Press Picks
thursday october 3 Stephen Jay Gould The author of such easy-to-read science musings as The Panda’s Thumb and Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin will gently share his informed opinions on evolution. Thanks to your friends at the Children’s Museum and Brazos Bookstore, the Harvard zoology…
Steamy Stuff
When we heard recently that Don Tako had degenerated into a steam table operation, we were concerned. This unpretentious, Mexican, neighborhood joint has long been an east-side favorite. Fortunately, the rumor proved only semi-true. Yes, Don Tako has added a buffet at both lunch and dinner. And yes, there’s no…
Hook, Line and Stinker
We live in the era of restaurants as entertainment. Don’t accept that? Then take a trip down the Richmond Strip past Chuy’s (Mexican fiesta!), Billy Blues (barbecue party!), Rock Bottom Brewery (brew-pub revels!). Now, to join the festivities, comes the King Fish Market (seafood soiree!), a late May addition to…
Thompson’s Time
You don’t know enough about Richard Thompson. I don’t know enough about Richard Thompson. If there’s someone out there who does know enough about Richard Thompson — besides Richard Thompson, who doesn’t do interviews while touring, and who is presently touring — you can be glad that person isn’t writing…
Rotation
Yo La Tengo Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo Matador Odds-and-ends compilations rarely feature a band’s best work, but surely that’s the fun of them. There’s a certain voyeuristic thrill in hearing all the weird B-sides, dusty outtakes, alternate versions and obscure covers a group never thought to put…
No More Mush
Last month, Details magazine crowned Imperial Drag “Spacehog without the gags,” an assessment that was meant to be a compliment — though it’s unlikely the band took it as such, seeing as it says more about Imperial Drag’s shortcomings than its strengths. After all, the Los Angeles quartet lacks both…
Static
King-size effort… Last week, I hastily tossed out the remark that Horseshoe’s new King of the World — which came into my hands minutes before deadline — topped my list of candidates for local CD of the year. For once, a rash judgment has proven to be a good judgment…
Taking Flight
Stages’ new artistic director, Rob Bundy, didn’t take the advice of all his theater-savvy friends to play it safe with content his first season. Instead, Bundy took a risk by opening Stages’ season with Elizabeth Egloff’s The Swan — and with it, injected contemporary, daring drama into the sagging theater…
Ground-in Dirt
Taste of Garlic worked long and hard on its shady, do-nothing image, nursing it along with copious bong hits and an informal but effective propaganda campaign that was equal parts fact, rumor, hype and blunt blasts of a raw funk/rap hybrid. Now it appears that after all the effort it…
In Motion
New York choreographer John Jasperse doesn’t like dance critics, which is a tough bias to have when a) you live in the most critic-rich city in the world and b) your most ardent desire is to build a larger and more diverse audience for concert dance — which is, in…
Price of Justice
A federal jury scripted another chapter in the bizarre saga of former sheriff’s deputy Joseph Kent McGowen last week when it awarded the family of the late Susan White more than $5.3 million for her murder by McGowen. If the verdict is upheld on appeal, Harris County taxpayers — not…
Quiet, Please
“Everything is on the move. Art should be still.” This was one of the 12 strict rules for painters that Ad Reinhardt advanced in 1957. Today, his pitch for a “new academy” reads like a parody of Puritanism, but Reinhardt proved he wasn’t joking when he proceeded to paint the…
Babes in Uniform
Once upon a time, school uniforms weren’t supposed to be the salvation of American education; they were just an easy way to spot kids who went to private school. Nobody claimed that uniforms leveled class differences, kept racist T-shirts off school grounds or curbed rampant consumerism. School uniforms didn’t have…
Girl on Film
It isn’t often that a filmmaker can take credit for single-handedly creating a brand-new genre. But that is just what writer/director Michael Rappaport has done with just two feature-length works, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, a wickedly clever pastiche of movie-star expose and revisionist film history, and now From the Journals…
Pop Sensation
Given the number of one-hit wonders on the golden-oldie radio stations, it’s surprising that no one came up with the idea for a movie like That Thing You Do! long before Tom Hanks put pen to paper. Hanks’ film, his first effort as a feature director and screenwriter, is a…
The Kingdom and the Power
This Easter found Mickey Lawrence taking a break at home from what had been an increasingly vitriolic campaign for the Republican nomination for county attorney. Her runoff against Michael Fleming was only two days away, but politics was off the front burner for Lawrence for at least a few hours…
The Insider
When the Doves Cry A brace of good ol’ boys embarked on a convivial hunting trip last month in northern Mexico, but their real target may have been bagging a vote rather than a potful of doves. County Judge Robert Eckels, who until now has resisted pressure to back downtown…
Bonus Babies
If voters approve a new downtown ballpark in next month’s referendum, Enron chairman Ken Lay will likely take his place in Houston lore alongside such “visionaries” as Judge Roy Hofheinz of Astrodome fame. Prior to his involvement in the stadium negotiations in late August, talks between Astros owner Drayton McLane…
The True Tradition of Houston
If I were one of the geniuses in charge of selling the stadium proposal to county voters, I’d cut a commercial with Irma Galvan — quick. You know Galvan: she’s the Irma of Irma’s, the very fine Mexican eatery down at the foot of Chenevert on the northeast edge of…
Letters
Coffee with the Judge I was quite surprised to read the article on the dismissal of charges against Kenneth Schnitzer [“The Right Kind of People,” by Mary Flood, August 29]. It certainly left one with the impression that all one must do to prevail in Judge David Hittner’s court is…