Per tutta la vita
Vince’s Ristorante Italiano keeps the old, savory ways alive….
Pay-to-play
I got an e-mail from a rankled Dana Forrester of local management-publicity house Aural Pleasure Music. Forrester was bent out of shape over something I wrote. I guess using the phrase “pay-to-play” while describing the “Detroit Future Platinum” showcase she and her partner, Erica Koltonow, pitched at the annual SXSW music festival was a case…
L’Chayim, Comrade Stalin!
Yale Strom’s documentary tribute to the Jews who converted the swamps and forests of the Jewish Autonomous Region of the Soviet Union — 14,000 square miles on the Siberian border — into a settlement is a tale of initial optimism, long suffering and eventual escape.
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): It’s Reinvent Your Persona Week. Pretend it’s Halloween for the next seven days. Today, dress up as a skanky biker. Tomorrow, be a transgendered Bulgarian princess in exile. In the days after that be a snake dancer, drag racer, CIA agent, professional wrestler and rodeo clown. Get outrageously creative. April Fool!…
Prison post-mortem
Jeffrey Muller, 51, the ex-convict whose unsuccessful struggle with the Michigan Department of Corrections for a liver transplant was chronicled in this paper (“Jailhouse shock,” Metro Times, Jan. 22-28), died from liver failure March 23. Family members were at his side in an Ann Arbor hospital. Muller began his battle for a transplant in 1996…
Bend It Like Beckham
The second-generation daughter of Indian immigrants in England wants to be able to play soccer like British superstar David Beckham in this well-oiled and hollow concoction. Its one genuine aspect is its undeniable exuberance, manifested in its eagerness to be inoffensive, likable entertainment.
Bikes, dykes and buttplay
Q: Like many 40-year-old guys, I’m attracted to the girl at my morning coffee place. She’s a biker, pierced, tattooed, dark-haired, beautiful and intelligent. But I am pretty sure she likes girls. She’s always nice — but is it just because I am a customer? I spend way too much time thinking about exploding my…
Media hound, well-roasted
What attorney Geoffrey Fieger needs most is more attention. After all, it’s been at least 15 seconds since his name appeared somewhere in the media. So, we thought we’d give him a plug, particularly since the publicity king kindly sent News Hits a recent edition of his firm’s newsletter, Fieger Times. It’s an appropriate name,…
Oscars aftermath
Metro Times’ film crew would like to remember the independent movie theaters of metro Detroit, whose premiers or extended engagements of Oscar-nominated and awarded films allow local audiences to enjoy world-class cinema as a vital, relevant art form. From the 75th Academy Awards (2003): Detroit Film Theatre Y Tu Mama También (dir. Alfonoso Cuarón)…
Delectable decors
Dining destinations serve specialties with ambient flair.…
Making the grade
The kids at Ross-Hill Academy in Detroit received a lesson in current affairs from a former schoolteacher: Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Last week 3rd, 4th and 5th graders attending a Detroit City Council meeting lit up when the big man in the blue suit showed. “Good morning, mayor,” they declared in unison. A couple kids, drumming…
Borderline eclectic
Chanoso’s of Windsor has a hip new look and a wildly diverse menu….
Film for thought
With surveys showing that the American public supports the way the war on Iraq is being conducted, area lefties are gathering for a weekend of film and food. The intent is to nourish activist’s spirits. “The films will inspire, inform and to a certain extent entertain socially conscious and activist-oriented individuals,” informs Ron Glotta, organizer…
Sweden’s flip side
Let’s get this out of the way right now. The Soundtrack of our Lives is not a garage band. Though hailing from Sweden, this isn’t the Hives, Hellacopters, (International) Noise Conspiracy, Sahara Hotnights, or any of the seemingly dozens of similarly minded Scandinavian groups that have popped up recently in stateside pop radar like dollar…
Rule or drool
“Kilroy was here” “John loves Marcia” “For a great blow job, call …” Old-time graffiti was grassroots communication, from the people to the people. Stoked by passion, you carved your sweetie’s name into a tree trunk or scrawled it on a freeway overpass. For the blow job ad in some funky stall, you filled…
Yore Detroit Tigers
Diamond greats of yesteryear hope their sparkle will rub off….
From lumber to slumber
This week’s abandoned structure is a reminder that decay is nothing new to Detroit. At 6460 Kercheval, two blocks east of Mt. Elliot Cemetery, this office building and storehouse is situated in one of the oldest parts of the city. Built in 1925, it was once home to the F.M. Sibley Lumber Company. E. Simpson,…
Iraq and roll
The week at war and the weak music that’s supposed to be its sound track….
Letters to the Editor
Pots and kettles Concerning Lisa M. Collins’ recent article: Osama Siblani, an Arab-American Muslim, is entitled to his opinion (“Arab advocate,” Metro Times, March 19-25). What is frustrating to me, an American Jew who has Palestinian, Chaldean and Lebanese friends, is the unmistakable bias in his viewpoint that is just a few notches below the…
Surprising white guys
By now I’m sure most of you have heard of the “angry white male.” These are the guys who honestly believe that the poor, downtrodden, overlooked white male is consistently ignored by an American job market that tramples back and forth over their aching backs in search of a more colorful staffing ratio. A moment…
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
This week’s abandoned structure is a reminder that decay is nothing new to Detroit. At 6460 Kercheval, two blocks east of Mt. Elliot Cemetery, this office building and storehouse is situated in one of the oldest parts of the city. Built in 1925, it was once home to the F.M. Sibley Lumber Company. E. Simpson,…
Books unbound
A festival of artist-poet collaborations invades the scene….
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
This week’s abandoned house once had an address, we assume, but no longer has one. It’s located on East Vernor; its photo was sent to us by Tom Lonergan, who informed us: “Last September, as I was driving my son Vince to school, I told him, ‘I bet that house is still there in April,…
The insanity, the obscenity
At the moment I am writing this, Steve Martin is handing out the Academy Awards, and highly trained young Americans are dropping vast amounts of bombs on a mostly backward nation, killing women, children and babies. Our tax dollars at work. The Iraqis are killing some of us too — they seem to be getting…
Flashy Flood’s
Upscale but inviting, Flood’s is the perfect after-work bar. With a sleek and elegant decor and a top-shelf liquor collection that puts most other cocktail lounges to shame, this high-class hangout is for those who like to eat, drink and groove. Offering some of Detroit’s finest R& B and smooth jazz acts, this local staple…
Damn Yankees
Americans have never possessed the most pristine reputation abroad. Other countries, particularly European ones, have long subscribed to typical American stereotypes: We’re fat, lazy, uncultured, loud, obnoxious, and ignorant of world affairs. An American traveling abroad can expect anything from dirty glances and muffled disdain to outright hostility. And that was before the war. With…
Fear of a senile planet
In American media, there isn’t much space given to getting old. So it’s from both an intriguing and refreshingly unique perspective that David Greenberger has made his explorations of the subject an art form. In 1979, he began interviewing residents of a Boston nursing home where he was an activities director. Transcripts of those sessions…
Seeds of abuse
A few weeks ago, Oprah Winfrey welcomed Michael Moore, Oscar-winning director of Bowling for Columbine, onto her show. It was quite a summit. Moore’s documentary film is a compelling, if uneven, indictment of the American love of guns and the mayhem they bring at home and abroad. Moore contends that fear begets violence — fear…
Elephant
Have you heard of this band, the White Stripes? The Little Detroit Band That Could is, on the eve of the release of their fourth full-length, poised to capitalize on all the brand-name recognition that a year-and-a-half of incessant media spotlighting has afforded them. For all intents and purposes — and, in particular, to my…
Grace is the place
Annam Restaurant Vietnamien is a totality of well-being….
Contradictions
Dinner and TV news with Jordanian Christian Republicans….
Unidentified flying chunks
Geezer: no stars / Weezer: H
Director Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill) should do better than heave his undigested lunch on-screen. Based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, this sci-fi horror tale is so heavily cluttered with second-hand material that it just sinks.
Proof in the pudding
Eph McNally’s deli and decor keep the clientele growing….
Terms of engagement
In times of turmoil, we all require help in sorting out the nomenclature. To wit, a glossary of important terms and people. Disclosure — some terms that still apply are holdovers from my Afghanistan war glossary: Al-Jazeera: The Arabic world’s answer to Fox News. Al Qaeda: Huh? Al Roker: Network weatherman. Beers, cold: A remedy…
All the Real Girls
Like the straightforward words of its characters, David Gordon Green’s quiet, slow meditation on the age-old question of love and its miseries is simple and honest about its emotions. It commits itself to telling the truth and crafting a tiny world where people say what they mean.
Lady be (oh so) good
Sweet Georgia Brown turns downtown dining on its head….
March 26-April 1, 2003
27-30 THU-SUN • FUN FOR ALL Bear in the Big Blue House LIVE! — A stage spin-off of the popular Disney show, Bear in the Big Blue House LIVE!, looks like one of the most lovingly crafted children’s events to pass through Detroit in a long time. With his lovable friends Tutter, Ojo, Pip &…
Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary
Having kept silent for almost 60 years after having been a witness to Hitler’s final hours, Hitler’s former secretary breaks her silence on film. Every sentence out of Traudl Junge’s mouth carries a great tragic weight.
