The Reformist School
In the grand tradition of confined artists such as John Wayne Gacey and Elmer Wayne Henley, the Art League of Houston presents “The Prison Show: Art from Inside: Out” — an exhibition the New York Times described as “outsider art at the grittiest of grassroots levels.” The exhibit’s drawings, paintings…
Static
Whimpers from a dead Planet… The message was rambling, one poor schmuck’s attempt to make sense of circumstances beyond his control. When Dave Summers, former late-night jock for the recently deceased modern-hits radio station The Planet, reached my voice mail last week, he just couldn’t wait to lay out his…
Tube Message
The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey, is the zeitgeist movie of the hour. How could it not be? It’s all about the omnipotence of television and how our lives seem scripted by some unseen force — a TV producer, perhaps? Zeitgeist movies, almost by definition, get written about not only…
Hill Country
According to country music’s critics, ever since Billy Ray Cyrus broke through in the early ’90s, looks are more important than talent. Indeed, from most perspectives, Nashville these days seems to be swarming with hatted hunks and model-perfect babes. Count Faith Hill as one such artist. Yet behind her stunning…
This False Note’s for You
Call it “Neilism”: the unblinking acceptance of just about anything Neil Young does, just because it’s him doing it. The far-too-cozy alleged documentary Year of the Horse is Neilism at its worst — Young as the godfather of punk, an iconoclast’s iconoclast, going where he wants to without regard for…
Rotation
Natalie Merchant Ophelia Elektra Don’t be fooled by the perky, provocative “na, na, na”s and pillowy backbeat of “Kind and Generous,” the first single from Natalie Merchant’s second solo effort, Ophelia. That song’s beaming enthusiasm is nothing but a tease on an album that spends much of its time carefully…
Disco Daze Downer
Most people associate the disco era with hedonism, homosexuality, a sense of community, tacky fashions and awful music. But in The Last Days of Disco, Whit Stillman imagines the era as merely a singles bar for romantics in search of soul mates, largely heterosexual and hardly debauchees. The clothes and…
Biscuit Matter
Securing the rights to release live concerts by top-name rock acts is a daunting process. As a result, current King Biscuit releases are generally by second- and third-tier artists. Still, many of the concerts are great and some are historic. Each collection has extensive liner notes with a complete artist…
Trading with the Enemy
For two years, supervisors at Houston-based Tex-Co International kept a file on a client that was simply marked “AL.” AL was a great customer, with plenty of hard cash and a big appetite for drilling equipment. In a letter dated September 21, 1993, a local Tex-Co worker told the company’s…
Flower Power
Syndicated radio history is a hot sell these days. Simply thumb through the pages of Goldmine, Discoveries or any other publication geared toward the avid audiophile, for that matter, and the ads alone attest to that. Certain musty installments of shows like American Top 40 and Flashback command serious dollars,…
Fool’s Paradigm
From the Friday, May 29, letters to the editor section of the Austin American-Statesman: Clarifying Some Errors I always enjoy the American-Statesman and admire the good work your whole team does every day. However, in an otherwise excellent article [May 22] on my speech at the University of Texas Quality…
Frayed Braid
Braid heaps on layers of contrasting dual vocals, an arresting twin-guitar attack and loose, jazzy drumming. It’s a framework that’s been associated with the term “emo,” which is roughly a melodic, more sensitive play on the hard-core punk tradition. Braid’s take on the term comes equipped with a taut vibrancy…
Value Added
Houston Astros second baseman Craig Biggio is pretty smooth turning a double play, but when it comes to sports-related slickness, he’s a bush-leaguer compared to the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. There’s nothing like watching the stadium boys in action when they want something and have to come up with numbers…
Clubland
Turning its flirtations with live music into a solid weekly commitment, the Vapor Room has recruited New York transplant Ernie Savage to take over the regular Thursday-night slot once occupied by high-profile, self-hyping DJ Sean Carnahan. Leaving little question that he was up to the gig, the singer/band director has…
Home, New Home
Last week, the Houston Press cast its vote in favor of downtown development by moving its offices to a historic building on the corner of Milam and Pease. The newly christened Houston Press Building, built in 1927 as an automobile showroom for the Shelor Motor Company, features a state-of-the-art, contemporary…
Poindexter’s Barbecue
As smoke from south of the border first dimmed Houston’s summer skies earlier this month, another fire altogether raged over the desert peaks of the Chinati Mountains in West Texas. Six helicopters and almost 300 firefighters — including local volunteers, National Guardsmen and Texas Forest Service professionals — labored for…
No Relief in Sight
Supporters of the proposed Westpark Tollroad lobbied Congress hard to have their project included in the massive highway spending bill that was passed just before the Memorial Day recess. They didn’t get a “yes.” But they didn’t get a “no,” either. And that means that relief for the traffic-clogged surface…
Letters
Positive About Negatives I firmly believe that the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority is one of the largest rip-offs this city has seen in some time. [“Passing the Bucks,” by Margaret Downing, May 28]. They kiss each other’s ass while spending the taxpayers’ money on something this city does not need…
Night & Day
Thursday June 4 The French poet Alfred de Musset described the title character of Abbe Prevost’s novel Manon Lescaut as an “[a]stonishing sphinx! A true siren! A thrice feminine heart, a Cleopatra in skirts!” Veronica Lake might have portrayed Manon as a hard-boiled hell cat with a blond flip had…
An American in London
Tennessee Williams wrote Not About Nightingales in 1938, but it never made it to the stage. Sixty years later, the play is finally getting the attention it deserves. Following a world-premiere run at London’s Royal National Theatre, the show has its U.S. premiere this week in Houston; it’s a co-production…
Going Through These Things Twice
A handful of reporters, photographers, trial groupies and lawyers milled around in front of the downtown federal building in the sullen, hazy heat of a late Thursday afternoon last month. A mistrial had just been declared in the multimillion-dollar Hotel Six bribery-conspiracy investigation and trial, and the motley crew clustered…
Design for Nonliving
David’s in oil and gas. Clair’s an actress at the Alley. Their daughter, Rebecca, is at MIT, but returns frequently to use her whiz-bang remote-control commode — who wouldn’t? If their house has that unlived-in look, it’s because nobody lives there. David, Clair and Rebecca are the fictitious inhabitants of…
Dish
Sites from the Scene A recent surfing survey of Houston restaurants on the Internet left me with the depressing conviction that most of our local eateries just don’t get cyberspace. I had initially decided that in my list of the best Houston food sites, I wouldn’t mention any restaurant that…
Southern Surprises
A funny thing happened on the way to Sabine. Just as I’d reached the restaurant, the door was thrown open suddenly and the chef, one hand clutching his toque, raced past me and disappeared down the street. Now that’s something you don’t want to see, I thought. Like the rest…
Afterlife Follies
The Music Hall will soon be nothing more than crumbled concrete, but its demise hardly means the death of the musical comedy in Houston. Besides the slew of traveling shows soon to hit town, plenty of local productions attempt to satisfy this sweet tooth of the theatergoing world. Main Street…
Hot Plate
Boy, but they’re clean at Cafe Latina (1972 Fairview, 528-8304). Before you’re allowed to sit at one of the spotless tables, don’t be surprised if they insist on giving it a good going over with Tilex. I like this place. The tables have cloths, the chair backs resemble scallop shells…