Cockneys vs Zombies
In jolly ol’ England, the Bow Bells Care Home is set to be demolished to make way for luxury apartments, thereby displacing many a needy elder. The move comes earlier than anticipated when the construction crew unearths a “plague pit” chock full of the living dead. Meanwhile, one of the residents (Alan Ford, The Sweeney…
Heavy Traffic
It was years before Heavy Traffic — Bakshi’s second theatrical film — would find its way into my VCR. It came my way long after I had digested his PG-rated fantasy films like Lord of the Rings and Wizards and had memorized every line of dialogue to Coonskin, Heavy Traffic’s uber-controversial follow-up. And when I…
A modest proposal
These Republicans, thankfully, have made these decisions for us and have written them into law. I’m so thankful for not having to make these decisions for myself. In fact, I propose that similar laws be passed in Oklahoma to protect men’s reproductive health. How about a law that requires men to visit a sex therapist,…
Shame, shame, Markwayne
Seems he saw a very fit couple using the national government’s food stamp card to get some food at a grocery store. He assumes it is fraud because the couple is fit and wearing good shoes. Is he ignorant to the fact that approximately 5,000 military families need to use food stamps to survive. Wouldn’t…
Non-discrimination bill doesn’t protect or define life
He apparently considers she was still alive, whereas in truth Terri Schiavo had long ago bailed out and left that body on remote control. Medical science indicated that years before (and the autopsy showed) the brain had shrunk down to the so-called “lizard brain,” which is misleading in that lizards are very much alive. To…
OKG7 places you should try
Roma’s Gelato Cafe Espresso & Panini301 S. Bryant Ave., Edmondromasgelato.com708-6111 As the name would suggest, it clearly has more to offer than the delectable Italian ice. Try one of its gelato cakes or gelato hand-dipped popsicles. For a tasty meal, try one of its panini, tramezzini or other sandwiches, all made with ingredients imported from…
Marcia, Marcia, Marcia Alley?
Credit: Brad Gregg Instead of calling it Brady Street, it will be called Brady Street. That’s because the council had come under fire since 2011 after This Land Press published a story detailing the background of the street’s namesake – city founder, politician, businessman and alleged Ku Klux Klan member Wyatt Tate Brady. Now, the…
And now for something completely different
OU football coach Bob Stoops named Knight — a redshirt freshman — the starter for the Sooners’ opening matchup vs. Louisiana Monroe. Until recently, many considered Blake Bell — aka the Belldozer — to be a shoe-in for the job, but Knight has impressed OU coaches with his ability to make big plays against OU’s…
LIFE FOOD & DRINK
LIFE FOOD & DRINK The Toby Keith Foundation is up for supporting local kiddos, as well as having a bit of fun in the process. Kones for the Korral, an all-you-can-eat ice cream festival, will take place 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday at Chatenay Square, 10600 S. Pennsylvania. The festival will include ice cream flavors from…
It’s Chelsea, lately
“As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible,” Manning wrote in a statement to NBC’s Today…
Schon and dance
Credit: Brad Gregg Schon was born at Tinker Air Force Base in 1954 (Which explains those soaring guitar riffs, right? Right??? Ahem.), so the guy is one of the more accomplished musicians to call Oklahoma home. Kinda. As the only member of the beloved bar-anthem band to participate in every album and tour to date,…
Taking the bus one stop too far
And especially when you’re rapper 2 Chainz, huddled on your post-concert bus with 10 others and possibly using narcotics after being pulled over by Oklahoma City police for a broken bus taillight. The rapper, real name Tauheed Epps, was arrested early morning Aug. 22 after an almost nine-hour standoff, multiple news sources reported. NewsOK reported…
Social media gets the finger … of blame. Again.
Credit: Brad Gregg It’s no surprise, then, that the blame game has taken center stage in the wake of the Aug. 16 murder of an Australian baseball player attending college in Duncan. Since news hit that the suspects, a trio of teens, allegedly acted out of boredom, the pundits and politicos have mused about spurred…
FOOD
Mid-Week Market, fresh, delectable local fruits, vegetables and other goods, 4-8 p.m. Aug. 28. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno, 445-7080, myriadgardens.org. WED Pinot’s Palette, sip on your favorite beverage while painting your very own masterpiece, 7-9 p.m. Aug. 29, 30, 2-4 p.m. 7-10 p.m. Aug. 31. Pinot’s Palette, 115 E. California, 602-3850, pinotspalette.com. THU–SAT…
‘Gazette’ welcomes new editor
She moved back after 14 years at the Tulsa World, where she worked in a variety of capacities over the years, most recently as music journalist, reviewer and blogger for the area’s burgeoning concert industry. Her journalistic work experience includes news, breaking news, feature and news feature reporting, investigative journalism, news photography, videography, blogging, page…
Keeping order
This is the home of the Sekhet Bast Ra Oasis, the local chapter of the Ordo Templi Orientis religious fraternal order. Not familiar with the OTO? You’re not alone. While its heyday was the 1910s, the order’s Oklahoma City chapter—called an “Oasis”—has been around since 1984. The chapter’s administrator — or “body master” — said…
FILM
Movie Night at the Downtown Library, enjoy a film at the downtown library, 6-8 p.m., Aug. 28. Downtown Library, 300 Park, 231-8650, metrolibrary.org. WED Sullivan’s Travels, (U.S., 1941, dir. Preston Sturges) a director of a film goes on the road incognito as a hobo, 8 p.m., Aug. 30. Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch,…
Leaf Hands — Your Imagination
The lazy guitar and the clickity-clack percussion loom like the bastard child of Jandek and Belle and Sebastian, grown up and obsessed with mild folktronica. It’s ominous, comforting and beautifully introspective. This bleeds nicely into “Drift,” which takes that sullen ambiance and swirls it left to right with singer Cooper Whitson’s off-kilter voice acting as…
Spectacular story
Tharp is the author of such bestsellers as Falling Dark, Knights of the Hill Country and Badd. With the release of the film adaptation of his critically acclaimed novel The Spectacular Now, Tharp doesn’t consider himself a young-adult writer but hasn’t strayed too far from the genre. “I became interested in writing about young adults…
Made you Flinch
As far as names for dubstep producers go, veteran Los Angeles beat maker Adam Glassco picked a pretty great one. Moving from his roots in drum and bass music to electro and now dubstep, Flinch inspires his fair share of involuntary movements in dance halls and clubs across the world since he first started experimenting…
Saloony tunes
Photo: Mark Hancock “It’s still one of the best rooms around to see a band because you have the balcony and the dance floor,” said Keeton, a veteran blues rocker who first played the music venue in the mid-1990s. “It’s a great bar. No place else combines that divey-ness with the ability to pull off…
Wiggle your ears
A nationally known ’90s alternative rock group will headline the first, free “kindie” music festival Sunday at Bicentennial Park, 500 Couch, to promote health and fitness for the whole family. Michigan-based band The Verve Pipe will perform songs from Are We There Yet?, its second full-length album of children’s music released in July following the…
Bone density
Bone marrow is a soft and spongy substance, yet it’s the innermost element of the human construct, vital to our existence as a sustainable and adaptable species. Without it, our bodies would succumb to even the most innocuous threat. Likewise, Tallows’ music is so constructed: robust with instrumental depth and conceptual assertion. There’s also a…
Weather won’t be the same
And that means some freaking out for generations of viewers who were raised with his calming presence on air when Oklahoma’s storms are at their worst. A fairly typical reaction on Twitter: “I have not ever lived in a world where Gary England was not keeping me advised,” tweeted Royce Young, an online sports journalist.…
What the Kreb?
Ever wonder how two of the dishes most prevalent in this state’s gastronomical landscape came to be lamb fries and spaghetti and meatballs? Do you love the nationally recognized libation that is Choc beer? Then dig into Dave Cathey’s A Culinary History of Pittsburg County for an inspiring and delicious ride through the trials of…
Happenings the week of Aug. 27, 2013
A Fresh Take: William S. and Ann Atherton Art of the American West Gallery, showcasing the Museum’s permanent art collection in 10 newly reinstalled exhibition spaces. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 N.E. 63rd, 478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org. A Vivid Paradox, exhibit featuring new works by local artists JUURI and Amanda Bradway. DNA Galleries, 1709 N.W.…
Whoa, men
Let the backstabbing and catfighting begin! They come in copious amounts, along with lots of other stuff, in Reduxion Theatre Company’s entertaining, if not particularly compelling, production of the comedy The Women by Clare Boothe Luce.As denizens of New York City’s Park Avenue, the play’s characters can afford to run off on consolation trips to…
‘It ignited the country’
The 7-year-old sat beside 12 other members of the NAACP Youth Council at the lunch counter of a downtown Katz Drug Store, 200 W. Main St. and Robinson Ave., on Aug. 20, 1958. They waited to be served. “A lot of kids’ parents wouldn’t let them go. When I look back on it, it was…
Second to none
BY: Mark Hancock I mean, really, what’s the fun in that? Plus, it creates the opportunity for awkward moments when you show up at a social function wearing the same outfit as someone else. That’s an experience you only want to have once. For me, it was New Year’s Eve 2007. I felt confident in…
Womb with a view
After much fanfare, Wayne Coyne’s artistic brain child, Womb Gallery, a “psychedelic art gallery” located at 25 N.W. Ninth, was shut down by The Man over a year ago for various code violations. Not that they were all that surprised. “It was closed due to lack of proper coding. That would be the best way…
Monumental offense
By Mark Hancock According to House Bill 1330, the 2009 measure that allowed the monument’s installation, the Ten Commandments “are an important component of the foundation of the laws and legal system” of both the United States and Oklahoma and are frequently cited in court decisions. “The role played by the Ten Commandments in our…
Valley of the wines
BY: Shannon Cornman Wine Spectator wrote a piece about the world’s most underappreciated wines, and the Loire Valley was at the top of the list. “Can there be any other area in the world — and I include whole nations such as Argentina and Chile in this — where wines are more underrated than in…
Common controversy
If things go as planned, Common Core could reorganize curriculum, change old-school teaching styles, add more weight to literacy and redefine standardized testing. In one year, it’s supposed to be fully implemented in all Oklahoma schools, and the Oklahoma State Department of Education (SDE) just started looking for new tests. It has been a loaded…
Orange you glad?
BY: Shannon Cornman It’s got a catchy name and options out the wazoo, and it’s popping up on every corner. There’s no denying that frozen yogurt — or froyo, as it’s commonly referred to — is in, and no one seems to do it better than Oklahoma City-based Orange Leaf, now with nine metro-area stores.“The…
God makes us good?
In the Aug. 6 cover story “Atheist” (News, Carmel Perez Snyder, Aug. 12, Oklahoma Gazette), Ms. Rebecca Vitsmun said, “I still believe that as long as people believe goodness is the thing they are striving for, then we are on the same page.” As a Christian, I believe we may be “in the same ball…
On the right side of history
On Aug. 15, I received an unexpected phone call that delivered some of the best news I have heard in my lifetime. It was a call from Gadeir Abbas, one of the attorneys representing myself and other plaintiffs in a case known as the Oklahoma Anti-Sharia Amendment case. I was overjoyed to hear that judgment…
OKC schools need real change
After more than 35 years in the education realm, retiring Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Karl Springer said that he is most proud of three policies he helped implement. He brought the “Great Expectations” curriculum to elementary schools and Teach for America to the district and put into place a year-long school schedule that allowed…
‘Rest of OKC’
As always, parental guidance is suggested. 5 Best Write-In Comments from the “Best of OKC” Votes 1. “His voice is like silken butter and he talks about real news.” 2. “The chef looks like Japanese Mr. Rodgers.” 3. “Don’t follow social media… it turns people into scary evil zombies who text and drive.” 4. “I’ve…
Senior center hiccups
NorthCare, along with the Oklahoma City-County Health Department and Healthy Living, Inc., a nonprofit linked to Putnam City Baptist Church, are negotiating with city officials to run one of the four planned wellness centers. Construction on the first wellness center is estimated to begin in 2016. “I think we should have been the first choice…
Sammich time
BY: Mark Hancock There is great promise in grocery stores. Especially unfamiliar ones When you walk down the aisles, you’re bound to find something you haven’t seen before — a new brand, perhaps, or some new flavor you’ve yet to encounter elsewhere. And in your mind, there is a hope that this time, this time,…
Tell me a story
Four professional storytellers will perform worldly folklore, ghost stories and original compositions starting Thursday for an annual festival celebrating the art of spoken word. For Oklahoma City’s 33rd festival, Patrick Ball, Judith Black, Alton Chung and Barbara McBride-Smith not only will pull from their near-bursting repertoire of stories but also will hold weekend workshops for…
An American Ghost Story
The Breaking Glass Pictures release is not to be confused with the FX hit series American Horror Story, although I’m sure Breaking Glass won’t mind if any potential renters do. Early in the no-budget picture, the main character tells his girfriend, “Anything to do with paranormal activity is really hot right now,” and that feels…
Evidence
Those post-event sequences depict police detectives (played by The Barrens’ Stephen Moyer and Olympus Has Fallen’s Radha Mitchell) performing forensics on several sources of video captured at the scene of a fatal explosion in the Nevada desert. Whether culled from a camcorder or smartphone, that video makes up a majority of the film, following a…
The Frozen Dead
Said scientist is Dr. Norberg (Dana Andrews, Airport 1975), who lives in London, even if his heart belongs to Germany — Nazi Germany, in fact: “I’m as good a Nazi as I was 25 years ago.” So dedicated to his party is he that Norberg thirsts to bring deceased members of the Third Reich back…
Hands of a Stranger
The Hands of a Stranger fuse nicely, but there’s one unfortunate side effect: Vernon now tickles the ivories with as much finesse as a kindergartener who forgot his Ritalin. Make that two side effects: He also kinda sorta becomes a killer. In the Hands of writer/director Newt Arnold (Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Bloodsport), the 1962 chiller…
The Iceman
Not another X-Men spin-off, it’s the true story of Richard Kuklinski, a family man turned hit man who showed so little emotion doing his dirty deeds that not even his wife and kids knew what he really did for a living. Richie carried out his guise for around 20 years, finally getting caught in 1986. …
Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection
Yet those were DVDs — and no-frills editions at that — whereas the new Legacy Collection is filled primarily with Blu-rays and loads of extras — about as many as the Boss is Big. Having just reviewed The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon and Game of Death, I won’t rehash those…
Q: The Winged Serpent
It also helps that it’s about a giant, dragon-like creature that snatches up New York City residents from rooftops for snacks. Running concurrently with a serial killer skinning his victims, the monster’s appearance has the Big Apple police force on edge. While running away from some of New York’s finest, Quinn mistakenly stumbles into the…
