A heartfelt tribute to Professor Bill Dakan
I come not to bury Bill Dakan.I come not to praise him.I come merely to share my loss.Without further ado, then, allow me to offer these closing observations about Dr. Bill Dakan, chairman of the Department of Geography at the University of Louisville, world-class scholar and knower of the Earth and the consequences of geography.…
Kashmir keeps its Indian fare hot and serious
One book on Indian food (appropriately entitled “The Food of Indiaâ€) notes that it’s a country where the people speak 18 major (and 1,600 minor) languages and practice seven major religions. The always indispensable “Oxford Companion to Food†(which should be on every foodie’s shelf or holiday wish list) expands on that by observing that…
Will America abandon New Orleans?
OK, so the number necessary to start to commence to begin to make New Orleans reasonably safe from being washed away again by Mother Nature is bracing. $32 billion, it is reported. That would protect the town’s perimeters. So say the experts. Let’s hope these aren’t the same Army Corps of Engineer slackers who built…
Homecoming
The ultimate disconnect: Last Wednesday at 10:20 a.m., EST, President Bush was addressing the nation about his Iraq policy via a speech at the Naval Academy. At that moment, he said, “Victory in Iraq will demand the continued determination and resolve of the American people.†Simultaneously, on the “crawl†at the bottom of the screen…
Erosia
LEO welcomes letters that are brief (250 words max) and thoughtful. Ad hominem attacks will be ignored, and we need your name and a daytime phone number. Send snail mail to EROSIA, 640 S. Fourth St., Louisville, Ky. 40202. Fax to 895-9779 or e-mail to leo@leoweekly.com. We may edit for length, grammar and clarity. Holy…
Just a couple of GoodOil boys
Marty Hanka and Phil Inman would like to fuel your automobile with vegetable oil All it took was two pints of Rich O’s house porter for Marty Hanka and Phil Inman to start a business. They decided that Louisvillians are ready for their cars to run on a dirt cheap alternative fuel, one as natural…
Video TapeWorm: Releases through Dec. 13
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS•GODZILLA: FINAL WARS2004; DVD $24.95, PG-13A 50th anniversary G-project, directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, the “Japanese Tarantino,” in which the immortal Gojira/Godzilla makes a world tour to fight all of his old foes, one more time. Before it’s over he’s re-whooped every nemesis except King Kong, Megalon and Mechagodzilla — with the (SPOILER…
Five Important Questions With Les Debutantes
What kind of band — you may someday ask yourself while wandering through a desert with only an iPod and a gallon of piss strapped to your back — would release a 100-song album, appropriately titled Centennial, into the wild of a musical forest that requires only cricket singles and 10-song full-lengths for sustenance? A…
In the reins: Sam Beam (aka Iron & Wine) brings Calexico on the wings
If you know it, you could detect Sam Beam’s voice within any piece of music, played on any medium, at whatever volume, no matter what kind of crowd noise may be competing for your ears. His breathy, wood-stove timbre is that distinct. Not that you’d really ever be confronted with such a condition, as his…
Patriot Act under review
The controversial post-9/11 legislation has supporters and detractors As director of the Louisville Free Public Library, Craig Buthod trafficks in information.Just don’t mistake him for a cop. In January 2002, an FBI agent from Houston called asking for library records. Buthod asked the agent if his request was being made under the USA-Patriot Act and…
Rumor & Innuendo: Rumblings From the World of Sports
Greatest Dickie V story ever told. A local hoops fan — she happens to be, irony of ironies, a Dookie — swears this story is true about her father’s last words. The gent was a major sports fan. He’d been comatose for a while. Family was gathered. TV was tuned to ESPN. A Dickie V-called…
Where’s the money?
In July, Gov. Ernie Fletcher announced that Kentucky ended its fiscal year with a $214 million budget surplus. But the extra cash won’t send state government on a spending spree — $90 million of that sum is allocated to a rainy-day fund, and the government faces a $132 million Medicaid deficit for 2006. Meanwhile, state…
What a Week
Archdiocese to implement gaydar The Louisville Archdiocese admitted it’s not sure how to comply with a Vatican document barring priests with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies.” In the absence of a litmus test, the Archdiocese said it would run background checks to screen out men who know the difference between mousse and styling foam, and those who know…
Theater Review – Blithe Spirit
The title of the play may be “Blithe Spirit,†but the ghost that haunts an aristocratic British couple in Noel Coward’s play is anything but carefree. Actually, Elvira is not happy at all when she returns from the hereafter to retrieve her husband, much to the disapproval of Charles’ current (and living) wife, Ruth. Elvira…
Theater Review – Cinderella, A Holiday Panto
The Frazier Historical Arms Museum wants to expose Louisville to panto, a theater form that has rarely been presented in the United States. A staple of the British holiday season since the middle ages, traditional panto encourages audience participation, uses slapstick humor, mixes gender roles and sprinkles the dialogue with local references. In “Cinderella, A…
