Crime Blotter
The Florida legislature is taking action against the threat of “crack bears,” which are apparently menacing rural homeowners. Under the terms of HB 87, Floridians will be allowed to shoot and kill bears that trespass on their property, as long as they notify the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission within 24 hours of the kill. Shooters will be prohibited from possessing or selling the carcasses of the animals. Current Florida law restricts homeowners to non-lethal means to scare bears away from their property.
The new law, sponsored by Rep. Jason Shoaf and Sen. Corey Simon, gained traction last September after Franklin County Sheriff A.J. Smith said his community was “being inundated and overrun by the bear population.” The bill was dubbed “the cocaine bear bill” on social media, after Shoaf said Floridians have the right to protect themselves against “the ones that are on crack.”
Rep. …
Bouquets and Brickbats
To pop queen Gwen Stefani for emerging from domestic happy-land with country-music prince Blake Shelton to grace some stages in the American heartland this summer with her necessary presence. Call her punk, pop, ska-pop, rock, or SoCal Harajuku girl, Stefani combines the best female-performer stage presence since mid-period Madonna with the finest female rock and roll yawp since Joan Jett. Yes, we love her. While Lana Del Ray may be the female Bob Dylan of the ’20s, a cool and mysterious shape-shifter who defines the zeitgeist without being defined by it, Gwen Stefani is more fun. That’s because she recalls the halcyon days of the 1990s, when the Cold War was won and all that was left for us Americans to do was to have fun, glorious fun — and then cry our eyes out after the …
Critic's Corner
Illinoise
Sufjan Stevens is an indie musician best known for his low-key song “Mystery of Love,” which was featured in the film Call Me by Your Name — a gay romance set in Italy, based on a novel by André Aciman. This is why it was so strange to hear that Stevens’s album Illinois had become the basis for a Broadway musical titled Illinoise (with an “e” at the end). “A Sufjan Stevens Broadway musical” hardly seemed like a natural fit for Stevens’s understated style or likely to attract the kinds of people who typically enjoy musicals.
Illinois, the record, was part of a project that Sufjan did where he set out to write an album about all 50 states. He only ended up doing two: one for his home state of Michigan and one for neighboring Illinois. After seeing Illinoise, the musical, twice, I can confidently say that it is the best …
