Racket
For strangers to conjunto, or for those who want to take a nostalgic trip through Tex-Mex fashions and the music of yesteryear, Austin-based filmmaker and San Angelo native Hector Galán’s Accordion Dreams offers up the goods on PBS on September 19. Narrated by Tish Hinojosa and scored by Joel Guzman,…
Not Worth A Dam
For 15 years Carl Hopper had no reason to fear the little stream behind his Friendswood home, which is shaded by towering oak trees on a half-acre lot in Imperial Estates. Clear Creek seemed far enough away from Carl’s two-story house, and most of the time there wasn’t much water…
Playbill
Todd Snider will be the first to tell you that his recent preference for solo gigs, rather than full band tours, is financially motivated. Not that it matters much to those in the audience. Snider’s tragically comedic tales of woe are just as convincing when played alone. In fact, one…
No Safe Place
On Tuesday morning, Houston stirred under bright blue skies, the follow-up to the first fresh hint of a cool front. A sketchy news bulletin broke into the inane banter of morning TV shows. Radio reports were interrupted with a similar brief report. A plane had supposedly crashed into the World…
Playbill
Israel-born Eef Barzelay founded Clem Snide in 1990 as a punk trio; 11 years later that description no longer applies. The band has edged more and more toward traditional sounds, although Barzelay has retained the angst-ridden, drawling, street-punk vocal tone, which sounds something like Gordon Gano or Lou Reed’s tender…
High-Water Mark
The red dirt road that dead-ends into the office of Tom Goynes’s Pecan Park Retreat near Martindale was wet two weeks ago, soaking up the downpours that put much of Central Texas under flash flood warnings. It was, Goynes said, the first substantial rainfall his part of the state had…
Minibill
Western swing was the Lone Star State’s contribution to the big-band craze of the ’30s and ’40s. Hot Club of Cowtown has taken that sound and concocted something altogether different, yet still deferential. Shunning the large orchestras of yesteryear, Hot Club is a three-piece, just guitar, fiddle and upright bass…
The Sanchez Factor
Laredo half-billionaire Tony Sanchez had a mid-workday gubernatorial coming-out party last week that was more notable for what was absent than present. The reception room of the Hyatt Regency downtown drew a mixture of about 350 mostly Hispanic Democratic activists and a smattering of party officeholders. They cheered and clapped…
Minibill
Far too many Americans regard the Cowboy Junkies as this quirky, mysterious — but hip — Canadian quartet that recorded an album in a church and covered the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane.” This stifling, typically myopic vision dismisses the band as some classic-rock one-hit wonder and misses the bigger picture:…
The World Through Vision America’s Eyes
Last week The Insider reported on increasing unease among Republican judges over the possible political influence of a nonprofit religious group called Vision America. In response, Vision America president Rick Scarborough, pastor of First Baptist Church of Pearland, offered assurances that the group was nonpartisan and would not endorse candidates…
Winning Ugly
Faced with yet another sports movie in which a group of lovably troubled kids triumphs over adversity, it’s easier to scoff and grumble than to feel even partially uplifted. So let’s do it — let’s scoff and grumble. At least for a moment. In Brian Robbins’s Hardball, a degenerate gambler…
Blood on the Floor
The dust has settled — for now — at the staid headquarters of the Houston Chronicle, and newsroom employees are coming back in from the ledge. For now. Publisher Jack Sweeney informed readers September 6 that the Chron had slashed 5 percent of its workforce — 127 positions — with…
Secret Gardens
Tran Anh Hung’s beautiful meditation on family ties and family traumas, The Vertical Ray of the Sun, marks a captivating new chapter in the career of the writer-director who was the first to give Americans a glimpse of Vietnamese filmmaking. In 1994 Tran’s The Scent of Green Papaya made its…
Feel His Pain
The cold-bloodedness of some entertainment journalists is a thing to be admired; they’ve balls for brains, which gets you far in this profession. The Hollywood press corps’ cynicism is the source of its strength, and God bless the famous fool who plays along, answering every crooked question with the straightest…
Battle Royale
In the opening of Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex, we meet William Shakespeare, an astonishingly dull fellow as imagined here, who’s busy contemplating the lonely metaphysics of his impending death. In his effort to “learn how to die,” he’s returned to the barn (shaped with round gray stones and thick brown…
All God’s Children
I stare. Outside the window above my computer screen, rose hips on thorny stems are barely moving, making tiny anticipatory nods to a soft morning breeze. My wife calls down for me to come right away, something terrible at the edge of her voice. On the way up the stairs,…
Drug Resistant
Randall Shook’s body was at war with itself. Sitting on the concrete floor, Shook gathered his legs close to his chest and groaned. Chills traveled the lanky frame of his body, causing him to shake uncontrollably. His head burned from fever, and his heart beat rapidly. Shook hollered down the…
Letters
Bitter Sweet Search Let’s see some ID: The Sweet Girls’ exhibit [“Sugar and Spice,” by Lauren Kern, August 30] may be pretty familiar to those of us who were in our twenties during the ’90s. We were constantly being referred to in the media and were the most vital marketing…
Learning to Fly
Acrophobia is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “abnormal dread of being at a great height.” A common condition, acrophobia can induce dizziness, nausea and intense vertigo accompanied by debilitating panic attacks. Some sufferers cannot even climb a flight of stairs. As far as syndromes go, this one makes sense. Humans…
I Grok Cons
For superheroes like the Green Lantern and the Fantastic Four, time travel is a standard mode of transportation. It’s the hope of Richard Evans that Houston-area comic book fandom can take a similar trip at Houstoncon 2001. The owner of Bedrock City Comics aims to put on a con that’s…
Stirred and Shaken
It’s a Wednesday night at The Rhythm Room (1815 Washington Avenue, 713-863-0943). A woman named Diunna Greenleaf, backed by her quartet, the Blue Mercy Band, sings a series of blues standards. She tells the handful of customers present that she’s “built for comfort,” which indeed she is, in the great…
Postmodern Punjabi
A large painting on the wall at Restaurant Indika depicts Indian musicians with sitars and tablas in an anachronistic cubist style. You don’t see many painters doing cubism these days, my dining companion, an art lover from Montrose, remarks. She walks across the empty dining room to inspect the painting…
Pig Latin
From the curvy wall of windows, elegantly draped with gauzy curtains, to the retro salsa beat, Bossa (610 Main Street, 713-223-2622) is quite the Havana nightclub setting, even if this Latin fusion operation is owned by Minnesota-based Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, the same folks who brought us T.G.I. Friday’s. Regardless, the…
Express Mail
If you know anything about stamps, you know there is no better place for a crash course in American history than in the offerings from the doughty old United States Postal Service. These gummy issues document our political leaders, our victories, the rise and fall of various technologies (some early…
Slaughters Man
Singer-songwriter Chris Knight lives in the real world, and that fact resonates in his songs. He may be on his second series of Nashville record and music-publishing deals, but his home remains a trailer on 40 acres in the ravaged Western Kentucky coal country outside of the small, aptly named…
Keepin’ It Real
You’d think (John Lennon certainly did) that people would have had enough of silly love songs. The general public is offered the bulk of its music in four-minute televised blips of celebrated alienation courtesy of Pro Tools and some guy who can’t come to grips with his (pick one) stardom…family…fans……
The White Stripes
The cover of the White Stripes’ third release depicts the Detroit duo surrounded by shadowy Ninja assassins who, as the last page of the CD booklet reveals, turn out to be friendly members of a media circus. Could this be a not-so-subtle indication of how Jack and Meg White feel…