C-Notes is On Vacation…
We’re taking the rest of the week off to ensure the safety of the country, so you don’t have to. We’ll be returning to our regularly scheduled programming Monday, June 18. Until we meet again, sweet reader, our fondest thoughts of you swell like seas in a raging storm, or something akin to that. –…
Slideshow: Nelly Furtado Live in Cleveland
With 2006’s Loose, Nelly Furtado transformed herself from a folk-pop nymph into a sexually charged diva, one who even croons in Portuguese. On June 9, Clevelanders were able to experience Furtado’s radical new look and sound when her summer tour stopped by the Time Warner Amphitheater. Action Rock Photographer Walter Novak was there to capture…
This Just In: Concert Announcements — 42 New Shows
Country from Toby Keith and friends. Jazz/hip-hop fusion from Gang Starr’s Guru. Relive the ‘80s with the Bangles. Relive the ‘90s with the Rentals. Relive the ‘70s with Lez Zeppelin. Relive the (early) ‘60s with the Beatles. Relive the ‘50s with the Ultimate Doo-Wop Show. And relive the waning years of nu metal with Adema.
Interview: Russell Simmons to Speak in Cleveland
Hip-hop/fashion mogul Russell Summons will appear at Barnes & Noble Eaton (28801 Chagrin Blvd., 216-765-7520) Thursday June 14 at 7 p.m. The co-founder of Def Jam records and founder of Phat Farm clothing will answer questions and sign his new book, Do You! 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and…
A Porn Star Turned Doting Grandson
Lorain County native Ryan Niece concedes his move back home from L.A. has amounted to culture shock. You’d think the same — if you were humping Hollywood by day and partying with pop tarts all night. Until four months ago, the 25-year-old Niece was living as “Brandon Hoover,” a gay-porn twink whose onscreen credits include…
Follow that Story: Autism Theory Goes to Court
Last year, we introduced you to Joshua Shoemaker, an autistic boy from Columbus whose parents believe his disorder was caused, at least in part, by mercury poisoning from childhood vaccines (“Raising Joshua,” Nov. 15, 2006). Although mainstream medical studies have dismissed the link between vaccines and the disorder, many parents have rallied around it, and…
Phil Burress to be probed, heh, heh
Citizens for Community Values President Phil Burress will soon be getting probed, but probably not in the way he secretly wants to be. A complaint filed in March with the Secretary of State by the watchdog group Progress Ohio accuses him and his non-profit – dedicated to eradicating the last three remaining homos in Ohio…
A Good Reason for Selling Gang Caps
I remember once when I was in high school. Before I realized I hated the school, I used to wear a black Duke Blue Devils t-shirt. That’s when I discovered people got upset at me for reasons beyond disliking Coach Mike Krzyzewski or Christian Laettner. With a big letter D on the front and it’s…
A Powerful Kind of Ice Cream in Columbus
We had the pleasure of hangin’ with an undercover operative from Food & Wine magazine last weekend when she was in Cleveland assaying the local food scene. (Look for a full report in Side Dish, on June 20.) Among other tasty tidbits, the editor filled me in on Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, a Columbus-based biz…
Alternate Ideas for the Sopranos Finale
If the Scene staff had written Sunday’s Sopranos series finale, it’d surely have been a little more conventional. We like to think we’d have come up with using Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” — it’s skyrocketed to No. 30 on the iTunes singles download chart — but aside from that, the final episode might have gone…
He Disses Cleveland, but it’s Hard to Dislike Ichiro
If you need a reason to get drunk and throw things on the field at tonight’s Tribe game, behold the Mariners’ ever quotable Ichiro in this morning’s Seattle Times. The Mariners were clearly not thrilled with the detour before opening a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday. “To tell the truth, I’m not…
Terrence Howard: Traitor to Cleveland?
The most depressing thing about last night’s Cavs game was not the final score, although that did make me want to use my LeBron bobblehead doll to bobble myself in the face. No, the most depressing thing was ABC’s shot of actor Terrence Howard, of Hustle and Flow fame, sitting next to Eva Longoria and…
Mikey G’s Entertainment Picks of the Week
This week’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Monday: Back in the day, Mary Timony fronted Helium, super-cool alt-rockers from Boston who made a lotta noise in the early ’90s. These days, Timony is a prog-rock hippie whose new CD, The Shapes We Make, sounds like…
Money Where Your Mouth Is: Broken Teeth
Scene’s music department are so despondent over the Cavs’ Sunday night showing that they can’t think of words to describe Broken Teeth; instead, they’ll just let the band speak for itself. Band: Broken Teeth Hometown: Austin, TX Sounds like: “Judas Priest and Motorhead, with AC/DC as their lovechild.” Fun fact: “The band started out as…
Welcome to Cleveland, Eugene. Be Sure to Buy a Flack Jacket.
Cleveland schools chief Eugene Sanders never got much of a honeymoon. Lately, his PR problems seem endless. Two weeks ago, he faced mobs of angry parents who were never consulted about their elementary schools, Miles Park and Louis Agassiz, being converted to single-sex academies. The police had to be called to restrain them. Now, he’s…
Reverend C. Jay Matthews Introduces Parishioners to a Nightmare
Rysar Properties has made a name for itself in Central, and that’s not a good thing. Many of the people who bought into its Villages of Central development — a cluster of hundreds of federally-subsidized homes — quickly discovered that “affordable” translated into “falling apart.” Sinking porch steps, slanted driveways, and cracked walls became common…
Extra! Extra! Yuppies Inconvenienced!
There was no shortage of breaking news last Wednesday. Scooter Libby, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and grown man who actually went by the name Scooter, was sentenced to prison. Lt. Gov Lee Fisher was in hot water for hiring his sister-in-law to the Ohio Lottery Commission – following disclosures that he’d…
Mikey G’s Weekend Entertainment Picks
This weekend’s top arts and entertainment picks around town, from the guy who’s paid to pick them: Friday: Not much happens in Syndromes and a Century, the latest movie by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Ostensibly the story of the filmmaker’s doctor parents, the work — an often disjointed connection of long scenes and tranquil images…
LeBron the Next Michael Jordon? That’s Not a Compliment.
Amidst the whirlwind of pro-LeBron coverage and commentary leading up to tonight’s NBA Finals opener, a couple of folks have taken the opportunity to needle James on one small, albeit global and actually huge, issue. It stems from Cavs guard Ira Newble’s newfound interest in the Darfur conflict. It was reported last month that Newble…
Slideshow: The Vacancies CD Release Party
Celebrating the release of Tantrum, its new disc for Joan Jett’s Blackheart imrprint, the Vacancies delivered an airtight set of punk rock to Parma’s Jigsaw Saloon on Saturday night, June 2. The group’s next mission is a slot on this summer’s Warped Tour 2007. Action Rock Photographer Wanda Santos-Bray was there to capture the event.…
Red Giant’s Return: Parma Rawk Legends Reunite
After a yearlong hiatus, the Cleveland rawk crushers of Red Giant return to the stage at Parma’s Jigsaw Saloon and Stage (5325 State Rd.) Saturday, June 9. Guitarist Damien Perry says after 17 years, the band tried to go quietly into the night – but it didn’t work, and now they’re back for good. Scene:…
Bake a Pie, Win Fabulous Prizes in Bay Village
We think Papa Cahoon, founder of the settlement that became Bay Village, would dig the Historical Society’s 38th Annual Antique and Craft Show and Sale, to be held from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday June 16. As one of the area’s largest and most selective shows – complete with antique cars, strolling musicians,…
Roger Brown Does Battle with ESPN Writer
Roger Brown may have left his job as the Plain Dealer’s sports-gossip and real-estate columnist, but he’s still finding ways to make himself look like an ass. To refresh, Brown spent years firing arrows at various sports and sports-media targets from the safety of his cubicle. He didn’t appear to like anyone, except for Shaker…
10 Tips on How to Cope with Being a Winner
I know, Cleveland fans. It’s hard. Being a winner for the first time in decades is not something that comes easy to the eternal underdog. Going from a total loser to an Eastern Conference champ overnight will totally fuck with one’s sense of self. After years of embracing self pity and dashed dreams, you have…
Cavs Lose Finals — If You’re to Believe a Video Game
This just in – the Cavs lose the NBA finals in the sixth game! At least that’s the way EA Sports – the venerable video game company behind the gazillion-dollar-making Madden series – sees it. It ran its NBA Live 07 game through simulator mode the other day, and the results aren’t good for Cleveland…
Around Hear: The Bonus Edition
This week’s edition of Around Hear features updates on User Sets Mode+ (a new band with members of Racermason and the Frans), the Lovekill (it might be dead), and Red Giant (they’re back from the dead). Here’s a few more breaking items, submitted for your approval… * Akron’s Rebel Girl (click the video above) will…
Its Team May be Good, but San Antonio Sucks
As the city gears up for the finals confrontation between San Antonio and the Cavs, its been a longstanding tradition for newspaper columnists to rip on the opposing team’s city. Gaylon Krizak of the San Antonio Express-News continues it with a backhanded column touting all the ways he could rip on Cleveland but won’t. For…
A Powerfully Good Restaurant Pops Up in Findlay
It’s time to unplug the Prius and Mapquest a course to – of all places – Findlay, for a visit to Revolver. Open since last November, the “modern Midwestern” restaurant is the creation of Michael and Debi Bulkowski, two corn-fed, milk-washed country kids who returned to the heartland after a decade in Chicago, where Michael…
What Would Journey Do?
The Hi-Fi Concert Club should be prime real estate for music lovers. Its soft, rosy lighting hides baggy eyes and other burdens of nocturnal life. The stage is stripped of distractions and painted an angry black. And the dressing room feels haunted by after-parties past — cluttered with antique couches and empty liquor bottles, adorned…
Fountains of Wayne
It’s been four years since Fountains of Wayne’s last studio album, but the wait has been more than worth it, because FOW produces incredibly well-constructed pop. Besides a gift for hummable melodies, the group’s bite-size vignettes of middle-class angst (think John Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom) reveal a novelist’s eye for detail. This ensures a three-dimensionality most…
Three’s a Charm
Bold proclamation time: There wouldn’t even be an Xbox 360 without Halo. Microsoft lost billions on the original Xbox even with its mega-successful sci-fi games, so it’s hard to imagine the red ink that would have spilled without them; even suggesting a second go at the console business would’ve had shareholders burning effigies of Bill…
Family Affair
Not much happens in Syndromes and a Century, the latest movie by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Ostensibly the story of the filmmaker’s doctor parents, the work — an often disjointed connection of long scenes and tranquil images — unspools as an abstract rumination on love and memories. The narrative (or at least what there is…
Un-funny Uncle
Brar no silver fox: Uncle [“Say Uncle,” May 9] needs a good bashing and should be put in jail for the rest of his life. The judge sounds like a dumb loser who couldn’t see who was taking advantage of whom. If the girls were so desperate, I am sure they would have found somebody…
R. Kelly
The most perverse moment on R. Kelly’s new album is, surprisingly, neither “The Zoo” — a slow-jam full of animal noises that suggests he and his lady had some company in the sack — nor “Sex Planet,” which offers a particularly unfortunate metaphor for back-door action. It’s “Rise Up,” the product of Kelly’s belief that…
Here are the week’s best releases from the pop-culture universe:
TV — Big Love: Television’s best show about angsty polygamists returns for its second season on HBO at 9 p.m. Monday. While Bill (played by a terrific Bill Paxton) tries to figure out who outed his multiple marriages at a public ceremony last year, his three wives — including one very depressed and dethroned Mother…
Wing Commanders
Dinosaurs Alive!, the Great Lakes Science Center’s latest IMAX film, promotes paleontologists’ beliefs that certain two-legged dinos were the forefathers of modern-day birds. When you check out the 3-D flick on the big-ass screen, you’ll even spot feathers sprouting from reptilian wings. “The idea that the robin on your lawn goes back to the ancestors…
The Search Pushes On
If Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy is the temperamental artist driven by perfectionism and ego — as the documentaries Man in the Sand and I Am Trying to Break Your Heart suggest — then Son Volt’s Jay Farrar truly is his complement: a soft-spoken, humble musician more enamored of the process than the end result. They’re both…
Ian Hunter
Ian Hunter has always demonstrated a biting wit and shocking ease with a hard-rocking tune, but the ex-Mott the Hoople frontman outdoes himself on Shrunken Heads. From the blues boogie of “How’s Your House,” whose caustic title reflects his take on the feds’ insufficient response to Katrina, to the Stonesy “Fuss About Nothin’,” with its…
Our top DVD picks for the week of June 6:
The Abyss: Special Edition (Fox) The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Extra Frills Edition (MGM) Bruce Springsteen With the Sessions Band: Live in Dublin (Sony) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: A Re-Imagining of the 1919 Masterpiece of Horror (Image) CHiPs: The Complete First Season (Turner) Coming to America: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Fail…
Whoa, Nelly — what happened?
Editor’s note: Last week’s open letter to local music sensation Kate Voegele has inspired readers to flood Scene’s offices with their own open letters to pop stars. The overwhelming majority of them has been of the kinky-psycho variety — and Cole Haddon’s is no different. The dude has an unhealthy fixation on Nelly Furtado. However,…
Townes Van Zandt
Though he released 15 albums, commercial success eluded Townes Van Zandt for much of his life. But since his death in 1997, the Texan has garnered considerable interest: 2006 saw the DVD release of the documentary Be Here to Love Me, while this year Da Capo Press issued the first official biography. Now, Fat Possum…
Strike Force
Players who sign up for the Bowl to Put-in-Bay Fun Summer Coed League at the Lakewood bar Put-in-Bay today have a chance to snag an overnight trip to the Lake Erie Islands later this summer. Players must bowl at least three games per week until the end of the season. If they miss a game,…
The Re-Entroducer
It’s the last day of this year’s EMP Pop Conference, the annual gathering of music critics and academic scholars helmed by the Experience Music Project museum in Seattle. The event is a chance for music writers to leave behind cloistered offices and towers of unopened promo CDs for a weekend of panels and papers on…
Collideascope
Collideascope’s roots as a cover band are on display on its debut. The Colors Inside is happy-go-lucky rock indebted to Cheap Trick and the Who, while catchy tunes like “Catch 22” and “Don’t You Know” showcase a serious Beatles infatuation. All four members of the Akron quartet share vocal duties and writing credits. Although the…
Period Piece
Women can tackle their time of the month at today’s Moon Cycle Yoga: Yoga, Menstruation, and Menopause workshop at River’s Edge. The course features yoga instructions, guided meditations, and storytelling. “We are surrounded by unhealthy messages that make menstruation and menopause a taboo,” says therapist Jackie Toth, who runs the program. “Both experiences are ‘medicalized,’…
No Expectations
It’s cool when musicians fuck with their audiences’ expectations. That’s one of the reasons Neil Young released so many awesome records in the ’70s. Young mainly did this for his own sanity (he didn’t want to turn into a robot like James Taylor), but he also understood a truth that’s difficult for most consumers to…
Kill the Fall
Ray Terry is becoming a high-quality brand name in Cleveland. Whatever project the former Allergic to Whores/ Nightbreed frontman has cooking on his front burner, it’s usually outstanding. Kill the Fall is no different. The power trio’s latest demo represents the most eclectic and adventurous project of Terry’s career. Ripping through the post-hardcore and horror-punk…
Voices Carry
Former MADtv cast member Frank Caliendo ranks among America’s top impressionists. He shrugs off the distinction, but David Letterman is so enamored with Caliendo’s John Madden impersonation that the late-night host tapped the comic to provide NFL commentary — in character, of course — on his show. “It’s funny how Dave sits there and pretends…
New Mode
Derek and Mandy Lashua, the former frontline for the Frans and Racermason, are returning to the scene with User Sets Mode+, a band that writes an edgier chapter in their history of pop bliss. Guitarist-songwriter Derek says the new band synthesizes the Frans’ guitar hooks, Racermason’s dynamic vibe, and Mandy’s siren vocals. “We’re going for…
They’ve Got Game
Cruise the streets, catch a game, quaff some brews: If there’s a simple recipe for warm-weather fun in downtown Cleveland, that’s probably it. Of course, the necessary ingredients include having a sports team worth watching; this spring, both the Indians and the Cavs have filled that bill. The other requisite is a few good sports…
Mirror, Mirror
If you think too hard about local artist Olga Ziemska’s latest exhibit, Mirror Matter, you’ll probably end up with a migraine. The subject centers on the theory of something called a “mirror world of matter.” Ziemska’s installations — which are part of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Wendy L. Moore Emerging Artist Series — probe…
Little Feat
One could argue that Little Feat without founding member Lowell George is like the Allmans without Duane or the Beach Boys without Brian — that is, just plain wrong. But for a band nearly 40 years old, Little Feat isn’t doing that badly. The band still boasts half the lineup heard on the group’s way-underrated…
The House Always Wins
The Hollywood blockbuster — i.e., lowest common denominator-ism, writ large and engraved in stone, like the Ten Commandments according to Cecil B. DeMille — is often an allegory for itself. Case in point: Walt Disney, the notoriously litigious studio that successfully changed the nation’s copyright laws to protect its trademark, Mickey Mouse, but more recently…
BrilliantMistakes
While you’re checking out all the crafts at the second-annual Crocker Park Art Fair this weekend, keep in mind that what you’re seeing isn’t necessarily the piece the artist set out to make. “I was creating a landscape, and I turned the vessel over,” recalls glassblower David Kolasky. “Voila! A night-light! Accidents can create inspiring…
Amy LaVere
Back in the day, love-gone-bad drove country crickets like Skeeter Davis to declare the “End of the World” or Sandy Posey to bemoan the fate of being “Born a Woman.” But nowadays, Amy LaVere — delicate and demure as she sounds — would rather take her man out than take it on the chin. Sure,…
Heads Will Roll
The idea of “getting axed” is exploited for maximum double-entendre value in Severance, a grisly horror-comedy from the U.K. that has its tongue planted firmly in its cheek. Yes, heads (and a severed foot) roll during the course of the “team-building weekend” embarked upon by seven employees of global weapons manufacturer Palisade Defence. Deep into…
Exposed!
At tonight’s Exposure Cleveland gathering at Lava Lounge, folks get together to discuss photography tips and bond over drinks. And before they leave, everyone will contribute at least one new picture to be displayed at the bar over the next month. Jim Polaczynski formed the online group a year ago. The monthly meetings started soon…
Don Dixon & the Jump Rabbits
Don Dixon’s nearly 40-year career in the music industry has traveled many different paths over the decades. As a producer, he was behind the boards for career-defining albums from R.E.M., the Smithereens and Matthew Sweet. As an artist, Dixon has racked up nine albums, including his latest, The Entire Combustible World in One Small Room,…
Geekology 101
There is a moment early on in “Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers,” the 14th episode of the brilliant but canceled television series Freaks and Geeks, in which gangly, bespectacled, picked-last-in-gym-class high school freshman Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) arrives home from school, makes himself a grilled cheese sandwich, and sits down to watch an up-and-coming comic…
Justice for All
Comedian Todd Justice doesn’t mind touring all the time. After all, it’s part of the business. But, he admits, he gets lonely every now and then. On Valentine’s Day, he broke down and called an escort service for a little company. “But I dialed the wrong number and got Kinko’s,” he says. “She said, ‘Can…
Conya Doss
Conya Doss As mainstream R&B becomes progressively more processed, where vocalist and robot android are interchangeable, Conya Doss continues to revel in the organic qualities of her voice, which needs no studio filters or digital trickery to shine. She is clearly of sound mind at a time when more famous colleagues, like Lauryn Hill –…
The Torturer Talks
“I think the public doesn’t care about reviews,” says Eli Roth, writer-director of Hostel Part II, which — surprise! — isn’t being shown to the press before it opens Friday on more than 2,500 screens. Still, the 35-year-old perpetrator of high-grossing “torture porn” does appreciate critical kindness when he sees it. “When Artforum called Hostel…
Out of Tune
If DJs Joe & Dave learned one thing at their weekly karaoke sessions at Bar Louie, it’s that American Idol has deluded even the most abysmal singers into thinking they have talent. “I have heard the worst of the worst,” says Joe Ploviak. “I’ve no doubt in my mind that I have heard the William…
Voxtrot
For all the jangly guitars and moody swoon, Voxtrot sounds like it hails from Britain, not Austin. Perhaps it’s those three years frontman Ramesh Srivastava spent studying in Scotland. Originally, he was a student at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, but he quit because he didn’t like submitting his passion to a formal…
Murders & Marriages
It’s obscene that so many people (including our vice president) still think Iraq was responsible for 9/11. But more troubling is how unaware most of us are about grisly moments from our country’s history. One of these was a Mormon-led massacre of nearly 120 people that happened, coincidentally, on September 11 in the year 1857.…
Standard Time
On her latest album, Sing You Sinners, Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter Erin McKeown goes back. Way back. The CD features a dozen Tin Pan Alley and Broadway songs written between the 1930s and ’50s. “There are many reasons you make a record,” she says. “You make a record because it documents a live thing. You make a…
Ted Nugent
The left-leaning rock fan has a hard time dealing with Ted Nugent. That’s because the guy digs guns, Republicans, and hunting. He also isn’t totally tolerant of the gay lifestyle — or anything gay for that matter (even though he sports a perm). But when the shit hits the fan in this country, there’s no…
Just Chillin’
In many fields, from surveying to the aiming of weaponry, a process called triangulation is used to fix a particular location with precision. The goal is to find three discrete reference points to eliminate any ambiguity. If only the human mind were so easily charted. Playwright Bryony Lavery uses a form of triangulation to pin…
Con Heir
Tom Hewitt, star of the musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, says his role as sophisticated con man Lawrence Jameson ranks as one of his all-time favorites. Not because it’s such a rich character or even one that gives him oodles of stage time. Rather, after lead performances in The Rocky Horror Show (he played Frank-N-Furter), Dracula,…
The Woman Gender
The prestigious Union Club of Cleveland doesn’t exactly spring to mind as a bastion of diversity. It wasn’t long ago that women were forced to use a separate entrance, and blacks were forced to, er, find their own club. But that all changed recently, when the club elected one of each to its top two…
The Nightwatchman
The Nightwatchman is Tom Morello. Yes, that Tom Morello, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, as well as co-founder of Axis of Justice, a social-activism organization. But this time around, it’s just Morello, his acoustic guitar, and his deep, growling voice, belting out folk tunes from his debut, One Man Revolution. “I started…
Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.
King Hedley II — August Wilson’s King Hedley II, brilliantly directed by Caroline Jackson, is a three-hour production that never falters for a minute. Set in 1985 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, most of the activity revolves around King Hedley II, the 35-ish son of his namesake and ex-band singer Ruby. King is a…
On the Record
In the one-man show Walkin’ Talkin’ Bill Hawkins . . . In Search of My Father, W. Allen Taylor looks for answers about his late dad, the title character. Hawkins was Cleveland’s first black disc jockey. He spun records here for a decade, starting in 1948. Taylor’s play — which he wrote and stars in…
The Odd Couple
The couple sat in the courtroom, separated by an oak gate and a U.S. marshal. The jail-issued shirt on Lesean Roberts seemed a size too small, black glasses making him look more like a gym teacher than a drug dealer. Tiffany Cleveland, his wife in sickness and in health, was seated behind him, sandwiched between…
Acid Rain
Twenty-one reasons to check out Acid Rain, Rockstar Cleveland’s newest weekly party: DJs Chris Z and Kristoff — and this week, guest PKS’ Dark Naïve — spin dark, heavy rock, punk, and industrial, like 1349, 16Volt, Acheron, American Head Charge, Brutal Truth, Chimaira, Danzig, Dark Funeral, Deftones, the Exploited, Faith No More, Killswitch Engage, Lamb…
Capsule reviews of current area art exhibitions.
Robert Roth — Impressionism blossomed in the late 19th century, but it’s still useful here, in the early 21st, as American Greetings staffer Robert Roth demonstrates in this thoughtful display of paintings inspired by New York’s Long Island. Acrylic dries rapidly, but Roth doesn’t seem hurried, even as he captures all the sensory details of…
Hit Parade
University Circle doesn’t want to fix something that’s not broken. That’s why today’s 18th-annual Parade the Circle celebration looks, sounds, and tastes a lot like past parties. But the fest — which includes live music, yummy eats, and hands-on activities at 15 of the area’s most popular arts and cultural institutions — will go on…
Dropping Bombs
Five-forty-five on a frigid February morning is a cruel time to be trekking to work, but Brunswick High secretary Carol Lee Heubach liked to get a head start before the parade of yellow buses and the cars with booming bass and bad mufflers showed up, carrying the school’s 2,200-plus student body. She went through her…
U.S. Air Guitar Championships
To air is divine: Unleash your inner rock god at the Fifth Annual U.S. Air Guitar Championships. The two-round competition lets you strut your stuff, and the winner will go on to the national finals in New York City, where he’ll have a chance to compete to be the world champion. Bjorn Turoque — the…
Sagebrush & Spaghetti
The Sergio Leone Anthology (MGM) Sergio Leone made westerns like Wagner made ditties. This essential boxed set — four films with four discs of supplemental material, much of it scholarly and insightful — shows the Italian director supplanting the elegiac Monument Valley iconography of John Ford with a darker, ruder, more bleak-humored brand of mythmaking.…
Where the Hart Is
Comedian Kevin Hart has been quite busy since his career-making appearance at the prestigious Montreal Comedy Festival a few years ago. He’s landed roles in Soul Plane, Along Came Polly, and a couple of the Scary Movie films. And he’s always on the road. Still, he finds time for the gym. “But you know what…
