Letters
Wretched Research Guilty of stupidity: I certainly think, in a court of law, the Reverend Carlson would win [“Graven Images,” by Richard Connelly, October 19]. Conners appears to be the almost perfect patsy for a defense to exploit. When doing research, however, there are volatile areas that any well-disciplined researcher…
Catherine the Great
The current release of French director Nicole Garcia’s Place Vendême, which was nominated for 11 César Awards when it made its debut in France two years ago, is yet another sign that the drop-off in French imports that has plagued U.S. screens in recent years is reversing: This is roughly…
It’s a Punk Rock Life
For photographer Bill Daniel, the world of the early ’80s was a really uncool place. Reagan — to Daniel, the symbol of the military industrial complex, racism and boredom — was president. Hippies were out of style, and TV commercials were lame. But there was another underground movement looking for…
Closer to the Core
Patrick Marber’s award-winning Closer, about the tawdry underbelly of love and sex, is full of twists of dialogue that put a nasty ’90s spin on the war between the sexes. “You’re a man. You’d come if the tooth fairy winked at you,” says the cool, smart Anna to her droopy…
Breaking God into Movies
As much as screenwriters have the reputation for being smut peddlers, virtually any writer yearns to craft the kind of meaningful, spiritual screenplays that our representatives keep telling us you’re demanding. But you don’t go to those movies. So screenwriters have had to resort to sneaking it in. “I think…
Errant Avant
New versions of Leos Janácek’s early 20th-century operas about Czech and Russian life provide a welcome change from the usual Italian warhorses. Houston Grand Opera’s latest, Katya Kabanova, is Janácek’s story of a Russian wife who is hemmed in by marriage and her mother-in-law. Katya’s dilemma lends insight into the…
The Best Dim Sum in Guangzhouston
There’s an oversize xiu mai between my teeth, and it’s too hot to eat. I made a greedy grab for the cylindrical pork dumpling the second it hit the table and popped it straight into my mouth. Everybody else at the table is daintily cutting the dumplings in half and…
Wayne Toups
It seems every American region has its own version of Springsteen. As always, the Gotham media sees fit to describe to the outside world its own artists in terms that New Yorkers feel most comfortable with. As such, any male rocker who plays fast and loose with genres, writes literate…
Culinary Countdown
Speaking off the toque: Shelly Drought is the executive chef of the Houston branch of Liberty Noodles [909 Texas Avenue, (713)222-2695]. She was asked to explain how a restaurant in downtown Houston’s burgeoning restaurant district calculates prices. Q: Being a touch wicked, we picked the spicy noodle tenderloin, a menu…
Dream Teen
This must have been what it felt like to witness Urlicht in Stuttgart in 1976. William Forsythe’s first piece for a professional company announced the choreographer to the world, or at least to Germany, and launched a career that would push ballet beyond its neoclassical boundaries. It was this feeling…
Scoop, There It Is
Considering the Rockets’ lackluster play last season, some would say Rudy Tomjanovich should focus on his day job. But the coach has scheduled a few extracurricular activities off-court. His latest game plan is to slam-dunk some of the product from his Stucchi’s ice-cream-and-yogurt franchise into the grocer’s freezer. The Michigan…
Cranky Customers
At the recent soft opening of Pesce [3029 Kirby, (713)522-4858], a diner leaving the restaurant declared to a staffer standing by the door, “The food here sucks. I’m never coming back.” The interesting thing in this little anecdote is not the actual suckiness or nonsuckiness of the cuisine (people who…
Stirred and Shaken
The Mercantile Brewery & Pub is one of the most intriguing spaces downtown. Modern fixtures and stainless-steel beer-brewing equipment sit beneath the cracked plaster and painted goddess heads of what was once the famous Isis Theater. The elaborately decorated theater was built in 1911 and became a Houston landmark. The…
Jazz with Attitude
Anyone in Houston who is thinking about producing and releasing his own CD probably could take a lesson or two from Mark Towns, who has avoided many freshman mistakes with his debut CD, Flamenco Jazz Latino. The guitarist set up his own label, Salongo Records. He’s arranged for national distribution…
Middle-Age Angst
Webb Wilder is a middle-aged guy in what is increasingly a young ‘uns game. At age 46, born in 1954, he is just about as old as rock ‘n’ roll, depending on how you vinyl — not carbon — date the music’s birth. For a good quarter-century he’s been playing…
Final Passages
After review of your taped senior sermon, I am convinced that your ministry is destined to focus on the dying; lending comfort to those faced with death and those who are losing loved ones — From a written evaluation of seminary student Carroll Pickett in 1956 For hours the young…
Vampire Music
The Kronos Quartet is backing Bela Lugosi. No, Dracula’s not part of the band. He’s biting necks on a special film screen developed for Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet. While Dracula pursues Lucy Harker in the original 1931 film, Kronos will be behind the screen performing a new score…
Pumped Dry
Last of a series (see Part I: “Paying the Price,” October 26) When the verdict came down in 1995, Jim MacDonald was elated. Three years after 22 Southern California service station dealers sued Chevron, and three months after the trial began, a jury ruled that the company had defrauded the…
Madonna
When Madonna released the title cut from her album Music this summer, New York Press critic Armond White wrote an essay lambasting the song, as well as the performer and proud mama, for making a soulless statement: “Music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel.” White’s response can be boiled down…
Party Lines
As even casual visitors know, correctional officers monitor every aspect of a convict’s life. But a federal judge in Houston soon could be changing one part of those strict policies. Texas inmates may get the same basic right now afforded to federal convicts: to talk privately with their attorneys on…
The Nothing
It’s either self-esteem or self-pity that causes a band to name itself the Nothing. And by virtue of this band’s five-song EP, the name is as listless as the material, a mostly unmoving selection of forgettable tracks. Taking its cue from Brit-pop acts like Blur and the Verve, the Nothing…
Dog’s Day Out
Once upon a time, dogs had jobs. They herded sheep, protected the house from intruders, and dragged sleds across the Arctic. They retrieved bloody ducks. They nipped at cows’ hooves. They rescued skiers from avalanches. They did honest, outdoorsy work, and it left them dog-tired but happy at the end…
Jay Hooks
What the world needs now may be love, but does it really need yet another Texas bluesman? Even the staunchest of naysayers might have to change their minds after hearing the searing guitar work of Jay Hooks. The 32-year-old Houston native is celebrating the release of his self-titled CD on…
Lonesome Donkey
Thirty or so residents clustered in a cozy living room last week in the friendly forest of Kingwood, tittering as First Court of Appeals Justice Eric Andell performed his Democrat-on-the-gallows routine. “I’m not even an endangered species,” the 54-year-old jurist wailed. He used the same theatrical flair he often displayed…
Fallen Angels
The opening credits of Charlie’s Angels hint at a movie that never appears in the film’s expurgated 94 minutes; the tease is too soon rendered a disappointment. A Mission: Impossible-style prelude suggests a live-action cartoon as directed by Robert Altman; a camera stalks the aisles of a jumbo jet, capturing…
Playing Games
The Houston Chronicle of Sunday, October 22, featured yet another example of what’s been perhaps the most welcome surprise in that gray paper: a pugnacious, antiestablishment column by political writer Julie Mason. Mason took on the stealth effort by our city’s movers and shakers to get a referendum passed supporting…
Friends and Neighbors
The wonder of Solas, the latest in a growing list of remarkable Spanish films that recently have made their way to the United States (Butterfly and Goya in Bordeaux are also both well worth seeing), is a courtly old gentleman referred to simply as “Neighbor.” Played to absolute perfection by…
What, Them Worry?
Let’s get this out of the way right now, because so many of you will find this hard to believe: Yes, Mad magazine still exists. It is still being published 48 years after it was created by Harvey Kurtzman and William Gaines, neither of whom lived long enough to see…
A Snooze Runs Through It
Gopher. Explosives. Gopher explosives. Gopher! Explosives! There. Now you know exactly what was running through this critic’s mind during The Legend of Bagger Vance, the impeccably aimed new tranquilizer dart from Hollywood’s Mr. Honeydrip, Robert Redford. Of course, it’s really not fair to compare this meditative drama to that other…