All That Glitters
It’s safe to say that the Crystal Method’s Scott Kirkland isn’t losing a wink of sleep over electronica’s soggy commercial performance in 1997. The same goes for its questionable chart prospects in ’98, not to mention the genre’s relative fall from favor of late with the same critics who, last…
Quadruple Weird
The flustered clerk stood there with slack-jawed confusion, as if someone had just asked him whether he could mow the linoleum in the store. “You mean, you’re supposed to play them all at the same time?” he asked, still not fully grasping the concept. Yes. That’s the idea behind the…
Rotation
Various Artists In tha Beginning … There Was Rap Priority In tha Beginning … There Was Rap might seem like a kooky, harmless premise, an opportunity to hear today’s well-known rappers remake — and pay tribute to — the songs they enjoyed so much as kids. But to those die-hard…
Static
No gong required… A contestant’s name is called midway through Scott Gertner’s weekly Talent Search night at Cody’s, and most in the crowd crane their necks to see what they’re in for. But there’s no one moving toward the stage for a few minutes in the spotlight. The name is…
Into the Folds
In the Barry Levinson film Diner, one of the characters insists that his fiancee pass a quiz on pro football before he’ll marry her. If your thing is music rather than sports, Ben Folds Five might just be the band for a similar prenuptial litmus test, thanks to their wacky…
Old and Slow
Eighteenth-century playwright and novelist Frances Burney was one wildly famous blue-stockinged dame. Her social satires garnered her a serious social life and helped her procure a hobnobber’s dream job: After her second novel came out, she was appointed “second keeper to the robes of Queen Charlotte.” She was even admired…
Hot Plate
Don’t you love those paintings in the Empire Cafe? They’re satirizing something. But what? Rubens’s odalisques? Pornography? The female form? It’s downright unsettling. Which may explain my passion for the portobello mushroom sandwich. Nothing ambiguous here: just forthright focaccia, emphatic goat cheese, unequivocal red and yellow peppers and lots of…
Mau-Mauing the Art Collectors
Success may be one of the greatest puzzles for a contemporary black artist, because no matter how good the work, the artist never seems to be viewed separately from his or her race. As Houston painter David McGee strolls around the downstairs gallery of the Contemporary Art Museum, where his…
Pasta Point of No Return
I’ve been feeling philosophical of late. And I don’t mean the God thing. Stuff like that I leave to lesser minds. My concerns go deeper. Like, why do some restaurants consistently overcook? Is it habit? Perversity? Poor training? A desire to go bankrupt as quickly as possible? It’s hard to…
After the Obsession
His eye trained on the manic collision of Catholicism and consumerism, Pedro Almodovar has made some of the liveliest, most genre-bending films of the last two decades. The commander of a visual style that emphasizes bright primary colors and bold geometry, he’s in love with the glittering surfaces of pop-culture…
Geezer Love
The Only Thrill, directed by Houston native Peter Masterson, is a conventional, sentimental movie that nonetheless hits where it aims. The film, which otherwise would be competent but unremarkable, is distinguished by two memorable actors — Sam Shepard and Diane Keaton — and by the chemistry that grows between these…
Oprah Does Amarillo
Oprah had arrived, and it was time for the clock on Amarillo’s 15 minutes of fame to start ticking. There to greet her at the Amarillo International Airport was a herd of reporters and cameramen, eager to record whatever profundity the Queen of Talk might allow upon alighting in Potter…
She’s About a Mover
PR agent-turned-Port Commissioner Betti Maldonado was a woman on the go the week that news of the FBI’s City Hall sting broke. According to her testimony during pretrial hearings last week for the upcoming trial of the Hotel Six, a distraught Maldonado sought counseling from several big-name Houstonians while considering…
The Insider
The Parallax View A preliminary hearing last week before U.S. District Judge David Hittner offered a sometimes fiery, sometimes fumbling dress rehearsal for the upcoming bribery-conspiracy trial of the Hotel Six. The often heated arguments over pretrial motions indicated that courtroom spectators will be in for a treat early next…
No Shame
Last week, City Council named a downtown skyscraper after Bob Lanier, a tribute that prompted the almost inevitable comparison between the former mayor of Houston and the late Robert Moses, the urban planner who built much of New York City’s system of freeways, bridges and tunnels. “I didn’t think we’d…
Letters
Pay Now or Pay Later I must say I was fascinated with your article on inmate health care at the University of Texas Medical Branch [“Critical Diagnosis,” by Michael Berryhill, January 22]. Your reporter seems to suggest that nothing will be done to correct this injustice because these are only…
Press Picks
thursday february 12 “Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective” Rauschenberg’s credentials as one of the world’s leading contemporary visualists have never been in question, so why are the first words from the lips of so many art aficionados “He’s never been one of my favorite artists”? The question lingers in the air,…
Dish
Taking Stock I envy Gugenheim’s. At the recent Chicken Soup Cookoff at Temple Emanu El on Sunset Boulevard, the restaurant took first place in the traditional category and walked off with a terrific trophy. You know the kind I’m talking about. They’re awarded at bowling tournaments and have several tiers,…