Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Don't Panic Don't Panic: Why hasn’t South Korea launched a war against North Korea?
Posted by Andisheh Nouraee on Tue, May 4, 2010 at 2:00 PM
You know, things aren't like they were when I was coming up. People today are big babies.
Back in my day, we didn't have peanut allergies. No sirree ma'am. If you suffered anaphylactic shock after eating a peanut, it was 'cause you were a sissy.
And we didn't have this "Internet" thing making everything so easy. If you wanted something, you had to work for it. You had to leave your house to steal music. You had to look a cashier in the eye when you purchased pornography. And you had to go to a library and hand-copy text out of a book when you wanted to plagiarize.
And back in my day, people had principles and honor, too.
For example, when one country fired a shot at another country, the other country would shoot back. You didn't question it. You just did it.
Continue Reading "Don't Panic: Why hasn’t South Korea launched a war against North Korea?"
(Photo Illustration by Andisheh Nouraee)
Monday, May 3, 2010
News 5 things to do: Monday
Posted by Amber Robinson on Mon, May 3, 2010 at 10:14 AM
1) As Tall as Lions play Vinyl.
2) 500 Songs for Kids continues at Smith's Olde Bar.
3) Julia Reed, a senior writer for Vogue, delivers a lecture titled Dispatches from the Gilded Age at SCAD Atlanta, with a book signing to follow.
4) The Nice Guise play 529.
5) WonderRoot hosts open-mic night.
(Photo by Shawn Brackbill)
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Streetalk Streetalk: What was mom's impact on you musically?
Posted by Jeff Slate on Sun, May 2, 2010 at 12:00 PM
Damon: She's solely responsible for music in my life. From the earliest I can remember, she was getting me into percussions. She was constantly motivating me, constantly singing. I came out bobbing my head. They were concerned I may have had some mental defect. I constantly bumped my head in my sleep as a baby. She would hand me cooking spoons and [I would get] pitches and sounds out of different objects around the house. She bought me my first drum set at 4 years old. She always sang in her church, and I grew up a church drummer. She has a beautiful voice.
John: My mother made it possible by believing in the gift. She sang. I grew up listening to Johnny Mathis, Brook Benton and Nat King Cole. I'd be hearing the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Count Basie, all the time. She's the one playing the music in the house, while your daddy is out, and also see that you'd practice. She was very advanced because I had a lot of friends that didn't have that. It's a lineage thing. It's not one day you wake up and say I want to play music. You're coming from somewhere. My mom had eight children and everybody played.
Rachel: I had three brothers and my dad. Her whole impact was that anything guys could do women could do, too. So when I got into music in elementary school, I wanted to be a guitar player. My mom knew there weren't many female guitar players to look up to, so it's really cool to have someone to push you, to encourage you, and found role models for me like Kim Gordon and P.J. Harvey. My mom's great uncle played music with Hank Williams. And she encouraged me to not be a Belinda Carlisle and just settle for being a front woman without a guitar.
News 5 things to do: Sunday
Posted by Amber Robinson on Sun, May 2, 2010 at 11:00 AM
1) Mondo May Day raises money for MondoHomo at Eyedrum with performances by Shitty Candy and more.
2) The 2010 polo season kicks off at Chukkar Farm Polo Club.
3) The Metropolitan Cooking & Entertaining Show wraps up at Cobb Galleria Centre.
4) Fiesta Atlanta returns to Centennial Olympic Park.
5) Marshall Chiles performs at Laughing Skull Lounge.
(Photo courtesy Shitty Candy)
Saturday, May 1, 2010
News The Blotter
Posted by Lauren Keating on Sat, May 1, 2010 at 2:00 PM
GENERATION GAP: Around 7:30 p.m., an officer saw a middle-aged man outside a building on Peachtree Street. The officer noted that he had seen the man earlier and "he was not waiting on any vehicles, was not smoking a cigarette, and was not going into the establishment." Then, the officer saw a couple walking and "I observed him playing his harmonica and walking toward the couple, obstructing their path and they had to walk away from him to avoid him."
The officer asked the man to take his activity elsewhere. The man replied, "Son, I've been playing my harmonica for 15 years and here you come with this pussy shit, telling me that this is wrong."
The officer said he asked the man to address him as "officer" and tone down his voice. The man replied, "You are old enough to be my son."
The officer said, "I told [him] that I may be younger, but I asked you to leave the area as I respectfully asked."
The man allegedly refused to go, so the officer arrested him on charges of blocking a public way and using fighting words. After the arrest, the 56-year-old man allegedly kicked the wall inside the officer's patrol car.
Continue Reading "The Blotter"
(Illustration by Tray Butler)
News 5 things to do: Saturday
Posted by Amber Robinson on Sat, May 1, 2010 at 11:00 AM
1) Megafaun plays the Earl.
2) All Falls Down opens at Get This! Gallery with a panel on black male culture moderated by Fahamu Pecou.
3) Atlanta's graphic novelists band together for Free Comic Book Day.
4) Raw and Fearsome opens at MINT Gallery.
5) Kaki King performs at Variety Playhouse.
(Photo by D.L. Anderson)
Friday, April 30, 2010
Uncategorized Percent tax option for the arts fails to beat the clock
Posted by Jessica Blankenship on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:07 PM
Atlanta artists and supporters have been riding high from last week’s legislative triumph. Having successfully executed a last minute effort to save the Georgia Council for the Arts from the budgetary chopping block, energy has been booming when it comes to other areas of arts activism. Unfortunately, Team Art suffered a loss last night in the final minutes of the state’s 2010 legislative session.
The heated push was for House Bill 335, formerly HB1049. The bill, backed by the Metro Atlanta Arts and Culture Coalition (MAACC), would have changed the local option sales tax by allowing counties to pass a fraction of a penny sales tax to go toward supporting arts and cultural organizations, economic development incentives and quality-of-life initiatives. The tactic would have been new to Georgia, but has been introduced to great success in a number of states.
While the GCA issue garnered massive support and media attention, supporters of the percent tax option feel that a measure like this could really be the saving grace of arts funding in Georgia.
“I am certainly glad to see that the GCA has apparently escaped the ax of the GA legislature, but the truth be known, this small and underfunded organization has a whole lot less impact than, say, the MAACC sales tax initiative would have for arts organizations and artists,” says Metropolitan Public Art Coalition Board Co-Chair David Hamilton.
The local control, statewide impact, appropriations flexibility and the potential millions of dollars in support gave HB335 the potential to bolster arts, culture and communities unlike any other legislative effort.
With less than a day left on the legislative clock, supporters of HB335 started piping up with a barrage of phone calls and emails to state representatives. But when it came down to it, it was really an issue of timing; a bill is technically required to sit on House Representatives’ desks for at least one hour before going to a vote. HB335 arrived only minutes before midnight, which marked the end of Georgia’s 2010 legislative session.
HB335 hit the desks, House leadership quickly called Sine Die, and everyone went home.
Arts supporters are encouraged, however, by the bill’s strength in passage through the state Senate. Eyes are already turned ahead to putting even more support behind the bill for next year.
Perhaps the success of the campaign to save the Georgia Council for the Arts, followed immediately by the lack of time to push through HB335 is a sign that, despite all the energy the arts community has put forth this legislative session, you can’t be several places at once. This year’s session seems to have borne a heightened level of political interest from artists – and a renewed recognition that what arts and cultural organizations in Georgia really need are more lawmakers watching out for arts interests from inside the Capitol.
News Kelly Cutrone talks about a new scripted show, how everyone's bisexual and why Stephanie Skinner is the 'devil'
Posted by Bobby Feingold on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 10:00 PM
Fashion-PR maven turned unlikely reality star Kelly Cutrone recently spoke at SCAD Atlanta about branding and the industry. I caught her beforehand where she opened up on everything ranging from bisexuality to a new scripted television show. Fans of "Kell on Earth" may remember the online video she produced for the Donna Karan cozy, and Cutrone, shockingly wearing makeup, wore a black cashmere version of the sweater. Season three "Project Runway" runner-up Mychael Knight was also in the audience of Cutrone's SCAD lecture, and the first to speak up at the Q&A session.
Looking noticeably different in trendy clothes since his "PR" days, Knight was intentionally coy about his identity, introducing himself as "a young designer who got some attention a few years ago" before asking a question about the visibility of African-American models. Cutrone didn't recognize him, but the rest of the audience scratched their heads, wondering, "Is that Mychael Knight?"
I know I may come off as harsh on Smelly Kelly in my reality TV column, but the truth of the matter is it's just tough love. Cutrone proved to be an open book, accessible and blunt, just the way we love her.
Would date again?
Who says that I don't date?
From the show — it gave off that you don't, but maybe you just wanted to keep that private.
I don't really go out with anybody with the intention of sleeping with them because I don't really need to. I've done that; I've done really wild crazy things, but I'm 44 and I'm a mom, so it's not like I'm going to bring some 28-year-old guy back to my house and have sex with him on my couch and send him out in the elevator before my daughter wakes up. That's really not how I roll.
Uncategorized Erin Bassett gets "Raw and Fearsome" this Saturday
Posted by Jessica Blankenship on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 9:03 PM
Erin Bassett is breaking out solo style this weekend. As the newest partner in Atlanta’s hyper-productive, all-chick art supergroup Plastic Aztecs, it’s kinda blowing my mind that she would even have time to put together an exhibition of her own. But she did – she just didn’t have time to fully cook it, or tell it to not be afraid.
Raw and Fearsome opens Saturday, May 1 at MINT Gallery in Old Fourth Ward, and if the show’s description is any indication, we better all pop our meds carefully before entering; the menu consists of heavy helpings of dissecting communications, breaking down masks, and confronting fears. That shit sounds spicy. I hope they’re giving out hugs and Valium for dessert.
The exhibition's title carries “big, loud, deadly, uncooked, rough and powerful” implications, according the Ms. Bassett, who also guarantees that “fear is an essential part of the equation.”
Bassett took a hurried break from the pre-opening hustle to give Creative Loafing a preview of what to expect tomorrow night, both artistically and cerebrally. What’s intriguing about the work itself (which she wouldn’t let me see much of. I get it, but I don’t like it. I’m impatient, dammit.) is that none of it was created with the express purpose of fitting the Raw and Fearsome theme. It went the other way – Bassett looked at her work over the last few years and found certain recurring ideas. In some way, the exhibition built itself.
Oh, and to punch up the super-cerebral nature of this show, chew on this: Since joining up with the Plastic Aztecs last year, Erin and the group have “founded SuperFuturism, a movement dedicated to living in the present through the mind of the super future. Erin hopes to develop super-time consciousness powers and to proliferate the de-conception of time through exercises in simultaneous time-thought perspectives.”
Yeah. Try putting all of that in your brain-blender and making a sense-shake out of it. Anyway, I’m getting the feeling that the whole point of these girls’ work is the fluidity, malleability and even confusion. So let’s just roll with it.
“Raw and Fearsome opens Saturday, May 1. 7 p.m. – 11 p.m. MINT Gallery. 684 John Wesley Dobbs Ave, Unit B.
News Hollywood Product: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Posted by Edward Adams on Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 8:44 PM
GENRE: Supernatural horror thriller.
THE PITCH: Here’s a contemporary A re-imagining of Wes Craven’s original horror flick. After the tragic death of a classmate, several kids in the sleepy town of Springwood, Ohio discover they’re collectively being haunted by a fashion-challenged, disfigured man wielding a leather glove fitted with razor-sharp knives named “Freddy” Kruger (Jackie Earle Haley). As they desperately try to avoid a nightmarish demise from Kruger, more clues about their past and the connection to their dream time menace are slowly revealed. Realizing there’s no way to stop him in any conventional sense, the remaining teens, Nancy (Rooney Mara) and Quentin (Kyle Gallner) make one last ditch effort to stop him.
