Cover Stories
Born to run
(N.B. Our brackets are at the bottom. Check ’em out.) More than anything, what’s propelled the University of Louisville Cardinals to the Big East Conference championship, a Big East tournament victory, a first-ever No. 1 ranking in both polls and the overall No. 1 seeding for the 2009 NCAA college basketball tournament is the team’s…
Born to run
(N.B. Our brackets are at the bottom. Check ’em out.) More than anything, what’s propelled the University of Louisville Cardinals to the Big East Conference championship, a Big East tournament victory, a first-ever No. 1 ranking in both polls and the overall No. 1 seeding for the 2009 NCAA college basketball tournament is the team’s…
Born to run
(N.B. Our brackets are at the bottom. Check ’em out.) More than anything, what’s propelled the University of Louisville Cardinals to the Big East Conference championship, a Big East tournament victory, a first-ever No. 1 ranking in both polls and the overall No. 1 seeding for the 2009 NCAA college basketball tournament is the team’s…
Born to run
(N.B. Our brackets are at the bottom. Check ’em out.) More than anything, what’s propelled the University of Louisville Cardinals to the Big East Conference championship, a Big East tournament victory, a first-ever No. 1 ranking in both polls and the overall No. 1 seeding for the 2009 NCAA college basketball tournament is the team’s…
Born to run
(N.B. Our brackets are at the bottom. Check ’em out.) More than anything, what’s propelled the University of Louisville Cardinals to the Big East Conference championship, a Big East tournament victory, a first-ever No. 1 ranking in both polls and the overall No. 1 seeding for the 2009 NCAA college basketball tournament is the team’s…
Static/Major’s doctor speaks
A physician who treated Grammy-award winning hip-hop star Static/Major says he would have personally examined the patient before recommending the removal of an improperly placed catheter had the attending nurse informed him about his complaints of pain. In a sworn deposition, Dr. Dean J. Wickel, the surgeon who implanted the dialysis catheter to treat the…
U of L and the fight for justice
I made one of the most important professional decisions of my life in graduate school, when I decided to commit “discipline suicide.” All of my degrees are in political science — political theory and comparative politics, to be exact. Despite my grounding in these traditional “highbrow” and “respectable” concentrations, when preparing to take a job…
Whistleblowers blocked?
(N.B. Follow updates to this story on Fat Lip.) For the past four years, Louisville’s chief auditor has urged the city to adopt an anonymous tip line for its employees to report fraud, abuse and other unethical activities. But his recommendation has repeatedly stalled out in the office of Mayor Jerry Abramson, and the city…
Sticky Americana
Suzanne Santo had a solid résumé as a model-actress when she was introduced to multi-instrumentalist Ben Jaffe. In quick order, Santo completed a shift in priorities to focus on her violin, banjo and vocal skills. The acting went on hold (though on the video for “Little Toy Gun,” she keeps up just fine with Ironworks…
One
As the buzzer sounds at Freedom Hall, there is not the usual mass exodus to the parking lot. Instead, the red and black sea of fans rises and remains in place, applauding, cheering, not only basking in a victory, but also bidding farewell. Tonight’s match-up against Seton Hall was the final home game of the…
Locavore Lore: Behold the bountiful basket
Whether you chalk it up to locavore livin’ or religious devotion to the outdoors, for some reason I never get sick. I mean, nary a cold; my sinuses don’t understand allergy. The last flu I had was probably in second grade. However, I do always come down with a wicked case of spring fever. For…
Sholi
Payam Bavafa, a third of this Bay Area-based trio, spent a year and a half researching brain waves for a neuroscientist. It may seem like an odd job for a guy who’s tapped into the eccentric energy of the SF/Berkeley/Oakland scene, but it’s paid off. He’s helped craft Sholi’s sound, nestled on the outskirts of…
Is that a gun in your pocket?
When the Memphis Commercial Appeal recently added a searchable database of Tennessee gun owners to its website, I was crazy-jealous that we didn’t have that service available here. It would be fun to see which of my friends and frienemies are armed instead of always having to mentally pat them down. The Memphis newspaper’s database…
Never Say Never
Despite some electric piano flourishes that briefly recall Ian McLagan’s days in the Faces, his latest solo outing, Never Say Never, is doggedly mid-tempo, laying out a relaxed, soulful groove on the opening title track and scarcely deviating from it thereafter. McLagan and his band are obviously comfortable in this pocket, but since there are…
B-Sides: Music & Other Ephemera
At first glance, California’s Warbringer encapsulate heavy-metal stereotypes in a way unseen since “This is Spinal Tap.” They are long-hairs, and their MySpace page incorporates steel rivets and a bright red pentagram. The cover of their Feb. 8 release, War Without End, features a tank steamrolling over a floor of skeletons as what appear to…
A life more ordinary
The unfortunate has finally happened: “The L Word,” the lesbian soap opera of Showtime, is no longer with us. Let’s all take a moment. I’m always curious why certain shows go off the air when they do. I mean, it’s understandable that shows like “E.R.” are popular, but how has it taken this long to…
Book: Reports
Is it Just Me or Is Everything Shit?: Insanely Annoying Modern Things(By Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur with Brendan Hay. Grand Central Publishing; 272 pgs., $22.99.) I have a cell phone that texts and takes photographs. I’ve used both features once. My VCR works fine, thank you; there’s no need for me to buy a…
Feeling Blue
A contractual dispute between two artists and the promoter of this weekend’s Bluegrass Hotel Concert led to a flurry of departures from the event’s lineup and its rescheduling — and possible cancellation — Tuesday. Bill Millet, promoter and owner of San Antonio, Texas-based The Bluegrass Hotel LLC, confirmed that he will be rescheduling the March…
Mug Shots
This is the 30th year of my professional beer-drinking career. The autumn of 1979 provided a familiar impetus for renouncing amateur status and turning pro. There was a messy breakup, and one morning during the worst of it, my car suddenly veered away from the university’s parking lot in the direction of an adjacent package…
Guitar-Boy Superstar 1970-76
For many years, most African music remained unavailable to Americans. Aside from rare finds in immigrants’ shops, and sounds lucky to make it through to the world music circuit, the majority of the best African music remains unheard by Western ears. However, thanks to enterprising record labels such as Soundway (curators of the fantastic Ghana…
Personal Jesus
Any higher-up would approve. St. Stephen Temple Choir’s new album, God is Able, saw its national release sell out at three Louisville Walmarts in 24 hours. Now it’s No. 17 on Billboard gospel charts and rising. For Joe Leavell, a county attorney and the choir’s director since 2000, it’s a vision realized in less metaphysical…
Book: What We’re Reading
1) We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (fiction) — If ever there was a perfect family, the Mulvaneys were it: parents married, successful and in love, three sons, including a star athlete and a valedictorian, as well as a cheerleader daughter. But that idyllic life unravels when one of their own is victimized, a trauma…
India’s muse
A.R. Rahman, the superstar composer behind “Slumdog Millionaire”’s smashing “Jai Ho,” isn’t the only Indian exporting depth and talent. Zakir Hussain, India’s preeminent tabla player, has wowed audiences for years, exploiting the tabla drum’s harmonic and rhythmic dimensions without interruption. LEO: It seems like this has been already a big year for India, what with…
Theater: The family that hates together stays together in ‘Absalom’
(The Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville presents Zoe Kazan’s “Absalom.” Directed by Giovanna Sardelli. Continues through April 11 in the Pamela Brown Auditorium. For tickets, call 584-1205 or visit www.actorstheatre.org.) The depressing family houseparty weekend is rapidly becoming a genre of its own — soon Wild and Woolly…
The environment in Frankfort
It seems the environment became synonymous with energy in Frankfort this legislative session, and it doesn’t appear to be a coincidence. In fact, some environmental advocates believe proponents of industries like coal and gas have hijacked environmentalism, tying their old industries to progressive ideas. “We were all sort of put on the same train. A…
Beware
Hometown weird beard Will Oldham never disappoints, even while consistently exploring different corners of roots rock and folk. Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s latest bolsters a solid cast, including Chicago Underground Trio’s Rob Mazurek and Warmer Milks collaborator/brother Paul. Beware departs from recent releases, replacing the intimacy of Master and Everyone with Flying Burrito Brothers-style honky-tonk and…
Inbox — March 18, 2009
Correction Last week’s dining review incorrectly stated that Danny Mac’s uses cream cheese in their Philly cheesesteaks. Danny Mac’s owner Dan McMahon says, in fact, he uses mozzarella and provolone cheeses. “No soup for you! 1 year!” he told us in an e-mail. Damn. Fostering Care Thank you for the cover article “Consider the Kid”…
The Cards: A retrospective
There are these characters: The Governor and The General, as they are known around the Belknap Campus. They rule the U of L student section in the 1960s. I’m talking the days of first-come, first-served seating, and of Unseld, Beard and Jerry King, a shooter who hits every important free throw he takes. This duo…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS BOLT 2008; $29.95-$39.95, PG John Travolta and Miley Cyrus give voice to this well-done CG-animated tale from Disney. Travolta is the titular super-dog, star of the biggest show in Hollywood; able to leap tall buildings and round up evil-doers with just a super-bark. She is his owner and co-star. The hook?…
Book: ‘Being Emily’ isn’t the typical washed-up YA soap novel
Being Emily(By Anne Donovan. Canongate Books Ltd.; 320 pgs., $11.49.) Imagine a cocktail of a book that is one-quarter of each of the following writers, shaken and stirred into a new, heady froth: Roddy Doyle, Hanif Kureishi, Irvine Welsh and Louise Rennison. Who the heck are they, you ask? See the adjacent Forgotten Classics for…
Book: Forgotten Classics
(By Roddy Doyle. First Published in 1990.) The middle installment of The Barrytown Trilogy, “The Snapper” has to be Dublin novelist Roddy Doyle’s outstanding comic work. When teenager Sharon Rabbite turns up pregnant, it’s a bit of a shock to her friends and family, especially her father, Jimmy Sr.; but, in their earthy way,…
