Oral Surgery
Maybe you know Smash Mouth only from that TV commercial where their song “All Star” creates more excitement about buying a new car than seems reasonable. Perhaps you know the band from the end of Shrek when the quartet sings the old Monkees hit “I’m a Believer,” or you’ve heard…
Training Day
The dignitaries were thick on the ground for the grand opening of Metro’s light rail system, if by “dignitaries” you mean contractors, bureaucrats and elected officials. Not to mention reporters wondering who they had to blow to get out of future thrilling assignments like covering this train ride the morning…
Bastard Sons of Brian Eno
In the beginning, there was Brian Eno. And he created Music for Airports, an incredibly soft, incredibly slow album that had more silence than music and more atmosphere than song structure. It gave 1978’s nascent yuppies something to listen to as they came down from their manic coke binges, and…
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
A long time ago, God supposedly decreed, “Let there be light.” At the city’s inaugural festivities last week, Sunday school teacher and new mayor Bill White decreed, “Let there be civic sweetness and synchronized traffic lights.” Both are undeniably good ideas, but if it was all that easy, one wonders…
Heard It Through the Grapevine
“Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.” — Robert Fripp If that’s true, then music criticism is the belch that follows a draught from the cup of loudness. At any rate, music and wine are as bound together as any two forms of art on earth. There’s…
Double Bogey
Adrienne Crispin had worked at the city’s parks department less than three weeks when she was assigned to rewrite its contract for Glenbrook Golf Course. For 12 years, Lopez Management had run the municipal course, giving the city a percentage of the proceeds in return. Crispin was supposed to amend…
Rechenzentrum
Last year must have been the year of the overload, and not only for pop music (and the Eastern Seaboard’s electrical grid). While OutKast and Basement Jaxx were busy stuffing new albums with as much funky bluster as they could, the decidedly nonpop multimedia trio Rechenzentrum, darling of the art…
Head Ways
You say you’ve been shopping at Dillard’s for years and you’ve never heard that the department store chain was accused of having problems? You didn’t have a clue about claims by minorities that they’d been discriminated against there — that there had even been deaths? Maybe we can help you…
Ronny Elliott
Tampa’s Ronny Elliott has progressed from a rock and roller who once backed Chuck Berry to an acid rocker who once opened for Jimi Hendrix to a country rocker who was briefly a member of the Outlaws in 1969 to one of the earliest practitioners of insurgent country. Crusty as…
Hard Sale
No matter the facts of the case, taking on a corporate giant like Dillard’s is about as easy as bagging a hummingbird with a longbow. Even those who have successfully sued the retailer say they’re disinclined to repeat the experience. “It’s a large corporation with lots of political clout and…
Flying Fish Sailors
For over 15 years now, Houston’s Flying Fish Sailors have served as a musical genre unto themselves. Combining witty and bizarre original comedy songs with traditional folk, Celtic music, olde English ballads, sea shanties, pub singsongs and instrumentals, their live shows are always a good time. That feeling is replicated…
Letters
Booked Up Allow prisoner interviews: Thank you for the information [“Writer’s Block,” by Scott Nowell, December 18]. I cannot fathom anyone preventing an interview of an inmate by an author. It is such a crock to use some lame-brained excuse such as “might be a relative” ad infinitum. Perhaps someone…
Chasing Mandy
There are two options when discussing Chasing Liberty, in which pop-star-turned-actress Mandy Moore plays a president’s daughter named Anna Foster who wants some alone time, sans Secret Service, to go clubbing in Europe, hang with friends and lose her 18-year-old virginity to a Brit in his twenties who resembles the…
Gettin’ Jiggy
Paddy Moloney has had a busy couple of weeks. The founder of the Chieftains, the world’s best-known purveyors of traditional Irish music, spoke with us on the phone from Milan, Italy, where they’ve just played a series of Christmas shows in historic churches. They also gigged at the Nobel Peace…
Painting by Numbers
So, have you ever wondered what exactly goes into the painting of a portrait? You might have suspected there’s more to it than a painter saying something along the lines of, “Hey, baby, can I, uh, paint you?” and then someone else saying, “Yeah, sure, that’d be cool.” You might…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, January 8 Do-not-call list, my ass! Telemarketers are still the bane of most our existences. But comedian Jim Florentine is on our side. He’s made a name for himself by taping his phone conversations with these faceless interlopers. Whether he’s pretending like he’s taking a dump or getting robbed…
Dusty Ditties
In 1927, Jerome Kern composed some of the most gorgeously lush music in the history of American theater with his unforgettable score to Show Boat. But Kern and the American musical were not always so memorable. In fact, a decade before the success of Show Boat, the musical as we…
Touchdown the Aisle
Have you ever wondered why so many people seem to get engaged this time of year? The answer is simple: Men are cheap bastards. At least that’s what Linda Miller, the producer of the Bridal Extravaganza Show, seems to think. (And she’s probably right.) “Why do we have the show…
Connect the Dots
Fashion magazines are notorious for making women feel ugly by teaching them how to be beautiful. They inundate women with unobtainable canons of attractiveness: Kate Moss’s skeletal frame, Angelina Jolie’s pouting lips, Pamela Anderson’s ever-evolving rack, Jennifer Lopez’s big-ass you-know-what. The message espoused by these mags is simple enough: Image…
Silence Broken
FRI 1/9 While trying to bring his latest work to a U.S. audience, Iranian filmmaker Babak Payami had to deal with an issue his Hollywood counterparts are unaccustomed to facing when they roll out their blockbusters. After Payami’s Silence Between Two Thoughts screened in Tehran in 2003, government officials seized…
A Closer Look at Dillard’s
Shannon McDowell was a young African-American on his way up — his expansion plans coinciding with those of the company he worked for, the Louisiana-based Hibernia Bank, looking to move into Texas. The bank teller had just moved to Orange in April 2001 to begin training for a branch manager…
The Bull Market
Sure, rodeos are entertaining. Steer wrestlers jump off horses at full speed; team ropers exhibit great, uh, teamwork; and barrel racers sure are purdy. But the heavyweight counterpart to all these lightweight undercards is bull riding, and the vast majority of rodeo audiences endures the rest of the show to…
Pefect Pair
Whoever thought of Brie cheese and pear quesadillas is an obvious fan of fusion cuisine. The dish ($6.95), served at Tila’s Restaurante & Bar (1111 South Shepherd, 713-522-7654), consists of thin slices of pear marinated in cumin-spiced olive oil and roasted jalapeño peppers, sitting in a pool of melted Brie…
Look Who’s Talking
TUE 1/13 Imagine having a real conversation with your seven-month-old. Does he like planes and trains, or is he fascinated with stuffed animals? What does she think of those mashed peas? What does all that babble really mean? Imagination Signers of Houston is hosting a workshop designed to teach baby…
Totemic Burger
Hamburger$3.99
Cheeseburger$4.27
Bacon cheeseburger$4.67
Bacon jalapeño cheeseburger$4.92
Double meat bacon jalapeño cheeseburger $5.29
On Dog Food and Saddam
SAT 1/10 The danger in writing songs based on contemporary issues is that one day they inevitably become passé (“Pac-Man Fever,” anyone?). The Austin Lounge Lizards are the latest victims of a changing world. A track off their ninth record, Strange Noises in the Dark, is called “Why Couldn’t We…
Live Six Show
If there were an equivalent of the Whitney Biennial for the Houston dance scene, it would be Houston Choreographers X6. A weekend of work by six local dancemakers, Choreographers X6 will launch the Jewish Community Center’s Dance Month, now in its 24th year. The participating choreographers will present a diverse…
Bring On the Bovine
In December 23, a dairy cow at a Washington State slaughter facility tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, the first such occurrence in the United States. U.S. officials now say evidence suggests that the infected cow was born in Canada in 1997, before the enactment of…