Alice Coltrane in Wonderland
Johnny Loftus writes: Ever the jazz purist curmudgeon, our man Charles Latimer checks in with this review of Alice Coltrane’s Sept. 23 performance at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor: I should really stop getting excited about jazz shows, because I’m usually disappointed when they finally occur. Alice Coltrane’s performance Saturday evening at Hill Auditorium, in…
Red and White with Envy
After a ten-year run and a staggering stroke of success and luck; it wasn’t the law suits, the Grammys, Hollywood, the bad blood, the mug shots, the hyperbole or the gossip that made it feel officially “over.” It was this that put an end to the Detroit Garage Movement we once knew and loved. Car…
Who has the better idea?
Imagine that you are feeling a little down, nothing terrible, but you decide to go to the doctor and get things checked out. The news is stunningly bad. Turns out that you have cancer. Bad cancer. You will soon be very sick, much sicker than now, no matter what you do. Your only hope of…
The Gridiron Gang
The recipe is familiar: Mix a group of troubled teens with a hardnosed-but-softhearted football coach. Add a few heart-stopping football plays, sprinkle liberally with swelling orchestral music and simmer until redemption is achieved. Voila: box office gold (hopefully). The problem with Gridiron Gang isn’t that you see every chest-thumping, lump-in-your-throat moment coming from a mile…
Premiere theater
Take a deep breath: The theater season is upon us, promising original plays, emerging actors and twists on revivals to entice us into the dark. This season is stronger than ever in classics — with such American works as Arthur Miller’s The Price and Eugene O’Neill’s great Long Day’s Journey Into Night, and with the…
The lessons of Stringer Bell
How could they kill Stringer Bell? How could they do it?I’m still trying to adjust. If you’re a fan of HBO’s The Wire, you can relate to my distress. If not, then let me say briefly that this is one of the best TV programs in a long, long time. To call it a cop…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Go against the flow. Buck the system. Entertain the possibility that everything you know is at least half-wrong. Do you catch my drift, Aries? What I’m trying to tell you is, champion the underdog. Ignore the obvious. Disprove the conventional wisdom. Bet on the dark horse. Be a devil’s advocate. Shall…
Creative complex
Last year at the Detroit Artists Market’s exhibition Metalize, Evan Larson stretched me out as far as I could go in defining the role of art in culture. We talked for hours and I was inspired by his poetic investigation of his craft and walked away with a mind-blowing reading list. In the show, he…
Monkeying around
I once heard legendary critic Clement Greenberg say he didn’t look at work by people younger than 35 because he felt they hadn’t lived long enough to be able to express anything artistically worthwhile. It was with relief that I later confirmed Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he shot himself. Megan Harris is in…
Motor City Rides
Nine bills got Von Bondies guitarist Marcie Bolen a caddy.
It’s only make-believe
Ann Gordon’s new series Parts, picturing dismembered pieces of animals, is reminiscent of the perverse childhood pleasure of biting the head off a hollow chocolate Easter Bunny. Or viciously twisting Barbie’s head, arms and legs. Or whatever violent fantasies guys played out with their G.I. Joes. Who hasn’t tortured inanimate objects? Still, when an adult…
Night and Day
Wednesday • 20 Tatsuya Nakatani Music Percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani has played with some of the most out outcats (see Peter Brotzmann and Assif Tshar) and also with Yukijurushi, a New York bossa nova outfit so laid back that on some record tracks you swear they must be lying down to play. So you know Nakatani’s…
Quick-change artist
John Azoni is still a student at the College for Creative Studies — a precocious, perceptive and prolific student. Keep your eye on him because he moves fast. He is not the stereotypical lazy art student. Responding to a last-minute cancellation, Azoni filled a large gallery at Pontiac’s Museum of New Art in August. OK,…
Lay it as it plays
For the fall arts issue, the task at hand for a few Metro Times critics was to simply pick artists they favor and explain why. I never expected six essays about Jim Henson’s severed limbs and machines that mock and mess up mankind, but that seems to be the shape of things to come this…
His own country
One of the standouts in the recent Detroit Artists Market’s That Dam Box Show was an untitled piece by Miroslav Cukovic. It featured the small metal box given to all the artists, in this case, painted gold. The box was strapped to the top of an upright 2-by-4 with blue painter’s tape, a set of…
A bad rap
As unusual as it may seem to some to utter the terms “peace” and “hip hop” in the same sentence, there’s a Wayne State University student hip-hop arts organization keen to change that. With the second installment of its ZigiDeeBooM Hip Hop Fest, the organization Project: A.R.T. hopes to dispel the connection between hip-hop culture…
Head Cheese
SASS is a monthly conceived of and hosted by Mike Servito and Nathan Rapport, two Dorkwave affiliates who wanted a gay night that was also everyone-friendly — one that didn’t pimp Cher and flaccid trance music exclusively. This month’s event, “Jake Ryan,” is named for that most inimitable of ’80s dreamboats, and you can expect…
Future block
About 30 years ago, Sandor “Sandy” Shapery saw a Nova television show about trains that cruised on magnetic cushions at mind-boggling speed instead of chugging along on steel wheels. Impressed by the revolutionary technology, the southern Californian decided to keep a close eye on their progress, waiting for the day when that innovative promise on…
Ravi’s giant steps
Back in 1991, when saxophonist Ravi Coltrane first moved to New York City to play with renowned jazz drummer Elvin Jones, he didn’t harbor any lofty aspirations of becoming an overnight sensation. In fact, Coltrane initially declined the offer — he felt he was just too inexperienced to play in Jones’ band. He was John…
Letters to the Editor
Prurient pandering Brian Smith must be admired and complimented for his stunning journalistic accomplishment in the piece, “Transformer” (Metro Times, Sept. 13). His remarkable skill as a writer isn’t easily ignored. And yet I am sorry to report that the trans community is largely distraught over the article, as well as my own role in…
Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout
S’wonderful! S’marvellous! S’MB87! The Gersch — The Gersch (Tortuga) :: Pinioned pig on the front. Hung human on the back. Pseudo demento guitar rock betwixt. The Win — The Win (Georgeira) :: Geddit? Blacklisted — The Beat Goes On (Deathwish) :: Dumb keep poundin’ jism to the lame. Jim Noir — Tower of Love (My…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
American Life in Poetry
Li-Young Lee, who lives in Chicago, evokes through the use of carefully chosen images a culture, a time of day and an understanding of love through the quiet observation of gesture. Early in the Morning While the long grain is softening in the water, gurgling over a low stove flame, before the salted Winter Vegetable…
Food Stuff
Full plates for local foodies.
When personals go public
Q: I’d love to hear you weigh in on the case of Jason Fortuny, the person who posted an ad on Craigslist posing as a woman looking for a dom male, and then posted all of the responses, including the pictures some men sent him. As a person who receives voluminous amounts of damaging and…
Swiss bliss
This oddly named, vaguely Swiss-looking structure just south of 14 Mile Road holds a full-service restaurant with pretensions of culinary respectability, as well as a boisterous, smoky watering hole with sports featured round-the-clock on multiple screens. The spot offers interesting fare that transcends pub grub, with generously proportioned appetizers that average around $8, surprisingly close…
Market forces
Kate Beebe discusses Eastern Market’s revamp.
Brutal reality
Filmmaker Deborah Scranton gained access to a New Hampshire Army National Guard unit during a 2004 deployment to Iraq, and distributed mini DV cameras and helmet mounts to the soldiers. The result is a harrowing and intensely intimate view of combat that puts the viewer in the front seat of Humvees during frantic patrols of…
It’s Seger country!
If this weren’t Detroit but Gainesville, Fla., or Fresno, Calif., or Tucumcari, N.M., Bob Seger might be just another Steve Miller. He’d be another beard on the radio, an interchangeable classic rocker providing the soundtrack to your oil change. But this is Detroit, and around here, the Seeg is revered. It’s larger than his localized…
The House of Sand
Set in 1910 in a Brazilian desert, Waddington’s multigenerational tale of mothers and daughters is both spare and epic in scope. In the first 10 minutes, the director establishes a desolate tone: Crazed Vasco (Ruy Guerra) has decided to move his pregnant young bride, Aurea (Fernanda Torres), and her mother (Fernanda Montenegro) to the middle…
All dolled up
When she talks to you, Mary Fortuna’s voice has a businesslike, bell-true clarity, a precise, energetic intelligence as if she’s engaged in some private mission. She knows how to use language as a net to trap prey. It’s not exactly we who are her prey, but some elusive state of being. Her art might serve…
The Black Dahlia
In his adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel — a fictionalized account of the still unsolved murder of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short — Brian De Palma pays his respects to a beloved film genre while indulging in his obsession with sordid sex and sleazy politics. Lavish and authentic, De Palma navigates us through the nightmarish landscape…
Twist & shout
You may see a tired man leaning back in a restaurant booth or standing lazily in line at a store. At his side, way down below him, is his daughter. She tries desperately to get his attention. He ignores her, and her pleas can be painful to watch. But you will never know that earlier…
The Last Kiss
In this film, lovable Zach Braff goes from sweet to lowdown, shaking off his sweet persona to play a complete jerk. And, showing he does have some range, he executes it rather well. The movie, however, has too much range, like a screwball guy flick masquerading as a grown-up dramedy. The cast of characters is…
