Playbill
Although the Iguanas have yet to cut a record that captures the allure of their live performances, this New Orleans-based quintet can, in concert, dig a groove as deep and impressive as the Grand Canyon. This is not just music you can dance to, but music that demands bodily movement,…
Letters
Mind Games Fly like an Eagle: I really did enjoy this article, and give props to Jesse Washington for composing it so well [“Speed of the Light,” November 23]. I know I have had experiences similar to Doug Eagle’s, except nothing detrimental to my body. I am a full believer…
Playbill
Music hotbeds come, and music hotbeds go. But western Michigan has never been confused for one and likely never will be. Alternating between barren (winter) and insanely pleasant (summer), with no real blight to speak of and lots of clean-living Dutch folks around, western Michigan just doesn’t offer much for…
Support Troupe
The middle-aged members of Bere’sheet Ballet may describe themselves as survivors of cancer, abuse, cult brainwashing and struggles with addiction, but according to the group’s founder, Marie Plauché-Gustin, that all occurred pretty much by accident. “It just so happens that they found me, and in the process of using dance…
Movie-House Hypothermia
About halfway through the megabudget mountain-climbing adventure Vertical Limit, even the most rugged, thrill-hungry disaster movie fans may find themselves going numb. Not from the howling weather on the icy faces of K2 in the Himalayas, where the action supposedly takes place. Not from oxygen deprivation. Not even from stretches…
Pops Goes the Grinch
Sure, we have Jim Carrey’s broad new interpretation as well as the classic cartoon version featuring the voice of Boris Karloff, but there are still a few of us who first came to experience How the Grinch Stole Christmas when our parents read it to us as little Whos. Competing…
With Love and Squalor
Be not deceived by the Merchant Ivory name attached to Ratcatcher; those in search of repressed emotions among the corseted well-to-do will be in for a nasty shock. For this is a Scottish working-class film, and, like its compatriots The Acid House and Orphans, it is laden with squalor and…
French Utopia
In France, having a salad for lunch doesn’t necessarily mean you are on a diet. For instance, the plate of greens with sautéed chicken livers and a poached egg that Joan Patrick is eating is not your typical “ladies who lunch” low-fat selection. Joan offers me a bite, and I…
Hostage Crisis: Day 143
Day One: It was just part of the job, just another movie on another afternoon. This one promised to be no more special than any other, save for the casting of Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe. Proof of Life was the movie during which they fell in love, or whatever…
The Diva Decision
Most people remember November 7 as the day of indecisiveness. An all-night duel ensued between two ambitious presidential candidates, who campaigned down to the last ballot in California, as an entire country waited for the results. That all-night battle has ballooned, of course, into weeks of double-checking and second-guessing as…
Altared States
Back in 1970, when Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company first opened on Broadway, hardly anybody except long-haired hippies had the audacity to question the sanctity of marriage. But Sondheim always has been an iconoclast, and when he got together with writer George Furth to create the story of Robert, an angst-ridden…
Keeping Good Company
Even though Jack Ingram didn’t start playing guitar and writing songs until he hit college, making Texas-style country music is, for him, as natural as breathing. Growing up in The Woodlands, when “it was still the woods,” he was weaned on the sounds of what’s now referred to as the…
The Alley Foot-Warmer
When you think about it, there are a lot of similarities between the Alley’s perennial production of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and a fruitcake. Both mercifully come just once a year. Both have that hard-as-a-brick permanence that hints of an indestructible ritual, no matter how much you might want…
Navigational Charts
Speaking off the toque: Michael Cordúa is the executive chef and owner of Américas [1800 Post Oak Boulevard, (713)961-1492], Amazon Grill [1800 Post Oak Boulevard, (713)599-0020] and Churrascos [9705 Westheimer, (713)952-1988; 2055 Westheimer, (713)527-8300; 1320 West Bay Area Boulevard, (281)461-4100]. Q. Have any reviews contained opinions or information that was…
Still Life with Mouse
Picture a still life — shiny fruit, pretty flowers, cleverly arranged objects — the most innocuous of artistic genres. At their peak in Holland during the 16th and 17th centuries, still lifes were de rigueur for every bourgeois Dutch home. The lushly subversive photographic still lifes in Martha Burgess’s installation…
Today’s Horoscope
According to informed sources, Heraclitus, the fifth-century BCE Greek philosopher, once observed that “one cannot step into the same river twice.” No doubt the less subtle minds of Greece reacted to that statement the way contemporary people respond to the pronouncements of Jack Handey, but that’s a chance you always…
Lines & Shadows
The 18-wheeler retreated with a snort, then rumbled forward again. The driver finally succeeded in finessing the vehicle’s bulk onto the narrow road and coasted slowly past the house trailers, creaky frame homes and cheering onlookers lining the ruts of San Carlos Street. He came bearing a cargo of gifts…
No Flakes Allowed
French immigrants in New Orleans may have invented the pecan pie, but Southern cooks perfected it. Just check out the interpretation offered up by Ouisie’s Table [3939 San Felipe, (713)528-2264]. Served warm, this holiday classic is topped with crunchy pecan halves that contrast beautifully with the moist cookielike filling. Half-melted…
From Cells to Souls
If you want to survive prison, there is only one way to do your time: Mind your own business. Prison culture demands that you keep to yourself and show no weakness, emotion or tears unless you want to be someone’s punk or prey. Someone disrespects you, plays on you by…
Stirred and Shaken
One wall of Mi Luna [2441 University Boulevard, (713)520-5025] is lined with booths, each partially obscured by a pointed Arabic arch. On the sound system, a fiery flamenco guitarist is pounding out a tune of passion. We sit at the copper bar and sip sangria while looking over the tapas…
Agony of the Ages
Cary Rasberry is 19, old enough to exercise that most serious and awesome responsibility of all those living where he does: voting for the City Council — nay, even the mayor — of Tomball, Texas. Such an overwhelming task might weigh on the shoulders of even the strongest teen. (Or…
Saints, Sacrilege and Retablos
In the 1998 Houston Press Best of Houston issue, entrepreneur Macario Ramirez told how he enjoyed the city’s diversity. “I feel the combining of ethnic and racial groups is good for us,” he said. “Houston is a wonderful study in the interaction of people.” Last month Ramirez found himself interacting…
A Royal Pain in the Rain
Tropical Storm Frances delivered the first deluge in 1998. The second torrent soon followed from residents and businesses seeking compensation for extensive damages from high winds and water. Families ousted from flood-ravaged homes headed to their insurers for relief. So did motorists who had cars washed away and owners whose…
Archrapper
“Hey, ain’t your name Nelly?” the 11-year-old boy asked the brotha with the big black sports bag. “What?” the brotha asked back. “Nelly? Ain’t your name Nelly?” “Yeah.” He flashed a quick grin. “See, I told you!” he screamed over to one of his boys, following it with a triumphant…
Rob Todd Unredacted
When last The Insider checked in on City Council’s conservative soap opera (“The Ballad of Bert and Rob and Susan,” October 26), a Houston Press open records request forced Councilman Rob Todd to produce six months of cell phone records. Those documented nearly $4,000 in calls at taxpayer expense. Citing…
Reckless Kelly
Reckless Kelly’s third sampling of self-described “hick rock,” The Day, leans a little more toward the rock side of that terse description. In contrast to Acoustic: Live at Stubb’s, the songs clip along at about four minutes apiece. Gone are the live album’s open-ended jams, as well as the propensity…
Bayou City Beat-up
After 18 years at Fox’s KRIV-26, the always impeccably dressed Lloyd Gite has been informed that he will be out of work as of January 14. It is not, by any means, an amicable parting. Gite has been feuding loudly with new vice president/general manager D’Artagnan Bebel, writing a letter…
Annie Lin
Although only a junior at Rice University, Annie Lin has solidly established herself on the local scene. The driving force behind Rice Acoustic Music Night at the Mausoleum, a showcase of the school’s pop and folk artists-in-training, Lin has also made solo appearances all over town, from No tsu oH…
Bless the Blockhead
Christmastime is here, but for the first time, Charlie Brown’s father will not be around to watch his depressed, round-headed child celebrate the holiday. He will not be in front of the television next week to watch his little boy seek psychiatric help from a nickel-grubbing girl who diagnoses her…