The Chinese Connection
According to state records, Poly Sac, Inc. was incorporated in 1985, was formerly located at 4800 Clinton Drive in east Houston and moved to its present location in 1991, the same year that Allied Fibers, Inc. was incorporated. Poly Sac’s president is Jerry C. Wang, its secretary is Ying Y…
A Refuge for Refugees
When Florida Rural Legal Services worker Laura Germino heard from immigrant Salvadoran workers in Houston worried about troubles with their employer, she thought of one place to direct them: Houston’s Central American Refugee Center. CARECEN was founded in Houston in 1985 by a coalition of Salvadoran immigrants and American volunteers…
Hard Labor
Necesitamos ayuda de inmediato. “We need immediate help.” The letter from Houston, dated February 7, 1993, arrived a few days later on Laura Germino’s desk at the offices of Florida Rural Legal Services in Immokalee, Florida. It was from Miguel Angel Martinez and Hector Alfredo Villalobos, two friends who were…
Letters
Assess This Mr. Lee is not alone in his ever-growing frustration and anger in dealing with the Harris County Appraisal District [“A Taxing Situation,” by D.J. Wilson, May 12]. At the end of 1992, on a Friday at noon, when my family and I were having lunch, somebody hammered at…
Press Picks
thursday may 26 Taking Care of Your Aging Parents It’s the least you can do, really, and now Bellaire Hospital has stepped up as a sort of Dr. Spock for those faced with the difficult task of caring for geriatrics. The hospital’s sun room will be the site of this…
Bernardo Versus the Volcano
There’s a talented chef trying to break out of Senor Frog’s kitchen. Here’s hoping Bernardo Orozco, a Cafe Annie veteran who’s full of interesting ideas, can triumph over his current circumstances — which involve the fastest case of Management Cold Feet on record, not to mention a party-down cantina concept…
Hot Plate
Galveston Ho It’s that time of year when those of us who are not blessed with summer addresses in Aspen or Santa Fe start packing the car for Galveston. Figuring out where to eat among the island city’s mostly mediocre seafood joints can be a trial, but there’s a swell…
Ethnical Questions
Last week I asked readers to comment on the suggested addition of a new category — for Traditional/Ethnic music — to this year’s Houston Press Music Awards. Response was swift (thanks) and overwhelmingly supportive. So, in keeping with the democratic tradition, the ayes have it. Revised nomination ballots are speeding…
Rotations
Johnny Cash American Recordings American Recordings There are damn few figures of truly mythic stature left in the world of popular music — a sad truth probably best laid at the doorstep of rampant hype and the micro-dissection that trails even moderate celebrity-hood like a determined slug. When paparazzi snap…
Critic’s Choice
As respectively insular and non-communicative as Houston’s underground-rock and jazz communities traditionally have been, there’s a happy breakthrough in the tenuous bond that’s being formed between the Warehouse District’s Catal Huyuk/Harvey’s Club Deluxe and the avant-jazz troubadours associated with New York’s Knitting Factory club and record label. Last year, Catal…
Moore to Know
Outside of a tightly circumscribed community of folk followers, Dave Moore is an unknown. Everything about the Iowa-bred songwriter and multi-instrumentalist announces the sad fact: the way his record company cavalierly passes on his home phone number without even asking what paper the inquiring writer works for; the way Moore…
To Syrup with Love
“This is a play, or rather a sort of a play,” A.R. Gurney wrote in an author’s note to his 1988 epistolary Love Letters, “which needs no theater, no lengthy rehearsal, no special set, no memorization of lines, and no commitment from its two actors beyond the night of performance.”…
Made in Houston
Last week provided a wry opportunity to take in the lively extremes of homemade Houston theater, from the compositional precision of Edward Albee at one end to the pop-bohemian excesses of Beans Barton and the Bi-Peds at the other. Albee, Houston’s part-time resident Pulitzer-winner, has been much in the news…
The Last Warhol
Although Andy Warhol died in 1987, his art continues to pose questions — questions concerning the nature of art and life. His work and personal mythology spark a kind of curious fascination that grows with exposure. With the recent acquisition of an important work from Warhol’s final period, the Menil…
Travels with Charlie
The recent short films of River Oaks native Alex Georges have been a mixed bag. A Bit of Chartreuse was a small, very stylish black comedy, while Laura’s Death was a failed attempt at psycho-killer thrills. Taken together, however, they suggested that Georges is a filmmaker of considerable potential. Cultivating…
Murder Most Fine
Film noir might soon experience a renaissance, thanks to John Dahl, one of the most exciting American directors to come along in years. His slick, sexy The Last Seduction was a standout at this year’s Houston WorldFest. Stylish and moody, it tailed a brainy femme fatale who’s so determined to…
Shopping for Buddhas
Bernardo Bertolucci’s career has been a crashing disappointment for so long that I’ve sworn off getting excited by the presence of his above-the-title name. For cinematic purposes, the early 1970s filmmaker who made The Conformist and Last Tango in Paris no longer exists. Instead of those supercharged, deeply imagined works,…