Cover Story
Basketball diaries
There’s something magical about this time of year, and it has nothing to do with the vibrant leaves, crisp autumn air or impending holiday season. It’s a time when one’s college basketball team of choice is presented with a blank slate: no heartbreaking losses, no season-ending injuries, no NCAA violations. For top-ranked teams, there’s the…
Same as it ever was
By now it’s just inertia. Whether right or wrong, Kentucky and coach John Calipari have earned such respect from national pollsters that a team with zero — zero — returning starters is ranked consistently in the top 3. Like last year, and the year before, and the year before, Kentucky and Calipari will rely on…
Celebrating a president
By now you either know who won the election or you are savoring the spectacle of a constitutional crisis of chad-hanging proportions. Whether you are basking in the glow of democracy at its finest or shaking your fist at a failed system, we can, at long last, get back to the important business of the…
How’d we do?
At Fern Creek High School, 2:20 unfolds in predictable sequence: bells ring; a chattering surge of 1,300 students dressed in the school’s orange and black press through doors into the parking lot; cars snake under a white arc that reads “To Proficiency and Beyond” to collect teenage cargo. On a recent cold, misty Tuesday afternoon,…
Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album Pt. 1
I adore Miles Davis’ music, but he was a deplorable human. His art, however, forces a hard line to be drawn between stage or studio and life. Lupe’s no Miles. Appropriately choosing his last name, Fiasco is a pompous ass who knows no humility and overestimates his intelligence. His management should remove his access to…
B-sides
Punk President Anwar El Sadat was born in 1918 and served as the president of Egypt between 1970 and 1981. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in achieving the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, an act that led to his assassination. Punk rock was developed in the United States, England and Australia in the…
Ramiro’s Cantina backs curb appeal with decent Mexican chow
Before we break to the food, let’s devote a moment or two to the appreciation of modern American folk art. Seriously, now, work with me on this. Visualize, if you will, Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting “Nighthawks,” three anonymous figures and a short-order cook seen through the plate-glass windows of a spartan diner on an empty…
Book Burner
After four top quality albums of grindcore, Pig Destroyer are still the same riff-intense act, a rarity in a genre that relies more on speed than substance. Book Burner is monstrous, endlessly raw to the bone and vitriolic in every moment. J.R. Hayes’ eloquent lyrical exploration of misanthropy, politics and introspective reflections are perfectly married…
Electric sheep
It was a hellish summer for Lamb of God. What was to be a triumphant tour of Prague resulted in singer Randy Blythe spending five weeks in a Czech Republic prison, jailed on suspicion of manslaughter. The incident had occurred in that country two years earlier when a fan, thrown off stage, died. After posting…
Sandpaper Dolls
The Sandpaper Dolls have found their niche in haunting harmonies. That doesn’t mean they’re leaving behind the fundamentals they learned in previous bands. Each song, although a cappella, has percussive elements, a bassline and a melody. That percussion is reflected in various shapes and forms on their self-titled studio album. “Colors” uses breathing techniques to…
International relations with The Assad Brothers
Brothers Sérgio and Odair Assad are guitarists, born in Brazil, but their music cannot be pigeonholed by their birthplace. Sérgio now lives and teaches in San Francisco, while Odair resides and teaches in Brussels. Jardim Abandonado (Abandoned Garden), released in 2007, is their most recent album, and it serves as a good introduction to the…
Imponderable Bloom
There’s something about the deliberate approach of most instrumental post-rock bands that is reminiscent of U2 guitarist The Edge. As the beginning chords of the opening track slowly begin to reveal themselves, stealthily approaching from some unseen vista far, far away, the clean, stuttering tone becomes engorged on the structure of all the rock music…
Staffpicks
Nov. 7-25 ‘A Christmas Story’ Actors Theatre 316 W. Main St. • 584-1205 actorstheatre.org $24; various times It’s time to stick your tongue to a frozen pole and relive your favorite “A Christmas Story” memories with Actors Theatre’s annual holiday production. Directed by Drew Fracher, the beloved Christmas classic will be revived one final time…
Annual lecture honors activist Anne Braden
Renowned African-American Studies professor Robin D.G. Kelley first met civil rights pioneer Anne Braden while researching his first book in the late 1980s. Several years later, they both served on the awarding committee for a scholarship fund that provides grants to student activists. “Anne Braden was the most adamant about African-American students getting a fair…
Video TapeWorm
THIS WEEK’S TWIN PEEKS: BRAVE 2012; $19.98-$49.98; PG We caught this while on a rainy vacation in Ft. Myers, and it saved the whole week! An extremely lively tale of Scottish clans, the nature of society, and one very charming little princess who is determined to plot her own destiny — to hell with tradition!…
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 NOV 7 Air Devils…
Comedy: Car camping with Kristin Key
You may know Kristin Key from being a semi-finalist on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” but she’s also a woman of the road when it comes to comedy. Constantly crisscrossing the country, she brings a strange sense of humor that’s both quirky and optimistic to comedy clubs all across the United States. She’s a comedy troubadour,…
Book: Bettye LaVette’s blows and hits
‘A Woman Like Me’ By Bettye LaVette with David Ritz. Blue Rider Press; 272 pgs., $27. It’s enough to make you blush, this no-holds-barred autobiography from the little soul singer who could. With help from the machine-like David Ritz — who has co-written the autobiographies of everyone from Aretha to Marvin to Ray — Bettye…
Film: A way of life
A documentarian is reviving interest in the life story of Harlan and Anna Hubbard, who found a personally satisfying balance with the natural world while living a deliberately simplistic life along the Ohio River’s banks. Morgan Atkinson’s career includes making films about Thomas Merton (“Soul Searching”) and Louisville musical icon Tim Krekel (“Live Music”), as…
Inbox — Nov. 7, 2012
Good Kick Start I appreciated your cover story from the Oct. 24 LEO Weekly, “How to Kickstarter.” It truly is a great tool for funding creative projects, which are getting harder and harder to pay for through traditional funding alternatives. It is true that Kickstarter does have strict project requirements and is definitely getting more…
Hoosiers are back, baby
Julia Meek knows exactly where she was when Christian Watford sank the dramatic three-pointer that lifted Indiana to a 73-72 upset of No. 1 ranked Kentucky last December: She was there! “Yes … I … was!”Meek says proudly. And she was one of the thousands of IU fans who poured out of the stands onto…
Bar Belle: We are never, ever getting in shape
I hope this doesn’t come as a surprise, but sometimes I behave myself at night so I can make it to the gym in the morning. I once had an apartment with a shower so disgusting that I made myself get up and go to the gym so I could get ready there. Morning workouts…
Industry Standard: Insider info for those who dine out
Like most everyone else who lives in temperate climes, I enjoy the changing of the seasons. The beauty of a snow-covered hillside. That first warm day of spring when you leave the coat at home. When I was a child, I couldn’t wait for the week the pool opened. But, fall: I am putting you…
Theater: A theater festival like no other
Tilt a test tube to one side, and whatever’s in there will have more room to grow. Walden Theatre has a series named after this lab technique, and for the past four seasons, they’ve been presenting new scripts from up-and-coming playwrights that feature teenage characters and real teen issues, challenging the Walden students to focus…
Wrong piano
“Fables of the Deconstruction” is taped in front of a live audience. Scene one. The Old Watering Hole. Paul is standing at the bar talking to Lyle. Paul: So, all I gotta do is move it? Lyle: Yes, but it has to be done right away, like tomorrow. Paul: What’s the rush? It isn’t stolen…
Promise fulfilled
It’s in the Cards. The University of Louisville will win the 2013 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Because, frankly, it is time. Because well into Act III of the passion play that is Cardinal hoops, the audience is getting restless. The curtain can fall only after a Hollywoodland ending. There is no other plausible finale to…
