The Hollywood Monologues
It took me awhile to fall for Julia Sweeney’s one-woman movie–but when I fell, I fell hard. God Said, “Ha!” originated at the Magic Theater in San Francisco in 1996; the next year, Sweeney turned it into a book. She put the movie together from two performances shot on a soundstage in front of an…
High School Unhinged
The latest release from Paramount Pictures’ bouncing baby MTV Films is set in a high school and has been inoculated with the usual doses of teenage angst, teenage wit, and teenage lust. Here’s the surprise: It declines to get down on hands and knees to woo Generation Y to the multiplex. Instead, Alexander Payne’s Election,…
Rubble, Rubble, Toil, and Trouble
On a brisk but sunny April morning, Gaiana Ravenlynx looks a bit out of place in her black robe as she strolls down the sidewalk along West 14th Street in Tremont. It’s Sunday, and much of the morning’s pedestrian traffic consists of small families in white shirts and high heels on their way to mass…
The Edge
Union Squawks, Hyatt Balks This is a union town, buster, and you can either get with the program or forget about turning the old Arcade into a snazzy Hyatt Hotel. That’s the word from Local 10 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees union, which wants a guarantee that, once the 109-year-old architectural gem is…
Run for the Money
Finnigan Fields is at the heart of Case Western Reserve University’s campus, a bucolic picture of order surrounded by a schizophrenic neighborhood. The Church of the Covenant’s four Gothic spires are visible from the facility, a reminder of the world-class museums and cultural institutions located nearby. Across from Finnigan Fields, on Wade Park Avenue, a…
Letters
Tough Love Is the Best Love Imagine my astonishment when I opened the April 29 issue to your “Music Awards,” as you like to call it. The only reason I even looked at your shitrag was to see if you excluded Viva Caramel from your Punk category. We did not want to be involved in…
The Apples of His Eye
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, many American artists practiced an art of nostalgia for what their country once was while also keeping faith that better times were just ahead. One of the most memorable was Ohio’s William Sommer, who during his lifetime labored in relative obscurity, though he was always well-known in the…
Cheerful Little Earful
Hassan Rogers is touted on the brochures as a Karamu favorite. It’s no wonder–this apple-cheeked actor, director, and raconteur is built along the cuddly lines of Barney the dinosaur. He’s a flesh-and-blood roll of Charmin begging to be squeezed. He embodies the “cockeyed optimist” that Nellie Forbush liked to sing and dance about in South…
The Riches of Rags
When Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again, he proved himself the consummate goy, blind to the potent staying power of schmaltz. If he had a ticket to the Jewish Community Center’s latest production of Rags, he could have journeyed back to that happy May of 1993, when tearful audiences wrung their soggy tissues…
Nothing “Special” at King Cantina
Want a recipe for disaster? Take five frozen, reheated chicken “nuggets.” Stick them in a bowl of mush. Toss in a handful of whole mushrooms and fibrous artichoke leaves. Cover all of the above in a bland white sauce, but remember to sprinkle some fresh chopped cilantro and green onions on top. Call it, oh,…
Playback
The Rentals Seven More Minutes (Maverick) That whole Seattle rush seven years ago, the one that had every record exec in America scrambling to the rainy city in hope of finding the next Nirvana (and instead resulted in giving us such crap as Creed from the other side of the country), spawned a meek little…
Cherry on Top
The recipe for the average guitar-based rock band these days can be captured in two words: dumb fusion–combining two or three genres, making them sound new and clever without actually creating music that’s really new, as in “fresh and never been heard before.” That’s a toughie if you’re devoid of inspiration and guts; it’s so…
Spice Girls
Amy Boone better start getting to bed earlier or start scheduling her interviews later. “I’m still in my pajamas,” Boone says at noon Central Time. “I was up until 5:30, and I had to do an interview earlier today, so I haven’t had a chance to get moving.” That’s the way it goes, when your…
Staying in Shapely
Postwar pinup girls like Betty Grable and Jayne Mansfield used to have to camp out in grease-stained garages or on the insides of lockers. But though she too donned form-fitting leotards, fishnet stockings, and stiletto heels, Cleveland workout queen Paige Palmer was invited to stroll right into the living room and boss everybody around. “Stretch,…
Livewire
Phife Xzibit Defari Peabody’s DownUnder April 27 You’ve been in a pioneering hip-hop group, one that released five gold or platinum albums, for ten years. Then, after album number five, you and your crew decide to call it quits. Just like that, A Tribe Called Quest is no more. What’s an MC to do? Start…
Scary Monsters
The Sacramento-based Groovie Ghoulies formed ten years ago, dazzled by the rock-and-roll theatric glow of Kiss, Alice Cooper, and David Bowie. “I wanted the image of these great big bands, but without the twenty-minute songs,” says singer Kepi. Since then, the Ghoulies have settled into a more subtle, less theatrical approach. “I want it to…
Fit for the Fiddle
Michael Flatley, the Lord of the Dance, has taken his share of critical brickbats. He’s been called an egotist and a self-absorbed blowhard. His show has been labeled pandering, smarmy, too risque, and a commercialized corruption of Irish musical/dance traditions. But one thing that no one has ever said about him is that he’s a…
Night & Day
Thursday May 6 No sooner had the teen comedy Rushmore hit theaters everywhere than it vanished; it played on local screens for barely two weeks. But now the Disney-financed feature, which stars newcomer Jason Schwartzmann as Max, a high school misfit smitten with a widowed first-grade teacher, is living a more exotic second life as…
Soundbites
Scene presented its first Music Awards and Showcase at the Agora Ballroom Saturday night. This would be the time to say a great night was had by all, but that wouldn’t be true, considering these things are always bound to piss people off. We started too early (apologies to the brave Alexis Antes and Hilo)…
