Travelin’ shoes
Longtime Howlin’ Wolf collaborator Hubert Sumlin still plays the low-down, dirty blues. But these days, he feels good. “I’m feeling fine. I’m ready to go to work, you know,” Sumlin says by phone from his Milwaukee home. “I think this summer’s going to be a pretty busy period for me now.” And that’s a good…
Head cheese
A few of our chick pals — well, some dude buds too — say they like ’em big, dumb and willing. The same might be said of Supagroup. This hard-traveled Cajun quartet, led by bros Benji and Chris Lee, have, for the last decade, eaten, drunk, slept and fucked rock ‘n’ roll, circa 1975. It’s…
The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D
Director Robert Rodriguez follows up the gritty Sin City with this bloodless — in every sense of the word — children’s picture, conceived by his 7-year-old-son. It’s a little like sitting through a 5-year-old’s description of his trip to Disney World: Incredibly cute for about 10 minutes, but breathlessly repetitive and muddled for the remaining…
Burke’s work
Tim Burke 3647 Heidelberg St., Detroit Though not technically part of Tyree Guyton’s famed Heidelberg project, Tim Burke is profoundly influenced by both the artist and the street — that’s why he decided to buy a house on Heidelberg Street four years ago. “It’s the place to be in Detroit,” says Burke, who has known…
Enter the kiln
The vessel, the figure and architecture — contemporary artists collapse boundaries between these ceramic traditions. For instance, a vessel is a metaphor for the carnal body or an interior architectural space. A kiln can also be a metaphor for architecture, vessel and interior body. At Christopher Gustin’s Massachusetts studio, five artist-friends join in a labor-intensive…
Open wide
Shakira’s new album Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 is sung entirely en Español, the precursor to November 2005’s English-speaking Oral Fixation, Vol. 2. But why wait for a translation? Do you tear your eyes away from the video for Fijación’s crisply pulsing “La Tortura” to ask of a Spanish-speaking pal, “What the hell is that woman…
A slice of Americana
26417 Plymouth Rd., Redford For the life of him, Italian immigrant Silvio Barile cannot figure out why the health inspectors shut down his pizzeria in Redford Township after he ran the business successfully for 43 years. Don’t bother trying to convince him it has something to do with the inventory in his storefront, where there…
Float your boat
You don’t have to own a boat to have boat drinks; you don’t even have to be on one. Neither is really any issue anyway, because there’s no ready definition of the term. Some insist that it has to sport a paper umbrella and some slices of fruit. Others say, no matter what, it has…
Jackpot!
When the topic of zydeco music comes up, the name that comes most quickly to mind is Buckwheat Zydeco (aka Stanley Dural Jr.). He’s done more than anyone else in recent years to popularize this form of Louisiana Creole folk music. Jackpot! is Dural’s first studio record in eight years. This is unadulterated party music.…
Hot for teacher? Or ‘not’ for teacher?
Q: I’m a 27-year-old female who started teaching high-school freshmen three years ago when I was 23. I was closer in age/culture to most of my students than I was to the other teachers. That first year I bonded with a lot of the students; in particular with a small group of boys who were…
Just axing
Carlos Santana beams from the cover of the June Guitar Player magazine, an example of the guitar deities frequently featured. Joe Perry, Jimi Hendrix, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Angus Young are among the other cover cats of the last year. But the March spot went to Nels Cline, a household name only in Fringeville. True,…
Bob Seger
Long before local Bob Seger ascended to classic rock royalty with his radio-friendly visions of proto-Americana — “Night Moves,” “Against The Wind,” etc. — he was a gritty garage-rocker whose late ’60s and early ’70s records subsequently inspired punk bands to turbocharge Seger numbers like “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man,” “Get Out of Denver” and “Heavy Music.”…
Art Bar
American Life in Poetry by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate Here David Wagoner, a distinguished poet living in Washington state, vividly describes a peacock courtship, and though it’s a poem about birds, haven’t you seen the males of other species, including ours, look every bit as puffed-up, and observed the females’ hilarious indifference? Peacock…
Buzz over medical marijuana
Despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that federal agents are free to bust medical marijuana users in states that have legalized prescription pot, metro Detroit activists say they’ll press ahead with efforts to put the issue on local ballots. "We’ve had overwhelming support from the community thus far," says Donal O’Leary III, chairman of…
Iggy Pop! Live San Fran 1981
Having just watched Coffee and Cigarettes for the first time and being struck by how much Iggy has come to resemble, in both appearance and speech, Sonny Bono, this opportunity to see young James in his sort-of prime doing sonic cluster-fuck versions of seminal classics like “T.V. Eye” and “1969,” comes as a cogent reminder…
Play time!
The five people you meet in heaven got front-row seats at the Purple Rose Theatre for the world premiere of Mitch Albom’s new play, And the Winner Is. “I wouldn’t miss this even for another chance at redemption,” one says, and the other four nod. In the lobby, theater founder Jeff Daniels, clad in his…
Hallelujah
The book was closed last week – temporarily at least — on a group of Troy residents seeking to oust two of their seven City Council members for voting against letting a Christian prayer group hold services at City Hall. On June 6, Oakland County Probate Judge Eugene Moore ruled that the Troy Committee to…
Weekly Fecal
Ed. — Ok, I assigned this record to to one of my writers for review. Here’s the writer’s actual e-mail: Carleton S. Gholz writes about music for the Metro Times. E-Mail letters@metrotimes.com.
Suburban sanctuary
Bernardo Puzzuoli 3701 Metro Parkway, Sterling Heights Bernardo Puzzuoli does not seem like a friendly man at first. When asked for a tour of his backyard, he seems suspicious and then annoyed. Finally he narrows his eyes, and grumbling comes from the vicinity of his moving beard, which looks like it belongs on a WWF…
Eat it
Looking to generate money any way it can, cash-strapped Detroit is putting the squeeze on vendors peddling their edibles at the city’s many annual festivals. Permit fees have jumped from $73 to $247. The additional charge only affects food vendors, who purchase the licenses from the city’s Department of Health and Wellness. That charge is…
Bat to basics
Unlike previous entries, there’s nothing glib or campy about the caped crusader this time around in director Christopher Nolan’s ambitious, dark and exhilarating take on a franchise that’s been lying dead as a doornail for half a decade. Starting from scratch, Nolan retells Bruce Wayne’s transformation into relentless defender of Gotham City’s tarnished virtue. Fortunately,…
Fourth Street fare
Fourth Street (Intersection of Fourth and Holden streets) Hands down, Fourth Street is one of the coolest places to live in Detroit. An eclectic mix of young and old, hipster and hippie, this tightly knit little community is best known for its annual Positively Fourth Street Fair every July, a one-day block party featuring heaps…
Lies and consequences
As evidence exposing the dung heap of deception used by the Bush administration to mislead us into war continues to mount, no one in public life is doing more to seek accountability from the president than U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. "The truth is important," Conyers says. "And that’s what we’re looking for — the…
Toughing it out
Not long after I wrote the column listing my frustrations with Detroit and wondering whether it was worth living here anymore, I ran into a friend who used to work for one of the local dailies but has since moved into the corporate world. He said he thought I’d raised some valid points, but nonetheless,…
Proactive
Bridging the gap — The Michigan Department of Transportation will hold four public hearings the last week in June regarding proposed locations for a new bridge or tunnel to cross the Detroit River. The meetings will allow the public to obtain info about the proposed crossings, and to provide comments on the various plans being…
Get out of the house
Summer is our time to get out and explore. To see and to sweat. It’s the time to call out around the world for Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street,” Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues,” Sheryl Crow’s “Soak Up the Sun” and endless renditions of Gershwin’s classic from Catfish Row. It’s the season…
Letters to the Editor
Democracy endangered Hats off to Jack Lessenberry for his column, "What Memorial Day should mean" (Metro Times, June 1). It is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A valid concern of mine is whether we, the people, are courageous enough to face this stark reality. Our government’s arrogance and greed have caused harm…
Night and Day
Wednesday-Sunday • 15-19 PSDC/Solo DANCE Performed to lyrics by the Greek homoerotic poet Sappho, arias by Handel and an original song by University of Michigan composer Evan Chambers, PSDC/Solos is a collection of solo dance performances by the Peter Sparling Dance Company. In the tradition of many modern dance greats, Sparling and his eight dancers…
Comics
This Modern World Red Meat
Media Blackout
MB37th floor, watch your step! • Faces – “Stay With Me” (Warner Bros.) :: Wait a minute, Rodney, I don’t think you’ve been too Modney. You stand accused of never singing a song during your entire post-Faces solo career as good as this one. • I Hate Sally – The Plague (db) :: Will they…
Another Road Home
Israeli filmmaker Danae Elon’s documentary about finding the Palestinian man who raised her is a very personal and rare look at the private relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, and the intimacy is tainted only by what seems to be the director’s reluctance to fully embrace her starring role in the film. Her intimate and loving…
The dry guy
The average Steven Wright joke goes something like this: “Everywhere is walking distance if you have time.” Lines like that — a staple of Bartlett’s and the “senior quote” section of high school yearbooks — have made Wright a very famous guy. His wit lends itself almost equally to laughter and introspection, with a delivery…
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
One doesn’t look for impeccable logic or tightly woven plotlines in a film like this; still some attention to story craft would help. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play a highly successful married couple trying to keep to their conjugal spark alive while hiding their work as assassins for rival firms. Clever verbal showdowns and…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "You always learn your mystery at the price of your innocence," wrote Robertson Davies in *Fifth Business*. In the coming week, Aries, your assignment is to disprove this assertion. I think it will happen quite naturally; you won’t have to exert yourself heroically. In fact, I predict you will demonstrate the…
Meet a mayor you can admire
"Well," I was thinking, "he is the youngest mayor the city ever had, and he faces a lot of problems, and I should give him a chance to explain himself." So I drove down past the casinos and the Renaissance Center one afternoon, and went to City Hall, where, for the first time in a…
High Tension
This imported French horror flick is taut and graphic, recalling some of better slasher pics of the ’70s, particularly John Carpenter’s Halloween. However, the dubbed dialogue and ridiculous plot twists outweigh its handful of effective terror scenes.
Welcome to the doll house
29349 Shacket Ave., Madison Heights (best viewed from Campbell) Along a suburban stretch of Campbell in Madison Heights, the modest yet quaint houses are neat, tidy, soothingly uniform … and then you come upon Michael Dion’s back yard. It’s dotted by found objects and old, dirty dolls — some decapitated — impaled, tucked into crevices,…
Summer Guide Spotlights
Base Ball 1860 Aug. 14 • Historic Fort Wayne, Detroit “America’s favorite sport” sounds sugary sweet no matter how you spin it. But it’s a designation most baseball lovers are willing to accept, given the indelible mark that the storied pastime has left in the tapestry of Americana. Stories of the game’s inception are varied,…
The Honeymooners
The summer of the TV remake kicks off with this big-screen adaptation of the ’50s working-class sitcom. The new Honeymooners appropriately casts Cedric the Entertainer in the role Jackie Gleason made famous, and while the film falls a little short on laughs, the good-natured cast almost makes it worth a look.
Reach for the sky
In the alleyway behind Klinger Street in Hamtramck, a jumbled collection of twirling joy reaches toward the sky. Multitudes of pinwheels flutter atop ramshackle wooden figures, bicycle wheels, a rocketship, makeshift carousels and an explosion of color; the whole spectacle makes a psychedelic acid trip seem drab by comparison. This is Hamtramck Disneyland, and either…
Summer losers
Jason Bitner is co-editor of Found Magazine. Send comments to letters@metrotimes.com
Dot the i
Dot the i has been languishing on shelf somewhere since it was completed in 2003, resurrected presumably to take advantage of star Gael GarcÃa Bernal’s rising fame. Director-writer Matthew Parkhill’s first and only feature is short on substance and character development. Star Gael GarcÃa Bernal (Motorcycle Diaries, Y Tu Mama Tambien) is the highlight, flirting…
