Letters
Crossfire with CPS Claims and lapdogs: I, too, can attest to the abuse of power that CPS uses to scare and manipulate parents [“Fostering Abuse,” by Margaret Downing, March 27], as I am also being dragged through the mud by them. I am at risk of losing my children soon,…
Digging for Treasure
The Harry Potter phenomenon has aroused in publishers and studio heads alike a sudden new appreciation for our children’s needs. These people understand that no consumer is more motivated than a kid in the heat of a craze, so every last one of them is struggling to come up with…
A Chick Book
“Poultry companies are like the Mafia, but a little more refined,” says Sylvia Tomlinson, the author of Plucked and Burned, a fictionalized exposé of the chicken industry. She knows whereof she speaks. Tomlinson and her family lived on small farm in Oklahoma in the mid ’80s, when the farming crisis…
Hallway Gangstas
Directed by Justin Lin. With Parry Shen, Jason Tobin, Sung Kang and Roger Fan. Rated R.
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, April 17 Opera darling Renée Fleming, who has two Grammys under her belt, says her breakout performance came here in Houston in 1988. Houston Grand Opera had a last-minute cancellation for the role of the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, and, says Fleming, “that gave me a chance.”…
The Gulf Between
A few things learned from the memoirs of Marines who served in Gulf War I: They’re more terrified of being killed by friendly fire than enemy artillery; they’re bored brainless most of the time; they harbor fantasies of being shot, but never somewhere too painful or where it might inflict…
From Hell to the Theater
Almost every low-budget, independent feature in existence has its own story of production hell. Take The Marianao Kid, a movie that local film producer Teddy Hallaron and his crew wrapped 11 years ago. According to Hallaron, the film, which will screen at the Houston Press Indie Film Series, was stalled…
American Gothic
The gorgeous landscape of rural North Carolina, with its hidden back roads, lost graveyards and abandoned plantations, feels haunted. Its gothic setting seems fraught with danger. Back in the 1970s, it was probably the last place a teenage gay boy needed to be. It is this terrible paradox — that…
Short Stuff
The Aurora Picture Show’s Extremely Shorts 6 isn’t a snooty film festival. “It’s open to anyone with a camera,” says Andrea Grover, Aurora’s executive director. “It’s definitely our most do-it-yourself program. We’ve got people who’ve never picked up a camera before, students, little kids, seasoned filmmakers.” One of the most…
Before the Boxes
A car on the road to Marfa bears the bumper sticker “I JUDD.” Here in Texas, Donald Judd is widely known because of his Marfa outpost-turned-pilgrimage site. Almost ten years after his death from cancer, the artist still exists as a kind of poster boy for minimalist art, even though…
Tall Orders
K.W. Wong admits that he’s learned a few things about basketball over the years. “But,” he says, “I still ask questions when someone’s sitting next to me at the games.” That statement may seem strange coming from a man who’s worked with quite a few NBA superstars, but his specialty…
Wall of Flavor
Goat korma masala: $7.50 Chicken biryani: $8 Palak paneer: $4.50 Shrimp masala: $9 Bhunna gosht: $7.50 Alo palak: $4.50 Nan: $1
Egg Beaters
Easter egg hunts can be unseemly events, with kids ruthlessly tossing aside traditional hard-boiled eggs and each other in the mad search for candy. Some parents might think twice before taking their children beyond the backyard for Easter activities. But if your offspring know better than to embarrass you, outfit…
Chili Weather
4-19 As Houston’s spring temperatures soar into the 80s, there’s only one type of food to cool you down: hot, spicy Texas chili. The beef ‘n peppers at the Ryan Gibson Foundation Chili Cook-Off will cool you down by making you sweat. “Texas and chili have a long relationship, back…
Pass the Salad
4-17 If you toss it, they will they come — at least in the case of Dance Salad, one of the best-kept secrets in international dance. For 11 years, producer Nancy Henderek has been inviting the world’s best dancers to Texas. And last year’s three-day mini-festival was almost a sellout…
High Scores
It started with her freshman-year midterms. Laura, a student at one of Houston’s toniest private high schools, suddenly realized that her grades, in a word, sucked. It was her fault; she knew that. Because her school allows students to use laptops to take notes, and because it can afford to…
Frodo Fare
At The Rivendell Bar & Grille (920 Studemont, 713-564-3700), there is a magnificent mural of that mystical land of the same name from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. There is also a dish called shrimp gambary ($10), which may well have mystical powers. All it took was one…
Mayoral White Knight
Although term-limited Lee Brown isn’t going to be on the ballot in November, mayoral candidate Michael Berry is glomming onto the next best black thang in an attempt to scare Republicans into supporting him over fellow GOPer Orlando Sanchez. Berry pollster Chris Wilson of the Washington-based Wilson Research Strategies concluded…
All His Life
Dave Grohl didn’t intend to fill a niche. Not really. When he released his first album as the Foo Fighters in 1995 — a self-titled disc he calls “a demo tape that one person recorded in, like, five days” — he wasn’t applying for the job his old bandmate Kurt…
Bloody Sunday
On April 10, the Philadelphia Inquirer announced that — after more than 100 years — it will stop publishing its Sunday magazine section. A memo to the troops said the magazine cost about $9 million a year to produce, and in a slow advertising economy it was losing “several million”…
Failure Is Not an Option
How does one go about making an instrumental concept album about womankind? What does that do to a band? Dirty Three violinist and pianist Warren Ellis is almost as mute as the album, She Has No Strings Apollo, on the subject. “I can’t give all the answers,” he says almost…
Bend Over and Take One for the Team
After six months of study, the T.H. Rogers playground issue has been settled, proving once and for all that Jeff Shadwick, trustee with the Houston Independent School District, should get an A-plus in Power Levels 101. Last October, when parents at the combined elementary-middle school resumed complaining that all their…
Where’s My Lollipop?
After 12 years in the business peppered with who knows how many No. 1 singles, reggae icon Buju Banton is still frustrated. Fondly known as the Gargamel, a name given to him by his Jamaican brethren, he does not believe he has achieved the recognition he deserves. “The way the…
Not So Suite?
With the downtown basketball arena still months away from completion, its first technical foul has already been called: The city has blown the whistle on the Rockets for unsportsmanlike conduct. Back in 1999, the original letter of agreement between the franchise and the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority spelled out the…
Fests of Fury
With a second 420 festival planned for the weekend of April 19 and 20, Houston is rapidly earning itself a new nickname. With the old “Baghdad on the Bayou” falling from favor, perhaps we should replace it with “The Big Ol’ Bag o’ Bud on the Bayou.” In all, 86…
Dumb and Dumber
If you thought the national media gave Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal a rough time for his bumbling performance before the U.S. Supreme Court during arguments on the Texas sodomy law, take a whiff of the latest coverage of Rod Paige, the U.S. education secretary and former Houston Independent…
Wesley Willis
When he’s not suggesting that you suck a caribou’s bootyhole or some such, schizophrenic Chicago singer-songwriter Wesley Willis is usually right. Here are some of his views on various topics”People with mullets: “Take your ass to the barber shop / Tell the barber that you’re sick of looking like an…
Pink Slip Exhibits
It’s been a fabulous couple of years for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In 2000 the institution completed a five-year capital campaign that generated $127 million for the new Audrey Jones Beck building, in addition to another $110 million in art donations or cash to buy more art. Attendance…
The French Conniption
Imagine a large, dead Saint Bernard with its bones removed. Then visualize a hefty bellows inserted into it from behind, with a gorilla hopping up and down on it, causing the huge dog’s baglike corpse to twitch spasmodically, wheeze and croak. Voilà, this is today’s Nick Nolte. What’s amazing is…