Community Arts

Indiana residents pull together to stop flooding

By Tom Coyne · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:16 p.m.

DECATUR, Ind. -- Strangers and National Guardsmen joined together Wednesday in an effort to save homes surrounded by flood waters brought on by days of thunderstorms. The St. Marys River in northeastern Indiana remained at record levels and several hundred homes around Decatur had been flooded or were being threatened by high water.

Singapore mourns twins' death

Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:15 p.m.

SINGAPORE -- Fighting back tears and reading from the Quran, dozens of mourners Wednesday prayed as they prepared the bodies of two Iranian twins who died during separation surgery for the long journey home.

BPP, Community Kitchen to band together against hunger

By Liv Cole · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:13 p.m.

Most people know that the Bloomington Playwrights Project is a great place to find innovative theatre, but few realize how this organization benefits the community outside of the artistic sphere. One of the many ways the BPP gives to the community is with the Acting Against Hunger Benefit in conjunction with the Community Kitchen of Monroe County. The Second Annual Acting Against Hunger Benefit will be at 6 p.m. Sunday at the BPP office, 312 S. Washington St. The cost is $30 a person and because of limited seating, reservations must be made by Friday.

Sodomy laws past their time

By Alyson Brodsy and Jim Harper · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:04 p.m.

In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that states can make private sexual behavior illegal. This case, Bowers v. Hardwick, has been held over the heads of homosexual couples since that time by those who consider homosexuality deviant and immoral.

An American columnist in France

By Brian McFillen and Brain J. McFillen · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:03 p.m.

If there were such a thing as an architectural crime against humanity, Paris' Charles De Gaulle Airport would be one. After struggling through the bottleneck-plagued circular check-in room, you take a moving walkway through a plastic tube the color and texture of a giant intestine to a floor of insipid duty-free shops.

A fifty year success

By Brad Fletcher · Wednesday, July 9,2003 9:01 p.m.

From the day we take our first breath to the day we take our last, one thing controls our life more than anything else -- love. Whether it is love of God, love of country or love of another person, it is an emotion we can't escape and can't live without.

Quiet Riot?

Wednesday, July 9,2003 8:59 p.m.

Imagine having to tell your parents you got expelled from school because you couldn't walk fast enough. That's just what college students in Ohio might have to do.

Indiana soldier killed in Iraq

Wednesday, July 9,2003 8:53 p.m.

BATESVILLE, Ind. -- A roadside bomb exploded in Iraq as an American military convoy rolled past, killing a soldier from Indiana.

Aviation experts look for cause of Sudanese airliner crash

By Mohamed Osman · Wednesday, July 9,2003 8:48 p.m.

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Aviation experts were examining a Sudanese airliner's black box and other evidence Wednesday to determine why the plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 116 people.

Laos releases prisoners

By Daniel Lovering · Wednesday, July 9,2003 8:47 p.m.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- After international pressure, Laos freed two European journalists and an American interpreter who had been sentenced to prison for the death of a rural guard Wednesday.

Pray this isn't 'For the Ride Home'

By Seth Forster · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:55 p.m.

Looking at the album cover, I see Josh Kelley's drinking a cup of coffee. He must have been listening to this album. Of the two things that most offend me most in music, the completely, intentionally, sterilized, unoffensive manufacture of mainstream pop music ranks right up there with the hypocritical shock-value arrogance of pseudo-self-important modern art. Now that I've got that out in the open, I can go into detail on the music for the drones. The few hooks that exist seem borrowed and the writing is empty at best: "You've been bad / You've been good / Did you lose your mind / Like I knew you would?" In his sweater and unkempt hair, Josh Kelley is a hard guy not to like and the organ work and occasional banjo and steel help too.

Type O Negative a bloody mess

By -Val Tsoutsouris · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:54 p.m.

Goth and metal don't mix. For evidence, listen to Type O Negative's Life Is Killing Me. Is frontman Peter Steele serious or joking? The more one listens, the more unsure one gets. For example, a song on Life Is Killing Me is called "(We Were) Electrocute." Sorry, but wordplay doesn't go with this music. While this reviewer might be missing the joke, there's no questioning the music: it's lethargic, restrained and bland. Guitar shredding is absent, leaving the listener to focus on Steele's overmodulated baritone. With repeated listenings, Steele's singing just gets annoying.

The political association

By Jessica Halverson · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:53 p.m.

This album reminds me it's alright to be pissed off and say it and shrug it with a dance step at the same time. "We Don't Stop" is the best single I've heard yet this year, couched in an album of hip-hop dance that focuses on something true even if musically it's a bit repetitive. Michael Franti isn't afraid to have a sense of humor with his agenda, via the politically charged wit of Jurassic 5 or Living Colour (though invariably sounding much different).

I've fallen down the 'Well'

By -Val Tsoutsouris · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:51 p.m.

Hardcore is the punk-metal hybrid that has a hard time getting a mainstream following since punks and metalheads disagree more often than "tastes great" and "less filling." The other problem is the larynx-shredding vocals. Even those with a hardy musical appetite have a hard time getting used to the hyperintense barking.

Once again the French appropriate

By Mia Partlow · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:50 p.m.

In the most generalizing and stereotypical way possible, one can divide most indie-rock bands into two broad categories: the 'always building up to something' band, and the 'something important is happening right now' band. The French electronic band M83 belongs to the latter category. Its second full-length Dead Cities, Red Seas, & Lost Ghosts creates a sound that is as big as an ocean (or a sea?) and as depressingly ephemeral as, uh, a ghost.

Using good music to make good music

By Mia Partlow · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:50 p.m.

Tindersticks, a six piece big band with an intimate sound, has created a beautiful album with Waiting for the Moon, its sixth studio LP. And it is enjoyable to listen to despite its lack of originality. Tindersticks play a sound derived, clearly, from Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, but somehow it works. Cave, the reigning king of underground music (at least as far as this reviewer is concerned), specializes in morbid lounge ballads that are beyond astounding.

Oohs, Ahs, too many robes

By Jessica Halverson · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:48 p.m.

The connection between the neo-psychadelia of The Polyphonic Spree and cult living is a little too easy to make; it's been done before. But for a band with 23 plus members, pop orchestral arrangements and vaguely alluring lyrics, ignoring the connections would be a fallacy.

Buddy Guy's 'Blues Singer'

By Michael Tapscott · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:42 p.m.

Buddy Guy lives in my hometown. I'm not talking about Chicago, I'm talking about Flossmoor, a particularly white, southern suburb of the city. Flossmoor is an isolated place. Buried beneath cavernous oak trees, it is surrounded by mildly dangerous, lower-class black towns like Ford Heights, Hazel Crest, Country Club Hills and Middle America -- consumer culture riddled (you know, business parks and endless strip malls), asphalt suburbs. You can't park a pickup truck in your driveway in Flossmoor, or leave your lawn unmowed -- it's against the law. The town was built up around Western Ave. as a weekend and summer retreat for rich, city businessmen.

Buddy Hackett made me laugh

By -Val Tsoutsouris · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:42 p.m.

Buddy Hackett made me laugh. That's probably something that the marketing staff at any entertainment-producing organization would want to hear. After all, I am not in Buddy Hackett's target demographic. That's also probably irrelevant now after Hackett's death at age 78 last Monday. But now's a good time to make another point.

Historical epic comes home

By -Alec Toombs · Wednesday, July 9,2003 7:38 p.m.

Martin Scorsese is perpetually being robbed. After having directed such classics as "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas," it's mind-boggling to think the man's never won an Oscar. And so the story goes again with Scorsese's latest effort -- his dream project -- "Gangs of New York." Hailed by critics and abandoned by audiences, "Gangs" is a near-masterpiece that should have taken home a slew of golden boys, including Best Costumes, Best Set Design, Best Actor and Best Director, but alas, didn't.