Steely Dan
It’s been only three years since Messrs. Becker and Fagen came back from the frozen carbon chamber with Two Against Nature. This second studio release since their reformation includes all of their familiar hallmarks: the meticulous, veddy careful multilayered instruments and production, the tasteful jazz breaks, Fagen’s sneering, irony-laden vocals…
Cleared Again
Make it 14 for 14 for paralegal Michael Easton. The Texas Supreme Court’s Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee has dismissed the latest complaint accusing the ex-convict of wrongfully acting as an attorney. He has been cleared in 13 similar complaints over about as many years (see “Bar Card” by Zoe…
Fountains of Wayne
Music is uniquely capable of transporting you to faraway, exotic locales — in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies, for example. Or, in the case of Fountains of Wayne, to soul-sucking Manhattan office buildings and the diners, expressways and suburban lawns within an hour’s commute…
Letters
Job Wonder Ingenuity for hire: I graduated from Rice with a BS in electrical engineering in May 2002 and found your story to be eye-opening [“Taking the Plunge,” by Jennifer Mathieu, June 19]. I was in the same situation as Rob and Saad a year ago. However, I decided to…
Kirk Degiorgio Presents As One
From the cozy confines of Ipswich, England, Kirk Degiorgio has established himself as an influential “producer’s producer” in the international hotbeds of techno music — cities as far-flung as Tokyo, Detroit and Berlin. His fifth album, the 2001 release 21st Century Soul, was his first to be released in America,…
Astro Author
Anybody who’s seen Bobby Valentine make a fool of himself on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight must wonder why the network can’t find a host who can speak in complete sentences. Here’s a suggestion for ESPN: Hire former Houston Astros player, broadcaster and manager Larry Dierker. The Hawaiian shirt-wearing Parrothead, who was…
Reckless Kelly
Under the Table & Above the Sun, Reckless Kelly’s fourth album since arriving in Austin in 1996, highlights the band’s development from a kinda-warm-and-fuzzy electro-acoustic ensemble to a band with a big electric roots-rock guitar sound and a growing knack for earthy, realistic, commercially viable hooks (“I know you’re goin’…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, July 10 New York-based artist Donna Rosenthal creates suits and dresses out of vintage papers taken from romance novels, comics, sheet music and old magazines. The paper clothes hang on steel hangers and represent men and women; text on the breasts of the suits and dresses depicts couples’ conversations…
Fannypack
Weren’t you shocked when Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and the Olsen twins graced the cover of Vanity Fair recently? Whenever such a prestigious publication needs to declare that the tween explosion is officially under way, parents have no choice but to get ready for their daughters to emulate the girls…
Always…A Fan
Julia Kay Laskowski has played Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Olympia in Tales of Hoffmann, Gilda in Rigoletto, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos and Micaela in Carmen — which is why her next role is surprising. The classically trained opera singer will play the part of Patsy Cline in Always…Patsy Cline,…
Buff Bathing
Ever walked along a Texas beach and had the urge to get naked? Me neither. But some folks like the feeling of sunlight on their genitals, and they hang out on an isolated strip of sand about 80 miles from Houston. At McFaddin Beach, sunning and swimming are done as…
Larry Tee, W.I.T.
Originally from Atlanta, Larry Tee has been on the New York dance scene for the better part of 25 years. Tee co-wrote the RuPaul hit “Supermodel” and is famed as a promoter of many of those swanky Gotham soirees at which musicians like Prince and the members of New Order…
Upscale Hospital Food
The waterfall has been broken for months. It used to flow over a glass wall in the lobby of Trevísio, the huge and lavish restaurant in the Medical Center. When Trevísio first opened, it was heralded as one of the best new restaurants in town. But that was back when…
Cruising for a Foosing
Long a fixture in taverns, frat houses and company break rooms, foosball is like a “high-speed chess game,” according to tournament organizer Steve Hultman. To play, four players use sliding, rotating metal bars to hit a small ball into “goals” at each end of a foosball table. Simple, if you’re…
Depp’s of the Sea
Directed by Gore Verbinski. With Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and Geoffrey Rush. Rated PG-13.
Perfecto Night Out
MON 7/14 Biggest DJ on the planet? It’s debatable. But Paul Oakenfold is certainly a top contender. For nearly two decades now, Oakenfold — known to his followers as Oakie — has presided over the modern dance-music scene. Under his belt: legendary club nights, record-selling mix CDs, original singles, remix…
Perfect Pool
French director François Ozon doesn’t like to repeat himself. His last film, 8 Women, was a theatrical, rather campy piece of fluff starring la crème de la crème of contemporary Gallic actresses. Before that came Under the Sand, an unsettling drama about a woman (Charlotte Rampling, giving perhaps her finest…
Giddy Up!
One alternative to betting on horses is riding them. For junior dudes and dudettes champing at the bit for a little equine connection, there’s still time to sign up for summer camp at Great Southwest Equestrian Center in Katy. In addition to developing respect for their whinnying sidekicks, campers will…
Legend of a Lady
If, in keeping with current fads, you seek movies featuring females kicking a bunch of ass, your appetite will be tended (and cultivated) at the multiplex all summer long. Wander into your local art house, however, and you may find a fine if somewhat challenging import called The Legend of…
Knock on Wood
FRI 7/11 Ventriloquism helps Jeff Dunham overcome his shyness. When he was seven, the comedian gave a book report on Hansel and Gretel; he spent only a few minutes discussing the book and devoted the rest of his half-hour to lampooning his classmates. He made an A-plus. “I started doing…
Still Smilin’?
Stan Lee, for better or worse the most recognizable face in the history of the comic book, insists he has no love for rehashing his past. He claims to take no great joy from talking about long-ago yesterdays spent in smoky rooms co-creating the likes of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man,…
The Ultimate Surf ‘n’ Turf
In Italian, sea scallops are known as capesante, or “holy shells.” Medieval pilgrims visiting the sanctuary of St. James of Compostela in northern Spain wore the scallop shells around their necks and used them as drinking vessels or to eat the soup offered by monasteries along their route. Legend has…
Killer Play
Wondering whodunit is just a fraction of the fun in Agatha Christie’s wonderfully droll 1952 mystery The Mousetrap. In fact, the real excitement comes from all the oddballs who traipse into the author’s rather stately, stiff-upper-lip English world. Pinched and delightfully repressed, the cantankerous guests of drafty old Monkswell Manor…
The In-Tycer
Among the smiling faces on the cover of July’s Food & Wine magazine is Houston’s Scott Tycer, executive chef and owner of Aries restaurant. Tycer and nine other young chefs were chosen by the magazine as “America’s Best New Chefs 2003.” The award is a big honor, and all budding…
Someone’s Grandmother
In the summer of ’92, I wandered into the Rassensaal of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, where I was dumbfounded to find myself in the middle of a permanent exhibition featuring skulls from different races. Rassensaal translates as Race Gallery, and beginning in the mid-19th century, the pseudoscience of…
Texas Decks
The cowboy hat may be D:Fuse’s trademark, but his music hardly makes you think of Texas. Instead, his creations evoke such locales as New York, San Francisco, London and Ibiza, and visions of ecstatic throngs dancing in thrall to a seamless mix of energetic beats per minute. In one of…
Ghost Dance
The night Smashed Ice stabbed Standing Deer to death with a kitchen knife, he made four phone calls. The first three were for an alibi that never held up. The fourth conveyed his confession. The slain man’s friend Judy Krull got the first two calls. At 3 a.m. on January…
Lucky Boy’s Confusion
Mando Saenz is the kind of guy who wins the lottery the first time he buys a ticket. One day Saenz is a singer-songwriter scuffling for an audience, his new album all but stillborn. The next moment coins jingle in his pocket and he’s got a Nashville publishing deal. And…
Back Door to History
Gay rights supporters hailed the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 26 decision in Lawrence v. Texas as a watershed that will forever change gay and lesbian life in America. Many of the players in the drama have gotten their 15 minutes of fame, from the eagerly sound-biting lawyers to the publicity-shy…
A Change Gonna Come
Unfortunately for both men, there are a lot of R&B fans who think that Calvin Richardson is really Joe, the R&B singer. It’s not because they look alike, or even sound a lot alike. It’s more messed up than that. Here’s how the confusion came about: Calvin Richardson, a 29-year-old…
As the Jim Crow Flies
Two weeks ago, a couple of lawyers, a client and state District Judge Caroline Baker retired to her empty jury room to try to work out a mediated settlement to a civil lawsuit. One of the attorneys, African-American Ronald Ray, happened to focus on several framed prints hanging on the…
Potty Mouths
The tamale, one of many launched by Chango Jackson’s roadie from the Lower Westheimer stage on a sweltering Sunday afternoon, flew upward into the cirrus-clouded sky. Up it sailed, turning end over end, until it reached its apex. There it seemed to hang in the air for a second –…
Dialing for Dollars
With the advent of Crime Stoppers, reporting an offense has become synonymous with reaping a reward. And now, Crime Stoppers has found a new target: public schools. “Money is the only incentive that drives teenagers these days,” explains Bellaire High School senior William Speer. The statistics seem to bear his…