Swing in Time
It’s hard to imagine Jelly Roll Morton and Hot Lips Page inspiring Marilyn Manson-style outrage with their syncopated tunes. Even more amazing, a group of watchdogs in Illinois called the Vigilance Association printed a 1922 report saying jazz had corrupted a thousand young Chicago girls. At the same time, a…
Hire Calling
Monroe Brooks, manager of rental properties in the Montrose area, knew where to head to find a reliable handyman willing to work for a day’s pay. As he had done in the past, Brooks drove to the Magnolia Heights area around Washington Avenue and Shepherd Drive. He recognized his past…
News Hostage
This Just In (and Trivial) It was so important that both Channel 11 and Channel 2 broke into their regular late-afternoon programming April 28 to go live on the air. It was… four guys getting not very injured at all in a small industrial accident. The story merited but a…
Checkout Time at Hotel Six
It was clearly time for the five-year FBI investigation and subsequent legal circus once tagged Hotel Six to pack its tents and get outta Dodge. Defense attorney Dan Cogdell proved that by loosing the most repulsive line of the trial last week. Leaning into the faces of expectant jurors during…
Geek Force
Here’s something you might find interesting,” Scott Chitwood says, reaching down to a bottom shelf and handing over a beat-up, plain white three-ring binder. “Interesting” is a huge understatement. “The Beginning. By George Lucas.” A quick flip through the well-photocopied pages inside, obviously pecked out on a manual typewriter, only…
Splendid Spider
Manuel Puig’s novel Kiss of the Spider Woman tells a haunting love story, the kind that can happen only under the most wretched of circumstances. Terrence McNally, along with John Kander and Fred Ebb, has turned this dark tale about two men who meet in a Latin American prison into…
Letters
Exchanging Vows We applaud the courage of the Reverend Marilyn Meeker-Williams and the Reverend Bruce Felker [“Left Standing at the Church Door,” by Margaret Downing, April 29] in taking a strong stand against their denomination’s ban on the blessing of same-gender unions. We also congratulate the members of Bering Memorial…
Roots of Rice
As much as Houstonians might love our Rice University — those gigantic oaks, the library with its glossy waxed floors and those smart, serious-minded students — learning the genesis of the grand old place sounds about as interesting as a bowl of Dickensian gruel. Somehow though, Main Street Theater has…
Leftover Lies?
On the morning of May 9, almost exactly three years ago, FBI agents had the advantage of surprise as they turned on their recorders and began interviewing City Councilmen Michael Yarbrough and John Castillo at their homes. In the months and years that would follow, the public would learn details…
Puck with Pluck
A Midsummer Night’s Dream came early in Shakespeare’s career. He had written it by at least 1598, in roughly the same period as another lyric-romantic masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet. Despite Samuel Pepys’ famous dismissal of Dream as “the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life,” it…
Night & Day
Thursday May 13 In 1951 F. Hugh Herbert’s The Moon Is Blue was condemned by the Legion of Decency for using such words as “mistress” and “seduce.” These days the play — about a New York architect whose attempts at romancing a “professional virgin” are thwarted by his ex-fiancee’s father…
Lust Lessons
The love affair at the heart of Benoit Jacquot’s The School of Flesh has to be the longest shot on the board. Pairing a woman of the world with a boy of the streets, it is fueled by sexual obsession and casual cruelty, by the same huge contrasts in temperament…
Brussels Sprouts
Lucky Nancy Henderek: The River Oaks resident and dance enthusiast gets to handpick her favorite choreographers and dancers from all over the world for an evening-length concert at the Wortham Center. Lucky us: She’s got good taste. Henderek started Dance Salad seven years ago when she was living in Belgium…
Silence on the Dial
On the afternoon of April 27, M. Martin climbed the stairs to a small office above the Texas Hemp Company to use the phone. There, he answered a call from someone down the street, name of John. The call was a heads-up — the feds were lining up in front…
Promising Patios
Spring has fully sprung now, triggering the annual lemminglike surge of Houstonians determined to defy the elements and dine alfresco. Several area restaurants have answered nature’s call with new or refurbished patios; here’s a rundown of where to eat “out” when you really mean “out of doors.” The original Carrabba’s…
Coming to No Good End
On this early Sunday morning in 1991, Sweeny’s archangel of death wore no traditional black suit. Undertaker Jay Herman Johnson was still in his pajamas, bathrobe and slippers, sitting on the rose granite bench of his son’s tomb. As Johnson tended to do, he talked quietly to the 16-year-old son…
Supreme Sap
The most perplexing thing about TV movies is that, since they always come and go at about the same rate of most theatrically released movies, they all blur together in your mind, and you can’t remember one from the next. While viewing the TV movie Double Platinum, the hyped-to-hell telefilm…
News of the Weird
Lead Story *The Agence France Presse news service reported that the official government newspaper of Baghdad, the Ai-Thawra, played an April Fools’ Day joke on its readers, claiming on page one: “Good news: from today, bananas (2 pounds), Pepsi (a case) and chocolate (50 pieces) to be included in rations.”…
MPFree.com
Errej Eugaet, keyboardist and Web guru for the Houston-based electronica act Center, isn’t surprised his band doesn’t have a huge local following. But it doesn’t seem to bother him because the world seems to like it. “Our flavor of music is not a Houston sound,” writes Eugaet via e-mail. “MP3.com…
Book ‘Em, Draper
As Houston’s fortunes ebb and flow with the oil industry, Huntsville depends on bad boys. The social, economic and employment structures of the city are so closely tied with the state prison system that it’s a town where crime literally pays. Former Texas Monthly and current GQ writer Robert Draper…
Rotation
Malaco Records The Last Soul Company Malaco Records On Christmas Day, there is a tradition that goes on in most African-American households that is generally lost on all other cultures. After the entire family gets through opening up presents and finishing off holiday foodstuffs, they all adjourn to the living…
Hot Plate
Scripture and a steak: Our blessings on the tasty T-bone grilled for breakfast, lunch or dinner at Heaven-N-A-Blanket [8903 Cullen, (713)733-4848]. The Reverend Ray Swanson buys whole beef loins and slices them up then marinates the steaks overnight in a hot, salty blend of “secret special spices.” The slightly smaller…
When Nature Calls
Most people, when they find out that I’m a chef, respond, “Oh, how exciting” or “That must be interesting.” I usually just let my silence stand for a yes. I never know whether they have time to hear just how exciting or interesting the restaurant business is. An example: One…
Beating the Rep
I was surprised to discover that Jalapenos restaurant, in business at the you-can’t-miss-it intersection of Kirby and Westheimer for more than a decade, has been almost completely overlooked by my inside-the-Loop dining pals. Strange myths and misconceptions abound. “Isn’t Jalapenos a chain?” asked a friend, disdainfully curling his lip. “I…
Beignet Blahs
Sometimes a restaurant just makes you sad. Cafe Beignet is just such a place. I walked in with high expectations. It’s a nice space: tile floors, comfortable wood chairs and tables, open-beam ceilings and a large bar dividing the room in two, the front half with floor-to-ceiling windows, the rear…
Cowboy Convoy
The man with the deep, deep voice that will make you wonder if Johnny Cash was ever friendly with the guy’s mother would probably chortle if you called him “alternative country.” That’s because Austin-based singer/guitarist Dale Watson thinks his original material based on ’50s and ’60s Texas swing/honky-tonk and the…