The Village Voice back issues from February 2004:
REMOTE PATROL
Feb 04, 2004; ... COLLEGE HILL Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on BET Just in time for Black History Month, BET rigs up the first African American reality show. Trailing eight photogenic students at Southern University in Baton Rouge, College Hill cultivates stereotypes, from the saucy nymphet to the ...
TANNER '88
Feb 04, 2004; ... TANNER '88 Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on Sundance Remembrance of wacky political conventions past It's Democratic primary time and a half-dozen candidates are roaming the country, desperately jostling for the nomination. But we're not talking howling Howard Dean or John Kerry-Tanner '88 ...
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
Feb 04, 2004; ... ARIES (March 21-April 19): Writing in The Week magazine, editor in chief Bill Falk reminisced about how earlier in his career he churned out three opinion columns a week for newspapers. It was tough. "The truth is," he said, "there were many weeks in which I didn't have three fresh opinions of ...
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM
Feb 04, 2004; ... Seinfeld without Seinfeld? The humor may be surlier but it's just as annoyingly addictive CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM Sundays at 9:30 on HBO THIS CHARMLESS MAN Like a lot of people, I came late to my Curb Your Enthusiasm obsession. The idea sounded so weak, so unenticing: Seinfeld ...
IAJE CONFERENCE
Feb 04, 2004; ... Straitjacketing jazz to its past to prove it still is high art IAJE CONFERENCE Midtown Hilton and Sheraton hotels January 21 through 25 GOLDEN YEARS SUCK Last month's International Association of Jazz Educators Conference attracted around 8,000 pedagogues, students, publishers, ...
THE NOTWIST
Feb 04, 2004; ... Dud of the Month THE NOTWIST Neon Golden (City Slang/Virgin) Not a fraud. That much I'll grant this evolving German unit's career album. There are tunes, and they're nicely melded to a wide assortment of putatively nonmusical sounds. Not pretentious either, though to say anything kinder ...
CLUB CRAWL
Feb 04, 2004; ... The chances of dancing in New York instead of standing around and looking fabulous are usually slim to none. But when Matthew Dear played recently at Filter 14, everyone danced up a storm. His record Leave Luck to Heaven is a perfect combination of crystalline production, sharp techno edges ...
Additional Consumer News
Feb 04, 2004; ... Honorable Mention BASEMENT JAXX Kish Kash (Astralwerks) Is that blood the big-time vocalists smear on the tracks, or ichor? ("Lucky Star," "Cish Cash," "Right Here's the Spot") A3 Power in the Blood (One Little Indian) Roots-rocking ...
SAM FURNACE, 1954-2004
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE SOUND OF THE CITY A precise and marvelous architect of jazz leaves this world SAM FURNACE, 1954-2004 I first met Sam Furnace 30 years ago in the Henry Street Settlement Jazz Band, directed by Basie tenor man Billy Mitchell. We were both around 20 and he was the best and most ...
Z MAN
Feb 04, 2004; ... Z MAN Dope or Dogfood (Refill/Hiero Imperium) Born free, hungry, ugly with no money," Z Man lives the hip hop fantasy. His life is one long after-party-every night he gets wasted and has sex with someone he doesn't know. His favorite high is Cisco, the orange-colored fortified wine a/k/a ...
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO THE MUSIC OF EGYPT
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE ROUGH GUIDE TO THE MUSIC OF EGYPT (World Music Network import) The field is vast, vast-Cairo has been the cultural capital of the Middle East since the dawn of recording. And though the compiler is Yalla: Hitlist Egypt's David Lodge, the logic is unusually impenetrable: neither of ...
FOUR TET
Feb 04, 2004; ... FOUR TET Rounds (Domino) Charming, civilized, childish, Kieran Hebden imagines an aural space in which electronic malfunction is cute rather than annoying or ominous. Keys and strings go their own merry way toward the ...
STOMP AND SWERVE AMERICAN MUSIC GETS HOT
Feb 04, 2004; ... STOMP AND SWERVE AMERICAN MUSIC GETS HOT (Archeophone) Because David Wondrich's sourcebook cracks so wise, and because pre-electrical recordings are so tinny, you'll get happier reading about this music than listening to it. But there's a third reason: although most of these 27 1897-1925 ...
THE RAPTURE
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE RAPTURE Echoes (Strummer/Universal) House of Jealous Lovers" so dominates that it takes a while to glom onto the other uptempo numbers, which means most of them. With headman Luke Jenner flaunting his tortured-romance shuck-a clarion Ian Curtis-Robert Smith hybrid only not really ...
THE BLACK EYED PEAS
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE BLACK EYED PEAS Elephunk (A&M) In which the unbelievably dull El Lay alt-rappers fabricate the brightest actual pop album of 2003. They remain unbelievable, but in pop that's just one more aesthetic nuance. Titles like "Let's Get Retarded," "Shut Up," and the guitar-driven ...
BOB BROOKMEYER NEW ART ORCHESTRA
Feb 04, 2004; ... At 74, maverick valve trombonist demonstrates that there's still life after J.J. Johnson BOB BROOKMEYER NEW ART ORCHESTRA Get Well Soon Challenge MIND OVER MATTER Certain great writers-Hemingway, obviously, Whitney Balliett and Lester Bangs in my own backyard-were meant to be ...
DIZZEE RASCAL
Feb 04, 2004; ... PARTS OF THE ELEPHUNK CONSUMER GUIDE Pick Hits DIZZEE RASCAL Boy in Da Corner (XL) The first thing to understand about Dizzee is that his fundamental appeal is musical, and the second is that there's very little music there. Break down a track and often you'll find only an electro ...
RAMIRO MUSOTTO
Feb 04, 2004; ... RAMIRO MUSOTTO Sudaka (Fast Horse) Gaby Kerpel fans take note-yet another cosmopolitan Argentinean, this one a Sao Paulo-based percussionist, doing the ethnotechno dance with yet another cache of field recordings. Difference is, Musotto shows no interest in conventional songs as he fuses ...
DIXIE CHICKS
Feb 04, 2004; ... DIXIE CHICKS Top of the World Tour-Live (Open Wide/Monument/Columbia) Two songs about white-or-not wedding dresses, though that's not the best reason to listen. World history might be. But almost as important is how they start right off with their most controversial hit ever (the one ...
JOSH ROSEMAN UNIT
Feb 04, 2004; ... JOSH ROSEMAN UNIT Treats for the Nightwalker Enja/Justin Time Demented blur of trombonist-led outfit recovers from info overload As much fun as it was, Cherry, trombonist Josh Roseman's first CD as a leader - released in 2002, but presumably recorded a few years earlier - ...
ELIZABETH MCQUEEN AND THE FIREBRANDS
Feb 04, 2004; ... LICKS ELIZABETH MCQUEEN AND THE FIREBRANDS The Fresh Up Club (Gravitron!) No confirmation that the two songs addressed to a former love interest no longer in the band concern Asleep at the Wheeler David Sanger, who produced the thing and who 26-year-old Arkansas transplant to Austin ...
PATRICK ANGUS
Feb 04, 2004; ... SHOW WORLD PATRICK ANGUS Leslie-Lohman Gay Art Foundation 127B Prince Street Through February 14 Although it's hard to resist quoting playwright Robert Patrick's description of artist Patrick Angus (1953-1992) as "the Toulouse-Lautrec of Times Square," the paintings and drawings that ...
DOWN IN THE BASEMENT
Feb 04, 2004; ... DOWN IN THE BASEMENT (Old Hat) Here be 24 of the 50,000 78s collected by fun-loving Joe Bussard, portrayed by co-compiler Marshall Wyatt as a crusty old sweetheart who'll make you mix tapes for 50 cents a song until the RIAA hits him with a writ. The same share-the-wealth openness lifts ...
NELLY
Feb 04, 2004; ... Body of work an extreme-makeover St. Lunatic wonderland NELLY Da Derrty Versions: The Reinvention Universal John Mayer knows I love him like an emo kid loves Nick Drake, but the prep school heartthrob ranks pretty low on the list of 24-hour party people I'd take with me to ...
Clocking into Dennis Oppenheim's 'thought collision factories'
Feb 04, 2004; ... In 1982, one of the rambling constructions of galvanized ducts, tracks, and conveyor belts that Dennis Oppenheim called "thought collision factories" went berserk. Like his other psycho-mechanistic pyrotechnical works of those years, Launching Structure #2 was an incendiary device, with ...
PROJECT X/LOVE AND HYDROGEN: NEW AND SELECTED STORIES
Feb 04, 2004; ... PROJECT X By Jim Shepard Knopf, 164pp., $20 LOVE AND HYDROGEN: NEW AND SELECTED STORIES By Jim Shepard Vintage, 340 pp., $13 FREAKS AND GEEKS Shepard reports from the bottom of the junior-high shitpile A pointillist master of middle-American disaffection, ...
GOAT/HAPPY BABY
Feb 04, 2004; ... GOAT By Brad Land Random House, 210 pp., $22.95 HAPPY BABY By Stephen Elliott MacAdam/Cage and McSweeney's 207 pp., $21 BRUTAL YOUTH Two once-brutalized authors examine voluntary victimhood and find it an acquired taste Like it or not, your physical safety is ...
VANGUARD JAZZ ORCHESTRA
Feb 04, 2004; ... Scoring with Slide Hampton's color, swing, and simple riffs VANGUARD JAZZ ORCHESTRA The Way-Music of Slide Hampton Planet Arts Slide Hampton, the veteran trombonist who guested with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra at the IAJE last month and wrote all the music on their The Way, is a J.J ....
Kitchen Stories
Feb 04, 2004; ... WORD SALAD I was 25 pages into Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello when, browsing at a bookstore, I stumbled across Judith Kitchen's 2002 novel The House on Eccles Road. Kitchen's title was almost identical to a fictional work penned by Coetzee's eponymous character-The ...
NAYIKAS
Feb 04, 2004; ... ONGOING NAVIKAS Nagelberg Theater 55 Lexington Avenue 212.868.4444 Saturday through Monday New York's only resident classical Indian Odissi company, this ensemble of eight women-two of them African American, the rest of South Asian descent-is a glowing addition to the city's mix. Its ...
DUSARA DANCE
Feb 04, 2004; ... DUSARA DANCE La MaMa E.T.C. 74A East 4th Street 212.475.7710 Through February 8 The mysterious East frames the debut of Clark's new troupe Billy Clark's Place Poems, the debut of his troupe Dusara Dance, looks and sounds like a magnet for possibly too many Eastern artistic ...
THE KVETCHING CONTINUES
Feb 04, 2004; ... SIGHTLINES THE KVETCHING CONTINUES Joe's Pub 425 Lafayette Street 212.239.6200 Oy vey, what kind of nice Jewish girl bites the hand that feeds her, not to mention her poor mother, that nice director who hired her, and all those people who paid i-hate-to-tell-you-how-much for their ...
NEW YORK CITY BALLET/DAVID PARKER AND THE BANG GROUP
Feb 04, 2004; ... NEW YORK CITY BALLET New York State Theater Through February 29 DAVID PARKER AND THE BANG GROUP Dance Theater Workshop Friday and Saturday THUMB IN MOUTH Broadway's Stroman arranges marriage between silent flicks and Balanchine's dancers A few reasons to see ...
ALICE IN WONDERLAND
Feb 04, 2004; ... ALICE IN WONDERLAND Kirk Theatre 410 West 42nd Street 212.239.0200 Down the rabbit hole with a salaciously unsatisfying twist What if you made a porno and nobody came? What if you included all the formal requirements of the early-'80s stag picture-hot girls, hirsute guys, ...
MARTINA MCBRIDE
Feb 04, 2004; ... MARTINA MCBRIDE Martina (RCA) On which O Brother Where Art Thou? gives Nashville's cutest one-woman Make a Difference Foundation permission to open with Poguesy fiddles and mandolins, Norah Jones allows her to close with a vaguely jazzy "Over the Rainbow," and Faith Hill allows her to ...
THE BIG BOUNCE
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE BIG BOUNCE Directed by George Armitage Warner Bros., in release Petty thief, grand scheme In The Big Bounce, the only man on Oahu who doesn't think there's something special about suffer girl Nancy Hayes (Sara Foster) is Ray Ritchie (Cary Sinise), the corrupt real estate ...
THE RETURN OF SHADOWS
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE RETURN OF SHADOWS Long thought lost, Cassavetes's early version sees the light ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS-John Cassavetes's Shadows, the founding work of the American independent cinema, has always had its own shadow-an ur-version championed in these pages in 1959 by Voice critic ...
OSAMA
Feb 04, 2004; ... OSAMA Written and directed by Siddiq Barmak United Artists Opens February 6, Lincoln Plaza Pose traumatic stress syndrome: The drag of being a young girl in Afghanistan in drag SWEET HOME TALIBAN The first all-Afghan feature to be made since the rise of the Taliban in ...
FEEDING FRENZY
Feb 04, 2004; ... FEEDING FRENZY Stunts, moguls, buffed-up people, and sharks-fitting for a film festival at a ski resort PARK CITY, UTAH - "I wanted to go skiing!" whines one petulant yuppie to her traveling companion-and no, these aren't the people sitting directly behind me, but the buff couple bobbing ...
NELLIE MCKAY
Feb 04, 2004; ... Cabaret Wunderkind waves jock-hipster kryptonite at all of NPR's left-leaning quirksters NELLIE MCKAY Get Away From Me Sony GOD BLESS THE CHILD Todd Graff's charming boutique film Camp celebrates high school misfits whose means of musical rebellion isn't indie or emo or undie ....
BARBERSHOP 2: BACK IN BUSINESS
Feb 04, 2004; ... BARBERSHOP 2: BACK IN BUSINESS Directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan MGM Opens February 6 Fading to the right: No cutting edge in Barbershop sequel Easy dozens and feel-good buzz saved the first Barbershop from its own moralistic claptrap, even if half the time Cedric the ...
THE RETURN
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE RETURN Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev Kino Opens February 6, Lincoln Plaza Catching the big one with Dad: A Russian director's debut Winner of the same Venice Film Festival that gave a decidedly mixed reception to The Dreamers (see above), Andrey Zvyagintse'vs The Return is ...
SUPERSIZE ME
Feb 04, 2004; ... SUPERSIZE ME Sundance docs: Board youth, iMacs, Big Macs and big mouths-who in Tarnation is next! PARK CITY, UTAH-Given the rowdy fratboy vibe to which so much Sundance fiction has seemed to cater, it came as scant surprise that the first ever documentary to appear on Opening Night was a ...
THE DREAMERS
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE DREAMERS Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci Fox Searchlight Opens February 6 '60S-SOMETHING After the revolution: Bertolucci's way-back machine can't stop spinning, goes out of control The Dreamers, Bernardo Bertolucci's unforgettable, if daffy, paean to youth, ...
Lucy in the sky: No diamonds but plenty of beers on tap
Feb 04, 2004; ... LIQUID CITY Lucy in the sky: No diamonds but plenty of beers on tap LUCY'S 135 Avenue A 212.673.3824 The skinheadies and the punkies used to come here," says the eponymous owner of Lucy's. That was in the 1980s. You get a feeling she's seen most everything in the 25 years she's been ...
SCREAM
Feb 04, 2004; ... SCREAM Anton Kern Gallery 532 West 20th Street Through February 14 MODERN GOTHIC Elusive, deluded, and chic, a new version of an old style takes hold among young artists Call it Modern Gothic. As cringe-worthy as my term for it is, there's a lot of work around right now ...
HOMETOWN MOLE
Feb 04, 2004; ... HOMETOWN MOLE Former delis bring Mexican country cooking to Clinton DEL VALLE RESTAURANT & DELI 665 Tenth Avenue 212.262.5173 If you want great Mexican in Manhattan, head straight for Hell's Kitchen. A rash of microscopic eateries have recently appeared-often carved out of delis and ...
The Great Arab Voter Revolt
Feb 04, 2004; ... Forsaken by Bush, Michigan's Arab Americans Consider the Dems Last week's meeting of the Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) ran long, over three hours, and exposed the kinds of divisions that roil voters nationwide, according to those who attended. Over a hundred of the ...
IN THE MISO SOUP
Feb 04, 2004; ... Don't call him Haruki: Japan's other Murakami sees red IN THE MISO SOUP By Ryu Murakami, translated by Ralph McCarthy Kodansha, 180 pp., $22.95 With Almost Transparent Blue (1976) Ryu Murakami emerged as a chronicler of Japan's lost generation, the disaffected kids who grew up in the ...
Flight of the Bumblebee
Feb 04, 2004; ... Howard Dean May Be Dying, but He Sure Packed a Sting MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE- In the beginning there was New Hampshire. And New Hampshire will never let you forget it. * At Manchester International Airport, the first thing those who wish to reclaim their luggage are greeted by ...
How to Land a Job
Feb 04, 2004; ... Rummy Appoints Taos Pal to Terror Panel Along with boosting the defense budget to an all-time high and taking it upon himself-without approval of Congress-to increase the size of the army by 30,000 people, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has selected a good friend and sometime ...
Sleeping with the GOP
Feb 04, 2004; ... A Bush Covert Operative Takes Over Al Sharpton's Campaign ROGER STONE, THE LONGTIME REPUBLICAN DIRTY-TRICKS OPERATIVE WHO LED THE MOB THAT SHUT DOWN THE MIAMI-DADE COUNTY RECOUNT AND HELPED MAKE GEORGE W. BUSH PRESIDENT IN 2000, IS FINANCING, STAFFING, AND ORCHESTRATING THE PRESIDENTIAL ...
A Service Industry Throbs
Feb 04, 2004; ... Capitalism Unleashes Its Sex Drive in China Conservative politicians often set forth a prim view of American society that is reminiscent of Victorian Britain. At the same time, they are all for a vigorous free-market economy. So when it comes to the growing international free market in ...
The Abandoned Librarians
Feb 04, 2004; ... Castro's Judges Burn Books 'Lacking Usefulness' AS I'VE BEEN REPORTING IN THIS COLUMN, THERE HAS BEEN A FIERCE CIVIL WAR WITHIN THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION AS TO WHETHER THAT BODY-THE LARGEST ORGANIZATION OF LIBRARIANS IN THE WORLD-WILL HELP FREE THE 10 LIBRARIANS LOCKED UP IN FIDEL ...
Plumbing the Depths
Feb 04, 2004; ... After Arrests, a Union Agrees to Its Own Investigation PLUMBING IS A TOUGH AND CRUCIAL TRADE, AND THOSE WHO MASTER IT AND HOLD A UNION CARD CAN EARN SOME $42 AN HOUR. BUT DESPITE THEIR STANDING IN LABOR'S ARISTOCRACY, FOR THE PAST YEAR THE 5,800 MEMBERS OF THE UNION REPRESENTING NEW YORK ...
IT'S MY PARTY: AN EVENING WITH EDE THURRELL
Feb 04, 2004; ... IT'S MY PARTY: AN EVENING WITH EDE THURRELL Flamboyan Theater Clemente Soto Velez Center Closed She'll drink if she wants to, and sparkle, and choreograph Ede Thurrell's best moments are itty-bitty starbursts like her new solo Living End 1 (Isadora Duncan technique danced in ...
Where Credit Is Due
Feb 04, 2004; ... TOWERS & TENEMENTS Council Plan Helps Landlords Do the Right Thing ANYONE WHO WANTS A NEW AFFORDABLE-HOUSING PROGRAM THESE DAYS BETTER MAKE SURE IT'S CHEAP, VOLUNTARY, AND NOT TOO BIG. A CITYWIDE COALITION OF MORE THAN 50 GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS THINKS IT'S HIT ALL THREE IN ...
Misfire
Feb 04, 2004; ... Why Brain Structure Makes Unintended Shootings Inevitable THE POLICE KILLING OF AN UNARMED 19-YEAR-OLD ON A BROOKLYN ROOFTOP LAST MONTH APPEARS TO BE A TRAGEDY OF NANOSECONDS AND EONS, A DEATH DELIVERED BY A COP FIRING NOT BECAUSE OF A CONSCIOUS DECISION BUT AN INSTANTANEOUS NEURONAL ...
Centrinomics
Feb 04, 2004; ... MR. ROBOTO Q: I'm in the market for a new laptop, and all the salesmen are saying I must, must, must get one with Intel Centrino technology. Sounds great, save that I haven't the foggiest what Centrino is-something to do with the wireless Internet, I surmise, but that's all I've got. Do ...
EDEN/THE PILLOWMAN
Feb 04, 2004; ... EDEN By Eugene O'Brien Irish Repertory Theatre 132 West 22nd Street 212.727.2737 THE PILLOWMAN By Martin McDonagh Royal National Theatre London, England Two chatty new Irish plays venture into unspeakable terrain LADDISH TALES Blessed and cursed with the gift of ...
Bobbing and Weaving
Feb 04, 2004; ... ELEMENTS OF STYLE A Boozy Trade Show in Chelsea "Well, actually, it says, 'Fuck shit up,' " Garth Cabral explains when he's asked about the faded Gothic lettering on a pair of soft cotton pants in the Cabral booth at TBC, a streetwear trade show in Chelsea that describes itself ...
CORRECTION
Feb 04, 2004; ... Robert Sietsema's film review of Eat This New York [January 28-February 3] erroneously mentions that the Brooklyn restaurant Moto closed after a few months; the restaurant is still open. The ...
THE PARROT/THE UPSIDE DOWN BOY
Feb 04, 2004; ... THE PARROT Flea Theater 41 White Street 212.352.3101 THE UPSIDE DOWN BOY Goldstein Theatre at Kingsborough Community College 2001 Oriental Boulevard, Brooklyn 718.368.5596 KIDDIE CORNER Children's theater doesn't have to translate into child's play to provide intelligent ...
CATCH THAT KID
Feb 04, 2004; ... TRACKING SHOTS CATCH THAT KID Directed by Bart Freundlich 20th Century Fox Opens February 6 After the abominable Myth of Fingerprints and World Traveler, indie hack Bart Freundlich has now traveled the path you almost hoped he'd take: He's sold out to Hollywood. With any luck, he'll have ...
HIDING AND SEEKING: FAITH AND TOLERANCE AFTER THE HOLOCAUST
Feb 04, 2004; ... TRACKING SHOTS HIDING AND SEEKING: FAITH AND TOLERANCE AFTER THE HOLOCAUST Written and directed by Menachem Damn and Oren Rudavsky First Run Opens February 6 Quad The second film of a projected trilogy on post-Holocaust Judaism (following 1997's A Life Apart: Hasidism in America), ...