All in a play’s work
From the first minutes of last weekend’s “Play-in-a-Day Festival,” I knew we were in for a long haul. As work assignments were read from the stage of the Central Florida Theatre Alliance’s Theatre Garage at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, it was clear that the available positions in the first-ever dramatic marathon far outstripped the number of…
Sitting pretty
Movie: Runaway Bride
Sitting pretty
Movie: Runaway Bride
Heroics no more
On Aug. 18, engineers and flight control specialists at NASA will fire small rockets aboard the Cassini space probe in order to bring it to within 723 miles of Earth, and thereby eventually to propel it further out into the solar system. The probe will be traveling at 42,300 mph. It is not supposed to…
Science ain’t math
When Orlando Science Center director Sondra Quinn quit two weeks ago, it was to pursue unnamed “other challenges.” Perhaps she’ll learn to balance a checkbook. Finally confronting overblown expectations, center officials are seeking a bailout of more than $1.6 million brought about as attendance dropped like a rock after the shine wore off their two-year-old,…
Bus-stop blues
With the city’s overall low unemployment rate, theme parks and hotels thirsty for more workers have had to travel out of state to find employees. Maybe they should have taken a closer look at their own back yard. The Orlando Business Journal notes Central Florida’s “dramatic pockets of continued joblessness,” such as the Parramore district,…
Seized with injustice
Did you ever think you’d see the ineffable right-wing congressman from Georgia, Bob Barr, shake hands with solid lefty lawmaker Barney Frank of Massachusetts? Or see hidebound Republican Henry Hyde lock arms with hard-core Democrat John Conyers? Well, it has happened, and it’s a good thing it did. All four odd bedfellows, members of the…
Dog-eat-dogs world
At an April show in San Francisco, performance artist Zhang Huan was to “explore the physical and psychological effects of human violence in modern society” by spreading puree of hot dogs on his naked posterior as he lay face down on a cypress branch and permitting eight dogs to enter the room. One dog, Hercules,…
Louisville’s sluggers
In much the same way that the city of Louisville, Ky., itself straddles the old Civil War latitudes with a warm and gentlemanly consonance, Elliott’s emotional songs play with a duality of images about life in the Midwestern town. For strength of conviction, the touching lyrics are delivered in the what the band’s bio calls…
Louisville’s sluggers
In much the same way that the city of Louisville, Ky., itself straddles the old Civil War latitudes with a warm and gentlemanly consonance, Elliott’s emotional songs play with a duality of images about life in the Midwestern town. For strength of conviction, the touching lyrics are delivered in the what the band’s bio calls…
Roughin’ up smooth jazz
Smooth Jazz radio is a vast wasteland of vapid melodies, generic instrumental work and synthetic backbeats, its well-earned reputation as ’90s “easy listening” tied to a playlist even more strictly defined than top-40. So fans of the format are often perplexed when they check out concerts by Down to the Bone, the British exponents of…
Guitar-slinging swinger
Brian Setzer is nothing if not a sharp manipulator of commercially potent trends in pop music. Way back in the ’80s, the singer and guitarist from Long Island, N.Y., revived rockabilly with the Stray Cats; the good-time trio who scored with such chart hits as “Stray Cat Strut,” “Rock This Town” and “(She’s) Sexy and…
Broken promises
After three years in the Navy, Ruth Velazquez-Scott says she saw enough of the world. When she got out, she wanted to find a place where she and her husband, George, could settle down and raise a family. They moved into a small one-bedroom apartment but quickly outgrew it. The Scotts wanted a permanent home…
Too much to take in
As the Cassini space probe nears Saturn and its moons, researchers will be flooded with fresh data. “It’s possible we can get clues as to how Earth was born,” says Bob Mitchell, NASA’s program manager for Cassini. This data would fit on 1,000 of the biggest computer hard drives, and while the pretty pictures will…
Review – Millennium
Artist: Monstrosity
Review – Avant Hard
Artist: Add N to (X)
Review – Gordon
Artist: Gordon
Review – Shanti Project Collection
Artist: Various artists
Review – Millennium
Artist: Monstrosity
Review – Avant Hard
Artist: Add N to (X)
Bloody, yes, but it bites
Movie: Deep Blue Sea
Review – Gordon
Artist: Gordon
Review – Shanti Project Collection
Artist: Various artists
Review – Millennium
Artist: Monstrosity
Review – Avant Hard
Artist: Add N to (X)
Review – Gordon
Artist: Gordon
Bloody, yes, but it bites
Movie: Deep Blue Sea
Review – Shanti Project Collection
Artist: Various artists
Country converters
BR5-49 is here to teach you something you might not have known about hillbilly music: It swings. When the band established itself with a now-famous year-long run of four-hour, tips-only sets at Robert’s Western World in Nashville back in 1994, the diverse crowd of old-timers, young hipsters and college students crowded the dance floor and…
The Warped side of Marshall Mathers
It was only a matter of time before the Vans Warped Tour strayed from the formula. The predominately punk and ska music festival — which lands Friday, July 30, in Orlando — has expanded its skater-bred menu to include hip-hop, hard rock, country and rock en español. Presiding over this year’s festivities is headliner Eminem.…
Face value
My friends and I are sitting at the Bull & Bush pub (one of those English names you gotta love … if you’re full enough of the first, you’ll get some of the second). I’m not expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen, but on comes a CD with a song so good it…
Patch of honor
Briar Patch has much working in its favor: A primo location on Park Avenue that guarantees a steady influx of old fans and curious newcomers, and a menu that’s meant to be enjoyed rather than comprehended. That is, if you can get your foot in the door. Just try to snag a table around noon…
China Town a mein attraction
Several years ago Wall Street Cantina replaced the last Chinese restaurant on Orange Avenue. But a few months ago China Town arrived to fill the need for cheap takeout downtown. Located in the former digs of Cuoco Pazzo, China Town is small and crowded at lunchtime. The menu has a lengthy run-down of chow mein,…
China Town a mein attraction
Several years ago Wall Street Cantina replaced the last Chinese restaurant on Orange Avenue. But a few months ago China Town arrived to fill the need for cheap takeout downtown. Located in the former digs of Cuoco Pazzo, China Town is small and crowded at lunchtime. The menu has a lengthy run-down of chow mein,…
