Pat Greene’s garage sale with a hosting comic?
“It’s not just a garage sale, it’s a rite of passage.” That was the subject line of the e-mail sent by man-of-eclectic-interests Pat Greene, who can’t put his old shit out for sale without turning the event into a circus with an emcee. Below is a copy of his invitation, and if you want more…
AMAZING GRAZE
Sleek supper spot is terminus for downtown foragers.
SILVER LINING
David Berman finds comfort in the twang.
FIRST SHOT
So far, even this summer’s biggest box-office hits have appealed to specific viewer demos. Iron Man got the men. Sex and the City got the women. And Kung Fu Panda got the … plushies. That’s totally in keeping with our compartmentalized, focus-grouped society, which – as Frank Rich of The New York Times recently pointed…
LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES
Sometimes, words are justworthless. That’s a tough truth for a writer to admit: If it weren’t for words, I’d be out of a job, and you’d be picking up this paper just to ogle the massage ads (maybe you already are). But even the most loquacious lexis lover must concede that images can speak louder…
COUNCIL WATCH
Two brand-new, giant flat-screen televisions hung above the Orlando city council dais, setting up this week’s colloquium of concern with graphic feeds of wrestling smackdowns and Vince McMahon struts, both splashy reminders of just where we are. By contrast, the actual meeting was mostly a civil affair of rambling non sequiturs, a peace broken only…
POLICE BEAT
??? (????-??????) ???: I can’t tell you when or where it happened (thanks, OPD!) but you don’t care about the details anyway. Someone smashed a Chevron window – I’m assuming in the middle of the night, but who knows – and made off with 35 cartons of cancer sticks. June 12 (2008-255449) 8:00 a.m.: We’ve…
COMMENTS
Advice From A Pro Your article on the local arts scene in Orlando was fascinating `“The fat lady sings?,” June 19`. I was just a visitor to Orlando recently, picked up a copy, and sank down in a plush couch in one of your city’s coffee shops and read on. As a Broadway veteran, Los…
BLISTER
It wasn’t always this way. A hot-ticket night out used to be just that – a whirligig of wide-eyed spontaneity laced with the pixie dust of giggle fits and carefree crescendos – and it usually ended with something said, forgotten and buried facedown in the blackout pillow next to a broken-toothed smile. Lately, though, it…
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Welcome to Part Two of your outlook for the second half of 2008. I’m hoping that by now you’re well on your way toward leaving your amateur status behind for good. I trust that you have had a vision of exactly what you need to do to boost your level of…
WHAT’S FOR DINNER?
The front part of Hopkins Meat Packaging in Sanford looks like a combination of a neighborhood butcher from decades past and a small country store. Men in bloody white aprons weigh meat. A dark-haired woman with a Southern drawl piles several pounds of ground chuck into her faded red plastic cart. Oxtails are $3.79 a…
HOW ACCURATE IS OUR VOTING SYSTEM?
You don’t need to be told that we need serious election reform in this country. What you might need, though, is a refresher on how badly our voting system is damaged. For that, turn to Election Day, a documentary made for the P.O.V. series on PBS. Director Katy Chevigny sent out 14 film crews on…
NOT OVER YET
At the dawn of 2008, things were going so well for Florida Hometown Democracy. The group – launched in 2003 to promote a state constitutional amendment that would restrict growth by forcing local comprehensive land-use changes to go to referenda – won the unanimous approval of the Florida Supreme Court in 2006, and was within…
LIGHTER THAN AIRE
Cannibal Ox’s 2001 opus, The Cold Vein, doesn’t translate universally. In a climate like Central Florida – where cold means covered shins and shoulders, not bitter blasts of wind that leave exposed skin frostbitten – the translation can be even further out of reach. Somewhere between Nas’ Illmatic and Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, chainsawing the…
CAT PEOPLE
It’s possible that no other indie band in Orlando packs as much potential as Mumpsy. Named after a cat in a children’s book, they’re the union of industriousness and talent, a recipe that’s recently been paying off. In the last year, they were a category winner in Sufjan Stevens’ international Christmas song contest, played a…
SAVAGE LOVE
I’m writing in celebration of the California decision to allow gays to marry. I’m thrilled – I’ve always thought that the idea that gay marriage could hurt or affect straight people in any way was ridiculous. But a year ago, I found out I was wrong. I’m a straight woman in her late 20s dating…
HAPPYTOWN
In an online video explaining the Orlando Sentinel’s new redesign, editor Charlotte Hall insisted that they weren’t dumbing the paper down; rather, they were telling stories “more smartly.” And we totally believed her, until we saw the ludicrously vacuous “news” that filled the new Sentinel’s first few editions. Our suspicion that the paper’s commitment to…
THIS LITTLE UNDERGROUND
In this new reality, the Middle East is in the global spotlight like never before. Although American awareness of the region is at a zenith, our view of it continues to be slanted, narrow and impersonal. All the more reason to thank whoever it is you worship for a film like Heavy Metal in Baghdad,…
