Hot Plate
Quintessence of Kebab For years I thought that of Houston’s ethnic eateries, Indian places were the most consistent. Nowadays the honors go to Middle Eastern spots; there’s scarcely a mediocre one in the bunch. Oh, once I had a bad meal at Cafe NASA near the Space Center. But otherwise…
The Naked Eye
Let’s face it. We’re all fascinated by anything that repels us, whether it’s crocheted toilet-seat covers or images of crime, car crashes and, well, rude sex. “Venus Inferred,” Laura Letinsky’s new series of color photographs at Lawndale, examines the grotesque banality of human desire. Letinsky, a visiting professor of photography…
Despite its Oscar,
Belle Epoque arrives on the wings of its recent Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. The voters were apparently in a playful mood, as they chose this essentially light, romantic comedy over the flawed, but still towering, dammit, Farewell My Concubine, a film whose virtues continue to grow in my…
Servile Fancies
A poet and novelist as well as a playwright, Jean Genet viewed theater as a revolt against society. Without reformist intent, he willfully descended into cruelty, degradation and abjection. Through ceremony, ritual, symbolism, lyricism, stylization and masquerade, he moved beyond the customary limits of feelings and words to unite theatergoers…
Verdi’s Passion
For better or for worse, the title of Verdi’s beloved melodrama La Traviata makes a virtually untranslatable mouthful: “The woman who has gone astray.” That it is rarely translated is probably just as well. Nowadays, with its connotation of sexual misdeed, the phrase “go astray” can hardly be used without…
To Hell and Gone
Tennessee had an exceedingly bleak vision of Mississippi. That is, playwright Tennessee Williams held a spiritually damning judgment of Mississippi, the state in which he was born. Indeed, as figured in the title of Orpheus Descending — set in “Two River County,” Mississippi, and currently receiving a powerfully brooding production…
Manners To Die For
At first blush, Serial Mom appears to mark a departure for John Waters. This time his lead actress is Kathleen Turner, rather than the mighty Divine. Even more unlikely is Waters’ casting of Sam Waterston — the most sober, not to mention somber, of actors — as his leading man…
Still Lives
“I am absolutely dependent on my model … They are the main theme of my work.” — Henri Matisse Tammy is leaning against the wall, head thrown back to expose her elongated Brancusi neck, one foot propped up, not clothed in a stitch, unless you count her many lush tattoos…
The Policy That Won’t Die
Although the deaths last week of three innocent bystanders following a broken kidnapping arrest and subsequent car chase have finally turned the attention of other area media to problems with the Houston Police Department’s loose pursuit policy, HPD is still insisting that it does nothing wrong when it comes to…
Letters
Aggie Art Astounding The cover drawing for “Aggie Alchemy” [April 7] was the best I’ve ever seen on the Press, which I’ve read pretty regularly for three years now. Cleverly conceived, deftly done and sharply funny, it captures exactly the content and tone of the article. Please pass along my…
Press Picks
thursday april 21 Widowed persons service The American Association of Retired Persons has support groups for “widoweds” — widows and widowers. The trauma of losing a spouse can all but destroy the survivor. Widowers, I was raised to believe, cannot function without a mate, so they immediately marry the first…
1,001 Arabian Dishes
Something very like stage fright seized me when I confronted the prodigious buffet at Dimassi’s Middle Eastern Cafe. Spread out in bright technicolor was a multicourse mezza run wild: dozens of vividly seasoned salads and dips and vegetables, burnished quails and Cornish hens, things fried or neatly rolled, mysterious stews…
Rotation
The Blazers Short Fuse Rounder The PR associated with this debut release from East L.A.’s Blazers doesn’t want you to think in terms of roots rock, but face it, what we call rock in these modern times doesn’t often have the unaffectedly honest edge you’ll find here. So go ahead…
Debonair Whigs
It’s not easy to embrace Afghan Whigs. For one thing, there’s that man’s-man image that follows singer/guitarist/slavedriver Greg Dulli — the cigar-chomping, dick-waving, pool-playing, bourbon-swilling persona that’s neither ironic comment nor over-the-top caricature, but exists in some uncomfortably earnest, braggartly place in the middle. “Ladies, let me tell you about…
Prodigal Ambitions
Business, it is said, makes strange bedfellows — a truism to which Joseph Kahn can attest. A 21-year-old film director of Korean descent, Kahn would never have guessed that he’d spend a Friday night behind a camera directing L.A. rapper and sometimes Korean-basher Ice Cube in a video shoot for…
Blues Kudos & Burb Buzz
I don’t remember any Houstonians on the Grammy stage this year, but when the recognition isn’t coming from one direction, it comes from another. Nominees for the Blues Foundation-sponsored 15th annual W.C. Handy Blues Awards — just the most prestigious honor in the blues world — were announced a while…