Who’s Training Who?
As any cat owner will attest, you can’t train the critters. You just can’t. For one thing, cats are independent. They’re stubborn. Cats tolerate you, eat your food, and if you’re lucky — and they’re so inclined — a cat might just let you give it a scratch behind the…
Eenie, Meenie, Minie…
One of these days, I’d like to walk into Leibman’s deli and ask for one of everything. That’d cause a stir. Imagine the genteel gasps of horror from all those well-dressed ladies-who-lunch waiting patiently in line at the counter. It’d be embarrassing, sure, but it would relieve me of the…
See George Educate
If there is one issue where George W. Bush can be lifted up bodily from his political context and examined on his own two feet, it is education reform. That’s not to say he invented it, or that no one else has been involved, but clearly George W. Bush took…
Sibling Rivalry
Mediterranean restaurants, which used to be called “Middle Eastern” before we developed an acute case of political correctness and learned to stop mapping cuisines in laughingly broad terms, seem to be popping up all over town. This is a good trend, and not just because the food, when well prepared,…
Wrap It Up
Woulxd anyone be too terribly upset if we declared the wraps fad officially over? The concept was okay — an entire meal in one grab-and-go package — but you can’t really eat these bulky, cold contraptions on the run and have your shirt live to tell about it. Try as…
This Bud’s for John
By now, anyone who follows American presidential politics — heck, anyone who owns a television set — knows Arizona Senator John McCain’s family story. His best-selling memoir, Faith of My Fathers, chronicles the lives of the senator’s father and grandfather, distinguished admirals. The book takes readers up through John McCain’s…
Hot Plate
Quel Confort: One would think the French are above such plebeian tastes, but Frédéric Perrier, chef/owner of the namesake Café Perrier [4304 Westheimer, (713)355-4455], has developed a delicious French twist on an all-American comfort food: macaroni and cheese. Befitting the country charm of the bistro, the gratin de macaroni is…
Lights Out
Sipping a glass of cabernet, Donald Burger sits on the back porch of his Queen Anne-styled house in the Heights. On hot summer nights the personal injury attorney looks out at blooming begonias, black-eyed Susans and bluebonnets and thinks about childhood visits to his grandmother’s garden in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. Beneath…
Future Shock
Imagine a dark, new world, sometime in the future, where all of our make-nice rules of behavior have gone to hell. This is a place where more people are in jail than on the streets, where idiot bounty hunters roam the woods like rejects from Deliverance, hunting down escapees only…
Like Fine Wine…
At a recent performance at the Firehouse Saloon, the Hollisters ran through material from Sweet Inspiration, the band’s long-awaited second album, its first for the reputable High Tone Records. Though the songs sounded a lot like typical Hollister fare, a backwoods feud between traditional honky-tonk and revved-up roots rock, they…
Refuge
In Jessica Goldberg’s prize-winning Refuge, the world is a barren place for three siblings who find themselves on their own after their parents run off to Florida, leaving only the lame excuse that they “couldn’t do it anymore.” Somewhere in her early twenties is Amy (Shelley Calene-Black), the unofficial matriarch…
Out In Sight
In 1950, at the height of McCarthyism, Janis Ian’s father, an aspiring teacher and chicken farmer in South Jersey, attended a local meeting about the price of eggs. Not long afterward, Ian says, FBI agents began visiting the family’s house. “They always had really shiny shoes,” she recalls. Later this…
Opening Up His Files
Miniature golf courses rank right up there with parking lot carnivals in the “antithesis of fun” department. Whacking golf balls into the pouch of a decaying concrete kangaroo, despite the promise of “wholesome family fun,” emanates a sort of seedy melancholia. The whole experience reeks of forced joviality. Texas artist…
Yakety Yak
At an Austin club last October, Sara Hickman hosted a pajama party. Everyone was invited to show up in their pj’s. Hickman, in pigtails, appeared on stage with a friend and her husband — all three in jammies. Some audience members showed up in robes, carrying big teddy bears. Hickman…
Earthy Rhythms
Houston Ballet’s latest mixed repertory is billed as a family-friendly program of British masterworks, complemented with a brief guest appearance by Bolshoi Ballet’s principal dancer Sergey Filin. That may be a good marketing ploy, but what’s really alluring about this collage is the humor and stylistic variety that you can’t…
Rotation
Shelby Lynne I Am Shelby Lynne Mercury Records For those who haven’t been poking around Nashville’s machine over the last decade, you may think Shelby Lynne a new name. For those who are already familiar, well, you may be in for a surprise. But what you hear won’t be Shania-inspired…
Dog Breath
Willie Morris’s autobiographical novel, My Dog Skip, is a nearly perfect piece of bedtime reading for kids and their parents. Each chapter is virtually a self-contained anecdote; the descriptions of World War II-era Mississippi are lush and dreamlike; and the central canine character, depicted as smarter than, faster than and…
Local Rotation
Leslie Newman Leslie Newman Ranco Records An old number by Loudon Wainwright III pays tribute to an icon who directly inspired a generation of singer-songwriter types. In this song Wainwright says of himself (and various others): “We were new Bob Dylans / Your dumb-ass kid brothers.” But for many years…
Redneck Mystery Theater
In the closing years of the 20th century, lowbrow white America finally learned to enjoy an ironic laugh at itself, led by Hollywood’s cheerful mockery of the culturally challenged working class. Outside the system, John Waters had this stuff pegged from the get-go, but the grotesqueries of the original, John…
Amplified
Here is God Dethroned lead singer/songwriter Henri Sattler, on his record label’s Web site, describing “Under the Golden Wings of Death,” off his band’s latest, Bloody Blasphemy (Metal Blade): “Song about a psychopath who needs to kill over and over again. It just makes him feel good doing this.” Then,…
True Blue
The first thought you have while watching The Next Best Thing is “Was Madonna always this bad an actress?” It’s a question that soon fades from consciousness to be replaced by “Was Rupert Everett always this bad an actor?” and “Was John Schlesinger always this bad a director?” Since the…
Bye-bye, Grunge
Former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell had the good sense to break up the grunge kings three years ago. But then he displayed a serious lack of judgment last fall when he released his solo debut, Euphoria Morning, at a time when absolutely nobody cared anything about alternative rock anymore. A…
Browne Sugar
If you think the prevailing attitude toward sex in the United States is somewhat backward, consider Ireland of the late 1960s, as depicted in Agnes Browne, the new movie directed by Anjelica Huston. When asked by her best friend, Marion (Marion O’Dwyer), if she misses “it,” the recently widowed Agnes…
Bush vs. McCain
If you don’t already know that U.S. Sen. John McCain has a temper, a “gook” problem, and amazingly Nixonian hand gestures; that Texas Gov. George W. Bush smirks underneath blank eyes, and has enemies who’ve given him two nicknames, both funny (Shrub, Dubya); that Vice President Al Gore is in…
Movie House Madness
The cinematic epic Scream 3 is not going to make anyone’s Top 10 films list, unless you include the computer one-handers who express their undying devotion on the alt.fan.neve-campbell newsgroup. So what does it mean that on February 18, 2000, a Houstonian who wanted to catch the flick had the…
Artful Dodging
The frenzied battle among movie-chain giants will likely see the closing of several familiar theaters in town, but fans of so-called art-house films need not worry too much: Those cinemas aren’t even involved in this fight. The Landmark theaters at River Oaks and Greenway Plaza and the Angelika Film Center…
Almighty Municipality
On a recent foggy night in League City, the Lord patiently waited His turn on a heavy City Council agenda. Councilmembers heard lesser speakers fight over the installation of a new traffic signal on Wesley Drive. Then came kids’ baseball supporters, wanting $1,500 to underwrite opening-day fireworks. The council diplomatically…
News Hostage
Does anyone wonder where the Houston Chronicle stands on the question of whether the city needs to build a new basketball arena for the Rockets? If so, they haven’t been reading the paper in the last month. Some headlines from the past four weeks: “It’s Sudden Death for Rockets, City”…
Swordplay? No Way!
The medieval long-sword I’m holding in both hands, over my head, isn’t real. It’s a wooden “waster,” designed for training — and God knows that I’m not ready for metal blades. Until this afternoon, I couldn’t have told you the first thing about swords. I didn’t know the difference between…
News of the Weird
Lead Story According to a February Wall Street Journal report, the annual “Milk Bowl,” featuring competition between college teams for the national championship of dairy sniffing, crawls with corporate recruiters seeking to sign the nation’s top flavor-evaluation talent, at starter salaries of up to $40,000. Mississippi State’s three-person squad won…
Business Bewareing?
ecent polls have Peter Wareing leading a packed field to replace retiring Congressman Bill Archer in the silk-stocking, rock-ribbed Republican 7th District that includes River Oaks. Wareing, a past chairman of the Texas Business Hall of Fame, prides himself on his entrepreneurial acumen. But opponents are spotlighting two bankruptcies involving…
Letters
Parental Guidance Your article on Mickey Dunlap [“Turnstyled and Junkpiled,” by Brad Tyer, February 17] was alternately one of the saddest and most inspiring pieces of writing I’ve seen in the Press in a long time. Does the state have any recourse against his parents? I hope those bastards get…
Picture This
Forget New York or L.A., “FotoFest could only happen in Houston,” says world-traveled photojournalist Frederick Baldwin, president and co-founder of FotoFest, the only noncommercial photographic arts festival of its scope in the United States. Thanks to Houston’s renowned hospitality and openness, combined with its multitude of venues and art supporters,…
The Hollisters Sweet Inspiration
For those who like traditional country, this is the real deal. Nearly every song hearkens back to old-timey C&W, in both sound and content. Inspiration leads off with “Fishin’ Man,” a Cajun-flavored dance tune in which lead singer Mike Barfield sings the praises of casting lines over working nine to…