City manager ‘comedy of errors’
Regarding your story last week, “City search gets weird,” I couldn’t agree with you more. But I would go an extra mile to say that the whole procedure has been a comedy of errors. It might be an ideal pilot for a sitcom, I am amazed not amused. Frankly this has been a pitiful moment…
January value shopping
Suspecting that the holidays have your vino budget in disrepair, I went trolling the aisles last week looking for some bargains. My first stop was World Market. This Costco division frequently has a stash of proprietary labels – wines made just for Costco by big wine makers with too much juice. Sometimes, it works, sometimes…
Sweet Potatoes still rockin’ the southside
OK, I’m a catfish snob. Growing up in Kentucky, catfish was meant to be fileted or in strips, breaded with cornmeal and fried to a golden, crispy exterior. That’s exactly what I found on my plate at Sweet Potatoes Kitchen last week. It was quite possibly the best piece of catfish I’ve had in Georgia…
No Strings Attached, The Green Hornet
NO STRINGS ATTACHED *1/2 Last fall’s underrated Love & Other Drugs was a movie of two parts, with the pieces as segregated as oil and vinegar floating in the same dipping dish. The frank and realistic relationship between the characters played by Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal was given its own space to breathe and…
Who’s really to blame for city manager fiasco?
THERE ARE TWO KINDS of bullies in this world: 1) The bullies who swagger up to you, stick their finger in your chest, and take your lunch money; 2) The bullies who convene meetings, establish a “consensus” through groupthink, lecture you about “transparency” and “teachable moments,” and then take your lunch money. Truth be told,…
Motorhead, Alice in Wonderland – and R. Kelly?
A typically eclectic and provocative mix of films is on tap for this year’s edition of the hotly anticipated Psychotronic Film Festival, beginning this Monday and sponsored in part by Connect Savannah. While organizer Jim Reed screens about 50 films a year on Wednesday nights at the Sentient Bean, he says “this time of year…
Wall Street are real ‘moochers’
Editor, I am writing to thank you for your excellent Editor’s Note about the “Christmas message no one wants to hear” and in regards to Mr. Johnson’s response. I find it harder and harder to relate to people who do nothing but find fault with the money our government spends to help people like those…
City manager search gets weird
Late in his second and final term, Mayor Otis Johnson appears to have united the community. Unfortunately, it seems to be uniting in a sense of disgust at how the search for a permanent city manager is going. At first glance everything seemed ready for this week’s public forum introducing the candidates (the city changed…
Down from the mountain
Mountainfilm isn’t about exciting new innovations in filmmaking, nor is it about Hollywood glamorizing or hot–shot directors. It’s not animation. It’s not computer–generated. Mountainfilm, which makes its second annual road–trip appearance in Savannah this weekend, concerns itself solely with the earth and its infinite possibilities. It began in Telluride, Colo., in the late 1970s, and…
Hellblinki Sextet, Frontier Ruckus, American Aquarium
HELLBLINKI SEXTET At 10 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21 Wormhole Bar, 2307 Bull St. With Megan Jean and the Klay Family Band, Sapphire Rebellion, and Sadirah Bellydance It’s always a treat when Andrew Benjamin and his accomplices from Augusta come to town, because there’s nothing quite like a Hellblinki show, which is kind of like a…
Mark your calendar: Tim McGraw
Tim McGraw’s acting was one of the few things about the film Country Strong that critics didn’t rip to pieces; the country superstar seems to have found a legitimate second career, following his lauded turn opposite Sandra Bullock in the Oscar–winning The Blind Side. Still, McGraw – currently at No. 1 on the singles chart…
Tire slashing, theft and wet pants
A man parked his sister’s car in front of his house around 3:24 a.m. and went to bed. When he awoke to find that one of the front tires had been slashed, he called police. He told police he suspects a woman who had previously threatened to slash “one tire at a time.” This was…
British import
How do you solve a problem like Fiordiligi? Peter Shannon and the Savannah Philharmonic faced a quandary last fall, as they were preparing their massive production of the Mozart opera Cosi Fan Tutte. The British soprano who’d signed on for the role of Fiordiligi, the flighty heroine of the tale, had to fill a last–minute…
The PULSE of Savannah
In covering the arts and culture scene in Savannah over the last decade–plus, I’ve noticed that the city’s “wake–up time” keeps coming earlier and earlier each year. There was a time when the cultural calendar waited all the way until St. Patrick’s Day to thaw out from winter and kick off the city’s arts year…
Sound, effects
The music that Bora Yoon makes is cinematic, dreamlike, and it bypasses the cognizant brainlobes and enters somewhere deeper. You feel it almost before it reaches your ears. One of several visiting artists during this week’s Pulse: Art and Technology Festival, the New York–based Yoon is an experimental musician and performance artist. What she creates…
Toxic bed partners
Sandwiched between the smooth sheets and a fluffy down comforter, I am a contented woman on these wintry nights. As happy as anyone can be who avoids the truth that they are sharing their bed with a toxic partner…. Cotton. Other than air, cotton is what touches my skin most often. It’s the predominant fabric…
Renaissance man
The American Traditions Competition began 17 years ago, as a centerpiece of Savannah Onstage, which eventually morphed into the Savannah Music Festival. After last year’s edition, American Traditions — a vocal competition, bringing in world–class singers from across the spectrum (classical, opera, jazz and popular song) — separated from the festival. “I just felt that…
Got the beat?
At his Jan. 28 Jepson Center performance, Adam Matta will take art and technology – the two Pulse Festival buzzwords – and combine them in mind–blowing ways. Which, you’ll wonder, is the art, and which is the tech? Ah, but there’s the rub. Matta is a beatboxer, using his voice and a microphone to create…
Pulse 2011: A look inside
The thrust of the Telfair Museums’ Pulse: Art and Technology Festival, which begins its third annual run on Jan. 20, is to showcase new and “edgier” uses of technology in music, and art, and their creative cousins. It’s a combination of performances, exhibitions and installations that make artistic statements through not–quite–conventional means. The nine–day festival,…
Columbia Valley essence
You wanna light me up? Turn me on to a new vineyard. One of my real joys is “discovering” wines from vineyards I have not sampled before. I sometimes feel like I’m in a wine rut, a pleasurable but well trod path littered with the same corks. Such was my joy before Christmas when offered…
Kao renaissance
In October, I told you that Chef Wasan Trimas, owner of Kao Thai Cuisine in Thunderbolt, was closing the restaurant to pursue another venture. Wasan did leave – but the restaurant remains, with pretty much the same name, new operators and an entirely new menu. Now called Kao Thai Noodles and Rice, the lunch and…
Exhibits & openings this week
Alchemy of the Soul – John Anderson uses experimental techniques to transform photos into abstract paintings focusing color, tone and texture rather than subject. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 34th St and Abercorn St Birds in Flight – An installation by Matt Hebermehl of his signature, patterned bird forms hanging in the Jepson’s atrium. . Jepson…
Booze as disinfectant — discuss
I think wine and beer have some microorganisms in them, but their alcohol concentration must make them sterile, right? That’s why they can be used as antiseptics in an emergency. Or so goes the urban legend they taught us in medical school. – Mario A. Ortega Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, kills germs by penetrating cell…
