Jul 9-15, 2003

Jul 9-15, 2003 / Vol. 23 / No. 39

Hello, Mr. Robinson

Chris Robinson is on the deck of his mother-in-law’s Malibu Beach house watching dolphins splash gracefully in and out of the Pacific. It’s 1 p.m. Western Daylight Time on a day that is, in the words of the former Black Crowes shouter, beautiful. That term, “beautiful,” floats often from Robinson’s mouth. And why not? The…

Brian Smith

big story photos add

First Place, color Craig Brithinee, Walled Lake “I’ve been messing around with cameras for over 20 years now,” says Craig Brithinee, who at 48 has yet to consign himself to the tutelage of a photography instructor. Brithinee’s self-taught hobby began as a result of his love of the outdoors; the first pictures he took were…

Metro Times editorial staff

Whose flag shall we fly?

David Phillips is a judge in Travis County, Texas, who has taken to wearing an American flag pin. So what is newsworthy about that? You’d expect a Texas judge to wear a flag pin … perhaps with electric-chair cuff links for balance. But get this: Phillips, whom I have known and admired for many years,…

Jack Lessenberry

July 9-15, 2003

9-12 WED-SAT • FUN FOR ALL Saline Celtic Festival — Erin Go have a ball, folks! This year’s Saline Celtic festival offers a little bit of something for everyone. The fun-filled four-day festival will include an off-site whisky tasting, soccer and rugby matches, and workshops on authentic Irish dancing and dining. (See www.salineceltic.org for locations.)…

Eve Doster

Black humor

Lewis Black seems surprisingly calm. He shouldn’t. As he politely rids himself of the stream of callers on the cell phone he holds in his free hand, he speaks to me from the land line in his Manhattan home. He sounds nothing like the ranting demagogue he portrays on what is arguably the best program…

Eve Doster

Retail detail

Roughly a year after they rallied to protest the imminent demolition of their community mini-mall, residents of the Lafayette Park neighborhood near downtown are claiming a relative victory. True, merchants who faced eviction won only delays and have moved elsewhere (Sala Thai, for instance) or closed (Richard’s Drugs); developers anticipate the remaining Lafayette Market and…

Metro Times editorial staff

Stall tactics

Here’s the latest twist in state Sen. Ray Basham’s long-running battle to pry public information from the Board of Trustees of the Detroit Policemen and Fireman Retirement Systems: Even though he appears to be winning, Basham and the people he represents could end up losing big. Readers of Metro Times may recall last week’s story…

Metro Times editorial staff

Songs of experience

There’s something playfully elegant in Ted Pearson’s poetry. His linguistic concerns are serious, but his idiom rides along as casually as a burning cigarette on a jazz player’s lip. Four works — Acoustic Masks, The Devil’s Aria, Hard Science and Parker’s Mood — make up Songs Aside, the retrospective collection newly released by Detroit’s Past…

Norene Cashen

World of music

Over the years, the annual Concert of Colors presented by ACCESS (Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Service) and New Detroit, has developed around four elements. Hitmakers past and present: This year’s include the currently hot Patty Larkin (Friday, 6 p.m.), ’80s reggae stars Third World (Saturday, 7 p.m.),’70s soul-rockers War (Friday, 9 p.m.)…

Metro Times editorial staff

A vision shared

Those folks who find themselves looking around Detroit and thinking that there must be a better way to deal with our problems might want to stop by the First Unitarian-Universalist Church this Friday. As part of a U.S. tour, Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne of Sri Lanka will visit Detroit to discuss the Sarvodayan Movement he founded…

Metro Times editorial staff

Chain of foods

Lots of sweets and bagels, sandwiches galore, soups, salads, breakfast sandwiches till 10:30 a.m., specialty coffees and smoothies, all at decent or even bargain prices. If you find favorites, they’re worth returning for, but everything seems homogenized; each food is allotted one flavor and one only.

Jane Slaughter

School’s out forever

Abandoned Shelter of the Week Despite our passionate disdain for summer school, when the Abandoned Structure Squad (known affectionately as ASS among the more studious of our readers) got word of an old boarded-up schoolhouse in Northville Township that is potentially haunted, we had our mothers pack us a lunch and we journeyed to the…

Metro Times editorial staff

Letters to the Editor

Down to business Thank you for bringing Lizzie Seagle’s story to light (“Dizzy over Lizzie,” Metro Times, July 2-8). I have always had trouble with the quadratic equation, and her method works better for me. Now, if she could discover an easier way to write a business plan, I’ll nominate her for the Nobel Prize.…

Metro Times editorial staff

Capturing the Friedmans

It’s an uncomfortable couple hours watching director Andrew Jarecki revisit the Pandora-like horror of the Friedman family’s late-1980s lives, both because of the bizarre nature of the subjects and the grotesqueness of the sexual crimes that two Friedmans admitted to committing in open court.

Erin Podolsky

An enlightened twang

Like any red-blooded American good ol’ boy, Steve Earle is equal parts patriot and baseball fan. For the good of the country, if not the game, he would like to see our esteemed president, George W. Bush, immediately become the commissioner of baseball. We’d all be safer then. “I’ve never seen anyone die on a…

Metro Times editorial staff

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

This pirate-ghost story film reaches a level of live-action grisliness and mayhem (though not, of course, sexiness) that nudges the Disney studio envelope without quite pushing it. It’s a pleasant time-killer with one very good, very eccentric performance from Johnny Depp.

Richard C. Walls

Stall tactics

Here’s the latest twist in state Sen. Ray Basham’s long-running battle to pry public information from the Board of Trustees of the Detroit Policemen and Fireman Retirement Systems: Even though he appears to be winning, Basham and the people he represents could end up losing big. Readers of Metro Times may recall last week’s story…

Metro Times editorial staff

Under the Skin of the City

For 90 minutes, the world of Tuba — matriarch of a pitfall-consumed family — unspools. It’s not easy being a woman in Iran and it’s clear where director Rakhshan Bani Etemad’s concerns lie. Her agenda gives her film its much-needed edge — opening Friday at Ann Arbor’s Madstone Theaters.

Erin Podolsky

Hamtown troublemakers

If so much were not at stake, News Hits would have a good chuckle over recent shenanigans in Hamtramck. Instead, we’re shaking our heads over the more than $1 million public school administrators allegedly spent improperly, and how some school board members won’t hold them accountable. Last year, the school board voted to hire attorney…

Metro Times editorial staff

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde

It took three screenwriters to crossbreed the Frank Capra classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), with the hit Legally Blonde. But while assembling their baby, they managed to lose most of the brains and heart of the two plot donors.

James Keith La Croix

Hamtown troublemakers

If so much were not at stake, News Hits would have a good chuckle over recent shenanigans in Hamtramck. Instead, we’re shaking our heads over the more than $1 million public school administrators allegedly spent improperly, and how some school board members won’t hold them accountable. Last year, the school board voted to hire attorney…

Metro Times editorial staff

Invasion of the red body snatchers

Chang Hsi-kuo is said to be a titan of Chinese science fiction; in Taiwan, his homeland, he is considered the father of the genre. The City Trilogy, reputed to be his masterwork, recently arrived in America. Despite such accolade, I can’t help but feel that the novel’s brilliance evaporated somehow in its translation, or in…

Scott Carlson

Free Will Astrology

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Baseball players use the term “winning ugly.” It means a game they’ve managed to win even though they’ve made mistakes and performed below their potential. You will soon be able to invoke this phrase to describe your own version of an unaesthetic triumph. There’s another term I want to arm you…

Metro Times editorial staff

Did James Joyce inhale?

Q: As always, your advice to FART was spot-on. FART wanted to know how to talk women into letting him sniff their farts, and insisted his fetish wasn’t disgusting. You rightly pointed out that it is dis-gusting. Here’s something that may make FART feel a bit better about himself: None other than James Joyce was…

Dan Savage

Unshuttered

Photography — what a cool medium! All you’ve got to do is point, shoot and, voilà, make a masterpiece. Well … not exactly. Though accident or just plain luck led to a handful of the 495 photographs in the 22nd Annual Metro Times Photo Contest, most of this year’s participants seem to have worked pretty…

Metro Times editorial staff

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