For those who’ve missed it, chinstrapninjas.com has been on the air Saturday mornings for three weeks running so far on KGSO sports radio out of Wichita, KS. The response has been overwhelming, especially today when we had eight callers asking mostly sit-start questions.

And of course, most weren’t simple sit-start softball lob type queries, but moreso questions about sleeper players for this week that could be scooped up and used right away.

Here are a few of the players we discussed on air as guys who can be found in at least some leagues that have the potential to score big this week.

WR Louis Murphy, OAK. A favorite target for the newly annointed Bruce Gradkowski, Murphy is playing against a defense in Arizona that has surrendered the fifth most points among all clubs to receivers at 24.5 per game. The contest will go back and forth, and Gradkowski will be plenty motivated to show that he is the right choice at QB.

Cincinnati’s team defense. The Bengals continue to slip under the collective fantasy radar in terms of being a solid fantasy option. However, this week especially, against newly promoted rookie signal caller Jimmy Clausen and what will be a very one-dimensional opponent (expect Carolina to run the ball more than ever to keep pressure off Clausen), the Bengals should thrive.

RB Mike Tolbert, SD. The official starter for at least one week in place of the injured Ryan Mathews, Tolbert has been looking really good this season. He’s a big bulldozer of a back that pounds the ball forward. I expect him to get at the very least one TD against a Seattle team that has been pretty decent against the run, but won’t be good enough to stop a bowling ball in motion.

QB Sam Bradford, STL. Through two weeks, which team has allowed the most points to opposing QBs? If you guessed the Redskins, you’d be right on the money. Bradford has shown poise far beyond his years, has a few under-rated pass catching options and will be throwing the ball pretty heavily all game.

RB Correll Buckhalter, DEN. OK, remember we aren’t talking about elite start options here. However, Buckhalter projects as the starter for a Broncos squad that is missing Knowshon Moreno this week (and likely next week, too). The Colts defense has been really, really generous to opposing running backs. While the Broncos will probably be playing catch up, Buckhalter should do enough to merit an emergency start this week and is available in 80 percent of Yahoo leagues.

QB Brett Favre, MIN. He turned off many, many people last week after four major turnovers and an all-around bad game against Miami. However, Favre seems to thrive the most in situations where he is emotional and trying to prove something. The Lions are a good whipping boy for Favre, who turns around his disappoint season for at least one week.

RB Benjarvus Green-Ellis, NE. If all else fails and you really need a last-minute plug-in at RB, Green-Ellis could be a solid option. He’s available in 96 percent of Yahoo leagues, but due to injuries has emerged as the top back in a backfield that usually spreads the ball around a lot. At the moment, the only real options back there are Green-Ellis and Fred Taylor, but Green-Ellis offers more upside and actually out-carried all Patriot backs last week. This time around, New England gets a savory matchup with the Bills. They’ll be running the ball plenty protecting their lead.

RB Peyton Hillis, CLE. Not a good matchup at all for Hillis, but he will be starting (or at least getting a decent amount of carries) against the Ravens this week. Would only use him as last resort type player.

WR Jerricho Cotchery, NYJ. With Braylon Edwards not starting (he will likely play some, but not in lead role), Cotchery could be a nice sneaky play Sunday night. And, he’s available in 60 percent of Yahoo leagues.

Want last-minute free game-by-game projections for Week 3? Pick your matchup:  PIT@TB | CLE@BAL | TEN@NYG | SF@KC | DAL@HOU | BUF@NE | DET@MIN | CIN@CAR | ATL@NO | WAS@STL | PHI@JAX | OAK@ARI

Or, Week 3 positional rankings: QB | RB | WR | TE

All our Week 3 strategy, including important trade sell high, buy low candidates can be found here.

Secretary Duncan on Capitol Hill.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

What is "it"? If you guessed "finish college," go to the head of the class. 

In January, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proposed barring men's college basketball teams from post-season play if they failed to graduate 40 percent of their players. Last week, with the NCAA tournament under way, Duncan reiterated his position. 

If Duncan's plan were in effect today, March Madness would look very different. Twelve of the schools in this postseason wouldn't be playing: Maryland (8 percent graduation rate), California (20 percent), Arkansas-Pine Bluff (29 percent), Washington (29 percent) Tennessee (30 percent), Kentucky and Baylor (36 percent), Missouri and New Mexico State (36 percent), Clemson (37 percent), Georgia Tech and Louisville (38 percent).

Duncan arrived at his conclusion after reading a report from the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida. While the numbers detailing the graduation rates of NCAA men's basketball players were about what you'd expect (dismal), Duncan should have taken a hard look at a one recent calamity before applying pressure.

When it comes to athletes, many presidents, boosters, and coaches couldn't care less whether a player buys his term papers, much less makes it to graduation. It's the sport that matters; academic achievement be damned. What does it matter if a school has a 40 percent graduation rate for its basketball players if what it takes to graduate is next to nothing?

Case in point: Binghamton University, a scandal that could hardly have escaped Secretary Duncan's notice. In early February, a four-month-long State University of New York investigation culminated in a 99-page report that was the school's, the NCAA's, and education's worst nightmare-- all for the sake of basketball.

At Binghamton transfer student received academic credit for Bowling I and Theories of Softball. Two basketball players' failing grades were changed after they handed in late work, and more were changed after coach Kevin Broadus lobbied professors. Players dropped required classes in favor of "independent study" in order to remain eligible to play. According to text messages, Binghamton's star player, Malik Alvin, repeatedly received money from assistant coach Marc Hsu to buy gas and pay court fines after being arrested for theft. 

But Alvin's academic situation was even worse.

According to The New York Times, "Mr. Alvin, who had left Texas-El Paso, in part because of academic difficulties, asked Mr. Hsu to reword part of a paper because he ‘got that from the Internet.' Mr. Alvin then wrote, ‘Add a conclusion on violence.' In a later text-message exchange, Mr. Alvin asked Mr. Hsu to manipulate part of an assignment to ‘change it up' so it would not be ‘the same exact paper.'"

All this and more-- just so Binghamton University could make it to its first NCAA men's tournament, which it did last March.

"Since that galvanizing moment in March, when the team clinched its NCAA tournament bid and students flooded the court, the fall has been swift and steep," the Times story added.

The irony is that Binghamton once was an academic powerhouse, the "crown jewel of the State University of New York system." The president, the athletic director, and the board all had high academic standards they deliberately sacrificed on the altar of basketball. 

If star guard Emanuel Mayben hadn't been arrested for possessing and selling crack cocaine last September, the SUNY investigation never would have happened, and players would still get passing grades for papers they took from the Internet.

We all understand and probably desire what Duncan wants to happen-- but on whose academic terms? Binghamton's? 

Already, more often than not, very little is required for college athletes to call themselves students. How much less would be required if they actually had to graduate? Let schools hold basketball players to the same academic standards as other students. 

The NBA should re-implement taking players right out of high school so the Malik Alvins of the world could try their luck there instead of making a mockery of college. At least then we would know that the players who took to the court for their schools really wanted to learn.

~

Juanita Giles lives in Keysville where she makes videos and updates her Sports Doctor site.

#

MediaWorks is again proudly lending support to Earth Hour, and encouraging Kiwis to get in behind this worldwide initiative to combat global warming.

As the first time zone in the world to celebrate Earth Hour, New Zealanders are urged to switch off the lights on Saturday, March 27 between 8.30pm and 9.30pm and be the first in the world to show commitment to fighting climate change.

Sunrise is supporting the initiative with weather presenter Josh Heslop coming to viewers LIVE at Ten Pin Takapuna, tomorrow morning (March 26) doing Glow in the Dark Ten Pin Bowling to promote Earth Hour.

3 News’ Samantha Hayes will be previewing what Earth Hour is, who’s involved and why.

read more

I never felt he owed me an apology. I've read some of the columnists who've acted as if Tiger Woods broke some kind of trust with them, but I never felt that way. Then again, I never elevated him to god-like status. I saw him as a golfer, an amazing golfer, maybe the most amazing golfer ever.

I never saw Hogan play, and I watched Palmer and Nicklaus in their prime from a distance. I got to see Tiger from inside the ropes. I stood a dozen feet away at times as he fretted over some shots and made a few that took your breath away. I saw him flub a bunch of them, too, saw his fits of anger, his childishness.

That's the other thing about Tiger. He was pretty much a first-class jerk from his first day on the tour until his downfall. I don't know if he'll change, but he had some changing to do.

Golf may have needed Tiger, but Tiger needed some of Jack Nicklaus' grace and class. Too many people looked the other way when Tiger threw one of his tantrums because, well, he was Tiger, and we can't upset Tiger.

He changed golf in a way few others ever had. He suddenly showed the world that golf didn't belong exclusively to a bunch of white guys. Go ahead and admit it. They all looked alike. Yes, golfers can be black. Yes, golfers can be real athletes.

There have been two kinds of golf tournaments the last few years. There have been those with Tiger and those without him. If you couldn't get Tiger into your tournament, there was the unspoken but widely held belief that you were running a minor league operation. On the other hand, if you had Tiger, the world would be watching.

Now Tiger will return for the Masters, and there'll be two story lines. There'll be his game. Will he still be able to play at the same high level? Will we hear those Tiger roars on Sunday afternoon at Augusta National?

The Masters is one of the great events in sports, maybe the most splendidly unique of them all. It's a setting unlike any others, a setting of tranquility and beauty, a setting that oozes history. See that oak tree? Yes, that one. It's 150 years old.

See that pine tree on 17? That's the Eisenhower Pine. He hit it so many times that he lobbied Clifford Roberts to cut it down.

And that pond? That's Ike's, too. His location. His idea.

There's Amen Corner, Rae's Creek, the Hogan and Nelson Bridges and most of all the history of great triumphs and bitter defeats, of green jackets and all the rest.

Outside the walls, Augusta looks like any other southern city with its fast-food joints and quick lube joints. Inside the walls, you're in another time and place.

It seems right that the greatest golfer of our time will make his comeback in the greatest tournament of all-time.

Obviously, the other story line will be how fans accept him. Will they boo? Will they yell things about Tiger's personal failings? Those failings have been sliced open for the world to see these last four months. His carefully crafted image has been exposed as the lie it always was.

I still can't wait to see him play again. He breathed life into a sport that desperately needed it. I'm guessing fans will welcome him back because, let's face it, many fans see the PGA as about as interesting as bowling without Tiger.

There's also no need for sympathy. Tiger's wounds are all self-inflicted. All of 'em. Every last one.

He'll surely have to answer more questions about his personal life, but those questions will have a creepy feel to them. Tiger failed his wife and his children. He didn't fail me.

If I sat down across from him, I'm not sure what I'd ask him about his personal life. I thought his apology said pretty much everything. He had failed in some of the basic ways we measure people. He was sorry for failing. There are people that want more. They want him to cry or to run down a list of times and dates.

I love the TMZ side of this story. I've read and watched and listened. But I also have this feeling that all the important stuff in this story is between Tiger, his wife and kids. He doesn't owe me an apology for failing them.

Maybe his corporate sponsors feel differently. They sold their products by painting a portrait of Tiger Woods as something more than a golfer. He was disciplined and wise and the embodiment of what we'd like great people to be.

When he was exposed as a normal human being, a human being with great strengths and terrible weaknesses, his sponsors ran from him. They apparently only want to be associated with perfect people, of which there are very few.

Tiger went along. He allowed himself to be painted in ways greater than golf, and he was exposed as a fraud. But his real failings weren't his inability to sell Gatorade, but as a husband and father.

I buy a lot of Gatorade, but I never bought a single bottle because it was Tiger's product or Michael's product. I don't eat at Subway because of Michael Phelps, either.

That's just me. Corporate America clearly wants to attach itself to winners, to larger-than-life figures, and when we learn they're something else, corporate America runs. Shame on them.

So Tiger will play Augusta, and the world will be watching. If you love sports, if you love watching the great ones do their thing, you'll be watching too. You'll be watching for reasons that have nothing to do with golf, but if you're smart, you'll see him differently. You'll see him as a great athlete with an amazing set of skills. You won't see him as a god. You never should have anyway.

I came across an interesting post by John Resig where he describes a 'makeClass' function that he uses in his code to create functions which can instantiate objects regardless of whether the user calls that function with or without the new keyword.

The main reason that the new keyword seems to be considered harmful is because we might make assumptions in our function that it will be called with the new keyword which changes the meaning of 'this' inside that function.

For example in my Bowling Game example I assume that the 'BowlingGame' function will be called with the new keyword.

I wanted to see if I could refactor that code to use the module pattern instead so as a first step I changed the instantiation of the 'bowlingGame' variable in the tests to not call the function with 'new' to see if it would make any noticeable difference:

Screw.Unit(function() {
        describe("bowling game scorecard", function() {
                var bowlingGame;
 
                before(function() {
                     bowlingGame = BowlingGame();
                });

There is no noticeable difference in the way any of the tests work but in fact all of the functions I defined have been added to the global object (in this case window) instead of onto 'BowlingGame'.

I changed one of the tests to check that this was the case…

...
                        it("should score a single throw", function() {
                                console.log(window.roll);
 
                                bowlingGame.roll(5);
                                (19).times(function() { gutterBall(); });
 
                                expect(bowlingGame.score()).to(equal, 5);
                        });
...

…which logs 'undefined' to Firebug if the new keyword is used to instantiate 'bowlingGame' and 'function()' if it wasn't.

The danger here is that you could change the meaning of the 'roll' function outside of the 'BowlingGame' if you wanted to.

To give a contrived example perhaps we could change 'roll' so that it actually called the original function twice instead of once:

...
                        it("should score a single throw", function() {
                                var originalRoll = window.roll;
                                window.roll = function() {
                                        originalRoll.apply(this, arguments);
                                        originalRoll.apply(this, arguments);
                                        console.log("roll isn't what you'd expect anymore")                         
                                };
 
                                bowlingGame.roll(5);
                                (19).times(function() { gutterBall(); });
 
                                expect(bowlingGame.score()).to(equal, 5);
                        });      
...

In this case you would probably never do that because it's just a small bit of code but you wouldn't want to add random functions to the global object in any reasonably sized javascript application.

Shog9 points to a bit of code which allows us to stop users from calling constructor functions without the new keyword:

BowlingGame  = function() {
        if ( !(this instanceof arguments.callee) ) 
           throw Error("Constructor called as a function");
...

When 'BowlingGame' is called without the new keyword then 'this' will refer to 'window' which means that it won't be an instance of 'arguments.callee' which in this case is the 'BowlingGame' function.

March 3

Bob Mould
Except for Hüsker Dü and his DJ/club alter-ego Blowoff, I’ve seen singer-guitarist Bob Mould live in virtually all of his musical incarnations—solo electric (at JC Dobbs circa 1990’s Black Sheets of Rain), solo acoustic with his ’90s
alt-rock trio Sugar, and, lately, with his Bob Mould Band, a blistering combo that includes Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty. Without fail they’ve all been incredible shows, even if his recorded output over the past couple decades has been hit-or-miss. Fortunately, Mould’s recent Life and Times is one of his better solo offerings. Whether or not he brings a backing band tonight, he’ll most certainly play a career-spanning set that includes plenty of Hüsker classics. -Michael Alan Goldberg

8pm. $25-$35. World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St. 215.222.1400. worldcafelive.com

Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin Van Peebles is the godfather of black cinema, and is still pushing his creative limits even as he pushes 78-years-old. The director of 1971’s swaggeringly awesome Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song returns to Philly this week to promote his first graphic novel. It’s an illustrated retelling of his last film, Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, the tale of an over-sexed ghetto Odysseus in search of love in all the wrong places. And with it, Peebles adds “illustrator” to his insane litany of roles—director, actor, Broadway producer, musician and novelist (in two languages). If there was a white artist as important, unclassifiable and uncompromising as this still making great stuff in his eighth decade, he’d be blown nightly
on Charlie Rose. But no fear: You get to hear
the man speak uncensored at the closing ceremony for Temple’s Oscar Micheaux Film Festival, chatting about whatever he damn pleases. -Tom Cowell

6pm. Free. Ritter Hall, Temple University, N. 13th St. and W. Montgomery Ave. omfilmfestival.com

Taryn Simon
Taryn Simon has seen shit you wouldn’t even believe. For her 2007 project, “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” The New York Times Magazine photog and Guggenheim fellow talked her way into a variety of top-secret, peeping previously unseen items, including the cryopreservation unit holding the bodies of the mother and first wife of cryonics pioneer, Robert Ettinger, as well as a Braille issue of Playboy created by the National Archives (it seems some folks really do read it just for the articles). Her quietly courageous works, which range from quirky and fun to deadly serious and sad, confront the divide between those with and without the privilege of access. Simon speaks tonight at the College of Physicians where she’ll show slides from her project. Hang out afterward for a reception and hope some of her creativity rubs off on you. -Erica Palan

6:30pm. Free. College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 19 S. 22nd St. 215.563.3737. collegeofphysicians.org

March 4

Sondre Lerche
Armed with instantly catchy acoustic and electric guitar melodies and thoughtful lyrics, 27-year-old Norwegian sensation Sondre Lerche is certainly easy on the ears. “Wait till you hear the refrain on my Heartbeat Radio,” he emanates on the ultra-fun title track on his most recent album. There’s no denying Lerche’s flair for the infectious chorus hook, but there’s a certain freshness in his evolved, varied vocal phrasing and instrumentation that often includes an assortment of strings, horns and keys behind his exuberant guitars. Some of Lerche’s finest songwriting came back in 2007 on the acoustic-heavy Dan In Real Life soundtrack, most notably on the yearning masterpiece “My Hands Are Shaking.” -Kevin Brosky

9pm. $20. With JBM. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. 215.739.9684. johnnybrendas.com

Stories Behind the Species: Animals at Risk
Mass extinctions have happened from time to time (ever hear of dinosaurs?), but the elevated rates of extinction (100 to 1,000 times higher than the anticipated natural rate) we’re seeing these days, are, for the first time in history, our fault. We’re really screwing the pooch right now, and soon we’re going to kill it and all the pooches like it. Saint Joseph’s University biology professor Dr. Scott McRobert’s lecture, then, may serve two purposes. His discussion of the current causes of extinction and threats to animals and ecosystems should be a warning for Homo sapiens to treat the rest of the animal kingdom (and don’t forget plants!) a little better. McRobert is bringing along some endangered animals from his lab, which might be the last chance to see them in the flesh if we don’t shape up. -M.S.

5:30pm. Wagner Free Institute of Science, 1700 W. Montgomery Ave. 215.763.6529. wagnerfreeinstitute.org

March 5

RJD2
Under the banner of his own just-established label, RJ’s Electrical Connections, Philly DJ/producer supreme RJD2—the man behind the Mad Men theme—is back with his fourth proper LP, The Colossus. It’s a “career overview” of sorts—filled with killer breakbeats, horn-heavy heist-flick grooves, darkly textured hip-hop, psychedelic pop and more. With a full band in tow and a few gadgets at the ready (including a rotating belt sampler/sequencer thingy he recently showed us), RJ’s well able to inject spirit and spontaneity into tunes old and new in the live setting, certainly better than most beatmakers and turntablists out there. -M.A.G.

8pm. $15. With Break Science + Happy Chichester. First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St. 866.468.7619. r5productions.com

Indie Comic Release Party
Local cartoonist Box Brown stops by Brave New Worlds to celebrate the release of his new book, Everything Dies, a six-part comic anthology about the ongoing struggle between man and his maker. Brown chronicles the lives of battered disciples throughout history, from the Alpha to the Omega and Job’s countless trials between. Both here and in his regularly syndicated web comic Bellen!, Brown plucks simple truths from everyday chaos and anxiety. Charles Schulz famously equated happiness to a warm puppy. For Brown, a cat sprawled on his desk might inspire existentialist insight or profound ennui. But like agonizing over a Buddhist koan for the better part of an afternoon, it’s all good grief in the end. These are pure comics, simple gestures with a lot to say. Brown’s original artwork will remain on display in the Brave New Worlds lobby through March.  -Paul F. Montgomery

6-9pm. Free. Brave New Worlds, 45 N. Second St. 215.925.6525. bravenewworldscomics.com

March 6

Justin Townes Earle + Joe Pug
Nashville country-folk crooner Justin Townes Earle sings of deep heartache (“Ain’t been the same since I lost my pretty Angeline”) in his distinctivly deep drawl. Earle’s intimate acoustic ballads float sweetly through the air, making for a good late-night soundtrack that would please both his dad (Steve Earle) and namesake (Townes Van Zandt). Folkster Joe Pug’s “Hymn 101” is a masterful acoustic ode even Dylan could appreciate. "And I've come to be untroubled in my seaking/And I've come to see that nothing is for naught/I've come to reach out blind/To reach forward and behind/For the more I seek, the more I'm sought," he sings. Both songwriters make the occasional use of the swelling country slide guitar and stick true to their roots. -Kevin Brosky

9pm. $12. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. 215.739.9684. johnnybrendas.com

Red Bowl 2010
You’re a victimized biker, succumbed to the irrational road rage of bike-lane-parking, no-turn-signaling, ignorant-door-opening drivers. What to do? Smash their windshield with a bowling ball, of course. Sure, the officials behind this Bicycle Coalition fundraiser might not be able to officially sanction what you do with the 10-pounders once you get outside. But we’ll certainly look the other way if the balls go flying. Should you choose to remain inside and display your bike pride more peacefully, admission gets you free bowling all afternoon, music, raffle tickets and more. Drivers may be cocky when they’re surrounded by two tons of steel, but let’s see how they feel when we take them out of their vehicles, array them in rows and send bikers toward them at top speed. Strike! -Jeffrey Barg

2-6pm. $10-$15. North Bowl, 909 N. Second St. 215.238.2695. bicyclecoalition.org/redbowlmusic

March 7

Chuck Prophet
A perennial entry on the “best overlooked” lists, Chuck Prophet—singer, guitar slinger and former Green on Red frontman—has now released 11 solo albums and collaborated with Americana greats Lucinda Williams, Jim Dickinson and Alejandro Escovedo. His latest effort, Let Freedom Ring!, was recorded in Mexico City at the height of the H1N1 frenzy
in an Eisenhower-era studio with longtime
collaborators Tom Ayres, Rusty Miller and Boom Carter. Christgau gave the disc an honorable mention and observed, “Things
are so bad out there that the Amerindie old-timer ups and writes ‘political songs for nonpolitical people.’” About time someone did. -Jennifer Kelly

7:30pm. $19.50. With John Francis. Sellersville Theater. Main and Temple sts., Sellersville. 215.257.5808. st94.com

March 8

WOMEN: An International Women’s Day Exhibition
Leave it to America to try to overshadow a worldwide attempt to do something good. March 8—that’s International Women’s Day to you, buddy—was first observed in 1909. Seventy-two years later, Congress passed a resolution establishing National Women’s History Week and six years after that, white dudes in suits extended the celebration for the entire month of March. We’ll leave the anti-American preaching at the door, though, and give you the deets on a great way to honor women and support local arts. International House hosts a weeklong exhibit—which kicks off with a reception tonight—featuring work from members of the Women’s Caucus for Art’s Philly chapter. Peep pieces by local artists, including Bonnie MacAllister, Marcelle Pachnowski, Sonia Sherrod and Michelle Wilson. The exhibit is presented in conjunction with One Book, One Philadelphia, so if you haven’t done your required city reading, now’s the time to dust off your copy of Persepolis. -E.P.

7pm. Free. International House, 3701 Chestnut St. 215.387.5125. ihousephilly.org

March 9

Washed Out + Small Black
New kid on the blog Washed Out (Ernest Greene from Georgia) has been riding the new wave of acts to watch with his drowsy bedroom pop since the September release of his EP Life of Leisure. Backing him live is his veritable Siamese twin, Brooklyn’s Small Black, whose danceable lo-fi sound takes little from their namesake. The two recently overlapped one another on a remix album, and this should make for an interestingly collaborative performance—Greene’s layering of warm synths and woozy vocals (his first cassette-only EP was appropriately titled High Times) over '80s-throwback beats, they’ll bring a hazy summer sound to Philly when we need it most. -Ellen Freeman

7pm. $10. With Pictureplane. Barbary, 951 Frankford Ave. 215.634.7400. r5productions.com

Pierced Arrows
Back in 2006, then-58-year-old singer-guitarist Fred Cole and his wife of more than 40 years, bassist Toody Cole, decided to end Dead Moon—the long-running, cult Pacific Northwest garage-punk outfit with country-rock overtones that had influenced (and been revered by) many a rocker over the past couple decades. But after a few months retired from the rock ’n’ roll life, the Coles (like Brett Favre) got the itch to play again, and formed Pierced Arrows along with drummer dude Kelly Halliburton. The result? A raw, gritty, punkish, sometimes bluesy, and soulful attack not far removed from the Dead Moon sound. A wonderful thing, indeed—long may the Coles roam. -M.A.G.

8pm. $10. With Lullaby Arkestra + Love City. Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St. 215.291.4919. kungfunecktie.com

Le Rue des Faux
The Azuka Theatre continues their 10th-anniversary celebration with a staged reading of the company’s inaugural show Le Rue des Faux. Adapted by Azuka’s founder Raelle Myrick-Hodges from James Baldwin’s celebrated novel Giovanni’s Room, the play debuted in 1999 under Myrick-Hodges perceptive direction.  Now the artistic director of the much-talked-about BRAVA Theater in San Francisco, Myrick-Hodges returns to Philly to direct the reading. In the play, David, engaged to a woman, grapples with his homosexuality and in particular his attraction to the handsome Giovanni. A fluid, poetic work that immediately established Azuka as one of the area’s most enterprising companies, the reading boasts an impressive cast of Azuka vets including Tyler Melchior and current Azuka producing director Kevin Glaccum, who are reprising their fine performances as the boy-loving Jacques (Melchior) and the deliciously wicked Guillaume (Glaccum). -J. Cooper Robb

7pm. Free. Latvian Society, 531 N. Seventh St. 215.733.0255. azukatheatre.org


Anti-Bestiality Educational Awareness Outreach Charity Mixer and Heavy Metal Dance Party
Every so often a press release arrives that is just too bizarro to keep to ourselves. Some gems from this one: “While millions of Americans take pleasure from there [sic] pets, an alarming and growing number take pleasure—from their pets ... The Video Circus is getting out the word through joyous fun, happy laughter and psychotic mayhem ... Head to Bob & Barbara’s for a wholesome evening of burlesque girls, drag queens, demented DJs and more ... Free admission to anyone wearing clown makeup or animal costumes.” Not convinced? Try this tidbit from the organizers’ website: “Free cold hotdogs on a stick to the first 25 stamped people at the door.” After briefly considering that this could be a hoax, we searched for their email address, which was accompanied by the line, “NO! IT’S NOT A JOKE.” We’re still not convinced, but even if we fell for this elaborate scam, a night at Bob & Barbara’s ain’t the worst way to spend a Tuesday evening. -E.P.

10pm. $3. Bob & Barbara’s, 1509 South St. 215.545.4511. myspace.com/bobandbarbaras

Jenny OwensYoungs
Waifish, long-haired, her delicate face fringed with bangs, Jenny Owen Youngs looks like a folk-rock ingénue. Graceful at a whisper, she can insinuate vulnerability, as in the scratchy, touchy lead-in to last year’s “Clean Break.” Give the girl a guitar, though, and stand back. She’s a rocker apt to let loose with a primal, country wail, or coax a withering blues run out of her guitar. Late in the show, she’ll head for the covers—an oddball mash-up of Oasis’ “Wonderwall” and Nelly’s “Hot in Here” for one, and possibly, nods to pop divas Kelly Clarkson and Beyoncé. -J.K.

9pm. $10. With Bess Rogers + Allison Weiss. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. 215.739.9684. johnnybrendas.com

BOB MOULD
Except for Hüsker Dü and his DJ/club alter-ego Blowoff, I’ve seen singer-guitarist Bob Mould live in virtually all of his musical incarnations—solo electric (at JC Dobbs circa 1990’s Black Sheets of Rain), solo acoustic with his ’90s
alt-rock trio Sugar, and, lately, with his Bob Mould Band, a blistering combo that includes Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty. Without fail they’ve all been incredible shows, even if his recorded output over the past couple decades has been hit-or-miss. Fortunately, Mould’s recent Life and Times is one of his better solo offerings. Whether or not he brings a backing band tonight, he’ll most certainly play a career-spanning set that includes plenty of Hüsker classics. -Michael Alan Goldberg

8pm. $25-$35. World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St. 215.222.1400. worldcafelive.com

Melvin Van peebles
Melvin Van Peebles is the godfather of black cinema, and is still pushing his creative limits even as he pushes 78-years-old. The director of 1971’s swaggeringly awesome Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song returns to Philly this week to promote his first graphic novel. It’s an illustrated retelling of his last film, Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, the tale of an over-sexed ghetto Odysseus in search of love in all the wrong places. And with it, Peebles adds “illustrator” to his insane litany of roles—director, actor, Broadway producer, musician and novelist (in two languages). If there was a white artist as important, unclassifiable and uncompromising as this still making great stuff in his eighth decade, he’d be blown nightly
on Charlie Rose. But no fear: You get to hear
the man speak uncensored at the closing ceremony for Temple’s Oscar Micheaux Film Festival, chatting about whatever he damn pleases. -Tom Cowell

6pm. Free. Ritter Hall, Temple University, N. 13th St. and W. Montgomery Ave. omfilmfestival.com

taryn simon
Taryn Simon has seen shit you wouldn’t even believe. For her 2007 project, “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” The New York Times Magazine photog and Guggenheim fellow talked her way into a variety of top-secret, peeping previously unseen items, including the cryopreservation unit holding the bodies of the mother and first wife of cryonics pioneer, Robert Ettinger, as well as a Braille issue of Playboy created by the National Archives (it seems some folks really do read it just for the articles). Her quietly courageous works, which range from quirky and fun to deadly serious and sad, confront the divide between those with and without the privilege of access. Simon speaks tonight at the College of Physicians where she’ll show slides from her project. Hang out afterward for a reception and hope some of her creativity rubs off on you. -Erica Palan

6:30pm. Free. College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 19 S. 22nd St. 215.563.3737. collegeofphysicians.org

Sondre Lerche
Armed with instantly catchy acoustic and electric guitar melodies and thoughtful lyrics, 27-year-old Norwegian sensation Sondre Lerche is certainly easy on the ears. “Wait till you hear the refrain on my Heartbeat Radio,” he emanates on the ultra-fun title track on his most recent album. There’s no denying Lerche’s flair for the infectious chorus hook, but there’s a certain freshness in his evolved, varied vocal phrasing and instrumentation that often includes an assortment of strings, horns and keys behind his exuberant guitars. Some of Lerche’s finest songwriting came back in 2007 on the acoustic-heavy Dan In Real Life soundtrack, most notably on the yearning masterpiece “My Hands Are Shaking.” -Kevin Brosky

9pm. $20. With JBM. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. 215.739.9684. johnnybrendas.com

Stories Behind the Species: Animals at Risk
Mass extinctions have happened from time to time (ever hear of dinosaurs?), but the elevated rates of extinction (100 to 1,000 times higher than the anticipated natural rate) we’re seeing these days, are, for the first time in history, our fault. We’re really screwing the pooch right now, and soon we’re going to kill it and all the pooches like it. Saint Joseph’s University biology professor Dr. Scott McRobert’s lecture, then, may serve two purposes. His discussion of the current causes of extinction and threats to animals and ecosystems should be a warning for Homo sapiens to treat the rest of the animal kingdom (and don’t forget plants!) a little better. McRobert is bringing along some endangered animals from his lab, which might be the last chance to see them in the flesh if we don’t shape up. -M.S.

5:30pm. Wagner Free Institute of Science, 1700 W. Montgomery Ave. 215.763.6529. wagnerfreeinstitute.org

RJD2
Under the banner of his own just-established label, RJ’s Electrical Connections, Philly DJ/producer supreme RJD2—the man behind the Mad Men theme—is back with his fourth proper LP, The Colossus. It’s a “career overview” of sorts—filled with killer breakbeats, horn-heavy heist-flick grooves, darkly textured hip-hop, psychedelic pop and more. With a full band in tow and a few gadgets at the ready (including a rotating belt sampler/sequencer thingy he recently showed us), RJ’s well able to inject spirit and spontaneity into tunes old and new in the live setting, certainly better than most beatmakers and turntablists out there. -M.A.G.

8pm. $15. With Break Science + Happy Chichester. First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St. 866.468.7619. r5productions.com

Indie Comic Release Party
Local cartoonist Box Brown stops by Brave New Worlds to celebrate the release of his new book, Everything Dies, a six-part comic anthology about the ongoing struggle between man and his maker. Brown chronicles the lives of battered disciples throughout history, from the Alpha to the Omega and Job’s countless trials between. Both here and in his regularly syndicated web comic Bellen!, Brown plucks simple truths from everyday chaos and anxiety. Charles Schulz famously equated happiness to a warm puppy. For Brown, a cat sprawled on his desk might inspire existentialist insight or profound ennui. But like agonizing over a Buddhist koan for the better part of an afternoon, it’s all good grief in the end. These are pure comics, simple gestures with a lot to say. Brown’s original artwork will remain on display in the Brave New Worlds lobby through March.  -Paul F. Montgomery

6-9pm. Free. Brave New Worlds, 45 N. Second St. 215.925.6525. bravenewworldscomics.com

Justin Townes Earle + Joe Pug
Nashville country-folk crooner Justin Townes Earle sings of deep heartache (“Ain’t been the same since I lost my pretty Angeline”) in his distinctivly deep drawl. Earle’s intimate acoustic ballads float sweetly through the air, making for a good late-night soundtrack that would please both his dad (Steve Earle) and namesake (Townes Van Zandt). Folkster Joe Pug’s “Hymn 101” is a masterful acoustic ode even Dylan could appreciate. "And I've come to be untroubled in my seaking/And I've come to see that nothing is for naught/I've come to reach out blind/To reach forward and behind/For the more I seek, the more I'm sought," he sings. Both songwriters make the occasional use of the swelling country slide guitar and stick true to their roots. -Kevin Brosky

9pm. $12. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. 215.739.9684. johnnybrendas.com

Red Bowl 2010
You’re a victimized biker, succumbed to the irrational road rage of bike-lane-parking, no-turn-signaling, ignorant-door-opening drivers. What to do? Smash their windshield with a bowling ball, of course. Sure, the officials behind this Bicycle Coalition fundraiser might not be able to officially sanction what you do with the 10-pounders once you get outside. But we’ll certainly look the other way if the balls go flying. Should you choose to remain inside and display your bike pride more peacefully, admission gets you free bowling all afternoon, music, raffle tickets and more. Drivers may be cocky when they’re surrounded by two tons of steel, but let’s see how they feel when we take them out of their vehicles, array them in rows and send bikers toward them at top speed. Strike! -Jeffrey Barg

2-6pm. $10-$15. North Bowl, 909 N. Second St. 215.238.2695. bicyclecoalition.org/redbowlmusic

Chuck Prophet
A perennial entry on the “best overlooked” lists, Chuck Prophet—singer, guitar slinger and former Green on Red frontman—has now released 11 solo albums and collaborated with Americana greats Lucinda Williams, Jim Dickinson and Alejandro Escovedo. His latest effort, Let Freedom Ring!, was recorded in Mexico City at the height of the H1N1 frenzy
in an Eisenhower-era studio with longtime
collaborators Tom Ayres, Rusty Miller and Boom Carter. Christgau gave the disc an honorable mention and observed, “Things
are so bad out there that the Amerindie old-timer ups and writes ‘political songs for nonpolitical people.’” About time someone did. -Jennifer Kelly

7:30pm. $19.50. With John Francis. Sellersville Theater. Main and Temple sts., Sellersville. 215.257.5808. st94.com

WOMEN: An International Women’s Day Exhibition
Leave it to America to try to overshadow a worldwide attempt to do something good. March 8—that’s International Women’s Day to you, buddy—was first observed in 1909. Seventy-two years later, Congress passed a resolution establishing National Women’s History Week and six years after that, white dudes in suits extended the celebration for the entire month of March. We’ll leave the anti-American preaching at the door, though, and give you the deets on a great way to honor women and support local arts. International House hosts a weeklong exhibit—which kicks off with a reception tonight—featuring work from members of the Women’s Caucus for Art’s Philly chapter. Peep pieces by local artists, including Bonnie MacAllister, Marcelle Pachnowski, Sonia Sherrod and Michelle Wilson. The exhibit is presented in conjunction with One Book, One Philadelphia, so if you haven’t done your required city reading, now’s the time to dust off your copy of Persepolis. -E.P.

7pm. Free. International House, 3701 Chestnut St. 215.387.5125. ihousephilly.org


Washed Out + Small Black
New kid on the blog Washed Out (Ernest Greene from Georgia) has been riding the new wave of acts to watch with his drowsy bedroom pop since the September release of his EP Life of Leisure. Backing him live is his veritable Siamese twin, Brooklyn’s Small Black, whose danceable lo-fi sound takes little from their namesake. The two recently overlapped one another on a remix album, and this should make for an interestingly collaborative performance—Greene’s layering of warm synths and woozy vocals (his first cassette-only EP was appropriately titled High Times) over '80s-throwback beats, they’ll bring a hazy summer sound to Philly when we need it most. -Ellen Freeman

7pm. $10. With Pictureplane. Barbary, 951 Frankford Ave. 215.634.7400. r5productions.com

PIERCED ARROWS
Back in 2006, then-58-year-old singer-guitarist Fred Cole and his wife of more than 40 years, bassist Toody Cole, decided to end Dead Moon—the long-running, cult Pacific Northwest garage-punk outfit with country-rock overtones that had influenced (and been revered by) many a rocker over the past couple decades. But after a few months retired from the rock ’n’ roll life, the Coles (like Brett Favre) got the itch to play again, and formed Pierced Arrows along with drummer dude Kelly Halliburton. The result? A raw, gritty, punkish, sometimes bluesy, and soulful attack not far removed from the Dead Moon sound. A wonderful thing, indeed—long may the Coles roam. -M.A.G.

8pm. $10. With Lullaby Arkestra + Love City. Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St. 215.291.4919. kungfunecktie.com

Le Rue des Faux
The Azuka Theatre continues their 10th-anniversary celebration with a staged reading of the company’s inaugural show Le Rue des Faux. Adapted by Azuka’s founder Raelle Myrick-Hodges from James Baldwin’s celebrated novel Giovanni’s Room, the play debuted in 1999 under Myrick-Hodges perceptive direction.  Now the artistic director of the much-talked-about BRAVA Theater in San Francisco, Myrick-Hodges returns to Philly to direct the reading. In the play, David, engaged to a woman, grapples with his homosexuality and in particular his attraction to the handsome Giovanni. A fluid, poetic work that immediately established Azuka as one of the area’s most enterprising companies, the reading boasts an impressive cast of Azuka vets including Tyler Melchior and current Azuka producing director Kevin Glaccum, who are reprising their fine performances as the boy-loving Jacques (Melchior) and the deliciously wicked Guillaume (Glaccum). -J. Cooper Robb

7pm. Free. Latvian Society, 531 N. Seventh St. 215.733.0255. azukatheatre.org


Anti-Bestiality Educational Awareness Outreach Charity Mixer and Heavy Metal Dance Party
Every so often a press release arrives that is just too bizarro to keep to ourselves. Some gems from this one: “While millions of Americans take pleasure from there [sic] pets, an alarming and growing number take pleasure—from their pets ... The Video Circus is getting out the word through joyous fun, happy laughter and psychotic mayhem ... Head to Bob & Barbara’s for a wholesome evening of burlesque girls, drag queens, demented DJs and more ... Free admission to anyone wearing clown makeup or animal costumes.” Not convinced? Try this tidbit from the organizers’ website: “Free cold hotdogs on a stick to the first 25 stamped people at the door.” After briefly considering that this could be a hoax, we searched for their email address, which was accompanied by the line, “NO! IT’S NOT A JOKE.” We’re still not convinced, but even if we fell for this elaborate scam, a night at Bob & Barbara’s ain’t the worst way to spend a Tuesday evening. -E.P.

10pm. $3. Bob & Barbara’s, 1509 South St. 215.545.4511. myspace.com/bobandbarbaras

Jenny Owen YoungS
Waifish, long-haired, her delicate face fringed with bangs, Jenny Owen Youngs looks like a folk-rock ingénue. Graceful at a whisper, she can insinuate vulnerability, as in the scratchy, touchy lead-in to last year’s “Clean Break.” Give the girl a guitar, though, and stand back. She’s a rocker apt to let loose with a primal, country wail, or coax a withering blues run out of her guitar. Late in the show, she’ll head for the covers—an oddball mash-up of Oasis’ “Wonderwall” and Nelly’s “Hot in Here” for one, and possibly, nods to pop divas Kelly Clarkson and Beyoncé. -J.K.

9pm. $10. With Bess Rogers + Allison Weiss. Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. 215.739.9684. johnnybrendas.com

L.B.A.:

Horny Loser :

Catatonicin Pastori:
I just bought a Wii. I need more games. Bowling is boring me.

Super Mario Galaxy, Trauma Center: Second opinion, De Blob, and No More Heroes.

These are all awesome.

Super Mario Galaxy is awesome! I also really like House of the Dead: Overkill and Ghostbusters .

Acupuncture and myo-fascial release are among the popular therapies.

With the surge in popularity of complementary and alternative medicine over the last decade, it should be no surprise that Illinois podiatrists are also using these methods.

According to a 2008 survey from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Health (part of the National Institutes for Health), 38 percent of Americans use some form of complementary and alternative medicine. And at least two Chicago-area podiatrists have incorporated some of the more popular CAM therapies, such as acupuncture, for her patients.

“I provide acupuncture for many conditions, and will soon have an acupuncturist on staff at my office to treat all types of aliments,” said Lisa Schoene, DPM, who has offices in Gurnee and Chicago. Schoene said that nerve injuries like tarsal tunnel or neuritis tend to respond well to acupuncture and it often works well on painful scars after surgery and tendon and joint pain, too.

One of Dr. Schoene’s patients, Chicago marketing professional Catherine Morgan, 47, benefitted from Dr. Schoene’s focus on complementary medicine. Morgan injured her foot last spring during one of her tap dance classes and took some time off from dancing to heal. However, the pain persisted and she ended up seeing Dr. Schoene in October.

“Dr. Schoene takes tap classes herself and she treats a lot of dancers at the Joel Hall Dance Center in Chicago so I thought it would be good to see a doctor like that for my injury,” she said.

In addition to acupuncture, Dr. Schoene used Traumeel shots that helped reduce the pain. Traumeel is an anti inflammatory, homeopathic medication containing 12 botanical substances and 2 mineral substances. The shots, combined with manipulation, physical therapy and electric stimulation helped Morgan recover from her injury to the extent that she would take a scheduled vacation to Buenos Aires and tango every night there.

Dr. Schoene said acupuncture is based on inserting tiny needles at key points in the body to bring about pain relief and healing.

“I’m more inclined to use alternative therapies today than ever before because I find that doctors who use them tend to take into consideration the entire patient when treating,” Morgan said.

Buffalo Grove podiatric physician Catherine Halinski, DPM, has also been a big proponent of complementary and alternative medicine technique for the last decade.

“I often use a technique called myofacial release which is a technique made popular by physical therapists and chiropractic and osteopathic physicians to treat musculoskelatol problems, including foot and ankle conditions,” she said. During myofacial release, Halinski gently palpates or manipulates soft tissue.

“I have been using alternative methods since 2000 and I was introduced to myofacial release therapy,or MFR, in 2000 as well,” she said. “Many of my patients are interested in non surgical options so they can consider all approaches to their problems.”

Wheeling resident and bowling enthusiast Leslie Ridgeway, 50, sought out Dr. Halinski for her plantar faciitis a few years ago and credits myofacial release with helping her avoid surgery. Ridgeway worked in a retail environment for several years and believes the constant standing exacted a toll on her legs and feet.

“I was skeptical at first when Dr Halinski suggested myofacial release,” she said. “I had never had a massage before but I soon noticed a change. My calves had developed a lot of tightness from my compensating for my foot injury so she needed to work that out to help my foot problem,” Ridgeway said. Over the course of 10 treatments, Halinski and her staff were able to cure Ridgeway’s plantar fasciitis and help her avoid surgery.

For her part Ridgeway was so impressed she started training for a career as a massage therapist and now works for Halinski as a physical therapy aide.

“I have full function of my feet and have resume bowling every week,” she said.

About the IPMA

The IPMA is based in Chicago and represents more than 600 podiatrists throughout the state of Illinois. For more information about podiatric medicine, visit the Illinois Podiatric Medical Association’s website at www.ipma.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/IllinoisPodiatricMedicalAssociation or call 312.427.5810.

**

Our health care, business law, and alternative medicine law attorneys regularly consult and advise on telemedicine and other health care law and business legal matters involving online enterprises and emerging or established companies.  For legal advice concerning telemedicine and other health care practices, whether involving physicians, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, life coaches, fitness consultants, or CAM providers such as acupuncturists, nutritionists and dietitians, homeopaths, naturopathic physicians, hypnotherapists, energy healers, and others, contact our health care lawyers today.

Our law firm has many successes with health care and business law clients, whose practices are transforming the business and health care landscape as we know it.

University District

Everybody, Every Body: A Fashion Show

Held during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, this fashion show will feature displays of body pride, with the intent of promoting individual self-confidence and respect for the body.

Thursday, Feb. 25

Doors at 6:30 p.m.; show starts at 7:00 p.m.

Free; first come, first served

HUB Ballroom

Author Signing: Tanya Egan Gibson

Tanya Egan Gibson’s debut novel, How to Buy a Love of Reading, is presented at the University Book Store. The novel follows Bree McEnroy, a writer, who is hired to write a book specially made for the reading-phobic daughter of a wealthy family.

Thursday, Feb. 25

7 p.m.

University Book Store

4326 University Way NE

Bill Berkson reads from Portrait and Dream: New & Selected Poems

Poet, critic, and teacher, Bill Berkson, who has written more than 18 works, including books and pamphlets of poetry, reads from his latest publication.

Thursday, Feb. 25

7 p.m.

FREE

Henry Art Gallery Auditorium

The Annual Giggles Laff Off

The Giggles Comedy Club presents eight local comics competing to make it to the finals, as selected by the crowd. Preliminaries are taking place this weekend and will continue for the next several weeks.

Friday, Feb. 26 and Saturday, Feb. 27

8 p.m. (all ages); 10 p.m. (21+)

$13

Giggles Comedy Club

5220 Roosevelt Way NE

Fremont

High Dive Presents (21+)

Indie snobs with a soft spot for hip-hop can feed their guilty pleasure with the lineup of Eclectic Approach, Southside, and People Within.

Saturday, Feb. 27

9:30 p.m.

$7

High Dive

513 N. 36th St.

Wallingford

Fool for Love

Seattle’s only one-act theatre presents Sam Shepard’s haunting, paradoxical love story about two people who just can’t live with each other — but can’t live without each other, either.

Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.,; select Sundays at 4 p.m. through March 14

$13-20

Stone Stoup Theatre

4029 Stone Way N.

Garrett Fisher Ensemble: At the Hawk’s Well

The Seattle performance troupe debuts their eighth opera, At the Hawk’s Well, based on W.B. Yeats’ mythological play of the same name.

Friday, Feb. 26 and Saturday, Feb. 27

8 p.m.

$12-15

Chapel Performance Space

4649 Sunnyside Ave. N.

Barrett Martin and friends

Groove to the Seamonster Lounge’s jam session with Barrett Martin and a slew of guests. There’s no cover charge, so gorge on bar snacks like mini-burgers, tortilla soup and banana-and-Nutella sliders.

Saturday, Feb. 27

10:30 p.m.

Seamonster Lounge

2202 N. 45th St.

Ballard

Live electro hip-hop (21+)

Mosh all night —or at least until they kick you out — to BLVD, the Panda Conspiracy and the Acorn Project at Ballard’s Tractor Tavern.

Friday, Feb. 26

9 p.m.

$10

Tractor Tavern

5213 Ballard Ave. NW

OPSB Rugby presents the Full Monty

Rough it up at the eighth-annual Full Monty, a night of culture and dance sponsored by the Old Puget Sound Beach Rugby Football Club. The Pacific Northwest’s premier rugby club boasts four national titles.

Saturday, Feb. 28

9 p.m.

$20 adv., $25 day of show

Tractor Tavern

5213 Ballard Ave. NW

Capitol Hill

Brazilian Carnaval, 21+

Carnaval in Brazil is the same kind of street-party madness that Mardi Gras is in France. Don colorful costumes and feathers to join in the party. Armandinho Macedo will be offering a Brazilian-style guitar and mandolin workshop at 7 p.m. before the Carnaval celebration for an additional $20.

Thursday, Feb. 25

8:30 p.m.

Tickets: $25 adv.

Neumos

925 E. Pike St.

White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights

This documentary about legendary rockers Jack and Meg White follows the pair on a 2007 tour through small and unusual Canadian venues, including a bus and a bowling alley. During the latter, they played a round of 10-pins while performing.

Friday and Saturday, Feb. 26 and 27

9 p.m.

Tickets: $9; $6 for members

Northwest Film Forum

1515 12th Ave.

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

Ed Graczyk’s play brings together a group of friends on the anniversary of James Dean’s death in a rural Texas town. The old pals revive ghosts of the past and have to work to settle them down again. Pay what you can for tickets, and part of the revenue on Feb. 26 will benefit Gilda’s Club, a cancer-support community.

Friday and Saturday, Feb. 26 and 27; March 4 to 6, 9, 12 to 14

7 p.m.

Tickets: $5–75

Richard Hugo House

1634 11th Ave.

AFCGT CD Release Party

AFCGT, a sonic union of local bands, the A Frames and Climax Golden Twins, is celebrating their self-titled Sub Pop Records debut this weekend. Kinski and Arbitron provide support.

Saturday, Feb. 27

9 p.m.

Tickets: $7

Comet Tavern

922 E. Pike St.

Foreign Born with Free Energy, 21+

Los Angeles-based indie rockers Foreign Born tour off of their latest release, Person to Person. Free Energy and other guests support.

Sunday, Feb. 28

8 p.m.

Tickets: $8 adv.; $10 at the door

Chop Suey

1325 E. Madison St.

We Were Promised Jetpacks with the Lonely Forest and Bear Hands

Scottish post-punks We Were Promised Jetpacks trek to Seattle, touring off of their debut full-length, These Four Walls. The Lonely Forest and Bear Hands support.

Thursday, March 2

8 p.m.

Tickets: $15

Neumos

925 E. Pike St.

Sin on Heels

Le Cabaret Noir’s burlesque show challenges preconceived notions of gender and sexuality while celebrating erotic art. Part drag, part cabaret, the show, directed by Sydni Deveraux, brings together several burlesque stars to create this unforgettable adult affair.

Wednesday, March 3

8 p.m.

Tickets: $12–20

Re-bar

1114 Howell St.

Downtown

Cold Lake (21+)

Cold Lake, whose MySpace says their influences are “righteous early ‘90s punk jams,” is pairing up with special guest Virgin.

Thursday, Feb. 25

8 p.m.

$8

The Crocodile

2200 Second Ave.

Hellfire Variety Show (21+ for 10 p.m. showing)

The Triple Door describes the show as being “part circus, part burlesque and part variety show.” Hellfire’s Web site calls it a “cabaret descent into the underworld.” Sound interesting? See for yourself.

Thursday, Feb. 25

7 and 10 p.m.

$20 adv., $25 day of show

The Triple Door

216 Union St.

A ‘Made in America’ Financial Crisis

For those interested in economics, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, will be discussing the global financial crisis and his belief that it originated in the United States.

Friday, Feb. 26

7:30 p.m.

$5

Town Hall Seattle

1119 Eighth Ave

Galactic (21+)

Galactic, a funk and jazz band from New Orleans, is touring to promote their recently released album, YA-KA-MAY, which includes an array of well-known musical guests from New Orleans.

Friday, Feb. 26

8 p.m.

$22 adv., $25 day of show

Showbox at the Market

1426 First Ave.

Jonathan Coulton

If you’re in the mood for some music, self-deprecation, and a few good laughs, Coulton is the man to see. As a self-described geek, most of his songs include scientific and tech-related lyrics.

Friday, Feb. 26

8 p.m.

$23

The Moore Theatre

1932 Second Ave.

The Legend of the Butterfly Lovers

The Beijing Dance Company puts on the dance that has been called China’s own Romeo and Juliet.

Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 27 and 28

7:30 p.m.

$25–70

The Paramount

911 Pine St.

A Hootenanny for Haiti (21+)

Feel the need to help Haiti out? Duff McKagan, Mike McCready, Kim Virant, Kim Warnick, Kristen Ward, Mark Pickerel, Star Anna, Chris Friel, Gary Westlake, Jeff Rouse, Justin Davis, Ty Bailie and friends will be playing this benefit, whose proceeds go to Partners in Health’s Haiti campaign, which works alongside the Haitian Ministry. Enjoy both a night of music and an opportunity to give money to Haiti.

Sunday, Feb. 28

7:30 p.m.

$15

Showbox at the Market

1426 First Ave.

Legally Blonde

If you enjoyed the 2001 movie starring Reese Witherspoon, it’s likely you’ll want to see the musical adaptation of Legally Blonde as well. The show tells the story of a perky sorority girl who decides to attend Harvard Law School in order to win back the boyfriend who broke her heart. However, she must fight to win the respect of all those around her.

Tuesday through Sunday, Feb. 23 to March 14

1:30, 2, 7, 7:30 and 8 p.m.

$22.50–103.50

5th Avenue Theatre

1308 Fifth Ave.

Reach reporters Ashleen Aguilar, Rachel Solomon, Kristen Steenbeeke & Weekender Editor at weekender@dailyuw.com.

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A MINOR AILMENT, LIKE CATCHING THE FLU

Just thinking about tonight's Big Cup round of 16 disappointing first-leg 0-0 draw in the San Siro where someone gets sent off and there's some wiffle about a disputed penalty shirt-pull-type incident is enough to make the Fiver's head spin and the uncorked tube of nasally ingested No More Nails fall from its quivering tea-time-email hands. On the face of it this may look like no more than a match-up between one team with a tradition of famously cagey defence and one from Italy. But it's also a game with more interminable subplots than an episode of Spooks written by Ronnie Corbett sitting in his "joke chair" and saying "Annnywaaaayyy ..."

First, and perhaps least, it's a chance for Chelsea's Brave John Terry to come bowling back to centre stage frantically restyling himself as grizzled and brave and appealingly humble. "I'm on a mission and nothing is going to distract me," CBJT gargled in this morning's Sun, pausing only to check his emails, stare at the Sky Sports News ticker and arrange all his change in an amusing leaning tower with 1ps on the top. "I wouldn't be John Terry if I felt any differently," he added, before adding some mutterings about "valuing his friendship" with José Mourinho who, Fiver readers may have picked up vaguely, is now manager of Inter - and who was previously sacked by Chelsea for (a) not wanting to take orders from Avram Grant, for some reason; and (b) spotting that CBJT might be getting a bit ahead of himself in the dressing-room guv'nor stakes.

Of course, Mourinho has already leaned, slobbered and dry-humped his way all over this tie even before the first cautious backwards pass has been played. "I am not interested in Mourinho," poor old slightly overwhelmed Carlo Ancelotti told this morning's papers, studying the alphabetised contents page of his José Mourinho scrapbook and adjusting the wiry grey bouffant sideburn attachments of his José Mourinho wig. Mourinho has even been tiptoeing between the trenches to offer his support for newly single Ashley Cole. "I called him a few days ago, because I care about him and I wish him a very quick recovery," he said, taking the view that compulsively sending pictures of your baggy white pants to various interchangeable blonde women is a minor ailment, like catching the flu or getting a paper cut.

In less pressing matters, with Cole, José Bosingwa and Yuri Zhirkov all injured, Alex will probably fill in on the left tonight. For Inter, goalie Júlio César has recovered from car-crash-knack. But never mind all that. The Fiver is already steeling itself for another liver-engorging throat-trumpet banquet of fulminating Mourinho blather and chest-thumping CBJT new humility.

Follow Inter 0-0 Chelsea in the last 16 of Big Cup with Paul Doyle's minute-by-minute report.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"I think [Howard Webb] was confused. He thought we were playing against an English team, but Bordeaux is French. Perhaps he was a Bordeaux fan as a child" - Olympiakos utility man Vasillis Torosidis just wishes Uefa would stop appointing referees from footballing backwaters to crucial Champions League games.

HOD SQUAD?

When the Fiver was but a lad, its father, One Trick Phony Fiver, explained that with the passage of time some things are inevitable. There will be pain. There will be a beer belly, then facial hair and pimples. There will be fools, naysayers and lawyers. And there will be reports linking you with the vacant position of manager of Nigeria.

Frankly the Fiver is miffed that it has not yet reached that last stage, given that, with Shobu Amaidu having been jilted after guiding his country to a mere third-place finish at the recent African Cup of Nations, the following have all already been tipped to pilot the Super Eagles in South Africa: Sven-Goran Eriksson, Hassan Shehata, Bruno Metsu, Bryan Robson, Peter Taylor, Peter Reid, Howard Kendall, David O'Leary, John Gregory, Mike Walker, John Beck, Danny Blanchflower, Gerald Ratner, Dr Phil, Captain Sensible, Mrs McClusky, an 11-year-old boy with a paper round in Helsinki, and Alan Shearer.

Not being linked to the job, then, does not just cause embarrassment and resentment, it also leaves one feeling incomplete as a person. At least that is a sentiment we can share with Glenn Hoddle. Or could, until today. For this morning it transpired that he too has been linked to the Nigerian gig, reports helpfully specifying that he has "jetted off to Lagos for talks", lest we think he went there by canoe or luge.

The Fiver, of course, knows its day will come too, which is why there is even a small part of us that hopes Hoddle does in fact get the job this time, partially because it will be interesting to see whether he can use his acclaimed coaching prowess to form a fluent team from decentish players, and partially because it will be amusing to see the effects of his somewhat less celebrated interpersonal skills. But mainly, of course, because his first match at this summer's World Cup will be the same as his last one: it's against Argentina. Does the Hod think he can extract karmic revenge?

FIVER LETTERS

"Carlo Ancelotti reckons all of Italy will be supporting Chelsea? Well that should even things up. The rest of the world will all surely be supporting Inter" - Richard Jones.

"Your Keith Harris 'cheap' gag was simply or-ville" - Jamie Griffin.

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you've nothing better to do you can also Tweet the Fiver now.

BITS AND BOBS

Newton Heath geriatrico #5 has knacked his back for the 97th time in the last 12 months and will miss Sunday's League Cup final.

Specialist penalty taker Graham Alexander, 57, has rejected reports that he has quit international football after being left out of Craig Levein's first Scotland squad.

Birmingham manager Alex McLeish will "not dismiss out of hand" signings suggested to him by owner Carson Yeung and the board. "DVDs can help and (football vice-chairman) Sammy Yu can help by saying 'this player will definitely enhance your squad'. That is the kind of feedback I am looking for." Oh dear.

Robin van Persie could be back just in time for the end of Arsenal's season. "I hope that he will play at the beginning of April," says the Holland coach Bert van Marwijk.

Lord Ferg wants David Villa and youse are all idiots who say he hasn't got 40p to spend never mind £40m.

STILL WANT MORE?

David Conn blames enormous wages for emptying the wallets of English clubs and burdening them with the highest debt in European football.

Paolo Bandini asks whether Wesley Sneijder could propel Inter past Chelsea.

From making players drive Robin Reliants to stripping them and pelting them with snowballs, the Knowledge runs down football's best training-ground forfeits.

Paul Wilson reckons a glance down the Carling Cup teamsheets proves England have surprising strength in depth.

And Rob Bagchi deciphers the language of transfer tittle-tattle.

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EVERYTHING IT SEEMS I LIKE IS A LITTLE BIT STRONGER/ A LITTLE BIT THICKER/ A LITTLE BIT HARMFUL FOR ME

GSD&M; Idea City has launched another round of ads on behalf of the Ad Council and Legacy's "Become an EX" PSA campaign that urges us to put out the butts, which apparently turn us into lobotomy patients who struggle to reacclimate to daily life once we try to quit. In a statement, Idea City president/CEO Duff Stewart says, "This latest round of EX creative work gets to the heart of helping people save their own lives."

Of course, there are good intentions underneath the tongue-in-cheek approach from all parties involved including partner Mayo Clinic, which has helped develop personalized quit plans on the campaign's website. This phase of "EX" also includes print and radio PSAs and even air fresheners. A second spot called "Forklift" is after the jump.

More: "Ad Council PSA's Message: Look Ma, All Hands!"

continued...

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Curvy, feminine, ubiquitous – Henry Moore's work has become part of the British landscape. Adrian Searle discovers the artist's darker side in a new show

Among a number of small and often strange ­humanoid sculptures ­sitting on low plinths in Tate Britain's Henry Moore exhibition, there is an object that made me laugh out loud. But it was a laugh tempered by ­uncertainty. A small slabby thing carved from warm Corsehill stone, the sculpture appears to represent a man lying in a bath, his arms at his sides, staring down at his own erection.

It's the sort of universal situation any man might recognise. The head, at one end of the slab, is like a grave-stone and pierced by a single hole. At the other end is a rounded bulge, from which protrudes an elongated wedge-like ridge, riding up his torso and terminating between two bumpy little breasts. Maybe it's not a man after all, nor a person in a bath, but some sort of woman. This is yet another of Moore's reclining figures, from 1933-4, but it could be a funerary slab from some ­ancient, even alien civilisation. What on earth was Moore thinking?

Another sculpture nearby, carved in the same stone, is most definitely female, this time upright – a rounded, almost jug-like form with two pert breasts. Woman as vessel, then. Yet the head, again pierced by a single hole, is almost penile. So, too, is the head of a third sculpture, a head-and-shoulders carved in African wonderstone, a glassy black volcanic rock, part of which is striated with faint concentric bands of colour, spreading like little seismic ripples. The entire sculpture seems to grow from these rings. It's a weighty thing that you want to touch and hold, to feel its mass, its sexy, bulging, androgynous smoothness.

These smaller sculptures, which Moore produced throughout his long career, repay all the attention you give them. The longer you look, the stranger they are. There are dismembered bodies, bowling-ball heads that want to eat smaller heads, holes that want to accept protruberences, body parts that morph into other body parts. One translucent alabaster sculpture describes a baby's head suckling at a breast – or does the breast suckle at the child? The whole thing has a sort of yearning, merging feel, and reminds me of the sculpted heads of Medardo Rosso, who died in 1928, two years ­before Moore carved this.

A lot of what Moore did has an almost feminine feel. This is not just because he made so many sculptures of mothers and infants, nor because (as he admitted) he had a bit of a mother fixation. It is as much in his play of insides and outsides, in the flow of forms and space. There is also something inescapably phallic about many of Moore's women, and in the male and female dualities even of his ­abstract forms. Moore never read Freud, though throughout the 1920s and 30s the discoveries of psychoanalysis were very much in the air.

Moore's smaller sculptures can be threatening, too. A number of little reclining figures from the end of the 1930s are made from lead, a material that attracted Moore because of its ­poisonous nature. The small bodies look as if they have been licked into shape. Light flows queasily over their smooth grey surfaces. It is as if they have been infected by Salvador Dalí and the bad android in Terminator 2. But what Moore appears to have been infected by, mostly, was Picasso – whose biographer, John Richardson, said that Moore was the "petit-maitre of Picasso's bone-surreal", a cruel but fitting jibe. Giacometti's surrealist work, as well as that of Jean Arp and other European artists have left their mark. Moore looked long and hard at a great deal of what inspired other artists of the period: African carvings; Mayan, Egyptian and early Iberian sculpture – art that was called "primitive". He ­buried himself in the British Museum and the Trocadero in Paris, knew ­Giacometti, and visited Picasso when the latter was painting Guernica.

Morbid and sexual undertones

So used are we to Henry Moore, we hardly give him the time his art ­deserves. This aim of this exhibition, which takes us from the 1920s up to the 1970s, is to show us his morbid and ­sexual undertones. The show avoids much of Moore's later work, when the artist went into production mode, making a form of sculpture that blinds us to his real achievements. All those public things on plinths, from Harlow New Town to Tokyo; all those British Council-sponsored exhibitions that ­forever circumnavigate the globe. Moore's bronze editions of ­interlocking, rounded forms with their hollows and holes and fussy, scaly surfaces have ­become so much street furniture.

The impression I grew up with was of a domesticated modernist, already old hat, so ubiquitous one almost didn't need to look. He was just there. It is the artist's smaller, more private works I like the best, the ones that don't appease airy humanist ­sentiment. The exhibition's curator, Chris Stephens, also hopes to present a Moore whose preoccupation was the human body as, in Stephens's words, "abject, erotic, vulnerable, violated and visceral . . . absurd, uncanny and claustrophobic". Ooh-err, what's come over our Henry, king of the sucked-toffee blob in the town square? The mother-and-child-friendly sculptor?

What Stephens really wants to do is give us a Moore for our time. A Moore who might hang out with Georges Bataille and the dissident ­surrealist crowd, a Moore to set ­beside Giacometti and Hans Bellmer, or even Louise Bourgeois, Paul ­McCarthy, Bruce Nauman and Thomas Schütte. It's true that Nauman has nodded to Moore in a couple of works, while Schütte's reclining steel women owe some of their deformations to Moore. What began as jokes at Moore's ­expense in the sausage ­sculptures of Fischli and Weiss, and in the ­performances of Bruce McLean, has ended as a kind of homage.

Sympathy for elms

There is a falling off in Moore's post-second world war work, although the reclining figure he made for the 1951 Festival of Britain remains a ­peculiar, startling and troubling thing. It is not a million miles from Francis ­Bacon's 1944 Studies at the Base of a ­Crucifixion – if one could imagine those figures spending a day at the beach. But it is in the last room – just when the show, and Moore's art, seems to flag – that things really come alive again. Four great elm carvings ­dominate the space, filling the air with their lovely reflected light. Each, again, is a reclining figure. The first is dated 1936, the last 1976-8. In this room, their scale seems just right. There is a sense of massive slumber and waiting.

But what really strikes me is Moore's craftsmanship, his understanding and sympathy towards the great hunks of elm, the way he followed the grain and density of the wood when he hollowed space and revealed form. He let the material do the talking, and respected its nature. People don't talk much of "truth to materials" nowadays. I don't really go in for all the mythic ­qualities these recumbent figures might have, but they do have real presence. All the smoothing and rounding and ­hollowing of the forms, even their facelessness, has a point. There is a sense of great gravity and rest. The sculptures slow time down to a full stop, and us with it.

All those involved deserve a slap on the back after the Afghan cricket team qualified for the World Twenty20

Afghanistan have landed on the back pages. Last week they won five of their six matches at the World Twenty20 qualifying tournament, a run of results including two wins over Ireland and an especially sweet victory against the USA. They will now slot into Group C for the World Twenty20 proper, which starts at the end of April. If you have been paying any kind of attention to the sports sections, then you should know all this already.

The story is only going to get more familiar, but the risk is that the richness of the tale will be lost in the retelling. Behind that one wonderful week of headlines are 10 years of hard work, not just by the Afghan cricketers but also from a gamut of volunteers from across the cricketing world. Afghanistan became an associate member of the ICC in 2001, just four months before the first bombs fell on Kabul. If they make a film of this story – and two documentaries are already in production – there will be some curious casting decisions to be made along the way.

Who, for example, will play Mike Gatting? Can The Spin tentatively suggest Brian Blessed for the part? It was Gatt, after all, who captained the MCC in a pioneering exhibition match against Afghanistan in Mumbai back in 2006. The MCC lost by 179 runs, and Gatting was caught behind without scoring.

Then there is Marc Scrase-Dickens, the MCC member who first raised the issue of Afghan cricket at the club's AGM. And what about Robin Marlar, the gruff old former MCC president? After that match in Mumbai, Marlar approached Hamid Hassan and Mohammad Nabi to invite them to Lord's to spend a spell learning how to play the game in England. Hassan remembers their meeting well.

"I was playing in training shoes. Flat shoes. Not spikes. So I pitched it short, and the keeper went back a bit. And he kept going back. I pitched it up and hit some of them on the toes – four were injured. I finished with something like two for eight from six or seven overs," Hassan recounted to Will Luke on Cricinfo. "When I finished the game, this friendly old man called me over. 'Come here, son. How old are you? What are you doing?' he asked. I was 19 or something. He said: 'Why are you bowling in these shoes? You have to try spikes'. I had only ever bowled in flat trainers. And he said I should come and learn cricket in England.

"I didn't know who he was. Maybe he was just a fan, just some Englishman watching the game. I thought he was just joking. Then I heard other players talk to him. 'Hi, Mr Robin Marlar', they say. And then I realised he was president of MCC – a big man. I was shocked."

Which actor could capture the look of astonishment on Monty Panesar's face when, facing Hassan in the nets at Lord's, he was surprised by a short ball that smashed into his head and broke his helmet? "He said, 'You owe me £200, these things are expensive'," remembers Hassan, "Well, I didn't have any money, but luckily he was joking."

Hassan himself would undoubtedly be the male lead. He sometimes wears a blue bandana when he bowls, and has a stripe of sunblock smeared across either cheek. The man has style. He can also play – he took 12 wickets in the Twenty20 qualifiers, at a cost of just 11 runs each. His blog on Cricinfo has made him a minor star, with a following of fans from his home country who, like Hassan, pepper their conversation with the phrase 'Insha'Allah'.

"We moved from Jalalabad when I was five or six," Hassan recalls. "It became too unsafe. Really unsafe, with bombs and so on. Our house was shot at, too, but we all escaped. So, we moved to Peshawar. I saw cricket for the first time in Peshawar, in Tehkal. Boys playing on streets and roads – everywhere. And I just picked up a bat and started hitting balls. I didn't know how to hold it, but I just wanted to play – hitting it like a baseball bat. From then on, life was cricket, cricket, cricket. Though I had to play in secret, because my father always hated cricket."

The ex-England all-rounder Matthew Fleming is another man who deserves a little nod of recognition. He led an MCC party to Afghanistan just last year, helping to lay cricket pitches in two schools there. And what of Sarah Fane, founder of the charity Afghan Connection">Afghan Connection" title="">Afghan Connection?, which has done so much to help the MCC funnel their funding into school cricket? Even Jamie Theakston – yes, that one – has a walk-on role after captaining his club side Ditchling in a match played inside the Nato mission in Kabul (they, like the MCC, were thrashed). And that is only a clipped list of the English people who have been involved. There are just as many men and women from across the rest of the global community. What about Mike Shrimpton, the former New Zealand Test player who took on a coaching job with Afghanistan's Under-19 team during the recent youth world Cup?

"It's been different, all right," Shrimpton told the New Zealand Herald. "Three or four players lived in the same district where the Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers entered [while the World Cup was on]. A number of the boys were affected. It became clear one night from talking to the captain that his family was in the basement of their house and there was a gunfight outside. It was a difficult time not knowing what was happening."

Afghan cricket owes so much to so many different people who have played large and small parts in helping it along the way. Without the unacknowledged kindness and generosity of spirit shown by so many people within the game, from the ranks of the ICC, the MCC and the Pakistan Cricket Board downwards, Afghanistan would never have had the opportunity to do what they have done. Behind those headlines, there are a lot of people –the vast majority of them not mentioned here – who should feel very proud with what they have helped Afghanistan achieve.

The following is an extract from guardian.co.uk's free weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, click here.

• India rack up four tons and declare on 643-6 in second Test
• South Africa close on six for no loss as bad light stops play

VVS Laxman and Mahendra Singh Dhoni both scored centuries as India moved into a strong position at the end of the third day of the second and final Test against South Africa at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.

Laxman hit an unbeaten 143, his 15th Test century, and Dhoni played his part in a huge seventh-wicket partnership with 132 not out as India ground in the advantage. They declared on 643 for six, a lead of 347. South Africa are 1‑0 up in the series.

Bad light ended play early and South Africa closed on six for no loss from the five deliveries that were possible.

India began the day with a belligerent show from Amit Mishra [28], although shoddy fielding aided their cause considerably. Laxman started briskly, turning Dale Steyn for consecutive boundaries in the first over and driving Paul Harris through the covers, but it was Mishra's innings which proved frustrating for the visitors.

He resumed by advancing down the track and carting the left-arm spinner for a boundary over long-on and was then dropped almost immediately, Jacques Kallis grassing a chance at first slip.

Mishra, who slashed Kallis for two boundaries in three deliveries in an over, was reprieved again, on 25, by Graeme Smith and went on to add three more to his score before Morne Morkel struck with the second new ball, Kallis completing the dismissal with an excellent catch at second slip.

South Africa's bowling attack stuck to their task admirably in overcast conditions in the morning, but were let down by further lapses in the field.

Dhoni was a little tentative initially and the tourists missed at least two good chances at Laxman's wicket before he reached the half-century mark.

Steyn flicked the inside-edge as the batsman mistimed a drive, but the ball flew over the stumps and barely eluded a diving AB de Villiers, South Africa's stand-in wicketkeeper.

Another offering was put down by JP Duminy when the batsman was on 48, and Laxman went past the half-century mark even as Smith spread the field.

The home side went into lunch at 431 for six, but the afternoon session was particularly pleasing for India's supporters as Dhoni and Laxman consolidated the home side's position by amassing 117 runs without losing a wicket.

India's last recognised batting pair were again cautious at the start of the final session and Laxman was stuck for some time on 99 before he eventually reached his fourth Test century in nine matches at Kolkata. He averages more the 91 at the ground.

Dhoni then reached his fourth century and first against South Africa, off 155 deliveries, making it only the second time four Indian batsmen have achieved centuries in the same innings.

Both batsmen then climbed into South Africa's weary attack as they extended the lead beyond the 300-run mark, Dhoni clobbering of Duminy for consecutive sixes in an over before the declaration.

David Smith - AP

6 days ago: West Virginia's Joe Mazzulla (21) fouls Villanova's Corey Fisher, left, in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game in Morgantown, W.Va. on Monday, Feb. 8, 2010. Villanova won 82-75. (AP Photo/David Smith)

View full size photo »

SB Nation's Chris Dobbertean, editor of Blogging The Bracket, returns with another edition of Bracketology.

Even though we just completed our first football-free weekend of the year, less than one month remains until Selection Sunday. That means the chances for teams to state their cases for inclusion and improve their seeding are running out.  

Click here for this week's full bracket.

Here are links to this week's seed list and tracking spreadsheet.

On the top line, the same four teams -- Kansas, Villanova, Kentucky and Syracuse -- are still in place, for the fourth straight week. However, the Wildcats swapped places with the Orange, as 'Nova managed to grab a big road win at West Virginia and beat Providence this week, while Syracuse followed up a close, somewhat controversial win over UConn with a loss to Louisville. That win actually kept the Cardinals in the field, as it gives them a true marquee road win, something many other bubble teams lack, and it offset a bad loss to St. John's on Thursday night.

Remember that Syracuse and Villanova meet on Saturday, February 27 at a sold out Carrier Dome.

Before I get into some of this week's other storylines, here's a quick look at who is in and out this week.

Teams are listed in S-curve, or selection, order.

The Rundown

Top seeds: Kansas, Villanova, Kentucky, Syracuse
Last Four In: Marquette, Mississippi State, UAB, Louisville
First Four Out: Dayton, St. Mary's, Florida, San Diego State 
Next Four Out: South Florida, Virginia, Arizona State, Northwestern

Conference Breakdown

Big East: 8
Syracuse (1), Villanova (1), Georgetown (2), West Virginia (3), Pittsburgh (6), Cincinnati (9), Marquette (11), Louisville (12)

ACC: 7
Duke (2), Wake Forest (5), Georgia Tech (7), Clemson (8), Maryland (9), Virginia Tech (9), Florida State (10) 

Big 12: 6
Kansas (1), Kansas State (3), Texas (4), Baylor (6), Texas A&M (7), Missouri (8), Oklahoma State (11) 

Atlantic 10: 5
Temple (4), Xavier (7), Richmond (8), Rhode Island (9), Charlotte (10)

Big Ten: 5
Purdue (2), Wisconsin (2), Michigan State (3), Ohio State (5), Illinois (8)

SEC: 5
Kentucky (1), Tennessee (5), Vanderbilt (6), Mississippi (10), Mississippi State (11)

Mountain West: 3
BYU (3), New Mexico (4), UNLV (6)

Conference USA: 2
UAB (11), UTEP (13)

One Bid Leagues: 23
America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Colonial, Horizon, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, Mid-American, Mid-Eastern, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Pacific-10, Patriot, Southern, Southland, Southwestern, Summit, Sun Belt, West Coast, Western Athletic

Movers And Shakers

The Top Four Lines: There was a bit more of a shuffle between lines 2 and 4 than there was last week. A few weeks ago, I helped explain to the guys over at Bucky's 5th Quarter what would have to happen for Wisconsin to play in Milwaukee during the first weekend of the Tournament. Well, despite a stunning home loss to Illinois Tuesday, the Badgers move up to the 2 line, replacing West Virginia, who drops down to a 3 after losing twice this week.

Thanks to that change and a procedural move to place Kentucky in New Orleans (taking the advice of a John Clay blog post on mock selection) sees Wisconsin playing in their own backyard. Duke, Georgetown (even after Sunday's loss at Rutgers) and Purdue are the other 2 seeds this time around.

While the Mountaineers fell, BYU moved up to the 3 line, replacing Texas, who continues to struggle (Saturday's 40-point home win over a terrible Nebraska team notwithstanding). The Cougars profile is really similar to Mountain West rivals New Mexico's, but BYU gets the edge because a loss at Utah State looks a little better than one at Oral Roberts does right now. Kansas State and Michigan State remain from a week ago.

The Lobos anchor the 4 line along with Gonzaga, who now owns a two-game lead over St. Mary's and Portland in the West Coast Conference race after they topped the Gaels Thursday (which started a St. Mary's skid, as they fell to the Pilots in OT Saturday, a defeat that knocked them out of the bracket). Texas now finds themselves here, as does Temple, who jumps back up after pounding Rhode Island on Saturday.

Tennessee falls down to line 5 after they suffered big road losses to Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

Realignment In The Middle: If you would have told me just last week that Illinois would be the first Big Ten team to beat the Badgers in Madison over a calendar year, I would've said "You're nuts." But that stunning victory, along with last Saturday's home win over Michigan State, means the Fighting Illini's position is a bit more secure. However, the Illini couldn't keep their momentum, as they were pounded by Ohio State in Champaign on Sunday. They now sit as an 8 seed.

Virginia Tech also helped themselves out by grabbing a 20-point win at N.C. State and a home win over Virginia Saturday to complete a season sweep of the Cavaliers. The Hokies are 20-4 and project as a 9 this week. They have two great chances to make a statement this week, as Wake Forest visits Blacksburg Tuesday and a trip to Duke looms on Sunday.  

Two teams that didn't help themselves are Mississippi and UAB, as both are barely hanging on right now. The Rebels played once this week and lost at Mississippi State, giving the Bulldogs a sweep of the season series. The defeat was the third in four games for Andy Kennedy's squad. Meanwhile, the Blazers also only took to the court a single time, losing at Marshall to fall two games behind C-USA leader UTEP in the loss column. UAB's early season home wins over Butler and Cincinnati will only have so much shelf life if the conference losses continue to pile up.

Departures: Florida looks to be headed to the NIT for the third straight season, as they lost at South Carolina and at home against Xavier -- looking bad in both -- to fall to 17-8.

Dayton probably would have stayed in had Louisville not grabbed a very big win Sunday afternoon. Even though the Flyers smashed Charlotte Wednesday, Saturday's OT loss at St. Louis sent them to 6-4 in the A-10. The November win over Georgia Tech is only OK at this point, thanks to the Yellow Jackets inconsistency. Beyond that, the Flyers profile is lacking, especially away from UD Arena.

St. Mary's is in a similar boat after they suffered two key conference losses this week. The Gaels three best wins at this point, at Utah State, against Northeastern in Hawaii and over San Diego State at home, are all over teams that aren't assured of places in the field. They don't even get the benefit of a BracketBuster this year.

And we also bid farewell to South Florida, who falls out just as quickly as they appeared. The Bulls followed up last Sunday's loss at Notre Dame with one in Milwaukee against Marquette Saturday. 

Arrivals: After that victory, their fifth straight, the Golden Eagles sit at 7-5 in the Big East, which helps them move into the field.

Cincinnati is back, as they won their only game this week, 60-48 over fading UConn. They stand at 6-6 in the conference, with tough games at USF and against Marquette at home coming up this week. 

Mississippi State sneaks in, thanks to their sweep of their in-state rivals. They could quickly be right back out (or in the case of an upset, in better position), as they host Kentucky on Tuesday. 

Similarly, Oklahoma State jumps in after they defeated Oklahoma in a Bedlam game plagued by injury, illness and suspension Saturday.

However, the bubble picture this season is filled with an unusually high number of underwhelming teams. That means it's time for me to make my annual plea to teams who haven't really secured their place yet.

If you want to get into the Tournament, please start winning games. Give the Committee a reason to include you, not reasons to make them ask for mass quantities of ibuprofen when they're stuck in a hotel conference room for a long weekend in four weeks' time.

Thank you.

Auto Bids:  Of course, the only way to actually guarantee a place in the field is to claim one of the 31 automatic bids awarded to conference champions.

However, several teams who looked to be in control of their conference races, while possessing an outside chance at earning an at-large, had rough weekends.

Friday night saw Cornell and Siena drop their first games in their respective conferences, the Ivy League and Metro Atlantic, losses that could have ended their already slim at-large hopes. The Big Red recovered by beating Princeton Saturday, though they needed OT to do that. Things won't get any easier for Cornell, as they have six games left, but only two at home.

Meanwhile, the Saints have a big BracketBuster game Saturday at Butler to help their floundering cause. The Bulldogs had a far better week than Siena or Cornell, as the regular season Horizon League champions moved to 16-0 in the league with road wins over Youngstown State and Cleveland State.

Two other conference unbeatends, Morgan State in the MEAC and Murray State in the OVC, face one more conference game apiece before they clash in a BracketBuster of their own in Kentucky Saturday afternoon.

On the other hand, Northern Iowa suffered a double whammy this weekend. First, they dropped their second Valley game of the year, at Bradley, then the Panthers lost star center Jordan Eglseder for three games, as he's been suspended after he was arrested for driving while intoxicated. That means it's going to be so much more difficult for the Panthers to handle Old Dominion, featuring center Gerald Lee, on Friday night in Cedar Falls.

The Monarchs hold the Colonial's automatic bid this week, as they pounded George Mason in Norfolk, while Northeastern fell at William & Mary by one. The two squads are tied for the league lead, one game ahead of the Patriots and two up on the Tribe and Drexel, but ODU holds the spot thanks to a better overall record.

However, the CAA race has nothing on the contests in the Sun Belt and MAC. No team in the Sun Belt has fewer than four conference losses, and two games in the loss column separate first from seventh. Middle Tennessee holds this week's auto bid, as they lead Arkansas State by a half-game. While, defending champion Western Kentucky sits just two games back, they were swept by the Blue Raiders. However, the Hilltoppers can grab an advantage over the Red Wolves by sweeping them on Saturday. WKU beat A-State in Bowling Green Thursday. 

The Mid-American is just a little less nuts, as only six teams are within two games of the lead. Kent State entered the weekend as the only two-loss team, then they lost by 15 at Buffalo. That means Akron, who joins the Golden Flashes at 9-3, jumps back into the bracket after their overtime win Sunday against Ohio. The Zips have a better overall record. Typical of a one-bid league, this race won't be settled until the conference tournament in Cleveland.

Games To Watch

To help you plan your viewing week, here are seven days worth of games to check out. Seeds in this bracket are in parentheses, with bubble teams represented by a B.

TV information from Matt Sarz' College Sports on TV site.

Monday
(B) Connecticut at (1) Villanova, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN)
South Carolina State at (15) Morgan State, 7 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
(B) Virginia at (9) Maryland, 8 p.m. ET (ESPN360)
(1) Kansas at (7) Texas A&M, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(16) Jackson State at Texas Southern, 9 p.m. ET (ESPNU)

Tuesday
(3) Michigan State at Indiana, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(5) Wake Forest at (9) Virginia Tech, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
(9) Cincinnati at (B) USF, 7 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
Drexel at (B) VCU, 7 p.m. ET (CSN New England/Comcast Network)
(B) William & Mary at George Mason, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN Plus/Full Court)
(B) San Diego State at TCU, 8 p.m. ET (the mtn.)
(B) Texas Tech at (6) Baylor, 8 p.m. ET (FS Southwest/Full Court)
Creighton at (8) Northern Iowa, 8 p.m. ET (FS Midwest/CSN Chicago)
(1) Kentucky at (11) Mississippi State, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(B) North Carolina at (7) Georgia Tech, 9 p.m. ET (Raycom/Full Court)

Wednesday
(2) Purdue at (3) Ohio State, 6:30 p.m. ET (Big Ten Network)
(2) Duke at (B) Miami, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(B) Notre Dame at (12) Louisville, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
(10) Florida State at (B) Virginia, 7 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
(3) West Virginia at Providence, 7 p.m. ET (Big East Network/Full Court)
(B) Seton Hall at St. John's, 7:30 p.m. ET (Big East Network/Full Court)
(3) BYU at Colorado State, 8 p.m. ET (the mtn.)
(11) Oklahoma State at Iowa State, 8 p.m. ET (Big 12 Network/Full Court)
Penn State at (B) Northwestern, 8:30 p.m. ET (Big Ten Network)
(4) Texas at (8) Missouri, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(9) Maryland at N.C. State, 9 p.m. ET (NESN/Sun Sports/FS South/CSN Washington+)
(B) South Carolina at Arkansas, 9 p.m. ET (SEC on CSS/Full Court)
(9) Rhode Island at (B) St. Louis, 9 p.m. ET (Cox Sports New England)
(B) Louisiana Tech at (12) Utah State, 11 p.m. ET (ESPN2)

Thursday
Auburn at (B) Florida, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(1) Syracuse at (2) Georgetown, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
(6) Vanderbilt at (10) Mississippi, 7 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
La Salle at (12) Dayton, 7 p.m. ET (CBS College Sports)
(2) Wisconsin at (B) Minnesota, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(6) Pittsburgh at (11) Marquette, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
Morehead State at Eastern Illinois, 9 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
(10) California at Oregon State, 10:30 p.m. ET (FSN/Comcast SportsNet)
USC at (B) Washington, 10:30 p.m. ET (Prime Ticket/FS Northwest/FCS Pacific)
(B) St. Mary's at San Diego, 11 p.m. ET (ESPN2)

Friday
(12) Old Dominion at (8) Northern Iowa, 7 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
East Tennessee State at Campbell, 7 p.m. ET (CSS/Full Court)
(B) William & Mary at Iona, 9 p.m. ET (ESPNU)

Saturday
(13) Siena at (5) Butler, 11 a.m. ET (ESPN2)
(B) Florida at (10) Mississippi or (B) North Carolina at Boston College, 12 p.m. ET (CBS)
(B) Seton Hall at (3) West Virginia, 12 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(15) Morgan State at (13) Murray State, 12 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
St. John's at (B) USF, 12 p.m. ET (Big East Network/Full Court)
(B) Louisiana Tech at (B) Northeastern, 1 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
(6) Baylor at (11) Oklahoma State, 1:30 p.m. ET (Big 12 Network/Full Court)
(5) Tennessee at (B) South Carolina, 1:30 p.m. ET (SEC Network/Full Court)
(4) Texas at (B) Texas Tech, 2 p.m. ET (ESPN)
(12) Louisville at DePaul , 2 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
(7) Georgia Tech at (9) Maryland or (5) Wake Forest at N.C. State, 2 p.m. ET (Raycom/Full Court)
(7) Xavier at (10) Charlotte, 2 p.m. ET (FS Ohio/CSN Washington/CSS)
(7) Illinois at (2) Purdue, 4 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Akron at (B) VCU, 4 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
(13) UTEP at (B) Tulsa, 4 p.m. ET (CBS College Sports)
(B) Virginia at (8) Clemson, 4 p.m. ET (NESN/Sun Sports/FS South/CSN Washington)
(B) Connecticut at Rutgers, 4 p.m. ET (Big East Network/Full Court)
(1) Kentucky at (6) Vanderbilt, 6 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Colorado State at (6) UNLV, 6 p.m. ET (CBS College Sports)
(10) California at Oregon, 6 p.m. ET (CSN California/CSN Northwest/OSN)
(14) College of Charleston at George Mason, 8 p.m. ET (ESPNU)
UCLA at (B) Washington, 9 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Utah at (B) San Diego State, 9 p.m. ET (the mtn.)
(B) Wichita State at (12) Utah State, 11:59 p.m. ET (ESPN2)

Sunday
(5) Ohio State at (3) Michigan State or (1) Villanova at (6) Pittsburgh, 12 p.m. ET (CBS)
(B) Dayton at Duquesne, 1 p.m. ET (ESPN2)
(16) Lehigh at Lafayette, 1 p.m. ET (CBS College Sports)
(B) Northwestern at (2) Wisconsin, 2 p.m. ET (Big Ten Network)
(11) Marquette at (9) Cincinnati, 2 p.m. ET (Big East Network/Full Court)
(B) Arizona State at Arizona, 5:30 p.m. ET (FSN/Comcast SportsNet)
(9) Virginia Tech at (2) Duke, 7:45 p.m. ET (FSN/Comcast SportsNet)

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? E-mail me at bloggingthebracket at gmail dot com or follow me on Twitter @BracketDobber. 

Anthony wrote eloquently a couple weeks back about how he doesn't like to dine out for Valentine's Day. We agree with his sentiments, but we also recognize why most folks do scramble for reservations every February.

This post is for you. We've compiled all the calendar listings for dinner specials this weekend clogging our inbox and put together a BIG HONKIN' guide to dining out on Valentine's Day. Just remember that the day itself falls on a Sunday; you can't use Cupid as an excuse to be late for work Monday.

• ITALIASIA (Holiday Inn Mart Plaza,15th Floor, 350 W. Mart Center Drive, 312-529-1157) has a $25 per person, three-course dinner featuring a salad, entrée and dessert. Menu highlights include: Miso Glazed Duck Breast, Ponzu Infused Halibut and Szechwan Pepper Crusted New York Strip.
• Trader Vic's (1030 N. State St., 312-642-6500) has a three-course, prix-fixe menu option for $80 per couple this Valentine's Day. The Valentine's menu includes individual first and second courses, with options such as California Sushi Rolls and a Papaya Waldorf Salad to start, and Rosemary Mint Filet Mignon, a Seafood Bake or Orange Chicken for the second course. The dessert course is meant to be shared, and features a Dark Chocolate Brownie with Vanilla Ice Cream and Caramel Thyme Drizzle.
• Tavern On Rush (1031 N. Rush St., 312-664-9600) will offer guests a four-course, prix-fixe Chef's Specialty Menu in celebration of Valentine's Day. Diners will have the option to order from the regular menu or purchase the entire prix-fixe menu, which includes soup, salad, an entrée and dessert. Guests can also try specialty items a la carte if they wish to sample a dish from the special Valentine's Day menu in combination with regular menu items.
• Guests at Sushi Taiyo (58 E. Ontario, 312-440-1717) can enjoy a special four-course dinner and a complimentary glass of champagne for $99 per couple.
• Tapas Valencia (1530 S. State St., 312-842-4444) has a $29.95 per person Valentine's Day menu. Guests who make their Valentine's dinner reservations with Tapas Valencia will be entered into a drawing to win a romantic complimentary dinner for two. Winners will be surprised with the complimentary dinner upon arrival to reservation. Reservations must be made a minimum of 24 hours in advance in order to be entered into the drawing. Valid for dinner reservations only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights during Valentine's Day weekend. One drawing per day. A guitarist will provide entertainment on Sunday at Tapas Valencia.
• Stretch Run Sporting Club & Grille (544 N. LaSalle, 312-644-4477) hosts an Anti-Valentine's Day Party Saturday, February 13. All ladies will receive a rose and a chocolate covered strawberry (while supplies last) and are invited to enjoy $17.50 Miller Family Buckets and $4 vodka drinks.
• Dawali Mediterranean Kitchen (4911 N. Kedzie Avenue, 777-267-4200) is offering couples a $50 menu for two, available for dine-in and carry-out. Menu includes a House Soup or Salad for an appetizer, Braised Lamb Shank, Pan-Seared Salmon or Stuffed Cornish Game Hen for an entrée, and Pistachio Crusted Molten Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Raspberry Coulis or the House Dessert option to finish the meal. A fountain drink, Arabic coffee or tea is included.
• Nacional 27 (325 W. Huron St.,312-664-2727) is offering two prix-fixe options for the weekend of love, which will be served on Saturday, February 13 and Sunday, February 14. The first seating, available from 5-7:45 p.m. on both nights, offers three courses (starter, signature tapas platter and choice of main course) for $45 per person. The second option, with seatings from 8-10:30 p.m., features five courses (starter, signature tapas platter, salad, choice of main course and dessert platter), plus a festive cava toast, for $75 per person. Premiere champagnes offered by the glass ($39-$45), bottles of bubbles ($39-$650) and signature cocktails created by bar chef Adam Seger will also help guests fuel the fire. Seger’s concoctions include the Tiki Punch with exotic juices, spices, rum, Spanish gin and two straws ($17); and the Latin Long Island with Bacardi, Cazadores Tequila, Russian Standard Vodka, cachaca and passion fruit ($21). Salsa dancing will start on Saturday at 11 p.m. and Sunday at 9 p.m., so plan on sticking around to make your move to the dance floor. Nacional 27 is open from 5 p.m. until 3 a.m. on Saturday, and the restaurant, which doesn’t usually keep Sunday hours, will be open for Valentine’s Day, Sunday, February 14 from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m.
• Make your lover wine and enjoy a specially prepared gourmet dinner by the Harvest Grill executive chefs of the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile (540 N. Michigan, 773-233-7579)and wine tasting. Each couple will make their own 6-gallon vat of wine (25 to 30 bottles). Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Noir to Cabernet can be made. Wine will be fermented at Bev Art/ Wild Blossom Winery's cellar and monitored by their wine makers. In addition, each couple will blend their own bottle of wine that night and take home to age or consume. A grape stomp for couples with prizes for the best stompers will get the juices flowing. Ten weeks later wine will be ready for bottling. You're invited to come back to the Marriott* for a special bottling session, bottle at BevArt or wine can be bottled for you by BevArt for an additional cost. Price includes wine making experience, dinner and bottling session at Marriott* or Bev Art. Cost per couple $199.00 plus cost of wine juice and supplies. Used clean bottles can be brought in or new bottles can be purchased for $14.95 per case. Cork are 25 cents each. ( *2nd Bottling session at Marriott may require an additional nominal food and beverage charge. There will not be charge for bottling at Bev Art.) For more information, visit here.
• Couples are invited to enjoy a free game of bowling with the presentation of a dinner receipt from any restaurant at 10pin Bowling Lounge (330 N. State St. 312-644-0300)
• Brasserie JO, (59 W. Hubbard, 312-595-0800) invites Chicagoans to celebrate Valentine's Day with a special four course prix-fixe menu created by Chef/Proprietor Jean Joho. Menu will include a choice from three appetizers, three second courses, three mains and three desserts and will cost $49 per person, excluding tax and gratuity. Menu highlights include Foie Gras and Oxtail Terrine as a first course, Cream of Celeriac as a second course, Atlantic Salmon Filet and New York Strip Au Poivre for main course options, and Almond Chocolate Cake for dessert. Full menu available below. Menu items will be available a la carte Friday, February 12 and Saturday February 13, reservations strongly recommended.
• The Voodoo Valentine’s Bash at Jake Melnick’s (41 E. Superior, 312-266-0400) combines two crazy holidays in one - a Valentine’s fete and Mardis Gras bash for a night you won’t soon forget. Jake’s will be decked out in all things voodoo, so expect beads galore, boas and tasty food and drinks as you party the night away with Jake’s. For one night only, enjoy additional food specialties including "My Ex Is Such A Jerk" Wings served on a bed of “bitter” greens, Spicy Broken Artichoke Heart Fondue with grilled pita and Two Timer Baked Potato Skins. Pick your poison with additional drink specials as well, featuring $5 Black Magic Martinis and Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence Stouts. Finally, let Jake’s help you hex your ex! Bring in a picture of an ex-lover to add to the Jake’s voodoo pot and receive a free voodoo doll to take home and torture long after the party ends.
• The three-course couples menu At Athena Greek Restaurant (212 S. Halsted St., 312-655-0000)includes saganaki flaming cheese, a large Greek salad, and an 8 oz. filet mignon and jumbo shrimp skewer combo. The dinner is priced at $59 per couple, plus tax and gratuity.
• Chef Grant Slauterbeck of D.O.C. Wine Bar (2602 North Clark St., 773-883-5101) has created several indulgent menu items especially to treat you and your beloved. During regular restaurant hours (5 p.m.-2 a.m.), D.O.C. Wine Bar will feature entrees such as Butter-poached black tiger shrimp with apple, bacon and cabbage risotto; pan-seared sea scallops with celery root puree and lobster sauternes with vanilla, prime beef duo of tenderloin and braised short rib with root vegetable hash and bordelaise, and flourless chocolate cake with chocolate gelato and raspberry.
• aja (660 N. State St., 312-202-6050) Executive Chef Joshua Linton has crafted a special Valentine’s Day Dim Sum for Two tasting menu, available today through Saturday, February 13 from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. in addition to the regular dinner menu. The Dim Sum for Two menu offers Siu Mai, Spare Ribs, Rangoon, Baos, and Crispy Taro Cakes for $18 per person. Pair the dim sum dishes with the Passion Scorpion Bowl for Two ($22) and end the evening with a Bittersweet Chocolate and Black Cocoa Cake topped with Blood Orange Syrup and Creamy Caramel Ice Cream.
• Epic (112 W. Hubbard St., 312.222.4940) Executive Chef Stephen Wambach and Executive Pastry Chef Christine McCabe have whipped up a romantic four-course menu, available Sunday, February 14 from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. for $65 per person.
• Markethouse (611 N. Fairbanks Ct., 312-224-2200) Chef Scott Walton offers a special five-course Valentine’s Day menu, which includes a glass of wine, for $70 per person on Sunday, February 14 from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
• Mercadito (108 W. Kinzie St., 312-329-9555) Chef Patricio Sandoval heats up Valentine’s Day with a five-course menu, a special aphrodisiac tequila cocktail, the Pocion Numero 9 ($11), and Shot de la Pasion (Blanco Tequila, Cinnamon Syrup and Passion Fruit Purée, $4). Enjoy dinner with your Valentine with a five-course selection of delicious guacamoles, botanas or ceviches, tacos, side dishes and dessert for $50 per person on Sunday, February 14 from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Mercadito’s regular dinner will be available from 10 p.m. until 12 midnight.
• ZED451 (739 N. Clark St., 312-266-6691) offers couples a complimentary Champagne toast in addition to the regular menu on Saturday, February 13 and Sunday February 14 from 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Dinner is $44 per person. Celebrate Valentine’s Day morning with ZED451’s new Sunday brunch, only $24 per person, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Zocalo’s (358 W. Ontario, 312-302-9977) Valentine’s Day tasting menu will be offered Friday, February 12 through Sunday, February 14 during regular restaurant hours. Live music will also help set a sultry mood on Sunday from 6-9 p.m.
• Bar Novo at the Renaissance Chicago (1 W. Wacker Dr., 312-372-7200) is offering delicious bites and festive cocktails. Cozy up with your sweetheart in one of Bar Novo’s intimate booths or communal seating as you enjoy a Valentine’s Day like never before.
• Market (1113 W. Randolph, 312-526-3256) will ahve a special Valentine's Day menu for $65 per person on either Saturday, February 13th or Sunday, February 14th, in addition to its regular menu.
• Geja’s Café (340 W. Armitage, 773-281-9101) has a special Valentine’s Dinner Package, Saturday, February 13 and Sunday, February 14 ($85 - $105 per person; call for seating times and pricing).
• Treat Restaurant (1616 N. Kedzie, 773-772-1201) has a special menu for Valentine's Day with optional wine recommendations provided by Tracy Kellner of Provenence Food and Wine. Please contact Provenance at 773-384-0699 for suggestions and pre-purchase. Provenence will deliver your pre-paid wines to Treat on the day of the event. Treat will chill and have the wines ready at your table when you arrive.
• Chef Didier Durand and Cyrano's Bistrot & Wine Bar (546 N. Wells, 312-467-0546) will celebrate Valentine's Day with its Valentine Affair Menu, Saturday, February 13 & Sunday, February 14, 2010. The cost of this 4-course menu is $59.95 per person (plus tax and gratuity).
• Kendall College (900 N. North Branch, 312-752-2328) will be offering both lunch and dinner to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Lunch is a three course meal that includes a complimentary glass of champagne. It is hosted on Friday, February 12 and costs $50 per couple (excluding tax and tip). Dinner will be offered on Friday the 12th and Saturday the 13th, with reservations beginning at 6:00 pm. The meal is $50 per person and includes a four course limited menu with a complimentary glass of sparkling wine (excludes tax and tip). Parking is free.
• The $60 Sweetheart Special at N9NE (440 W. Randolph, 312-575-9900) is meant to be shared by couple; they may also order a la carte from Executive Chef Michael Shrader’s new winter dinner menu.
• Valentine’s Day at People Lounge (1560 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-227-9339) lets diners choose from aphrodisiac-laden selections such as a poached lobster with blood orange sauce Maltese, seafood croquetas and fennel ($19) and a chocolate tart with chestnut-chocolate chip ice cream and date port reduction ($8). Accompany the meal with a bottle of budget-friendly bubbly; Segura Viudas Cava is featured at $19 per bottle.
• Elate (111 W. Huron, 312-202-9900) has a 3-course dinner for 2 priced at $85.
• Taxim (1558 N. Milwaukee Ave., 773-252-1558) will offer a $45 prix-fixe meal in lieu of the regular menu on Valentine's Day; seating times are 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.. Friday and Saturday will feature special dishes inspired by the island of Cyprus, home to Goddess of Love Aphrodite.
• All weekend long Laurent Gras of L2O is offering The Tree Room to five couples for a communal 12-course menu paired with wines hosted by sommelier Chantelle Pabros for $255 per person. Additionally, there is the option of treating your loved one to Gras’ new “Singular” menu (a 10-course menu where each course highlights one single luxury ingredient, i.e. black truffle, lobster, or kindai toro) in the complete privacy of the Tatami Room; $245 per person; $110 wine pairing. (2300 N Lincoln Park West, 773-868-0002)
• Graham Elliot will be serving a five-course “Sexual Chocolate” menu incorporating chocolate into savory and dessert courses; $96 per person (offered Friday and Saturday in addition to the a la carte menu, and offered solely on Sunday, February 14th). Background music will include the babymaking styles of Barry White and Marvin Gaye! (217 W. Huron, 312-624-9975)
• On Saturday and Sunday one sixtyblue’s Michael McDonald will put out a six-course prix fixe for $75 per person with a $35 wine pairing; the a la carte menu also available. (1400 W. Randolph, 312-850-0303)
• In Fine Spirits (5418 N. Clark St., 773-334-9463) offers a five course pre-fixe dinner to celebrate Valentine's Day. Dinner is $55 with an optional wine pairing for $20.
• Bring your sweetie to cibo matto (201 N. State St., 312-239-9500) over Valentine’s Day weekend (Friday, February 12 through Monday, February 15), and in addition to the regular dinner menu, you’ll have the opportunity to enjoy a special four-course tasting menu for $75.

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MIDDLE EASTERN PEACE TALKS

When the Fiver heard about blanket news coverage of a "sombre-looking" young man "wearing blue jeans and a white hooded top" boarding a plane at Heathrow bound for the Middle East, we assumed another extremist armed with evil intent and explosive underpants had been caught bang to rights. The truth, that Brave John Terry was flying out to Dubai for clear-the-air talks with his angry wife over assorted detonations in his own groin area, left us decidedly underwhelmed.

"[BJT] will not play this weekend," said Chelsea No2 Ray Wilkins in that deadly earnest way of his after Chelsea's defeat at the hands of Everton; a defeat caused in no small part by two mistakes by BJT that certain media outlets have latched upon as proof that the Chelsea captain is finally beginning to crack under The Strain Of Recent Revelations. "He will come back for our game against Wolves on the 20th. They just had a little bit of a chat, [BJT] and Carlo [Ancelotti], and decided that would be the best for all concerned."

With Mr and Mrs BJT set to have "a bit of a chat" behind closed doors with hundreds of paparazzi lenses trained upon them, what's discussed is none of the Fiver's business. But if BJT looked worried boarding the plane flying him to his crisis talks, his face will look like Edvard Munch's The Scream when he disembarks and finds out that Fifa president Sepp Blatter has had his long overdue say on the captain's carnal misadventures.

"Listen, this is a special approach in the Anglo-Saxon countries," said Sepp of hand-wringing at the former England captain's alleged philandering. "If this had happened in, let's say, Latin countries then I think he would have been applauded." Although the last six words of this sentence are ones the Fiver types with a heavy heart, Sepp may well have a point. While it may be an exaggeration to say BJT would have been applauded if "this" had happened in a Latin country, at least Wayne Bridge wouldn't have been upset that "this" had happened in his bed.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"To put the record straight, contrary to some reports, no I did not kick the door in. The door to go into the Bournemouth dressing room opens outwards, so it would be a bit pointless kicking it. I pulled the door open and it was lighter than I thought and it opened with a bang. And there was no damage. The hinges didn't come off. I used that door a couple more times, to go out and in for a warm down and leaving to go on the bus and it was in perfect working order, so where that has come from I have no idea" - the Fiver thinks Notts County keeper Kasper Schmeichel doth protest too much in denying claims he broke a changing-room door at half-time during the defeat at Dean Court on Tuesday.

EVERY LOSER WHINES

Nearly five years after successfully blagging their way into Big Cup by dint of sustained snivelling, Liverpool FC today mounted another campaign against a blatant and despicable injustice that could more accurately be described as a broadly legitimate state of affairs. Leading the Liverpool lobby, and striving valiantly to make himself heard above a specially commissioned mawkish anthem, was captain $tevie Mbe, who explained that what stimulated the latest bout of spurious and self-serving outrage from Anfield was last night's decision by referee Howard Webb not to award Liverpool a last-minute penalty against Arsenal for an offence that didn't take place in the penalty area.

For Mbe, it seems, Webb's failure to award a spot-kick was as inexplicable as the decision by Arsenal's Cesc Fábregas to raise his hand and shield his eyes from the sunshine at 9.57pm on a February night which, coincidentally, was exactly the same time that Mbe's free-kick sped towards the young Spaniard and thus struck him on the arm. Outside the box. "The referee told the Liverpool wall in the first half that if anyone raises their arms above their waist he was going to give a penalty," fumed Mbe, suggesting that Webb had threatened to take an extraordinarily hardline on anyone who appealed for offside. "So for some crazy reason he didn't give it," he added, possibly before declaring that all people who have never hunted on private grounds should be prosecuted for poaching.

"He told me after the game he hadn't seen it. It was unbelievable and I can't believe he didn't see someone raise their hands in the wall," blubbed Mbe. Perhaps Liverpool's shamelessly negative and boring football had lulled the official to sleep?

'WE FIRED OUR AGENT BECAUSE OF IT'

You may remember this Louise-Jamie Redknapp advert from incidents such as that nightmare that made you wake up screaming last night. But it has actually helped boost demand for holidays, according to Thomas Cook chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa, who claimed: "In recent weeks, bookings for the summer 2010 season have improved significantly, marking a positive response to our current marketing campaigns and highlighting the resilience of the summer holiday." Sadly, the Thomas Cook suit doesn't state the destinations that demand has risen for.

Anyhow, next week's campaign: Michelle Marsh and Will Haining advertise city breaks with National Express by going bowling at Croydon Megabowl, dressed in frilly white shirts while Zero 7 plays in the background. Just you wait.

FIVER LETTERS

"So BJT has been given the weekend off, eh? I'll have to remember that one - 'Morning boss, just thought I'd give you a call to say I won't be in for a couple of days. The reason? Well … no, it's not the flu. A bad cold you say? No, no it's not a bad cold. Food poisoning? Not really, no. What is it then? Well ...' BJT a role model? Damn straight" - Marten Allen.

"Re: Monday's Fiver stating that 'Arsenal play Liverpool at home on Wednesday, where a win will leave them a mere six points off the top of the table if Chelsea lose against Everton, Manchester United don't beat Aston Villa and a great mover of the universe renews time, rain, blood, thirst, famine, steel weapons and disease.' Something feels a bit different today ..." - Jason Friend (and 1,056 others).

"Re: John Kendle being dumped for reading tea-time emails to his girlfriend (yesterday's Fiver letters). That must be the first time this has happened. Not least because no other Fiver reader has ever had a girlfriend (cue barrage of emails claiming that online girlfriends count)" - Rich Newnham.

"Can we safely assume that Gregory Mitchell QC (yesterday's Fiver) wound up his case against Pompey by lapsing into c0ckney and crying 'aw no, my wife's gonna kill me!'?" - Jamie Fake.

"Re: Carlisle stewards and police handling Nasty Leeds players 'in textbook fashion' (yesterday's bits and bobs). The only thing they forgot to mention was that this was a 'Nasty Leeds' textbook from the 70s and 80s, and appended in 2007. What comes around, etc" - Craig Hills.

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you've nothing better to do you can also Tweet the Fiver now.

BITS AND BOBS

Ryan Giggs will miss the Big Cup tie with Milan and the Carling Cup final after suffering arm knack at Aston Villa.

Villa, meanwhile, have given notice of their intent for the aforementioned Wembley date with this song, recorded in somebody's bedroom by the lady who got to the semis of the 2007 X Factor.

Having finished whinging about that penalty shout, $tevie Mbe today came face to face with his new Madame Tussauds model. "You have missed a few spots haven't you?" chuckled Mbe, as a nearby waxwork DJ refused to play any Phil Collins.

The pre-Christmas handbags between Arsenal and Hull have resulted in fines of £40,000 for the Tigers and £20,000 for the never-diminishing Arsène Wenger superstar striker transfer kitty.

Bayern Munich coach Louis van Gaal fears a stomach bug could ruin his team's Bundesliga title push. "We have a virus in the dressing room," he parped. "Many players are already ill and we expect more to fall ill in the coming weeks."

Stephen Ireland has blamed former Man City manager Ailsa from Home and Away for his dip in form earlier this season. "If you want the best out of me you have to play me in my best position," declared Ireland, as Roberto Mancini doodled a stick man sitting on the bench. "Then I can be myself because the chains are off."

News that Darren Bent's Twitter page is down has sparked wild speculation on Wearside today that the Sunderland striker may have left the social networking site. Again.

And Falkirk have shown scant regard for the Fiver and are planning a 5pm press conference to confirm the appointment of Steven Pressley as manager in place of Eddie May.

STILL WANT MORE?

In-depth analysis? TICK! Obscure eastern European footballers? TICK! Gratuitous mentions of the Kyivan cybernetics boom? TICK! TICK! TICK! It can only be Jonathan Wilson tackling the Question. This week: are teams getting better at playing with 10 men?

An Umbro lackey foolishly gets into an argument with Marina Hyde – a page 10 stunnah so intelligent she even knows the answers to the green questions in Trivial Pursuit – as she lays into Kasabian's unveiling of the new England away kit.

The wisdom of Clough, fainting pundits and an 80-yard screamer all feature in this week's YouTube round-up.

Before various meeja analysts declare Arsenal's title challenge over again in a couple of weeks' time, Richard Williams asks if their victory over Liverpool has reignited their push for the Premier League.

And Amy Lawrence pays tribute to the Barcelona production line's newest superstar, Pedro.

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OFF TO THE STAFFORD FAREWELL

“OMG!” I thought. There, on the website of the Gray Lady — a moniker attached to The New York Times for its past penchant for words over photographs — was a headline I never expected to see:

“Snowboard Videos: Send Us Your Tricks”

“How dare The Times stoop to such pandering to an unseemly demographic,” I harrumphed. Snowboard tricks? In The Times? How could my principal source of serious news by serious people about serious issues and events sink to pandering to the fans of fakie? This is unthinkable.

Beginning Feb. 12, The Times will open a website to host these videos. But why on earth (or snow) would The Times want snowboard videos? I mean, gee whiz, this could amount to amateur night among the heathens. The Times does things right — you know, professionally done photography, video, graphics and other illustrations. What gives with wanting videos likely to be of goofy-footers eatin’ snow?

The Times needs money. That’s what gives.

Two and a half years ago, The Times had neared what some wags termed financial collapse. According to analyst Henry Blodget, in the short term The Times owed almost a half billion dollars more than it had in assets. A few months later, The Times decided to borrow $225 million against its interest in its brand-new headquarters. Those were tough “times.”

Today The Times reported that its fourth-quarter earnings more than tripled over a year ago. That does not mean, however, that New York Times Co., which owns its namesake paper, The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and 15 other daily newspapers, is making fat profits.

During that fourth quarter, The Times cut 8 percent of its newsroom staff. That, of course, saved money. Its advertising revenue saw its smallest decline — 14.7 percent — in a year, but that’s still a decline. According to the AP story: “Overall revenue fell 11.5 percent to $681 million, better than the $653 million expected by analysts.” But revenue — despite whacking personnel, a slightly improving economy and lower pension costs — continues to decline despite gains in online ad revenue. The Times continues to falter financially.

The Times over the past decade has removed so much talent from its newsroom, as have so many other American newspapers. It’s added responsibilities to those who remain — getting content on the website as well as managing content for mobile devices, for example.

These days, I read The Times mostly on my Blackberry. (And boy, does that surprise me.) But online and on mobile, each day I see evidence of erosion of the quality of The Times — editing errors, writing errors, failure to follow up on points made by sources, over-reliance on “official” sources, and so forth.

I love The Times. I have read it my entire life. Despite its increasing flaws, I still regard it as the best daily newspaper in America. But The Times no longer loves me. At 64 years old, I am no longer the demographic it desires to sell to advertisers. It you’ve seen The Times‘ television ads for its “weekender” subscription, it should be clear that the demographic The Times wants is far younger, with perhaps more disposable income, than me. (Fun link: See the parody ad.)

I keep waiting for the online edition of The Times to ask for videos of lawn bowling and shuffleboard, but I guess I’ll just have to keep dreaming.

Now, let’s go look at those shredder vids, eh, kids?

Dennis' Pick of the Week
Galactic: Ya-Ka-May (Anti)
These sons of New Orleans have done their city proud by honoring Armstrong, Prof. Longhair, and other innovators by crafting a resolutely modern collection that also successfully incorporates ancestral elements. Less hip-hop oriented than its predecessor, 2007's From the Corner to the Block, this announces with authority that music continues to evolve in the Big Easy, absorbing the crispness and edge prevalent on today's charts and folding it into the city's irresistible tub-thumping, primal swing. Ya-Ka-May (arriving February 9) differentiates itself from most other modern soul/funk by retaining a human feel, often felt in the crackling rawness of guest vocalists like Allen Toussaint, Big Chief Bo Dollis and Irma Thomas and big band largess of drum stud Stanton Moore. In these settings, the old hands school today's chart toppers and Galactic themselves reveal what a sham the bloodless, Pro-Tools, Auto-Tuned mainstream really is. Bangers like "Liquor Pang," "Dark Water" and "Double It" are ripe to go toe-to-toe with anything Timbaland or Lil' Wayne serve up, except these sweat and grunt in a way that sidesteps the factory produced sterility of most mass consumption singles. One longs to see this entire assemblage tour as a massive revue that would showcase the interlocking nature of New Orleans music throughout several generations. Ya-Ka-May is a juggernaut of fat grooves and slinky sensibilities that announces that New Orleans is alive and well, at least when Galactic is the custodian of its traditions. (Dennis Cook)

Ron's Pick of the Week
Peter Gabriel: Scratch My Back (EMI)
If there is anything to be learned about Peter Gabriel in the 40-plus years he has been in the pop eye, it's the fact that he is definitely one advanced-minded Englishman. Whether it be pushing the boundaries of rock 'n' roll theatre as the Fox-headed, flute playing frontman of Genesis, with his music videos in the 1980s as a solo act, or the art of the film score with his stunning soundtracks to such critically acclaimed films as The Last Temptation of Christ and Rabbit Proof Fence over the last 20 years, the man hasn't seen a glass ceiling he didn't want to throw a bowling ball through. So, leave it up to PG to reinvent the concept of the covers album as well, which is exactly what he's done with the haunting Scratch My Back (arriving February 16 in the U.K. and March 2 in the U.S.), his first proper solo album since 2002's Up. With nothing more than a piano and a string section, Gabriel handpicks a dozen songs - six from like-minded contemporaries David Bowie, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Lou Reed, Randy Newman and David Byrne, and six from some of the newer acts he admires like Radiohead, Bon Iver, Elbow, Regina Spektor, The Magnetic Fields and Arcade Fire - and by the power of his unmistakable rasp, makes every one of them entirely his own. Most of his choices fit swimmingly with the stripped down format, most notably Bon Iver's haunting "Flume," Young's "Philadelphia," Reed's "The Power of the Heart" and surprisingly, "Listening Wind," a deep cut from Talking Heads' Remain In Light. But it's his take on Simon's Graceland hit "The Boy in the Bubble," substituting the song's quasi-Zydeco buoyancy with a downright somber arrangement that really brings out the paranoia in the song's Orwellian message that seems more fitting now than it did in 1987. Following Scratch My Back is I'll Scratch Yours, where the artists featured here have their way with the Peter Gabriel catalog. Thom Yorke is allegedly already on board and planning to record "Wallflower" from Gabriel's 1982 album Security. And one could only hope Randy Newman comes through with a full-on Basin Street run through "Sledgehammer." (Ron Hart)

Salvador Santana: Keyboard City (Quannum)
The label that brought us Blackalicious, Lyrics Born and other bright lights in today's funk/hip-hop scene scores again with Santana's solo debut, a swirling analog hot tub of muddled Latinismo (a la War), lilting disco, '70s Herbie Hancock-isms, the brighter side of Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson and video game bloops. Nuggets like "Don't Even Care" and "This Day (Belongs To You)" are sonic sunshine and ooh, don't it feel good. Helped out by Money Mark, Gza and Del the Funky Homosapien, Keyboard City (released February 2) is a lovingly stirred concoction that goes down as sweetly as home brewed lemonade on a thermometer poppin' afternoon. (DC)

King Crimson: Lizard: 40th Anniversary Edition (Panegyric/Discipline Global Mobile)
The 40th anniversary remaster campaign of British progressive rock titans King Crimson, helmed with great detail by group founder and resident guitar genius Robert Fripp and self-anointed uber-fan Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, with the deluxe edition of Crimson's third and most challenging album, Lizard (released January 12). In his scholarly liner notes, Fripp derides his group's 1970 work as "unsatisfactory" and "joyless". But thanks to the skillful care of Wilson's loving revamp, which features bonus material and a DVD-A containing the album in lossless 5.1 surround sound stereo, he renewed the doubtful author's faith in its unprecedented fusion of classical, free jazz and experimental rock. And if you never quite took to the most misunderstood monster of the King Crimson canon like you did with, say Red or Discipline, allow this definitive version to school you on the brilliance of this legendary band's transitional classic. (RH)

The Wishing Tree: Ostara (Eagle)
"It's time for eyes to open now/ It's time to raise the dead." Uttered by the honeyed, effervescent voice of Hannah Stobart and given further lift by Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery (who also produced and engineered), these lines are indicative of the big ideas and striking beauty of this prog-pop outing, which begs comparisons to All About Eve, Jane Siberry and frothier Peter Gabriel. Unabashedly romantic and sweetly melodic, Ostara resonates with Rothery's Fish-era Marillion work infused with female energies. A fine, lovingly sculpted second outing by this pair (released January 19). (DC)

Pierced Arrows: Descending Shadows (VICE)
Garage punk fans the world over were rightfully shocked when Fred and Toody Cole unexpectedly put their longtime group Dead Moon out to pasture in 2006, just six months after the release of Sub Pop's stellar two-disc anthology, Echoes of the Past (JamBase review) chronicling the Oregon mainstays' two-decade-strong run. But as quick as they were to shoot the Moon, they returned just as quickly in the form of Pierced Arrows, whose only significant change was the replacement of longtime drummer Andrew Loomis with Portland punker Kelly Hallliburton, whose father played with Fred in the '60s. Descending Shadows (released February 2) is the Coles' second album under the new moniker, and finds them as visceral in their AARP years as they were when they first started rattling cages in the Pacific Northwest 20-odd years ago. (RH)

Big Smith: Roots, Shoots & Wings (Mayapple)
It'd be very easy for a group with song titles like "Toted A Load" and "My Overalls (Don't Fit Me Anymore)" to be jokey, just another tongue-in-cheek country act like Nashville pumps out with alarming regularity. Happily, Big Smith is rootsy as hell and slathered in hot jazz technique, pinches of dissonance, an earthy vocal mix that's part bluegrass & part The Band, and a good sense of bittersweet humor. If anything, they remind one of early killer Jimmy Buffett and the '70s Outlaw Country gang, right down to Willy's penchant for swing. Damn fine band, sweet lil' album (arriving February 9). (DC)

Black Cobra: Chronomega (Southern Lord)
Though only two players deep, San Francisco's Black Cobra play their unique brand of sludgy punk-metal with the precision and fury of the four-to-five man Bay Area thrash bands that preceded them 25 years ago. Their fourth album and Southern Lord debut shows ex-Cavity guitarist/vocalist Jason Landrian and one-time Acid King drummer Rafael Martinez can throw down their trademark Death Angel-cum-Melvins style riff attacks. Chronomega also shows how well these guys can space out a la Sunn 0))) and Earth as well. (RH)

Field Music: (Measure) (Memphis Industries)
Following a short three-year break that saw the Brothers Brewis record a pair of respective solo albums that barely held up to their work as a group, Field Music makes a momentous return to the world stage in 2010 with a magnificent double LP that explores the darker edges of the English duo's Steely Dan-gone-indie-rock sound. (Measure) (arriving February 16) finds the Brewis boys challenging themselves by adding prog-jazz phrasing, rhythm-defying time signatures and embellishments of guitar fuzz to their effortless harmonies, all married perfectly across this 20 song thread about the human condition. Few newer bands could pull off a double album with such panache, and Field Music stay in line with the age-old tradition of making theirs a masterpiece. (RH)

Lionel Loueke: Mwaliko (Blue Note)
Following up on his 2007 star-making Herbie Hancock-produced debut Karibu, West African guitar lion Lionel Loueke pays homage to his motherland on his second Blue Note offering. Here, Loueke tests his dazzling fusion of playing, rooted in the fretwork rulebooks of Jim Hall and King Sunny Ade, against a series of intimate duets with the likes of vocalist Angelique Kidjo (who hails from the guitarist's home nation of Benin), singer/bassists Esperanza Spalding and Richard Bona, as well as promising young jazz drummer Marcus Gilmore, the grandson of the immortal Roy Haynes. However, Mwaliko's true gems are three new tracks featuring his longtime trio rounded out by Massimo Biolcati and drummer Ferenc Nemeth, whose seamless interplay is unmatched in 21st century jazz. (RH)

Various Artists: Psych Bites: Australian Acid Freak Rock -1967-1974 (Vol. 1) (Past & Present)
If there is anything we learned from AC/DC, The Birthday Party and Lubricated Goat, it's that the Australian continent shows no fear in displaying its collective ability to get loud. So it should come to no surprise that Oz's surprisingly little-known late '60s/early '70s psychedelic rock scene was equally as brain melting. Compiled by master freak rock archivist Psychomania for Bevis Frond frontman Nick Salomon's Past & Present imprint, Psych Bites (released February 2) compiles 20 super heavy, mega-rare artifacts from Australia and New Zealand's second and third wave freak rock movements, a true collector's bin of bands you've probably never heard of but should like Pirana, Long Grass, Flake, Chook, Freshwater and The Dave Miller Set, to name a few. Dig it! (RH)

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Every Saturday at noon, Historicist looks back at the events, places, and characters—good and bad—that have shaped Toronto into the city we know today.

Sketch of David Breakenridge Read. The Toronto World, May 12, 1904.

Of the possible futures for those in the current race to succeed David Miller as mayor of Toronto, there is one distinction that the victor will not likely achieve unless death or scandal strike immediately: the shortest term in office. Those vying for that title have generally been caretakers brought in to fill out a term, as happened when Fred Beavis filled in for Mayor David Crombie in 1978 when the latter ran for federal office. The winner of the short-term sweepstakes is David Breakenridge Read, who owed his fifty-day tour of duty to a police scandal. Make any jokes you want, but, as a study of the city’s early high officials noted, it would “be an injustice to Read to belittle his talents, abilities, and accomplishments because of his being somewhat a cipher as Mayor.”

Toronto City Hall, 1868. Wikimedia Commons.

Read was born on June 13, 1823, in Augusta, Upper Canada of United Empire Loyalist stock. He moved to Toronto in his early teens to study at Upper Canada College, which is where he happened to be when the Rebellion of 1837 broke out. Read later liked to tell friends of his attempt to aid the government forces against William Lyon Mackenzie’s rascals. According to Read’s obituary in the Globe, when the future mayor and several of his classmates offered their assistance to Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis Bond Head, they received a pat on the head and were told they weren’t needed. This experience might have coloured the pro-government bias he displayed when he wrote The Canadian Rebellion of 1837 sixty years later. Following his time at UCC, Read studied law and was called to the bar in 1845. He rose steadily in his profession, his law career culminating in appointments as a bencher of the law society in 1855 and a Queen’s counsel in 1858.

It was bungling of the law that led to Read’s assumption of office. Until the late 1850s, city council was responsible for appointing police officers, which led to constables who gained their position through political connections rather than ability. Samuel Sherwood, who served as chief of police from 1852 to 1859, epitomized the downfalls of this approach. A tavern owner, Sherwood’s family had close ties with the conservative “Family Compact” that reigned in the city and province—his brother Henry had served as Toronto’s mayor for a spell in the 1840s. As described by Conyngham Crawford Taylor in Toronto Called Back From 1892 to 1847, Sherwood was “a quiet, good-natured man, who did not insist on any strict regulations as to the dress or discipline of the men. They wore a uniform, but without uniformity, except in one respect—they were universally slovenly.” This sloppiness translated into inept handling of high-profile incidents, especially during several riots in the 1840s and 1850s—most of the force were members of the Orange Lodge and didn’t mind assisting fellow Orangemen in beating up anyone in a melee who didn’t belong. Favours to friends were the norm, which sometimes meant overlooking small details like participation in a bank theft.

When Sherwood let a prime suspect in the robbery of the Bank of Upper Canada go free without question in October 1858, Mayor William Henry Boulton blew his top. An inquiry was called, with which Sherwood did not fully cooperate. When the police commissioners filed a report that let Sherwood off lightly, Boulton noted his dissent and planned to have the matter discussed further at city council. Sherwood sent a letter to local newspapers, printed on October 27, in which he claimed he was unable to provide evidence and tarred Boulton for taking a “star chamber” approach to decision making. This infuriated Boulton, whose rebuttal was published the following day. Boulton proposed to council that Sherwood and the deputy chief of police should be suspended or dismissed. One of the seediest objections to Boulton’s call came from Councilman James Smith, who urged Sherwood to resign so that the police chief could still receive another government job that was promised to him. Subsequent council meetings broke down into accusations over who said what in the affair. When the matter came to a vote, council voted fourteen to ten in favour of Sherwood. Disgusted and humiliated by what he saw as a miscarriage of justice, Boulton handed in his official resignation on November 8, though he remained a candidate for high office in the upcoming municipal election, which would be the first where the general public would directly elect the mayor. As for Sherwood, provincial legislation mandated that cities were required to establish independent police boards by 1859, which soon led to the dismissal of Sherwood and his entire force in favour of better trained, better disciplined officers.

David Breakenridge Read. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1267, Series 1397, Item 91.

When council met on November 11 to nominate a fill-in for the rest of Boulton’s term, Councilman William Ramsay urged Boulton to take back his resignation; the former mayor refused. Read’s name was put forward and approved by a vote of fourteen to eleven. Read had missed most of the battle, having skipped council meetings due to other pressing matters. He had only served one term as an alderman for St. Patrick Ward (whose boundaries were present-day Queen, Bathurst, Bloor, and University) and had decided not to return for another go-round, which probably made him an ideal candidate. Read hoped that he could restore harmony to council, work for the public good, and, as the Leader noted, “maintain the dignity of the chair.”

Since Read was a caretaker, little of consequence was decided during his brief term. Among the items published in newspaper summaries of council business were debates on home drainage systems, the acceptance of a petition to build a sidewalk on Jarvis Street, intense discussions on whether to sell land earmarked for an industrial farm to be located next to the new jail on the east side of the Don River, the necessity of buying new capes and shoes for the police, and the receipt of a “fine map” of Troy, New York.

After his term ended, Read carried on in the legal profession until his retirement in 1881. His attention drifted towards writing, especially sketches of early judges in Upper Canada, records of whom were on the verge of disappearing forever. The subjects of the five historical tomes he wrote between 1888 and 1900 included Sir John Graves Simcoe, Sir Isaac Brock, and the lieutenant-governors of Ontario. Read also stayed busy as a warden of St. Matthias’s Church, a member of several historical societies and the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, an active alumni member of UCC, a devoted supporter of the Conservative party, and the honourary president of the Caer Howell Bowling Club. Friends found him a warm, witty companion—an editorial in the Globe upon his death noted “he had a fund of anecdotes of the stirring period in his early manhood which served to enliven his conversation when he was in a reminiscent mood. All trace of partisan aggressiveness passed away from him long ago, and during his later years some of his most intimate friends were his former opponents.”

Read’s activities were curtailed after a stroke in November 1902 left him bedridden. He died surrounded by family on May 11, 1904, at his home on Breadalbane Street (a site now occupied by the Metro Central YMCA) and was buried in St. James Cemetery.

Additional material from Mayors of Toronto Volume 1 1834-1899 by Victor L. Russell (Erin: The Boston Mills Press, 1982); Toronto Called Back From 1892 to 1847 by Conyngham Crawford Taylor (Toronto: William Briggs, 1892); the May 12, 1904, edition of the Globe; the October 26, 1858, October 28, 1858, November 9, 1858, November 12, 1858, November 23, 1858, and December 31, 1858 editions of the Leader; and the October 23, 1982, edition of the Toronto Star.

Image by Superhua used with Creative Commons license

Now Pizzeria Posto is set to open at 187 Elm next month, offering wood-fired pizza and wine. But Sacco's Bowl Haven has been closed for renovations, planning to open in May with wood-fired pizza from Amesbury-founded Flatbread. Will Posto's winebar ambitions be shut down by (presumably) cheaper pizza half a mile up the road? Or is the wine-and-dine crowd distinct enough from the bowl-and-beer crowd to keep two wood-fired pizzerias in business?

Posto will open for real before the new "Flatbread Company at Sacco's Bowl Haven" officially debuts, but Sacco's will be open starting tomorrow for "bowling during construction," giving the already-established venue a bit of a jump on its high-class competitor. Both places appear to have liquor licenses (or at least wine/beer), so you'll be able to get sassy regardless of where you go.

Which place would you pick, or would you frequent each at different times?

PUBLICITY PHOTO

Then again, if they're going to remake every stupid horror movie from the 1980s, why shouldn't they remake a good musical drama?

Crazy Heart is not a remake, though. The screenplay by producer-director Scott Cooper is based on a novel by Thomas Cobb and just coincidentally revolves around an entertainer who's hit bottom but is redeemed by the love of a younger woman with a son.

Everyone, from Jeff Bridges' lead performance to the songs by T Bone Burnett and others, including the late Stephen Bruton, is good, but not as good as their counterparts in Tender Mercies. That film's star, Robert Duvall, plays a supporting role here.

Bridges, looking a lot like Kris Kristofferson, is technically amazing, underplaying endless variations of drinking, smoking, getting drunk, throwing up, falling down and passing out, and going on stage to perform in various stages of non-sobriety. His character, Bad Blake is 57. He was big enough, long enough that he can still get away with murder, but he's reduced to performing in saloons and bowling alleys.

A sore point is that Bad taught the current Nashville sensation, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), everything he knows; and now the best gig Bad can get, when he can get it, is opening for Tommy in a major venue. Tommy begs Bad to write some new songs for him, but Bad resists, even though he needs the easy money.

In Santa Fe a piano player asks Bad if he'll sit down for an interview with his niece, Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a young journalist. Soon he's spending all the time he can with Jean and her four-year-old son, Buddy. She goes into the relationship with her eyes open, asking only that Bad not drink in front of the boy.

Neither love nor a doctor's warning that he's killing himself can slow the man's self-destructiveness as he goes from Bad to worse, until a climactic event serves as a wake-up call.

Crazy Heart lopes along like a country ballad. Bad is generally likable-- as long as he's on screen, not sitting next to you. Sometimes you can laugh at him, sometimes you feel sorry for him, and sometimes you get disgusted with him, thinking he was named for his behavior.

Bridges has left George Clooney in his dust in the race for the Best Actor Oscar, winning the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards, among others. There are performances I would rather have seen him honored for, but he's long overdue and I don't begrudge him the recognition.

The new songs are mostly "rode hard and hung up wet" ballads that probably could be hits if the right artist recorded them, but you're unlikely to remember any but the oft-repeated "The Weary Kind" when the movie's over.

Crazy Heart, too, is not likely to leave a lasting impression, although it passes the time agreeably enough while you're watching it.

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(Courtesy Mini/myBudgetTravel)

Tour Chinatown’s bakeries Start the Chinese New Year (Feb. 14 this year) out right by visiting two Chinatown bakeries that still make fortune cookies the old-fashioned way: by hand. Stop by Mee Mee Bakery or the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, located in Chinatown's oldest alley, to watch a free demo. While you're there, pick up a bag of fortune cookies—a perfect souvenir to share (or not). Reservations not needed. Mee Mee Bakery, 1328 Stockton Street, 415/362-3204. $3 for a bag of cookies, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, 56 Ross Alley, 415/781-3956, $1 for a bag of cookies, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. everyday.

See Kermit Lynch at Omnivore Books On Feb. 20, the famed Berkeley wine importer Kermit Lynch, whose wine business earned him France's highest national decoration—the Legion d'honneur—will be hosting a free wine tasting and reading. Sample the latest vino discoveries while Lynch reads from two of his books, Adventures on the Wine Route and Inspiring Thirst. The event is being held at Omnivore, Noe Valley's book store dedicated to all things food, where the collection of vintage cookbooks (including the first-edition signed copy of Chez Paniesse Desserts) is worth a browse in itself. The hour-long event begins at 5 p.m., 3885 Cesar Chavez Street, omnivorebooks.com, 415/282-4712

San Francisco IndieFest's Big Lebowski Party at CellSpace The annual film festival launches Feb. 4 and features award-winning independent films like Wah Do Dem (with Norah Jones) and Harmony and Me. Each film is $10. Be sure to buy tickets in advance, since this festival, which has premiered big films in the past from indie favorites like David Lynch and Gus Van Sant, draws crowds. Additionally, The Big Lebowski Party on Feb. 12 is always a highlight, complete with white Russians, mini-bowling, a trampoline, and a costume contest (expect plenty of bathrobe-clad Dudes) held at the arts co-operative CellSpace. Save 5 bucks if you show up in costume. Film Festival February 4th-18th, at a variety of locations. $10 tickets. Big Lebowski Party starts at 9 p.m., 2050 Bryant Street, 415/648-7562, $10 ($5 in costume); free with Indie Film fest ticket stub.

$3 Moonlight Martinis at the Cliff House Sutro’s bar at the Cliff House has floor-to-ceiling windows directly overlooking the Pacific ocean, the famous Seal Rocks, and the Sutro Bath ruins, making it a perennial favorite among visitors and locals alike. It’s the perfect spot to end up after an afternoon hiking the rocky shoreline at the Presidio’s Land’s End or visiting the Camera Obscura. Try visiting on a weeknight (Sunday through Thursday) to get the most bang for your buck—$3 Skyy and Tanquery martinis (usually $8) mean you can still afford a cab ride back. 1090 Point Lobos, 415/386-3330, 6- 10 p.m.

$5 stand-up at the Clubhouse Clubhouse, a downtown underground Comedy Club, features some of the best up-and-coming local stars, like Ali Mafi and Nico Santos. Normally, these comedians perform at high-priced clubs like Cobb’s or the Punch Line—but at Clubhouse, see them for a fraction of the price. The BYOB policy creates a no-holds-barred atmosphere where comics can test new material and crack jokes too off-color for the mainstream. 414 Mason St., 415-921-2051, Tuesdays through Sundays, tickets start at $5.

Just back from San Francisco? Going there soon? Leave your recommendations, comments, and questions on our city page.

For the amount of adulation and respect great sportsmen, indeed great men in general, are reported to receive, it is fairly amusing to watch the current crop of human race trying to bring down everything great about the modern world.

Maybe it is the global warming, or the ever increasing carbon foot print, but whatever it may be, the general consensus is that the successful are to be loathed and their image be torn down as quickly and swiftly as possible.

Or is it really a global consensus, or just a bunch of disgruntled “ journalists” trying to earn a name for themselves?

In Britain, a critique of Manchester United, easily the most successful club in the region over the past two decades is never too often heard. And the man who took them up there, is probably the most hated in the press. If someone has been bad to another, it is human nature to avoid, or stop talking, to the evil-doer.

Yet Ferguson is vilified for not wanting to interact with big media houses such as BBC and more recently Sky Sports. Why?” He has a duty towards his fans,” one hears them screaming. The screamers though, aren’t even close to being fans. Alas, they are the vultures who love seeing someone struggle in agony than enjoy in victory. They are in short failures in life.

Ferguson doesn’t need huge media houses to send his message to half the planet, which is indeed the size of the followers of Man United. He has at his “office” 75,000 visitors every match day, and a few million every month flock to United’s official website for the man’s thoughts. For a person so sought after, not wanting to see two media houses out of the plathora that exist is hardly an embargo upon the fans.

If there can be one parallel in sport to Ferguson, it could only be someone who is equally revered by a billion or so, yet hated by the few who either never made it (quo Moin Khan) or simply never tried. Yes, he is easily the most successful cricketer in the history of the sport.

He may not have been a part of an all conquering team, but he has certainly enjoyed every form of success barring a World Cup. He has been the name that has brought wealth to cricket. The Indian Premier League is nothing but a footnote on the books where entire columns of debit have been entered in front of his name.

The only cricketer to be so globally revered, acknowledged, and indeed appreciated, as the only of his sport who is allowed to mix it in the big money league of footballers, tennis stars and other global ambassadors to sport, it could hardly be a case of mistaken identity?

Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne arguably hailed from far superior sporting countries, already home to big sporting names in tennis and football. Brian Lara, with his proximity to the United States and penchant for doing audaciously well against England, and with the added bonus of being a natural English speaker, had far greater opportunities to establish himself as the face of his sport in the global arena.

Yet it was Sachin Tendulkar, an eerie name from an eerie corner of the planet, that the globe decided should bear the responsibility of bearing cricket’s baton. When Nike and Adidas fight it out over him in courts, you know what is at stake.

So are all these people fools? If Tendulkar was not the best at what he does, he wouldn’t appeal to them. Maria  Sharapova can sign a 45 million euro deal and still languish at 14th place on the ATP rankings, but then Tendulkar is hardly blessed with supermodel looks.

David Beckham, often ostracised for his public image as a chocolate boy, and not necessarily a good footballer, is today reiterating why he was once the first choice right midfield pick for Sir Alex. Mixing it with the likes of Ronaldinho, Pato, and Pirlo, Beckham’s image is getting repainted from poster boy, to comeback man, finally, the world is talking about Beckham because of his football, and not his Armani underwear.

Alas, we have deviated from the point. How does it matter that Tendulkar has never been spoken about for anything apart from his exploits on the field? Even while Lara, Ponting, and Warne embroiled themselves in controversy after controversy, with not even half of Tendulkar’s media glare on them, Tendulkar remained saint like. That in itself sets him apart from his peers. Of course, these things matter little when the task at hand is to degrade his status as a “batting god.”

The tactless “ writers ” need to fall at the feet of Cricinfo’s Statsguru, and criticise Tendulkar for scoring against Bangladesh.

Imagine Wayne Rooney getting slagged for scoring against Angola! While he would be justly vilified for failing to score against a weak footballing nation, you would never hear a criticism of him for actually doing his job.

If instead the afore mentioned genius had looked at more conclusive statistics, Tendulkar’s superiority would be crystal clear.

So let this writer do the needful and recap a story that for most is etched in memory.

Australia
That Tendulkar has treated Australians, the way Australians treat the rest of the cricketing world is enough to put directly at the head of all batsmen of his era. Lara averages a disappointing 42 in Australia is no coincidence. It’s a fate that has befallen almost all batsmen to travel down under. Except one of course.

In 58 innings against Australia, Lara has managed a very impressive 2856 runs, the most by any batsman since Tendulkar’s debut in ‘89. But Tendulkar out does him with 2748 in just three fewer innings.

Yet it is when the real test, playing in their most favoured home conditions, begins, that Tendulkar really turns it on. Tendulkar’s 1522 runs, easily the most by any batsman on Australian turf in the past two decades, not only out-do Lara’s 1469, they have taken the Master five fewer innings to achieve.

If there is any greater test of batsmanship than doing well against the best at their strongest, this writer has yet to witness it. Tendulkar has not only done well, he has literally had Australia on it’s knees. Averaging 58.53, when the next highest run getter, Lara, has averaged 41.97, a whooping 16.56 runs fewer per inning, it’s safe to say there are no exaggerations when proclaiming Tendulkar as a batting marvel, and the best Test batsman of his generation.

Best of the Rest
So if a batsman does so well against the best, it is assumed that the worst wouldn’t  be able to do much to stop him. Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that Tendulkar has piled on runs against the so called minnows. While Bangladesh and Zimbabwe have languished at the bottom of the Test ranking system, it is safe to say that West Indies and New Zealand have hardly fared better.

West Indies bowling never really recovered its sheen of the ‘80s, and New Zealand, though effective on their own turf, have never really had bowlers capable of picking twenty wickets in a Test match in the past two decades.

If not for leaders like Stephen Flemmins and gritty and disciplined bowlers like Vettori, New Zealand cricket may well have been below Bangladesh on the ICC table. Credit to Lara for fighting to keep West Indies a respectable team, but when it came to batting against the above four, it has been a cake walk, not only for Tendulkar, but also for every other batsman to have played them.

So it makes sense to reason, that if all runs scored against these teams are to be omitted we will get a clear picture of who the real quality batsman are.

As expected Lara, Tedulkar and Ponting cover the top three, and while Lara runs away as the leader of the pack, it is upon closer observation that Tendulkar’s real value comes to the fore. At home Lara and Ponting have been tigers, pouncing on opposition faster than you can say “hundred,” but away from home, neither average 50.

Tendulkar, scoring 4,907, just 201 fewer than Lara in five fewer innings, has more hundreds, and runs per innings than either Lara or Ponting. It really says something about the calibre of the cricketer.

It’s not surprising that Ponting and Lara struggle so much away from home. In Test cricket, where conditions vary so vastly from country to country, batting well away from home isn’t an easy task. In fact, for most, an average of over 40 is indeed a very impressive return from tours away from home. But Tendulkar is not “most batsmen.”

Tendulkar is Tendulkar, and he sets his own benchmark. An average of 53.33, five more than Lara and an astounding 12 more than Ponting, is indicative of the class and calibre of a cricketer who has absolutely no qualms about batting at London or Sydney or Colombo. Tendulkar treats each with equal disdain. Because Tendulkar is the best.

So Tendulkar thwarts Lara and Ponting irrespective of the opposition. Where does the debate lie next time there are calls for Tendulkar’s head? One can only imagine.

After guns and the Iraq war, Michael Moore is now taking on an entire political and economic system in his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. So what message does the man who once planned to become a priest have?

Michael Moore has been accused of many things. Mendacity. Manipulation. Rampant egotism. Bullying a frail old man with Alzheimer's. And that is by people who generally agree with his views. His latest film Capitalism: A Love Story is already out in the US when we meet. He comes storming down the hotel corridor, predictably unkempt in ragged jeans that have the unusual quality of appearing both too large and too small at the same time.

I wasn't sure what to expect. Arrogance, perhaps. Cynicism. But he begins to schmooze while he's still some distance away, shouting he feels he knows me. A few months ago one of Moore's producers interviewed me for the film. I was cut from the finished version but Moore says he watched my every word.

Settled on a couch I ask why he hasn't managed to persuade the downtrodden, uninsured, exploited masses to revolt. "My films don't have instant impact because they're dense with ideas that people have not thought about," he says. "It takes a while for the American public to wrap its head around some of the things I'm saying. Twenty years ago I told them that General Motors was going to collapse and take a lot of towns down with them. I was ridiculed, and GM sent around this packet of information about me, my past writings – pinko! With Bowling for Columbine, I told people that these shootings are going to continue, we've got too many guns, too easy access to the guns. [In Fahrenheit 9/11] I'm telling people that we're not going to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we've been lied to."

Capitalism: A Love Story seems the natural culmination of all his others, an overarching look at the insidious control of Wall Street and corporate interests over politics and lives. Its timing is exquisite, coming in the wake of the biggest financial collapse in living memory. And once again Moore is bracing himself: as the film drew to a close at its premiere in Los Angeles, he posted a message on Twitter: "The packed house gets up to grab their torches and pitchforks …"

The film is certainly shocking. Early on, Moore sets out the meaning of "Dead Peasants" insurance. It turns out that Wal-Mart, a company with a revenue larger than any other in the world, bets on its workers dying, taking out life insurance policies on its 350,000 shop-floor workers without their knowledge or approval. When one of them dies, Wal-Mart claims on the policy. Not a cent of the payout, which sometimes runs to a $1m (£620,000) or more, goes to the family of the dead worker, often struggling with expensive funeral bills. Wal-Mart keeps the lot. If a worker dies, the company profits.

Wal-Mart is not alone. Moore talks to a woman whose husband died of brain cancer in 2008. He worked at a bank until it fired him because he was sick. But the bank retained a life insurance policy on the unfortunate man and cashed it in for $4.7m (£2.9m) when he died. There were gasps from the audience in a Washington cinema at that.

They came again as Moore focused on the eviction of the foreclosed. The Hacker family of Peoria filmed themselves being chucked out of their home because of skyrocketing mortgage payments. Randy Hacker, gun owner, observes that he can understand why someone might want to shoot up a bank. In a final twist, the eviction squad offers the Hackers cash to clear out their yard.

The Hackers are Republicans. So was the widow of the bank worker. It is the gap, between the ordinary American – Democrat or Republican, middle-class or dirt-poor – and predatory banks and mammoth corporations that Moore has made his target ever since Roger and Me, his first film, set out to expose the damage wreaked by General Motors on his hometown of Flint, Michigan.

"One movie maybe can't make a difference," Moore says. "I'll say, what's the point of this? What do I want [my audiences] to do? Obviously I want them to be engaged in their democracy. I want them to get off the bench and become active."

Last summer something happened that renewed Moore's conviction that his film-making was politically worthwhile. "I'm in the edit room and there's Bill Moyers on the TV interviewing the vice-president of Sigma health insurance. Massive, billion-dollar company. He's sitting there, telling the country that he's quit his job and he wants to come clean. That he and the other health insurance companies got together and pooled their resources to smear me and the film Sicko to try and stop people from going to see it because, as he said, everything Michael Moore said in Sicko was true, and we were afraid this film would be a tipping point.

"I came away from that, with 'Wow, they're afraid of this movie, they believe it can actually create a revolution.' The idea that cinema can be dangerous is a great idea."

Moore's critics would argue this is his ego speaking. The idea that his film about the failings of the US healthcare system was on the brink of prompting a revolution of any kind looks all the more far-fetched given how the political fight over the issue has panned out. But if Moore's primary intention is to send up a warning flare, to alert Americans to what is going on in their country but not usually reported, he's been pretty successful.

At the end of Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore makes a pronouncement: "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy." Michael Moore once planned to be a priest. In his youth he was drawn to the Berrigan brothers, a pair of radical priests who pulled anti-Vietnam war stunts such as pouring blood on military service records. In an instructive moment for Moore, the brothers made clear they weren't just protesting against the war, but against religious organisations that kept silent about it.

These days he disagrees with Catholic orthodoxy exactly where you would expect him to – he supports abortion rights and gay marriage – but he credits his Catholic upbringing with instilling in him a sense of social justice, and an activism tinged with theatre that lives on his films.

But what does it mean, to replace capitalism with democracy? He sighs and tries to explain. In the old Soviet bloc, he says, communism was the political system and socialism the economic. But with capitalism, he complains, you get political and economic rolled in to one. Big business buys votes in Congress. Lobbyists write laws. The result is that the US political system is awash in capitalist money that has stripped the system of much of its democratic accountability.

"What I'm asking for is a new economic order," he says. "I don't know how to construct that. I'm not an economist. All I ask is that it have two organising principles. Number one, that the economy is run democratically. In other words, the people have a say in how its run, not just the 1%. And number two, that it has an ethical and moral core to it. That nothing is done without considering the ethical nature, no business decision is made without first asking the question, is this for the common good?"

These days Moore, the son of a Flint car worker, lives in the smalltown surrounds of Traverse City with his wife Kathleen Glynn and stepdaughter Natalie, a four-hour drive and a world away from where he came from. But Traverse City, which is on Lake Michigan, has endured its own decline. Walking along the restored foreshore, a sign says that the city was once a major lumber exporter. Now it is known as the "Cherry Capital" of America.

"When I first got here the theatre was boarded up," says Moore. "It was a mess. I said, look, let me reopen this theatre, I'll create a non-profit. It has brought, like, half a million people downtown in the first two years. If they're downtown they go out to dinner, they go to the bookstore. It livens everything up. Stores open. Now there's no plywood on any windows." This, says Moore, has made him something of a local hero even in a town that votes Republican.

"The county voted for McCain and for Bush twice. But not a day goes by when a Republican here doesn't stop me on the street and shake my hand and thank me. Me, the pariah!"

There are conservatives who get Moore's message, particularly families such as the Hackers who have been betrayed by the system they thought was working for them. But identifying their suffering, and even the cause of their problems, is very different from persuading them that capitalism is evil, although they might just buy in to what Moore says is the core message of his latest film – "that Wall Street and the banks are truly the enemy, and we need to tie that beast down and quick".

His enemies in the rightwing media will be doing everything they can to ensure this doesn't happen, portraying him as a propagandist. And even some of his supporters say he is too willing to leave out inconvenient facts. But there's no denying some very powerful truths in Capitalism, one of which is that it didn't need to be this way in America.

Moore has dug out of a South Carolina archive a piece of film buried away 66 years ago because it threatened to rock the foundations of the capitalist system as Americans now know it.

President Franklin D Roosevelt was ailing. Too ill to make his 1944 state of the nation address to Congress, he instead broadcast it by radio. But at one point he called in the cameras, and set out his vision of a new America he knew he would not live to see.

Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights to guarantee every American a job with a living wage, a decent home, medical care, protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness and unemployment, and, perhaps most dangerously for big business, freedom from unfair monopolies. He said that "true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence".

The film was quickly locked away.

"The next week on the newsreels – and we've gone back and researched this – they didn't run that," said Moore. "They talked about other parts of his speech, the war. Nothing about this. The footage became lost. When we called the Roosevelt presidential library and asked them about it they said it wasn't filmed. His own family told us it wasn't filmed." Moore's team scoured the country without luck until they were given a tip about a collector connected to the university of South Carolina.

The university didn't have anything archived under FDR's speeches that fitted, but there were a couple of boxes from that week in 1944.

"We pop it in. It was all there. We had tears in our eyes watching it. For 65 years not a single American saw that speech, not one. I decided right then that we're going to fulfil Roosevelt's wishes that the American people see him saying this. Of all the things in the film, probably I feel most privileged that I get to share this. I get to give him his stage." It's a powerful moment not only because it offers an alternative view of American values rarely spoken of today – almost all of which would be condemned as rampant socialism – but also an interesting reference point with which to compare the more restrained ambitions of the Obama administration.

It is hard to imagine any circumstances in which Obama could put forward such an agenda, I suggest. Moore disagrees.

"He could make that speech."

And survive politically?

"He has told people he's going to operate these four years not with an eye on getting re-elected but on getting things done. I have been very happy for the last year. We came out of eight dark years and his election was – what's the word? – the relief I felt that night, I've been filled with hope since then. Now my patience is running a bit thin. He hasn't taken the reins and said: I'm in charge here, this is what we're doing. Do it. I can understand he's afraid but he's gotta do it."

Capitalism: A Love Story is released on 26 February