Blackout with your crack out!
On Day Six of the blackout, I finally entered a Wal*Mart but I was so high on my own sanctimonious superiority that my feet didn’t touch the ground, so maybe it didn’t count. I hadn’t entered a Wal*Mart in a decade, thanks to my strict policy against patronizing businesses that sell pimento loaf under fluorescent…
News of the Weird
On Aug. 30, just 10 days after being shot during a home invasion, Nakhia Williams died. I didn’t learn about this until last Saturday, when I ran into a friend at a potluck. (I brought watermelon. I hate watermelon. I don’t know what she brought.) Neither of us had known Nakhia; my friend only knew…
Our Call Outs
Our Call Outs, the debut from Bloomington, Ind.-based aggregate Beyond Things, straddles a wide chasm between adventurous eclecticism and stilted self-consciousness. The group imbues its sparse, largely acoustic arrangements with eerie, queasy atmospherics, and the off-kilter violin work creates a sense of unease that recalls Camper Van Beethoven’s edgiest work. However, these elements clash with…
Me and Armini
Nobody knows it but everybody’s already heard Emiliana Torini. Hint: “Gollum’s Song.” Yes, that’s her singing over the end credits of “The Two Towers.” Lord of the Rings nerds, however, are probably not the best audience for this multi-talented singer-songwriter. Unless they also like folksy, electronic-influenced songs orbiting a girl’s gilded voice. Those orbits, by…
To Jobim With Love
Toninho Horta is a virtuoso electric and nylon-string guitar player; his music could be defined as jazz-influenced, Brazilian music. He’s developed a very personal style, playing beautiful harmonies with rich melodies and nice right-hand grooves. Besides being a strong composer and player, he’s also worked many years as an arranger. Pat Metheny considers him to…
Preaching Politics
“God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” —John Lennon, “God” Take a moment and catalog the items on the proverbial table in America this election season. Bailout. Economic depression. Two dire wars, and one major-party candidate rattling a saber for more. Forty-seven million people without healthcare. Climate change. High unemployment. Sweeping…
Raganomics
In the ’90s and early ’00s, “the kids” — in punk parlance — went ape-shit for Hot Water Music, the best Gainesville, Fla., export next to The Swamp (and I say that as a UK fan). Balanced by the twin guitar-and-vocal attack of Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard, Hot Water Music made more than a…
Staffpicks
Oct. 1-5 U of L’s ‘The Story’ Reality is in the eye of the beholder, lying is the new honesty and “truth” is starting to feel like a quaint and outdated concept, like chivalry or good credit. The University of Louisville’s African-American Theatre Program tries to get to the bottom of “The Story” anyway, opening…
What a Week
-8 Note to my future children: Please don’t place me in a Kentucky nursing home (or any nursing home for that matter). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently found deficiencies in nearly 88 percent of the state’s nursing homes. Sadly, that’s lower than the national average of 91 percent. Problems uncovered range…
Sight Unsound – Extra Relish
Wednesday, Oct. 1 Joan Osborne may have grown up around here, but for years now she’s considered herself a New Yorker. Her latest album Little Wild One should convince the last doubters, as many of the songs repeatedly reference neighborhoods and landmarks of NYC — right up to the concluding “Bury Me on the Battery.”…
Truth in (campaign) advertising
Swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Didn’t think so. The first round of campaign ads in Kentucky’s 3rd District congressional race between Democratic U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth and his Republican opponent Anne Northup reveals just how delicate the deceit of campaign messages can be. The freshman congressman made…
B-Sides – MUSIC & OTHER EPHEMERA – ‘Dust to ‘Dust
and Mat Herron Mr. John King, undisputed lover of Louisville, is at it again. The compilation master has managed to bring together artists from Louisville to reinterpret David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The compilation will be available for pre-order Oct. 1 at www.louisvilleisforlovers.com, and released Dec.…
Ride the rails
Nearly a century ago, if you were walking around downtown Louisville you were as likely to get run over by a trolley car as you were to step in horseshit. At her early zenith, Louisville was the 10th largest city in the nation, boasting a highly developed public transportation system on par with nearly any…
Music Reviews
You Wish Scott Mertz & His Panel of Experts (SELF-RELEASED) On “Flight of the CrowBear,” the fourth track on Scott Mertz and His Panel of Experts’ LP You Wish, the mandolin, pedal steel and banjo give way to a steady acoustic guitar underscored with a series of radio sounds. It’s reminiscent of Beck’s folkier early…
A Dragonfly visits Big Rock
Big Rock in Cherokee Park always sparkles this time of year, with the autumn sun reflecting off Beargrass Creek and highlighting a portfolio of fall foliage. What a setting for the Ninth Annual Big Rock Jazz Festival. This year’s event marks new directions for the fest, not the least of which is a wider range…
DakShin Indian
Step into DakShin’s spacious, almost cavernous quarters, blink until your eyes adjust to the dim, and you might think you’ve found your way into an oddly named barbecue joint. Square, rough-hewn log walls frame heavy booths of oak; atop a wall at the back, looming above a large-screen television, rests the biggest canoe you have…
Mug Shots
The Bud isn’t your buddy It would greatly amuse me if InBev, the monolithic Belgian/Brazilian/Martian brewery and new owner of Anheuser-Busch, would elect without warning to transform the insipid liquid in those many millions of cans rolling daily off A-B’s regional factory assembly lines into dark, rich, complex Abbey-style ales just like the ones Flemish…
Crude – How Wall Street is screwing America
Inside the comfortable landscape of Rock Creek Golf Club in Fairhope, Ala., life is undoubtedly serene, a far cry from the bustling city of Houston across the Gulf where Doug Terreson, a former Morgan Stanley executive, used to reside. Less than a mile and a half from Terreson’s relocated home on the eastern shore of…
HOW THEY ROLL
Energias de Portugal (EDP) is the national energy producer for Portugal. For insight into how Morgan Stanley conducts its investments on the open market, the following are excerpts from a release by EDP announcing the sale of stock to Morgan Stanley subsidiaries. See if you can follow along: “On April 21, 2008,…
Aftertastes
RECENTLY REVIEWED IN LEO JARFI’S BISTRO, 1543 Bardstown Rd., 589-5060, www.jarfis.com. Jarfi’s menu has changed a bit (it’s always evolving), but what is truly new here is the atmosphere — whereas Lentini’s was upscale and sophisticated, the new Jarfi’s is colorful, vibrant and ethnically diverse. Under one roof, diners can encounter a French-style bistro, a…
Inbox — Oct. 1, 2008
ORCHESTRA CODA Many thanks for exploring the legacy of the Louisville Orchestra in some depth and introducing our Louisville Orchestra film project to your readers in the Sept. 17 issue (“Performance Enhancement” by Jeremy Pudgursky). We want it to be clear to your readers that our efforts over the past three years to bring this…
Yep, I’m Gay – News of the weird
On Aug. 30, just 10 days after being shot during a home invasion, Nakhia Williams died. I didn’t learn about this until last Saturday, when I ran into a friend at a potluck. (I brought watermelon. I hate watermelon. I don’t know what she brought.) Neither of us had known Nakhia; my friend only knew…
Guest Commentary – Get on the bus
When the alarm goes off at 4 a.m., I ask myself, Why am I doing this? Why am I getting up early to ride 200 miles on TARC buses for the next 13 hours? Four years ago I learned about World Car Free Day on the Internet and decided I wanted to bring it to…
The Church Hoppers – Worship on the web – surprisingly, it works
and Zack Nord A priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, “What is this — a joke?” That’s how your Hoppers felt when we heard about “online church.” Call us cynics, but Zach and I weren’t expecting much from worship in cyberspace. Christianity claims God became…
Splatters ART NEWS BITS
The St. James Court Art Show (www.stjamescourtartshow.com) is Friday, Oct. 3 thru Sunday, Oct. 5. Make sure you also stop by the UnFair behind the Mag Bar at Second and Magnolia streets to view work by local artists. St. James Court Art Show artist Jonathan Shuff will be at Eclectica Gallery (wwww.eclecticagallery.com) on Thursday, Oct.…
The talented and playful Mr. Friedman
Designer Julius Friedman’s resume is long — full of references to graphic design, photography and gallery ownership. You may know him as the grand old master of posters, with a borderline fetish for eggs, as in the Kentucky Arts Commission’s “Fresh Paint.” He’s now come ’round to his due, with both an exhibition and book…
Suburban Turmoil – Soccer widow
“Hello?” My stepdaughter frowned into the phone as she heard the caller’s response. “Just a minute, please,” she muttered wearily, hitting the mute button. “It’s one of Dad’s girlfriends,” she told me flatly before heading to the den to hand Hubs the phone. In a moment, I heard my husband’s booming voice. “You’ve got to…
Summary of My Discontent – Blackout with your crack out!
On Day Six of the blackout, I finally entered a Wal*Mart but I was so high on my own sanctimonious superiority that my feet didn’t touch the ground, so maybe it didn’t count. I hadn’t entered a Wal*Mart in a decade, thanks to my strict policy against patronizing businesses that sell pimento loaf under fluorescent…
