Cover Story
Luck be a lady
It wasn’t the fact that the stranger asked for his doodle that surprised him; it was the way he held it. Pinching the opposite corners of the scrap of paper, holding it out at arm’s length, the stranger marveled at Patrick Gallagher’s sketch. Gallagher was at the bar of a ritzy New York City hotel…
It’s Wes Anderson meets Martin Scorsese in ‘Observe and Report’
(Starring Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta and Anna Farris. Directed by Jody Hill. Rated R; 1:26. LEO Report Card: A) Ignore the comparisons to the pedestrian “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and go see the funniest, most original comedy to come out this year. Think Wes Anderson meets Martin Scorsese circa “Taxi Driver” with a healthy dose…
B-Sides: Music & Other Ephemera
Heavy Hometown, welcome to Louisville. Corey, Eric and Jon weigh in on navigation, prosthetic wings and which rocker rhymes with Indianapolis. LEO: Be honest. How many times have you asked for directions? Corey: Asking for directions is a sign of weakness. I never do it, because I’m strong and know where everything is. Jon: As…
The corn that grew from concrete
On a large swath of land behind his mother’s house, Joe Trigg operates a massive agricultural laboratory of sorts, growing lettuce, greens, turnips, basil and tomatoes for both low-income residents and high-end eateries. The 130-foot-long greenhouse is filled with vegetables, concrete pools and solar lighting. It’s a well-equipped hydroponic farm. Discovered in the 19th century,…
A stitch in time
I have a new friend who sews. I knew we were friends when she told me she sews because that is not the kind of information you share with just anyone. Casual acquaintances might divulge the intimate details of their sex lives or confess to drug addictions, but it takes a real friend to bring…
Hymn to the Immortal Wind
Mono are grandiose. It takes a certain stomach, a certain predisposition to go through as many moods as Mono evokes. Far and away the best show at Terrastock last summer, Mono’s live performance showcased the Japanese quartet’s controlled bombast — their ability to hit fortississimo and crank it down to pianissimo in the next breath…
Film: “Che: Part One” a visual guide to guerrilla warfare
(Starring Benicio Del Toro. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Rated R; 2:06. Showing now at Baxter Avenue Theatres. LEO Report Card: A) Everything you need to know about jungle and guerrilla warfare can be found within the reels of the first part of Steven Soderbergh’s biopic “Che: Part One.” Doctor, writer, Marxist and revolutionary, Ernesto…
Book: What We’re Reading
1. Vanishing Point by David Markson (fiction) — Hard to get into but impossible to look away from, this “novel” is really a book-length list of fascinating facts about the world’s greatest thinkers, artists and writers, such as, “I have never killed a man. But I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure.…
Film: “Che: Part Two” ignores the passion of its protagonista
(Starring Benicio Del Toro. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Rated R; 2:08. Showing now at Baxter Avenue Theatres. LEO Report Card: C) In larger markets, “Che” was screened as a single, exhausting epic. Thankfully, in burgs like Louisville, it’s been divided into two films that more or less stand on their own. “Part Two” follows…
Why she deserves it
Cathy Bailey was the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Latvia from 2005-2008. Now residing in Louisville with her husband Irving, Bailey is chair and founder of Operation Open Arms, an organization she and her husband founded in 2001 that places children whose mothers are in prison into foster families. “Talk about the forgotten child,”…
In his own words
“Comfort of Integrity” 1) Lisa Betson Resnik, Director of Capital Campaign and Strategic Imitative at the Speed Art Museum — The first thing that struck me about Lisa was her integrity. When I was trying to decide if I should go after a career in art, I asked Lisa, “Do you think I can do…
Doctor Legs and The Medicine Ball
When you put on Dangerbird’s Doctor Legs & The Medicine Ball, the weather starts to get warmer, frosty bottles of beer appear, and guys with B.O. and awkward facial hair show up at your door ready to howl at the moon. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. Dangerbird’s album is the perfect accompaniment to shucking off…
Mug Shots
In the 1980s, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers rode an initial wave of power to successfully lobby Hoosier legislators for an end to reduced-price drink specials predicated on time of day or class of customer. Drink-price reductions are required to be non-discriminatory (no Ladies’ Night, ladies) and uniform for all, and all day long. We can…
Inbox — April 15, 2009
Ain’t Missing You I have not read Leo since before we elected a sane president. After reading the Inbox last week, I certainly realize things have not changed. Still Jackass McDouchebags around who seem to think they can paint the wall red and tell everyone it is blue. Nazis were responsible for only 6 million…
Orange crush
Mock Orange is a band from Evansville, Ind., who, since 1998, have weathered the “revival” of punk, witnessed the wilting of grunge, and will play Louisville on April 17 at Skull Alley.. Take back the CDs your little brother stole 10 years ago and you’ll realize what a decathlon the past decade has to have…
Book: Louisville author gets in with gamers
Telling stories, shaping them into marketable works and doing the networking (including online) to get them in front of readers: Those are the required steps for a new author. They can be very big steps — lunges maybe — but Louisville’s Lynn Tincher has accomplished them with a momentum that could carry her further. On…
Book: Forgotten Classics
The Moons of Jupiter (By Alice Munro. First Published 1981.) With this collection of stories, Canadian writer Alice Munro made her leap into maturity. Whereas the stories in her earlier collections were consistently engaging in dealing with matters of the girlish heart, the ones in “Moons of Jupiter” take on the subtlety and passion…
Book: Reports
A Matter of Justice: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery (By Charles Todd. Morrow; 330 pgs., $24.99) Charles Todd is neither a single author nor a British author. Rather, it’s two authors in one, a mother and son, one of whom lives in Delaware, the other in North Carolina. Yet they have collaborated to write…
Insular nation
The Louisville Energy House lives a totally anonymous existence on a modest middle-class block in the Clifton neighborhood. Built in 1984 at the behest of the City of Louisville, this model house — at 121 Stevenson Ave. — appears today to be completely off the radars of Metro government, the owner of the house, neighbors…
Golden’s moments
WFPK’s first Waterfront Wednesday of the year gets a world-class start from familiar faces. The indie rock world has taken a serious gander at rich international sounds as of late, and Extra Golden is a noteworthy addition. However, while Vampire Weekend’s African flourishes originate from their record collections, Extra Golden’s cross-Atlantic sounds come from actually…
Saint Or Sinner
Think early Outkast if they’d hailed from Louisville and made the attendant references and you’ll have some sense of Steven Johnson’s — aka Polio’s — sound. With his new release, Saint or Sinner, Polio quotes Elton John, meditates upon the recent recession and samples Phil Collins in an extremely humorous fashion. While there are some…
Fire at will
Backyard Tire Fire returned to the studio in February to record their follow-up to last year’s critically acclaimed The Places We Live, their fourth studio album. After witnessing the band’s live show, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos approached them, asking if he could produce their upcoming release. Ed Anderson was floored. Los Lobos have been…
Tea’d off
On the night of Dec. 16, 1773, a group of surly New England colonists — hyped on the impassioned rhetoric of prominent Whig and noted brewmaster Samuel Adams — set forth from the Old South Meeting House in downtown Boston and stormed the nearby harbor, whereupon the intoxicated, headdress-wearing colonists emptied nearly 350 chests of…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: FROST/NIXON 2008; $29.95-39.95, R For those readers fortunate enough to have not lived through Richard Nixon’s White House, this is a damn good telling of a seminal moment in American history, when a former President actually said on TV, “[a break-in] is not illegal if the President does it,” implying that…
Strange black men from outer space
Let’s play word association. I say “black man.” What words or phrases pop into your mind? Tell the truth. I’ll give you a few: gangster, thug, thief, convict, lazy, shiftless, dumb, dropout, hustler, absentee father. I could go on. Even if you get a bit more positive (outside of Barack Obama), it’s singer, rapper, athlete.…
Imaginary Boats
Alanna Fugate’s new release, Imaginary Boats, harkens to an earlier folk tradition that many modern balladeers have forgotten, that of Joan Baez and early Dylan. A Virginia native living in Louisville, Fugate seems to have stepped right out of Greenwich Village circa 1965. With guitar picking reminiscent of Joni Mitchell and a gravelly Joplin-esque voice,…
Crossing Thunder Road
A particular set of problems can emerge when you are a city whose national stock is based on a two-week span of debauchery and high-impact horseracing that begins in earnest with a prodigious display of controlled explosions, sketching the night sky in rainbows of bombastic primaries and pastels. Virtually since its inception, the local yokel…
Fear of a gay planet
Hopefully you remember that 2009 is the year of the queer. Those of you who are frightened by this either need to get over it or move out of Kentucky, because if Iowa, a red state in the middle of the country, can legalize gay marriage, then Kentucky can, too. And it will. However, in…
Review: A Japanese gem discovered near Germantown
The exterior of the flat-fronted cinderblock building on Preston Highway near Audubon Park that houses Oasis Sushi leaves much to be desired. The phone number on the awning was written with a Sharpie. And a friend, who turned me on to the place and shall remain nameless, noted that it sort of resembles a massage…
