Review – A Perfect Way To Say Goodbye
Artist: Hand to Hand
Review – Strangers
Artist: Ed Harcourt
Review – Paper White/Big Black Square Eps
Artist: Tarentel
TOUCH OF EVIL
Movie: Bad Education
TOUCH OF EVIL
Movie: Bad Education
COST EFFECTIVE
Although we tend to think of “Indian” as one cuisine, there are many cultures within that country, and diets differ dramatically. In general, the food of Southern India is fragrant with curry leaves, coconuts and tamarind. In the North, cream and yogurt are common ingredients and the predominant spice is garam masala, a mixture based…
Review – A Perfect Way To Say Goodbye
Artist: Hand to Hand
Review – Strangers
Artist: Ed Harcourt
TOUCH OF EVIL
Movie: Bad Education
TOUCH OF EVIL
Movie: Bad Education
THIRD PLACE IS FIRST GOAL
Sitting at Infusion Tea on Edgewater Drive, sipping Assam black tea ($2) and munching on delicious vegetarian hummus ($6), I reflect on what this place has in common with my favorite hot dog counter in the East Village: They are both what sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls “Third Places.” Naturally the First Place is home; the…
Review – Paper White/Big Black Square Eps
Artist: Tarentel
Review – A Perfect Way To Say Goodbye
Artist: Hand to Hand
Review – Strangers
Artist: Ed Harcourt
Review – Paper White/Big Black Square Eps
Artist: Tarentel
Culture
The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest To Become the Smartest Person in the World By A.J. Jacobs(Simon and Schuster, 386 pages) If life is indeed the sum of its miscellany, then journalist A.J. Jacobs makes a fair case for a sacrificial calculator bonfire. Mining the memoir trend for a uniquely methodical point of entry, Jacobs…
We cruising with losers and marathon man misses his mark
Yes, we were disappointed in November’s election results. And for a while, we too entertained conspiracy theories in a vain attempt to explain the unexplainable – Diebold stealing votes, aliens stealing brains – before finally reaching the conclusion that Kerry lost and we had to accept it. The sad fact is that even if the…
DEAD AND BORED
Given that no one in the history of humankind has lived forever, it is remarkable how infrequently novelists attempt to imagine what greets us on the other side. Those who have tried to fathom death’s mysterious contours break down into two camps. There are writers like Dante or J.M. Coetzee, who believe we have plenty…
THIRD PLACE IS FIRST GOAL
Sitting at Infusion Tea on Edgewater Drive, sipping Assam black tea ($2) and munching on delicious vegetarian hummus ($6), I reflect on what this place has in common with my favorite hot dog counter in the East Village: They are both what sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls “Third Places.” Naturally the First Place is home; the…
VICIOUS VICARIOUSNESS
ANGRY WIND: Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat and Camel By Jeffrey Tayler (Houghton Mifflin, 272 pages) The best of the elusive genre known as “travel writing” ensues when good writers visit bad places. Not “bad” as in “a nest of evildoers,” but as in countries that lack amenities like ATMs, Internet cafes…
We cruising with losers and marathon man misses his mark
Yes, we were disappointed in November’s election results. And for a while, we too entertained conspiracy theories in a vain attempt to explain the unexplainable – Diebold stealing votes, aliens stealing brains – before finally reaching the conclusion that Kerry lost and we had to accept it. The sad fact is that even if the…
TRYIN’ TO GET THE FEELING AGAIN
Love shifts a bit as you age. Rather than a mad jump into the unknown driven by lust and adventure, the journey becomes a more measured business decision modulated by the knowledge of what exactly can go wrong. That metamorphosis is brought to life in Mad Cow Theatre’s production of A.R. Gurney’s 1993 Later Life,…
LIKE A SICKNESS
They’re the Rodney Dangerfields of the Omaha scene. While every dyspeptic shut-in with an acoustic guitar in town seems to be joining Bright Eyes and The Good Life on Saddle Creek Records, Neva Dinova remain the odd men out. With an accent on odd. “We’re the heaviest band in Omaha. By weight,” singer/guitarist Jake Bellows…
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Director Shola Lynch was already in early screenings of her completed documentary about Shirley Chisholm when the former congresswoman died Jan. 1 at the age of 80. The sudden demise of Chisholm – best known as the first black woman to run for president of the United States – makes more precious the footage that…
PAMPAS CIRCUMSTANCE
Astor PiazzollaThe Rough Guide to Astor Piazzolla(World Music Network) Chango SpasiukTarefero de Mis Pagos(Piranha) Argentina is a huge country, about one-third the size of the United States. So why is it that if an American can identify any Argentinian musician, it will always be Astor Piazzolla? Arguments about American cultural hegemony aside, it really is…
PROSECUTED UNTO DEATH
On Jan. 22, I-Drive mogul Jesse Maali died at Florida Hospital Orlando after a five-month battle with lung cancer. Three days later, Maali, 59, was buried at Orlando Memorial Gardens after his body was removed from his casket, wrapped in white sheets and interred facing east, toward Mecca. Maali will be remembered for two things:…
LIGHTS OUT … EVERYBODY
HIDE AND SEEK (R) ALONE IN THE DARK (R) Moviegoing confusion hit an all-time low back in 2002, when The Mothman Prophecies and Dragonfly were released within weeks of each other. Mere months later, most audiences couldn’t remember if they had seen the crappy paranormal-suspense flick with an entomology-inspired title and Richard Gere, or the…
LYNX LETTERS
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer is down with the people. He may be the big guy, but he wants to hear from you, the little guys and girls, on the issues of the day. Hence his recent e-mail to anyone on the city’s mailing list asking for feedback on the new $29 million LYNX bus station.…
LIGHTS OUT … EVERYBODY
HIDE AND SEEK (R) ALONE IN THE DARK (R) Moviegoing confusion hit an all-time low back in 2002, when The Mothman Prophecies and Dragonfly were released within weeks of each other. Mere months later, most audiences couldn’t remember if they had seen the crappy paranormal-suspense flick with an entomology-inspired title and Richard Gere, or the…
THE 10 WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2004
It is never easy choosing the 10 worst corporations of the year – there are always more deserving nominees than we can possibly recognize. One of the greatest challenges facing the judges is the directive not to select repeat recipients from last year’s list. The no-repeat rule forbids otherwise-deserving companies like Bayer, Boeing, Clear Channel…
LOVERS, NOT FIGHTERS
Nonlethal war tactics suggested by an Air Force research team in the 1990s were made public in December by the military watchdog organization Sunshine Project. Tactics included a recommendation to expose enemy troops to powerful aphrodisiacs in order to distract them into lustful hookups with each other (irrespective of gender). The Pentagon said the idea…
“Cold cocked”
A state senator has a plan for saving Oklahoma’s gamefowl industry now that cockfighters are legally prohibited from pitting birds fitted with razor-like spurs `against each other`. State Sen. Frank Shurden, a longtime defender of cockfighting, is suggesting that roosters be given little boxing gloves so they can fight without bloodshed. “Who’s going to object…
MY BLACK HEART
I don’t give a damn about my bad reputation. For some four-and-a-half years, I’ve broken not just a few press-on nails in my humble attempts to make everybody despise me, and I’d be a yellow-haired ninny to give up now. So arriving at the Hard Rock Hotel Velvet Sessions – Orlando’s best rock-star has-been affair,…
Moulin Rouge, Reliant K, Willie Nelson, Tony Hawk and more
Thursday • 3 MOULIN ROUGE! You can only eat Meat Loaf so many times in your life, which helps explain why the Rich Weirdoes – the high-spirited weekend warriors who traditionally re-enact The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Universal Cineplex – are changing up their menu a bit this Valentine season. In tribute to the…
PAMPAS CIRCUMSTANCE
Astor PiazzollaThe Rough Guide to Astor Piazzolla(World Music Network) Chango SpasiukTarefero de Mis Pagos(Piranha) Argentina is a huge country, about one-third the size of the United States. So why is it that if an American can identify any Argentinian musician, it will always be Astor Piazzolla? Arguments about American cultural hegemony aside, it really is…
Culture
Black Maria: Poems Produced and Directed By By Kevin Young(Knopf, 256 pages) A private dick irrigated with booze and soused by desire falls for a dangerous dame in Kevin Young’s Black Maria, a noir in verse that will give Raymond Chandler’s best a run for their money. The action starts, as it always does, with…
Culture
Revolution in the Valley By Andy Hertzfeld (O’Reilly, 291 pages) Subtitled “The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made,” Revolution in the Valley goes to great lengths to put a human face on the team of geeks that invented the Macintosh. And, as Hertzfeld himself was one of the key members of that…
