School’s Out
Newsweek magazine has come out with a cover story on “America’s Top 100 High Schools,” and it’s underlying message is clear: Houston, you suck. Not only that, but Dallas is great. Four freakin’ schools from the Dallas area are in the top 20; only one Houston school made the top…
Patriot Game
I’ve just walked out of my third bar in a row, drinkless, and I’m starting to feel defeated. My country is being taken over. For hours now, I have been trying, to no avail, to find a nightspot with nary a whiff of Cinco de Mayo celebration. When the bartender…
Bring the Cheetos
Houston-based graphic artist David Chien uses mixed media to create lighthearted, nonthreatening pop art. His murals, made by layering colored vinyl, usually depict male figures — loosely modeled after Chien — in various scenes of being caught off-guard. For example, “gustywindsmayexist,” Chien’s 2002 installation at Rice Art Gallery, portrayed five…
Letters to the Editor
Our New Neighbors Horrendous dilemma: I would be less concerned about the polygamists in El Dorado if their actions were just between consenting adults [“Big Love, Texas-Style,” by Keith Plocek, April 27]. Big extended families usually provide benefits to individuals and society as a whole. However the “Big Love” style…
Yum’s the Word
Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Fridays; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturdays; and 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays.
Yum woon-sen: $11.95
Squid salad: $13.95
Shrimp salad: $13.95
Chicken salad: $11.95
Spring rolls: $2.95
Vroom with a View
After a five-year absence, that unique combination of The Fast and the Furious and NASCAR, the Grand Prix of Houston, returns to the city’s concrete jungle. The three days of street races include the American Le Mans series, which features packs of Corvettes, Porsches, Ferraris, Maseratis and others blazing around…
Image of the Week
You’re never too young or too wet to vogue like you’re at Rich’s and it’s 1993. This future clubber strikes a pose at Houston’s Burnett Bayland Park on a recent hot afternoon. Let your body go with the flow, as Madonna would say. Click here to enlarge…
He’s Your Junkie
In 2002, Dutch producer Tom Holkenborg, a.k.a. Junkie XL, remixed Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” for a Nike commercial that aired during the World Cup. The single eventually became a No. 1 dance hit in 28 countries. Since then, Junkie XL has gone on to remix songs for bands…
U of In Situ
There is a mysterious new show at Blaffer Gallery. Here’s what we do know about Urs Fischer’s site-specific installation, “Mary Poppins”: The floor of the gallery has been covered in black vinyl, and the surrounding walls are black, blurring the borders. Situated in the room are Fischer’s quirky sculptures, made…
Wonder Twin Powers, Activate!
I. Introduction Were I to saunter up to a podium and announce through the condescending gaze of a monocle that “Two-piece bands are really hot right now!” you might just roll your eyes and leave my lecture hall. Of course two-piece bands are hot right now. They’ve been hot for…
Oh, Maya!
Maya Angelou is one of the few living people whose words carry as much clout as those of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and, hell, Socrates. To wit: “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” “If you find it in your heart…
Hell and Sebastian
Sebastian Junger’s hit book The Perfect Storm took us into thrashing ocean waters. He has also reported from such locales as Kosovo, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Sierra Leone. But his new work, A Death in Belmont, takes us to perhaps the most terrifying place of all: American suburbia. Specifically, Belmont, Massachusetts,…
Primary Season
Well, Music Awards season is again upon us, and before you fill out the nominations ballot with the same old names you send us every year, we’d like to take this opportunity to urge you to go out and see some new stuff. And there’s a bounty of promising young…
Twisting Witness
Agatha Christie’s Witness for the Prosecution has more twists than a Shyamalan movie. The play’s surprise ending has kept it running for 53 years and counting. “Since the time this play was first produced in the West End, a placard in the lobby asked audience members not to reveal the…
Here Comes “Trouble”
Rising gas prices may have curbed Hummer joyrides, but they haven’t slowed down the more than 250 entrants motoring in for Art Car Weekend. In fact, Don Schaper’s “Double Bubble Bio-Diesel Trouble” is practically impervious to the cost of oil. The converted 1981 VW Rabbit, which gets 50 miles to…
Here’s Your Insight, Pal
Vast legions embrace the thing as gospel. Skeptics dismiss it as ecstatic nonsense. In any event, James Redfield’s peculiar novel The Celestine Prophecy has been a bulwark of New Age metaphysics since it first hit the best-seller lists back in 1993. By recent estimates, there are 14 million copies in…
Billy Joel and Goldfish Sandwiches
Eugene Mirman, comedian It’s hard to say what my guilty pleasure is. It’s probably John Cage. That’s right — I’m so fucking cutting-edge, my guilty pleasure is most people’s extreme avant-garde. Normally I listen to foreign art-music — the sound of people throwing coins at rats, cassettes of babies falling…
A Positive Spin
In this age of spiraling medical costs and the federal government’s basically saying “F you” to the uninsured, not having medical insurance sucks. Few know this better than local DJ/musician Eban Doss, who’s battling late-stage malignant melanoma (read: mean skin cancer) — without the backing of an HMO. Some local…
A Stella Show
Stella, the sad-eyed unfortunate from A Streetcar Named Desire, is back. But this time, she’s in control of her own life — sort of. Brian Byrnes’s world-debut play Stella…Stella for Star takes place in the titular heroine’s mind after a failed suicide attempt has led to her institutionalization. Now twenty…
In the Face of Evil
We all want to believe that in even the most dangerous or frightening of situations, we would have the courage to stand up for our convictions — that we would not name names, that we would not betray our friends or our ideals. Thank God, most of us will never…
Lee Rocker, with Back Porch Mary and Romeo Dogs
Though best known as the bassist for the Stray Cats — whose pompadours and time-warp MTV videos often overshadowed their real musical talent and ability — Lee Rocker has continued to be a roots-rock standard-bearer after going solo. His new CD, Racin’ with the Devil, is a borderline spectacular exploration…
Singin’ Outside
There’s something glorious about watching a movie under the stars. Especially when the movie is MGM’s musical darling Singin’ in the Rain, about film studios and movie stars at the dawn of “talkies.” Singin’ combines a hilarious narrative of the death of silent film with a Hollywood-style love story, complete…
Playing with Space
The MFAH exhibit “Joseph Havel: A Decade of Sculpture 1996-2006” embraces duality. For example, a sculpture of a stiff shirt collar and dangling buttons represents not only what is there but also what is not. Today’s dance performance at the museum, Absence/Presence by CORE Performance Company, will examine the between-realms…
Troubled Water
If some religious extremists in India had gotten their way, the gorgeous fury of Deepa Mehta’s Water never would have reached the screen. As it is, these self-appointed censors shut down the production for years by staging demonstrations, torching Mehta’s sets and threatening her life. Eventually, the filmmaker moved her…
The Essex Green, with I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness
The weather is always better when the celestial pop sounds of the Essex Green waft through the air. Unlike many of its Brooklyn neighbors, who are more interested in sounding like totally angular and raucous hot shits, the Essex Green fills its sound with lucid and dreamy harmonies culled from…
Wheel Good Time
You probably won’t see Carolyn Farb or Shelby Hodge sipping bubbly at the 2006 Art Car Ball. But it is the social event of the season — for gearheads, gallery haunters and art car lovers. With more than 100 art cars on display for your viewing and general amazement (how…
Our Favorite Hussain
Sure, John Bonham and Keith Moon were powerful rock and roll drummers — but could they dance while they were playing? See some pounding of the skins and the floorboards as the Indo-American Association presents Zakir Hussain’s Masters of Percussion with the Manipuri Dancing Drummers. The Manipuri Drummers combine fancy…
You Can’t Stop History
By definition, a museum is a repository of the past, and what’s placed on the pedestals is studied, honored and admired. In George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum, on exhibit at Ensemble Theatre in a rich, lively and very funny production, the relics of black history are displayed for these…
Soul Position, with One.Be.Lo and Nosaprise
“No throwback jersey hanging to my knees / no doo-rags, no white tees / just the best producer and the best emcee / this is it / no limits / no gimmicks.” It’s a bold proclamation Soul Position’s MC Blueprint makes on the song “No Gimmicks,” taking aim at the…
Killer Dance
Ladies, need a creative way to avenge yourself on a lying guy? Try dancing him to death. Hey, it worked for Giselle, the title character of the ballet, who gets duped by a royal in disguise (the jerk doesn’t tell her he’s engaged) and later kills herself when his secret…
Yo’ Mama
Don’t get us wrong: Flowers and cards are very popular with moms. This year, though, go the extra mile for the woman who went the extra hundred for you. If Mom loves dance, take her to see the Hung-Sheng Lion Dance Theater. Twelve acrobats will perform folk dance and martial…
Capsule Reviews
The Chalk Garden Enid Bagnold’s The Chalk Garden is an old-fashioned English yarn about a governess with a dark secret who’s hired by an eccentric grandmother (Jeannette Clift George) to care for a smart-mouthed, teenage granddaughter (Kacy Smith). After many scenes that involve a wacky houseman (Chip Simmons) and lots…
Jamie Cullum
Jamie Cullum seems like a nice, cute kid. With his shaggy-dog hair and baby-faced mug, he looks a bit like George from Grey’s Anatomy. But this cat isn’t moping around, pining over self-centered tricks who look like Rene Zellweger. No, he’s a neo-hipster, a piano-thumping, jazz-crooning bon vivant for the…
Getting Violent
Back in 1983, 20-year-old Violent Femmes guitarist-vocalist Gordon Gano revealed that he stained his sheets. With his nasal, quivering voice — made famous on the single “Blister in the Sun” — Gano whined lyrics that were self-depreciating, smug, repugnant, religious, sexy and dark. (Just the recipe for awkward adolescents.) Fans…
Saget Said It
Who knew that Bob Saget, that clean-scrubbed patriarch of the G-rated family sitcom Full House, was in reality such a joyously filthy scumbag? The man once taunted as “Bob Faggot” in grade school has had a huge career renaissance lately, thanks to turning in one of the dirtiest performances in…
Olde School
They ought to be serving mead at Inman Gallery. In “Forever Rafter,” Bill Davenport — a self-confessed teenage Dungeons & Dragons fan — expands on his medieval oeuvre, turning Inman’s main gallery into a half-timbered hall. Posts, rafters, “iron” nails and bolts have all been goofily crafted from four- by…
Versus the Mirror, with Boy Sets Fire, the Fully Down and My Last War
Metalcore. It’s the latest in a series of seemingly endless subgenres of the loud, the fast and the ugly, combining the anger of thrash with the volume of metal and the speed of punk. Its fans are more likely to engage in extreme sports than extreme bong-building. On the strength…
Crash with Karsh
London-born, South Asian NYC DJ and tabla player Karsh Kale has been on fire lately. So he’s the perfect headliner for the first anniversary of Turntablas on the Bayou, H-town’s monthly bhangra, hip-hop and South Asian-infused dance party at The Social. Kale also will be celebrating the release of his…
Snap Up This Snapper
The “amazing Thai fish” ($13.50) at Cafe Tin Tin (5761 San Felipe, 713-339-3362) is, as advertised, truly amazing. Even though the large, extremely crispy pieces of snapper have been coated in a thin batter and deep-fried, they’re not in the least bit greasy. The sweet and hot dish includes onions,…
Capsule Reviews
“Christian Eckart: Purpose Driven” Christian Eckart makes work that hovers between sculpture and painting. Shapes are cut from aluminum and attached to the wall so they hang away from it. They’re painted with glossy coats of auto body paint — everything from bright citrus colors to gem-toned hues with diamond-dust…
Un-American Dream
The lovable hero of Goal! The Dream Begins is the kind of guy some Americans don’t find very appealing these days: a Mexican immigrant who’s trying to make a better life in East Los Angeles. Little matter that young Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker) busts his butt working two crappy jobs…
Booty-licious
Before gold caught the fancy of pirates everywhere, the people of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (500 BC to 1600 AD) were eye-high in the precious metal. Believed by many cultures to be of the sun, gold was used for ceremonial objects because of its connection to the source of life and its…
Margarita on the Rocks
As our group walks into JR.’s Bar and Grill (808 Pacific, 713-521-2519), our gay friend/tour guide explains to us that here, just about everyone is accepted outright, regardless of appearance, orientation or disposition. This is good, because I have the fashion sense of Tom Sizemore on Ketamine, and I was…
Beat Down
Publisher: Konami
Platform: PlayStation 2
Price: $59.99
ESRB Rating: E 10+ (for Everyone Over 10)
Score: 3 (out of 10)
Inside the Lines
Art School Confidential is very much like every movie pilfered from the Saturday Night Live playbook, in which the slight giggles of a four-minute sketch are wrung into two-hour yawns. The work upon which it’s based is a four-page excerpt from a 14-year-old comic book called Eightball, written and drawn…
Cat ‘n’ Bird Fight
Damn those Rice baseball players. You’d think they’d throw in a little mediocrity once in a while, just to mix it up. Nope, as if on cue, they’re en fuego, going 17-for-18 in April and hovering on the brink of the NCAA’s No. 1 spot. This weekend, the Rice Owls…
Our top DVD picks for the week of May 9
The Barbie Diaries Gift Set (Family Home Entertainment) Battle in Heaven (Tartan) The Best of Rocky and Bullwinkle: Volume 1 (Sony Wonder) Big Momma’s House 2 (Fox) Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist: Season One (Paramount) The Facts of Life: The Complete First and Second Seasons (Sony) Grandma’s Boy: Unrated Edition (Fox)…
Abort
Mission: Impossible III finds Tom Cruise playing down the world’s single greatest piece of action music in deference to an Age of Fear vibe that’s a lot more grueling than rousing. Seems Lalo Schifrin’s adrenaline-pumping “dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum” is now as dated as the cold war from which it sprang; maybe the…
Get Soma Kicks
Three years ago, Nick Cooper, a local musician and volunteer for Houston Indymedia, traveled to Brazil to learn more about capoeira, the Brazilian martial art and dance form. What he discovered, however, was modern psychotherapy with a punch. In his documentary Soma: An Anarchist Therapy, Cooper delves into Soma, a…
In the Pink
The wealthy young Kuwaiti woman appeared in Dr. Troy Hailparn’s San Antonio office and collapsed in tears. Before she left to study abroad, her family had arranged for her marriage. She and her fianc were about to return home to wed. But they were in serious danger. They had engaged…
Nouveau Noir
Calling Rian Johnson’s teen indie drama Brick a piece of stuntwork might seem tantamount to hitting it with a pie, but it’s a high-speed wheelie of a strangely daring variety. Try this thumbnail definition on for size: a high school noir, complete with a Dashiell Hammett-derived plot and a fearless…
They’re Such a Drag
Dressing in drag is, like, so hot right now. Find out just how hot it is at Danseparc Does Drag. Guys, now’s your chance to throw on your girlfriend’s heels and hot skimpy dress. Ladies, muddle through a pile of clothes and feel just how comfortable it is to wear…
Diary of a Mad Man
The No. 1 definition for the word “mad” according to Webster’s is “mentally disturbed; deranged,” and David Clark has been that. Bipolar and sometimes prone to the mood swings that medication doesn’t always contain, Clark has been mad. Today, though, he is working on the second definition of mad, as…
Beauty at Buchenwald
Fateless (THINKFilm) I’ve no patience for the Holocaust docudrama — didn’t even see Schindler’s List till years after its 1993 release, to my parents’ everlasting shame. And so it was I avoided Lajos Koltai’s acclaimed adaptation of Imre Kertsz’s Nobel Prize-winning autobiographic novel; are we not already gorged on the…
Ultra Cool
Perhaps in response to the recent doom-and-gloom-themed FotoFest, or maybe just in celebration of spring, Deborah Colton Gallery has put together a refreshingly positive, optimistic exhibit featuring two stars of an art-world revolution. Warhol superstar Ultra Violet was born Isabelle Collin Dufresne in France. She was famous for being Salvador…