Low on the hog
Quality bacon, home curing and Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Well ventilated
The abandoned brick house at 1533 Lillibridge St. is quite inviting. And this three-family flat, built in 1918, is accessible to everyone, from curious children to the homeless. The front and rear gates of the chain-link fence are wide open, and the porch’s screen door has been ripped off for easy access, provided that you…
Bee Season
In the film adaptation of Myla Goldberg’s popular book, fifth-grader Eliza (Flora Cross) has a deep connection to letters …
Drummer’s coda
Detroiter Roy Brooks was a spectacular musician — a musician who often reminded audiences that the root of spectacular is spectacle. He drove bands — those of Horace Silver-level stars or his own — from his drum kit, lashing his trademark percussive patterns onto the skins and metal. His creativity, though, demanded far different outlets. He…
Letters to the Editor
Voting with her feet Re: “On the election” (Metro Times, Nov. 16), I agree with you, Jack, and I am glad you printed the angry letter, because, for me, it sounded like something right out of my mouth. Unfortunately, there is black-on-black racism. Kwame is a dark-skinned, nappy-headed, earring-wearing partier and Hendrix is light-skinned, has…
Ice Harvest
‘Tis the season to spurt a little blood on the holiday tinsel. Director Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Analyze This …
The Detroit Underground
Kero is on the beach. Behind him, the Detroit River glistens dirt-brown and puke-green as it roils and sways in the fierce November wind. On the opposite shore, vertical cannons on Zug Island fire white-orange flames skyward. On the Canadian side, rusting metal carcasses of old appliances lay partially hidden in the tall grass. “Whoa, dude,…
Metro Retro
19 years ago this week in Metro Times: Alexander Cockburn comments on America’s anti-terrorism strategy, claiming inconsistencies in the Reagan administration’s position. He cites an interview from The Today Show with national security advisor John Poindexter, during which the latter had twitched gloomily while providing assurances that the “defensive” weapons they had supplied Iran had…
What up, pussycat?
What better gauge of our growing dissatisfaction with Bush country than witnessing America’s most beloved melody maker suddenly scribbling his own frustrations and personal politics down on a lyric sheet after more than a half-century of silence? And then having Sony tell him he’s gotta take the “F” word out. Despite persistently being misidentified as…
Three chords and the truth
Few word combinations activate the gag reflex and get the acrid bile a-pumpin’ quite like “reunion show.” Too often these types of productions are irrelevant and mawkish displays of self-congratulatory horseshit. But when you are talking about the reunion of a band like Heresy — one of Detroit’s most influential hardcore punk rock bands —…
Austen Power
“They’re like Trekkies who shop at Talbots. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM. I HATE THEM ALL. … these sack of shit Jane Austen freaks had monopolized the theatre complex to see what must be the eighth or ninth Pride and Prejudice remake in my lifetime. I don’t get it.” That was the gist of…
Olsson/Ottestig/Andersson
For a few years now, Soundtrack of Our Lives co-founder Björn Olsson’s been more interested in making instrumental solo records than anything resembling his old band’s psych-pop shamble. Fortunately for everyone, none of Olsson’s mottled live band soundscapes are ever as hamfisted as the title of his 1999 album, Instrumental Music … to Submerge in…
Deck the dial with pools of vomit
First off, I don’t hate Christmas … not in the way I hate, say, Republicans or yeast infections. I have no reason to hate Christmas. I have kick ass parents, no annoying relatives, and, like everyone else, I love getting presents. I’m not religious, either, but no one need be to celebrate the holiday —…
Proactive
Wrapping up —Temperatures are dropping, and heating prices are rising, so the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services is doing something to help those hurt by weather and greed. ACCESS is accepting donations of new blankets or cash to buy them — at $23 each — for distribution to needy families with children.…
Thug Matrix
Emcees of out Queens-bridge write gritty street tales better than any other lyricists in the game, as if it’s a natural birthright. And old school alum Tragedy Khadafi isn’t about to let the ball drop on his latest, where he and a host of neighborhood friends like Havoc, Cormega and Nature all get on the…
Story time for adults
The staccato beats of drums blend with the rhythms of rattle-like instruments called shakarees, echoing through the small amphitheatre. The tattoo signals the end of one performance and the coming of another, as Ivory D. Williams steps onto a wooden stage and grabs the microphone. His soft voice booms from the speakers above in a…
Falling for Niagara
The legendary Niagara rocks hard, looks fabulous and talks back. A sassy femme fatale from the punk era with an international reputation, she’s a rarity in Detroit — a hardcore female cultural icon in a region that prizes Iggy’s brand of machismo. Celebrated for her brash, idiosyncratic feminist texts emblazoned on sardonic pop portraits of…
The Dust of Retreat
This Indianapolis sextet at first appeared to be jumping aboard the “grad school rock” train, a la the Decemberists — plaintive, nasal male vocals, fanciful and bookish imagery. But rather than sounding too (nauseatingly) clever, this debut succeeds in blending restrained, mournful instrumentation with lyrics that convey real emotion. There are stark acoustic ballads in…
Make a mess, get a reward
The motto of this administration might easily be: failing upward. Of course, that’s not hard when those leading the country into catastrophe are also making the appointments and bestowing the honors. Somewhere in this world of ours there should be at least one Wall of Shame (and perhaps an adjoining Wall of Cronyism) for an…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Weekly fecal
Insipid and, worse, mediocre. Figure in Bang Tango hairball warbler Joe Leste and you have the worst rock ’n’ roll record ever made — ever, ever in the history of music. So what’cha gonna do about it? Art Rambo writes about music for Metro Times. Send comments to letters@metrotimes.com.
Head Cheese
Guitarist Roger McGuinn might be old, but he’s a guitar hero. Remember: As a key Byrd, he fashioned pop timelessness in “Eight Miles High” (dig McGuinn’s guitar emulation of a Coltrane sax solo) and on so many other songs. McGuinn says a Smithsonian Folkways recording of Woody Guthrie inspired his Web site dedicated to the…
Avant in the house
So, just who are Andreas Tilliander and Oliver Hacke? Stockholm-based Tilliander released several influential ambient-hip-hop records (dubbed click-hop) in the late 1990s and early 2000s on Germany’s Mille Plateaux and Raster-Noton labels, and makes grooving soundscapes as Mokira and new music under another pseudonym, Lowfour. Tilliander has never played Detroit, but is excited to play…
Man-beast’s lair
Only one of Centaur’s 13 menu drinks includes any gin, James Bond be damned. Harrington’s trying to lure downtown business types who want a sophisticated setting for their after-work nip, and he’s pleased that patrons are a disparate lot, both in age and ethnicity.
The real exit poll
By now, just about everybody who has been paying the slightest bit of attention has heard about the folks packing up and leaving Detroit. The latest estimate is around 1,200 getting-the-hell-out-of-Detroiters per month, or about 14,000 per year. That means Detroit is losing roughly the population of a small city every year, which should be…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): As I meditated on your immediate future, I got a vision of you making your way through an obstacle course — scurrying across booby-trapped terrains, shimmying through tunnels, climbing over barriers, leaping across ditches. Curiously, there was not the least bit of stress etched on your face. On the contrary, your…
Ghost stories
Morbidly curious Mary Roach, author of The New York Times bestseller Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, tackles a more hopeful subject with her latest book, Spook. What happens when we die? This time around, she’s homing in on age-old questions concerning our souls instead of our physical bodies. She serves as an irreverent…
Junior grows up
Talking to Dinosaur Jr. front man J Mascis is as hard as carrying on a conversation with, say, a WWII vet who might not be all there, or a 5-year-old child. Maybe harder. It’s not because he’s lost or that he’s an idiot. Hardly. It’s because he’s “not very good at communicating.” But that defense isn’t…
Reading Jane Austen at 37,000 Feet
A voice from the flight deck mumbles — something about the weather in Boston — as the plane lumbers into the dawning day above it all, the sniper’s nest in the blue Caprice, endless wars, dead hostages, suicide bombers blowing nailed starbursts through sunblind busses. Jane, how I welcome your astringent lines, sly as a…
The man in … grey?
First things first: Any movie about Johnny Cash that’s worth a damn should be rated R. Certainly there’s enough death, fire …
Essential listening
The buzz over Dinosaur Jr.’s return has been faint. Perhaps it’s overshadowed by the reunion of those other ’80s icons, the Pixies. Listening to the cleaned-up and reissued first three albums, this lack of enthusiasm is disheartening. Dinosaur Jr. was largely responsible for getting the 1980s underground to crank their amps to 11, and in…
Art Bar
In this poem by Pittsburgh resident Jim Daniels, a father struggles to heal his son’s grief after an incident at school. The poem reminds us that when we’re young little things can hurt in a big way. Dim Today my son realized someone’s smarter than him. Not me or his mom — he still thinks…
Heaven and Death
Titling his one-night show after an old Kung Fu film, painter Rico Africa presents new paintings about the cult of consumerism, beauty, glamour and death, under a blacklight installation. His works, both large- and small-scale, feature advertising imagery and text, skulls and flowers. Motor City Brewing Works, 470 W. Canfield, Detroit; 313-832-2700. 7-11 p.m.,…
The Passenger
The execs at Sony Pictures would never admit it, but we most likely have Sofia Coppola to thank for this pristine re-release …
Sliver: The Best of the Box
At least the title isn’t misleading. Of the 81 songs in last year’s stellar With the Lights Out box, the best 18 are rereleased here. The bone of contention is the three "previously unreleased" tracks."Spank Thru" is Kurt Cobain’s first recording foray (from 1985, on a tape titled Fecal Matter), and while slightly different lyrically…
Families & relative dangers
Q: Am I out of bounds if I try to have a dialogue with my nephew about masturbation? He’s 17 years old and I’m 52. I’m also a balanced bisexual male in a good marriage. I masturbate a lot, “in private,” and enjoy pornography sometimes. I have fun, easy orgasms. What is appropriate? My nephew…
Crane Maiden
Detroit Puppet Theatre presents an old Japanese folktale with marionettes and costumed actors about a poor but honest young man who saves the life of a wounded crane, who turns into a beautiful woman, and a greedy neighbor who destroys their love. 25 E. Grand River Ave., Detroit; 313-961-7777. 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov.…
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
With the most recent Harry Potter novel, The Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling once and for all dispelled the notion that …
Free Will Astrology
by Rob Brezsny ARIES (March 21-April 19): The English word “silly” comes from the German “selig,” meaning holy, blissful. In accordance with your current astrological omens, I invite you to seek out experiences that blend the ancient and modern senses of the word. For example, explore the possibility that goofy joy is not at all…
Frogs in the pot
Long ago, a high school biology teacher told me that if you put a frog in a pot of water on the stove and increase the temperature one degree per hour, the frog will allow itself to be cooked without ever realizing it. No, I never tried this at home. But I know that politicians…
Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
If Lenny Bruce had married a Breck Girl, their daughter might look a bit like Sarah Silverman. Adorably perky, with a gleaming …
Living after Blackouts
Bored and raised in Butt Fucking Egypt, on a small farm in the tiny town of Odell, Ill., Living Blue singer-guitarist Stephen Ucherek’s future looked no brighter than selling dime bags in the halls and getting caught finger-banging intoxicated prom queens. The 1979 cult-flick Over the Edge, whose tagline is “a real story of teenage…
Backslash
Dial-a-map — Those who wore born severely directionally impaired were delighted by the advent of online mapping systems, such as mapblast.com, mapquest.com and maps.yahoo.com. Also worth a look is randmcnally.com. The renowned atlas-makers have shifted to the online world, and provide a detailed guide for planning a road trip, including up-to-date information on construction and…
The Dying Gaul
Talk about a mindfuck: Instead of sleeping their way to the top, the characters in the new showbiz drama, The Dying Gaul …
Buy gones
It’s time to do something on the day after Thanksgiving besides trek to the malls for the usual commercial orgy. One idea: Treat your out of town relatives — the same ones who are always making thinly veiled cracks about the Motor City — to the best Detroit has to offer with an afternoon at…
Taylor’s triumph
As we were going to press Monday, News Hits heard from Freman Hendrix that he would seek a recount. He says significant discrepancies exist between computer tallies of votes cast and the actual number of ballots submitted, casting doubt on the outcome of the election. From a narrow and strictly self-interested view, we’re hoping Hendrix…
Ushpizin
Like a Hassidic version of A History of Violence made for the Family Channel, screenwriter Shuli Rand’s comic Yiddish …
Night and Day
Wednesday • 23 Steve Lippia: Celebrates Sinatra MUSIC Frank Sinatra is dead. There’s no getting around it. But for those who consider Ol’ Blue Eyes to be the last of the great entertainers, there’s still a chance to experience the swaggering star’s magic. Tribute artist Steve Lippia not only apes Sinatra with vexing adeptness, his…
Lynching loophole
If the question of who placed a now-infamous anti-Hendrix campaign ad in two local weekly newspapers is keeping you up nights, dear readers, we encourage you to invest in some Nytol. Secretary of state spokesman Ken Silfven told News Hits last week that the SOS won’t be investigating. Here’s the backstory, in case you’ve been…
Beyond the Rocks
If you can imagine every print of Titanic disappearing, never to be seen again for 60 years or so, then you might get …
