Cat Power
Chan Marshall’s (a.k.a. Cat Power’s) 2005 Speaking to Trees DVD (consisting of a single long-shot of the artist noodling around on her guitar in a clearing in the woods for, like, a million years) was perhaps the worst, most unwatchable piece of garbage ever shat upon the heads of a…
Brunch in the Alps
Karl Camenzind, the kindly chef and owner of Karl’s at the Riverbend, presided over his extensive Sunday brunch buffet from a spot between the chafing dishes and the made-to-order omelette and waffle station. On the wall just behind him were three framed prints of snowy white Alps. The hokey artwork…
Fighting Fish
Dating back to mid-17th-century Spain, the word zarzuela refers to a mixture of song, dance and dialogue — a sort of variety show. The variety-show concept fits perfectly with the zarzuela de mariscos ($15.50) at Tio Pepe (5213 Cedar, 713-667-4409). It’s a casserole, much like French bouillabaisse, prepared with many…
Snooks Eaglin
There’s a sticker on the front of my copy of these reissued 1959 sessions that informs us that Mojo has called this effort from the still-living Big Easy guitarist “one of the top ten greatest guitar albums of all time.” And for the first few tracks, that seems to be…
Wielding a Sword
Today, the staff and patrons of Walter’s on Washington will brace themselves for a visit by a musical act that’s been dubbed Austin’s most dangerous band. Yes, the quartet of deadly doomsayers known as the Sword will be unleashing cutthroat riffage, guttural screams, powerful melodies rich with mythical themes and…
Thai Tiger
The weather is absolutely perfect for drinking, so I put the dog on a leash and meet a friend at Thai Sticks (4319 Montrose, 713-529-4500). As we settle into the patio, our waiter Nathan suggests a Thai tiger, and we take him up on it. Sitting at a table on…
Brian Keane, Wayne Sutton and Rachel Loy
Most of Houston has yet to discover these Austin singer-songwriters, who each released interesting records in 2005 that garnered good press. Keane’s I Ain’t Even Lonely made a few national best-of lists, and the Houston Press included it in a year-end round-up of ten albums we never got around to…
Chromosome Challenge
Is your date a bloodthirsty feminist? Is your man-friend a bumbling alpha-male type? Here’s a quick and relatively painless way to find out. At today’s 15th annual ComedySportz Battle of the Sexes Match, the improv comedy troupe will split among gender lines in fierce — if goofy — competition. Ladies…
Marshall Crenshaw
It’s amazing how many people don’t know Marshall Crenshaw. Oh, sure, ’80s hipsters are as aware of Crenshaw as they are of the Plimsouls or the Replacements, but most people are blissfully ignorant (probably waiting for the return of disco); if they know him at all, it’s from the role…
Down with Love
Okay, we all know how ridiculous things get around Valentine’s Day, what with all the “He went to Jared!” commercials and price gouging of long-stem roses. Thankfully, a group of Houston artists is getting together to skew the schmaltz with the exhibition “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” The…
Yvonne Washington
If you want biographical confusion, Google nimble, mellow-voiced jazz singer Yvonne Washington. According to one site, she was born and raised in San Antonio and began her career there. Another identifies her as an Austin product (she began to step out professionally during her college years there). Yet another talks…
All’s Fairey
You’ve probably seen the stickers and the posters plastered on public property: a sad-looking face with deep-sunken eyes and the word “Obey.” You may have wondered what it meant. Is it mock propaganda? Andre the Giant? A joke? Should you be offended? Shepard Fairey, the 35-year-old artist responsible, is happy…
Shortchanged
Juan Ramon Aguillar came to the United States two and a half years ago, traveling by train from his native Honduras to Nuevo Laredo, where he paid a coyote $1,600 to take him to Houston. It was a calculated risk. He had to provide for his grandson, daughters, wife and…
BR5-49
When this Nashville group first surfaced, playing for tips at a bar/western-wear store in the mid-’90s, its brand of retro-country seemed destined for filing under “throwback novelty act.” In other words, forever shunted to the same musical room as Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the Squirrel Nut Zippers. And frankly,…
Lace Race
Valentine’s Day is both a blessing and a curse for guys. Sure, it’s an excuse to buy lingerie for your honey. But where to start? And how do you tread the line between ho and hot? Get a clue today at Love Couture, a Valentine’s Day-themed fashion show featuring unmentionables…
Let There Be Gifts
I.V. Hilliard is the black Joel Osteen — a telegenic preacher at a Houston megachurch who hobnobs with celebrities and lives the good life. It appears he’s like Osteen in one other way: He’s got a high-maintenance wife. Osteen’s wife, Victoria, famously got in a ruckus with Continental flight attendants…
Kitty Litter
This is not George Lazenby making his doomed run at James Bond, or even Mel Gibson presuming to play Hamlet. This is serious heresy, combined with a touch of felonious assault. It has evidently not occurred to Steve Martin that, just as there is only one Eiffel Tower, there is…
Journey into Night
Maybe you don’t care when it was that Conestoga wagons were all the rage, but Elizabeth Crook sure does. The Houston author of the historical novel The Night Journal is a fastidious fact-checker. “There’s never a Conestoga wagon where there couldn’t have been a Conestoga wagon,” she explains. “There are…
Letters to the Editor
Damn Debt Take responsibility: I hesitate to say it, but Tinita Samuels deserves much of the blame for her situation [“Eaten Alive,” by Josh Harkinson, January 26]. Growing up in her household, why did she continue those same destructive habits? Why, after getting pregnant, did she want to continue in…
Dead Funny
Let’s get right to the point: If you’re the type of person who enjoys seeing attractive naked girls meet a hideously graphic demise, there’s a scene in Final Destination 3 that will wear out the pause and rewind buttons on your DVD remote a few months from now. Mega-stereotype cheerleader…
Grover, Baby!
Raise your hand if, as a kid, you ever leaped for joy when Grover popped on your TV screen during Sesame Street. Keep that hand up if you dressed up like Super Grover, making a cape out of your blanket and a helmet out of a pot. And hold up…
Image of the Week
My Funny Little Valentine: Miss Fortune Madam Billie Jo shows her heart at Houston Roller Derby’s first exhibition bout…
Idle Curiosity
That Curious George existed at all — much less as a franchise, an icon enduring some 65 years — was a result of “happy circumstance,” wrote Houghton Mifflin publisher Anita Silvey with some understatement in 1991, upon the 50th anniversary publication of The Complete Adventures of Curious George. Silvey and…
Home Style
Tradition meets tragedy in Emakhaya, this year’s version of Kuumba House Dance Theatre’s annual African Heritage Month Dance Concert. Emakhaya, which means “back home,” transports viewers to South Africa and celebrates the nation’s rich tribal heritage through traditional native dance. But the brightly colored festivity can’t obscure the brutal presence…
Drugged and Disorderly
“I got bored ’cause I didn’t have a band / So I started a band, man / And we’re gonna start it with a positive jam.” — the Hold Steady, “Positive Jam” The whiz and screech of traffic is Dopplering in the background of our conversation, distorted into bizarre sonic…
Soft as a Razor Blade
Once upon a time, before TV and videos stoppered up our collective imagination, we sat around our fires telling stories. They were often dark and lurid: Ravenous wolves stalked lost girls into the dark woods, and hideous witches gleefully roasted runaways in their ovens. In Martin McDonagh’s exhilarating new play…
Straight-Up DysFunktional
At 37, comedian Eddie Griffin is honest about many things. He’s honest about doing those Deuce Bigalow movies for the money. (Thank God he took the checks â?” he’s the only funny thing in those flicks.) He’s honest about his uncle Curtis, the porn-loving relative from his 2003 concert film/documentary…
A Crying Shame
Well, aging owners and Netflix have finally finished off what was started by CD downloading, file sharing, Tropical Storm Allison, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and predatory big-box-store pricing. As of March 31, a day that will live in Houston music infamy, Cactus Music and Video will be no more. I…
Capsule Reviews
Barrymore Theater LaB should serve up baked apples and brown sugar to complement the mouthwatering ham so gloriously played by Charles Krohn in William Luce’s two-man show (the prickly prompter Frank, drolly acted by Josh Wright, remains off stage throughout). The human pork portrayed at this theatrical feast is none…
A Belly Full
As a member of the Bellydance Superstars, Ansuya makes almost inhuman use of her body, creating emotional expressions and musical interpretations via a softly gyrating belly and improvised dance — often while crawling on the floor. Today, she’ll come to town to perform Raqs Carnivale, an exotic, carnival-esque performance featuring…
Getting Personal
Ah, Valentine’s Day — that one day a year when you can say, “Baby, I love you as much as a diamond pendant from Zales.” Or, if you’re one of the unlucky ones: Ah, Valentine’s Day — that one day a year when the loneliness actually gets worse. That’s because…
Doin’ the Hustle
Costumed as an eccentric artist, Julian Schnabel wore purple pajamas to the jam-packed opening of his exhibition “Amor Misericordioso” at McClain Gallery. In his sleepwear, he reportedly greeted the likes of Lynn Wyatt and Carolyn Farb. Houstonians should be glad he wasn’t clad in one of his other fave sartorial…
Caged Kitsch
After last fall’s dramatic and doleful production of Bent, set against the Holocaust, Theatre New West artistic director Joe Watts wanted to go in a different direction. Yes, his new comedy Women Behind Bars does prominently feature a rape, a lobotomy and capital punishment by electrocution. But despite the weighty…
Same As It Never Was
Editor’s note: The Nightfly column is undergoing a bit of a face-lift. As befits any true fly, we have decided to adopt a “compound eye” approach: Starting now, the central Nightfly will receive reports from several rotating agents, each of whom will don the cape of the Nightfly before hitting…
Capsule Reviews
“Round 23” For the latest round of installations at Project Row Houses, Michael Golden has hung hundreds (maybe thousands) of keys inside one row house, covering an entire wall with these multicolored bits of metal. More keys dangle from other walls, placed there by visitors who have written their hopes…
Master in da House
Grandmaster Flash is an international legend. The man helped break hip-hop ground in the mid-´70s from a street corner in the Bronx. Back then, it was an entirely new and progressive cultural movement. Of course, hip-hop would go on to reach the farthest corners of the earth. Today Flash will…
The Handsomes
Being one of the top-drawing live acts in the city can be both a blessing and a curse. The Handsomes set a Continental Club attendance record on December 25 at its annual Christmas Day show, with 533 bodies — including the usual gaggle of H-town girls gone wild — pressing…
Clay’s the Thing
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (DreamWorks) Not since Finding Nemo has there been a movie so easy to recommend for all ages and tastes. But despite having crafted a near-perfect film, directors Nick Park and Steve Box second-guess themselves constantly on their audio commentary, as well as…
Everybody in tha Chamber
Chances are you’re probably not too familiar with David Campbell’s repertoire. But if you’ve seen Amadeus, Titanic, Harry Potter, Showgirls, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Apollo 13 or a few of the Batman or James Bond films, you’ve heard his signature sounds. The worldwide clarinet phenom (didn’t know there was such a…
Goapele
To paraphrase an old Eddie Murphy joke, Goapele is such a beautiful woman, she makes you all ugly in the face when you look at her. But, as the Bay Area songstress exhibits on her second major release, Change It All, she’s more than just a pretty face you’d be…
X-Man Reunited
Publisher: Capcom
Platform: PlayStation 2, Game Cube
Price: $29.99
ESRB Rating: E (for Everyone)
Score: 8 (out of 10)
Oh, You Animal
This year, skip the stuffy restaurant routine and take your lovebird to the Houston Zoo’s “Go Wild for Love” Valentine’s lectures. Indulge yourself in more ways than one with an exquisite choice of chow and the most exotic of animal-kingdom erotica. Brunch brings custom-made omelettes and chocolate-dipped strawberries; at dinner,…
Sam Winch
What might have been a routinely impressive display of songcraft is elevated via eccentric vocals and dynamic arrangements into an apparent gene-splice of Closing Time Tom Waits with Transformer Lou Reed, as backed up by members of the Band and Lambchop. There’s also kind of a Steve Goodman thing going…
Our top DVD picks for the week of February 7
Bambi II (Disney) The Batman: The Complete First Season (Warner Bros.) The Best of the Electric Company (Shout!) The Best of Youth (Miramax) The Cary Grant Box Set (Sony) Cote D’Azur (Strand) Daltry Calhoun (Miramax) Doom: Unrated Extended Edition(Universal) Elizabethtown(Paramount) Eros (Warner Bros.) Grounded for Life: Season 1 (Anchor Bay)…
Simian Satire
In the riveting world of word association, “feminism” does not typically conjure “hilarity.” Which is too bad, because all politicizing is better when spiked with humor (see Stewart, Jon and Franken, Al). Fortunately, the Guerrilla Girls have figured this out, and they’re bringing their satire-laced feminism to Houston in association…