On fiction
Atom Egoyan surrounds a smart kid with imbecilic mentors
Zen of ‘za
Grab a pie and chill at this calm, cool neighborhood sanctuary
Best of Orlando 2009 – Food and Drink
select a link below; ; ; ; ; ;;;; ;; ;; Best cupcake ; Blue Bird Bake Shop;available at Pom Pom’s Teahouse & Sandwicheria, Seven Sisters Coffeehouse, Trish’s Teas or through Foodie Catering;407-256-3420;www.bluebirdbakeshop.com ; The cupcake trend is so over in L.A. and New York (doughnuts are the new thing, according to our informants), but…
This Little Underground
For all the shit I give you guys about complacency, I’ve seen this music community rally for one of its own enough times to keep me believing. That’s why I’m refreshing both your memory and your sense of largesse about Bughead’s Jason Powell and the medical bills from his recent heart attack. Donate at myspace.com/bughead.…
Live Active Cultures
The popular perception that summertime is slow season for Orlando theater has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, resulting in a performance pause in the period between Independence and Labor days. This year several upstarts are bucking the seasonal paralysis to which their more-established siblings succumb. And for some reason, they’re all in Winter Park. Last weekend,…
Happytown
Last week, Orange County commissioner and mayoral candidate Linda Stewart did something that few contenders for higher office would think wise in an economic downturn: She proposed a billion-dollar tax increase to fund LYNX, this region’s terrible mass transit service. “We really need a dedicated funding source,” Stewart tells Happytown™. “Things are not getting any…
Police Beat
July 3 (2009-312680) 7:44 a.m.: Officer Madden describes an armed robbery suspect as wearing a “camo snow hat.” If one wanted effective camouflage in the snow, wouldn’t said hat be white? (2009-312750) 8:31 a.m.: Officer Genao would like you to bow to his thoroughness in making a routine drug bust: “Incident to a lawful search,…
Stoking the fire
There’s a particular determination about Gasoline Heart’s old-fashioned roots rock: Though surrounded by a sea of increasingly transitory musical infatuations, this Orlando band holds stubbornly to the notion that they just don’t make it like they used to anymore. That “it” is rock & roll, and they are true believers. Released on Georgia indie label…
Graduating to the big time
The underground’s always been as fertile as the land beneath Jed Clampett’s home; it frequently bubbles forth with the kind of black gold that transported his family to Beverly Hills. Ol’ Jed would appreciate the Avett Brothers, whose rustic undertones might remind him of his backwoods cabin, and who themselves are managing a similar transition.…
The summer of ’69
The summer of ‘69 Moonshot 8 p.m. Monday, July 20 History Channel The Eagle lands again, but this time it’s in a docudrama timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the day Apollo 11 touched down on the moon. Moonshot gives us another opportunity to relive the joy, fear and challenge of what might…
International Breakdown
International breakdown Orlando International Puppet Festival July 21, 25 and 26 Orlando Repertory Theatre and Orlando Shakespeare Theatre $6-$12; 407-896-7365, ext. 1 www.orlandorep.com Puppets are crafted from equal parts cloth and chaos; wherever they go, you can expect the unexpected. So it isn’t entirely surprising that the Orlando Puppet Festival — founded in 2005 by…
Twat? Shaqzilla versus MegaMan?
Thirty-seven-year-old NBA all-star center Shaquille O’Neal just got traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, hitching his 325-pound club car to the bullet train that is LeBron James’ career. And James — eager to respond to the Cavs’ early exit from last year’s playoffs — was thrilled to learn that a fellow freak-of-nature was joining the James…
Best of Orlando 2009 – Sports and Recreation
select a link below Best free bike tuneup Rusted Chain Bike Collective rustedchainbikecollective.blogspot.com The RCBC ‘promote[s] interdependency through cycling, encourage[s] movement towards environmental sustainability, and foster[s] local unity.’ Yes, they’ll fix your bike for free (donations encouraged, however), but what they really want is to empower you to learn how to fix your own bike.…
Best of Orlando 2009 – Arts and Entertainment
select a link below Best makeover Orlando Museum of Art logo and website www.omart.org Is Orlando’s biggest art museum moving toward more contemporary programming, or are they just blowing off the dust? Time will tell, but in the meantime, the museum’s new identity brings it into the 21st century. Designed by local agency Push, with…
Best of Orlando 2009 – Goods and Services
select a link below Best lay Fresh eggs from Oviedo Audubon Park Community Market Wednesday evenings at Stardust Video & Coffee apmarket.wordpress.com Not yet a year old, the weekly Audubon Park sustainable-living market caught on quickly, proof positive of what the group calls an ‘organic community in the works.’ The eggs are the freshest to…
Best of Orlando 2009 – Local Color
select a link below Best collapsing house of cards The Dr. P. Phillips Orlando Performing Arts Center www.orlandopac.org It’s not DPAC’s fault. They didn’t create a cockamamie funding scheme for the half-billion-dollar edifice by assuming that property values would escalate forever, and that tourists would keep coming, and that the stock market wouldn’t tank and…
Blister
It’s the quiet pedestrian vacuum of the in-between that always gets me: the half-eaten can of lukewarm Progresso lentils and concessionary tumbler cocktail of midlevel spirits, the television hiss of nothing on top of nothing with creeping nothing underneath in the dim-lit hovel of voices in my head that speak of boring doubt and ticking…
BEST OF ORLANDO 2009
Holy crap! We asked you to vote for Orlando’s best people, places and things, and did you ever respond. This year we got 2,678 votes in our readers poll, almost 1,000 more than last year and the highest number in the 14 years we”ve been doing this. Good job, people! Now that we’ve got you…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) I fear you’re on the verge of slipping into a state of mind that wants everything and is therefore in danger of getting nothing. I worry that you’ll be lusting for such total control over so much wild sweetness that you won’t actually formulate a foolproof plan to commune with even…
DVDs Nuts!
12 This Russian Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film takes 12 Angry Men and places it in Moscow, which is odd since the Russian judicial system does not require a unanimous decision. Then again, it’s worth the factual leap to watch the diverse group of men, all with conflicting opinions of what justice means…
Savage Love
You were recommended to me by an acquaintance familiar with your column and podcast. I am a 20-year-old male, and as such have certain desires that almost all 20-year-old males have (desires of a sexual nature). However, I am deeply religious. Religion has been for me a source of strength in my times of weakness,…
The list is alive
Everywhere you look these days, there’s a list. Yearly top 10 movie lists, weekly box office lists, greatest ever, worst ever, AFI and Sight & Sound — if you can name it, you can find a list for it. But they all evince a certain static exclusivity. Then there’s the IMDB Top 250. Maintained by…
