The Village Voice back issues from February 2007:
Have a Nice Flight
Feb 07, 2007; ... WORLD'S LARGEST AEROSPACE COMPANY HELPS CIA FLY SUSPECT ABROAD FOR TORTURE On the Boeing 737 Business Jet, Khaled el-Masri said, "all the people were in black clothes and black masks. They put earplugs in my ears and a sack over my head." After putting chains on his legs, they led him ...
Living With War
Feb 07, 2007; ... 34th Annual Village Voice Critics' Poll In a perfect world, we could fixate entirely on the narrowest and gnarliest finish in Pazz & Jop history: Bob Dylan by 14 points and -4 voters. He is George W. Bush. Lost the popular vote, but prevailed via the fine print TV on the Radio, doomy ...
King of Wreck
Feb 07, 2007; ... HIPHOP CAN NEVER DIE SO LONG AS BOB DYLAN - WITH STORY IN HIS VOICE AND LUST IN HIS EYES - IS ALIVE DISCUSSED Bob Dylan, Modern Times, #1 I often think of Bob Dylan when I think about the future ofhiphop. I actually think Bob Dylan fs the future of hiphop, and maybe even ...
Insanity and Other Mutations
Feb 07, 2007; ... HIPHOP'S FUTURE IS CLOUDIER, BUT NOT NECESSARILY DARKER DISCUSSED Gnarls Berkley, St. Elsewhere, #5; "Crazy," #1 Beck, The information, #33 Nas, Hip Hop Is Dead, #97 Ghostface Killah, Fishscale, #3 Gnarls Berkley definitely raised more questions ...
Reasons to Be Cheerful (Just Three)
Feb 07, 2007; ... IF 2006'S MUSICAL SLATE SEEMED BLEAK, JUST LOOK TO THE OCCASIONALLY GOOFY BUT STILL EXHILARATING EXTREMES DISCUSSED Mastodon, Blood Mountain, # 44 Boris, Pink, #76 Burial, #89 Wolf Eyes, Human Animal, #297 This year it felt like everyone I ...
How to Be an American Idiot
Feb 07, 2007; ... THE INTERNET MAY EVENTUALLY KILL 'THE ALBUM' AS A CONCEPT, BUT 2006 KEPT THE CONCEPT ALBUM ALIVE DISCUSSED My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade, #17; "Welcome to the Black Parade,"#12 The Killers, Sam's Town, #150; "When You Were Young."#11 Joanna Newsom, Ys, ...
Milk-Eyed and Heaven-Bound
Feb 07, 2007; ... JOANNA AND NEKO STORM THE TOP 10 WITH DANCING BEARS AND SEVERAL TRIPS TO THE RIVER DISCUSSED Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, #8 Joanna Newsom, Ys, #9 As the old hymn goes, usually "His eye is on the sparrow," but unfortunately not in the case of Neko ...
Mission Accomplished
Feb 07, 2007; ... THE CHICKS LOST THE BATTLE BUT WON THE WAR WE'RE STILL LOSING DISCUSSED Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way, #20; "Not Ready to Make Nice," #8 The Dixie Chicks' decision to release "Not Ready to Make Nice" as the first single from their Taking the Long Way album was the ...
Ancient Maneaters of the Future
Feb 07, 2007; ... THE YEAR'S HOTTEST AUTEUR MADE VAPIDITY SOUND TRANSCENDENT DISCUSSED Nelly Furtado, "Promiscuous," #6; "Maneater," #20 Justin Timberleke, "Sexyback," #7; FutureSex/LoveSounds, #28 High School soundtrack, #1376(tied) Early on in the Disney Channel ...
The Sheep Take a Buffalo Stance
Feb 07, 2007; ... CRITICS' POLLS HAVE EVOLVED AND ARGUABLY WITHERED LATELY, BUT AT LEAST WE DIDN'T VOTE FOR TIMBUK 3 Beyond its status as a discerning metric of the Bands That Matter in a given year, Pazz & Jop became one of the hottest potatoes in the field of music journalism in 2006, following the ...
The Polyphonic We
Feb 07, 2007; ... CRITICS WERE SIMPLY FLABBERGASTED BY HARMONIES IN 2006, BUT WE ALL NEEDED THEM BISCUSSED TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain, #2 Grizzly Bear, Yellow House, #52 Uars, Drum's Not Dead, #67 My Chemical Romance, The Stock Parade,#17 Dixie ...
Bob, Barkley, and Beyond: The Top 20
Feb 07, 2007; ... THE POLL'S UPPER ECHELONS DRIVE US CRAZY, OR AT LEAST DRIVE US TO DRINK Fivebettertitles for Modern Times: 1 | Boys and Girls in the Old, WeirdAmerica 2 | Whatever People Say I Am, We Can Have a Whompin'Good Time 3 | Rather Relaxed 4 | I Write Sins Not ...
God Grew Tired of Us
Feb 07, 2007; ... RECORD-STORE EULOGIES, BLOGGER ANGST, AND OTHER SYMPTOMS OF A DYING INDUSTRY Reflecting upon 2006, my overwhelming urge is to shut the fuck up. Jem Aswad Brooklyn, New York Depending on who you listened to, the Tower Records chain closing was either the end of the ...
Run the Roads and Walk Unafraid
Feb 07, 2007; ... RANDOM OBSESSIONS AND VEXATIONS, BORN OF YOUNG TYROS AND ROCKIN' OLD PEOPLE I can hardly wait for their next tour, album, interview, album artwork, and poster-heck, I might just buy a Decemberists lunchbox at this rate, to my eternal mortification. Jack Rabid Brooklyn, ...
Architects of Self-Delusion
Feb 07, 2007; ... Architects of Self-Delusion Two plays about structurally unsound foundations Frank's Home By Richard Nelson Playwrights Horizons 416 West 42nd Street 212-279-4200 The Fever By Wallace Shown Acorn Theatre 410 West ...
Keep Mee Hanging
Feb 07, 2007; ... Gone By Charles Mee 59E59 59 East 59th Street 212-279-4200 Keep Mee Hanging Proust lip-synchs as love lies dying BY GARRETT EISLER Charles Mee writes with heart on sleeve, even when it's not his heart. Famous for sampling eclectic ...
The (Elizabethan) Jewish Conspiracy
Feb 07, 2007; ... Talking to Theater for a New Audience about restaging anti-Semitic classics New York Jews wringing their hands about the rise of anti-Semitism abroad, need look no farther than Broadway, where a couple of money-grubbing, blood-lusting members of the tribe are currently hogging the ...
East Village People
Feb 07, 2007; ... Once There Was a Village Written and directed by Vit Horeis, based on a book by Yuri Kapralov La MaMa E.T.C. 74A East 4th Street 212-475-7710 East Village People An inventive ode to downtown in the '60s BY GWEN OREL Playful, ...
Freeze Framed
Feb 07, 2007; ... Freeze Framed Wendy Lesser's essays break emotional ice Room for Doubt By Wendy Lesser Pantheon, 224 pp., $23.95 Wendy Lesser begins Room for Doubt, a book of three interconnected essays, by admitting her own inflexibility. "I expected to go a lifetime without ever setting foot in ...
Meat Puppets
Feb 07, 2007; ... Meat Puppets Eat your greens: Chewing over the history and politics of vegetarianism The Bloodless Revolution By Tristram Stuart W.W. Norton. 656 pp., $29.95 Two announcements regarding food sailed quietly by in December 2006: The FDA endorsed meat and milk from cloned cows, ignoring ...
The Biggest Picture
Feb 07, 2007; ... The Biggest Picture A group show takes a trip through grand visions and imaginary universes Cosmologies James Cohan 533 West 26th Street Through February 10 BY JERRY SALTZ We tend to forget how endlessly odd it is, but art is perhaps the ...
Twin Stars Collide
Feb 07, 2007; ... Edith and Jenny By Tamar Rogoff P.S.122 January 30 through February 4 (Closed) Twin Stars Collide Two old friends imagine a friendship that never happened BY DEBORAH JOWITT In today's dances, performers often engage in fits of ...
Into the Fray
Feb 07, 2007; ... "Beyond the Pale" Moti Hasson Gallery 535 West 25th Street Through February 17 Into the Fray Chelsea morning: A gallery makes its mark For a little more than two years, Moti Hasson Gallery has operated out of a boxy second-floor space in a ...
When the Fur Flies
Feb 07, 2007; ... Best in Show Recommendations by R.C. Baker David Hammons L&M Arts 45 East 78th Street Through March 10 When the Fur Flies Like an ostentatiously spare boutique, L&M's front gallery is a desert of dark parquet floors and understated ...
Beefin' Burgers
Feb 07, 2007; ... Counter Culture By Robert Sietsema Brgr, 287 Seventh Avenue, 212-488-7500 BLT Burger, 470 Sixth Avenue, 212-243-8226 67 Burger, 67 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-797-7150 Brooklyn Burger Bar, 444 9th Street, Brooklyn, 718-832-5500 Stand, 24 East ...
Old Bars Meet Luxe Condos
Feb 07, 2007; ... Liquid City The Bowery, McCarren Park, Atlantic Yards: Every hot-investment neighborhood has at least one hallowed bar clutching on to survival. Question is, how long can these old establishments hang on? Mars Bar (25 East 1st Street), a lone dive bar dwarfed by the new Bowery ...
Stasi Cinema
Feb 07, 2007; ... Stasi Cinema Two films-one sentimental, one stark-look back on a culture of suspicion and surveillance The Lives of Others Written and directed by Florian Henckel van Donnersmarck Sony Pictures Classics, opens February 9 The Decomposition of the ...
Edie Made Easy
Feb 07, 2007; ... Factory Girl Directed by George Hickenlooper The Weinstein Company Now playing Edie Made Easy Queen of the Factory and '60s beauty #1 gets the superficial biopic treatment BY NATHAN LEE Ticket buyers to Factory Girl are in for a drag; not ...
Lights! Camera! Chaos!
Feb 07, 2007; ... The Cine Phile Whitney's series lacks focus; Anthology's got it Ambitious as it is, the Whitney Museum's Lights, Camera, Action: Artists' Films for the Cinema runs off in a half-dozen directions. Douglas Gordon, the dean of film installation art, gets pride of place with his 2000 ...
The Messengers
Feb 07, 2007; ... The Messengers Directed by Danny and Oxide Pang Columbia Pictures, now playing Oh, boy-a shocker set against the terrifying backdiop of North Dakota sunflower farming! Get ready for the ultimate in Helianthus horror as a Chicago couple (Dylan McDermott and Penelope Ann ...
Burning Annie
Feb 07, 2007; ... Burning Annie Directed by Van Flesher February 7 through 13, Two Boots Pioneer Burning Annie, the anxiously auspicious debut of director Van Flesher and writer Zack Ordynans, would be far too clever for its own good were the crisis of cleverness not its subject. Set in ...
The Last Sin Eater
Feb 07, 2007; ... The Last Sin Eater Directed by Michael London Jr. Fox Faith, opens February 9 Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is arguably the most iconic female villain in film history. The miscasting of Fletcher-still a forbidding screen presence-as a ...
Operation Homecoming
Feb 07, 2007; ... Operation Homecoming Directed by Richard E. Rabbins Through February 15, Film Forum Though it exists neither to boost nor defy the war in Iraq, Operation Homecoming is not without political objective. Drawing inspiration from a project by the National Endowment for the ...
Notes on Marie Menken
Feb 07, 2007; ... Notes on Marie Menken Directed by Martina Kudlácek February 9 through 18, Anthology Film Archives Marie Menken's films and paintings reveal a stunning fondness for the rhythms of nature, technology, and human custom. Her friends and acolytes-Stan Brakhage and Kenneth ...
Constellation
Feb 07, 2007; ... Constellation Directed by Jordan Walker-Pearlman Freestyle Releasing, now playing Depictions of upper-middle class African-American life are such a rare screen commodity that one wants to give a movie like Constellation every possible benefit of the doubt. Written and ...
Unconscious
Feb 07, 2007; ... Unconscious Directed by Joaquin Oristrell Opening February 9, Cinema Village Pity Sigmund Freud. Dubbed "history's most debunked doctor" by Newsweeklast year and forever known as the Oedipal complex guy, Freud could use an image makeover. Enter Joaquín Oristrell's ...
Holland Days
Feb 07, 2007; ... International Film Festival Rotterdam Rotterdam report: Film fest hearts 16mm Annually slotted in January's frigid tail-end, when film professionals are still skiing in Utah or packing for Berlin, the International Film Festival Rotterdam has gained a well-deserved rep as ...
Dangerous Dildos, Part 1
Feb 07, 2007; ... IN AN UNREGULATED INDUSTRY, CAN SEX TOYS BETOXIC? Many years ago, I did a photo shoot with porn star Chloe for Taboo magazine. It had been a long day of a hundred different poses and we were tired. "Let's get that double dong and do an ass-to-ass shot," said the photographerright before ...
Free Will Astrology
Feb 07, 2007; ... ARIES [March 21-April 19] Happy Valentine Daze, Aries! On this lovers' holiday, let's see what we can do to purge some of your old romantic karma. With a cleaner slate, you'll be freer to create the kind of love you really want in the future. To begin, write a list of the worst sins you've ...
China: Partner in Genocide
Feb 14, 2007; ... AFRICAN UNION HUMILIATES SUDAN, BUT DOESN'T STOP RAPES AND MURDERS IN DARFUR China has provided Khartoum more than $10 billion in commercial and capital investments over the past decade, even as it has been the regime's primary supplier of weapons, weapons technology, and weapons ...
Something in the way he moves
Feb 14, 2007; ... Over two years and countless coffees, Larry Seiler-born with cerebral palsy and learning issues-shared with Mara Altman the intimate details of a sex life burdened by disability, and buoyed by love. Before Larry Seiler has sex, he often takes a hot shower. The heat relaxes his ...
Get your wardrobe on
Feb 14, 2007; ... Along the catwalks last week, fashion columnist LynnYaeger found an industry still obsessed with green-the color of military uniforms, army fatigues, and the scads of money it will cost you to buy next fall's fashions Fashion people may claim blithely that they never pick up a newspaper, ...
The Magician's Nephew
Feb 14, 2007; ... The powers of New York's former economic development czar, Charles Gargano, worked in mysterious ways. Tom Robbins gets inside the Gargano family, and reports how Frank Gargano used his uncle's name to find a client on the Brooklyn waterfront In the spring of 2003, Charles Gargano, who ...
Hot to Bot
Feb 14, 2007; ... Artists assemble wondrous machines with scavenged parts and scrappy know-how A creature resembling a dog staggers across the floor on shaky legs, rasping out the sound of a tiny asthmatic Godzilla. Next to him, a bedraggled rooster dances frenziedly on one leg, then slumps. Both have ...
Alienating Intimacies
Feb 14, 2007; ... Alan Ball tests immigrant identity at home; Tennessee Williams shreds Americans abroad All That I Will Ever Be By Alan Ball New York Theatre Workshop 83 East 4th Street 212-979-1444 In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel By Tennessee Williams Abingdon Theatre 312 West 36th Street ...
Remembering Gian Carlo Menotti 1911-2007
Feb 14, 2007; ... Remembering Gian Carlo Menotti 1911-2007 Opera-drama conveyed through music-was Gian Carlo Menotti's lifeblood, and everything he did, from his composing and stage-directing to his luxurious lifestyle and his sometimes public disputes, he did operatically, with a mixture of passion, ...
Romancing the Francophone
Feb 14, 2007; ... A Spanish Play By Yasmina Reza Classic Stage Company 136 East 13th Street 212-352-3101 Romancing the Francophone French playwright Yasmina Reza takes prisoners BY ALEXIS SOLOSKI In the midst of Yasmina Reza's leaden confection A Spanish Play, the character Nuria ...
Buxom Buddy
Feb 14, 2007; ... At Least It's Pink By Bridget Everett, Michael Patrick King, and Kenny Mellman Ars Nova 511 West 54th Street 212-868-4444 Buxom Buddy A fleshy revue that's overdone but rare Not many songstresses compare themselves to a piece of overdone steak. But Bridget Everett ...
Untaming of the Jew
Feb 14, 2007; ... Sightlines The Jew of Malta By Christopher Marlowe Duke on 42nd 229 West 42nd Street 212-239-6200 Untaming of the Jew Barabas gets his revenge in a rollicking new production Mention Christopher Marlowe's dark Elizabethan comedy The Jew of Malta, and anti-Semitism ...
Color Wash
Feb 14, 2007; ... The Secret of Mme. Bonnard's Bath By Israel Horovitz Kirk Theatre 410 West 42nd Street 212-279-4200 Color Wash An Impressionist gets soaked 'Who owns the painting, the artist or the schmuck with the money?" asks Israel Horovitz in reference to his latest play, which ...
Runaway Riddle
Feb 14, 2007; ... Absolute Clarity By Sophia Romma Players Theatre 115 MacDougal Street 212-352-3101 Runaway Riddle An unlikely romance in Manhattan on the Moskva Despite name-checking CBGB and Delancey Street, this adaptation of the Russian playwright Edvard Radzinski's She, in the ...
Don't Look Now
Feb 14, 2007; ... Don't Look Now The war on terror percolates through Jonathan Raban's topical novel Surveillance By Jonathan Raban Pantheon, 258pp., $24 BY JON RAYMOND They say newspapers are the first draft of history. And they say literature is news that stays news. This lightly speculative ...
Merci for Smoking
Feb 14, 2007; ... The Little Girl and the Cigarette By Benoît Duteurtre translated by Charlotte Mandell Melville House, 188 pp., $14.95 Merci for Smoking An unfiltered novel about being persecuted for puffing BY DAVID NG The publication of French novelist Benoît Duteurtre's The ...
Death of a Choreographer
Feb 14, 2007; ... Hamburg Ballet BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (Closed) Death of a Choreographer Thomas Mann's tragic genius-monster joins in the dance BY DEBORAH JOWITT John Neumeier's "free adaptation" of Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice for the marvelous ...
Broken Angel
Feb 14, 2007; ... Broken Angel A new exhibition rescues artist Martin Ramírez from his "Outsider" status Martin Ramírez American Folk Art Museum 45 West 53rd Street Through April 29 BY JERRY SALTZ Martin Ramírez (1895-1963) is the 20th-century Fra Angelico ....
Positively 27th Street
Feb 14, 2007; ... Networked Nature Foxy Production 617 West 27th Street Through February 18 Positively 27th Street Carving out a home for good nature in Chelsea A little more than a year ago, more than a half-dozen intrepid art dealers proved that the high-priced ...
He Is a Camera
Feb 14, 2007; ... He Is a Camera Best in Show Recommendations by R.C. Baker Elliot Erwitt Edwynn Houk Gallery 745 Fifth Avenue Through February 23 Erwitt, still active at 78, has a knack for delivering theatrical spontaneity within sharp and inventive compositions. In one ...
Love on the Lamb
Feb 14, 2007; ... Counter Culture By Robert Sietsema Sheep Station 149 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn 718-857-4337 Love on the Lamb Culinary adventures in a Brooklyn outback I shan't be sheepish about making the following admission: I love lamb. Whether a garlic-laced leg brought ...
Peter Whitehead Was There
Feb 14, 2007; ... Peter Whitehead Was There From the beats to the Stones, filmmaker never missed a '60s happening The Word and the Image: The Films of Peter Whitehead February 15 through 20 Anthology Film Archives BY J. HOBERMAN Endlessly repackaged, regurgitated, and reviled, the ...
Festival Film: Friend or Foe?
Feb 14, 2007; ... Bamako Written and directed by Abdenahmane Sissako New Yorker Films February 14 through 27, Film Forum Festival Film: Friend or Foe? Speaking to the West and its own, Bamako blurs the line BY NATHAN LEE Foreign filmmakers with advanced sensibilities are ...
2006 Academy Award Nominated Shorts
Feb 14, 2007; ... Tracking Shots 2006 Academy Award Nominated Shorts Magnolia Pictures, opens February 16 IFC Center Despite brief running times, great short films can evoke universal sentiments just as powerfully as their featurelength counterparts. Unfortunately, the 10 films that ...
Spy Vs. Spy
Feb 14, 2007; ... Breach Directed by Billy Ray Universal Pictures Opens February 16 Spy Vs. Spy After dissecting the fabulist, Billy Ray moves on to FBI traitor Robert Hanssen BY ROBERT WILONSKY In December 2002, ABC's 20/20 ran a story on Eric O'Neill, an undercover surveillance ...
Film Comment Selects Poorly
Feb 14, 2007; ... Film Comment Selects Walter Reade Theater February 14 through 27 Film Comment Selects Poorly One good choice: Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet's final collaboration BY ELLIOTT STEIN The eighth edition of Film Comment magazine's showcase of previews and ...
Post-War
Feb 14, 2007; ... Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams Written and directed by Jasmila Zbanic Strand Releasing Opens February 16 Film Forum Post-War Sarajevo conflict was hell, but what comes after is another battle BY ELLA TAYLOR A wash in daily news of mass savagery, collective memory ...
Hannibal Rising
Feb 14, 2007; ... Tracking Shots Hannibal Rising Directed by Peter Webber MGM, now playing This comically fastidious telling of the Hannibal Lecter origin story completes the extreme makeover of grindhouse fare that The Silence of the Lambs started 15 years ago. Meaning: Respectable audiences who ...