Letters
Editor’s Note A remarkable number of our readers thought we had lost our minds with “The Fido Solution,” our package of stories in the February 3 edition concerning animal overpopulation. One reader said Richard Connelly, author of the main story, was “insensitive and barbaric.” Another vowed to “call law enforcement”…
The Art of Sex
Last summer Ed Koch was seen all over Manhattan with a cock in his mouth. On the street and in the subways, there he was, the former Democratic mayor, looking so pleased, so happy with the large penis in his face. This came as no surprise to many New Yorkers,…
Shooting the Stars
— Steven Devadanam Griffin spews at .
Capsule Reviews
“Ann Stautberg” Ann Stautberg is best known for her large-scale, Gulf Coast-centric images. But her work has shifted over the last couple of years; the focus now is monochromatic color and the abstract qualities of organic forms. Stautberg shoots her images in black and white and then hand-colors the prints…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, February 17 Whether Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous dream has been fully realized is debatable, but when a professional dance troupe, founded by an African-American, is able to present a King-inspired dance before thousands, you know you’ve made progress. Sandra Organ, Houston Ballet’s first black ballerina, founded her own…
Little Italy in Montrose
You’d think nothing in the eclectic Montrose area would surprise anymore, not even a fine Italian restaurant in a strip center. But Sorrento (415 Westheimer, 713-527-0609) does take your breath away. The arched ceilings, frescoed walls, wine racks, fireplace and circular polished-marble bar make you think of a white-tablecloth establishment…
The Brutal Truth
— Scott Faingold Meet Bernstein from . .
French Food Sans Frenchmen
On my first visit to Bistro Calais, I walked in the front door of the historic cottage that houses the restaurant, took a look around the empty bar and dining room, and concluded the place was closed. If somebody in the back dining room hadn’t chosen that moment to laugh,…
Glove Love
TUE 2/22 What, you think Lance Berkman materialized inside Minute Maid Park at the hands of some benevolent baseball god? Houstonians have reason to be grateful to the Rice Owls men’s baseball team, not only for the wonder that is Berkman, but also for the city’s most recent national championship…
Femmes Fatales
THU 2/17 Along with the requisite two turntables and a microphone, a good number of DJs come equipped with a set of the ol’ twig and berries. Well, on the third Thursday of every month, you and friends can tap your feet and let the caboose loose to a team…
Dressing the Part
At the risk of being hunted down by vengeful Scientologists (or — gasp! — Tom Cruise), we have to ask: If L. Ron Hubbard was so smart, why didn’t he create problem-solving clothing? Wouldn’t the world be better off with a fall line of Dianetics-inspired wool separates that, while keeping…
Blood, Flesh and Gore
Blood Brothers appear , at ,
Sex, Drugs and Jeff Tweedy’s National Geographic Collection
Hard to believe there was a time when rock stars just made music. These days, artists don’t merely release CDs — they release concert documentaries, making-of concert documentaries, behind the making-of concert documentaries. And if that’s not enough — and in our culture of celebrity, how could it be? –…
Buggin’ for Bling
FRI 2/18 At age 44, Michael Stadther sold his banking-software company for millions, and retired soon after to upstate New York. For most people, that would be enough. But the entrepreneur, now 52, decided that he wanted to write a children’s book, so he took two of his millions and…
Windows of the Seoul
I don’t know much about South Korea. I know the North far better — that grotesque Stalinist nightmare, where the government is serious when it says, “Let’s trim our hair according to Socialist lifestyle!” but as for the southern half, I’m pretty ill informed. I know that America fought a…
The Cannonball Run
Dawn arrived quietly and, with it, an unusual group. Some shook hands and exchanged hellos in front of the plain-looking office building. Others warmed up. A nervous adrenaline lingered like foggy breath in the cold air. A man in a leather jacket and 3-D glasses, one of the first to…
Playbill
Jucifer Jucifer trudges through dense sludge like an elephant escaping a tar pit, out-louding nearly all of its peers. Unlike the mojo-mongering White Stripes, this coed duo never provokes purists to play “where’s the bassist,” mostly because gearhead guitarist Amber Valentine rigs her amp to generate seismic low-end rumblings. With…
Fire in the Belly
Much like the flawless jump shot that made him famous, Shawn Respert’s life — or at least his basketball career — had a definitive arc that you could trace. On June 28, 1995, it reached its highest point. On that date, the Portland Trail Blazers selected the 23-year-old shooting guard…
He’s Gone Country
Over the last month Sam Houston Race Park has been searching for Houston’s best country singer. While it was puzzling to me that a horse track would be in the business of scouting out Space City’s most golden-tinged twang, I decided to do the contest a friggin’ service and enter…
Three Days Too Many
An arbitrator has overturned a three-day suspension issued to a cop who caused an innocent man to spend 11 months in jail. The flawed investigation also may have allowed the actual robbery suspect, Elijah “Ghetto” Joubert, to remain free to commit another holdup — this one resulting in the killing…
Hell to Pay
At first (and second and maybe even third) glance, it’s all so familiar: Keanu Reeves shrouded in a black trench coat that flaps behind him like a superhero’s wings, moving between netherworlds and a real world used as a battleground, breeding ground and playground for higher beings amused and appalled…
Gockley’s Move
The announcement last week that David Gockley would be taking over the reins of San Francisco Opera surprised those who thought the premier poster boy for the city’s performing arts community would never leave. He was the preeminent head of Houston Grand Opera. After more than 30 years of building…
Pooch Kicks
It’s hard to know what to expect from Wayne Wang. The Hong Kong-raised director has made one gorgeous mood movie (Chinese Box) and two intelligent literary adaptations (Smoke and Anywhere But Here); he was also responsible, in his early days, for the overwrought sobfest The Joy Luck Club. Then, in…
Mind Reading
Yvette Lacobie was steamed at one of her teachers at Bellaire High School. She felt like her Spanish teacher had been picking on her all year, and particularly so on that day. So she did what a lot of teenagers do. She vented to her friends. She went home last…
Child Actors
Raising children is scary business. Good parents fear nothing more than their kids somehow getting hurt. But Talaya Delaney’s Somebody’s Sons, premiering now at Main Street Theater, raises an unsettling question — one that few parents consider as they watch their beautiful babies grow. In this shaky and disturbing new…
News to Use
Times have been tough at the world headquarters for Talon News. Its White House correspondent, “Jeff Gannon,” sparked a national tizzy by lobbing an incredibly softball question during a President Bush press conference; subsequent blog research discovered “Gannon” was a guy named Jim Guckert who also dabbled in gay-sex Web…
Capsule Reviews
A Doll’s House It’s the most famous door slam in history. At the end of Henrik Ibsen’s influential 1879 “problem play,” Nora leaves the confines of her outwardly happy and conventional marriage and abandons her children, husband and social standing in order to “find herself.” She might as well be…