in related news …
So yeah, I’ve been delinquent in posting here … and in related news, Orlando Weekly’s annual dining guide, BITE, will be included in the April 30 issue of the paper. In addition to hundreds of mini-reviews of Orlando-area restaurants, this year BITE interviewed some top local chefs about what and where they eat when they’re…
This will work, no question
Remember how Republicans spent the latter half of 2008 telling the American people that Barack Obama was a scary “socialist,” and he won rather handily anyway? Well, never ones to learn a lesson, the idiot wing of the Republican Party is back at it, this time introducing a resolution officially labeling the Democratic Party as…
Morning in America
Perhaps it’s not so much news that Barack Obama is still popular – 64 percent according to the most recent AP and Gallup polls, 63 percent by Pew and an outlying 54 percent from our Republican friends at Rasmussen. You could argue that he’s still getting a honeymoon, although the right has already jumped that…
Mad city
Factually loose true story of homeless musical genius entertains
Less than heroes
Bret Easton Ellis’ adaptation his own book suffers from 20/20 hindsight
Last tango
Workers unite in mediocre new French film
This Little Underground
Attention! Next month, three (!!!) notable music fests — Florida Music Festival (May 13-16), Orange You Glad Fest (May 14-17) and World’s Gone Wiggly (May 15-17) — will occur at the same damned time, a circumstance that’s as glorious as it is maddening. More expansive coverage on ’em later, but I’m serving official advance notice…
Live Active Cultures
Auto manufacturers. Newspaper publishers. Opera companies. Across our economic ecosystem, once-untouchable giants are gasping their last. If evolution has taught us anything (an iffy proposition in Florida), it’s that when dinosaurs die off, smaller species have an opportunity to expand. The scrappy mammals likely to survive our current industrial apocalypse are those able to harness…
Happytown
Was it less than a year ago that we singled out The Bantering Idiots as the best new show on 91.5-FM WPRK, Rollins College’s beloved basement radio station? Indeed. Last year’s Best of Orlando issue `July 17`, in fact. We liked the fresh, raw perspective the comedy show brought — a little spice in the…
Police Beat
April 10 (2009-167909) 8:52 a.m.: “An unknown suspect burglarized the Orlando Housing Authority administration office. … The suspect gained entry through a window and took a set of keys.” Not to generalize or anything, but honestly, if you plan to steal from an OHA home, what kind of loot are you expecting? (2009-168638) 6:35 p.m.:…
Comments
System down I’ve worked for the Department of Children and Families, and I know how broken that system is `”Swallowed by the cracks,” April 16`. Caseworkers are overwhelmed with too many cases to manage — the average when I was there was 60 to 80, or potentially over 100-plus kids under state review per caseworker…
Wag the dog
Musical virtuoso and former guitarist for legendary prog-punk band Television Richard Lloyd hasn’t gotten where he is by letting his guitar control him. His best friend as a teenager, according to a legend Lloyd himself has recently fostered, was a young kid named Velvert Turner, whom Lloyd claims is the only authenticated protégé of Jimi…
Leaving Omaha
The sea has rolled over and the water turned black. The sun glinting off the short, choppy waves is the only color in the void. This is the dark, haunting image that greets us on the cover of Cursive’s new record, Mama, I’m Swollen, and it is a perfect indicator of what awaits inside. Cursive…
Special Event: Where the girls are
Where the girls are Romantic Times Booklovers Convention April 22-26 Wyndham Orlando Resort $490; 314-630-5856 www.rtconvention.com Three years ago, former Orlando Weekly staff writer James Carlson attended the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention held in Daytona Beach. Even years later, his cover story, “Conventional romance” (June 22, 2006), continues to stimulate responses from romance writers and…
Visual Arts: Church and country
Church and county ‘Art Glass in Orange County’ www.ocfl.net/artglass Art culture tends to run in trends, so prepare for less puppet frenzy and more “art glass” in the near future. Now that Orlando Museum of Art has extended until Oct. 4 its customized installation by glass artist Therman Statom, it’s a no-brainer that OMA’s executive…
Visual Arts:Special T’s
Special T’s Brice Stephens Through May 21 Mother Falcon Clothing 888 E. Washington St. 407-423-3060 www.motherfalconclothing.com The traffic on Orange Avenue was a honking mess last week, presumably because it was Third Thursday, and parking spots were impossible to find near the CityArts Factory nexus. One quick turn took us to the other side of…
Our Dumb State Vol. 5
As we’ve chronicled, you, dear Floridian, have suffered more than your share of tough times and outright stupidity these last few years. If it’s not the plummeting housing market, it’s a diaper-clad astronaut driving 18 hours to confront her astronaut boyfriend at Orlando International Airport. If it’s not the 10 percent unemployment rate and a…
‘It’s not against any race’
It seemed like such a good idea, initially. In 2003, the residents of the Wadeview neighborhood, a quiet community of middle-income, middle-aged homeowners just east of downtown Orlando, gladly signed on for the development of luxury townhouses that would sell for $450,000 a pop on a four-acre lot between East Crystal Lake Street and East…
Blister
Everything is unraveling in a most inglorious fashion. All of the multicolored prescription capsules that weave around like DNA science fair projects between my ears are staging miniature revolutions. I’m thinking too much; I’m blank; I’m thinking too much; I’m blank. This is what it feels like when something essential snaps apart and all of…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Astrology and Tarot cards are my favorite divinatory tools, but I also get a lot of use out of magnetic poetry kits (boxes full of evocative words in the form of refrigerator magnets). Sometimes after analyzing your astrological omens, I’ll close my eyes, beam a question out into the ether and…
Savage Love
My boyfriend refuses to have any kind of intercourse with me while my Aunt Flo is visiting. I’m not asking to have sex on my heavy days, just at the beginning and tail ends of my period. He says it’s disgusting, even if he wears a condom, and that it makes his stomach turn to…
