Best of Savannah 2011: Shopping & Services
Best Shoe Store Globe Shoe Company Best Jeweler Levy Jewelers What’s behind 230 years of success for Savannah’s Best Jewelry Store and Best Shoe Store? Generations of Savannah-based ownership. Relationship building with staff, the customers, and the community. Hands-on management. Sticking with what has worked for decades while staying 21st century current. Located half a…
Reader: Bin Laden a ‘patriot’
Editor, Regarding your recent column “Good Riddance”: Well, your attack on Osama bin Laden shows the usual tendency to go for the easy targets: He’s a notorious villain and caused the 9/11 fatalities. That’s a comic book kind of political analysis, but like comic books it’s popular because it requires no thought. When we look…
Best of Savannah: Health, Recreation and Beauty
Best Yoga Studio Savannah Yoga Center Kelley Boyd’s studio – where she is assisted by a corps of very able instructors – holds a full schedule of different types of yoga for different types of folks, in a beautifully renovated space. Runner-up: Savannah Power Yoga Best Massage Therapist Lenny Resnick This former massage therapist with…
A review: SCAD’s ‘Hair’
Halfway through Friday night’s performance of Hair at the Lucas Theatre, it came to me: It’s not about the big songs, “Aquarius,” “Easy To Be Hard,” “Good Morning Starshine,” and how well they’re delivered. It’s not about costumes, wigs or cool sets. It’s not about standout individual performers. No, what makes Hair work, what elevates…
Mark your calendar: Jerry Joseph
Jackmormons frontguy Jerry Joseph will perform at Loco’s Grill & Pub June 4. Joseph is a singer/guitarist with strong connections to Widespread Panic – the Athens–grounded band recorded a half–dozen of his tunes; he and Panic bassist Dave Schools collaborated in the band Stockholm Syndrome, which released the albums Holy Happy Hour and Apollo. Joseph’s…
Best of Savannah 2011: Nightlife
Best New Bar Best Outdoor Bar Best Pool Hall Congress Street Social Club Sprinting to the top of the “new” list after just two months in business (it opened the week before St. Patrick’s Day), this two-level club is at 411 W. Congress – it took over the space vacated by B&B Ale House, with…
Bridesmaids, Everything Must Go, Priest
BRIDESMAIDS *** The most perfectly realized scene in Bridesmaids is an early one. Annie (Kristen Wiig) and Lillian (Maya Rudolph) have been best friends since early childhood, so when Lillian announces her engagement, it’s no surprise that she chooses Annie as her maid of honor. But in more recent times, Lillian has acquired another close…
Best of Savannah 2011: Food
Best Chef Roberto Leoci Chef at the restaurant which bears his name, Roberto Leoci brings a genuine trattoria feel to a city not known for its wealth of real Italian offerings. His pasta carbonara – complete with perfect poached egg on top – is spoken of in hushed tones, and is the true testament to…
Best of Savannah: Politics and Public Affairs
Best Local Scandal The City Manager Search This one just about had it all: open meeting violations, confusion over a personal bond, questionable candidate search protocols, strife on City Council, yelling in the hallways of City Hall, and race cards flying around all over the place. Lord have mercy! The only thing missing was sex,…
Best of Savannah 2011: City Life
Most Eligible Local Bachelor Ahndhi Sticha Our fresh–faced winner of Most Eligible Local Bachelor this year is 23–year–old Ahndhi Sticha (his real first name is Andrew, but “Ahndhi” is so much more mysterious, don’t ya think?). Set to graduate in a couple of weeks from SCAD in Illustration, the Chicago native was surprised to hear…
Best of Savannah 2011: Media
Best Local TV News Anchor Sonny Dixon, WTOC The former politician-turned anchorman has won two years in row. From the St. Patrick’s Day Parade to the Rattlesnake Round-up, if there’s a big event in Southeast Georgia, Sonny is there. Runner-up: Jesse Blanco, WJCL Best Local TV Sports Anchor Frank “The Big Guy” Sulkowski, WJCL His…
Best of Savannah 2011: Arts & Entertainment
Best Cultural Event Best Festival That’s Not St. Patrick’s Day Savannah Music Festival It was a year of changes for the SMF; the American Traditions vocal competition was jettisoned, the genre-specific series delineations (“Jazz,” “Americana,” “Worldbeat”) dropped in favor of one big, multi-musical palette, and for the first time, there were two huge shows aimed…
TED’s X-cellent Adventure
One part symposium, one part lecture series, add some notable community members and a lot of ideas; stir them up and let them marinade all day – that’s the recipe for this week’s TEDxCreativeCoast event being held at the Jepson Center. Last year’s inaugural TEDx, an independently licensed local offshoot of the national TED conference,…
You say Syrah, I say Shiraz
Syrah? Shiraz? Two very different spellings, and it’s the same grape. Most of North America and France call it Syrah, though some domestic vineyards use the alternate spelling. Shiraz is the spelling in Australia and South Africa. Shiraz oared to popularity a few decades ago when the bargain basement Aussie wines flooded the U.S. market.…
Protesting the protestors
There’s real hate in this world, no doubt. There seems little question about that. But there’s hate, and then there’s just plain old-fashioned greed. Westboro Baptist Church uses elements of the former in the service of the latter. The Westboro crowd are the same freaks that have protested near military funerals for years. The U.S.…
Ban forms, burning and burglaries
A man who was banned from his ex–girlfriend’s property was arrested after he showed up there again. The woman stated that she had been outside talking with a friend when she saw him pull up behind her vehicle, sit there for a minute and then leave. A witness corroborated her story. She had to have…
La Dispute, Chilled Monkey Brains
LA DISPUTE, FORMER THIEVES, NATIVE At 9 p.m. Friday, May 13 Sweet Melissa’s, 35 Whitaker St. In the post-hardcore universe, wherein steely punk bands find (and fornicate with) alternate modes of expression to drop into the swirling mix (in the grand tradition of Fugazi, Jawbox and Sunny Day Real Estate, to name-drop but a few),…
A ‘Hair’ for all seasons
If you can remember the ‘60s, goes the old saying, you probably weren’t there. Movies and television would have us believe the ‘60s were all about peace, love, flower–power and something they used to quaintly call the generation gap. News programs put Vietnam, assassinations and violent upheaval (racial, social and political) on top of the…
Simon says
In community theater, a certain amount of risk is always involved. You can do the coolest, most cutting-edge play in the world, or a time-tested classic, and even if your production is top-notch it’s not considered a success if nobody comes to see it. There are a few cash cow, no-brainers – Rodgers & Hammerstein…
Good morning sunshine
There will be changes made to the way that the City of Savannah handles public meetings and public records or there will be legal consequences. That was the message delivered by Attorney General Sam Olens and Assistant Attorney General Stefan Ritter during last week’s council workshop. “This will change the way we’ve operated,” said Mayor…
Bicycle safety is a community-wide effort
Editor, Recently in Savannah a student was involved in a bicycling accident on Montgomery Street that resulted in serious injuries. The accident and its reporting have led to increased dialogue in the community on safe bicycling, including some less productive anonymous commenting on local websites. To be sure, the most important outcome after this accident is…
A missionary looks at climate change
I am an evangelical Christian missionary from a conservative church who can trace my awakening to global climate change to the “lifting of a blanket.” I know that phrase is often used metaphorically. Political posturing and skepticism has long been used like a blanket to smother any sort of serious response to climate change. But…
Blue Turtle & more
Blue Turtle Bistro Restaurateur Brian Huskey has added another project to his stable. Blue Turtle Bistro opened late last week at 66th and Paulsen streets, the former location of Caraway Cafe. Former Connect Savannah “Best Chef” award winner Jeffrey Crumpton designed the menu, calling out some favorites from flagship B. Matthew’s Eatery and crafting other…
Mark Your Calendar: Cold War Kids
Nathan Willett is one of the most soulful white rock ‘n’ roll singers in America (that’s not an oxymoron). His voice adds the perfect grace note to the music of his band Cold War Kids, an indie quartet out of Long Beach, California that’s perfected a kind of anthemic but stripped-down rock. Cold War Kids…
Eastside Story
Before there was a golf course, gas station or water treatment facility there, President Street hosted a shipbuilding facility, a shanty town of railroad workers, a rice plantation, a Civil War fortification and a Native American village. Throughout those changes, families settled there and what was once nothing more than trees, grass and river bank…
The joy of giving
The city of Lafayette is considered the center of Cajun French culture in Louisiana. It’s also home to the young band known as Givers, which has a high–spirited, heel–kicking zydeco attitude but no accordion and no fiddle. Givers, rather, is a pop/rock band with sunny, optimistic songs that flirt with the rhythms of zydeco (and…
