Book of the Month
THU 11/18 Amazing what some writers will come up with when they’re high: In 1999, author Chris Baty was 26 years old and “high as a kite on Peet’s coffee,” he recalls. “I had the idea that it would be pretty great to write a novel in a month. And…
Gabba Gabba Henh
The Ramones have been commodified (shilling Bud Light with “Blitzkrieg Bop”), deified, even gentrified (on the soundtrack to The Royal Tenenbaums, where “Judy Is a Punk” thrashes for dear life alongside Vince Guaraldi), but seldom have they been so thoroughly analyzed. There have been the myriad boxed sets and rereleases…
Pom Pilots
SUN 11/21 Herkies, pikes, hurdlers and standing tucks abound at the George R. Brown Convention Center this weekend. No, these aren’t exotic animals, they’re cheering moves. Sunday’s Cheer America Cheer and Dance Championships will feature hundreds of amped-up high-schoolers demanding you root for sports teams you’ve never seen play. Cheerleading…
Family Treat
Remember John Waters, the guy made famous by his 1972 indie-shocker Pink Flamingos? The film was rated NC-17 because of a “wide range of perversions” — it features, among other unspeakables, the magnificent 350-pound transvestite Divine chowing down on dog shit. Well, my friends, John Waters is nothing if not…
Queen of Clubs
SAT 11/20 There’s a cold reality facing dance music: Cher, the reigning club queen, will soon step down. And while she’s on only her first “farewell” tour, the divine diva eventually will have to hand off her crown to someone. Our bet’s on Amber. Consider their similarities: Both have released…
Capsule Reviews
American Ballet Theatre American Ballet Theatre has built a reputation for cultivating stars, and in its post-Mikhail Baryshnikov era, the company still has an impressive collection. At a Society for the Performing Arts show last weekend, the New York company performed George Balanchine’s Mozartiana, Antony Tudor’s Pillar of Fire and…
Laugh Trap
FRI 11/19 Improv comedy can be bloody. Just ask Colin Mochrie, who plays “the world’s most dangerous improv game” during “An Evening with Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood,” making a stop in Houston this week. The game consists of Mochrie and Sherwood, both vets of British and American versions of…
Show of Flow
“There was a bad storm, a big ship, and all kinds of people on the ship, I remember some of them got sick, they were kind of throwing up or something. I don’t remember the colors. That’s all I can say.” These words appear at the beginning of Sophie Calle’s…
Cornfed Keyboards
In 1994, four young boys from corn country — Omaha, Nebraska, to be exact — decided to start a band called the Faint. Like most bands, their building blocks were a couple of guitars, a bass and a drum kit. They performed in coffee shops, basements and bars while playing,…
Capsule Reviews
“…Hot’* ‘…Hotter’** …Hottest’*** : Important New Works from the Lockhart River Gang” The young artists on view at Booker-Lowe Gallery blend contemporary art with their 50,000-year-old culture. The Lockhart River Gang is a group of mainly twentysomething Australian aboriginal artists who are heirs to one of the oldest continuous cultures…
Page Turning
For a guy who had pieces of collarbone pretty much jutting through his skin less than two months ago, Page Hamilton is in a surprisingly good mood. It’s the Vicodin keeping him from screaming in agony across the phone line, he says with a laugh. Seems the affable, Los Angeles-based…
Chasing Its Tale
Between the end of the Republican National Convention and Election Day, the Houston Chronicle spent roughly 50,000 words on President George W. Bush and his campaign for re-election. Perhaps most impressive, one of its own columnists had major news to break on the race. He just didn’t, umm, break it…
Adios, KLOL
Around noon on November 12, KLOL spun its last record, which was also its first: “I’m Free” by the Who. The choice was ironic for a couple of reasons. First, KLOL hadn’t played a record that good in years, and second, the station hadn’t been anything like “free” since Clear…
Beggars Can’t Be Choosers
On October 27, a bunch of middle-aged and old people packed the conference room at the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority to beg. It was about all they had left in their arsenal. They appealed to decency, to humanity, to old promises they said were made to them by…
Elephant Dance
George W. Bush’s decisive victory has gotten the Republicans partying, and I want to get ripped with the moral majority. In search of his base, I head out to the Richmond Strip. There, the parking lot at Wild West (6101 Richmond) is lined with school bus-size Ford F-250 King Ranch…
A Slice of Heaven on Earth
When you order the white chocolate raspberry cake at Rustika Cafe & Bakery (3237 Southwest Freeway, 713-665-6226), be prepared for an obscene, six-inch-tall wedge of the closest thing to heaven that you can put in your mouth. It’s three layers of very moist white cake (think tres leches moist) interspersed…
Destiny’s Child
With the release of Survivor in 2001, Beyoncé Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams proved once and for all that despite the roster changes, the bad press and the drama, they are the world’s best packaged R&B supergroup, a perfect triumvirate of strength, talent and beauty. Three years later, and…
History Reheats Itself
Marine’s Empanadas Marine’s Empanadas
Ground Zero
Beth Haraway is eyeing the two slices of raisin toast on the plate in front of her. When she ordered them 15 minutes ago, the waitress cocked her head to the side, as if to say, Is that all you’re going to eat, honey? Still, Haraway feels guilty. “I’m supposed…
Benny Blanko
Remember the scene in Tron when the laser atomized Jeff Bridges and then re-created him, in digital form, inside of that old TRS-80? 8 Ft. in the Air does the same thing to old funk records. Blanko shatters the worthless Gap in-store dance track “Beautiful” and finds among the shards…
Book Learnin’
The State Board of Education has once again lurched through its annual textbook-approval process, a yearly rite known informally by some Texans as Laughingstock Time. This was the year for health textbooks, which tend to deal with such nasty things as sex. The highlight of the November vote, at least…
David Holt
The opening stanza of David Holt’s Perpetual Motion is as biographical as it gets. After 25 years on the road with the likes of Carlene Carter, the Mavericks, Joe Ely and Austin supergroup Storyville, Holt can credibly sing, “bones may rattle, bones will shake / keep on runnin’ like there…
Bones of Contention
She’s old, short and worth a lot of money. She hardly ever leaves her home in Ethiopia, so her planned trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science would be a momentous occasion. But her bones are brittle and might get damaged in the journey. So, as Mick Jones would…
Bright Eyes
Little Conor Oberst, bless his heart. We’ve watched him grow up right before our eyes, much like the zany girls of The Facts of Life. Although, in his case, he’s gone from writing sensitive stories influenced by mid-American suburbia to sensitive stories influenced by the big city of New York,…
Letters
Moving On Good vibes: Great picture — I appreciate that this article whispers the artist struggle [“No Virgins, No Velvet,” by Josh Harkinson, November 4]. It was a tough year for Ibsen to move out of his 20-year studio in the Heights and start over in the First Ward. This…
Playbill
Sondre Lerche, and the Golden Republic, with Chris Sacco Mixing two pre-existing products in an innovative way qualifies as inventive, regardless of how often they’ve been used in other combinations and contexts. When Reese’s earned kudos (not the granola kind) for mixing peanut butter and chocolate, it didn’t matter that…
Prima Donnas
After signing to Atlantic Records in 2002, the Donnas found themselves in a crunch. Having played what lead singer Brett Anderson describes as “straight-up cock rock” since junior high, today’s answer to the Runaways was running dry. The all-girl group wanted to make a change, but they’d just signed with…
Sour Grapes
When was the last time you saw Paul Giamatti? And when the film ended, did you realize how much you would miss him? It was just last year that Giamatti played the hilariously beleaguered Harvey Pekar in American Splendor, a role that he occupied with slumped, head-hanging perfection. Yet as…
This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks
Thursday, November 18 Yep, it’s holiday season. Time to pat your fellow man on the back and spread goodwill to all. Unless, of course, you’re Carlos Mencia. The native Honduran, who grew up in East L.A., has garnered a reputation for being one of the most bitingly racist/un-PC comics out…
Peter Panache
Oh, that Johnny Depp. Played in some dime-a-dozen rock bands, did some average television, made a few cutesy little movies. Whatever. Yeah, he messes with his looks in a fun way sometimes, but otherwise he merely rides that nicotine-sunken-cheeks thing all the way to the bank. The guy’s popular, but…
She’s Got Game
It’s undocumented exactly how many geeks across America wet themselves when Morgan Webb first appeared on their television screens, but we’re guessing it was a bunch, and that their collective reaction went something like this: “It’s a chick…a hot chick…she loves video games…” And then circuits blew, thumbs began twitching…
Cage Death Match
Directed by Jon Turteltaub. With Nicolas Cage, Sean Bean, Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha. Rated PG.