Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In *Madison* magazine, William Stadiem described Aries actress Robin Wright Penn as "the most beautiful surgically unenhanced woman on screen." I nominate her to be your role model. May she inspire you to reject the pressure to be anything other than exactly who you are. May her example give you the…
Tumor humor
Only a generation ago, the medical field was held in high esteem. From Sinclair Lewis’ Arrowsmith to the wacky but noble savages of M.A.S.H., doctors and researchers have enjoyed stellar reputations. But in the age of HMOs and pharmaceutical giants, it seems that this longstanding good will has all but evaporated. A case in point…
A funny bunny
Thanks to the Viennese art group Gelatin, a giant pink bunny lies on the side of Colletto Fava mountain, near northern Italy’s Piedmont region, where it is to remain for the next 20 years. The 200-foot-long woolen animal was installed officially on Sept. 18, and will undoubtedly turn into a molding corpse within the next…
Metro Retro
20 years ago this week in Metro Times: A sprawling essay focuses on the work of Detroit-area architect Minoru Yamasaki, designer of the headquarters of the Michigan Consolidated Gas Co. at 1 Woodward Ave. Four months later, Yamasaki would die of cancer at 73, and 16 years later, his most famous work, the World Trade…
Backslash
Still pissed off about the last presidential election? Join the club. Or rather, join the folks at www.blackboxvoting.org in taking a critical look at the way elections in our country are run (or mis-run). Black Box Voting is a nonprofit organization, billing itself as “the official consumer protection group for elections.” The site has a…
Catchy words
A virus operates autonomously, attaching itself to and feeding off hosts, growing and spreading. It is with this in mind that the creators of languageisavirus.com produced a Web site featuring toys, games and gizmos to treat the imagination and serve as literary inspiration. The site features a wide variety of writing activities for visitors, from…
Same-sex unions a slippery slope?
Q: I fully support gay rights and wrote a letter to the prime minister — I’m up in Canada — supporting gay marriage. But whenever I get into debates about the issue with right-wing acquaintances, they bring up “the thin edge of the wedge” and insist that gay marriage will lead to polygamy. This leaves…
Time to talk, Freman
With Detroit’s general election less than six weeks away, it’s time to revisit our endorsement of Freman Hendrix to replace Kwame Kilpatrick as mayor of what’s now the poorest, most dysfunctional, most racially segregated city in America. We made the endorsement before the ugly August primary, in which candidates Sharon McPhail and Hansen Clarke were…
Song of Katrina
It’s funny how hip hop and politics sometimes come together. No sooner than Kanye West was on TV jawing about his disdain of President George W. Bush than the hip-hop community at large began taking relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina as a personal responsibility. Some of hip hop’s more obscure figures, like Baby,…
Art Bar
American Life in Poetry Descriptive poetry depends for its effects in part upon the vividness of details. Here Virginia poet Claudia Emerson describes the type of old building all of us have seen but may not have stopped to look at carefully — and thoughtfully. Stable One rusty horseshoe hangs on a nail above the…
Italian zing
La Zingara serves wonderfully simple appetizers that rely on the excellence of their ingredients and terrific pizzas. Their best-selling pie is Quattro Stagioni (Four Seasons), with ham, artichokes and black olives. The prosciutto pizza doesn’t stint on that salt-cured delicacy; a thin sheet is laid over each slice, for plenty of salty, gamy flavor. This…
Queen of the doorstoppers
Amid 300 gray- and white-haired folks, mostly from the suburban east side of Detroit, the prolific American writer Joyce Carol Oates made a rare and welcome return to metropolitan Detroit to give a reading from her latest novel, Missing Mom (Ecco, $25.95, 448 pp.), at the Grosse Pointe War Memorial recently. A long preamble established…
Bearing it all
The title of Robert Schefman’s painting, “Personal Baggage,” is a double entendre — a rather obvious one. The artist pictures himself in a suit and tie at an airport carousel, struggling to claim his luggage, a naked version of himself. But here’s what makes this picture fascinating (and so much fun to look at): his…
The gay blade?
This low-budget slasher flick advertises itself as the first-ever gay horror movie, hardly a milestone in queer culture. Gay or straight, any slasher flick worth its running time should deliver the goods, and this one doesn’t. There’s no bloodletting for about 40 minutes, and, in the meantime, the banter among the straight-acting hotties is, to…
Blood money
It cost only about 30 cents to pulverize Angela Forton’s teenage jaw, the worst of three wounds inflicted on her with an investment that can be counted in pocket change, and a little finger pressure. She’ll never regain the life she had before it happened, and her future was irrevocably changed. What could be made…
Alternate planes
Imagine you’re artist Jane Lackey, awarded a six-month residency at the prestigious Carmargo Foundation in the south of France — with your rooms overlooking the Mediterranean, a daily diet of Provençal fare fresh from the market, and your fellow residents a community of brilliant writers, art historians and philosophers. It’s wonderful while it lasts, but…
Memory of a Killer
The centerpiece of this slick and sleazy Belgian thriller is Jan Decleir’s performance as Angelo Ledda, a hit man experiencing the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Adapted from a popular Belgian crime novel, the film has its share of action-thriller clichés (Ledda is at times almost superhuman in his ability to get out of tight situations)…
The new New Orleans
Editor’s note: This is an edited version of the fourth in a series of stories being written by the editor of Gambit Weekly, an alternative paper in News Orleans. “Why is this our problem? I say this to Cindy. My family and I have been in her home in Carencro, La., about 150 miles…
Lofty goals
The other project keeping Lemberg Gallery busy this month is an installation of four of their artists’ works in the 400 Parent St. loft development model in Royal Oak. Paintings by Beverly Fishman, Matthew Penkala and Janet Hamrick, and prints by Susan Goethel Campbell not only finish the space, they enrich it in ways good…
Zazie dans le Metro
It’s not hard to imagine that a film about the escapades of a precocious tyke scampering through the streets of gay Paree could descend into the saccharine. Fortunately, Louis Malle’s 1960 film Zazie dans le Metro does not become overly schmaltzy. Unfortunately, however, it does become a bit blasé, which is quite a feat for…
Soil toil
What’s keeping Detroit’s land bank from getting off the ground?
Go all the way
It’s a Wednesday morning somewhere in the American South, on the current leg of the Posies’ taxing North American tour, and as a kind gesture from a usually uncaring universe, it’s the band’s day off. Ken Stringfellow’s off in search of sustenance, which he eventually finds in the form of a cheese steak and coffee,…
The Corpse Bride
It’s probably unfair to compare Tim Burton’s new film to his instant classic, The Nightmare before Christmas, but it can’t be helped. The director wears his fetishes on his sleeve, and his latest stop-action exercise in quirky misanthropy and macabre humor doesn’t have quite the same sparkle or wit as his cleverly creepy Christmastime confection…
Blackwater surprise
The rise of corporate armies and Michigan’s mercenary entrepreneur.
Being green
Just because they’re the White Stripes’ opening act, don’t let any “next Stripes” hype fool you. Judged for their Puritan-like work ethic in constant touring, three absolutely ace studio albums, and their indefinable yet palpable yeah, man brand of charisma, the Greenhornes long ago reached the top rungs of the garage-rock ladder. Not for nothing…
A History of Violence
With more than a nod to Hitchcock and Sam Peckinpah, the film gooses the “wrong man” theme with unexpected jolts of intense violence and candid sexuality. Though it’s meticulously paced and expertly crafted, the straightforward plot may strike some Cronenberg fans as rather conventional for the director. But the film’s carefully rendered subtext and uniformly…
Bus-ted
Whirlwind of protests in Washington, D.C.
Kids’ stuff
Adult perceptions of childhood generally fall into two categories: the cute and the cool. On the one hand is the romantic ideal of what social historian Gary Cross calls “wondrous innocence,” feelings of magic and awe that adults lose as they grow up. On the other is the desire for the new and the daring,…
Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D
Call it boyhood-wish fulfillment or the sound of a higher calling, but ever since Tom Hanks played an astronaut in Apollo 13, he’s been an unrepentant NASA booster and celebrity cheerleader for space exploration. His love affair continues in this lavish celebration of the Apollo program, which makes the most of the IMAX format and…
In The Flesh
Bloc Party with the Kills Royal Oak Music Theatre Tuesday, Sept. 13 Like the split-second instant before a head-on car collision, the Kills were eerily clear. Lead singer VV shook and shaked like PJ Harvey, while guitarist Hotel sported a guitar tone sharp as a broken Bud bottle. By slamming their latest single (“Your Love…
Savage & son
Dan Savage is the king of kink. His weekly sex advice column, “Savage Love,” is syndicated to 70 newspapers worldwide (including this one — see page 74). These days, when he’s not fielding questions on everything from anal tampon insertion to zoophilia, Savage is touring to promote his fourth book, The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage,…
Flightplan
Jodie Foster’s latest suspense thriller isn’t going to be an in-flight movie anytime soon. In 93 short minutes, Flightplan manages to exploit every air-travel anxiety Americans have had since 9/11 — passenger fistfights, undercover air marshals, racial profiling, shoe-bomber-style explosives and supposedly bulletproof cockpit doors. All the hot-button issues are lined up like dominoes by…
Head Cheese
You’ve heard of spry rappers Northern State, three women who, as Metro Times said, “set out to crash hip-hop’s sausage party with some roof- and consciousness-raising feminism.” Emcees Hesta Prynn, Spero and Sprout are hardly prison-tatted hip-hop minxes in Chanel; rather, they’re schooled Long Islanders into Sylvia Plath and using skillfully sugar-caked imagery to goof…
Marks for Antony
Antony Hegarty is a gracious winner. He’s also a cunningly quotable winner. When he and his group, the Johnsons, recently captured the Mercury Music Prize for I Am a Bird Now, given each year for the best album by a British or Irish act, he said, “They must have made a mistake.” He praised competing…
Roll Bounce
The movie is a sweet-natured, summery blast from the past, and mostly irresistible for the first half, at least to anyone old enough to remember a time when kids skated through the streets with transistor radios plastered to their ears. Unfortunately, in the last half, the movie piles on the Big Dramatic Moments, so much…
Night and Day
Friday • 30 Dave Chappelle COMEDY In the ’70s, Richard Pryor jolted the comedy world with his unapologetically brutal sense of humor. These days, Dave Chappelle wears the rabble-rouser hat. And even after signing a $50-million Comedy Central contract and proceeding to freak out before delivering a single show, Chappelle is still everyone’s favorite envelope-pusher.…
Detroit on a string
Twenty or so kids shuffle into Detroit’s PuppetART Theatre like a gaggle of ducks wading into a pond. Little do they know they’re entering a magical place, a drama house where one can almost smell the global and exotic aura of Old World puppetry. In the colorful double lobby outside the 70-seat theater, children and…
Dear identities
Since releasing Leave Luck to Heaven in 2003 and Backstroke in 2004 — two critically acclaimed records that brought micro-house as close as it ever got to the mainstream — Detroit’s Matthew Dear has had little time to be himself. He’s recorded as False for Richie Hawtin’s Minus/Plus 8 label, still keeps the moniker Jabberjaw…
Proactive
Health wise — The problem is health insurance. More specifically, the lack of health insurance. To address the problem, the state is engaging in a yearlong effort to “develop a plan that will result in health coverage for all Michigan residents.” Not to sound too cynical, but Proactive will believe that one when we see…
Repeal term limits now
If you need any further proof that the stars are out of alignment, that global warming has changed everything, and that the son of Satan is hiding in a stand of cattails somewhere near Wyandotte, here it is. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce is pushing a good idea. It wants to change the law that…
Raw Dog Artist
The cover reads, “Death-Troit Shitty (murder capitol 2004) presents,” and the lead song, “Suck and Fuck,” is a grim ode to rectal mayhem: “Bitch could you give up the ass on the first date/And if you try to make a nigger wait/I’ll put some shit in your drink, and date rape.” Detroit’s Raw Dog (Big…
Letters to the Editor
Still up in the air Many thanks for the Northwest Airlines mechanics benefit story (“Solidarity forsaken,” Metro Times, Aug. 31). It was a great event (although our head count was somewhat higher than reported) and a much needed morale booster for the beleaguered mechanics and cleaners. The public face of this strike has been overwhelmed…
Grudge match
You wouldn’t describe college football as the pros’ little brother. There’s simply too much collegiate excitement in regional rivalries and conference championships for that. But as far as video game franchises go, Madden NFL has continually kicked its college brethren’s ass. Madden has become a fan and sales juggernaut — annual updates make it a…
Cole’s Corner
Cole’s Corner depicts Richard Hawley in front of a theater, flowers in hand. He’s waiting for someone. Sadly, the same bouquet’s in the dustbin on the back. She’s stood him up again. And that’s the story of Hawley’s life, or at least his characters. Cole’s Corner, the fourth solo effort from Pulp’s touring guitarist, brims…
Comics
The Boiling Point – by Mikhaela Reid The Perry Bible Fellowship – by Nicholas Gurewitch
Media Blackout
It’s the orally fixated edition of MB46! • The Amino Acids — Destroy the Warming Sun! (Bowlophonic) :: And you thought Apple was a stupid name for a record label. • The Ribeye Brothers — Bar Ballads and Cautionary Tales (Times Beach) :: They pump a hot Farfisa and aren’t afraid to quote Roberto Duran…
Superlungs
You’ll recognize Terry Reid on an elemental level. When his blues wail rises on a torrent of unknown vowels, or he caresses the buzz of the amplifiers in a fey British lilt, Reid oftentimes sounds like the wild seed of Robert Plant and Donovan. He was a contemporary of both — Reid was Jimmy Page’s…
