S H U F F L E     P L A Y
                     reviews of stuff


Too cool to see the movie and not cool enough to read the strip in Deadline
magazine, I got to Tank Girl when I found the DC/Vertigo book in someone's
recycling. Lots of drinkin' and fightin' and cussin'. Poorly dressed
goths. The Andrea Dworkin miracle diet. And the wickedest evil mother
figure since Snow White. Stuff that you got to be in the know to be
offended by, which somehow seems redeeming in a comic book. Plus, nobody
knows how bad your fake Australian accent is when you just read it in your
head. Made me feel some age or another again, know what I mean? Right,
then. --Kurt Gottschalk

There's a real short list of people I'm impressed with for being able to
work subversive miracles within the pop culture mainstream: Jesse Jackson,
Roseanne, and Michael Moore. And since Jesse and Roseanne have their best
days behind them, I'm especially glad Moore's TV Nation is back on the air
(Fox, Fridays at 8 pm), even if only for a short while. It is a little
weird to see Crackers the Corporate Crime Chicken bookended by Army
recruitment ads, but I'll live with the irony. Watch it fast, before they
replace it with the inevitable twentysomething-cute-people-with-no-dates sitcom.
  --Neil DeMause

Couldn't say enough if I tried about Chicago blues label Delmark's return
to documenting Windy City jazz. Short version is they recorded
Experimental Orchestra and Art Ensemble of Chicago precursors three
decades ago and now, after a long slumber, are back to basics. AECO
reedman Roscoe Mitchell recorded for the label before earthlings had set
foot on the moon, and now returns with Hey, Donald, a mix of swing and
that avant thing with a quartet including Malachi Favors Maghoustut, Jodie
Christian and Tootie Heath in various permutations. In less competent
hands, the scattering of short, eclectic compositions might seem aimless
(or, worse yet, showy), but the quartet knows what it's talking about.
Unexpect the expected. --kg

The Delmark releases also mean domestic prices for progressive jazz.
Instead of the $20+ for European and Japanese imports, American musicians
on American labels make for affordable CDs. Big Cliff is the second
Delmark recording by Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio. The first was kind of
quick and songy; this time out they do what they do best, stretching out
more with four long cuts and the inclusion of original trio member Billy
Bang on violin. El'Zabar's other projects make it to New York more often
than the Trio does, so the only way to hear sax/piano player Ari Brown is
on plastic, and you got to hear him. Then call the Knitting Factory and
tell Dorf to book this band quick. --kg

No Disrespect, by Sister Souljah (Times Books, Random House). This book hit
me upside the head like a ton of bricks. In No Disrespect, Sister Souljah
recounts her life as a Black girl and as a woman in a pointed and intimate
style. The poet and occasional rapper became a household name in 1992,
when then-candidate Bill Clinton cited a speech she had made as
contributing to racial tension. Souljah analyzes how unemployment and the
welfare system perpetuate a lifestyle that entraps and dehumanizes not
only materially but emotionally. Men figure large in her life; I was
interested to learn how she negotiated a few non-monogamous relationships.
She and I disagree at what point you hold men individually responsible for
their poor treatment of women. Every time she describes an unconscionable
behavior in a Black man, she finds a way to tie in the topic of slavery or
some other version of the "abuse excuse." Souljah's tale is a positive
expression of womanhood in adverse circumstances. Her searing honesty,
sharp mind and refusal to internalize negativity near or about herself are
commendable. No Disrespect earned my respect.
  --Amina Munoz-Ali

A strangely funky Pharoah Sanders has been greeting me two mornings a week
when I put on Delphine Blue's Shocking Blue on WBAI. Delphine has lifted
the groovy culprits of this updated dig on "The Creator Has A Master Plan"
up to legend level, in my head at least. After months of tuning in the
show just to hear that cut, the Brooklyn Funk Essentials CD at last is
out. Cool and Steady and Easy (Groovetown) is not just the title, it's a
synopsis. Suitably Brooklyncentric (two cuts use L train conductors for
vocal tracks, and most others make references that make us feel hip), the
grooves these cats lay out are consistently smooth upbeat inventive,
y'know, cool and steady and so on. Wish this was a performance review,
Ôcause they got to be hot live, but the digital recording intended for
home use is enough to get your motor rolling.  --kg

When you've finished this issue of BMT and are looking for something else
to wet your political whistle, run out and buy Fairness and Accuracy In
Reporting's book-length explosion of Rush Limbaugh's lies,
self-contradictions, and mere idiocies, The Way Things Aren't: Rush
Limbaugh's Reign of Error (The New Press), and not just because some of
the research was done by me. (For those keeping score at home, the Cheez
Doodle joke is mine.) No, you'll want it because it will reveal just how
gosh-darn funny America's favorite hate-radio monger is--not since Ronald
"Trees Cause Air Pollution" Reagan have we had this big an idiot in
command of so many minds. (Rush on Woodstock: "Who said the Ô60s kids
looked good and smelled good? Not all of them smelled good. If you were at
Woodstock, you would know what I mean. And I wasn't there. But I saw
pictures.") In fact, here's what you do: buy the book, buy a national
radio network, and read it over the air 15 hours a week (and another two
and a half hours on television). Then at least the airwaves will be half
right.  --nd 

The energy of New York City stems from the attempts to bring together
cultures and mores which can't easily coexist. So argues Eric Homberger,
and his Scenes from the Life of a City (Yale University Press) tells the
story of four figures who tried to bring New Yorkers together in the
middle of the last century: the abortionist Madame Restell, New York City
comptroller and embezzler "Slippery Dick" Connolly, health and housing
leader Dr. Stephen Smith and Central Park architect Frederick Law Olmsted.
In telling, the issues these early organizers fought for ring
frighteningly true--the right to housing and healthcare versus a
self-serving city and the "family values" arguments of the upper crust who
fear reform might cause them to have to brush up against the unclean. But
Homberger has the odd conception of Central Park as a happy ending where
all us pieces of the gorgeous mosaic spend the afternoons in harmony. The
park ain't all that, but the history he unearths is worth the read and the
period illustrations are great. Lots of pictures, but if you don't get
enough, the author's The Historical Atlas of New York City (Henry Holt and
Co.) makes the same arguments with less to read and more to look at. --kg
.