Lady Bird’s Lunch
One day a couple of years back, I walked into the shedlike Long Row Building down at Sam Houston Park, craving one of the definitive egg salad sandwiches that the resident Heritage Society volunteers had long dispensed. They were blissfully uncommercial, these sandwiches: laced with black pepper and tiny bits…
Rockefeller’s Return
It almost hasn’t seemed like Houston these past months, with Rockefeller’s missing in action from my monthly rounds of local venues. As much as I loathed paying “premium room prices” for something to sip during the shows I’ve seen there, the old bank building still carried a certain aura about…
Karp, the Good Crap
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not complaining or anything — but this job ain’t natural. The music comes at you in huge, curling waves of no logic and crashes over your head in a senseless muddle of dance-club remixes sharing shelf space with New Age jazz and Romanian folk…
Live Shots
Eardrum Heights Theater Saturday, November 12 Eardrum’s benefit for victims of the recent flooding was a typical Eardrum gig — good band, good cause, good venue, lousy turnout. It’s the kind of predicament you’d expect from a rock and roll band that’s between accordion players. Ed Gorman’s departure has taken…
Punk, but Not Stupid
Houston’s no easy town for aspiring musicians, and no town is easy when those musicians are holding down serf-wage day jobs and trying to a make a serious go of the music business at the same time. Unapologetic punk rockers playing in a town where punk rock has never really…
For Generations To Come
The most difficult mission in the Star Trek universe isn’t Starfleet Academy’s Kobayshi Maru scenario, but what Paramount Pictures has attempted: creating another cog in its lucrative franchise machinery that would provide not only a smooth transition from the old crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise to the new, but also…
Ray Stevens Lives!!!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got vivid memories of sitting in the back seat of the family car, driving down some long road to visit some East Texas relative or another, and during the course of the trip we’d always hear at least two or three novelty songs…
Living by the Numbers
Alan Turing was a brilliant English mathematician who, in the darkest days of World War II, led a successful effort to crack the Nazis’ secret code. His triumph let the Allies know what the Axis was up to, and was one of the keys in the victory over Germany. But…
Vegetable Magic
I hate to say I told you so, but the new-and-improved Abdallah’s is further evidence of my theory that Middle Eastern spots turn out the most consistently good food among Houston’s ethnic restaurants. Abdallah’s current chef-in-residence is not only a magician with vegetables, he’s expanding the local Middle Eastern repertoire…
Dueling Santas
Both John Hughes’ Miracle on 34th Street, his remake of the 1947 classic, and The Santa Clause are new holiday movies that are every bit as traditional, sappy and satisfying as the old holiday movies. True, The Santa Clause has a slightly new twist, a Yuletide theme retooled for families…
Hollow Points
The Professional, the English-language debut of acclaimed French thriller director Luc Besson, is an old chestnut with a shiny new high tech shell. It’s about a hard-core assassin, Leon (French character actor Jean Reno, who played the robotically violent Cleaner in Besson’s La Femme Nikita), who’s redeemed by his urge…
Why Die?
Linus Pauling is dead, but Miller Quarles is not discouraged. Quarles is finishing off his LuAnn Platter at the Luby’s on Fondren, picking the skin off his baked fish and complaining he’s too full to eat more than a bite of his whole wheat roll. He generally likes cafeterias, he…
Out of the Soup
Each week the Houston City Council considers thousands of dollars in settlement payments to plaintiffs who have sued the city over a variety of complaints. But the roll call that opens each Council meeting usually generates more discussion than councilmembers’ “consideration” of the settlements. Nothing more than the basic details…
Pro Bono Publico
Scott Atlas is slumped in his chair. He looks tired. It’s already been a long day, a good part of which he’s spent fielding calls of inquiry from the Mexican news media and calls of congratulations from officials of the Mexican government. Atlas had just taken another call, this one…
Sheila Keeps Quiet
In her almost five years as an at-large member of Houston City Council, Sheila Jackson Lee has rarely been able to keep quiet, and her legendary oratorical windiness has caused some fellow councilmembers at times to pray for blessed silence. Now, as she prepares for a January swearing-in as a…
The Proposition
At the fenced-off Day Labor Center in southwest Houston where Latino immigrants wait each day for work, a scattered hand of cards flecks the gravel. A six of spades, a dog-eared nine: playable, nothing spectacular, the face-down cards flipped into view by forces uncontrollable as the breeze from a passing…
Letters
Judged Funny I just want to say how much I enjoyed your Voter’s Guide [“Turkeys (And Other Creatures) On the Ballot,” by Tim Fleck, November 3]. Tim Fleck is a perceptive and funny writer. Although I am new to politics (as I’m sure you can tell by the way I…
Press Picks
thursday november 24 Thanksgiving Day Parade Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, country and western chanteuse Naomi Judd, tiny bundle of cuteness Cathy Rigby and CBS’ Love and War star Jay Thomas will be in our fair city to help us celebrate the Pilgrims’ first feast with a huge parade through downtown Houston…