Archives: May 2003

Stone Free

If God is in the stereo, flipping through the stations, as the Queens of the Stone Age contend on their latest album, then the devil is behind the drum kit, trying to give the good Lord something worth listening to, for a change. “It’s been ten years since the last musical revolution, and it seems like a good time for…

Uptown Girl

It’s officially a movement. Thanks to Norah Jones, jazz once again has entered the music mainstream, garnering the sort of Top 40 radio airplay and record sales it hasn’t managed in years. Signed to Blue Note, a bastion for jazz and blues acts for more than six decades, Jones represents a new twist in the industry image makers’ time-honored crossover…

Bass Ackwards

In nature, living things prey upon each other all the time. Humanity, on the other hand, has a choice. It’s flouting this choice that turns on director Gaspar Noé. In his latest project, Irréversible, he basically swipes Christopher Nolan’s backward-narrative structure from Memento to tell a lurid tale of rape and vengeance — but not necessarily in that order. Although…

Violent Femmes

  At some fast-approaching point in pop-culture evolution, we’re due to hit Total Outsider Saturation, at which time everybody will be an outsider and there will therefore no longer be an outside. In the fleeting meanwhile, we have scintillating reminders of the struggle — like X-2: X-Men United, the latest bid from Comic Book Land to increase the already peaking…

Crash Course

Third party: Ducking into Dick Hollander’s beautiful home (past Mr. Hollander) was similar to stepping inside a small contemporary museum. If Dick isn’t a collector, he is an amazing thief (Letters, April 17). The initial confusion of our arrival quickly resolved to nostalgia. Many of the guests recalled crashing parties to hang out with their teachers and visiting artists. I…

Chief Concern

When they’re winning, the Royals rule the spring. But as baseball hopes near full bloom, an NFL draft with alarming implications rained on Kansas City’s dreams for football season. On April 26, while the Royals were treating their burgeoning bandwagon to a riveting comeback victory, the Chiefs were snuffing optimism rather than inspiring it. By selecting Penn State running back…

Numbers Game

Roy Williams is now making $1.5 million a year to coach men’s basketball at the University of North Carolina. That’s an increase of more than 35 percent from his University of Kansas salary of $1.1 million, which now goes to new coach Bill Self and represents a 20 percent raise from Self’s former salary of $900,000 at the University of…

Photo Finish

  Back in February and March, when the city was freezing and gloomy, local politics seemed pointless compared to devastating international events. Stan Glazer’s mayoral campaign provided some entertainment, but beyond that only the most hard-core political junkies were really paying attention. As the campaign wound down, though, plenty of people noticed Becky Nace looking ditzy on a campaign flier…

War of Words

  Sometimes Marcus Leach boils over with spastic energy, shaking his fists in the air and slapping his bony elbows. He warns anyone who crosses his path with an odd threat: “I’m gonna unload a six-piece of Church’s Fried Chicken and a biscuit” — emphasizing the biscuit with a groin-high kick. When he starts acting like this, the girls in…