Buoyant Bard
Geniuses often come across unimpressively in the movies. Amadeus presented Mozart as a giggling fop. Both Kirk Douglas and Tim Roth gave us Van Gogh as a pathetic head case. I.Q.’s Albert Einstein was a cupid-playing old duffer. Ken Russell’s freaky depictions of Liszt and Mahler speak for themselves. When…
Hot Plate
Houston’s most basic food unit has got to be the Antone’s poor boy. These bullet-shaped subs, wrapped in distinctive color-coded paper, can be found in briefcases and backpacks all over town, from boardrooms to ball games to the beach. Antone’s assembles nine different types of poor boys, including tuna, smoked…
Santa’s Selves
It was thought that Santa Claus, like God, was everywhere. For this photo project, the Press’s Phillipe Diederich looked on street corners, in schools and homeless shelters, but Claus was reliably found only in the shopping malls. The Santa of the malls wore the same old suit and the same…
Changing the Music Industry Bit by Bit
Once members of the record industry abandoned analog (vinyl and cassettes) in favor of digital (compact discs) they were no longer just selling music; they were, in essence, selling software. Digital codes read by music CD players are essentially the same digital codes computers read. Compression technologies have dramatically increased…
To Bloom Again
It’s an unusually warm afternoon for a Texas Saturday in December, but inside the AMS Studios in Addison, the air feels cold enough to hang beef carcasses. Nobody feels this more than Rusty the TNT Mailgirl, a strawberry-blonde waitress at Humperdink’s in Arlington, who remains here all day and long…
Herbie’s World
On The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions: “I had no idea what any of this stuff would be,” Hancock says, of the lasting value of the Blue Note era music. “You just do it because that’s what you do.” On the sextet and the album Sextant: “That was pretty heavy…
Then There Were None
Bhirag Bhatt says he never knew who made the accusations that triggered the investigation. The head of the city health department food inspections bureau, Bhatt was the target of a 1997 police probe after several of his employees alleged he routinely tore up citations issued to health code violators. The…
New Year’s Eve Blastoff
Sure, it’s not happening for over another week, and you may have not even thought about New Year’s Eve, with Christmas still looming. But after December 25, ticket prices will go up for New Year’s Eve Houston ’98 which brings together perhaps the city’s most eclectic musical lineup of the…
Merry Xmas, Mr. Waldhauser
Things appear to be looking up for Walter Waldhauser Jr. After being convicted of playing a central role in a gruesome triple murder-for-hire in Houston in 1980, he was released from prison in 1990 after serving a third of his plea-bargained sentence. He wound up back behind bars last month,…
Rotation
Pearl Jam Live on Two Legs Epic Pearl Jam is an unlikely story of how a band learned to do things its own way. It began with the grunge revolution of 1991. On the strength of its multiplatinum debut, Ten, the band was everywhere, including the ’92 Lollapalooza tour and…
Pass the Gas for Garza
You can’t fault Enron Oil & Gas chief executive Forrest E. Hoglund for lack of enthusiasm about recently elected Railroad Commissioner Tony Garza, the Republican secretary of state under Governor George W. Bush. In his zest for raising late-train cash for Garza, who will now serve as a state regulator…
Herbie Hancock Times Six
The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions (Blue Note) Sextant (Columbia Legacy) Thrust (Columbia Legacy) Town Hall Concert (Blue Note) Return of the Headhunters (Verve) Gershwin’s World (Verve) Herbie Hancock, the most influential jazz pianist to emerge since Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, has had a career filled with musical landmarks…
News of the Weird
Lead Stories *A November Associated Press dispatch described the work of commercial leech and maggot suppliers that sell to hospitals for medical treatments. A Welsh firm, Biopharm Ltd., moves about 20,000 three-inch-long leeches a year at $17 each to suck blood through delicate, clogged veins to restore circulation. A unit…
Letters
Good Dream and Bad Perhaps my greatest disappointment in reading Brad Tyer’s article about the crack and chip repair curbside business entrepreneurs [“Risky Business,” December 10] was not that the Norrises were victims of extortion by a neighboring business and political pressure by a state representative. Instead, it was that…
Let’s Go Lobby
With the state legislative session set to unfold in the new year, some of the best bullshitters in Texas, a.k.a. lobbyists, are honing their pitches on behalf of governments, industries and individual clients. There’s a world of Lone Star State laws out there to make, alter or repeal for someone’s…
Cracked
The Houston Ballet has been doing the same production of The Nutcracker since it moved into the Wortham Theater Center in 1986. This year they’re giving 36 performances of that production. Let’s see, 12 years times 36 shows per year is 432 performances, not only of the same story, but…
Where the Wild Things Are
With its dry, black tongue, a parrot licks the bars of its cage then screams a falsetto Hello! to two young boys eating ice cream at a respectful distance. One of the boys laughs and speaks Spanish to the parrot, which in turn continues to display a limited vocabulary of…
Night & Day
Thursday December 24 ‘Tis the night before Christmas, and all through the house a suspicious six-year-old is screaming, “But, Mom, how will Santa know that now I want Scary Spice instead of Sporty Spice?” Little does young Frannie Fickle know that Santa’s keeping up with the times thanks to Houston’s…
The Velvet E. Closes
The Houston tradition known as the Velvet E., formerly the Velvet Elvis, will come to an end next week. Owner Barry Capece has decided to call it quits in Houston on December 30. Suzy Melson, a longtime bartender at the Velvet E., said Capece has “been trying to wean himself…
Delta Force
The talents of Maya Angelou — she is or has been a teacher, memoirist, prize-winning poet, actress, civil-rights activist, editor, playwright, composer, dancer, producer, theater and TV director, and advisor to three presidents — range so far and deep that no feat she accomplishes could come as a surprise. Give…
New Year’s Eve Picks
Charity Ball Rub elbows with the Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan and King Kong at the Houstonian’s “Hooray for Hollywood” black tie optional benefit gala. The party features three bands and a DJ in four ballrooms, plus an open bar, a live auction, casino gambling, champagne, party favors and a…
Slow Dancing
Dancing at Lughnasa arrives brightly wrapped. It’s the screen version of one of the most acclaimed stage plays of the ’90s. It stars the redoubtable Meryl Streep and a handful of fine British and Irish actors with Old Vic and West End acting credentials. But its story of the thwarted…
Nacho OrdinaryTex-Mex
The staid, storied building at 3512 Main that once housed Christie’s first Houston outpost underwent a startling transformation this summer. Painted an eye-popping shade of coral and festooned with Christmas lights, the restaurant now called El Palacio is impossible to overlook amid the surrounding grayish flotsam and jetsam of midtown…
Super Stepmom
Given the manipulative tendencies of many mainstream pictures, Stepmom easily could have slipped into a sticky morass of sentimentality and melodrama. Instead, it proves a genuinely affecting movie that approaches its adult themes with intelligence, maturity and rare authenticity. The film stars Susan Sarandon as Jackie, a divorced mother of…
Dish
A New Name To clear up any possible confusion, let it be known that the restaurant formerly known as Achille’s Italian Cuisine [14120 Memorial, (281)558-0615] is now called Il Mio Ristorante Italiano, and, rest assured, it’s still under the guidance of chef/owner Achille Epifani. In September, the restaurant closed for…