Leisure

Reviews and think pieces on music, movies, art, and theater.

Leisure

Critical Voices II: Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City, Wichita

HATES IT

The British music mag NME called Bloc Party “uncategorisable.” While that isn’t a real word, the point was clear when the magazine used it to describe the band’s debut, Silent Alarm. Though it didn’t necessarily deserve that label, the group distinguished itself from the pack of poppy post-punk peers with lead singer Kele Okereke’s heartfelt lyrics and sometimes overly emotive vocals.

By February 8, 2007

Leisure

Say ‘bonjour’ to good taste!

Dapper French gentlemen clad in smoking jackets, their cigars sending smoke spirals up to the ceiling. Portraits of deceased royalty hanging demurely on the walls behind velvet drapes. An aging poodle curled up by the fire. The only thing needed to complete our scene is that Gallically-accented post-consumption treat: the digestif.

By February 8, 2007

Leisure

Jasper Johns: not just flags, guys

Under every picture-perfect surface dwells a host of contradictions and realities. Bubbling under the facade of the happy, down-home, meatloaf-eating American Dream was the Civil Rights movement, McCarthyism and the Cold War. It was during this increasingly unsteady time that Jasper Johns grounded the theoretical rebellion of his art.

By February 1, 2007

Leisure

Lez’hur Ledger: Shivering for Sufjan

Sure, the scene was familiar enough: nerdy white boys in fraying women’s jeans skulked around, talking music and secretly tallying the hipster points they earned each time they said “crescendo” (I think I’ll use that word on my Live Journal!). This wasn’t going to be my normal weekend –instead of being cramped inside the cloudy confines of the Black Cat, I found myself camped outside the Kennedy Center at 10p.m., waiting to receive free tickets to Sufjan Stevens’ Feb. 5 performance with the Center’s Opera House orchestra.

By February 1, 2007

Leisure

Aspargus fritter and ice cream, please

Fusion has become a trendy label, with everything from French-Indian fusion at IndeBleu to Asian tapas at Raku. But ‘fusion’ is a vague term, used to describe a wide range of the marriages of many different techniques, ingredients, and flavors.

By February 1, 2007

Leisure

Antigone is a tragedy

I’m going to do what Jean Anouillh’s Antigone should have done and get right to the point. This is a bad play, mediocrely acted. The set and costumes are pretty.

By February 1, 2007

Leisure

When you gotta go…

Based on an aversion to dirty, shared restrooms, I have developed a rubric that I use to judge them. Recently, I decided to evaluate the facilities at Georgetown.

By February 1, 2007

Leisure

Abroad in your own backyard

Escape post-holiday boredom and traverse the Atlantic in one easy cab ride at one of the many foreign embassy events this February.

By January 25, 2007

Leisure

Bottoms Up, Wiseys!

The table is set, the romantic lasagna dinner is in the oven, and four noisy roommates have been hustled out the door of your Henle apartment. It’s five till eight and she’s on her way over; then it hits you.

By January 25, 2007

Leisure

A local artist’s guide to suburbia

As I entered Flashpoint, a modest downtown gallery, I sensed I had unwittingly stumbled into someone’s home.

By January 25, 2007

Leisure

Like Vicodin for boredom: the leisure events calendar

Chinese New Years Event Spectacular C’mon, you probably can’t remember your own New Year’s celebration anyway. All the more reason to do it again, Chinese-style.

By January 25, 2007

Leisure

Critical Voices: Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, Polyvinyl

Far be it from me to speculate on Kevin Barnes’ emotional state, but after listening to the latest Of Montreal release, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, I’d have to say he got burned, badly.

By January 25, 2007

Leisure

Critical Voices: Shins, Wincing the Night Away, Transgressive

James Mercer and the Shins had it good. Their surprisingly deep first album, Oh, Inverted World, took off in the wake of Zach Braff’s decision to include two of its strongest songs on the soundtrack to Garden State. Their sophomore release, Chutes Too Narrow, was a worthy successor, eliminating most of their psychedelia in favor of more traditional pop. With their newest release, Wincing the Night Away, however, the Shins are merely ‘good’, and stacked up against their first two albums, it just isn’t enough.

By January 25, 2007

Leisure

God gets bored with the Lost Boys

Either too much time has elapsed in the film industry since the last political rallying cry (An Inconvenient Truth) or Hollywood has more time on its hands than we thought.

By January 18, 2007

Leisure

Cross-dressing witch adds charm to Macbeth

Synetic Theater, a group participating in Washington’s six monthlong Shakespeare festival, has accomplished what Cliff’s Notes and Hollywood have been trying to do for decades: it has given aggravated students Shakespeare without its most troubling component: Shakespeare.

By January 18, 2007

Leisure

The story behind Zoo Story

It is January 11th, roughly two weeks before opening night on Nomadic Theater’s production of Zoo Story. It’s down to the nitty-gritty now: the specifics of the noise a dog makes and how, exactly, the newspaper should be shoved under a bench.

By January 18, 2007

Leisure

Critical Voices: Clap Your Hands, Menomena

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Some Loud Thunder, Wichita Cease the clapping, cross the arms and brace yourself for the slump. Abandoning the upbeat, dancey formula of the band’s 2005... Read more

By January 18, 2007

Leisure

You Taste Like a Burger: The Food Olympics

a bi-weekly column on food

By January 18, 2007

Leisure

Pan’s Labyrinth is a-maze-ing

For every child, the characters from fairy tales can creep from the pages of a book into the child’s bedroom and consciousness. No movie in recent memory conveys this message with as much skill and raw emotional power as Pan’s Labyrinth, opening in D.C. this Friday.

By January 11, 2007

Leisure

The Poverty Chic Travel Guide: three days in New York

You’ve blown through your Christmas cash, your new job hasn’t started yet, and book buyback netted you a whopping $3.80.

By January 11, 2007