Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): For some seekers, spiritual enlightenment is the ultimate commodity. They believe that through diligent meditation and self-improvement, there will come a day when they will finally acquire it, free and clear. It will be theirs forever. Their struggles will be over. But here’s what I have to say about that: arrrgggghh!…
Helping dot-charities
Channel some of that holiday spirit into something other than a Web cash register. This year, let’s give – the ‘Net is the perfect place for charity.
Midnight moon surfing
Their hearts may still be in outer space, but their sound expressions are moving down to earth. After the initial, muffled, band-in-a-mall introductory track, “Pathway to the Infinite,” Man or Astro-Man?’s latest release has cleaner, clearer and more lucid moments for our limited human perceptions to grasp. This could be because much of A Spectrum…
What’s your excuse?
Q: I was hoping you would have some solutions to the complex issues in my relationship with my girlfriend. We’ve been seeing each other for almost two years. For the first three months we had sex several times a day on the weekends with her often initiating it. Since that time, we still see each…
Singing in the rain
Audio junkies are served well at Stormy Records’ new location … flashpapr’s Fred Thomas moves to New York (unfortunately for us) … Artists debate Internet song-sharing … Farewell to Joe C … & more.
Bloody ’ell
There was a time in our history when the masses were into really good bands. Tear-stained, screaming young girls would pull their hair out waiting at the airport for John, Paul, George and Ringo. Radio stations played politically “difficult” music from Bob Dylan in its entirety. And people listened. Everyone’s quick to say those days…
Vegetable treasures
For days when the taste buds cry out for a new flavor, a new texture … Try this virtual treasury of vegetables that run off the beaten path.
Night moves
Glenn Barr’s dark, sexy paintings…
Beyond fashion
Eight years since her last release, Sade returns with every iota of soul and feeling we’ve ever loved her for. There’s something about a great voice married to an infallible rightness of form — it’s the promise that Sade has always kept, even in her more commercial brushes with pop epiphany. Slow funk-jazz, glamorized folk,…
Gifting a geek
Record your thoughts for posterity…
Center of gravity
Coffee, tea or a tattoo?…
Thrifty excess
Garage sale po-mo she-blues troubadour Eleni Mandell sent a quiet ripple through indie circles with down-but-not-out storytelling on her 1998 DIY debut, Wishbone. We heard echoes of PJ Harvey and Liz Phair (as filtered through such songwriters as Rickie Lee Jones and Tom Waits) in Mandell’s gutter-gazing musical wanderings. With the follow-up, Thrill, these patron…
Gifting health nuts
Clean out your ears the old-fashioned way…
Bellyacher in chief
John Engler thinks Gore‘s a sore loser?…
Ringside boos & bravos
It screams attention, like The Godfather: Part 2 — or so Midway would like the unsuspecting player to believe. But viewing “Ready to Rumble Boxing: Round 2” with even one eye open will reveal its shortcomings most effortlessly, making a Godfather 3 comparison a bit more appropriate (you know, the critically bashed box-office crumb). First,…
Gifting political theorists
Your Electoral College questions answered…
Royal Oak hot potato
City decides to pass on equal-rights ordinance…
One-way ticket
Maybe I’m spoiled by Detroit techno and house. Perhaps I’m just blind to the intense soul that drives the dance magazine-dominating genre that is Euro-trance. Why is it, though, that I can’t fight my recurring daydream in which I take every trendy trance DJ to the filthy Packard plant, tie them to a subwoofer and…
Gifting art snobs
Gaze in awe at truly bad art…
Spot to kill
Poorly placed casino ad causes listeners to cringe…
This Is Adelaide
Experiencing the structured clash of This Is Adelaide is akin to the first time you graphed a parabola: very structured, very nerdy, very magical. The band forms elaborate yet fathomable instrumental phrases and adds voice (either spoken, sung or screamed) only when appropriate. The music has a seriousness and tense sense of purpose, but it’s…
After the firestorm
Polly Jean Harvey estimates the damage, and returns to St. Andrews Hall for an intimate session with her feverish fans.
Access denied
Officer Eugene Brown’s record remains hidden…
Hey there, kids!
This sure-footed Disney concoction, easily blending canine afection and human romance with thrills and humor, opens on a fascinating note: Cruella De Vil (Glenn Close) has been rehabilitated.
They roll! They score!
The goal of wheelchair hockey is fun, but the competition is fierce … fast, aggressive and intense.
No shit?
Conner Creek cleanup worries residents…
Rififi
American director Jules Dassin’s best work remains his early artful genre pieces, withRififi – the classic model of the heist movie, it’s centerpiece a nearly 30-minute bank job done sans dialogue – offering the grim satisfaction of watching imaginary characters come to a bad end.
ZONES photocaps
Alessi Memory Containers Leap into the 21st century with Alessi’s updated metallic finishes. These footed "Chimu" bowls, designed by Joanna Lyle, are almost too pretty to be used for anything but perhaps channeling messages from outer space. But turn on your practical side, and the steely blue or warm gold finishes (new to Alessi this…
What’s the big hurry?
The media’s premature anointing of Bush as president-elect has distorted our perception of what has happened since, and seriously threatens to taint the outcome. Plus: Royal Oak’s mayor wimps out.
Transit madness
Detroiters urged to fight for mass transit…
The Horse Thief
Visually, Chinese director Tian Zhuangzhuang’s only movie to be released in the West is, to revive an overworked word, awesome. He knows how to evoke the melancholy of distance, the terrible placidity of seasonal changes and the overwhelming strangeness of abundant nature.
ZONES Introindux
Welcome to ZONES. It’s a different way of looking at home and fashion, brought to you by the Metro Times. This season is all about coming in from the cold. Finding a warm hearth. Gathering, in twos and threes and more. Finding the bright spots in candlelight and glitter, and keeping our spirits alive until…
The right to be heard
The Florida Supreme Court’s ruling sums up what this whole political soap opera is all about, and what it should have always been about since the beginning: the right of the voters to have their voices count.
Force the season
Bring spring to winter with a few fragrant bulbs….
Ringside boos & bravos
It screams attention, like The Godfather: Part 2 — or so Midway would like the unsuspecting player to believe. But viewing “Ready to Rumble Boxing: Round 2” with even one eye open will reveal its shortcomings most effortlessly, making a Godfather 3 comparison a bit more appropriate (you know, the critically bashed box-office crumb). First,…
Gathering at ground zero
Somehow, the party always ends up in the kitchen….
Upscale junkfood
Time for another trip into the far, far, far-out frontiers of free enterprise. Today, Spaceship Hightower takes you into the near future where you can see: “7-Eleven: The Next Generation.” Yes, the ubiquitous, megachain of some 20,000 7-Eleven (cq) convenience stores littering the landscape is planning for a whole new generation of stuff to sell…
Delightful zabaglione
Imaginative dishes enjoyed in a simple but elegant white-tablecloth setting. The short menu includes a surprising number of vegetarian options, and the desserts (all made in-house) are exceptionally mouth-watering.
Hey there, kids!
Director Ron Howard succesfully showcases Jim Carrey’s antic gifts but fails miserably in building a coherrent movie around him. It doesn’t help that Howard trowels on thick, gooey sentimentality.
Stepping out
Film noir and gender-bending inform a current fashion sensibility, for a timeless expression of eroticism.
Letters to the Editor
Flunking College So Jack Lessenberry thinks that the 18th century slaveholding elitists who fashioned the constitutional provisions for the Electoral College should be praised for their handiwork ("Electoral College cheer," MT, Nov. 15-21)! In the face of democratic movements throughout the 20th century that struggled for “one person, one vote,” Lessenberry tries to justify an…
Shiny, happy heartbreaker
The Fletcher Pratt’s neo-mod style has been polished to brilliant perfection on its first full-length release. A British pop label seems a good match for a band with strong Beatles-Kinks influences and a tendency to start off songs with a Who-style guitar explosion. The band has a strong personality of its own, though — a…
This is the end
With the rise of the World Wide Web and alternative media, a cottage industry of publishing houses, Web sites, and TV shows have sprouted forth to alert bored and paranoid individuals of the bizarre and abnormal place our world has become. Once the province of homemade fanzines and renegade booksellers such as Amok and Loompanics,…
All that glitters
Dress to excess for your winter holiday best….
Camera solos
Detroit Focus 2000’s “Photography & Music” captures the sounds we saw, with a jam session of images — rock stars, blues greats and much more.
Frosted flowers
Winter is the season for armchair gardening — those long, delicious hours spent poring over a seed catalog, imagining what you’ll plant next year and listing the varieties of vegetables and flowers you absolutely must order. But even — or especially — when there’s a foot of snow on the ground, there’s no reason —…
This is the end
With the rise of the World Wide Web and alternative media, a cottage industry of publishing houses, Web sites, and TV shows have sprouted forth to alert bored and paranoid individuals of the bizarre and abnormal place our world has become. Once the province of homemade fanzines and renegade booksellers such as Amok and Loompanics,…
To the moon and back
The spectacular spectacle of Sarah Brightman’s “La Luna in Concert” — this week on PBS.
Gifting spiritual flakes
Don’t let your future bug you…
Another Ah-nold
In the near future, the first human cloning attempt fails, prompting the federal prohibition of future attempts — but laws are made to be broken. Director Roger Spottiswoode (Tomorrow Never Dies) creates a credible, brave new world that surprises, thrills and puzzles — with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Kentucky vampire blues
For those of you who have a nagging feeling that America is sinking into a swamp of paranoia and madness, let journalist Daniel Jeffries confirm your fears by shining his flashlight on the delusional opossum scuttling over America’s Back Porch: bloodthirsty teen vampires of Kentucky, drunken jail guards wrestling de-clawed bears in bars, Check-A-Mate sex…
Splash Gordon
Q: My boyfriend of nine years (we’ve lived together for two years) often isn’t the neatest when he urinates. He frequently leaves droplets on the ceramic lip of the toilet and tracks down the outer sides of the bowl. I think this is gross and completely uncalled-for. When I confronted him about his incredible breach…
Pig-outs, parties and profits
After awakening from a post-turkey coma, Ms. Klein visits the loungey Carbon and the musician-packed Majestic Theatre Complex … & challenges Jerry Peterson and John Badanjek to settle their differences manually.
Glory at the highest
Throughout the continent, many Africans believe that the head is where wisdom is housed, and is also the entrance and exit point of the spirits. Therefore, the head is afforded special attention. The hair is adorned directly — or the cranium is crowned with elaborate headdresses constructed of matter possessing the power to bridge the…
