They’ve Got Spirit, Yes They Do
When hunting for paranormal activity, there are a few simple rules to follow. Go out in only good weather, preferably during a full moon, when spirits are more active. Make sure your lens is clean. And be respectful — when in the presence of a ghost, you don’t want to…
Weird Al
Hollywood types have yet to be divested of the notion that their personal in-jokes translate well to the rest of the country, so this season, not only do we get Phone Booth, in which a showbiz publicist is held hostage by a sniper, but also People I Know, in which…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, May 1 There’s no shame in hating networking events. After all, who really enjoys wandering up to strangers, awkwardly clutching wine in a plastic glass, to make small talk about business? No one, except maybe a few phonies. Still, if you want to get ahead in the world, you…
Of Boobs and Blood
He claims to be blacklisted and close to busto. Thirty years in the film biz, with a cult bigger than David Koresh’s and a disemboweled body of work that would make any studio boss blood-red with envy, and still he kvetches in a voice so eerily similar to that of…
A Side of Grits
You’re not a real Southern girl unless you season your iron skillet. A new one, unblackened by layers of natural oils, just doesn’t give food the right flavor. It takes years to season a fresh skillet; that’s why daughters squabble over who’s got rights to Mama’s pan. But when starting…
Bigger and Battered
Nine fried jumbo shrimp: $7.99 Eight grilled shrimp: $7.99 Fried catfish and six shrimp: $8.99 Six fried oysters: $5.99 Pint of shrimp gumbo: $3.99
A Fresh SLANT
FRI 5/2Don’t go to the SLANT: Bold Asian-American Images festival expecting to catch the latest Margaret Cho concert movie or a documentary on sushi chefs. The annual event is a showcase of real, homegrown Asian-American cinema, and for the first time this year, local musicians and writers will be featured…
Barbecue in Black and White
Cowgirls are taking turns climbing onto the stage and turning around to display their denim-clad derrieres to the audience. It’s the Miss Blue Jeans Contest at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo barbecue cook-off. When a woman wiggles provocatively, the men wave their cowboy hats in the air and roar…
One Million Dollars? You Bet
SAT 5/3In the Southern tradition, the first Saturday in May means mint juleps, fine attire and the Kentucky Derby. But, of course, not everyone can get to Churchill Downs, so Sam Houston Race Park is offering its own derby day to celebrate the 129th “Run for the Roses.” Events include…
Pei Wei Asian Diner
For quick, comforting Asian pasta with panache, make a beeline to Pei Wei Asian Diner (5110 Buffalo Speedway, 713-661-0900) for “blazing noodles” ($6.45). Wide pappardelle-style noodles hit the hot wok with sizzle, and the char marks prove it. Laced in between are crisp, naturally sweet snap peas, giant coins of…
Busy Miss Lizzie
If you’ve never heard of Lizzie McGuire, you are not a female child between the ages of six and 14; nor are you a parent with a female child between those ages. For the uninitiated, then, Lizzie is the eponymous heroine of the three-year-old, wildly popular Disney Channel TV series…
By the Wayside
SAT 5/3 There’s something wrong — or at least a little off — at Wayside School. First, it has 30 classrooms built on top of one another. Then there’s the teacher who turns her students into apples, and the kid who’s permanently stuck to his seat with chewing gum. The…
On Location
At the center of any movie are its stars — they get all the attention, the good jokes, the great passions…Not so in Marie Jones’s play Stones in His Pockets, where the geometry of moviemaking has been turned inside out. Here, the nameless extras stand center stage, and we get…
Get Some Action
THU 5/1If you like a little action along with your art, head to the opening reception for DiverseWorks’ “In Houston: A Site-Based Performance and Installation,” an exhibition of three Chinese artists living in the United States that is far from stationary.Houston-based Weihong continues her exploration of color with a half-black…
Opera’s Bad Girl
When is an opera not just an opera? When, through staging and direction, it becomes a vehicle for social commentary on women. Houston Grand Opera brings Scottish director David McVicar’s provocative version of Jules Massenet’s Manon to the Wortham Center this month for a retelling of the classic bad-girl-gone-good story…
Doing the Twist
THU 5/1Actions lead to other actions. Australian playwright Andrew Bovell took that concept and ran with it in his latest offering, Speaking in Tongues, opening this week at Stages Repertory Theatre. Revealing much of the work’s plot would be criminal spoilage, but let’s just say that it involves two married…
Modern Vintage
single family photograph can conjure a host of memories: the taste of dry turkey, wriggling in the itchy dress your mother made you wear, trying to kick cousins under the table. But even when the images are not your own, photography retains its unique ability to conjure a sense of…
New-World Diva
It’s fitting that Lila (pronounced “LEE-la”) Downs called her 2001 album La Linea. While the title translates literally as “the line,” it also means “the border,” and no one musician in this hemisphere does as much to erase national frontiers as she does. Like Los Super Seven’s Canto from the…
A Dozen Brisket Sandwiches
First, a little advice: Black East Texas barbecue is heavy on the sauce — ask for yours on the side if you aren’t going to eat it right away. Don’t complain about crumbling brisket; just order it in a sliced or “chipped beef” sandwich. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look…
Hardest Art
Cursive front man Tim Kasher recites the incident clinically. “It ended up being one of those really unusual life-and-art-reflecting-each-other coincidences that we had already named the album The Ugly Organ,” Kasher says dryly. He’s describing the collapsed lung and resulting surgery that landed him in the hospital midway through recording…
The Train Ride Gets Bumpy
Metropolitan Transit Authority chairman Arthur Schechter had just introduced a “historic” draft regional mobility plan, diplomatically subtitled “buses and more,” to the agency board meeting last week. As subordinates began detailing the long-awaited proposal that will likely go before voters in some form next November, Metro President and CEO Shirley…
Bring Back the Funk
Lee Fields is so funky you have to take out mold insurance before you can get near him. Long well known to the likes of hardcore funk aficionados and serious record collectors, lately he’s been busting out all over the world with his return to classic funk and soul sounds…
Money to Spin
Times are getting tough these days over at the Houston Independent School District. Thanks to a slumbering economy and cuts in state funding, HISD faces a $100 million shortfall. The district laid off 360 employees earlier this year; magnet program budgets will be slashed by 20 percent; cuts in bus…
AbNORML Behavior
According to just about everyone involved, Alex Lozano’s Washington Avenue 420 Music Fest went pretty well, from a musical standpoint. About 300 people bought wristbands, and perhaps an equal number of band members and hangers-on braved the rain and the fact that it was Easter Sunday to revel in music…
Teamwork
In response to accusations of racism in the selection of its drill team, Texas City High School officials have agreed to hold new tryouts with an ethnically diverse panel of judges (see “Stung,” April 24). Seven black girls were among 80 students who tried out for the Stingarettes team in…
One Step Forward
The recent chart success of French duo Les Nubians’ One Step Forward is both a heartening rebuke and a disturbing indicator of our country’s xenophobic culture. Usually foreign-language artists have to learn to sing in English (like Shakira or t.A.T.u.) to succeed on the U.S. pop charts — in sharp…
Merger Misdeeds?
Nancy Esselman didn’t trust her husband of 14 years. They had reached the end game of an ugly, two-year divorce. After she filed for divorce, he charged her with assault with a deadly weapon (her car). A year ago, the couple went into mediation to divide their financial assets. At…
The Very Best of the Stone Roses ; Outpost Transmission
A funny, seemingly magical thing happened to the northern English canal port city of Manchester as the early 1990s crept up on pop music: It became Madchester. Fueled by good ecstasy and sporting casual baggy clothes, the town’s bored youth upended Britain’s striated, London-centered music paradigm by partying to both…
Kickoff –or Punt?
Dylan Murray, a consultant for Saba Bluewater Cafe, was looking forward to downtown’s Super Bowl Kickoff Party. Organized in part by the Super Bowl Host Committee and the Downtown Management District, the April 12 celebration promised to lure people to Main Street with four high school marching bands, live music…
Get Some
Not yet having written the über-single that major labels seek from every rap-rock band of the week, Faceplant has made good on its promise to release its own record — majors be damned. Get Some, the 15-track CD, contains six newer songs alongside nine older numbers, all of them either…
Letters
Artificial Intelligence Teach responsibility: Many of my friends in college use the “study aids” reported in your article [“High Scores,” by Jennifer Mathieu, April 17]. These are the same kids that, in fourth grade, hoped for floods and hurricanes to force the cancellation of school. Face it: Most kids don’t…
Violent Femmes
At some fast-approaching point in pop culture evolution, we’re due to hit Total Outsider Saturation, wherein everybody is an outsider and therefore there is no longer an outside. In the fleeting meantime we have scintillating reminders of the struggle such as X-2: X-Men United, the latest bid from comic-book land…
