Frida gets her freak on
Julie Taymor, the Tony Award-winning director of the stage adaptation of The Lion King, made an auspicious feature-film debut a few years ago with Titus, a visually arresting take on Shakespeare’s tragedy that was the greatest Peter Greenaway film never actually made by Greenaway. When I heard she was helming the big-screen adaptation of Mexican…
The Purrs keep up the rock
…and God said, “Let there be attitude.” Before rock ‘n’ roll’s bloody birth somewhere in the deep, dark jungle; before some savage with a bone in his nose started beating the drum; there was attitude. It’s this primordial moxie that makes a band stand out, over and above their prowess, their message, their appearance.…
Worth the Waits
“The blues has always been the traditional underpinning of all American pop,” says John Hammond via telephone from his Phoenix hotel room. Hammond has been playing traditional folk-blues for more than 40 years. He’s now reaching even deeper, teaming with Tom Waits, whose oddball-troubadour Americana underpins the blues. Hammond’s latest album, the Waits-produced Wicked…
Advance exit polling
Since we go to press hours before the polls close November 5, I’m in a weird position as I write this. I don’t know the outcome of the election, though I’ve tried to prepare myself. Some things are as certain as conservative hatred of the “death tax” (it’s actually the most progressive one we’ve…
Courage! Courage!
How bad do things have to get in what we used to call The Community of Monroe? Do only half a dozen county legislators have the guts to do the right thing? Next week, the Lej will vote on Jack Doyle’s proposed budget. That budget will ramp up the cuts we’ve already begun to…
News briefs 11.6.02
Driving the body electric As its manufacturer has observed, your eyes are on the Sparrow. Ours certainly were as one specimen negotiated downtown Rochester traffic recently. But this is no bird we’re talking about. It’s the Corbin “Sparrow,” a fully enclosed and equipped one-seater electric vehicle on three wheels. Two Sparrows are known to inhabit…
Reader feedback 11.6.02
Our Congressional endorsements, waiting after a mammogram
Urgent junk mail
County clerk dupes absentee voters
Our fear of aliens
President George Bush’s sweeping order to screen thousands of Middle Easterners suspected of espionage and other crimes is not the first time this country has been gripped by anti-alien fever. (The Nisei who were interned during World War 11 were different. These were largely American-born or naturalized citizens who remained in this country.) …
Ancient music, modern times
The drama of “East meets West” has a long pedigree, one rooted in tectonic frictions and overthrusts. But there’s a very personal element, too. For me, it all hit during one cultural exchange of the 1960s and 1970s. Sure, it’s an old rap: Sitarist Ravi Shankar and his disciple George Harrison were opening the Western…
Eating with Aunt Judy
“Sometimes I wake up with a taste in my mouth, then spend the day finding exactly the foods and spices to make that taste,” says Judy Thompson, cook and co-owner of Aunt Judy’s. The restaurant’s concise menu includes southern staples like fried chicken, catfish, and greens, but Thompson’s interest in food is deep and consuming.…
I Spy with very little mind
The new action comedy I Spy provides some important services and teaches some valuable lessons to the student of contemporary cinema, especially the well-known Hollywood variety. To begin with, the movie’s marketers copied Winston Churchill’s World War II strategy of carpet bombing, opening the picture in what seems like every multiplex in the country, with…
