Morning roundup
Tom Gallagher gets desperate, and goes hard right. Charlie Crist, as it turns out, loves gay people and Howard Dean. Gary Siplin gets his day in court, and denies improperly using state-paid employees on his reelection campaign. New airport rules slow traffic to a crawl. And here I was, listening to George Bush, thinking that…
BEST-KEPT SECRET
The Keep Publishing House: Knopf Rated: NONE WorkNameSort: Keep, The The paperback edition of Jennifer Egan’s Look at Me contains an afterword, written more than a year after the novel’s January 2001 release, in which she allows ‘it may be nearly impossible to read about [a terrorist character] outside the context of Sept. 11.â?� This…
SECOND VERSE, AS GOOD AS THE FIRST
The Sound of No Hands Clapping Publishing House: Da Capo/Perseus WorkNameSort: Sound of No Hands Clapping, The Unless you’re a first-person prodigy along the lines of Mark Twain or David Sedaris, is there any reason to have published TWO memoirs by the age 42? Exceptions can be made for those reared by paraplegic kangaroos, but…
TOWERS OF BABBLE
A former agitator’s Sept. 11 drama is Stone deaf to context
Step Up
Step Up Studio: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution Rated: PG-13 Cast: Channing Tatum, Jenna Dewan, Rachel Griffiths, Mario , Drew Sidora Director: Anne Fletcher WorkNameSort: Step Up Our Rating: 2.00 Step right up â?¦ and reacquaint yourself with every dream-in-my-heart, rhythm-in my-steps cliché ever committed to celluloid. The ghosts of Fame, Dirty Dancing and a certain…
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Studio: Sony Pictures Releasing Rated: PG-13 Cast: Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Sacha Baron Cohen, John C. Reilly, Michael Clarke Duncan Director: Adam McKay WorkNameSort: Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby Our Rating: 3.50 A Bush-era film if there ever was one, it’s hard to imagine Talladega Nights:…
A CHARGE TO KEEP
Who Killed the Electric Car? Studio: Sony Pictures Classics Rated: PG-13 Cast: Martin Sheen, Dave Barthmuss, Jim Boyd (II), Alec N. Brooks, Alan Cocconi Director: Chris Paine WorkNameSort: Who Killed the Electric Car? Our Rating: 4.50 There’s nothing like a documentary with a sense of self. Take Who Killed the Electric Car?, an eco-aware postmortem…
Barnyard: The Original Party Animals
Barnyard: The Original Party Animals Studio: Paramount Pictures Rated: PG Cast: Kevin James, Courteney Cox Arquette, Danny Glover, Sam Elliott, Wanda Sykes Director: Steve Oedekerk WorkNameSort: Barnyard: The Original Party Animals Our Rating: 2.00 Barnyard doesn’t know if it wants to be another tiresomely ‘hipâ?� piece of post-Shrek postmodernism or a comfortably traditional kids’ movie…
In the Reptile House
In the Reptile House Label: SAF Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: In the Reptile House It’s easy to get lost in electronica. The blips and slick textures can be cold and faceless in certain artists’ hands, and that can become a great comfort zone for the rock star’impaired. Hometown Casio maestros Yip-Yip ‘…
Winter Woman/Holy Ghost Language School
Winter Woman/Holy Ghost Language School Label: 859 Recordings Length: LP Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Winter Woman/Holy Ghost Language School As one half of the Fiery Furnaces, a brother/sister duo known for grandly adventurous and experimental music, Matthew Friedberger can be counted on to provide inspiration and instrumentation. His first solo album ‘…
Please Step Off the Miracle and Turn to Your Left
Please Step Off the Miracle and Turn to Your Left Label: Post Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Please Step Off the Miracle and Turn to Your Left Bowing out with a brief ‘ but beautiful ‘ blast, the Band of the Name close out their ‘careerâ?� with this posthumous three-song EP. A BOTN…
Tales From the Two Hill Heart/Sibylline Machine
Tales From the Two Hill Heart/Sibylline Machine Label: C-Side Length: LP Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Tales From the Two Hill Heart/Sibylline Machine It takes an audacious band (and label) to approach the business model of releasing a double album. With love for psych-pop new and old, the Channel took bigger creative risks than those…
Tower of Love
Tower of Love Label: My Dad Length: LP Rated: NONE Media: CD Format: Album WorkNameSort: Tower of Love Jim Noir was born in 1982, back when the record industry alleged that home recording was killing music. Twenty-four years later the industry has more serious reproduction issues to confront, but home recording has been redefined as…
FATIGUED NO MORE
(HAVANA) Cuban President Fidel Castro died yesterday, after a long and uncorroborated illness. His exact age was unknown, but appeared to fall somewhere between the 157 offered by the U.S. State Department and the “young 25” listed on his state-issued passport. Immediately upon Castro’s demise, the reins of government devolved to his brother, Raúl, who…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
;ARIES In 1986, an accident at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine caused a nuclear meltdown. Radioactive waste spewed into the air, making the area uninhabitable. Twenty years later, humans are still absent, but wildlife is thriving. Native animal populations have multiplied, and species that had disappeared before the disaster have returned in abundance.…
SAVAGE LOVE
I’m 18 years old, dating a 24-year-old. We accidentally got pregnant and are expecting in January. We love each other and we want to stay together, but he doesn’t want to talk about getting married. Because the pregnancy was an accident and because I decided to keep it, I feel that he secretly resents me…
BLISTER
;Sometimes circumstances ; instantly redefine themselves without so much as a cock of the brow. A ray of light is bent to a blemish, a moment of truth pierces a bankable lie, a perceived shoe reveals itself to be nothing more than an oversized ugly foot densely populated with wiry hairs, and all previous assumptions…
NOTABLE NOISE
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Ozone Awards took place last weekend (Aug. 4-6). And I couldn’t have cared less. I’ve kept an eye on Ozone magazine for several years and said magazine’s publisher, Julia Beverly, has kept an eye on me as well, regularly accusing me (and this paper) of some…
I LOVE TELEVISION
Now, I wouldn’t say I worship “evil” — but I wouldn’t kick it out of bed for eating crackers, either. If you ask me, evil gets a bum rap. I mean, sure, it makes certain people uncomfortable … but those complainers are usually on the receiving end of evil. The rest of us who like…
HAPPYTOWN
We’ve finally figured out who is going to be living in the thousands of condos downtown: retirees! You want a hip, swinging city? How about a city of people afraid they’re going to break their hips? That’s because Orlando, according to Guy Miles, is one of the best cities in the country in which to…
POLICE BEAT
;July 30, 3:17 A.M.: Now this is just weird: Officer Hengehold responded to the 200 block of Hughey Avenue in reference to some criminal mischief. A 50-year-old security guard was doing his rounds when he came upon a group of males walking up a ramp on property. One of them stopped and started tinkering with…
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
New York state of mind New York state Sen. Ada Smith, known to some as the “Wild Woman of Albany” for her temper, pleaded not guilty in April for yet another alleged outburst. (She was accused of assaulting a staff member with hot coffee after a comment about her weight.) According to Senate officials cited…
LETTERS
;; ;Fair on the FairTax ;Your recent article [“FairTax, or foul?”, Aug. 3] received widespread dissemination. You wrote a brilliant, totally unbiased, fair presentation to the public. Thanks for the terrific information. We’ve recently begun to hear more and more about the grass-roots support this FairTax initiative has received. Now, your readers have basic tools…
SELECTIONS
;Thursday•10 ;Taken for Looks As we swarm to the ocean this weekend, we’ll try to make room for a visit to the Southeast Museum of Photography’s visual feast in addition to the typical fast-food fare that goes so well with saltwater. (It’s a good way to cop some free air-conditioning, too.) Vittles may be the…
MORE BERSERK
;Unearth’s just-released III: In the Eyes of Fire unleashes singer Trevor Phipps’ stirring war cry, savage riffs and a brutal full-speed drumbeat within its first two seconds. Metal fans might recall the equally vicious immediacy of Pantera’s 1996 album The Great Southern Trendkill, which sprang like a jack-in-the-box triggering a cement-filled boxing glove. Terry Date,…
IS THIS MAN CRAZY?
To some, Clint Curtis is a hero. ; ; He’s the brave computer programmer who stood up to corruption in Tallahassee even though it cost him his job at the Florida Department of Transportation, and even though he believes exposing this very same corruption got a FDOT comrade killed.; More importantly, he’s walking, talking proof…
ACTIVISM 101
;”Imagine the Sex Pistols ; having a charity.”; ;That’s how John Barry, a Kissimmee attorney who works with the ACLU, describes the few dozen Orlando Food Not Bombs activists who crowded into City Council chambers July 24 to protest a proposed ordinance restricting feedings of the homeless in downtown parks. They were raucous and obnoxious.…
LITMUS TEST
During U.S. Senate confirmation hearings last year, President Bush’s appointees for the U.S. Supreme Court refused to answer any questions on contentious social issues. That was as it should be, conservatives lectured. The more questions they answered, the more they endangered their impartiality. But what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander among…
Morning Roundup
Oh. My. God. Read the latest from eminating from Katherine Harris’ campaign. I’ve never in my life seen a campaign bungled like this. She has got to be about the stupidest woman on earth. Joe Lieberman (and Cynthia McKinney) lost their Democratic primaries. Lieberman, per usual, went on to whine: “The old politics of partisan…
