Cover Story
Cast away
For a quarter century, Zan Sawyer-Dailey has been transforming words on a page into bodies on a stage. As associate director at Actors Theatre of Louisville, she has a varied portfolio that includes education and outreach, coordination of apprentice and intern training, and company management. But she also is responsible for casting — a job…
Live: Toots Thielemans & Kenny Werner
On an unseasonably cold February Sunday, Master musicians Toots Thielemans and Kenny Werner warmed the hearts of a nearly sold-out audience at the Margaret Comstock Concert Hall to close U of L’s Jazz Fest. The Belgian-born Thielemans, who turns 88 on April 29, was nattily dressed in a black suit with red accents and a…
Live: Ben Sollee & Daniel Martin Moore
“I used to be ashamed of my accent,” Ben Sollee told a nearly-full house at the Brown Friday night, the sort-of homecoming for the ensemble he and Daniel Martin Moore assembled for their tour supporting Dear Companion. The album, produced by Yim Yames, is a love letter to Appalachia and beacon to the dangers of mountaintop…
Things I learned watching the 2010 Winter Olympics on TV
Brought to you by Goldman-Pfizer-Tri-Con-Global Corp. • Eating McDonald’s will make you a world-class athlete not to mention very happy. • Norwegians, while not great freestyle skiers, are an incredibly good-looking people. • The national anthems of every country on the planet are actually really good songs that make me weep with joy instantaneously. •…
Comedy: Brian Regan on balloon animals and zero laughs
In the mid-’90s, Brian Regan won “Best Club Comedian” from the American Comedy Awards, and he hasn’t looked back since. His career trajectory has risen and led to numerous Comedy Central specials (including his most recent, 2008’s “The Epitome of Hyperbole”) and countless appearances on the “Bob & Tom” morning radio show, and he’s done…
Race in the robe
Speaking before a crowd that filled the Capitol Rotunda, Gov. Steve Beshear recently honored the late Justice William McAnulty, the first African-American member of the state’s highest court. Remembering McAnulty — who died of cancer in 2007 — as one of the commonwealth’s greatest leaders, the ceremony ended with an unveiling of the former justice’s…
Harmonica Red
Since 1992, University of Louisville’s Jazz Fest, née Jazz Week, has attracted titans of jazz. Dave Brubeck, Elvin Jones, Roy Haynes and Marian McPartland are but a few of the high-wattage craftsmen who have performed and instructed jazz students on the genre’s finer points. “The original intent of Jazz Week was to afford our students…
The Grape Escape: Drinking inside the box
It’s getting harder to be a wine snob. For nearly 200 years, the natural oak-bark cork was the litmus test: You had to have a corkscrew and know how to use it to get into the bottle. But suddenly, the much-maligned metal screw cap has migrated from Manischewitz to finer bottles. (More on that another…
Past the Legal Limit
Party-punk outfit The Revenge of Ricky Williams’ debut is solid almost in spite of itself. On their website, they list their No. 1 influence as No Doubt, which raises eyebrows. Early ’90s No Doubt? Ska No Doubt? Gwen Stefani in her Harajuku phase? That reference could mean everything, but for the Revengers, it doesn’t mean…
Staffpicks
Wednesday, Feb. 24 Barenaked Ladies Hard Rock Café Fourth Street Live www.hardrock.com Free; 5 p.m. One of the biggest bands of the ‘90s, with countless awards and millions of albums sold, goes small ball this time around. Canadian pop-rockers Barenaked Ladies are hitting a string of intimate shows before kicking off a tour of larger…
Perfect View
I’m short on fresh things to say about Libby Johnson and her third solo album, Perfect View. I can’t think of anything that hasn’t been said before. Let’s make a list, shall we? The girl sings like the lovechild of Elliott Smith and Billie Holiday and gets down with her instruments like a sober Chan…
Sane Boat/Boo!
Fans of Sloan and Belle & Sebastian will find plenty to love in the Little Brothers’ breezy power-pop. This release is ostensibly a compilation of two EPs, and while it’s tempting to think of the disc as one LP, the two halves’ distinct personalities begin to reveal themselves upon close listening. Sane Boat is a…
Theater: ‘When in Disgrace’ gives Walden students dose of realism
Andy Fleischer knows how to die. Last spring it was a gunshot to the back, and this week it’ll be cyanide — much slower, more painful and gruesome. But unlike last year’s character in Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus,” Fleischer’s current character isn’t fictional. The 17-year-old Youth Performing Arts School and Walden student plays a teenage boy named…
Art: Not all is transparent in Debra Clem’s world
Look up “transparent” in the dictionary, and it always comes back to light — admitting the passage of light, permitting light to pass through, etc. Indiana University Southeast fine arts professor and artist Debra Clem explores transparency in her new exhibit at Swanson Reed, but the word means much more to her than light —…
The sweet white nectar and my black nationalist jont
Ah, the sweet white nectar. Uncle Ruckus, a character on the animated series “Boondocks,” explains it this way when evaluating the Kobe Bryant sex scandal several years ago: “Now I know exactly what happened to Kobe. Kobe caught that white fever. White fever get in your blood, man, it’ll make you crazy … They got…
Unlearning homophobia (Part 2)
My best friend growing up was an African-American boy named Bobby. He looked like all the members of Boys II Men rolled into one, with the mischievousness of Bobby Brown and a smile like Theo Huxtable. We got along well and went everywhere together. He taught me the moves to Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” video…
B-Sides: Music & Other Ephemera
Audrey Cecil, a singer-songwriter from Valley Station, releases her debut on local One Horse Records next Saturday, March 6, at Vernon Club (1575 Story Ave., 584-8460). Heidi Howe and danny flanigan open. The 18-and-over show starts at 8 p.m. and is $5. Written over two years, the album is a collection of semi-autobiographical, acoustic-driven rock.…
Jerry’s kids
If Mayor Jerry Abramson had decided to seek a third term rather than make a run for lieutenant governor, it’s doubtful the field to replace him would have been this crowded. Despite a number of controversies and growing criticism in recent years, supporters remain and would have likely returned Abramson to the Mayor’s Office. But…
Film: ‘Esther Blueburger’ on the outside looking in
Hey, Hey It’s Esther Blueburger Starring Danielle Catanzariti, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Toni Collette, Essie Davis and Christian Byers. Directed by Cathy Randall. Rated PG-13; 1:43. Opens Friday at Village 8 Theatres. LEO Report Card: C+ The opening scene in “Hey, Hey It’s Esther Blueburger” shows Esther, hiding out in the school attic, watching her private-school classmates dance,…
Plugged In
Readers are strongly encouraged to call ahead to verify these listings. To get your club, comedian, musical act or karaoke listed, please send e-mail to mherron@leoweekly.com with PLUGGED IN in the subject line. The deadline is NOON THURSDAY the week before publication. We do not accept listings via social networking sites. Wed. Feb. 24 BBC…
Louisville Is For Lovers Vol. 10
John King’s tenure as the sultan of Louisville love songs has sadly come to an end. The great writers and singers of the mostly exceptional songs that make it onto the compilation every year will have to find audiences elsewhere. The Mack and Trophy Wives stand out on the first disc, the former mixing indie…
Book: British novelist sheds light on refugees
“We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.” This is one of the many beguiling and heartrending observations of a teenage girl who has found her way to England in Chris Cleave’s…
Bar Belle: Kentucky Colonel I am
Who said writing for a free weekly newspaper wasn’t prestigious, besides my mom? Apparently some people in this fine state think I’m special, and not in the Olympic kind of way. The Bar Belle has achieved the highest honor awarded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky — and I didn’t even have to hike my skirt…
Rice University: Starch 101
On a blustery day made for sledding on the snow-laden slopes of my memory, I came in frosted over with my childhood friends and smelled something warm and sweet that wasn’t hot chocolate. My Hoosier mom had made rice, boiled and practically floating in a warm conduction of butter and sugar — plenty of sugar.…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE 2009; $17.95-$35.95, PG Spike Jonze worked directly with author Maurice Sendak to bring his much-beloved children’s book to the screen in a big way. When Max, an imaginative and unruly 9-year-old, is sent to bed without his supper, he invents a magical land filled with huge…
Inbox — Feb. 24, 2010
Correction Last week’s story “Old dog, new tricks” incorrectly identified the breed of Angela and Jim O’Neill’s confiscated dogs, which are in fact bulldogs. LEO regrets the error. Good Intentions A few points need clarification about my quotes in “Bologna by any other name” in the Feb. 10 LEO Weekly. Although I have shown the…
Shop Local. Live Better.
It usually happens once a year. I am drawn — like a suicidal moth to a flame — to the fluorescent glow of Wal-Mart. After a lengthy hiatus, I recently found myself in the throes of this big-box nightmare, and I have no valid excuse. I was not vacationing at a tourist-laden beach destination, nor…
Fowl play
If someone were to compile an encyclopedia of American municipal screw-ups — and not call it “The Wire” — then the section pertaining to Metro Louisville would no doubt contain more than its fair share of notable entries. Although there’d be plenty of gaffes to choose from, only the perpetually malfunctioning Louisville Falls Fountain approximates…
