Fever Pitch
Sure, Houston is home to the Bush family, Halliburton and thousands of Humvee drivers, but calling us a city of warmongers would be a stretch. Or maybe not. According to the author of an eight-month survey conducted by the University of Texas, Houston suffers from an acute case of “war…
Capsule Reviews
Boy Groove “You make my hips buck,” sings the gyrating boy band, voguing in front of the audience. Aaron Macri and Chris Craddock’s musical spoof Boy Groove is having its U.S. premiere at Theatre LaB Houston, and in it, fictional teeny-bopper sensation Boy Groove gets screwed just like it ought…
Letters
On with the Show Dialing in to dance music: I liked your article on house music [“House Music Scratches for a New Vibe,” by Michael Serazio, May 6]; it gave a good background on how the dance-music scene in Houston has changed and matured since its beginnings. But I feel…
Anarchic Images
In April 2003, Core Fellow Santiago Cucullu received a $20,000 grant from the Artadia Foundation, and 11 months later he found himself in the Whitney Biennial. If I were on a winning streak like that, I’d head to Vegas. Cucullu’s artistic modus operandi often melds images culled from obscure historical…
Colinoscopy
Comedians are fascinating creatures. We have our favorite species: the spastic Jim Carreys and Robin Williamses, or even the observational Jerry Seinfeld types. Then there are those of the parasitic, right-place-right-time species. We can’t remember a single line of theirs, and yet there they are, hosting shows, hopping the club…
Capsule Reviews
“Perspectives 141: Aaron Parazette” Aaron Parazette has described surfing as antithetical to making art — that is, doubt-free. He quotes surfer Mark Foo, who has said, “Surfers are happy people because they always know what they want.” Art, on the other hand, is pretty much fraught with indecision and self-doubt…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, June 3 Sometimes impressions are more real than originals. When Frank Caliendo mimics the “boom! bam!” of John Madden on MAD TV, he seems to do it even better than Madden himself. Maybe the original is becoming softer in his older years, or maybe Caliendo is just funny as…
Playbill
Talib Kweli While the idea of struggle is ingrained into the hip-hop psyche, few seem to take as much joy from it as Talib Kweli. Whether the Brooklyn MC is referring to downloaders leaking demos of his upcoming aptly entitled album, Beautiful Struggle, onto the Web or recounting his long…
Twisted Toon
Like elaborate doodles on the back of a spiral pad springing to kinetic, pugnacious life, Bill Plympton’s animated films have always been…disquieting. Plympton first gained attention for several hand-drawn shorts, one of which (Your Face) was nominated for an Academy Award in 1988, perhaps the only time a series of…
Harry Goes Scary
As much of the civilized world now knows, the latest Harry Potter director is Alfonso Cuarón, best known for the explicit teen sexual awakening movie Y Tu Mamá También. As such, it may come as little surprise that his Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban begins with the teenage…
Look Back in Anger
Aurora Picture Show continues its series of screenings at Dean’s Credit Clothing with You Can’t Do That on Television, a video compilation that, according to curator Ed Halter, explores “that new psychedelia that erupts when ADD is your LSD.” And while each short film exudes symptoms of raised-in-the-’80s disease, by…
Ceviche Heaven
The red snapper in the ceviche at Pezcalato, the new Peruvian restaurant on Richmond, is so soft, I wonder if it’s been ground up like hamburger meat. And I can’t figure out what the bright white shreds mixed into the fish could be. So I call the waitress over and…
Keeping Up with the Jones
SAT 6/5 “Almost invincible” is how Sam Houston Race Park’s Martha Claussen describes Smarty Jones, the three-year-old colt that has created more stir than a mint julep swizzle stick on Kentucky Derby day. Having won the first and second legs of the Triple Crown (the Derby and then the Preakness…
Thrilled to Death
Thrill seekers have a word for almost every moment aboard a roller coaster, and if they were to describe Sam Nguyen’s position in the summer of 2001, they would say he was at the top of the lifthill. After all, Sam held a freshly minted season pass to Six Flags…
Gear Head
FRI 6/4 Ron-E is all about the tri-fader. He’s all over it. This Austin-based spinner is the master of the little black box that can fade a track in three places: the high, the mid and the low. Most mixers have only one fader, you see, so his contraption’s got…
A Cheesy Controversy
People are complaining that the new owners of Los Tios have messed up the chile con queso. So I stop by the Los Tios on Beechnut to check it out. “Did you guys change the chile con queso recipe?” I ask the waitress as I slip a chip into the…
Beyond Borders
MON 6/7 Often confused with Nashville Pussy — and never mind that the band was formed in Virginia — Alabama Thunderpussy knows exactly where it’s going with its twist on the Kentucky-fried-rock formula. With nods to old-school metal and vintage Southern rock (and a belief that two lead guitarists are…
Change Is Good
The new management at Baby Barnaby’s (602 Fairview, 713-522-4229) has brought about several changes. From the pink walls and colorfully striped ceiling to the flat-screen TV and satellite radio, there are a lot of things for fans of this cozy Montrose breakfast spot to get used to. But one change…
Pitchfork’s Progress
It turns out the funniest Onion-esque fake news story penned so far this year did not spring from The Onion. No, Sub Pop Records — a concern not ordinarily known for its forays into satire and comedy writing — deserves full credit for “Pitchfork Staff Member Says ‘Hi’ to Real-Life…
Making Waves
In the swimming hierarchy of shark, guppy and tadpole, Sean Rothrock ranked firmly on the lower end of the scale, perhaps somewhere between crab and sea urchin. The 21-year-old could float and paddle in the deep end of the Wild Wave Pool at SplashTown, but when the water began to…
Yawn Darts
Has anyone ever painted “Tortoise” on his jacket or gotten a Tortoise tattoo? Probably not. Tortoise doesn’t inspire such demonstrative behavior. Rather, its music is like a stylish end table; it adds a subtle finishing touch to a room. It’s an accoutrement to an intelligently decorous lifestyle that prizes functionality…
This Charming Hombre
It’s always interesting when you discover a friend or acquaintance is seriously into music that doesn’t seem to fit their image — the granny who digs OutKast, say, or the black hip-hop head with a Mars Volta jones, or the outlaw biker who jams Beethoven. Odder still when you discover…
The Thermals
With the unbridled spirit of a gang of children tearing up a birthday party, the Thermals are a fun little band with simple, visceral songs that smack the listener in the face like a rake. This is most certainly punk rock from a smelly garage with a little bit of…
Rodeo Hat Trick
When Ray Cammack Shows erected the popular Euroslide at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in 2002, it drew the kind of crowds one would expect from the world’s largest lollipop or the biggest Rainbow Brite in Toyland. Its 200-foot plunge, in any of eight candy-hued plastic lanes, was a…
Local Rotation
Lots of discerning hip-hop heads dig Lil’ Flip and can’t tell you why. They acknowledge that his rhymes are nothing special, his subject matter (the science of pimpology, the arts of cocking Glocks and slangin’ rocks) tired. Still, they keep buying his records and wondering first why they bought them…
Out of the Box
Any kid growing up in Dallas quickly learns that the Texas State Fair is more than a chance to eat space ice cream, ogle sports cars and gawk at the beefiest heifer. The state fair is a cultural institution, where tradition holds that each year must offer something bigger, newer…
Saddest — and Strangest
Ah, the peculiar genius that is Guy Maddin. Who else but the morose Canadian director, born and raised in one of the coldest cities in the world, would marry silent film, 1930s movie musicals, prohibition, family melodrama, critique of capitalist zeal and monster-movie gore in a surreal montage about sorrow…
He Won’t Back Down
Mayor Bill White’s battle with the city’s Wild West tow-truck drivers has been inspiring, at least to those people who get deeply immersed in tow-truck policy. But White’s crusade has not been without drama, if you listen to him. “I’ve been besieged by tow-truck companies,” he said in a May…
Pleasant Convenience
Greg Coffin’s Convenience is a pleasing new musical that’s easy on the ears, lovingly performed and given a finely detailed production at Stages Repertory Theatre. However, merely being pleasant is a serious liability for something that shows so much promise. It still seems like a work in progress. The show’s…