Three bites: Love’s & Larry’s
Love’s Seafood Sometimes, I just get a craving for fried shrimp. I remember the first time I had the dish — I was 11 — and on the banks of the Ohio River, it was considered a delicacy. Legendary Love’s did not take me back. Our appetizer of big, battered onion rings was disturbingly cold…
Fall into wine dinner season
The long, afternoon shadows of fall began stretching across the Lowcountry last week. The waning sun paints everything with with a coating of warm light. It’s one of my favorite times of year — and certainly one of my favorite times to visit vineyards. Some wine makers have begun harvest; others mark the days until…
American idiots
I’m a history buff and a total civics geek. Let me put it this way: The highlight of the past week for me was when my daughter won an award in school for getting a perfect score on a quiz about the U.S. Constitution. So you can imagine my despair at a depressing survey making…
The state of the art
You know who you are. Your guilty pleasure is running your hands across a sheet of high-quality paper. You enjoy feeling the bristles of a high-dollar paint brush. Your desire is to dip into topshelf acrylics. Only you don’t always have the money to buy any of that stuff. Fret no more. This weekend, the…
Life, death and the Verdi Requiem
As excited as he usually gets for his upcoming productions, Savannah Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus conductor Peter Shannon is exceptionally jazzed about this weekend’s performance of one of the great classical choral works, the Verdi Requiem. “It’s absolutely high octane,” Shannon enthuses. “People will be just riveted to their seats. I guarantee you, anybody that…
Kids matter
Last Thursday, Savannah native Antwan Patton, better known as Big Boi from Grammy-winning hip hop group Outkast, took the stage at the Civic Center. It wasn’t to perform, but to talk to kids about the importance of education and to reassure them that if he made it from humble beginnings in the Westside’s Frazier Homes,…
Review: Jennifer’s Body, Bright Star
JENNIFER’S BODY *1/2 When Diablo Cody won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the delightful Juno, I’m assuming it was less for her hip-today-gone-tomorrow dialogue and more for her creation of several ingratiating yet recognizably flawed characters as well as her deftness in telling a story with numerous emotional peaks. With her sophomore — and…
YFA Youth Summit with Big Boi
The 2009 Kids Matter! Youth Summit featuring keynote speaker Antwan “Big Boi” Patton from Outkast.
Saying something new
The Creative Seed Initiative is a collaborative endeavor between SCAD and Bluffton-based marketing firm BFG Communications to bring talented, creative professionals to share their insight and experience with the local community. Several months ago, the CSI brought rock star poster design collective Aesthetic Apparatus to town, and on October 6, the series continues, this time…
What’s Next: Real, live classic rockers
Two of rock ‘n’ roll’s all-time great vocalists will split the bill Oct. 17 in Richmond Hill. Neither of them is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which continues to be the gas-bag of the music awards shows (more on that in a minute). The event is the Great Ogeechee Seafood…
Myths and legends: ‘Lefty the Pirate’ comes alive
Every once in a while, a bottle will wash up on the beaches of Tybee Island. Inside is an old parchment treasure map, with a note: I, Lefty the Pirate, having lost me right arm fighting off the British, have decided I’m too old and tired to take care of me treasure meself. I’ve buried…
Fare Game: I drive a taxi here
Taxi driver… most people look at us as a necessary evil, an anonymous confidante, a rip-off artist, a target. Very rarely someone you really want to get to know beyond the parameters of get me from here to there in a timely and most cost efficient manner. Taxi drivers, cabbies or hacks as they are…
A New Deal for the arts
On October 3, a month-long series of events called “Soul of a People: Voices from the Federal Writer’s Project” will kick off at the Bull Street Branch of the public library. A collaborative effort of Live Oak Public Libraries, the Georgia Historical Society and AASU, among others, the events celebrates the 75th anniversary of the…
‘It was nothing’
Four people walk into a bar, two ladies and two guys. A physical confrontation ensues between the two men, and then both parties fled, one on foot and one in a vehicle. When police arrive on the scene, they find the man who fled on foot, who is walking toward IHOP on Mall Blvd, bruised…
‘Being a good band isn’t enough any more’
We’ve all read about guys like B.J. Barham, energetic and inspired young guys who live for the music, for whom everything else is a distant second. Guys who live it, love it, breathe it … and well, drink it. To be sure, singer/guitarist Barham and his buddies in American Aquarium are on friendly terms with…
A movie house divided
For 47 years, the afternoon sun and the Atlantic wind have had their way with the small red brick structure at 10 Van Horne, Tybee Island. Its insides long ago gutted, its doors and windows boarded up – although not nearly tight enough – the old building has been at the mercy of the shifting…
Cutting through the H1N1 hype
Cutting through the H1N1 hype Flu epidemics can start off with a mild form, followed by a “second wave” caused by a more dangerous strain that can lead to an epidemic of severe illnesses during fall and winter crowding. The 1918-1919 flu epidemic started off this way. But after the onset of the second wave,…
What’s cooking in the SAV
At my house, a home-cooked meal usually involves ingredients that someone else cooked first. A classic chicken dinner starts with a rotisserie-cooked bird from the grocery store-I’ll handle the rice, the lima beans, and the iced tea, thank you. Spaghetti supper? Nothing beats a jar of Paul Newman sauce doctored with sautéed onions, tomatoes, chopped…
Happy birthday, Jack
I can think of no grander celebration calling for opening a new bottle of whiskey than a birthday. Especially if the birthday is none other than that of Jack Daniels. No one knows for sure what day in September the now esteemed whiskey maker came into the world. It was one day this month for…
Between the lines: Mose Allison
For 50 years, musical hipsters have been talking about Mose Allison’s boogie-woogie piano and the way he sings, in a sort of scatting jazz, be-bop style. Allison, who headlines the Savannah Jazz Festival Thursday at Forsyth Park, was born in 1927 on a farm in rural Mississippi (the closest town’s called Tippo). He began recording…
Three bites: Papillote, Ruth’s Chris, Wangs II
Papillote I feel so chic when I eat at this little French-cuisine-to-go bistro on bustling Broughton Street. I sit in the window, watch the passers-by hustling about and revel in the decadence and genuinely delicious experience I’m having inside. On a recent visit, a pair of savory house-made lamb sausages found their way onto…
Reviews: The Informant!, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
THE INFORMANT! *** Last year at this time, the Coen Brothers were treating (or mistreating, depending on your point of view) audiences with their off-kilter offering Burn After Reading, a dark comedy flexing a quirky brand of lunacy not usually seen in comparable American fare. Like the Coens, Steven Soderbergh is no stranger to coloring…
What’s Next: Jackson Browne
On his never-ending solo acoustic tour, Jackson Browne will make a stop at the Johnny Mercer Theatre (inside the Savannah Civic Center) Saturday, Nov. 14. Tickets are set to go on sale Friday (Sept. 25) at www,etix.com. Browne, of course, is one of the great Southern California singer/songwriters, known to radio listeners for “Doctor…
Ferst Things First
Amidst ongoing discussions of progress, growth and economic development in Chatham County, one topic rarely mentioned as a potential obstacle is that of illiteracy. However, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education, Chatham County’s illiteracy rate remained near 15% as of 2003, and adults with low level reading skills…
Funny Money
An unidentified black male entered a florist shop one morning and ordered a half dozen roses. The clerk told him it would take about 15 minutes to get his order ready, and he replied that he would go and get something to eat in the meantime. He paid for the order with a $100 bill…
A ‘Red Hot’ season opener
As the Little Theatre of Savannah’s board of directors put together the group’s 60th season, they chose an opening play that would both touch the heart and tickle the funny bone: Joe DiPietro’s Over the River and Through the Woods, the story of an unmarried young Italian-American man and his four meddling grandparents. A funny…
‘It's truly the anti-L.A.'
While Savannah’s reputation as a creative city has grown steadily over the past decade thanks to the presence of SCAD, the Hostess City is starting to welcome an increasing number of artists who are attracted to city’s charms without the usual ties to the art college. So as we ride the metaphorical bike down the…
When the cirque comes to town …
The European circus tradition has infected the rest of the world. Founded in 1993, Florida-based Cirque Productions was the first American company to import, adapt and present shows combining amazing aerial antics, stunning feats of balance, contortion and strength, comedy and clowning with Broadway-style theatrics. Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy cleaned up on Broadway, and on…
‘Hedda Gabler’ on the prowl
Hedda Gabler is a scamp, a camp and a bit of a tramp. In Henrik Ibsen’s classic psychological drama Hedda Gabler, she’s all this and more – ruthless, scheming, predatory. But Hedda also happens to be beautiful, which has opened doors her entire life. It’s when she marries the dour and dull academic Jorgen Tesman…
Noteworthy: Randall Bramblett
RANDALL BRAMBLETT For a state that’s turned out dozens of brilliant and justifiably celebrated musicians, Georgia should name a tree or something after Randall Bramblett, the Jesup native who’s made an indelible imprint on more records than many of us have in our collections. But he’s hardly a household name. Bramblett, who plays keyboards, saxophones,…
Noteworthy: Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band
YO MAMA’S BIG FAT BOOTY BAND First of all, how could you not love the name? This seven-member aggregate from Asheville, N.C. makes no bones about its intentions: Simply to render the Live Wire FUBAR (funked up beyond all reality). It’s as simple as that. It’s all about the groove, with phat, heavy-duty bass, drums,…
The dude who pumps his breasts
Lead Story A male Swedish college student, Ragnar Bengtsson, 26, has begun pumping his breasts at three-hour intervals in a 90-day experiment to see if he can produce milk. If he succeeds, he said, it could prove “very important for men’s ability to get much closer to their children at an early stage.” A professor…
Did Bob Dylan beat some dude up for going through his trash?
Some years ago I read about a slightly loony “garbologist” who liked to go through people’s trash, including that of one person in particular-Mr. Robert Zimmerman of Woodstock, New York, aka Bob Dylan. One day when said garbologist was busy in the trash cans in front of Dylan’s Woodstock home, the songwriter supposedly spotted him,…
