HPD’s Barren Lot
Houston’s Landscape Ordinance, in place now for almost two years, was the result of many uncounted hours of work by citizens, organizations and planners committed to improving the quality of life. At first, of course, developers didn’t like it, but now that it is standard operating procedure for everybody, hardly…
Round One to the Host
When conservative radio talk-show host Jon Matthews recently punched the button for the next call, he had no idea he’d be getting the editor of the Conservanazi Watch, the Seabrook-based newsletter that promotes itself as “dedicated to presenting a hard-hitting liberal point of view.” The newsletter’s editor, who goes by…
Where Are They When You Need Them?
Until quite recently, The Houston Press and a six-pack of beer weren’t the only things not available at a local Randall’s. In the heat of the night, your remarkable store wouldn’t sell you a pack of condoms. “I don’t think the corporation has a condom policy,” said a Randall’s employee…
Press Picks
thursday december 30 Special performance of the Nutcracker Based on a fairy tale by German author E.T.A. Hoffman, The Nutcracker tells the story of a little girl named Clara whose magical nutcracker comes to life and takes her on a magical journey with rats into the Sugar Plum Fairy’s kingdom…
The Houston Press 1993 Menu from Hell
When the damned gather for New Year’s Eve Chez Lucifer, I suggest they dine on this guaranteed true-to-life banquet culled from actual Houston menus, vintage 1993. Surely we must take perverse civic pride that our enterprising local chefs have devised an assortment of dishes so silly, misbegotten, infelicitously named or…
Bring On the Dancing Girls…
Dreams can come true. It can happen to you, if you have pay-per-view. For every Beavis or Butt-head sitting on a couch and experiencing a surge of testosterone, the sexual equivalent of the 7th Cavalry is waiting to be summoned. It’s just a phone call and $9.99 away. That’s all…
On the edge in Edge City
I’m hanging out on Richmond Avenue — horizontal, face down, strapped and buckled into a body-length harness usually employed by hang gliders, staring bug-eyed through 150 feet of empty space at a small patch of pavement behind the Yucatan Liquor Stand. I’m here on assignment, charged with the seemingly cushy…
Rock Death in l993
Tis the season of giving, and that’s why I’m filling this slowest part of the year with stolen ideas. Way back in 1979, then-IVillage VoiceI rock crit Greil Marcus found his panties tied in a knot over persistent and unearned use of the word “survivor” (sixties survivor, soul survivor, the…
Fall from Innocents Abroad
“Against the assault of Laughter,” Satan said, “nothing can stand.” Actually, Mark Twain said Satan said that. He is probably right; to mix a sacrilegious metaphor, humor works in mysterious ways. It certainly does in the collection of lesser-known Twain stories that The Company OnStage is presenting as one-acts (through…
Celebrity Photographer, Photographer Celebrity
Frenzy surrounds the touring exhibition of photographs by Annie Leibovitz. When the retrospective opened two years ago at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., between 250,000 and 300,000 people saw the show during its five-week run — as many visitors as the Portrait Gallery normally attracts in a year…
That’s a Wrap
1993 will likely be remembered as both the year of Schindler’s List and as a year of surprisingly strong, reasonably intelligent summer films. In fact, if the year featured a surprise — other than the metamorphosis of Steven Spielberg, of course — it would be that the summer season was…
What It Is, What It Was, What It Shall Be
You know it’s been an interesting year at the movies when the Paramount takeover is relegated to the business pages. I wonder which studio executive will give the go-ahead on making it the blockbuster release of 1994. Jesse Helms must’ve been mighty perturbed by the number of violent flicks this…