Springtime for Bob
It doesn’t stretch the imagination to envision a sleepless Bob Lanier, perhaps cradling a nightcap of warm milk, looking out over the darkened city from his condo at the Huntingdon and pondering life in a more media-friendly world. Given the mayor’s recent carping about negative coverage of his administration, such…
PostScripts
We got you now! The Chronicle didn’t even wait for the corpse of the Post to cool before it began informing advertisers that the cost of placing their ads in the city’s sole surviving daily newspaper will be rising sharply on June 1. An April 28 missive from Chronicle publisher…
Letters
Garden Neglected Many thanks for Michael Berryhill’s tribute to Robert Campbell [“A Matter of Faith,” April 13]. It was moving and much deserved, but Mr. Berryhill neglects to mention one of Robert’s most amiable characteristics: he was a keen gardener and made his house on Bayland Avenue the prettiest garden…
Press Picks
thursday may 4 Joe Scruggs Singing star and puppeteer sings hits such as “I’m Too Full for Broccoli (But I’ve Still Got Room for Some Pie),” “Even Trolls Have Moms (Who Make Them Put Their Dirty Jeans in the Hamper Before They Go Out to Lurk Under Bridges)” and “Refrigerator…
Belly, Going Up
Back in 1991, Gail Greenwood was among the capacity audience that had packed a small club in Newport, Rhode Island, to see the much-hyped debut performance of a group called Belly. Much of the buzz about the Newport pop band was centered around frontwoman Tanya Donelly, who had left an…
Sanctuary
With a pair of thousand-dollar binoculars strapped to his chest and his eyes constantly scanning the towering oaks and hackberry trees for flitting yellow shapes, John Upton doesn’t want to be distracted for long from his mission at a place called the Cathedral. Upton and his wife, Ruth, want to…
Rotation
Various Artists Till the Night Is Gone: A Tribute to Doc Pomus Forward/Rhino It says a lot about the dubiousness of the form that Till the Night Is Gone is at the same time one of the least typical and yet most appropriate tribute albums now out. Atypical, because it’s…
Rare Verdi
Guiseppe Verdi’s Attila, one of the composer’s early operas, is rarely performed today. Judging from Houston Grand Opera’s new production, though, this is one work that needs to be staged far more often. Verdi himself said Attila was “not inferior to my other operas.” It appears that the composer’s assessment…
The Country of Rock and Roll
Over a plate of chicken-fried steak, fried corn, green beans and mashed potatoes, Max Johnston makes a startling revelation. Until just a few weeks ago, he had never heard Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird”; worse yet, he says — his boyish face sort of flushed and twisted with a mixture of embarrassment…
A Suitable Encore
In Houston, new theater companies seem to sprout with every change of the season; that few of them survive may say as much about the theatrical talent available as it does the city’s theater audience. Still, any flicker of new activity is worth a first look, and from what I…
Simply Beastie
When the Beastie Boys came through Houston almost ten years ago, we sure did give ’em a good ol’ Texas welcome. Their first album, Licensed to Ill, hadn’t really caught on yet, and the audience at the Hofheinz Pavilion was hardly receptive to Madonna’s opening act of three white rappers…
Sex Done Dull
If there’s one thing you absolutely cannot do in mounting Arthur Schnitzler’s notorious 1896 comic sexcapade La Ronde, it’s ruin the mood. But under the deadening direction of Leah Martinez and Blake Newman, this is exactly what happens at Curtains Theater. Remember from adolescence when one of your parents would…
Heeeeere’s Branford!
When you’re talking with Branford Marsalis, a man considered by many to be one of the preeminent saxophonists on the jazz scene today, one thing quickly becomes apparent: talking with the media is not one of Marsalis’ favorite activities. The cynical, often confrontational, Grammy-winning musician is clearly on his own…
Make ’em Laugh
Peter Chelsom, co-writer and director of the new film about comedy (as opposed to comedy film) Funny Bones, says his latest work is another of his “hometown movies,” like Hear My Song. Chelsom’s notion of hometown is like Ray Bradbury’s: the hometown is suffused with magic, the sun shines every…
Hybrid City
One of the quirkiest lunch secrets in town is the spiffy little Swedish steam table at Ikea, the I-10 furniture superstore. My mom will kill me for saying this, but the diminutive Swedish meatballs purveyed here rival my Scandinavian grandmother’s — they’re that tender, that fetching, and swathed in a…
Hot Love
There’s a happy ending to A Pyromaniac’s Love Story; this film is a fairy tale after all, albeit a modernized, live action version of Fractured Fairy Tales that’s heavy on the schmaltz. You wouldn’t expect anything else from a film that follows its opening credits with flowery calligraphy that leads…
Steak and Potato Paradise
Into most red-blooded American lives comes the powerful urge for a decent steak dinner that doesn’t cost the earth. It should entail a great, simple salad and a respectable potato. The meat should be of a tenderness and heft that do not scream “cheap steak.” A glass of good red…
Bad Seeds
In the past two decades, filmmaker John Carpenter has directed 17 movies, and has established himself as a towering figure in modern horror — a celluloid counterpart of novelist Stephen King, setting spooky stories in present day, recognizable settings, from suburbia (Christine) to the inner city (Prince of Darkness, Assault…
Talking (and Talking) Film
WorldFest Houston, the city’s annual international film festival, is like any other annual event: a select crowd waits eagerly all year for it to roll around. Only this year the regular crowd for this orgy of art films awaited the festival’s announcement with mixed emotions. At first blush, this was…
The Law East of Downtown
The sisters-in-law who share the same name, Sandra Munoz, had shown up unannounced to demand an immediate audi-ence with Precinct 6 Constable Victor Trevino.ooooooooooooo They were there at Trevino’s headquarters on Lockwood to complain about the behavior of one of the constable’s 300 volunteer deputies, a female officer who had…
Twilight of El Jefe
While Victor Trevino’s political career seems to be just coming of age, Ben Reyes, the man who’s reigned for decades as the boss of Houston’s internecine Hispanic political scene, appears to be reaching the twilight of his. Reyes is the last surviving officeholder from the crop of then-young minority politicians…
A Whiter Shade of Blue
If you need a measure of the backlash against affirmative action by put-upon white men, a good place to look would be the Houston Police Department, where the White Officers Association is the fastest-growing employee organization. Of course, if you do look at the Houston Police Department, you’ll also notice…