South of Houston
Who knew that Houston had an underground? The Tunnel, as the befuddling, 6.3-mile subsurface promenade is informally known, has been with us since the mid-1930s, but it remains one of the city’s least-trumpeted destinations. On purpose. “The Tunnel was never intended to be an attraction. It was not designed; it…
Night & Day
Thursday July 2 Not About Nightingales was penned in 1938 by Tennessee Williams, then age 27. The flawed but worthy drama is about a prison riot in Philadelphia — and the retribution, unto death, wreaked upon its ringleaders. This production represents the play’s world premiere. Directed by Trevor Nunn of…
Dish
Changing of the Swiss Guard You’d never suspect from the prim exterior of Andre’s Tea Room that an oh-so-quiet revolution has occurred within its venerable walls. For the past 27 years, Andre’s has seemed as immutable as Heidi’s grandfather, tucked away in its sleepy River Oaks shopping strip. But on…
Eats for the Beach
I remember the time — not ten years ago — when I had to plead with people to listen to the Gipsy Kings. Now they’re everywhere, invading restaurants, elevators, even restrooms. Just think: From cutting edge to cliche in less than a decade. The cycle gets ever shorter. At Sabroso…
Rotation
Mo Thugs Family Mo Thugs Family Scriptures Chapter II: Family Reunion Mo Thugs/Relativity There’s a groove of monotony that one never gets out of when listening to the mouthful of words that is Mo Thugs Family Scriptures Chapter II: Family Reunion. This is the second hodgepodge of street odes, urban…
Rocky Landing
You have to look pretty hard to find El Jardin Del Mar, an eclectic seaside neighborhood filled with a mixture of old homes that have been there for 70 years, slightly newer homes that have been moved in from other areas and brand-new homes that have been sprouting up. Coming…
Back to the Jungle
I don’t know about y’all, but after spending a year being perpetually drenched in Puff Daddy’s flashy, hip-pop showboating, Master P’s bowel-movement-as-lyrical-trademark techniques, and the roughneck ramblings from the 200 or so members of the Wu-Tang Clan, I think it’s time for another revival of the Native Tongues. Now, don’t…
I Was a Prep School Outcast
The lights come up on a bleached-platinum blond Rob Nash, dressed in baggy jeans, a dark, faded T-shirt and worn-down, butter-soft sneakers. The black stage is practically empty; in one corner lies a long black box; in another stands a chair. That’s it. But Freshman Year Sucks! — Nash’s fast-paced,…
Wild Man Blues
Charleston, West Virginia’s Yeager Airport sits atop a mountain, which is typical in a state that enforces few, if any, building codes. Request a window seat if you ever drop in; the views are spectacular. Green hills roll forever, with soft “fairways” notched into the landscape as though it were…
Not to Be Sneezed At
Main Street Theater’s version of Hay Fever, written by the famously calculating Noel Coward, kept its Saturday-night audience laughing out loud this past weekend. In this play, Coward, famous for his oh-so-droll and erudite take on the world, pokes fun at the theater itself. The Bliss family — son Simon…
Hot Plate
I’m not sure what I find so compelling about the barbecue sandwich ($3.35) served at Demeris (2911 South Shepherd, 529-7326, and branches). It might be the sauce of tomatoes, Worcestershire, liquid smoke and lemons (added last to give heft and complexity). Or then again, it could be the accompanying potato…
Seeing the Light
As the Contemporary Arts Museum guard pulls back the curtain to James Turrell’s installation Night Light, he instructs you to follow a handrail through a winding corridor into a pitch-dark room. Ascending a ramp, you cling blindly to the walls and rail for support. In the blackness, your vision turns…
Career High
High Art is a low-budget American independent movie about a junkie lesbian photographer, Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy), who spends most of her time looking romantically mournful. She’s famished and abrasive and oh-so world-weary. When she smokes cigarettes, she exhales in a way that can best be described as existential –…
All Climax
Michael Bay is the director of Bad Boys and The Rock and the new asteroid-attack movie Armageddon — which should be called The Very Big Rock. He has, I’m afraid, perfected a new form: His movies are trailers for themselves. Every scene is all climax and no foreplay. When it’s…
The Great Non-Communicator
City Attorney Anthony Hall relaxes in his sunlit office at the old City Hall and searches for words to explain the Lee Brown management style. The affable lawyer is an expert on government leadership, having served over the past two decades in the state Legislature, on City Council and as…
Naked Ambition
When Mike Marquez’s ex-girlfriend found out what he’s been doing with himself for the past year, she called him what many upstanding young entrepreneurs would take to be a nasty name. But given what he had in fact been doing with himself for the past year, Mike had to agree,…
Insider
Spreading the Campaign Wealth Harris County Republican Party Chairman Gary Polland plans to charge GOP judicial candidates $6,000 each for a campaign effort next fall on behalf of the party ticket, but that proposal is drawing some sniper shots from political consultants who question the program’s tactics and effectiveness. Chief…
Letters
Memorial Full Monty Wow! You pulled the proverbial drawers off a certain hospital administrator [“Tell It to the Boss,” by Margaret Downing, June 18]! I left Hermann in June 1997, and up to the time I left, there were none of us who had anything closely resembling positive feelings toward…
Adam and Eve Hit the Sauza
In Hannah and Her Sisters, Daniel Stern plays a rock star looking to buy artwork he doesn’t claim to appreciate from an embittered intellectual portrayed by Max von Sydow. Von Sydow won’t sell to this putz, who measures art by how it looks over a sofa. There’s something similar going…