rice. Bistec de palomilla is steak pounded very thin, marinated in mojo sauce (orange and lemon juice, garlic, onion, sugar), then lightly breaded and well-fried. It’s served with fried onions on top and a side…
Blood on the gameplay
First-person shooters are a videogame staple like Hollywood action flicks. You can trace their origin back to such classic PC games as Doom, Quake and Castle Wolfenstein 3D. Over the years they’ve grown increasingly sophisticated, thanks to more realistic interaction and movie-like cut-scenes that have deepened the narratives driving the action. Area 51, which features…
The Iraq Index
26 million Population of Iraq 5,000 Estimated number of insurgents in November 2003 16,000 Estimated number of insurgents in May 2005 150,000 Total number of U.S. troops in May 2003 135,000 Total number of U.S. troops in June 2005 74 Number of U.S. troops killed in April 2003 76 Number of U.S. troops killed in…
Domestic bliss in a bottle
Brooklyn-by-way-of-Buffalo singer-guitarist Leah Archibald splits her time between housewife-mom and rocker chick, and on her second Wide Right album the domestic vicissitudes of the former frequently provide lyric fodder for the latter. Accordingly, reviewers have been quick to single out tunes such as “Taking The Fifth,” in which a gal’s frustration at waking up day…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Professional basketball player Tim Duncan has a nickname that I invite you to take on for the next two weeks: The Big Fundamental. To live up to the daunting yet fun responsibility of that title, you’ll have to put on your game face and get down to basics. Banish distractions, purge…
Head cheese
Aquarius Void’s Ross Westerbur ain’t as sweet as he looks. But for fans who like their rock ’n’ roll music boulder-grade — that’s a very good thing. A four-eyed, mild-mannered university math teacher by day, banshee-vocalin’, keyboard-assaultin’ front man by night, Westerbur’s wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing peculiarity is the stuff of Motor City legend. He used to loosen…
Eat My Heart Out
Kevin Blechdom’s 2003 set Bitches Without Britches spattered sex jokes onto banjos and sampling equipment. It was fun … well, fun in a niche way, like a thrill ride through an abattoir. Now Blechdom’s back with Eat My Heart Out, and the shit’s still bananas. On “Suspended in Love,” “Are You Fucking With Me” and…
Pop tops
A bouquet of fake red roses. Images of pie slices, eyeglasses, automobiles, a GE logo, a steam iron huffing and puffing and a triple life-size, three-dimensional see-through keyhole. These diverse emblems appear in rat-a-tat succession at the entrance to the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s Pop! exhibition. It is the mass-produced stuff of everyday…
Motor City flicks
Gary Glaser doesn’t waste even a moment on deliberations. Like most enthusiastic people, he thinks that getting to the crux of a problem is the first step in remedying it, and the idea of dancing around a subject, well, that just annoys him. No, he’s not a politician or raging activist — he’s a filmmaker.…
The World Is Saved
The underplayed songs from Stina Nordenstram’s The World Is Saved give the singer-songwriter’s mousy voice a lot more room to show itself than it needs. In fact, except for a few scattered notes, it’s rare to hear her do anything other than sound like someone trying to keep others from listening in on her conversation.…
Homes that heal
“Hi!” blurts this guy running from his beach palapa, pausing for a moment by my cabana. He thrusts his hand at me while standing naked, but for a bit of towel, announcing his name. “Guy Battle. Nice to meet you. I’ve been in a bloody plane for 11 hours and must take a dip and…
Defawlty towers
If you want stop owning property, the best thing to do is to default on your mortgage. Particularly if it’s historic property that’s going to cost too much to keep up. At least, that’s what Saperstein and Associates say. The Bingham Farms-based owners of the Alden Park Towers apartment buildings on Detroit’s waterfront, northeast of…
Weekly Fecal
Billy, Billy, Billy. Few rock stars outside of Adam Ant have experienced a worse decade. First, the utter flop of the Pumpkins’ Machina: The Machines of God — which tanked so hard you could hear the band split. Let us not forget your indie bowel-churn combo Zwan. Then came the galling drone of a poetry…
Bottoms up
It takes moxie for a band in its prime to step back and reinvent itself. Outkast does it effortlessly every couple of years, as did the Talking Heads and Kraftwerk. But in Detroit, the idea of forward musical movement is rather rare. Bands with a sound will play it to death, and if the groove…
More money than sense
Reading the new report put out by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, you could start to think that the loopholes in state law are so big it’s a waste of time and money even bothering to have politicians report their contributions. But you don’t need to take our opinion. We’ll let the report speak for…
Picture imperfect
There is always hope that any project setting out to represent the best of metropolitan Detroit will be itself of the highest quality. While the authors’ intentions here are admirable, the results are less so. But there is a larger question: Is it more important that this publication, documenting the existence of so many well-designed…
One man’s trash
Detroit is a quirky town. Something about the juxtapositions of decay and rebirth seem to breed savagely creative, eccentric characters; people whom a lesser person might callously deem “weirdos.” But they’re our weirdos, and bless every last one of them. In a city with so many delightful oddities and sudden detours down Surreal Lane, we’re…
Hellhole
We hear that the “no roof” look is in this summer. You might think that, anyway, after seeing the house at 13856 Maine St., between McNichols and Seven Mile roads. With boarded-up windows, a broken porch and wide-open spaces where the roof should be, it’s one of many blots on this East Side street, which…
Chicken curry for the soul
Jean Rhys, Jane Bowles and Doris Lessing are among novelists who depict female characters of a certain age, building new lives away from home. Their displaced heroines risk failure, yet they also face new prospects in discovering, creating, reconstructing or fortifying themselves. Barbara Henning’s astonishing new semi-autobiographical novel, You, Me and the Insects, set in…
Backslash
It’s happened to you before, probably more times than you’d like to recall. You’re merrily zipping along the information highway, only to click on a link and hit a roadblock: “You must first register before you can access this Web site” or some such crap like that. Then, you must contend with the dilemma; should…
Finger food
If there’s one thing that comes with age, it’s the realization that those kids in high school — the ones who always seemed a bit off, heavy on the academia, light on the fluff — those kids are the ones who grab the brass ring in adulthood, those are the kids who end up running…
Third World firsthand
Opening with a shy meeting between a young man and woman on an Ivory Coast dance floor and closing with a hellish eyewitness account of the Congo Wars, Howard French’s A Continent for the Taking is a rewarding combination of journalism and personal reportage. French, a senior writer for The New York Times, sustains a…
Media Blackout
This is MB40. • Ben Kerr (Rest In Peace) :: And now will you please rise and observe a minute’s silence (provided by the brevity of this column) as Media Blackout pays tribute to Toronto’s most beloved country and western crooning street busker and perennial mayoral candidate. After two decades, the corner of Yonge and…
Letters to the Editor
No truck with Francis Dear Jack: Regarding your report on your meeting with Mayor Francis (“Meet a mayor you can admire,” Metro Times, June 15), while many of the items you reported regarding the Mayor are commendable, his and the Windsor Council’s opinion regarding the “Schwartz” solution are insane. Have you looked at the Schwartz…
A cult classic
Director Terry Gilliam’s retro-futurist fantasy continues to inspire legions of filmmakers with its oppressive world of ducts, pipes, wires, granite and steel. Depending on how you look at it, Brazil is like Metropolis on acid, or Clockwork Orange on laughing gas. Either way, it’s a must-see on the big screen.
Shortcake shortlist
Nothing could be as simple as strawberry shortcake. That’s right, isn’t it? Slice open a biscuit, put one half in a dish, spoon on some strawberries and sugar, squirt on a little canned whipping cream, lay down the second biscuit half, spoon on more berries, now definitely top with lots of whipped cream. As that…
Comics
This Modern World Red Meat Comix
War of the Worlds
Lean, mean and uncomfortably somber, War of the Worlds is Steven Spielberg’s black-hearted response to the gentle innocence of E.T. and Close Encounters. Adapted from the H.G. Wells’ classic novel and retooled for today’s audiences, the film offers one compelling hellish vision after another. Too bad the human elements of the story get lost in…
Night and Day
Wednesday • 6 & 13 The Beatles and Their Impact on Popular Culture ISSUES & LEARNING In 1975, John Lennon was quoted as saying, “‘Shame, Shame, Shame’ or ‘Rock Your Baby’ — I’d give my eyetooth to have written that. But I never could, I’m too intellectual, even though I’m not really an intellectual.” Funny,…
American Life in Poetry
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate Often everyday experiences provide poets with inspiration. Here Georgiana Cohen observes a woman looking out her window and compares the woman to the sunset. The woman’s “slumped” chin, the fence that separates them, and the “beached” cars set the poem’s tone; this is clearly not a celebration of the…
Heights
Heights is one of those bad movies that, if it weren’t so maudlin, might qualify as a guilty pleasure. Covering 24 hours in the life of a group of New York artistes, the cast of characters are the sort of hollowed-out types that used to populate high-minded Italian films of nearly half a century ago:…
Proactive
That’s entertaining — Want to network and learn more about the role of African-American women business leaders in entertainment? Then come by the Whitney Mansion in mid-city Detroit on July 13. The Detroit Network will be hosting “Cocktails, Conversation and Networking” for the group Black Female Executives in Entertainment. In addition to encouraging networking, the…
Motor City gritterati
Anyone living in metro Detroit who isn’t aware of the city’s amazing musical legacy is either not paying attention or a little dumb. The high points are well known to even the most casual listeners — the blues roots of John Lee Hooker, the entrepreneurial innovations of Berry Gordy Jr., the explosive white soul of…
Rebound
In this permutation of the comeback kids story, firebrand comic Martin Lawrence is Roy McCormick, a college basketball coach who loses his temper and gets banned from coaching at the college level. Coach Roy is then relegated to junior high hoops, taking on his old middle school’s team. Usually explosive, vulgar and hyperactive, Lawrence tones…
