Mary Specht

Stanya Kahn performs solo in The Ballad of Crappy and Seapole (According to Shempco). That is, unless you count the work's other, less animate characters: Shempco's friend Jurgen, an orange floatie; Crappy, a can of tuna standing in for a mermaid; and Seapole, a hair clip representing a skinny girl...

"It's always a delight to see our Sphincter product move," says Jeff "Little Jewford" Shelby. But with a name like Sphincter Records, co-partners Kinky Friedman and Shelby must have a hard time convincing people that their Houston-based independent record label is for real. It can't help that they take every...

Jermaine Rogers had no formal art training, but in 1995 the Houston poster artist made the bold move of quitting a menial day job to hawk his bills around town, mostly for shows at Numbers. Work was so hard to come by that he had to sell the originals of...