Twisp of the Tale
Contained within a care package sent by C.D. Payne is a self-penned press release introducing the author as “the Rodney Dangerfield of comic novelists,” complete with a picture of the bug-eyed comedian and his shopworn catchphrase “I can’t get no respect.” As it turns out, this is the letter Payne sends out with all copies…
Bob City
It’s a rare treat when a band can inject riff after riff with unbridled psychotic power and agitation. It’s even rarer when the band can match that fury with songs and vocals that sound as hoarse and anxious as the noise that surrounds them. Like its sonic brethren the Supersuckers and Mötorhead, Columbus’s Bob City…
The Edge
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Francis E. Sweeney’s suit against The New York Times was moved to federal court last month. Sweeney claims he was defamed in an April 13 article about the Sheppard civil trial. The article said Sam Reese Sheppard and his supporters believe a prior generation of prosecutors was behind the county’s clinging…
Greg Brady, Prince of Darkness
Remember that Brady Bunch episode where Greg sells his soul to the devil in exchange for a trunk full of gold? His sister Cindy eavesdrops on the transaction and tells on him. Fearing his folks might send him to his room, a remorseful Greg promises never to bargain with Beelzebub again. But it turns out…
Our Prisons Are a Crime
And dealing drugs shouldn’t be: David Martin hit the nail on the head in his assessment of Ohio prisons [“The Average Inmate,” December 14]. It should be a crime to jail offenders so far from their loved ones. In the Jefferson Gazette, I read about a local man sentenced to two years at the Lorain…
Management Style
Big, boisterous Executive Chef Brandt Evans — culinary mastermind and originator of the slyly named Ozark-Asian-Funk cuisine at Kosta’s (2179 West 11th Street, 216-622-0011) — has added the title of general manager to his résumé. The youthful Hudson High School grad and Culinary Institute of America alumnus took over front-of-the-house duties earlier this year, but…
A Stan for All Seasons
If Stan Hywet’s ’40s-era Deck the Hall! tour takes the average visitor back in time, imagine what it does for Sally Cochran, who once frolicked in the mansion’s gracious halls and celebrated the Christmases of her youth there. Cochran’s grandparents built the grand home that is now an Akron landmark and museum. Her mother was…
It’s Tame on the Trail
The press release used words like “unique,” “diverse,” and “wild dining adventure.” But be warned: Don’t set out for the Amazon Trail expecting the exotic. Pleasant? Sure. Casual? You bet. But without exception, the food and atmosphere here will no more remind you of the rain forest than the Outback Steakhouse brings to mind an…
Tongue’s Afire
If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned. Such is the wisdom most mothers dispense, and the mother of Leather — a fire-eater who will be performing as part of Cleveland Public Theatre’s First Vaudeville of the New Millennium — was no different. For a while, Leather listened to her advice. Then he…
The Filly Sound
For the serious DJ, turntables aren’t just a means to music, but a vehicle for creating a forum for education. Carving a niche in a city takes years for a committed DJ, but once he finds his own style of music, the booth becomes a makeshift pulpit for introducing listeners to something different. Mike Filly,…
This Ain’t No Box of Chocolates
During the summer of 1994, while most of the world was greeting Robert Zemeckis’s Forrest Gump with dewy eyes and outstretched arms, this critic was grinning his fool head off at a very different tale of a lost, lone hero. While a featherweight Tom Hanks bumbled his lobotomized way through misty Boomer memories, the late…
Yuletide Jeers
With Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas raking in millions at the box office, it’s no wonder Frank Zappa’s good-for-nothing son Dweezil decided to cover “You’re a Mean One Mister Grinch,” a track that didn’t even make it onto the Grinch soundtrack (which boasts bigger stars such as Busta Rhymes, the Barenaked Ladies, ‘N…
Zuzu’s Petals
The Family Man offers but a slight variation on the threadbare holiday theme of what life might have been like had Our Hero followed a different path. Not only is it a redo of It’s a Wonderful Life, but it’s also a thinly veiled remake of 1990’s Mr. Destiny, with Cage stepping into a role…
Soundbites
It all started with a simple e-mail. Replying to a bulk message sent by Brian Lisik, who plays in the local band Giants of Science, Christine Young expressed her concern about the treatment that a “friend” had received from “a very large bookstore chain in the area.” Without naming names, she wrote about her “friend’s…
Eye of the Beholder
In Hollywood, all it takes is one big hit. Sandra Bullock’s ticket to stardom was the 1994 sleeper Speed, a rip-roaring action/crime thriller that elevated co-star Keanu Reeves to similar megawatt status. With her cute girl-next-door looks and ingratiating physical klutziness, Bullock established an instant rapport with audiences. That perception of adorableness was further enhanced…
The Pilfers
Three constants about New York City: The hot dogs taste better, the baseball teams play better ball in October, and inexplicably, the ska sounds purer, bouncier, and more exuberant. The multiethnic, multigendered Pilfers proudly carry the Big Apple mantle of two-tone excellence, fusing ska’s aggression to reggae’s nonchalant cool and forging anthemic choruses out of…
Sexual Reeling
In assessing the merits of Quills, the lusty new feature by director Philip Kaufman (Henry & June), it’s tempting to seek correlative characters from popular movies to illustrate just how radical this business is not. In Kaufman’s film — affectionately constructed upon a screenplay by Doug Wright, who adapts his award-winning play — we discover…
Jason White
In the mid-’80s and early ’90s, the Janglers, a Cleveland-based quintet, earned a rep as one of the Midwest’s most exciting live acts. With two full-length recordings, 1988’s Sweet Providence (which earned the group comparisons to the Band) and 1992’s Circuit Ride (which found them moving in a more Allman Brothers-style direction), they earned a…
Family Values
The moods of Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me are so artfully mingled that it’s difficult to get a fix on this highly personal independent feature. Set in a quiet little town in upstate New York’s Catskill Mountains, it is at once a drama about the unresolved traumas of childhood and a sly comedy…
Luther Vandross
Don’t count out Luther Vandross. While he’s recording for minor labels now — his last, To Love, surfaced this year under the independent AMW imprint — his buttery baritone-tenor, impeccable turn of phrase, and cross-gender appeal make him a perennial. Verging on 50, Vandross still sings like a wounded angel, his voice silken as ever,…
Sweet Dreams Are Made of This
Here you will find the ingredients required to spin an audience into throes of fuzzy warmheartedness — the hope, the compassion, the joie de vivre — all blended with the skill of a consummate confectioner. Much like a box of sweets with a convenient guide inside the lid, there are no surprises in Lasse Hallström’s…
Saskia Laroo
Though the Netherlands jazz scene has come to be known for the wacky postmodern exploits of musicians such as Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink, Dutch trumpeter Saskia Laroo has much more in common with her white-leather-clad, smooth jazzin’ countrywoman Candy Dulfer (whose dad even guests on Laroo’s recordings). Nevertheless, Laroo crosses over frequently and has…
Derailed
Don Yuratovac has spent 30 years trying to bring more public transportation to Greater Cleveland. So forgive him if, on the verge of retirement, he gets a little cynical, like when a visitor asks him about expanding Cleveland’s meager rapid-transit system. “Maribeth can speak about the present plans that’ll never happen,” he says. “And I’ll…
Silverchair
Dismissed as Baby Nirvana and Pearl Jam Jr., Silverchair, the young Aussie trio that generated heat galore during grunge’s halcyon days, rode the wave of chunky guitar riffs, flannel, and woe-is-me lyrics to semi-fame during one brief, mid-’90s season. Then it faded away, along with many others, in the great alternative nation crash of ’96.…
Unexcused
Until this fall, children who skipped school were likely to get in trouble with their parents, maybe with school administrators, but rarely with the law. On the broadening spectrum of juvenile delinquency, truancy ranked somewhere in the vicinity of a curfew violation. Only the most chronic truants had to muster excuses before a judge. That…
Don Byron
In his notes for this disc, clarinetist Don Byron asks, “Has the art of writing aria and lieder been lost altogether? I think not.” So what does Byron do here? He performs 11 pretty songs from a variety of genres by composers including Ornette Coleman, Schumann, Puccini, Chopin, Sondheim, Henry Mancini, Roy Orbison, Stevie Wonder,…
Avenging Elaine
Jackie Lynn began to feel sick. Something wasn’t right. She talked to Elaine every day. They had a routine: Since Elaine lived in Euclid and Jackie lived near Case Western, Elaine would stop by each day before they both went to work. But Jackie hadn’t heard from her since Wednesday. It was now Friday. Jackie…
Jazzanova
Although many artists maintain that their work can’t be categorized, Jazzanova is one of the few acts that makes good on the claim. Consisting of a half-dozen German DJs and studio gurus, the group creates a hybrid of electronic music that hovers tantalizingly close to genres such as acid jazz, Afrofunk, high-fidelity lounge, trip-hop, techno,…
