Cover Story
Our house
Becki Patterson stretches plastic wrap over a glass bowl of peas before placing them in the microwave. She mashes potatoes, fighting an ache that throbs in her finger’s knobby joints and insults nearly every strain of tissue and muscle from neck to toe. The 64-year-old suffers from fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis and chronic fatigue syndrome. She’d like…
2013: The User’s Manual
Welcome to 2013. We think you’ll agree this bold New Year sets the standard for convenience, comfort and happiness you will find in no other year at any price. Among 2013’s many outstanding features, you’ll find a refreshing lack of presidential or congressional elections or superstitious predictions of existential calamity based on Mesoamerican calendars. In…
Big Dipper Crashes on the Platinum Planet
Not many could be named connoisseurs of melody — in composition and in song. This is how Big Dipper designates the Guided by Voices frontman on a track lovingly titled “Robert Pollard,” a strange gem from their first record in more than 20 years. They answer the enigmas behind writing tunes that thrive — with…
Advice: Savage Love
More than 1,000 people showed up for a recent Savage Love Live event at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It goes without saying that the students submitted more questions than I could answer. As promised, Madison, here are some bonus answers to questions I didn’t get to. Q: Can an open relationship work if it’s this…
Staffpicks
Thursday, Jan. 3 Anne Richardson WUOL Classical 90.5 619 S. Fourth St. • 814-6565 wuol.org Free; noon Cellist Anne Richardson appears in a live audience, in-studio recital concert Thursday at noon at WUOL Classical 90.5 FM. The show is free and open to the public, with seating beginning at 11:45 a.m. Richardson, a promising young…
Bar Belle: Be happy, not crappy
Well, we did it. We survived another year, even though the Mayans and our doctors said we wouldn’t. Sure, we had to endure some hardships, like Taylor Swift having a No. 1 album and Honey Boo Boo a No. 1 TV show, but we plowed on, mostly by getting plowed in good company. The weather…
A city divided
Author and journalist George R. Leighton visited Louisville during the mid 1930s, after which he opined in Harper’s Magazine that the River City was a place that paid great “attention to food and drink, but for the rest, let well enough alone.” Eight decades later, the city’s dining scene continues to thrive while many of…
Plugged In
Readers are strongly encouraged to call ahead to verify these listings. To get your musical act listed, send email to pberkowitz@leoweekly.com with PLUGGED IN in the subject line. The deadline is FRIDAY at NOON the week before the show happens. We do not accept listings via social networking sites. •Wed JAN 2 Air Devils Inn:…
Wu-Block
If there is any constant thread throughout the course of all Wu-Tang-related albums — and make no doubt, the Wu-Tang run this show — it’s their uncanny ability to remain self-referential, building on their ever-looming mythology. Perhaps more salient here is the skill of each rapper herein (I’m looking at you, Ghostface) to weave comedic…
Art: Bill Carner has left the building
Bill Carner had been at his job in the Photographic Archives for 34 years until his December retirement. That’s so impressive, it had to be italicized, since it’s almost unheard of in today’s work environment. “I’ve had the best job in the world, or so I’m often told,” Carner says. “It’s certainly been the best…
The reviewer and the reviewed
Two free tickets, a paycheck and a fun night out in exchange for a writing assignment is a pretty sweet deal, especially when you love going to plays but can’t always afford them. Depending on what night you go, you might only have 24 hours to complete your play review. The story is just your…
Inbox — Jan. 2, 2013
Listen Up, Fools Thank you for the write-up in the Loserville issue of LEO (Dec. 12) about poor attendance at shows here in Louisville. The past couple of years have been all about the reunion shows, which have been good. But it bums me out that Terry Harper has brought three of the biggest death…
Film: 12 from ’12
This year featured releases from seemingly every big-name director in the business. Directors who have already won Oscars made all five of the recent Golden Globe nominations for Best Picture. If you have not seen “Lincoln,” “Django Unchained,” “Argo,” “Life of Pi” or “Zero Dark Thirty,” surely they deserve to be on your short list…
B-sides
Matt Taylor moved back to Louisville in 2004, a talented musician ready to take the world by storm with his awesome band. Now it’s 2013, and today Taylor is a talented musician ready to take the world by storm with his awesome band. Are you ready this time, Louisville? America? World? Plastic Bubble recently released…
Time of the season
Fables of the Deconstruction is taped in front of a live audience. “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Season 51, episode 12. Front foyer. Jed enters from the parlor, crosses toward the front door carrying a fishing pole. The front door opens letting in an enormous gust of wind, blowing Jed back. He drops his fishing pole. Elly…
Hello, LEOs! Ronald Jenkees returns
South End resident Ronald Jenkees has been making instrumental music with keyboards and computer programs — “massively popular trance-inducing jams,” says Gawker — for almost a decade now. While his name may not be familiar, his homemade videos, which begin with his trademark “Hello, Youtubes!” greeting, have been on seen on YouTube many millions of…
Relish generates a buzz on the riverfront
I rolled north along Frankfort Avenue, on through Butchertown and down the hill toward the river, getting ready to hang a left on … hey! What fresh hell is this? I know I haven’t been around here for a while, but nothing looks right. “Siri? Siri! Where am I?” My iPhone’s robotic voice responded: “You…
We Wear White
E.D. Sedgwick’s We Wear White manages to critique the current state of music and the boring homogeny that results from gentrification, consumerism and nostalgia for bygone eras in a way that is urgent, funny and smart. Musically, this is an upbeat rock ’n’ roll album chock full of grooves and dirty guitar parts that veer…
Alive at the Vanguard
Pianist Hersch, like Jerry Garcia and Pat Martino, had to relearn to play his instrument after a serious illness. That he did so successfully is evident on this two-record set featuring bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric McPherson. They truly function as a trio, not as leader and sidemen, covering styles from Afro-Cuban (Hersch’s “Havana”)…
The Video Tapeworm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: COMPLIANCE 2012; $14.98-$29.98; R Aptly named Dreama Walker does a great job in this titillating tale of a fast-food worker who is stripped and sexually violated by her manager at the behest of a phony police officer on the phone. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because this was inspired by…
