The 5 Best Things to Do in Houston This Weekend: The Jew Who Loved Christmas and More
Toxic radiation inspired Suchu Dance’s Jennifer Wood to choreograph begin wide, an evening-length work of postmodern dance that’s athletic, fluid, detailed and our choice for Friday. “Radioluminescence — I liked the language around it, and it gave me an idea. And the idea of something glowing in the dark was…
David Bowie, Newcomer Leonard Set Optimistic Tone For 2016
Innovation always comes from the most unexpected sources. No one who sets out to innovate or create a new vision generally succeeds. It’s mainly when an artist is inspired purely by their own ingenuity that they create something visionary. Two amazing recently released singles have set the tone for what…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 31: Risotto With Veal at Mascalzone
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 32: “Burnt Ends” at Southern Goods
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
The 10 Best and Worst Houston Holiday Songs
Christmas songs from beloved artists can be a bane or a blessing, an unexpected stocking stuffer or a turd lit up in wrapping paper on the porch. As a rule, holiday records rule when artists adapt them to their own style. For example, no one wants to hear R. Kelly…
7 Stoner Comedies That Are Fun for Non-Stoners
Ah…stoner movies. Love them or hate them, films made to appeal to connoisseurs of chemically enhanced states of mind have come out of Hollywood for decades, billowing forth like the smoke from a teenager’s bong. While films with drug use as a central theme cover nearly every genre, most of…
This Week in Houston Food Blogs: Cozy Dining Rooms and Ideas for Leftovers
This week, we have a few recipes that might help you get rid of those holiday leftovers, plus reviews and a list of where to snuggle up for a hot meal as the temperatures drop. If you still haven’t plowed through those Thanksgiving leftovers, Karen of Honestly Yum has an…
This Houston Rockets Thing Is Going Nowhere
In my own personal, metaphorical bubble, perhaps the biggest indictment of this absolutely deplorable 2015-16 edition of the Houston Rockets came on Monday night, when their 116-105 loss to the Detroit Pistons was demoted to third string (much like Ty Lawson) in my Monday TV rotation behind a Sheamus Era…
Rice University President: Nobody Here Wants Campus-Carry
On Monday, Rice University announced that it would be opting out of Texas’s campus-carry law, which will allow Concealed Handgun License holders to carry guns on college campuses starting August 2016. In a letter announcing the university’s decision, President David W. Leebron indicated that basically no one a work group…
100 Favorite Houston Dishes 2015, No. 33: Tom Kha Gai at Kanomwan
Phaedra Cook is eating her way through Houston and counting down her 100 favorite dishes of 2015. It’s a collection of personal favorites that is also indicative of Houston dining. It’s a scene where a vast range of dishes coexist: highbrow and lowbrow; local and international; cheap and expensive; modern…
HAA Folklife + Traditional Arts Program Celebrates of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe is getting lots of attention in Houston this year. Along with the throngs of faithful who observe her feast day and construct devotional alters to her, two museum exhibits are set to further explore her story and look at the changing way believers have celebrated her…
Upcoming: Buxton, The Cure, Dropkick Murphys, Fat Tony, Mumford & Sons, Mystikal, Rihanna, Paul Wall, etc.
Adam and Chris Carroll: Sat., December 19, 9 p.m., TBA. Anderson Fair Retail Restaurant, 2007 Grant, Houston, 832-767-2785. Adam Johnson Band: Fri., December 18, 7 p.m., TBA. Dan Electro’s Guitar Bar, 1031 E. 24th, Houston, 713-862-8707. Already Gone (Eagles tribute): With Abbey Rode. Thu., December 31, 8 p.m., $85. Main…
Houston’s Night Shift: How Overnight Workers Survive in a City Not on Their Schedule
Natalie Moloney worries about two things at her job. The first is keeping the planes over Texas from crashing into one another. The second is hoping a car isn’t crashing into her son, who has schizoaffective disorder, as he walks to work in the dark. So far at least three…
Mein Specializes in Noodles, Delivering Good Service With Its Tasty Dishes
The jalapeño prawns arrived from the kitchen heaped up on a platter and hot in more ways than one. The peppers were simply split open up to the stem and fried alongside slivers of white onion until they blistered and blackened. Some of the jalepeños were more lively than others,…
There’s No New Contract Yet, but UH’s Tom Herman Says He’s Sticking Around
Houston Cougar head coach Tom Herman yesterday sought to set aside the rumors that he’s been considering leaving the University of Houston. Addressing the media in advance of Saturday’s American Athletic Conference title game, Herman stated that he and the school have agreed in principal to terms for a new…
20 Things We Learned Going to Concerts Overseas
The following are some interesting notes and general tidbits from three shows attended during a recent trip to England: Madness at London’s Wembley Stadium; rising singer-songwriter Jess Glynne in Camden; and acid-house legends the Happy Mondays in Southampton. It includes some general differences and similarities. Again, it is just a…
Ken Paxton Really Doesn’t Want You to See Him in Court Today
After weeks of trading barbs in legal filings, defense attorneys and prosecutors in the case against Ken Paxton, Texas’ first sitting attorney general in more than three decades to face criminal indictment, will head back to court Tuesday. Paxton’s numerous pretrial motions to dismiss the charges against him preview the…
GoFundMe Site Set Up for MC Wickett Crickett
Last Monday, Houston lost a legend in MC Wickett Crickett. The man born Darnell Veal succumbed to lung cancer at age 56, leaving behind a legacy in multiple platforms across the Bayou City. He overcame immense poverty as well as his mother abandoning him and his other nine siblings to…
Act of Defiance Out to Prove Their Staying Power
Walking away from the one of the most historically influential metal bands of all time to start your own gig is no easy task. And, doing it with another former member of the same band looks like mutiny afoot. But don’t be fooled. When Shawn Drover and Chris Broderick left…
Remembering Mack McCormick, the Best Friend Texas Blues Ever Had
A palpable, intrinsic loneliness and a sense of being disconnected from the world is inherent in Emily Dickinson’s succinct but poignantly profound epistolary poem entitled “This is My Letter to the World”: This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me— The simple News that Nature told—…
Texas Threatens to Sue Resettlement Groups for Helping Syrian Refugees
The state of Texas sent a letter to a refugee aid group in Dallas late last week, threatening to sue the organization and cut off its contract with the state if it does not stop working to resettle Syrians fleeing violence and persecution in the Middle East, the Houston Chronicle…
Reverend Horton Heat & Friends Get Scout Bar Jumpin’
Reverend Horton Heat Scout Bar November 28, 2015 Despite Houston weather not cooperating, fans came out by the dozens in the cold and drizzle to see the legendary Reverend Horton Heat Saturday night. Good music doesn’t take days off and neither do fans. With a plentiful scattering of vintage vehicles…
Bob Schneider Ushers In the Holiday Season With His Moonlight Orchestra
Bob Schneider’s Moonlight Orchestra Cullen Theater, Wortham Center November 27, 2015 The Christmas season, as those of a mind to do so are keen to remind you, gets an earlier start every year. It’s not unusual to see decorations popping up in your local big box stores along with Halloween…
Chef Jose Hernandez Isn’t Leaving Radio Milano — at Least Not Yet
A disappointing announcement on October 15 said that chef Jose Hernandez would be leaving Radio Milano, the high-flying Italian restaurant at CityCenter in Hotel Sorella. A new press release today says that it turns out that he’ll stick around after all—for a little while. Apparently, a deal has been struck…
Rice Owls Win the Finale and Defeat Cynicism
It’s easy to become cynical and jaded about college football. Wining coaches are fired for not wining enough. There are player arrests, and non-arrests. There’s the academic fraud and the near-constant recruiting violations.There’s a college playoff system that virtually ignores schools from non-power conferences. And everything’s controlled by television, with…
Benjy’s in The Village Goes Retro for 20-Year Anniversary Celebration
Think back to 1995. The year when Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” topped the Billboard Hot 100; Montell Williams’ “This is how we do it” played in all the clubs; Hootie and the Blowfish were a thing; and Shania Twain was one of People Magazine’s 25 Most Intriguing People of the year…
The Nutcracker: The Rats and Soldiers Are Committed and the Sugar Plum Fairy Is Divine
The Setup: Since its premiere in 1987, Ben Stevenson’s version of The Nutcracker performed by the Houston Ballet has become a constant for the city of Houston during the holiday season. As previously announced, this year is the the last time audiences will be able to see Stevenson’s version of…
Ted Cruz and the Radical Anti-Abortion Movement
Police officials haven’t yet said what motivated Robert Dear, a doomsday prepper-type loner with a history of domestic violence who handed out anti-Obama pamphlets to neighbors, to stand in the parking lot of a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic with a rifle and open fire the morning after Thanksgiving. But,…
College Football, Week 13 — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
So that was it. Thanksgiving weekend came and went, and despite a schedule dotted with potential foundation shaking games, when all was said and done, everything just slid right into place. Granted, it took until Stanford’s last second field goal sailed through the uprights against Notre Dame, but it would…
A Tense, Electric Blackbird Sorts Through Child Abuse and Its Aftermath
The set-up: “Shock.” That’s the first word spoken in David Harrower’s deeply disturbing play about child abuse, Blackbird (2005). It won’t be the last time we, or its injured characters, are shocked by what we learn in the next 90 minutes. The execution: In this electric production from Hune Company’s…
NFL Week 12: Texans 24, Saints 6 — 4 Winners, 4 Losers
Mark it down. November 29. Week 12. I’ll go ahead and say it — the Texans are officially a sneaky, sort-of-dangerous team. You have no idea how skittish I was about typing that sentence, like the mere pressing of the period button at the end of that sentence activates some sort…
The 10 Most #HouDat Texans-Saints Rapper Tweets
The Houston Texans’ 2015 season began with HBO’s Hard Knocks introducing the team to America at large. It took a month of filming and some fancy editing to present to the nation our sometimes thrilling and frequently frustrating NFL franchise. Home Box Office could have saved all that time and…
35 Acts to Loathe, In Five Words Or Less
Music is subjective. When you get right down to it, there’s just no such thing as a “good” or “bad” musical performers. Except for these artists. These folks are terrible. And to make all this hatred easier to digest, we’ve limited ourselves to five words or less. Enjoy! Pitbull: Vanilla…
Cougars Easily Dismantle Navy, Win 52-31
It wasn’t supposed to be this easy, this being the Houston Cougars 52-31 defeat of 16th-ranked Navy. But the 21st-ranked Cougars just went out and played the best game the team has played all season, and played that game in the most important game of the season, the regular season…
Legendary UH Coach Guy V. Lewis Dies at Age 93
Guy V. Lewis died yesterday. He was 93 years old. That’s probably bigger news in Houston than it is elsewhere. It’s probably bigger news to UH alums than others. It’s major news to fans of college basketball. It’s easy to just jot down the numbers associated with Coach Lewis and…
