Stage Capsules
Androcles and the Lion It should come as no surprise that great Irish literary lion George Bernard Shaw would write a play with a lion as one of the main characters. In his 1912 “comic fable” based upon the ancient Roman tale, Shaw embroiders the pagan story of Androcles and…
Image of the Week
BayouSphere…
Orange Crush
The Sidebar at Gravitas (807 Taft, 713-522-0995) sounds like a tiny area where you can stand next to the hostess and have a cocktail while you wait for a table. But when I walk through the sleek glass doorway that separates Sidebar from the rest of Gravitas, the compact bar…
Back to the Future
With Samuel Alito in the Supreme Court, the future of the right to a safe and legal abortion seems more uncertain now than at any time since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. If you want to get an idea of what things could be like in the near future,…
Houston’s Best Public High Schools
Gaby Fernandez loves her high school, despite the neighborhood surrounding it. The invisible boundaries that demarcate gang turf, the frequent police and ambulance sirens, the media that swarm one moment and are gone the next: These have played as large a role in Gaby’s high school experience as algebra class…
Capsule Reviews
“The Birth of a Nation — Yo! Bum Rush the Show” Dawolu Jabari Anderson’s new works at the Art League Houston use D.W. Griffith’s infamously racist 1915 film The Birth of a Nation as a source of inspiration. Anderson creates large paintings on paper that are reminiscent of vintage comic…
How Sweet It Is
The pizza at Dolce Vita Pizzeria & Enoteca, the city’s coolest new Italian joint, is cooked in a 700-degree wood-burning oven. Thanks to the heat of the oven, the yeasty dough, and a light touch with the toppings, the crust comes out crispy and chewy at the same time. Mottled…
Law and Disorder
Publisher: Capcom
Platform: Nintendo DS
Price: $29.99
ESRB Rating: T (for Teen)
Score: 8 (out of 10)
Wiretap that Ass!
We’re always told not to judge a book by its cover, but Elaine Taylor, author of Final Betrayal, her publisher and commercial booksellers are banking that you will. “The image of the woman wearing only her underwear is provocative, but it’s not gratuitous,” says Taylor, explaining that the image could…
All the President’s Men
(Warner Bros.) It’s no mystery why Warner Bros. chose to rerelease All the President’s Men now; at last we know how much — which is to say how little — Mark “Deep Throat” Felt really looked like Hal Holbrook. A new doc on former FBI second-in-command Felt and his long…
Death and the Salesman
In an age when all the state capitals are just a Google search away, the character of traveling encyclopedia salesman Lem is charmingly nostalgic. And he’s not the only bizarre character in David Liss’s new novel, The Ethical Assassin, an absurd, murderous romp through Southern Florida. Lem meets up with…
Tortoise & Bonnie “Prince” Billy
Here’s a bizarre collaboration between two indie-rock stalwarts who would seem to have little in common outside of their indie-rock stalwartness. Chicago’s Tortoise is the reigning champeen of electronic post-rock, while the Louisville-bred Bonnie “Prince” Billy (a.k.a. Will Oldham, a.k.a. Palace) remains largely perceived as a rootsy singer-songwriter type. So…
Our top DVD picks for the week of February 21
Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (MCA) The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends (Shout Factory) Domino (New Line) Dorian Blues (TLA) First Descent (Universal) Left of the Dial (HBO) The Memory of a Killer (Sony) Midnight Cowboy: Two-Disc Collector’s Edition (MGM) Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Collector’s Edition (Sony)…
Walking the Dawgs
Though Mardi Gras is, by definition, a laissez-faire event, here’s a parade for which you can — quite literally — put on the dog. Horses and cats and chickens and things will all be itching for a spot in the 7th Annual Krewe of Barkus and Meoux Mardi Paws Parade…
Belle & Sebastian
With delicate tunes and referential album titles like The Boy with the Arab Strap, Belle & Sebastian main man Stuart Murdoch is a cult artist who has more or less birthed a scene of pop miniaturists known as twee. But Murdoch is moving ever closer to potential fans who are…
Don’t Buy the Hype
Serial killer Coral Eugene Watts confessed to killing 13 Texas women, and he’s suspected of killing many others across the country. That’s why he’s safely behind bars. And there he is going to remain, even though the Texas Department of Criminal Justice seems intent on scaring everyone into thinking otherwise…
Fit for a King
For years, Houstonians have flocked to the Rothko Chapel’s Barnett Newman sculpture Broken Obelisk to reflect. Now, in a fitting tribute to a national hero and Black History Month, Obelisk will be re-dedicated to the late Dr. Martin Luther King. (The piece, an engineering marvel of connected, inverted polygons, has…
Beth Orton
This singer-songwriter from London got her start singing on tracks by mid-’90s electronic-music mavens like William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers. They provided her with fleshed-out musical settings before her songwriting had evolved to the point where she could provide her own; in return, she gave her collaborators’ work an…
Letters to the Editor
And God Created Gucci OMFG: I was totally blown away by this little gem [“Let There Be Gifts,”; Hair Balls, by Richard Connelly, February 9]. I had to see for myself, and damned if you weren’t totally on target. It’s rich that there’s a mailing address for the presents in…
Buckle Up
The Houston Black Film Festival is endorsed by the office of Mayor Pro Tempore Carol Alvarado, which of course means that just by attending you get a $50,000 bonus. We kid! Today’s screening features Buckle Boys, a documentary on black cowboys, which starts at 3:40 p.m. (No word if things…
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys, who have conquered the British charts with their debut singles and album, can be seen as the Stone Temple Pilots to Franz Ferdinand’s Pearl Jam. If Franz bandmates are icons of a new trend in British rock, Monkeys reaffirm the success of that aesthetic while subtly removing some…
Children at Risk
Children At Risk is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization devoted to improving the quality of life for greater Houston’s children through strategic research, public policy analysis, community education, collaboration and analysis. Its primary focus is on childhood health, public schools and poverty and safety issues. Founded in 1990, Children At Risk…
Enjoy Some Chocolate
The whole thing sounds like those old-school Reese’s peanut butter cup commercials: Lauren Kelly, curator for the 4th Floor Space Gallery at Prairie View A&M University, wants to take two great tastes and put them together. Fusing love and history, today she hosts the lengthily titled lecture “Chocolate Artists Who…
Sigur Rs, with Amina
Since Iceland’s Sigur Rs (“Victory Rose”) broke and entered into America’s heart with the rerelease of their sophomore offering, Agaetis Byrjun, back in 2001, they’ve become more than just a band that makes beautiful rock music. Though there’s much to be enjoyed in the four-piece band’s shimmering strings and velvety…
Another Bright Spot
“Awesome! Awesome! You’re all awesome!” principal Willie Pickens exclaims to a group of girls arriving to school from a dance competition. Pickens bounds through the halls, occasionally picking up scraps of trash. He passes through a black-box theater built by students, a large art studio decorated with students’ paintings and…
Brown Gets Down
During the past decade, DJ and producer Merrick Brown has released a steady stream of singles and remixes on the two labels he runs, and he’s held down his own Thursday night party, Get Broke. Today, he’ll be spinning his diverse blend of dance music, which will most likely include…
Weird Weeds
With a hushed structure similar to that of their avant-pop contemporaries Xiu Xiu, the eclectic sound of Austin’s Weird Weeds takes things even further into the stoned spectrum, like something you might hear in a toy store filled with vintage cuckoo clocks. As might be expected, the band has strong…
Methodology
The methodology employed by Children At Risk to assess the schools began with a series of informal interviews with Houston-area superintendents, researchers and educators on ways to determine the top-performing local public high schools. The Texas Education Agency proved a useful source for some school information. The Manhattan Institute was…
Supreme Party
During the three and a half years that Danceparc DJs Allison Shaw and Shoe Latif have held down their weekly show Danseparc, there have been post-punk tributes, moustache parties and mod nights. Today the ladies and recent Danceparc addition Michael Harwell, who replaced Jaime Jennings last summer, are throwing their…
Maynard Ferguson and His Big Bop Nouveau Band
Even if you don’t own a single jazz record and think that Miles Davis might play for the Knicks, you’ve heard the hearty horn of Maynard Ferguson. That’s him giving all on his trumpet in “Gonna Fly Now,” the ubiquitous theme from Rocky. And even though his film and TV…
Misery Loves Company
Mark Eitzel isn’t having it. “‘Supergroup’?” he sniffs. “That’s sort of a horrible expression. Don’t they have a tendency to be really boring, just sitting around on stools doing high-fives between every song?” He pauses, with expert comic timing. “Actually, this is just like that.” Eitzel, veteran solo artist and…
Teen Spirit
TV teen dramas often serve as music tastemakers for the Proactiv set. Brooklyn duo The Honorary Title, who are coming to Walter’s today with labelmates Limbeck and Koufax, have already had their song “Bridge and Tunnel” featured in two episodes of One Tree Hill – and the selection makes sense…
Smoking Popes
In a bizarre turn of events, the reunion of Chicago pop-punk superheroes Smoking Popes has been a dream come true for Houstonian Ryan Chavez (best known as the main man behind local indie concert promotion team Super Unison). The Popes broke up back in 1999, in the wake of the…
Enter Pissman
The day Bill Fool entered into rock and roll history was, for him, a typical Sunday. It started off at happy hour at Miyako’s, where he and his friends knocked back a brace of Asahis and sake bombs. After they were kicked out of there in the afternoon, Fool continued…
Nightmare in Paradise
Home to the shimmering tropical Lake Victoria, an abundance of unique wildlife and breathtaking mountain landscapes, the Eastern Congo is thought by many to be the site of the actual Garden of Eden. But as the camera lens of director Hubert Sauper’s documentary Darwin’s Nightmare points out, within this fertile…
Scared Stiff
If you have any awareness at all of the existence of Running Scared no, not the Gregory Hines/Billy Crystal cop buddy comedy, but the new film written and directed by Wayne Kramer chances are you have but one question: How in God’s name does anyone expect us to believe that…
Doomsday
Rappers MF Doom and MF Grimm are longtime collaborators and until recently, close friends. Coming up together as part of New York City’s M.I.C. (Monsta Island Czars) crew in the ’90s, Doom originally was known as Zev Love X. But the two went on to share billing on many albums,…
Tons o’ Tonk
Hot rods and honky tonk go together like cold beer and barbeque, all of which will be consumed in copious quantities as gearheads from far and wide descend on the Honky Tonk & Hot Rod Music Festival. Those who love chrome and steel should find plenty to gawk at as…
Suspended Sentence
As scientific advances have made forensic DNA matching a reality, a new field has emerged in criminal justice: exoneration. In cases where relevant biological evidence has been preserved, innocent inmates who’ve been serving time for decades suddenly have cause for hope. If a prisoner can manage to get legal help,…
Art Girls Are Easy
The line at the MFAH is stretching around the block. I’m not even inside yet, and already I’m nostalgic. Since November, the monthly “Starbucks Music Series at MFAH” (popularly, and more appropriately, we think, known as The Beats of Basquiat) has monopolized cool every four weeks, drawing together the best…
A Witch of a Show
Los Angeles-based The Warlocks have the same name as the ´60s band that went on to become the Grateful Dead, but the similarities between the two stop there. The band is actually more akin to the heroin-soaked Velvet Underground, who, strangely enough, were also known as the Warlocks before a…
Eva’s My All-Star
For a self-respecting celebrity stalker, All-Star Weekend is an exercise in focus. After all, at any moment, you could bump into (quite literally, depending on where you are) Jay-Z, Beyonc, Diddy, Nelly, Denzel Washington, Jimmy Smits, Pharrell Williams, Snoop Dogg and, ah, Eva Longoria. Do you really have time then…
Domino Kings
They may not be from Texas, but Springfield, Missouri’s Domino Kings are still one of the best country bands on planet Earth right now. Not that schmaltzy Nashvegas country; not that Southern-rock-dressed-up-in-a-creased-plastic-cowboy-hat country; no, theirs is the genuine purist’s article full of big, bent Telecaster licks, aching Ozark harmonies and,…
Reuben Redo
The bratwurst Reuben ($6.99) at Kahn’s Deli (2429 Rice Boulevard, 713-529-2891) takes the traditional Reuben sandwich to an unexpected place – and some say the new version is better than the old standard. Kahn’s has traded out the corned beef for grilled Usinger bratwurst, made with a blend of veal…