Book review: Ace Frehley, “No Regrets”
The unexpected delight of Life, last year’s Keith Richards autobio, was the vivid detail with which Richards was able to recall his boyhood in wartime and postwar Britain. When one compared those passages to his comparatively scattershot impressions of adulthood, the takeaway was that protracted drug abuse only affects a man’s memories of the things…
Selection Reminder: Punk heroes Bane tonight at Will’s Pub!
Monday, Nov. 7 – Bane Look around you, man. The world is fucked and there’s a gnawing sense in the collective American consciousness that we just need to take shit back to basics. And while it’s great that this generation has finally broken free of its longtime stasis and started taking to the streets, we…
Radiohead to open 2012 US tour in FLA
No, they’re not coming to Orlando, but they’re not going to be that far away, and if any band is worth a road trip it’s certainly Radiohead. The band announced today initial plans for their US tour, that include a 10-city sweep across the South and Southwest, with a quick stopover in the Mid-West for…
Sunday Film News Roundup — November 6th, 2011
Today, November 6th, 151 years ago (or seven score and 11 years ago, if you will), the nation elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House. Yesterday, November 5th, was also the 56th anniversary of Doc Brown cracking his head open and inventing the flux capacitor, which, indeed, is still fluxing. But enough of that. There…
Selection Reminder: Flax Artists Market Weekend!
Saturday, Nov. 5 – Flax Artists Market Weekend Attention artists: You can sell your stuff in the parking lot outside Sam Flax at its expanded market this weekend (the mini version happens every Sunday). Just show up and start hawking. And musicians are welcome, too. “The idea is to give something back to the local…
Selection Reminder: Fall Fiesta in the Park takes over Lake Eola!
Saturday, Nov. 5 – Fall Fiesta in the Park We certainly appreciate the consistency found in large-scale annual events, and after 40 years, it’s no surprise that the Fall Fiesta in the Park, yet again, brings the goods to downtown Orlando. Lake Eola Park plays host to a showcase of Florida artists and craftspeople (more…
Selection Reminder: TEDxOrlando 2011 at Garden Theatre!
Saturday, Nov. 5 – TEDxOrlando 2011: The Creative Spark The marketplace of ideas may be the only market currently worthy of faith; no matter how devalued and depleted the world’s economic systems, natural resources and reserves of common decency become, one thing you can count on is the wellspring of human ingenuity. TED is an…
Selection Reminder: Author David McCullough stops by Rollins College!
Friday, Nov. 4 – David McCullough: History and the Love of Learning The author known for entertaining but painstakingly researched historical works and biographies (1776, John Adams, Truman) didn’t set out to be a writer. In fact, he studied painting at Yale, and that painterly eye contributes to his books’ muralistic sweep. McCullough visits the…
Selection Reminder: Jug-ly Art & Antics at the Peacock Room!
Friday, Nov. 4 – Jug-ly Art & Antics Even with the skewed interpretations found in These Hard Economic Times, the American Dream signifies, among other things, the drive to use what you have to make something of yourself, while allowing distinct definitions of what it means to be American. Tonight’s Jug-ly Art & Antics party…
Underrated: Dogma – Kevin Smith (1999)
(Unhappy with original draft, edited heavily 11/19/11.) God is all knowing and infallible. Whether in Catholic school, CCD, or just from your parents, you are taught that at an early age. As a kid, I imagined God as an invisible man looking over my shoulder at everything I did. Everything. God was ever present, all…
Selection Reminder: PlayFest starts tonight at Orlando Shakes!
Thursday, Nov. 3 – PlayFest! Plays are like a nation’s unconscious mind. All of us absorb the news every day – politics, current events, social trends – but playwrights craft that material into dreams of what might happen or what could happen, and seeing the finished product on stage is a daydream-like chance to vicariously…
Selection Reminder: Odd Future tonight at the Beacham!
Thursday, Nov. 3 – Odd Future It was impossible not to recall California band Fear’s fateful 1981 SNL appearance (on the insistence of mega-fan John Belushi) that announced hardcore punk to a mainstream audience (and caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the show’s set in the process) when, back in February, a…
Selection Reminder: Orlando Puppet Festival!
Through Dec. 3 – Orlando Puppet Festival Puppet haters, avert your eyes: The Orlando Puppet Festival is back for its seventh year. This means a weekend packed with performances by actors made of cotton and wood, expounding on themes ranging from airhead cutesy to darkly political. Though most shows will take place at the Pinocchio’s…
Remix: Limoncello
Why not pompelmocello instead?
Pasha Taverna and Lounge
Take your time indulging in spot-on Moroccan meals
Rotation: What local artists are listening to
This week: Shadow Pearson of the Actomatics
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Here’s Malcolm Gladwell, writing in The Tipping Point: “We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen quickly. … Look at the world around you. It may seem an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the…
Funny papers
Guest editor Alison Bechdel rounds up the year’s best strips
Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone
Fishbone is in the (art) house
Exit Stage Knight
Departing United Arts President and CEO Margot Knight recounts her decade of creativity amid chaos
Mister Heavenly
‘Doom-wop’ supergroup channels the classics
Luminous Airplanes by Paul La Farge
Expanding and evolving novel doesn’t quite take off
Take Shelter
Michael Shannon delivers one of the year’s best performances as a man who might be losing it
Savage Love
I am marrying a man with two children
The Central Florida Jewish Film Festival
The films of the 13th Annual Jewish Film Festival
This Little Underground
Although I mourn the fucked-up loss of esteemed local musician Ralph Ameduri, I didn’t know him personally and won’t do any false eulogizing. Luckily, Orlando’s music community said it all at Ralph Fest(Oct. 23). In all my years covering this beat, never have I seen tribute for a local musician on this scale. Not even…
AIDS Wolf
Inside the daring, divisive world of Montreal trio AIDS Wolf
DVDs Nuts!
Lesser-seen OW approved titles
Live Active Cultures
I’ve never truly been a Trekkie. Sure, I’ve seen an episode or two (hundred) of Star Trek, but growing up I found the 1960s-era reruns boring compared to Star Wars. At my first convention, I got booed by the crowd for asking a shitty “Shatner on SNL”-esque question of the late James “Scotty” Doohan (he…
Council Watch
Billy Manes paying attention to local government so you don’t have to
Happytown
The week the city got all gay on the county, Polk Sheriff Grady Judd continued to get all hot on the porn and the Siegel’s unfinished mansion overshadowed the region’s hunger crisis. Sex and money, then!
Tinariwen
Nomadic Northern African band spread their message to an unexpectedly wide audience
Fundies want a bigger “Behind”
I’m always surprised when I see somebody reading one of the Left Behind books for pleasure. It’s not totally incongruous in a place like Orlando, which has its share of the born again. But I’ve also seen it in New York, where, if the likes of Glenn Beck are to be believed, pastor Tim LaHaye’s…
Theatre Review: The Addams Family
You spend your life trying to build a loving, stable home for your offspring. Then one day your adolescent announces that they’ve found the love of their life, and are bringing them and their parents home for dinner. But instead of basking in the parental genius that got them to this point, your brat insists…
Third “Awake the State” rally held tonight in Orlando, to lukewarm reception
Orlando’s third Awake the State rally was held this evening at Senator Beth Johnson Park, which has been more or less constantly occupied by activists from the Occupy Orlando movement since Oct. 15. Since the occupation began, 21 activists have been arrested for trespassing in the park after hours; during the day, it has become…
Local indie calendar for November
*All dates subject to (and likely to) change* Nov. 2 Shy People (Little Fish Huge Pond) Nov. 4 Take Shelter (Regal Winter Park) [youtube I5U4TtYpKIc] Nov. 5 Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone (Enzian) *followed by Q&A with members of the band* Nov. 6 Jewish Film Festival – In Heaven, Underground (Enzian) Jewish Film Festival…
Selection Reminder: Maxine Rude exhibition opens today!
Tuesday, Nov. 1 – Maxine Rude: Europe Displaced 1945-46 Photographer Maxine Rude may not be as well-known as Lee Miller or Dorothea Lange, but her unblinking documentary eye and her bravery in proximity to the chaotic disarrangements of war place her in the same pantheon. All of these women documented for posterity the effects of…
