Black Like Me
Mammy selling syrup. “Coons” on cookie jars. Slave auction certificates. Restaurant signs that read “If You’re Black Get Back.” The relics are a stark reminder of the past status of an entire racial group of Americans. And now, they’re at the Menil Collection for all to reflect on, thanks to…
Trading Passions
For “David Fulton: New Work” and “John Hathorn: Correspondences,” both on view at New Gallery, a sculptor has made paintings and a painter has made sculpture. Conceptually oriented sculptor David Fulton has been making paintings for the past several years; he’s showing his new crop along with a series of…
Major Players
FRI 1/28 Imagine a young John Tesh booting a soccer ball downfield, a teenage Condoleezza Rice attempting a camel spin, and a four-foot-11 Tony Danza pummeling another lightweight boxer. Before you fantasize about how you would have kicked the crap out of all three, check out Brian Kilmeade’s The Games…
Capsule Reviews
“Color” If you were around in the ’80s and looking at art, you probably remember Peter Halley. His Celotex-covered, fluorescent work was ubiquitous. But even if you’re over Halley’s stuff, you should check out his small silk screens in “Color” at Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery. It’s a clean show…
Cruisin’ for Tail
THU 1/27 Okay, so this year’s Super Bowl probably isn’t going to be as exciting for Houstonians as last year’s. No bands, no streamers, no celebrities. But hell, in some ways, downtown is still buzzing from the Mardi Gras-esque treatment it got last January. And by the time February 6…
The Canons of Courting
Standing on the front porch of the McMinn family ranch in Hempstead, surrounded by 450 acres of quiet, rolling prairie, you might just wonder if you’ve drifted back into the 19th century. There’s a tire swing hanging from the big stout tree in the yard, a hundred head of cattle…
Pole Position
WED 1/2 Pity the poor Poles. Is there any other ethnic group subjected to such demeaning humor and jokes? Like “How do you get a one-armed Polack out of a tree? Wave to him!” or “Did you know that Poland just bought 10,000 septic tanks? As soon as they learn…
Over the Limit?
New, unpublished data showing spiking levels of a toxic pollutant in Galveston Bay speckled trout has prompted state health officials to consider warning fishermen that consuming large quantities of the highly popular game fish could damage their health. Speckled trout collected at sites around Upper Galveston Bay last year contained…
Tex-Mex Sizzler
With all the new Tex-Mex and Mexican eateries opening inside the Loop in the past few years — Hugo’s, Maria Selma and Berryhill, to name a few — we sometimes tend to forget old favorites. Jalapeos Restaurant (2702 Kirby Drive, 713-524-1668) has been around for decades, winning awards and accolades…
A Matter of Trust
The Sunday trial session at the Harris County Civil Courthouse was unusual. And so were the participants. One of those heading down the nearly desolate hallways was Ted Olson; he had been solicitor general of the United States until last July. A former prime litigator for national Republican causes, Olson…
The Best Cex Ever
It was such a weird, surreal thing when emo became a commodity.” So says Rjyan Kidwell. For anyone familiar with the IDM-cum-menacing-glitch-hop of his more notable alias Cex, this reflection might be surprising. But not on second thought. The 22-year-old Baltimore native’s inner conflict embodies emo. Roasting under the summer…
Love It, Fear It
Award-winning British playwright Kay Adshead has a new production on London’s equivalent of Broadway that features, among other locales, a postapocalyptic Houston. Before the premiere, she wrote a piece for The Guardian about her three years in a Midtown condo here, saying, “More than once we have traveled on the…
Cope With This
, at the
The Xiu Mai Super Bowl
It was a little after 11 on a Sunday morning when I first dropped by Fung’s Kitchen to check out their new dim sum service. I was amazed from the second I opened the front door. There were steam tables and glass-doored refrigerators along one wall that weren’t there before,…
Pattern Recognition
Any idiot with a Spin magazine and an afternoon to kill can tell you what was popular in 2004. The real trick is to predict what will be hot in the upcoming year. Although, if anything, it’s even easier than retrospection. Think of the pop-culture time line as a telephone…
Letters
Clearing Out Another strip mall: Great article [“Draining the Swamp,” by Josh Harkinson, January 13]! What little remains of the natural beauty in this area is rapidly being bulldozed. In my backyard, literally, destruction of mature pecans and the draining of a swamp is occurring in Fort Bend County along…
Jammin’ on the Sabbath
A few years ago, local club promoter, poster artist, part-time journalist and Deadhead Will Space burned out on the nightclub scene. It wasn’t the music he was tired of, nor was it the party-hearty aspects of an evening on the town. It was the hassles entailed therein: finding and paying…
Rotation
Bright Eyes I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning/Digital Ash in a Digital Urn Saddle Creek The albums of Conor Oberst, who is equally adept at acoustic folk and synth-driven pop, are inevitably described with that unfortunate cop-out adjective, “eclectic.” But Oberst’s latest double release — I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and…
Local Rotation
Various Artists I Hate It Here, I Never Want to Leave Mustache RecordsYes, Virginia, there is a Houston rock scene. And from the evidence provided here, it’s pissed off and out for blood. The 12 heavily distorted local bands populating this compilation are certainly unafraid to sling the feedback or…
Let’s Go Down-town!
Walking the streets of downtown on Monday night, I hear the classic sounds of Inner Loop, big-skyline living: the beep-beep of Metro’s money pit, a homeless straggler asking for change. But there are new sounds these days: the exhilarating sounds of violently strummed guitar chords, the crashing of cymbals and…
Same Old Song
When did we first encounter a feel-good film that united delinquent kids, a devoted (if professionally frustrated) teacher and the transformative power of music? Was it Julie Andrews? Could it have been the spirited, soft-hearted Maria and her Austrian brood, trilling their way up the hills above the abbey? Whether…
Hot Ass Art
Get “Erotic” at the .
No More Spears
Libertarians and anarchists are fond of saying that government is the problem more often than it’s the solution, and the less there is, the better. It sounds nice in theory — who among us hasn’t cursed the government? — yet when the notion of minimal governing authority is taken to…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, January 27 If you’re not exactly on board with the religious right and are feeling a little skittish after the recent inauguration, then After Twilight will do little to calm your nerves. The short film, set in a futuristic Texas, follows the bookish Jen as she tries to deliver…
After the Lecturing
Playwright Arthur Miller has earned gobs of respect, a Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman, and our eternal shock and awe for having married Marilyn Monroe. Last October in Chicago brought the debut of his latest work, Finishing the Picture, about the horrendous behind-the-scenes filming of his screenplay The…
Bead It
For a lot of folks, Mardi Gras is like New Year’s Eve or St. Patrick’s Day — it’s a time when you’re likely to discover that, yes, a toilet seat can double as a pillow. Now you can toss the Fourth of July into the mix: The theme for this…
Capsule Reviews
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield’s silly comedy will be funniest to those who know the great bard’s work. But the three stooges playing all the characters in the wacky production at Country Playhouse — Larry Hermes, Matt Hitchens and John Mitsakis…