In the company of women
Movie: The Business of Strangers
In the company of women
Movie: The Business of Strangers
Review – New American Language
Artist: Dan Bern
Review – Secrets
Artist: Human League
Review – Oracle
Artist: Kittie
Review – Brighton Park
Artist: La Makita Soma
Video gets ugly at the memory motel
Movie: Tape
True colors
Many people know the strip of shops along Mills Avenue near Virginia Drive as the Rainbow District. Judging by what the diners were wearing the other night in HUE: A Restaurant, Thornton Park runs the risk of picking up the moniker of the Monochrome District. The advice I was given by a friend — “wear…
Don’t sweat the Somali stuff
Movie: Black Hawk Down
Review – New American Language
Artist: Dan Bern
Flea bait
Movie: Snow Dogs
Review – Secrets
Artist: Human League
Review – Oracle
Artist: Kittie
Review – New American Language
Artist: Dan Bern
Review – Brighton Park
Artist: La Makita Soma
Review – Secrets
Artist: Human League
Review – Oracle
Artist: Kittie
Review – Brighton Park
Artist: La Makita Soma
Video gets ugly at the memory motel
Movie: Tape
Don’t sweat the Somali stuff
Movie: Black Hawk Down
Flea bait
Movie: Snow Dogs
Bust on a Back Street
Growing old isn’t easy. Not that 21 is old (old is 29), but considering that Backstreet Boy Nick Carter first popped into our collective annoyance as a spry, almost androgynous, 14-year-old bowl- cut in baggies, it’s increasingly hard to squint justification at his current towering Craig Kilborn bloat. Nick, after all, was the only one…
Shades of Gray
Writer and performer Spalding Gray spent his early years in Rhode Island, a child of Christian Scientist parents. Like most children, he was preoccupied with the intricacies of his family — and sex. His microcosm extended as far as school, dead pets and making out with a neighborhood girl while “Sh-Boom” by The Crew Cuts…
Thoroughly modern Miller
Traditionally, I’m not the biggest fan of what I’ll call “stunt” theater — the school of thought that assumes no one will leave home to see a play unless its key elements are reorganized and recontextualized until they’re almost unrecognizable. (“”It’s Our Town,” but aboard a German U-boat in 1943!” “It’s “Much Ado About Nothing”…
A stinking corpse
Just when I think that I’m too old and jaded to feel like an angry young man, something comes along to slake my weary indignity juices and rejuvenate my timeworn bile ducts — something so blatantly egregious that it quickly and powerfully reminds me of what used to make me angry in the first place.…
Karaoke fans get tanked
In a move that many Americans probably would like their government to emulate, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen recently banned karaoke clubs from his nation. To prove that he’s serious about not having to listen to one more rendition of “Feelings,” the Cambodi-an ruler now has an-nounced that all karaoke bars still open in the…
For the Grateful Dead, 19…
For the Grateful Dead, 1972 was the year. The band’s early-’60s bluegrass roots, its mid-’60s electric-blues jams, its late-’60s psychedelic-improv experiments and its early-’70s Americana songwriting all came together to produce a sparkling peak. A year or two later, drugs, death and fatigue dulled the songwriting and slowed the rhythms to a narcotic ooze. But…
Sharpen those culinary skills
I am often asked (especially around gift-giving time) the name of my favorite cookbook. To the surprise of most, instead of the latest New Chinese tome or current Southwest-Thai-Andalusian hipster “how-to,” I usually point to Irma Rombauer’s classic Joy of Cooking. Sometimes you need to be reminded how to boil water. Now I have a…
I can see eerily now
So, I’m a “Survivor” geek. No matter how tired the concept gets, I’ll watch it. It never gets old to hear contestants who have seen prior players suffer dehydration, nervous breakdowns and third-degree burns say, “I never thought it would be this hard!” Maybe when the footage of one contestant’s hair falling out from malnutrition…
Picture imperfect
The most widely circulated story behind the departure of Alison Nordstrom from the Southeast Museum of Photography, a Central Florida gem and one of only 12 photography museums in the country, goes something like this: Through hard work, constant networking, an extraordinary eye for photographic detail and a knack for marketing, Nordstrom built the museum…
She’s gotta have it
Orlando city employees had been snickering for days about the impending doom of District 1 Commissioner Don Ammerman. On Monday, Jan. 14, it became official: Ammerman will no longer be the city’s representative to the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, the board that oversees the operation of the international airport and its $265 million budget. Mayor…
A tale of two centers
Sara Van Arsdel, the director of the Orange County Regional History Center, recently gave her bosses reason to smile: The center, in its first full year at the renovated 1928 courthouse on downtown’s new Heritage Square, actually turned a profit. True, Orange County covers almost three-fourths of the museum’s nearly $3 million operating budget, and…
In my place
Fasten your chute packs and prepare the head-rush, Orlando, as Capitol Records’ Brit darlings Coldplay have deigned to use our fair city to launch their biggest North American tour ever, a cross-country affair designed to further elevate the chart position of the band’s incredibly successful new album, “A Rush of Blood to the Head.” It’s…
