Cutting common sense in Twain
IN AN IDEAL, perfect world, the n-word would never be uttered or written by anyone. I certainly don’t want anything to do with it, which is why I won’t write it in full here. But of all places in our real, unperfect world to remove the n-word from, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is…
Country Strong, Casino Jack
COUNTRY STRONG ** Jeff Bridges won an Academy Award this past year for playing a boozy country singer in Crazy Heart, but don’t expect Gwyneth Paltrow to win even so much as a People’s Choice Award for playing a similar part in Country Strong. It’s not that Paltrow is terrible — she does a valiant…
True grit
Sigmund Hudson, along with his wife Anne, have been volunteers with the Friends of the Library for several years. The support group helps with many projects including the semiannual large book sales. “We sort several thousand books into about 15 categories,” he notes. “We work the sale itself, helping count books, check people out. We…
A poem for a poet
A Poet is a Clinton D. Powell(acknowledging with love brother-poet Clinton) A poet is a verb that blossoms lightin gardens of dawn, or sometimes midnight.From roots of nouns revered and legends told,the leaves of their passion feed and unfold.Like vines of flaming truth they embrace and renew,squeezing hope out of fears once poisonous and blue.Then…
Exhibits & openings this week
Birds in Flight – An installation by Matt Hebermehl of his signature, patterned bird forms hanging in the Jepson’s atrium. Jepson Center, 207 W. York St. , http://www.hebermehl.com/ Featured Artist: Joel Cothran – The local artist is the artist of the month at Local 11Ten. His work features airbrushed messages that are often existential in…
Gopher the gold!
I’ve found numerous references in Alaskan gold rush literature to a scam by the Trans-Alaskan Gopher Company that purported to sell trained gophers that would dig the tundra and come back with gold nuggets in their cheeks. There were many swindles in those times, but this one seems a bit over the edge credibilitywise. -Michael…
Remembering Clinton Powell
WE ALL WANT to start off the New Year with something positive. But we won’t get that chance this week, as Savannah has sadly lost one of the most beloved members of the local arts community. Clinton D. Powell passed away Sunday at age 40 after a long illness. I won’t pretend to be one…
A change of ‘Color’
Those familiar with Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Color Purple, which deals almost exclusively with themes of subjugation and abuse among poor black residents of the Old South, might wonder how such a hard, sad, angry story could translate into a $10 million Broadway musical. Indeed, it happened, just five years ago, bankrolled in…
The holidays don’t always bring out the best in people
Officers arrived at the scene of a disorderly person call on Halcyon Drive after a pregnant woman advised police of an imminent fight between her boyfriend and another guy. The reporting officer found the door to the residence open and announced “Savannah police.” A male voice invited them inside, and the officer asked him to…
Mark your calendar: Pulse Art + Technology Festival
For the third consecutive year, the Telfair Museums’ art and technology festival, Pulse, will celebrate creativity through new media, with an eye toward making such things “accessible” to the average person, in the words of Director of Education Harry DeLorme. In other words Pulse, Jan. 20–29 at the Jepson Center, isn’t exclusively for techno–geeks and…
Affairs of State
Ringing in the New Year in Georgia means that it’s time for the state legislature to resume their work under the gold dome of the Capitol building in Atlanta. Coming off a resounding victory in the general election, Georgia’s GOP will have practically unassailable majorities in both houses, particularly after a number of Democrat defectors…
Now You See Them, Cornucopia Acoustica
NOW YOU SEE THEM At 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 7 The Sentient Bean, 13 E. Park Ave. Dulci, Shane, and Jason (no last names necessary) play quirky, uptempo and vibrantly harmonious pop songs on guitars, mandolins, ukes and an assortment of other handily-wielded instruments. It’s happy and often funny stuff (“super-fun acoustic folk/pop” is the…
Alternative Cinema Weekend
Savannah still might not have an independent movie theater, but for fans of alternative cinema, the lineup of local film screenings this weekend might pass as a reasonable facsimile of an art house theater. The Psychotronic Film Society of Savannah, the SCAD Cinema Circle and the Lucas Theatre’s Southern Circuit Tour of Filmmakers will host…
Sweet-talkin’ Cusses
At the very first Cusses gig, not much more than a year ago, singer Angel Bond felt her ankle bones cracking inside the old shoes she wore onstage. By the end of the show, after hours of bouncing and dancing and thrashing at the microphone, both straps on her dress were irrevocably broken. The zipper…
Bird brained
Be advised: If you’re looking for a documentary on the ivory–billed woodpecker, which was declared extinct in the 1940s, Woodpecker isn’t the film for you. Six years ago, several people — respected ornithologists, not your garden–variety unreliable witnesses from down trailer park way — claimed they’d seen the big black, white and red bird in…
