The Insider
All Dried Up, Again The Reverend James Dixon’s career as operator of a city food concession was almost as brief — and apparently just as successful — as his bid to win elected office earlier this year. Dixon is a politically influential minister whose support was crucial to Drayton McLane,…
Letters
The Rice School: Dialogue, Diagnosis and Diatribe Tim Fleck’s article on the Rice School [“What Went Wrong at the Rice School?”, August 21] was an accurate depiction of HISD’s inept handling of what should have been its crown jewel. However, the reasons that many parents and teachers remain committed to…
Press Picks
thursday September 11 Hapgood Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, produced in 1967, set his career as a playwright in motion, and he hasn’t looked back since. Hapgood, a suspense thriller, takes place during cold war London in the days of British intelligence and counterintelligence. Rebecca Greene Udden, Main…
On the Road
The first time I encountered a true Texas roadhouse was in the mid-’70s, during a grueling car trip from Atlanta to Los An-geles. Late into the afternoon of my bleary second day, I decided I had to have something to eat. My last sit-down meal had been at the Cafe…
Static
Acrimonious split… A local music insider is calling it a “horrible divorce.” And for sure, the recent parting of ways between Houston bar-rock chanteuse Miss Molly (a.k.a. Molly Ann Elswick) and her longtime friend and manager Dickie Malone has all the ugly trappings of a stormy soap opera separation. Miss…
Comeback Penn-ding
Pessimists might interpret the title of Michael Penn’s third CD, Resigned, as an expression of frustration or, more appropriately, resignation. Those with a brighter outlook, on the other hand, might be more inclined to see the title differently — as in “re-signed” or “making a fresh start.” As it turns…
Impure, and Proud of It
There are more than a few flamenco purists out there who have stopped just short of demanding the head of Ottmar Liebert on a silver platter. It’s out of jealousy, of course. Liebert, after all, has done a remarkable job of taking the musical essence of Santa Fe, New Mexico,…
Burying the Brakeman
They tried this nine years ago, and then, somehow, it worked. In 1988, Columbia Records rounded up a cast of familiar and vaguely bankable voices — among them Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, U2, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp — and asked them to breathe life into the words…
Rotation
Paul Weller Heavy Soul Island As the temperamental leader of the punk-tinged English power trio the Jam, Paul Weller began his career carving out a fierce vision indebted to early Mod and Merseybeat posturing at its most impenetrably Anglocentric. His sociopolitical lyrics — not to mention a steadfast embrace of…
Carrying a Torch
Some might argue that Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy is just too old hat to produce today. Groundbreaking as it was in the early ’80s, the linked one-acts about an openly gay man’s fight for love and respect has become a sort of granddaddy to the gay-themed plays that have…
Double Duty
Many bands like to talk about how much time they spend rehearsing, spinning tales of all-night garage sessions that stretch into daylight, the hours eaten up mulling over just the right lick or lyric. But for members of the ska/punk outfit Middlefinger, a sort of perverse pride comes from the…
A Partial Eclipse
You have to give Ben Stevenson points for courage. In premiering his new short ballet Eclipse, he could have stacked the program in its favor, scheduling some weaker pieces to go along with it so that his would shine in comparison. Instead, in the mixed repertory performance now being offered…
Dish
Wrap a Lot If you’ve been perusing such culinary journals as Restaurant Business, then you already know that the people who spend their lives trying to read the pulse of the public have declared that the food trend of the late ’90s can be summed up in one word: wraps…
Losing It
The Game is a puzzle picture, and beyond its premise, there isn’t much you can divulge without giving the show away. I’m not one of those critics who like to write Stop reading now if you plan to see this movie, so I’m tempted to wrap things up right now…
Workers of the World, Untie!
This has been a rough year at the movies for British working stiffs, but a great year for feel-good stories of their redemption. In the art house hit Brassed Off, coal miners cut loose from their jobs by Thatcherite economics found solace and self-respect in the endurance of the company’s…
Jack’s Big Payback
Jack Yetiv has always been the smartest person he knows. He was 11 years old when his father, an Israeli educator and former diplomat, brought the family to Wisconsin. Young Jack could speak only Hebrew, yet he immediately began waltzing intellectual circles around his peers, which, naturally, made him an…
It’s a bird, it’s a plane …
The Greater Houston Partnership wanted to know how the five major mayoral candidates felt about the West Side Airport. We decided we did, too, so we asked each of them to tell us where they stood. Two took strong positions; the replies of the other three weren’t, alas, all that…
The Airport That Wouldn’t Die
Last September, environmental attorney Jim Blackburn thought he was approaching the end of one of the most contentious battles he had ever fought with Houston developers and city planners. The note of optimism had been struck during a meeting with Mayor Bob Lanier and his key staff members on the…