Playbill
“Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley / The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? / All, all, are sleeping on the hill.” Edgar Lee Masters opens his 1915 Spoon River Anthology, a volume of monologues spoken from beyond the grave, with…
Zeroing In
Comics may crack jokes about President George W. Bush’s intelligence, but he shouldn’t have to tax his brain too hard to remember the eight digits of his driver’s license number. When Bush first got his Texas license in 1961, he received a regular number like everyone else. When he became…
Playbill
The Melvins are on the brink of crossing over. Not to mass appeal — all the riches of the Atlantic Records empire couldn’t bring that about — but from a merely seminal outfit to a full-fledged cult icon. The Melvins earned national notoriety, of a sort, when their ex-roadie won…
The Bench Warmer
On a Friday evening early last month, retired barber Patti Lyn Simon and a friend were driving home after a quiet dinner at Baba Yega in the Montrose. Simon, a Houston native who is disabled with arthritis of the neck and back, braked her black Nissan pickup at the red…
Diary of a Madwoman
“Keep a diary, and one day it’ll keep you,” said Mae West, and while the sentiment rings true, it does little to explain the mystery of why Helen Fielding’s sliver of literary history managed to keep anyone. Fluffy, shrill and approximately as deep as Cosmo magazine, the book somehow hit…
Tale of the Tape
As soon as word got out that an alleged spring break gang rape at Crystal Beach might have been recorded by an amateur video cameraman, every station in town tried desperately to get its hands on the tape. One station did — KHOU — but ever since, it’s been on…
Brutal Beauty
One doesn’t watch Amores Perros (“Love’s a Bitch”) so much as absorb it — like a body blow. “I wanted to make a movie that smelled of filth,” Alejandro González Inárritu has said about his feature directorial debut. He has succeeded beyond perhaps even his wildest dreams. One of this…
Letters
Overkill Executions are really murder: John Birmingham [Letters, March 22] appears unaware of the provisions of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure on death sentences [“Knowing Right from Wrong,” by Steve McVicker, March 8]. Jurors must find a probability that the defendant would commit violent criminal acts “that would constitute…
Group Mentality
The idea of a crowd can conjure up visceral memories. One of the most unpleasant 45 minutes of my life was spent on a Russian tram so crowded I could lift my feet and remain standing. I could feel the hacking cough of the woman next to me, her diaphragm…
Calendar Editor Gets Booed
Your calendar editor is on the second floor of the Spaghetti Warehouse, pointing an EMF meter at an urn cabinet, allegedly haunted by the spirits of dead children. The device registers electromagnetic fields produced by anything electronic and, according to the guides of the High Spirits ghost tour, paranormal. Indeed,…
Nature of the Beast
When Colleen Guidy went to see plastic surgeon Billy Ringer last December, she was feeling more than a little uneasy. Two days earlier she’d had her tummy tucked and breasts enlarged, and Guidy had questions. Her right forearm was still abnormally swollen, her right hand numb, and the right side…
Seawulf
So. The Hibernian poets in days gone by had elocution and greatness. We have heard of those wordsmiths’ accomplishments. There was Yeats, whose bold, vigorous voice spoke to the common man and led the British symbolists to victory. That was one good poet. But Ireland has turned to a new…
What’s in a Name?
My name is Paul Renoir. I have always been Paul Renoir. When I was captured by the Nazis and tortured for my part in the Resistance at age 19, they couldn’t take my name from me. It was the name given to me by my parents. To my knowledge, I…
Intentional Walk
It was the tenth inning of the second home game of the new season for the Houston Astros. The immense mechanical roof of Enron Field had been left open to the velvety air of a Gulf Coast spring night. In the streets around the stadium, there were enough policemen on…
The Aransan Menace
Houston city officials couldn’t bear to build a multimillion-dollar convention center hotel on Dallas Street. So they’re renaming part of the street … the city plans to make the patch of pavement in front of the hotel part of nearby Lamar Street. “We don’t need to give our competition any…
True Grits
Speaking off the toque: Tom Williams, chef and owner of Fox Diner [2815 South Shepherd Drive, (713)523-5369] and Cafe Zorro [905 Taft, (713)528-9691]. Q. At Fox Diner, you emphasize low-country cooking, from the Atlantic coastal regions of the Carolinas, the home of Southern cuisine. In your opinion, what constitutes that…
Secrets of a Vanguard Parent
As March gave way to April, Dixie Hopkins fretted about the mail. Where was that letter from the school district? What would happen to Jacob? A few months earlier, she’d driven her four-year-old son to Askew Elementary to be tested for Vanguard, the Houston Independent School District’s magnet-school program for…
Fungus Amungus
The name is Armenian, but the food at Masraff’s [1025 South Post Oak Lane, (713)355-1975] is what you would find if the United States and southern Europe shared a border. The wild mushroom ravioli ($13.50 at lunch as an entrée; $9.50 at dinner as an appetizer) isn’t the most flamboyant…
The Man Who
Paul McGuinness has never thought of himself as a teacher of life lessons, so it comes as a bit of a surprise for him to hear it relayed that Kelly Curtis considers him an adviser–hell, a mentor. It comes as even more of a shock to discover that Curtis recalls…
Stirred and Shaken
“You’ll think you’ve died and gone to San Antonio” gets my nomination for advertising slogan of the year. The Tex-Mex at Lucinda’s [2415 Dunstan, (713)394-7280] is heartwarming. There’s a bakery turning out cookies and desserts right inside the front door, and the fresh flour tortillas are made by hand. It’s…
Still Your Father’s Tony’s
Two smiling men in black bow ties are violently agitating tiny silver shakers. They uncap them simultaneously and pour martinis into our stemmed glasses. I hesitate before taking a drink to admire the scene. Through the bottom of our icy cocktails, I can see the Versace plates on a little…
A Perfect Fitz
Some are saying Kevin “Snit” Fitzpatrick stumbled. The Hollisters’ ex-drummer, they say, left the band — or was asked to leave, depending on which rumor you heard — just as the combo was about to hit the big time. Fitzpatrick wants to set the record straight on that issue and…
Black Action Figure
I’m not a big fan of the vibes,” says 27-year-old vibraphonist Stefon Harris. “I like the vibes. They’re cool and all, but it’s not really the instrument that I’m interested in. It’s always the music. If I weren’t playing the vibes, I’d be playing something else.” Harris is nothing if…
He Saw the Light
Don’t call it a midlife crisis. Forty-two years old isn’t midlife, but by that age one has been knocked around a bit. It’s time to take stock of what has passed and what the future holds. Have you made it? Are you still following your passion? Or have you given…
The Blazers
In any discussion of the Blazers, East L.A.’s other nationally renowned roots-rocking combo, Los Lobos looms like the proverbial gorilla. Both are bilingual bands manned by multi-instrumentalists who have mastered all that is fretted from either side of the Rio Grande. In 1988 Los Lobos released La Pistola y el…
Ashbury Keys
Ashbury Keys’ drive to become a full-fledged pop-rock force has taken a significant step forward with the release of Dancers, the Houston band’s second CD and the first recorded by the complete live lineup. Whereas part of the appeal of Ashbury’s self-titled debut lay in the ’50s-style simplicity of much…