He Scores
Ennio Morricone can tell you stories about each of his 400 children–where they were conceived, what they mean to him, why each one remains so singular and special he cannot and will not choose a favorite. He’s proud even of the orphans, the runts, the bastards, the children long ago born and forgotten, left abandoned…
Digital Discomfort
How do you live in this digital age without losing your bearings? That, in a nutshell, is what Comfort: Reclaiming Place in a Virtual World is all about. The premise of the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art’s impressively unified show is that the eight artists represented in it have tried to reawaken personal responses that…
Four More to Adore
The biggest theater blitzkrieg in Cleveland history continues, with producers indiscriminately dropping shows from the sky, hurtling patrons into diverse dreamscapes and universes. Among the most successful is a pair of odes to the American past, both comic and tragic. Frank Gorshin once reigned supreme as The Riddler on TV’s Batman. Now, as one of…
Italian Nice
There’s no way around it, so I’m just going to come right out and say it: The kitchen at Curcio’s overcooked the pasta. Lasagna noodles? Limp. Spaghetti carbonara? Floppy. Penne in an absolutely killer plum tomato sauce, enriched with a soupçon of cream? Flaccid. But that said, in most other regards, this little neighborhood Italian…
Puerto Rican Pleasures
The Ohio City neighborhood around the West Side Market — already a mecca for ethnic eats — has gotten tastier with the addition of Lelolai Bakery and Café (1889 West 25th Street; 216-771-9956). The bright, cheerful little storefront is jam-packed with wonderful things to eat, made with pride by the effervescent Maria Sapia, businesswoman turned…
Navel Maneuvers
Before the age of mass media, American tourists who traveled to the Middle East would return only with tales of the sensual “belly dances” they had seen. Their stories and imitations created a version of Middle Eastern dance known as “American Nightclub” — one of four styles performed by Shaker Heights-based Troupe Dayim Lahib. Gina…
Sigh Master
Stephen Malkmus sighs. He begins to say something. Then he sighs again. Just by the general hesitation and his longing to exhale, you can sense Malkmus’s exasperation with the subject. Another sigh, then he confronts the question. “We just ran out of gas,” he says, referring to Pavement, the now-legendary indie band he used to…
Choose Life
Dr. Len Horowitz, a behavioral scientist and public health educator who graduated from Harvard, raised eyebrows with his 1996 book Emerging Viruses: AIDS and Ebola — Nature, Accident, or Intentional?, in which he amasses compelling evidence that AIDS and the Ebola virus are man-made diseases. Citing the questionable lab conditions that existed in the late…
Gummi Bare
The first time it happened, it wasn’t even intentional. Texas Terri was playing a show one night with her band, the Stiff Ones, and the straps on the small T-shirt she was wearing fell down. Her top came all the way off, exposing her artificially enhanced breasts. “Everybody went so wild,” Texas Terri recalls. “I…
Dr. Yes
As its title suggests, Spy Kids is an action fantasy aimed primarily at the preteen/early-teen audience. For all its thrills — and it has plenty — it’s strictly a PG film . . . which is all the more surprising when you consider its source: Robert Rodriguez, master of bloody gunplay and monster films that…
Beatle Bud
When Bob Dylan plugged in for the first time at the Newport Folk Festival, Bob Gruen was there. When the Sex Pistols signed their landmark recording contract with EMI, he was there, too. And when Elton John made his stateside debut as the opening act for Leon Russell, Gruen eyed it through his lens. As…
Macho Pig
Amid the plethora of films with Freddie Prinze Jr., Mena Suvari, Chris Klein, and Jason Biggs, it’s nice — in theory, at least — to see a contemporary romantic comedy, like Someone Like You, in which the characters, while hardly over the hill, are all over 30. In practice, however, “nice” is really about as…
The White Stripes
When most people think of duos, they think of the Everly Brothers or Seals & Crofts; when they think of brother-and-sister acts, it’s Donny and Marie. Detroit’s White Stripes are here to reset the counter. The Stripes — Jack and Meg White — work double duty as a duo and a brother-and-sister act, but they’re…
Sweet Seoul Music
Im Kwon Taek has long been the best-known Korean director in America; in fact, it would be fair to say that he’s pretty much the only even vaguely known Korean director, and even then his renown is strictly among festivalgoers. The general distribution of his latest film, Chunhyang, should be a breakthrough for Im and…
Taraf de Haidoucks
There’s considerable interest in the music of Gypsy artists these days, but is there really such a thing as Gypsy music? Gypsies, after all, live all over Europe and don’t play just one style. The horas played by Romanian Gypsies such as Taraf de Haidoucks (Band of Brigands) don’t have much in common with the…
Reality Fights
Around 20 years ago, writing under a pseudonym, Stephen King made a couple of rare forays into science fiction with the short novels The Long Walk and The Running Man. In The Long Walk, contestants must keep walking until all but one has dropped dead, while The Running Man features a man who is hunted…
98 Degrees
It’s funny. Of all the boy groups clogging up the radio these days, 98 Degrees is probably the one most likely to kick our ass. These are some pretty buff guys, their muscles as much a draw for their fans as their faces (can’t say the same about flabby Backstreeter Nick or the ‘N Sync…
Hangin’ with Mother Hough
It’s 10:15 a.m. Time for Fannie Lewis, matriarch of Cleveland’s Ward 7, to order around the garbagemen. “Hi, how you doing?” she hollers out the window, in her slightly Southern, completely ear-splitting accent, to the men in denim. “Listen, my wastebasket’s sitting in the corner of my yard. The little bitty garbage can should sit…
The Holmes Brothers
The Holmes Brothers’ music can be complex, but it never lacks roots. One reason may be that seasoned siblings Sherman and Wendell Holmes and drummer and falsetto relief Popsy Dixon came up in Baptist and Pentecostal churches in Virginia. They’ve been based in New York for more than 40 years, and, though they’ve been on…
The Good, the Bad & the Blighted
Tucked between quaint Larchmere and stately Ludlow is a wrinkle of a neighborhood the city nearly forgot. Known as Little Hungary from 1900 to 1930, the Buckeye neighborhood began losing its population and pastry shops 40 years ago. Age and neglect ravaged the pretty homes left behind. Paint peeled. Yards filled with debris. New residents…
Shuggie Otis
Since its inception as a vanity label for ex-Talking Head David Byrne, Luaka Bop has served two purposes: On the one hand, it’s been a way for Byrne to live vicariously through new artists who make music that’s as adventurous as the Heads once were. On the other, Luaka Bop is a great resource for…
Mothers of Reinvention
Nobody’s a homemaker anymore, unless she’s really old-fashioned or a game-show contestant. That word lost punch somewhere between “23 skiddoo” and “funky fresh.” But Sue Anderson is stuck with it. In 1977, it was a perfectly fine word. That’s when Anderson helped start Displaced Homemakers, a self-improvement class at Tri-C for divorced and widowed women…
Various Artists
Director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club, Smoke) says his upcoming film, Center of the World, is about a computer whiz so in love with the digital world that he’s forgotten his social and sexual manners and mores. That’s why Wang wanted a soundtrack hot enough to reflect the movie’s contemporary, highly erotic theme. This…
Seat Shifting
The rumor mill is once again spinning within the government-subsidized sitcom known as Parma City Hall. The latest word: Three council members — Susan Straub, Sam Bonanno, and Anthony Zielinski — will abandon their posts early, thus giving their replacements a running start in the fall elections. But the palace intrigue doesn’t end there. City…
The Living End
Australia’s Living End makes punk rock as if the ’80s never happened. It lives for and by the three-chord guitar hook. All right, it loves that three-chord guitar hook and draws equally from the Ramones and pub metal. And there’s some concession made to politicize the music. While the band tries to rally behind all…
Vetoed Bill
An insider’s disdain for Denihan I recently read Andrew Putz’s article on Bill Denihan, Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) director, with great hopes of identifying what specific reforms and turnarounds have actually occurred at DCFS under his so-called leadership [“All His Children,” February 15]. However, the article proved more a validation…
Step Sister
Singer Tom Dark played in Knifedance and the Dark before forming Step Sister in Kent some five years ago. With a variety of lineups (drummer Scott Eakin, who also played in Knifedance and the Dark, seems to be the only constant), Step Sister has released numerous singles and EPs. But this album is more comprehensive;…
