Festivity factory
The German shepherd slobbers a little; it could rip your head off. It stalks behind chain-link and barbed wire, gutted cars and corroded metal. A few weary workers linger, hunched over Frankensteinian welding projects, but there’s no one else around. Add a sinister soundtrack and a choppy montage to this scrap-yard scene, and it’s a…
Feed our heads
Enough with the stupid stuff — a poinsettia, some battery-operated lapel pin or an I Feel Bad About My Neck book. Wouldn’t you like to give and receive a literary gift that brings enlightenment and years of enjoyment? That’s what Jefferson Airplane was talking about in that “White Rabbit” song — it’s time to “Feed…
American Life in Poetry
Linda Pastan, who lives in Maryland, is a master of the kind of water-clear writing that enables us to see into the depths. This is a poem about migrating birds, but also about how it feels to witness the passing of another year. The Birds are heading south, pulled by a compass in the genes.…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
Michigan’s time to face facts
Last week, in one of the most important events since the Ten Commandments or at least the invention of the Veg-O-Matic, George W. Bush met with the leaders of what used to be called the “Big Three.” Of course, they aren’t so big anymore. Two are losing billions the way my ’70 Chevy Impala used…
Quite a catch
This sprawling establishment, which can seat 300 in its main dining areas, tavern and cozy private dining room, does not seem as large as it is because of the artful manner in which the space is broken up, and also because of the generous spacing between the New England-style bare wooden tables. Every night, the…
Odds and sods
MICHIGAN’S BEST, JACK Jack Nitzsche Hard Workin’ Man: The Jack Nitzsche Story Volume 2 Ace How best to sum up Jack Nitzsche’s role as cornerstone of American ’60s pop music — including his film soundtracks of the ’70s — in a sentence? Impossible, when you consider his polymathic abilities: arranger, producer, musician, madman, talent scout,…
They speak out
Poetry on Record ($49.98) accomplishes what seems nearly impossible: It humanizes 98 of the Western world’s inimitable poets in a way that your typical two-ton freshman lit anthology never could. This exciting four-disc collection breathes life back into such literary warriors and saviors as William Butler Yeats, Langston Hughes, Robert Lowell, Dylan Thomas, Gwendolyn Brooks…
Night and Day
Wednesday • 22 Human Eye MUSIC Local rock history should one day rank Human Eye frontman Tim Vulgar among the most consequential Detroit musicians of his generation. As leader of a hometown band that successfully combines the aural with the visual, Vulgar’s heightened punk sensibilities and outsider art make his post-rock anthems exciting to witness…
Cocked & loaded
Set in a drab, anonymous corner of France, the black-and-white film makes a much more convincing argument against identity theft than any CitiBank commercial. The trouble begins when lowly handyman Sebastian (George Babluani, looking like a sort of French John Mayer) becomes envious of the suspiciously cash-rich couple whose roof he’s redoing. He decides to…
North stars
If the recent six-month tour with Ben Kweller doesn’t win over American fans, if the thousands of deprived and hungry music fans didn’t find Kweller’s opening act — the Sam Roberts Band — to be, at the very least, worthy of a $15 CD purchase or a concert T, then it’s over. Fuck it. The…
Fast Food Nation
Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s devastating Fast Food Nation corrals the book’s disturbing mountain of research into a fictional mosaic. Linklater follows in the footsteps of Steven Soderberg’s drug expose Traffic by threading together a trio of storylines that drive home the book’s muckraking facts about commercial meat processing and America’s obsession with fast…
TV tube heart
GAG GIFT OF YANKOFICIAN PROPORTION The Weird Al Show: The Complete Series Shout! Factory; $34.98 The Weird Al Nation was already having a great 2006. This year, the crinkle-haired hero of would-be song parodists everywhere landed his first Top 10 album (Straight Outta Linwood) and garnered a good few weeks of Internet buzz with “White…
Our Brand Is Crisis
Once upon a time, democracy was defined as this: of the people, by the people and for the people. Watching James Carville and his political consulting firm — GCS (Greenville, Carville and Shrum) — in Rachel Boynton’s Our Brand Is Crisis, it quickly becomes clear that brand marketing and focus groups have turned our main…
Suspension of disbelief
Moroun’s double talk leaves Detroiters scratching their heads.
For Your Consideration
Christopher Guest has been finding new and hilarious ways of gathering groups of master improvisers to play life’s not-so-beautiful losers for years. At his best, Guest can coax his actors into unscripted riffs that are funnier than anything a writer could dream up; you leave the theater feeling like you just witnessed lightning being captured…
Letters to the Editor
Impeached credibility Regarding Jack Lessenberry’s comment that impeachment would be “a distraction.” (“Saying farewell to fascism,” Metro Times, Nov. 15). John Nichols of The Nation has a great article in the December issue of Washington Monthly magazine tracing the results of impeachment efforts. In every single one of nine impeachment efforts, the results have been…
Capital D
Though the city keeps shrinking, literary interest in Detroit is as robust as ever, and for the Detroitophile in your life, the gift-giving options remain as wide as Woodward at Seven Mile. Here’s a peek at some recent offerings: Perhaps no figure in Detroit history has taken a literary pounding like Henry Ford — from…
Motor City Rides
Obie Trice’s ride makes the rounds — and stops them too.
Out come the freaks
Q: I am a 23-year-old lesbian in a relationship of three months. In these three months, I have been tied up, spanked, cut, burned and put on display for strangers at her request because she likes it and I’m GGG. My one and only kink is that I get a deep sexual thrill out of…
Phosphor-dot poisoning
If you do something once around this time of year, then do it again 12 months later, does it qualify as a holiday tradition? Last November, spurred on by the warm rush of sentiment Thanksgiving typically inspires — and a tighter-than-usual publication deadline — I dropped my patented Mr. Crankypants attitude to compose a list…
A manic verse machine
“Howl” is considered by many to be a poem that loses its power and appeal once you turn 30. I’m happy to say that now, standing on the other side of 40, the poem still resonates. I return time and again to its manic, mad machinery of super-charged language. Like Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” “Howl”…
Detroit’s chlamydia problem
At the Detroit Department of Health and Wellness’s sexually transmitted disease clinic, Dr. Jambunathan Ramanathan and his staff know they have to work a little differently with the teenagers who have chlamydia. Teens are more likely to have chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted disease, are less knowledgeable about how they got it and can…
Medium cool
FROGS, TOADS & PLAY-DOH-Y SHAPES Concordance Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Kiki Smith Kelsey Street Press; $29, 47 pp. This limited-edition book is for frogs and toads, we’re told, within the first few pages. Concordance is a collaborative project that presents two pieces of poetry, with illustrations, about stream of consciousness, the consciousness of owls and milkweed…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Ka-ching!
Best Buy wants us to “wrap up the wow.” Macy’s wants us to “Get in that holiday spirit!” Target’s campaign is “Joy!” and eBay asks, “Who needs elves? Perfect gifts start right here!” Every ad on every major retailer’s Web site is one giant exclamation point. And we wonder why we’re panicked? Jesus. Corporate commerce…
Armchair traveling
Thailand’s overrun with Brits and Costa Rica with eco-travelers. As travel becomes accessible to more and more people, the road less traveled can begin to look like a highway. As a result, book series, such as Lonely Planet, tout unusual experiences loosely grouped under the heading of anti-tourism. There are trends like Dark Tourism, whose…
Five easy pieces
“We subscribe to the idea that great music doesn’t have to stay lost, that timeless artists will find their time and that there are no ‘re-issues,’ only records whose issues have finally been resolved.”—The Numero Group Look around every corner and you’ll find reminders of ghostly music scenes. Ones easily brought back to life with…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I suspect you’ll be a genius of awkwardness in the coming week, Aries. What that means is that you’ll have a knack for doing the half-right thing at the half-right time — and yet that’s exactly what’ll be necessary in order to bring about unexpected outcomes that are in everyone’s best…
Blissed-out
Extreme foodie Steve Stallard sounds off.
Richie Rich
Richie Hawtin’s DE9: Transitions, which hit last November, is one of his most ambitious triumphs — regardless of musical genre. Packaged in a CD/DVD format, it’s a digital smorgasbord consisting of edits that Hawtin mixes into seamless 74- and 96-minute jams. He broke down the rave experience into tiny particles, then reassembled them to fit…
