Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS **1/2 The late Henry Fonda had the good fortune of ending his distinguished film career with an Oscar-winning performance in the popular On Golden Pond, while, on the opposite end of the spectrum, both Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin found their mutual swan song to be the Hall of Shame…
Do firefighters really need to rescue cats in trees?
Is it necessary for the fire department to rescue a cat stuck in a tree? C’mon, they got up there. Can’t they get down on their own? -Big Dave, Austin, Texas This was the occasion of another argument between me and my assistant Una. I reasoned along the same lines as you, Dave-cats have been…
Cannibalism reparations
Lead Story Natives of the Erromango section of the Pacific island Vanuatu recently held a formal “conciliation” with the great-great-grandson of the British missionary whom the islanders’ ancestors ate when he came ashore in 1839. Charles Milner-Williams’ forebear, Rev. John Williams, was regarded as the most famous Christian missionary of the era. Vanuatan legislator Ralph…
Take Jefferson’s lead on the Fed
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy hosted a dinner for 49 Nobel laureates. The occasion provided the opportunity for JFK to display his keen wit in the memorable quote: “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House — with the possible…
Young and in love (with the violin)
With a big thumbs up from Symphony magazine, which put her on its cover and called her “an emerging artist to watch,” violinist Elena Urioste had a pretty good 2009. This year, things will only get better. The Philadelphia native is only 23 years old, and she’s guest–soloed with virtually all the major orchestras in…
Nighty Night
Together for just over a year, Nighty Night assembled in Carbondale, in Southern Illinois, where the snow falls, heavily, with seasonal predictability. This is, in fact, the band’s first trip south, and it’s as much about getting away from the bitter cold as anything else. The band plays a sort of shimmery, neo-psychedelic folk-rock (they…
Is that a crowbar behind your back or are you happy to see me?
Officers were dispatched for an attempted burglary call early one evening. A woman arrived at her home and found a white male coming from around the back of her residence. The suspect told the woman that he had come to talk to her husband about some work. As he walked away, the woman saw that…
What’s Next: Gordon Lightfoot
With the exception of Joni Mitchell (who’s on an entirely different plane than everybody else), no Canadian has done more for the growth of contemporary folk music than Gordon Lightfoot. And that’s saying a lot, considering the country to the north also gave us Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Sarah McLaughlin, Ian Tyson…). Lightfoot, who’s 71…
Random bites
Wasabi Fusion Downtown I have a new favorite sushi restaurant. The service was amazingly fast, the sushi fresh and well–made, the atmosphere very cool and, at last, a sushi restaurant that still appreciates the art of the plate. My Blue Hawaii roll of smoked salmon with crab meat was topped with sweet chili miso sauce…
Take a tango with Malbec
A reader called just before the holidays and asked about scoring “a good Malbec for around $15.” Wow, talk about easy pickings! Malbec was prominent in the Bordeaux region of France but ultimately fell from favor – except for small plantings around Cahors. Today, the varietal has become the signature red grape of Argentina –…
What’s opera, Doc?
Early one evening in 2004, Matthew Lord was in his dressing room at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, waiting to go onstage for his Met debut in Boris Godunov. His cell phone rang; it was the Heritage Foundation in Grapevine, Texas, where Lord and his wife lived. “They go ‘Hey Matthew, the board approved…
Westside story
As early as this spring, work could finally begin on streetscape improvements for the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard corridor after nearly five years of delays. At last week’s City Council meeting — probably the shortest and most congenial meeting of the year thanks to the imminent holiday — Council members passed a resolution accepting…
Ben Kweller, multi-tasker
Ben Kweller is 28, but he looks like he’s 13, which is actually how old he was when he made his first record, as part of a Texas–based punk/pop band called Radish. One more number? Kweller wrote his first song at the age of 9. Kweller, who performs Jan. 7 at the Trustees Theater, is…
Possibilities
And so we begin a new year that is rife with possibility — and not without continued risk. As the national economy makes the first tentative moves toward a recovery, Georgia remains on the knife edge, with unemployment and foreclosure rates still above the national average. The housing market, statewide and locally, remains dicey at…
Screen Shots: The Road, Up in the Air, It’s Complicated
The Road Zombies seem to be de rigueur in today’s strain of post–apocalyptic motion pictures, yet this adaptation of the novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) offers nothing quite so fanciful. The undead shambling through this bleak movie’s ravished landscapes are, technically speaking, still human, though many have taken to eating human…
