Letters
Not So Heavenly After reading Matt Zoller Seitz’s review of Heavenly Creatures [Film, “Friends and Fantasy,” December 1], I thought I understood the Press’s decision to replace Houston local David Theis with a Dallas reviewer. Seitz’s descriptions and analysis were a pleasure to read and convincing. But the film does…
Press Picks
thursday december 22 Historic house museums Some people like to sneak off to the beach during the off-season, even though the weather isn’t right for swimming and even fishing is a dicey proposition. Those who crave the scent of sea air and salt marsh, however, go and roam the sea…
The Menu from Hell
Yum, yum, yum! It’s time to tuck in our napkins for the Second Annual Menu from Hell, that appetizing compendium of guaranteed real-life dishes served by Houston restaurants over the past 12 months. As always, Houston’s food pros rose to the challenge of conjuring up fare that stands proud in…
Cybersurfing the Lost Highway
You know this information superhighway thing is about three years on the stale side of new when even a technophobe like yours truly can finally stumble his way through a modem, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t untapped treasures remaining to be found. That’s the idea, anyway, behind local Tone…
Two Shots of Jerry Jeff
Two Shots of Jerry Jeff Jerry Jeff Walker is no slouch when it comes to singing county and western songs. The question is, is Jerry Jeff really country? (He was hatched in Oneonata, New York.) And should this matter if we’re all wallerin’ around in a melting pot anyway? And…
Rotation
Train in Vain Good Enough For You Fuzzgun Records Train in Vain’s a Beaumont-based outfit with the standard guitars-bass-drums rock lineup, and the band plays a melodic sort of hard rock spiced with feedbacking guitars, power chords and the occasional harmony vocal. It’s a sound with some similarities to Washington’s…
Live Shots
Delbert McClinton Friday, December 9 Rockefeller’s Much to the delight of the sold-out crowd of 400 well-groomed and deep-pocketed fans, the resurrected Rockefeller’s brought Delbert McClinton and his good-time rock and roll revue to town two Fridays ago. Mr. McClinton — the Tom Jones of roadhouse boogie — has been…
The Lame and the Great
It seems to be that time of year again, when nobody’s playing, and nobody’s touring and the music editor is trying his damnedest to squeeze out some blob of easy copy early so he can grab a few extra days over Christmas at the grandparents’ house, where he’ll futilely try…
Low Fashion
It’s quite a compliment to say that an artist’s failures are more interesting than most of his colleagues’ successes. That description certainly applies to Robert Altman, a filmmaker who works so close to his heart and intuitions that even his most ill-conceived films usually show you something startling and fresh…
Knowing Nell
The central character in Michael Apted’s new film Nell is introduced to the tune of her own, otherworldly, melodic keening. In the opening scenes, Nell (Jodie Foster) is a simply dressed mountain girl, tenderly laying out her dead mother. She has bathed her and dressed her, and is lacing up…
Robert’s Rules of Fashion
“Oh, this is a stag party,” Robert Altman jokes as he enters a room full of male journalists gathered round a table for a Ready to Wear press junket at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria. And if it were a stag party, Altman, impressive looking in a dapper gray suit and emerald-green…
BOSS Hall
The atmosphere was almost strangely celebratory when Bob Lanier joined Ben Hall on December 2 to reveal that Hall would be leaving his job as city attorney at the end of this month. Normally, the news that a city department head was resigning would generate little interest beyond the City…
Pastor to the Port
Father Rivers Patout is cruising his domain, but he’s nowhere near a church or a school. Instead, the slightly pudgy Catholic priest is driving his late model Honda Accord across the uneven pavement of Wharf 14 along the Houston Ship Channel, providing an unsolicited narrated tour to a blue jumpsuited…
Not F–ing Guilty!
Lawyer Mary Conn was hurrying to keep a court date one morning last year when the wire-rimmed brassiere she was wearing triggered the metal detector at the entrance to Harris County’s criminal courthouse. The security guards sent the lawyer through the electronic portal a second time, and for a second…
Battle of the Retreads
Whoever said there are no second acts in American life obviously never viewed Houston political life in all its multitudinous wonder. Take the upcoming special election to replace the irreplaceable (as far as sheer verbal excess) Congresswoman-elect Sheila Jackson Lee on the Houston City Council. Emerging as the candidates most…