To Run or Not to Run…
Several months ago, Councilman Chris Bell dropped by colleague Orlando Sanchez’s office in the City Hall annex late in the day to discuss an agenda item for an upcoming meeting. Bell, who was mulling over a high-risk challenge to incumbent Lee Brown, recalls that during the conversation the 43-year-old Sanchez…
House of Pain
Growing up, former Oiler Bo Eason never looked much like a football player. Short, scrawny, kind of soft and tender around the eyes, the kid from a working-class family had to beg every peewee coach he had to let him play. It’s nothing short of amazing that Eason actually beat…
Booster Shot
In case you were curious, Houston Chronicle readers, that was not an issue of the Texas Medical Center newsletter that was delivered to your home February 17 and 18. You might be forgiven for thinking so, though. The Chron that weekend was absolutely gaga over a proposed new biotechnology development…
Irrelevant Reverence
Back in the ’60s and early ’70s, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard was hanging out in the East Village and writing strange off-off-Broadway shows for the new wave of American avant-garde theater. Irreverent and dismissive of artistic pretension, he wrote in a 1971 program note that “I like to yodel…
Letters
Debra the Driven Smart, not bitchy: I commend the writer on a job well done [“Heir Time,” by Wendy Grossman, February 15]. I found the article to be both insightful and honest; and while some might have interpreted this piece as an exposé or an unmasking of a superficiality, the…
This Bird Has Flown
The Houston Ballet’s winter mixed repertory is an expensive one. Canadian choreographer James Kudelka’s new version of The Firebird cost $450,000 for the physical production alone, requiring the combined resources of the Houston Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada and American Ballet Theatre to bring it to the stage. What…
Going for the Gut
When Monteverdi composed The Coronation of Poppea in 1642, the concept of singing actors was still novel, and the piano hadn’t been invented yet. So when Houston Grand Opera stages the early opera masterpiece, it will have to go for baroque. For the first time since the staging of Monteverdi’s…
Turkey Pie
Lahmacun (pronounced “lah-ma-JUN”), a provincial Anatolian classic that could be described as a Turkish pizza, is as good an introduction to this world-class cuisine as any. The base is a thin wheat bread called pide (a delicate Turkish version of pita), which is topped with meat or vegetables, then baked…
Spin Art
When most people look at a turntable, they see a dead appliance from the ’70s. But to local DJ Ceeplus, it’s a blank canvas just waiting to receive creative input from the heart, mind and gut. It’s that passion for his craft that gave Ceeplus the idea for Turntable Worship…
Stirred and Shaken
The wine racks and liquor shelves at La Strada [322 Westheimer, (713)523-1014] look like artful metal sculptures. The ceiling fans look like works of art, too. And then there are the actual metal sculptures in prominent places. On the walls, the rotating artwork features some cheerful abstract expressionist canvases by…
The Chips Are Down
Does a rising tide lift all boats? Certainly the Houston economy has kept pace with or even risen faster than the national economy. With an improved economy, real estate values have increased by hundreds of percentage points in some neighborhoods in the last five years alone. With increased land values…
Stay Out of the Kitchen
St. Pete’s Pasta Diablo is one big bowl of noodles. The mountain of linguine is higher than the rim of the bowl. I think it’s supposed to look like a volcano with a lava of tomato sauce and jalapeño slices running down the slopes. The waiter puts a carton of…
Rooted Gypsy
“Our next number is a sort of Croatian-Serbian-Macedonian-type tune, but we’re gonna do it with more of a Greek rhythm,” announces Greg Harbar from the stage at Brasil. The Valentine’s Day audience — every bit as eclectic as the song Harbar describes — gives a hearty cheer. Harbar revs up…
Good with Knives
Speaking off the toque: Jacques Fox, director of education at Alain & Marie LeNótre Culinary Institute [7070 Allensby, (713)692-0077]. Q. During a radio interview, we recently heard Julia Child describe a person as “someone who will never be a cook.” Is cooking something that can be taught to anyone, or…
Bowing to Pop
Jawad is the kind of cat who can go anyplace — a coffee shop, a church social, a frat mixer, a middle school demonstration, maybe even a balls-to-the-wall punk club — and pop open his guitar case, pull out his ax and play an impromptu set that audiences can feast…
Start Spreading the News
As the co-leader of the Houston Jazz Trio and the collective improvisational group Q, Tim Solook was one of the more visible jazz musicians in town. A first-call drummer and teacher for most of the past 15 years, Solook was synonymous with the local scene. So last November, when he…
Tresspassers Will Be Prosecuted
The average number of sons of bitches, a Spanish friend of mine used to say in Catholic acceptance of human imperfection, is just about the same no matter where you go. Most wetbacks Hispanically share his opinion, and exemplify it too. By no means are they a uniformly delightful category…
Erykah Badu
Intelligent, imaginative and spiritual, Erykah Badu is such a welcome counterpoint to gangsterism and thugism that, in retrospect, it’s easy to understand how she quickly became a pop star. Part Afrocentric healer and part spiritual counselor, Badu prefers the contemplative life, but she’s not shy about sharing her understanding of…
Devil in the Details
As he plays tour guide at his engineering firm’s expansive north Houston headquarters, Fred Martinez radiates pride. He shows off the advanced soil- and asphalt-testing labs boasting the latest in diagnostic equipment; demonstrates gadgetry in the high-tech computer systems wing; grandly sweeps a hand through his personal conference room decorated…
Jeff Beck
After spending most of the ’90s working on his classic cars and nursing a case of tinnitus, Jeff Beck resurfaced in 1999 with Who Else! Filled with electronic and techno influences, the album was a departure for the guitar hero, whose unique voice still poked through all the high-tech effects…
Pie in the Sky
Restaurateur Anthony Russo visibly wrestled with his angst as he told a court last week about the incredible infidelity of his former business confidant. Glancing toward the frail young man in the white chef’s smock, Russo recalled when he gave Jimmy Mounis his first break back in August 1996. He…
Tow Down
It was comedian Dave Chappelle who, in his last HBO special, explained the significance of young white men who spend most of their time hanging out with hardcore brothas. “Those white guys are the most dangerous muthafuckas in them groups,” he said. “Ain’t no telling what they’ve done to get…
Mental Lapse
Citing mounting financial losses, local mental health officials have ceased admissions to the new inpatient clinic at the NeuroPsychiatric Center. A dozen patients were being treated at the 16-bed clinic when the decision to close it was announced February 19 by the Mental Health & Mental Retardation Authority of Harris…
Playbill
The cover photo on their new album, The Donnas Turn 21, displays all four of the (apparently) drink-legal women in a club booth, wearing halter tops and lounging behind a table full of spirits. The image is no doubt intended to entice those boys not yet old enough to enter…
Set in Stone
The squirrel statues clutch Texas A&M flags in their chubby paws: a two-rodent honor guard saluting a fallen Aggie animal lover. Giant acorns serve as vases, and gray granite kitty-cats curl at the grave’s foot. Two lovebirds perch above the headstone’s pièce de résistance, a square engraved “ATM.” That square…
Playbill
Since the release of Damn Right, I Got the Blues in 1991, Buddy Guy has been enjoying a career renaissance. He’s been justifiably hailed as an influential and innovative six-stringer, and he’s been worshiped by guitar freaks and blues fans alike. Yet before that comeback, Guy went for more than…
Border Line
The line starts at the door, stretches down the wheelchair ramp and around a corner, continues along the left side of the building and spills out into the parking lot. From there, it follows the back gate of the parking lot, then turns sharply to trail along the wooden fence…
Los Gringos Locos
Leave it to Hollywood to sell us the insipid romance of a thoroughly irritating white couple as the solution to an archaic Latin American mystery. As pure bang-up adventure, The Mexican is certainly more user-friendly than childish junk like The Way of the Gun, but the attempt to weave adult…
Treat Him Write
Sam Hamm is, relatively speaking, a successful Hollywood screenwriter, meaning he earns his keep penning screenplays without having to subsidize his income by tending bar or waiting tables. He has to his credit a handful of films, some little known (1983’s Never Cry Wolf, his debut), some enormously profitable (1989’s…
Brave Hearts
Aimée & Jaguar would be an unusual film under any circumstances, but that it was made in Germany proves somehow especially unexpected. Set in Berlin in 1943 and based on a true story, the movie concerns the love affair between two women: one a Jew passing as a gentile while…