Letters
Critic Takes a Knock on the Fanny’s I am writing in response to Elaine T. Cicora’s Cafe review “A Night Out at Home” [March 11]. I have been a patron of Fanny’s Restaurant for more than thirty years. As a child, my granny treated me, and, as an adult, I have treated myself, my family,…
Storm Seller
Oscar Wilde once said that the only thing worse than being talked about was being ignored–a morsel of wit that hung around for roughly seven decades before Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother took it to its bizarre extreme. On hearing about the death of her son, the Mother Oswald purportedly exclaimed, “They can’t push us around…
Fantasia With Attitude
Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk is a tap-dancing travelogue, whirling from slave ship to lynching to a ’30s Twentieth Century Fox soundstage, culminating in a hip-hop inferno. The evening ends up like a dream a Fine Arts major may have after viewing a month of black-history programming on Turner Classic Movies. This…
Oddities From Brick Alley
For those who live on the edge, preferring their theater in-and-out, quick, and espresso-flavored, there is Brick Alley Theatre, a pint-sized coffeehouse on St. Clair with Kerouac ambiance and a flexible arena stage suitable for all forms of human depravity, from folk singing to comedy improv. Proving that Cleveland Public Theatre doesn’t hold a copyright…
Kosta’s, Take Me Away
I fell in love with Kosta’s over a lunchtime bowl of braised-veal stew. Even now, memories of that first encounter linger on my tongue: the cubes of succulent meat, the savory roasted vegetables, the salty strands of grated Asiago cheese, and the trembling caress of the piquant brown gravy. Familiar, yet exotic; comforting, yet thrilling–the…
An American in Paris
A certain fact and a certain opinion always seem to dog soprano sax player Steve Lacy, whenever he returns to the U.S. to tour. The fact: Way back in the late, late ’50s, Lacy inspired John Coltrane to play the soprano sax–which he did ebulliently on such notable recordings as My Favorite Things. The opinion:…
Unfortunate Sons
Author Craig Werner, a professor of African-American studies at the University of Wisconsin, writes that Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty “comes as close to the spirit of the men and women of classic blues as any musician ever to come out of white America.” CCR’s swamp-rock grooves may have sounded quintessentially southern, but the…
Playback
The Beta Band The Three EPs (Astralwerks) It’s difficult to pinpoint from exactly where the Beta Band is coming. Sure, the resume says Scotland, but listening to its first stateside release, The Three EPs, reflects a more universal, at times even otherworldly, place than the land of bagpipes and awesome whiskey. Part Britpop, part electronica…
Soundbites
A band that spends any time on the road has its share of horror stories that only the interstate can provide. Before it relocated to Northeast Ohio from Athens, Georgia, in 1997 and changed its name from Funkomatic, Mr. Tibbs was a well-traveled act that played as many as 250 dates a year. The band…
Porn to Be Wild
“Having sex with 251 men in ten hours is no different from having sex with one guy for ten hours,” says Annabel Chong during an appearance on The Jerry Springer Show. “All these people writing in, wanting to have sex with me–if that’s not an ego trip, I don’t know what is!” The audience whoops.…
Sweet and Crunchy
One of the most annoying things that follows Sleater-Kinney around is the labels. The ones that always have to mention that the powerhouse trio from Olympia, Washington, are not only women, they’re feminists. Not only that, two of the members used to be an item. Plus, they’re a punk band that rocks pretty hard for…
Night & Day
Thursday March 18 Eternity is a day wasted in a doctor’s waiting room in Bringing the Fishermen Home, a new play by New York writer and performance artist Deb Margolin. When a professor of Freudian thought named Jane is diagnosed with a brain tumor, she must confront her own mortality–and listen to a lot of…
Smells Like Teen Spirit
It was close to a decade ago that a young, impressionable Chris Kirkpatrick witnessed his future. As a student at Dalton High School near Orrville, Kirkpatrick was a member of the Ohio State Youth Choir, which opened for New Kids on the Block during the height of their fame at the Ohio State Fair. While…
Creature Comforts
Fifty years ago, Ben Chapman went to Hollywood to hitch his wagon to a star and ended up as just another guy in a rubber suit. The rubber suit, on the other hand, found fame, fortune, and romance. It got the girl–and its picture on the Wall of Stars at Universal Studios. The rubber suit…
Livewire
10,000 Maniacs Jeannie Stearns Mike Farley Band Peabody’s DownUnder March 11 When there are 10,000 of them, what’s the difference, give or take one maniac? In the case of 10,000 Maniacs, it’s obvious. It appears the Buffalo, New York, band still hasn’t gotten over the departure of Natalie Merchant. About an hour into its set,…
Neo-Screwball Strikes Out
At the movies, the fun-loving temptress has been liberating the buttoned-up clod ever since Katharine Hepburn’s leopard made off with Cary Grant’s dinosaur bone in Bringing Up Baby 61 years ago. Maybe even longer, if you count pioneer vamp Theda Bara’s effect on a long succession of speechless men. In a new romantic comedy called…
The Mouth
Jailhouse Crock It’s the hot development trend, loaded with multimillion-dollar projects. And it’s still growing, thanks to politicos and lawyers. Yep, it’s the prison biz, fueled by new laws and new crimes. Hey, everybody wants more prisons. But nobody wants to live by one. Cuyahoga County has to build a jail somewhere–and cheap, since voters…
The King and You and Me
Imagine a bunch of kids watching the classic 1956 film musical The King and I on television, then going outside and spending the rest of the afternoon acting it out in the backyard. Apart from a lack of hired-gun Broadway voices performing the songs, their re-creation might not be too different from Morgan Creek’s new…
The Final Solution Was Survival
In Hungary, the Holocaust lasted only for a year. But the word only is deceptive in this context. The Nazis, who entered the country in March of 1944, had been in the genocide business for a few years by then, and they’d gotten good at it. They were efficient, and they were determined. By the…
The Straight Dope
My roommates and I are having an argument about electroshock therapy after watching Jack in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. What actually happens when someone gets zapped through the brain? Jack convulses for a number of seconds after he gets zapped, but one of my roommates contends that would not actually happen, and there…
