Leisure

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

Leisure

Richter exhibition off the scale

There is something about Gerhard Richter’s paintings which sets them apart from the works of most of the post-modernists and neo-expressionists he is typically associated with: they are pretty. Pretty in a way that transcends their typically grim spectra. Say what you will for the theoretical implications of his blurred portraits and crackling abstracts, they are first and foremost the work of a man with a hell of an eye.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

Kirchner show features bright colors, vivid figures

In the pages of this week’s New Yorker, a cartoon depicts a group of patrician-looking types chatting in front of a Calder-ish mobile and a squiggly-lined painting. “Jim’s a good old-fashioned modernist,” says one to the others.

“Good old-fashioned modernist” is an apt moniker for Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, co-founder of Die Br?cke and perhaps German Expressionism’s most remarkable artist.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

Shock and ‘AwNaw’

“Nappy don’t have nothing to do with hair,” said Scales, one member of the Kentucky hip-hop sextet Nappy Roots. “It’s about staying close to where we came from and building on that.”

The group, which will play at McDonough Arena on Saturday night, are the leaders of the new country-fried rap genre, a style of hip-hop that combines the funk of Outkast and the glossiness of Master P’s No Limit, first popularized by the now-forgotten Timbaland prot?g? Bubba Sparxxx.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

I saw you

Your hand brushed against mine during our introductory econ class. We both mumbled sorry, and I was too scared to ask for your number. Want to see if our supply and demand curves intersect?

You: tall, husky, belligerently drunk lacrosse player. Me: stunning, dark haired vixen wearing a green sweater and black skirt.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

Mo’ Career Fair

First Free Agents vacated the District. Then, after only three weeks but a lot of graffiti, the Playahaters left too. The only thing we’ve got now is Career Day, and while that may pale in comparison to the MBNA Career Center’s Eco-Tourism and Aqua Socks Info Session, at least D.

By the March 27, 2003

Leisure

‘Spider’ spins a stultifying story

There’s something wrong with Spider, not the least of which is his name. Dubbed so for his love of all things arachnid, Dennis “Spider” Cleg remembers building webs of natty string in his room. He also remembers his father doing something awful to his mother.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Improvfest comes to campus, so get excited

Trying to write a review about an improv comedy press run is a sure set-up for failure. Unlike a theater production performance, there is no set script or directions for the performers. Rather, spontaneity and off-the-cuff humor is employed in lieu of choreographed, well-rehearsed scenes and dialogue.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

The Plan dismembers

With all four members of Dismemberment Plan sporting beards as they took they stage, lead singer and guitarist Travis Morrison was the only one who seemed particularly displeased with his. Just returned from a New Hampshire shanty where he had been writing songs for his solo career, Morrison maintained “Everyone’s ugly in New Hampshire,” during his between-song banter.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Pimpin’ for the 9:30

I know it’ll be hard to pull yourself away from the television this weekend, what with televised Iraqi carpet bombing and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to brighten our days. While the prospect of late nights with Lute Olsen and Wolf Blitzer will certainly be enticing, I recommend getting your ass off of the couch and heading down to the 9:30 Club on Friday and Saturday for a cheap pair of concerts that blow Saddam-watching out of the water.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

Nomadic Theatre sets ‘Angels’ ablaze

As the United States’ diplomacy grinds to a halt, historical relationships become the guiding force for the future. Likewise, in the search for progress, Angels in America II: Perestroika declares and wonders, “The great question before us is: are we doomed? ... will the past release us? ... can we change?” The play is Tony Kushner’s sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-and-Tony Award-winning Angels in America: The Millennium Approaches.

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

2003 World Championship for Global Hegemony

By the March 20, 2003

Leisure

‘The Guide’ to loneliness

Gabe Fischbarg claims that men should never act vulnerable, because girls can smell desperation. What he hasn’t taken into account is that girls can also smell a sleaze a mile away, and his The Guide to Picking Up Girls emits a stench similar to that of month-old sea bass.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

Colonics for everyone

Upset that your friends are all traveling to exotic locales this spring break while you rot at home? Why not take a trip up your own ass? If you weren’t blessed with a colossal colon of your own, then be sure to check out the Colossal Colon, a four-foot-wide, 40-foot-long replica of the human colon on display in Freedom Plaza through Saturday.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

They aren’t Tatu

Forget Michelle Branch, forget Vanessa Carlson and for the love of God, forget Avril Lavigne. So much is made of these studio-molded young female musicians that most have forgotten that girl pop can actually be sincere and cute, but still have attitude beyond the dark eyeliner.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

Ninjas! Ninjas! Ninjas!

The state of online, student-made ninja films is deplorable. There, someone needed to say it. Luckily, we have The Tenchu Reel Ninja Film Contest, found at www.ninjafilmcontest.com, a competition sponsored by Activision which features some of the best homemade ninja films by college-age directors around.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

‘Hearts of Oak’ full of heart, good music, lacks oak

As unrelated as a British naval hymn and the Ghanaian national soccer team might sound, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists allude to both in the title of their latest release Hearts of Oak. The band appears clad in lime green soccer jerseys on the cover, paying an oblique tribute to the “Hearts of Oak,” a poor Ghanaian team that went on to win international soccer championships.

By the March 6, 2003

Leisure

Cabaret brings noise, occasional funk

This isn’t your grandmother’s cover band concert. Assuming your grandmother has a cover band. And she’s not dead. It’s Cabaret, Georgetown’s long-running, annual variety show featuring performances by campus singers and musicians.

By the February 27, 2003

Leisure

DC Improv the only game in town for stand-up

Looking for a good time that doesn’t involve smirking ironically at rapping kangaroos or enjoying a mean-spirited laugh as the Capitol Steps fumble obvious political humor? You won’t find it on the Hilltop—but you might find it down a narrow set of steps in a tucked-away nightclub called the D.

By the February 27, 2003

Leisure

Recording like the pros

Listening to the professional sheen of Spacecamp’s new Grog’d EP, you’d swear these guys were major-label pros, rolling in a big advance reveling in heavy MTV rotation and airplay on modern-rock radio stations nationwide.

You’d be wrong. Spacecamp, composed of five Georgetown students, is a lot like many other garage bands—unsigned, little-noticed and hungry for success.

By the February 27, 2003

Leisure

Cowboys and pudding

Listen up, you pasty, drug-addicted prostitute of a student: I know how you feel. It’s February, perhaps the worst month of the year. Spring Break seems far away. It’s cold and snowy, and there is nothing to do in this city unless you’re going to see Liza Minelli on Friday night at the MCI Center.

By the February 27, 2003