Wednesday, August 10,2011

Princesses with punch

Author Jim C. Hines gives modern makeovers to fairy tale favorites

by KURT ANTHONY KRUG

“For a while, our house was overrun with princesses: princess movies, princess dolls, princess pajamas, princess toothbrushes, and so on,” explained Hines, 37, of Holt. “Some of the movies aren’t bad, but a lot of the merchandise ' well, let’s just say I wanted to present an alternative interpretation of these characters.

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Wednesday, August 10,2011

Art Alley's anniversary

REO Town gallery/performance space celebrates its first birthday and makes plans for the future

by Chris Galford

Art Alley’s biggest accomplishment in this first year, however, has been the ambitious project known as MI-ArtShare, a project designed to help the arts flourish in Michigan ' and to help artists flourish as well ' by allowing shows to move seamlessly between galleries for maximum exposure.

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Wednesday, August 3,2011

New sounds at Jazz Fest

by Lawrence Cosentino

The Ice Crystal Quartet is the perfect foil for Mitchell’s long-lived Black Earth Ensemble, a meaty Chicago music machine with singers, guitar and horns. Mitchell also heads the Black Earth Strings, with violin and cello, and plays in the free-jazz Indigo Trio and Frequency, an ethereal avant-garde project using electronics.

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Wednesday, August 3,2011

1st Sunday gallery walk & other exhibitions

by City Pulse Staff

by East Lansing artist Kate Darnell. Hours: 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday- Wednesday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Noon-5 p.m.Sunday. (517) 351- 2211 www.mackerelsky.com.

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Wednesday, August 3,2011

The kids are not all right

In ‘The Kid,’ Sapphire paints a disturbing picture of an adolescent adrift in the inner city

by Bill Castanier

For more than a decade, Sapphire, the author of “Push,” put a sequel on hold. “I put the ‘The Kid’ on the back burn- er,” she said in a recent telephone inter- view. “I hadn’t had a novel in 15 years, but I was not feeling outward pressure. I was in academia and writing poetry.

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Wednesday, August 3,2011

Black Box-ing

Kerry Waters directs Christopher Durang’s comedy ‘Laughing Wild’

by Paul Wozniak

But “Laughing Wild” promises the poignancy and depth that are absent from most social media newsfeeds. “Laughing Wild” is the first mainstage Riverwalk Theatre production to be set in the more intimate Black Box space.

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Wednesday, August 3,2011

Turn it Down: A survey of Lansing's musical landscape

by Rich Tupica

The band plays Mac’s Bar Saturday. Opening the show is a roster of locals, including The Devil’s Cut (folk/bluegrass), and Chaz Brackx & the Tight Teens (rockabilly). Also performing is the Klaw Mark Kittens, a local “burlesque wrestling” troupe that features women wrestling in vintage lingerie ' as in the risqué 1950s films by Irving Klaw.

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Wednesday, August 3,2011

It takes two?

‘Strings’ vs. ‘Friends’: The same, yet different — sort of

by James Sanford

Although it may not look like it, “Friends With Benefits,” which opened in January and is now on DVD, and “No Strings Attached,” which is now in theaters, really are two different movies; they just share a lot of strange similarities. Remember “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon”? Kind of like that ' with a little more sex.

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Wednesday, August 3,2011

The Screening Room

’Snow Flower’: Chinese soap opera gets the gong

by James Sanford

A sort of Asian variation on “Fried Green Tomatoes,” director Wayne Wang’s “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” contrasts the lives of two pairs of lifelong friends. Snow Flower and Lily grew up together in 17thcentury China, while Nina and Sophia are very much 21st-century women.

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Wednesday, August 3,2011

'Cruelty comes only from human hands'

Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle analyzes ‘The Bond’ between people and animals in his new book

by Chris Galford

Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, has dedicated his life to enhancing the relationship between animals and humanity. Now that fight has been chronicled in Pacelle’s first book, “The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them.

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