Web Extra: Memorial Hermann Hospital System’s Board of Directors
As this week’s Hair Balls column explains, we had a helluva time finding out who was on the Board of Directors for the Memorial Hermann Hospital System. But we persevered and now proudly present the list:…
Web Extra: Martin Draughon in Prison, Part Four
We now present the last of four clips from reporter Paul Knight’s prison interview with Martin Draughon for this week’s feature…..
Web Extra: Martin Draughon in Prison, Part Three
We now present the third of four clips from reporter Paul Knight’s prison interview with Martin Draughon for this week’s feature…..
Web Extra: Martin Draughon in Prison, Part Two
We now present the second of four clips from reporter Paul Knight’s prison interview with Martin Draughon for this week’s feature…..
Web Extra: Martin Draughon in Prison, Part One
We now present the first of four clips from reporter Paul Knight’s prison interview with Martin Draughon for this week’s feature…..
Reverberations: Beatles, Stones, Dirtbombs and Fleshtones
The Fleshtones I’m about to tell you about two shows that are anything except garage rock, but due to their roots, spirit and aesthetic are precisely garage rock. But first, some history: Early garage bands owe a massive debt to the Stones, primarily the early recordings, which were mired in…
Houston Aeros Beat Peoria Rivermen and Leapfrog San Antonio Rampage in Rankings
The first 40 minutes of last night’s game between the Aeros and Peoria Rivermen were disappointingly similar to last week’s two games against the Quad City Flames. The Aeros were facing a team trying to catch them for a playoff spot, and the Aeros were doing everything possible to let…
Seven Deadly Sins: Celebrity Edition
In an effort to stay hip with the times (always the Vatican’s primary objective, right?), the Catholic Church has decreed that there are seven new deadly sins (now, even deadlier!) that will accompany the old-fashioned original seven we’ve all come to know and love so well. The new ones include…
Rockets-Kings: The Art of Adelman
A masterpiece, it wasn’t. On the fine art scale, the Rockets 108-100 victory over Sacramento rated right alongside those paint-by-number pictures you half-heartedly embraced during your pre-school days. The Rockets did just enough to win, while the Toyota Center faithful saved its loudest moments for the Jumbotron races and free…
David Wildbur’s Sage Decision
David Wildbur, the owner of the just-opened Sage (2221 Alabama), originally wanted to call the romantic restaurant The Garden Inn. But when he went down to the TABC to obtain his liquor license, he discovered that the name “was taken, so, on the spur of the moment I decided to…
Slideshow: Chuy Benitez’s “Houston Cultura”
We’ve loaded up a slideshow of select images from Chuy Benitez’s show at Lawndale Art Center. The images present panoramic views of local Latinos, and they’re a tad too wide (ahem, the images, not the locals) for our slideshow tool to do them justice. All the more reason to see…
Drenched in Blog: Emilio!
Hang in there, buddy. — Craig Hlavaty…
Drenched in Blog: March Madness, Rock-Style
Look, I know nothing about basketball. When the Rockets were in the middle of that winning streak a few weeks back, I asked where Hakeem was. I’m sorry, but my knowledge of the sport ends in 1996, when a little thing called puberty knocked on my door. I do know…
Steroids and Roger Clemens: A Love Letter to Rocket from Texas Monthly
I know I should give Texas Monthly a break. It’s a general interest magazine. It’s not a sports magazine. It shouldn’t be expected to get all of the nuances of a sports story correct. But when that story is on Roger Clemens and steroids, well, I can’t stay silent. First,…
Unsolicited Advice for Silda Spitzer
So this blog is about pop culture, and this post is gonna be about politics, but in my opinion, politics comes pretty close to serving as our pop culture, most of the time. I want to write about Silda Spitzer, the wife of the ex-governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer,…
Over the Weekend: Arm Wrestling, Underdog Victories and Dirty Comics
We’re still a little Peeped out, so let’s get right to the recap… 12:10 a.m. at King Biscuit, 12:45 a.m. at Sixth Street and 1:16 a.m. at Saez ‘n Zouk 202 Tuam, former home of Hue (and Union before that), has reopened with a shiny new name, not to mention…
Houston Aeros Overcome Three-Goal Deficit to Take Down Chicago Wolves
Joel Ward, he of the magic stick Before Friday night’s bout against the Houston Aeros, the Chicago Wolves were 33-5-0-2 when scoring the game’s first goal. They were 24-3-0-2 when leading the game after the first period. And the Wolves, who had lost three straight, hadn’t lost four straight games…
Get Lit: Life Class, by Pat Barker
Life Class is the latest Pat Barker novel, one that will again leave you feeling like an unschooled heathen because you’re ever so slightly underwhelmed. Barker returns to the time of her famous, highly praised Great War trilogy. And the writing is fine as Barker traces the story of art…
Get Lit: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, by David Hajdu
In the early 1950’s, it was considered a malevolent enough influence on American youth to inspire adult outrage, government intervention, and mass protests. Communism? Drugs? Homosexuality? No, it was the 10-cent comic book, and the hysteria surrounding its rise and disastrous fall put the Crypt Keeper right up there on…
Scenes from a Farmers’ Market in Monterrey, Mexico
I like to go to farmers’ markets on Saturday mornings. The Midtown market and the one on Richmond are my favorites. But it’s interesting to compare Houston’s farmers’ markets with others around the country and around the world. Here are some photos taken on a Saturday morning while I was…
Paris Hilton Does Her Best Angelina Jolie Impression
Okay, give me second…give me second. Okay. I’ve caught my breath now. Wooh. All right. Paris Hilton went to Africa and hung out with poor kids. So you see why I was laughing. I mean, oh my God. Apparently accompanying her current boyfriend Benji Madden of the pop punk band…
“Foxy Lady” to “Bitch”: Dayna Steele’s Houston Radio Odyssey
For almost 20 years, she was the First Lady of Houston Rock Radio. On the air, across the stage and in the dressing rooms, KLOL’s Dayna Steele rubbed shoulders and interviewed plenty of rock icons. And her loyal legion of “Steeleworkers” made her one of the city’s most recognizable media…
Aeros Win, as Does Britany
Here she is, Miss Aero Broadcaster Al Michaels made his name calling the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey victory over the Soviet Union, crying out “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” as the U.S.A. pulled off one of the biggest upsets in sporting history. Now, if I were to tell you…
Felix Mexican Restaurant Closes After 60 Years in Business
Felix Mexican Restaurant at 904 Westheimer has shut down after 60 years in business. Longtime patrons are leaving notes on the front door of the shuttered Tex-Mex institution demanding an explanation. “We need some closure,” one note read. Felix Mexican Restaurant was the granddaddy of Houston Tex-Mex. It was named…
High School Photo Contest Winners: 2007 – 2008
We’ve just loaded up all the winners from the past year of our photojournalism contest for Houston-area high school students. An outside panel of judges will look at these images and pick our big winner. Stay tuned for the results. — Keith Plocek…
Warehousing Minority Kids in Atlanta and Houston
The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Georgia have filed a class action suit against the Community Education Partners alternative school there saying that CEP (which has two locations in Houston) “Does not function as a school at all, but rather as a warehouse for poor children of color.”…
It’s John Royal’s Anniversary, and He’s Celebrating with Stadium Talk
One year ago today I wrote my first post for Houstoned Ballz – I’m still not sold on that title – and I used the space to say that Brad Lidge was on his way to another disastrous season. I’m not writing about baseball today. There’s no need to get…
Sole of Houston: Hey, Look Over There
Just a quick note to steer Sole readers over to David Beebe’s belated if totally awesome write-ups of the Broadway / Harrisburg jaunt here and here. – John Nova Lomax…
Aeros Lose Again. Bikinis Tonight!
Another contender for Miss Aero The Aeros are in a fight for the playoffs. This is that time of season where the cliché “every game counts” is actually true. There’s just one problem: Although they acknowledge the desperation and importance of the situation, the Aeros continue to come out, night…
James Oseland’s Cradle of Flavor
James Oseland unwrapping otak otak at Noodle House 88 The Chinese-Indonesian restaurant called Noodle House 88 on Bellaire at Beltway 8 is the subject of this week’s Café review. I ate there with Saveur Magazine’s editor in chief, James Oseland, who is an expert on Indonesian food. “Once you get…
Meet Paul Ford, the 763 mp3 Guy: He Covered the Waterfront like No Other, from Over 1,000 Miles Away
It’s probably safe to say that nobody’s South By Southwest experience this year was as comprehensive as that of Paul Ford, an editor at Harper’s and a blogger at the Themorningnews.org. And here’s the thing – Ford never left New York City. Instead, he downloaded the SXSW 2008 Torrent File,…
The Wild Moccasins
The Wild Moccasins are just getting off the ground, but they’re already sweeping local scenesters off their feet. In only a handful of live shows, the barely-legal quintet has created buzz among indie rock fans thanks to their youthful sound and high-energy performances. Zahira Gutierrez and Cody Swann, a harmonious…
Jigu! The Thunder Drums of China
What could be bigger and better than the Taiko Drummers of Japan pounding away on their huge instruments? (Wait, that doesn’t sound right…) How about Jigu! The Thunder Drums of China on some even larger percussive monstrosities for a little cross-cultural competition? Hailing from Shanxi Province in China, this company…
Hot Child in Hollywood
The never-ending saga of celebrity gals gone wild hits the stage in Hot Child in Holly-wood. Local playwright Greg Hundemer of the BooTown Theatre troupe penned this tale about Tenley, a modest Midwestern teen who wins a contest to hang out with her Hollywood idol. Plenty of adult situations ensue…
Kairu
Newcomer Sol y Luna Dance Company has a bare-bones budget, but what it lacks in age and money it makes up for with a boundless energy, as it unites hip-hop, breakdancing, acrobatics, ballet, modern dance and martial arts. Today, they’ll present Reyie Delgado’s Kairu, which uses these combined forms of…
Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour
“Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour” may seem like four words that shouldn’t go together. Charley Warady and Ray Hanania, the Israeli and Palestinian who founded just such a tour, beg to differ. Warady is a -Chicago-born comedian who appeared on Comedy Central before emigrating to Israel. Hanania, also a Chi-town native, is…
“Reverent Estimations”
Austin-based artist Adam Schreiber is fascinated with landscapes, but not the green kind. For his new exhibition “Reverent Estimations,” Schreiber photographed stark, un-inhabited landscapes such as “clean rooms” in research facilities, LBJ’s presidential archives and abandoned corporate architecture, focusing on their textures and patterns. The show was shot entirely on…
Caché
An upscale couple receives a series of mysterious videotapes showing them being videotaped in their home. As the videos become more frequent and disturbing, the man is caught up in an identity crisis that leads him down a path of violence and regret. The plot is probably familiar to fans…
Beaufort and A Love to Hide
There’s a scene in Beaufort of a soldier talking to his friend. “You know what my biggest fear is?” he asks. “That I’ll be discharged and no one will notice.” Beaufort is Joseph Cedar’s multi-award-winning film following one Israeli army unit during the country’s contentious withdrawal from southern Lebanon in…
AEROS
Created by the choreographers from STOMP! with a pulsating original score and surreal props, the gymnastics spectacle AEROS is a grown-up way to appreciate hard-toned bodies in flight and contortion. The show features more than a dozen adult athletes of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation in a program of synchronized flipping,…
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
Finding a dirty mattress in the trash isn’t often seen as good luck, but it is in I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone. The film, by director Tsai Ming-liang, follows Hsiao-kang, who has been beaten and left for dead in the middle of the road. Rawang finds him and takes…
Texas Fetish Ball
Here’s a real, live fetish: pony play. One partner imitates a domesticated colt, chomping on a bridle, wearing a saddle and prancing around as the rider sits on the pony’s back and whips it. To get a close-up look at pony play, you can Google it (boring!) or see it…
Strange Brew
Hamlet has been subjected to some great screen adaptations — and some totally outlandish ones. There’s animator Mike O’Neal’s Green Eggs and Hamlet, which keeps the plot pretty well intact, but in Dr. Seuss-ian rhythm. Two Milwaukee DJs recently released indie comedy Hamlet A.D.D., about a royal Dane in need…
Public Broomstick Adventure
The Public Broomstick Adventure will scare the pants off of you — or at least make you giggle a lot. For three hours, Discover Houston Tours founder Sandra Lord will lead a hike around centuries-old, spirit-filled cemeteries, hanging trees and restaurants. “The stops include the Spaghetti Warehouse — the most…
Dance Salad 2008
One company is three years old; another is 125. But age isn’t a priority at Dance Salad 2008 — only diversity, ingenuity and the very finest of dance. For this year’s 13th installment, producer Nancy Henderek has assembled a tremendously international, star-studded roster, including the three-year-old Beijing LDTX Modern Dance…
“Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius”
You’d think that painting the freaking Mona Lisa might be enough to fulfill a guy, but not Leonardo da Vinci. He couldn’t get himself to stop inventing things that were not only useful but hundreds of years before their time. The new exhibit “Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius” at…
Sty of the Blind Pig
Cheray Dawn Josiah has had many a role in Houston theaters during the past 20 years, but her current part, in Phillip Hayes Dean’s Sty of the Blind Pig at the Ensemble Theatre, is a favorite. “Alberta is an actor’s dream. She makes you go to depths that few characters…
Easter in the Gardens
After the kiddies stuff their faces with Cadbury eggs and jelly beans on Easter morning, they might be too jacked-up to sit still in church and hear about all that tomb and resurrection stuff. If so, hightail it out to Easter in the Gardens in Galveston’s Moody Gardens. There, the…
“Perspectives: 160: Dawoud Bey”
According to Laguna Beach and Gossip Girl, all high-schoolers are rich, beautiful and beyond bitchy. We get a reality check with photographer Dawoud Bey’s portrait series “Perspectives 160: Dawoud Bey,” currently on display at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Since 1992, Bey has been shooting large-scale portraits of American teens…
Breaking Out of the Box: Conventional Women Embarking on Unconventional Paths
Find out what radical and surprising activities Houston women were up to in the early 1900s when local historian and author Betty Chapman presents Breaking Out of the Box: Conventional Women Embarking on Unconventional Paths. Included in the discussion is suffragette and philanthropist Annette Finnigan, who was head of both…
Underneath the Lintel
If you think the library has forgotten all about that book you checked out and then promptly lost, you haven’t met the dogged librarian in Glen Berger’s Underneath the Lintel. Played by the indomitable John Tyson, the frumpy fellow at the center of Berger’s odd, wise comedy discovers a book…
“Voices of the Tempest”
During the 1982 conflict over the Falkland Islands, half of all Argentine casualties occurred in a single incident: the sinking of the navy vessel General Belgrano. Three hundred and twenty-three crewmembers were lost after the ship was hit with torpedoes from an English sub. In 2003, National Geographic set out…
“Amazon Voyage: Vicious Fishes & Other Riches”
Scare your kids silly at Space Center Houston’s “Amazon Voyage: Vicious Fishes & Other Riches.” The enormous exhibit (5,000 square feet) is a journey to seven ports of call along the Amazon, the most biologically diverse river in the world. Yeah, yeah, the jungle river is home to a gorgeous…
You Look Like a Freak When You Play With Your Wii
Okay, so I am officially no longer cool or in touch with what is the hip and the now because I think you look like a freak when you play with your Wii. Let me state that again very clearly: YOU LOOK LIKE A FREAK WHEN YOU PLAY WITH YOUR…
Shawn Phillips Is Stranger Than Fiction
Perhaps no one has made more contributions to rock and roll, with so little recognition, than Shawn Phillips. No less than late Bay Area super-promoter Bill Graham once called the Fort Worth native the “best-kept secret in the music business.” Phillips attended Arlington Heights High School with Delbert McClinton. He…
Studemont Project, Million Year Dance, Peekaboo Theory, the Tontons
By the time these four groups take the Warehouse studio stage, SXSW will mercifully be a distant memory — the hangover may have even dissipated, but don’t count on it — and this partial reproduction of last week’s Press-sponsored showcase at Austin’s Tap Room represents the official end of the…
Vanilla Ice
We can all easily think of 25 reasons Vanilla Ice should stop making music. After his song “Ice Ice Baby” came out in 1990, the first hip-hop single to hit No. 1 on the pop charts, he became the butt of a million jokes. America took back its love with…
The Last Word from the Press on SXSW 2008
Every year South by Southwest careens closer to lowercase status. Rather than simply denoting the panels and performances of the music festival proper, its signature abbreviation/acronym has become shorthand for the whirl of parties and dusk-till-dawn (and beyond) music radiating from every front porch, patio, parking lot, warehouse, henhouse and…
Moody Blues
During discussions about the recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Howard Stern’s Sirius radio show, he mentioned one listener who writes him weekly asking why the Moody Blues aren’t in yet. And while the shock jock certainly isn’t on the nominating committee, it’s a question that’s…
Del The Funkee Homosapien: 11th Hour
Del The Funkee Homosapien was once an outer-space hip-hop trailblazer, focused on absurdist rhymes and sci-fi storytelling. Though a cousin of Ice Cube and onetime member of the Da Lench Mob, he abandoned his mentors’ gangsta tropes but maintained their Parliament-influenced West Coast musical flavor on his 1991 debut I…
The Dodos
For all the permutations of acoustic roots music the experimental neo-folk movement has produced, the style’s gravitation toward wispy, soft-rock redux can leave a listener feeling a bit challenged in terms of musical muscle. Not so with the partnership forged between guitarist and singer Meric Long and drummer Logan Kroeber…
Married Life Is Far from Heaven
Do we need another look back at the rotten heart of the ’50s nuclear family? Ira Sachs thinks we do, and as one who can’t get enough of sweaty melodramas about rotting families, I’m with him in principle. Mind you, Sachs’s noticeably childless new movie is less about families than…
Honeydripper Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
American film’s maverick king of low-budget realism, John Sayles follows his usual do-it-yourself/do-it-cheap formula on Honeydripper, focusing his camera on the beginnings of rock and roll in a fictional Alabama backwater town. Set in 1950 (around the time the electric guitar was invented), the movie captures Americans’ astounding capacity for…
Montrose Gays, Family Violence and Blood Sucking Pols
It just ain’t easy being a hip and trendy preacher these days. Chris Seay, head of Houston’s Ecclesia Church, is once again roiling the neighborhood. Awhile back, it was the elderly and conservative congregation of West End Baptist (see Hair Balls, June 30, 2005); now it’s Montrose that’s up in…
Local Motion at Cactus Music
Cactus Music 2110 Portsmouth, 713-526-9272 1. Black Crowes, War Paint 2. Ian Moore, To Be Loved 3. Whiskeytown, Stranger’s Almanac 4. Judy’s, Washarama 5. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Real Emotional Trash 6. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend 7. Carolyn Wonderland, Miss Understood 8. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Raising Sand…
Willie Nelson: A Moment of Forever
Co-produced by Kenny Chesney, Moment of Forever seeks to modernize Willie Nelson’s iconic sound by inserting the Red Headed Stranger’s distinct vocals into a series of flush, Nashville-tinted arrangements. A decidedly bleak collection laced with dark tones and darker themes (social malady, death, Hurricane Katrina), Moment scores when tracks like…
Capsule Art Reviews: “Aaron Parazette: New Paintings,” “Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space,” “Design Life Now: National Design Triennial 2006,” “Tony Berlant,” “A Visceral Valentine,”
“Aaron Parazette: New Paintings” When Aaron Parazette left Texas Gallery for McClain Gallery, some local artists saw it as a sign of the apocalypse. But Parazette’s new paintings are anything but apocalyptic, and his new show at McClain is fantastic. He’s still building hard-edged, abstract paintings around the letters of…
MONARCH LOUNGE’S SCORPION ZINGER
I headed to Hotel ZaZa’s Monarch Lounge (5701 Main, 713-527-1800) to hang with some rich, beautiful people and spend my hard-earned money on really expensive cocktails. I passed the entrance to the bar in search of an ATM and noticed lots of hotel employees checking people out before they could enter…
Bayousphere
The straight-to-DVD ripoff of Bad Santa called Bad Easter Bunny was a decidedly low-budget affair, especially after Billy Bob Thornton turned down the title role. Actually, this is Brittin McClain, in the bowels of the Northwest Mall, taking a rest between shifts as the bunny. He says he hasn’t been…
Mama Assumption’s and Capone’s Bar and Oven
The owners of Cabo, Mike and Anthony Roberson, have opened a new Cajun place in west Houston — on the edge of Chinatown, actually — called Mama Assumption’s (6609 Sam Houston Pkwy. South). They named the restaurant after Assumption Parish in Louisiana, which is right smack in the middle of…
Capsule Stage Reviews: Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, Pack of Lies, Translations, Young and Fertle
Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead Oh, that Peanuts gang. Dear old Charles Schulz would be spinning in his grave if he knew what happened to his lovable bunch of kids once they became teenagers. In Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, coming…
Sk8er Boi: Paranoid Park
The pleasing circularity of Gus Van Sant’s masterful Paranoid Park is not only a function of the film’s narrative structure but reflects the arc of its maker’s career. Few directors have revisited their earliest concerns with such vigor. Van Sant’s debut, the 1985 Mala Noche, was a moody drizzle of…
The combat’s cuddly in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Sometimes it’s the terrible ideas — say, a TV show about nothing, or stirring corn into your mashed potatoes — that turn out to be genius. Super Smash Bros. landed on the Nintendo 64 nearly ten years ago, touting a concept that initially sounded nauseating: “lovable Nintendo characters in a…
“Vivid Vernacular” at the Menil Collection
“Vivid Vernacular,” currently on view at The Menil Collection, is a quaint little photography exhibit. Unfortunately, many viewers will walk away with that very thought. The photos on display are by three indisputable masters (Walker Evans, William Christenberry and William Eggleston), but the exhibit is somewhat enervated by photography’s own…
Prison Cover-Up
Online readers comment on “Prison Cover-Up,” by Chris Vogel, March 6. Injustice: As I read this today, it takes me back to that awful day. My husband was there. He told me of the horrible conditions he, as well as other inmates, endured. I think justice needs to be served…
Movie Pirates
Brandy and Chris meet at the AMC Studio 30 movie theater at Dunvale and Westheimer in southwest Houston. The couple, whose names are not really Brandy and Chris, have been there several times before; they’re comfortable there, and that’s important for what they’re planning to do. They purchase two matinee…
Nicolay and Kay: Time:Line
Following his impressive Foreign Exchange project, for which he teamed up with Little Brother’s Phonte, Dutch producer dynamo Nicolay has joined forces with Houston’s Kay, spit-ready MC of local crew the Foundation, to produce Time:Line, an enjoyable LP guided by the emerging neo-soul backpacker sound mainstreamers are beginning to heed…
An Elevated Conversation with Perseph One and AndAcc
Perseph One, Houston’s queen of experimental hip-hop, is a genius, or else she’s bat-shit crazy. Either way, the Kansas City transplant has been a major player in the local underground music scene for a minute now. And with the help of longtime Houston music cog-turned-producer Mark Speers (the cool kids…
Man to Man, Trying to Become Legal
Dear Mexican, Since moving to Aztlán from Boston, I’ve spent so much time with my next-door neighbor from Mexico City that I’ve taken to using the word manito as a term of endearment with my buddies, regardless of who and where they are. It’s been my observation that most Anglos…
Dolly Parton: Backwoods Barbie
At 62 years old, Dolly Parton is beyond legendary proportions. Don’t laugh — in fact, say what you want about her appearance, chances are she’s already beaten you to the punch. Parton’s latest effort, Backwoods Barbie, is as self-aware as it is rife with her salt-of-the-earth sensibility. The poignant “Only…
You’re with Me, Leather
Ever thought to yourself, “Man, I really like my iPod, but I wish there were a way I could connect a vibrator to it?” Black Hawk Leather has your back. Black Hawk Leather is a leather shop located inside Houston’s premiere leather bar and Montrose mainstay The Ripcord (715 Fairview)…
Special Sauce at Beaver’s
Special sauce: The Jon-Jon noodles ($6) at Beaver’s (2310 Decatur, 713-864-2328) are irresistibly addictive. When the bowl of noodles is first placed in front of you, there seems to be something missing, since all you see are the noodles and some very thin strips of cucumber on top. But they’re…
Veteran Villain: Othello
Veteran Alley actor James Black slips so completely under the skin of Shakespeare’s most malignant knave, he might as well be slathered in K-Y. The role of blackhearted Iago in the Bard’s mighty Othello is Black’s career capstone, a magnificent portrait of immoral evil. “Spartan dog” Iago is the consummate…
Chris Botti
Although trumpeter Chris Botti is, by his own admission, neither a particularly daring improviser nor a bravura technician, he’s carved out a highly lucrative niche in the jazz world by emphasizing melody and mood. Whether paying tribute to his Italian-American heritage on his most recent CD, Italia, or tackling standards…
Great Gado Gado at Noodle House 88
Covered in sweet soy and peanut sauce and dotted with chopped peanuts and garlic bits, the luscious Indonesian version of chicken satay is nothing like the dried-out chicken on a stick you get at most Houston Thai restaurants. I have now tried all three satays served at Noodle House 88,…