Evening the Odds
Racehorses, like many great athletes, are magnificently simple beasts. Lean and muscular, compressed with energy and top-heavy power ebbing into delicate legs, a fine horse is a beautiful sight. Especially when running flat out, a notch above a gallop, the disparate parts of its body uniting in an awesome display…
Reality Bites
This is the true story of seven people (Tommy! Annie! Ashley! Maria! Griffin! Carpo! and Benjamin!) picked to live in a city and have their lives changed. Find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start being real. The Real World: Sidewalks of New York. If you came…
A Moveable Beast
For the past seven years, Mark Bradford was never surprised when visitors parked their cars and got out to take a good look at his house. An artist and sculptor, Bradford has transformed his home at 100 Heights Boulevard into an overgrown garden of brass and steel sculptures and kooky…
Split Personality
Romance/Romance is typical of the holiday fare Stages Repertory Theatre puts on this time every year: safe, inoffensive and thus appropriate for both extended family outings and office party shindigs. Keith Herrmann and Barry Harman’s Tony-nominated bit of fluff brings to life the flighty flirtations of two very different couples…
The Two Faces of Womack
In recent weeks an unattributed flyer has popped up at various polling places in black neighborhoods in District D. It bears this headline: “Do you want Ada Edwards and ‘the gay and lesbian community’ as a ‘working partner in govering [sic] District D.'” The handout notes that the Houston Gay…
Time Machine
We waste so much of our time hurrying. We hurry to work, we hurry home, we hurry to the store, we hurry through our weekends, and then, when we finally stop for breath, we wonder where the time went. Schedules and timetables, appointments and deadlines, the arbitrary arrangements that order…
Family Ballot Split
Dr. Shelley Sekula Rodriguez is campaigning for City Council’s At-Large Position 3 liberally using the name and image of her late husband, popular KHOU-TV anchorman Sylvan Rodriguez. But in the closing weeks of the dermatologist’s runoff race, a surprising voice of opposition has emerged: Sylvan “Bobby” Rodriguez III, Sylvan’s 20-year-old…
Cuff Links
Cuff links: The calzones at Romano’s Italian Restaurant (1528 West Gray, 713-526-1182) come in two varieties: mozzarella and ricotta cheese ($5.25) and the Special ($7.75), which contains just about everything that can fit into this neat package. The word calzone means “trousers” in Italian, and the stuffed pizza dish may…
Probing Questions
Boy, has it been a depressing sweeps month. Flushed with newfound seriousness ever since the disastrous events of September 11, local news stations here and elsewhere have sworn off their usual sweeps menu of gentlemen’s clubs and sexually active teens. This is almost as bad as realizing that since Maxine…
Letters, November 29
Piety or Pac-Man Hollow Heidi? I read with interest your article about Heidi and her newfound religion [“No Veiled Threats,” by Jennifer Mathieu, November 15]. It seems that following the rules of high school, learning to play a musical instrument and later learning to dance were challenges that she could…
Risky Business
Success in the film industry is all about managing risk. The Hollywood system does this with a proven formula of big stars, bloated budgets and oppressive marketing campaigns that ensure a huge opening weekend. That way production companies are guaranteed a profit even if the movie sucks. In fact, a…
Gloria in Excelsis
Oh, that Gloria Jones sure is a feisty one when the holidays come around. At 53, the Abilene-born Jones (or Miss Gloria, as she calls herself) still gets giddy when the calendar page turns to December. She was born two days after Christmas, so you could say she walked out…
Blind Drunk
Freixenet Cordon Negro is cheap. You could buy three of the familiar black bottles for less than what you’d pay for an inexpensive French Champagne like Mumm Cordon Rouge. I thought that was why Freixenet had become so popular in the United States. If money were no object, we’d all…
What A Girl Wants, What A Girl Needs
Special Advertising Supplement Picture this scenario: The gift you thought was perfect ends up being a dud. Your girlfriend was expecting an engagement ring, and you got her a gas can. Or maybe your best friend had her handy heart set on a tool kit and you bought her perfume…
The Anti-Britney
Sometimes it seems the path to teen-pop stardom is traveled by supersonic space rocket. Drawing from our nation’s apparently abundant pool of singing and dancing prom queens, new Mandys, Krystals and Christinas are discovered, groomed, prepped and launched into the pop music limelight faster than George Jetson can carpool daughter…
Man, Oh Man! Another Tie?
Special Advertising Supplement It’s Christmastime once again in the Bayou City, and we’re all bracing for subzero temperatures and torrential ice storms. Right? Okay, that might be true only for that idiot who forgot to buy his wife an anniversary gift last week (note to self: buy gift). One thing…
Musicians Sound Off
Nick Cooper is perhaps Houston’s most politically committed musician. This dedication is reflected in his band name, the Free Radicals, which in addition to its scientific connotation also describes Cooper’s political philosophy. He has written on the Internet and in print about many issues dear to the left: defenses of…
When In Doubt…
Special Advertising Supplement Let’s fast-forward to a possible, even likely, not-too-distant future. Think of this as an allegorical passion play, if you will. It’s December 24, and our hapless perfectionist of a protagonist, who shall remain unnamed, is braving the borderline chaotic and ever-maddening crowd of like-minded procrastinators in one…
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
For a minute there back in March, it looked like San Francisco’s Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was going to be this year’s “savior of rock and roll.” The band, named after Marlon Brando’s Wild Ones biker gang, has since been eclipsed in that department by the Strokes, but BRMC has…
Non Mall Shopping Adventures
Special Advertising Supplement Holiday shopping doesnt have to be a mall-only affair. Indeed, Houston offers a profusion of options for those times when you feel like strolling from store to store outdoors. And with our mild winters, sometimes outdoor shopping is the only way to go. Uptown Park Uptown Park…
The Rebirth Brass Band
Before neotraditionalism, before smooth jazz, way before the birth of the cool was a gleam in Miles Davis’s appraising eye, hell, even before Louis Armstrong hefted his first trumpet, there were bands like the Rebirth Brass Band in the city of New Orleans. Their raucous horns and slamming bass lines…
Being Unique Without Going Broke
Special Advertising Supplement Christmastime: a time of happiness, a time of togetherness with those closest to us, a time when families get together to spend some invaluable time with each other, which is usually enough to last till the following year. It’s the time of year when we all go…
Hudson Falcons
Broadly speaking, the left can be subdivided into two categories: the intelligentsia and the working class. File Hudson Falcons in the latter category, more specifically in the populist subsection. Their causes span the political divide, from supporting Lori Berenson (the American leftist jailed in Peru) to pushing to bring POWs…
The Gift Of Music
Special Advertising Supplement Picking the top ten CDs in a given year is always an impossible task. In these days of 15,000 or so CD releases per year, there are bound to be many gems buried in the landslide of product. All one writer can do is talk about the…
Split Lip Rayfield
With the current intense interest in Americana music and old-time country, dozens of acts have found a taste for banjos and corn likker. Even the mucho mainstream CMA just awarded both record and single of the year to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Kansas’s Split Lip Rayfield’s brand…
Tis’ The Season For Holiday Events
Special Advertising Supplement Champions Village Holiday Open House The third annual Champions Village Holiday Open House is scheduled for Thursday, November 29, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Stop by for continuous entertainment, including Santa playing the sax, a barbershop quartet, choral performances from local schools and complimentary horse-drawn carriage…
Snore War
Though Behind Enemy Lines, set in Bosnia, was originally due for release next year, it feels antiquated; that conflict is already a distant memory, a ghost lost in the shadow of the war on terrorism. The film tested so well that 20th Century Fox pushed up its release date, and…