Chinese exotica
Release Date: 2002-12-26 Ask for Eunice — that’s my advice and I’m sticking to it. True, Eunice doesn’t sound like a name that would be attached to a Sino-seafood savant, but take it from me, she is a Chinese firecracker, that one. The diminutive waitress is nothing if not opinionated, and she will have you…
TWO THOUSAND EXTRA VICTIMS OF 9-11
Boquillas is one such village. It was featured in the March 2002 issue of Texas Monthly as a stop on the tour of Big Bend National Park. You are supposed to be able to take a rowboat trip across the Rio Grande and then a short burro ride up the hill to Boquillas, where you…
YOUSSOU! THAT’S MY BAOBAB!
If you add up the Orchestra Baobab ingredients — an expert feel for Cuban rhythm, an interpolation of indigenous Senegalese musical traditions, a dash of French colonial chic — you have a pretty decent one-album approximation of the world. “Specialist in All Styles” indeed. The laboratory for this honest-to-god one-world music was not, happily, Peter…
MUSIC BY THE LETTER
If, as a rule, you don’t care for electronic dance music, you’ll probably hate this record a lot less than you would most of the creamy elevator music passing for progressive pop these days. ANTX’s antics combine the cheeky sexuality of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, the hypnotic drive of Death in Vegas,…
UP AGAINST THE SPRAWL
The Sotos’ lives depend on VIA, as do those of thousands of other passengers who don’t own cars or can’t drive. Besides those riders, many VIA devotees choose to take the bus because they hate driving in traffic: the gridlock that largely contributes to the San Antonio’s air pollution, including its 17 days of ozone…
FLIPSIDES AND FLIPPY HAIR
Produced by Ivy member Andy Chase, Wallpaper sets up a dynamic dichotomy between acoustic-guitar strum and mini-orchestra bombast that’s surprising to hear in a song not about November rain. Whether or not all this headphone folderol constitutes a near hour of useless beauty is, of course, down to your fondness for French guys with flippy…
NO ROOM AT THE INN
The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates 1 million people are homeless in the United States; 12 million persons have been homeless at some point in their lives. Most of us seldom see these people, because the pervasive segregation in this country – by race, ethnicity, and income – shuts the homeless out as effectively…
BETTER OFF LIVE
With five Texas tour dates scheduled and talk of a national tour, the band is once again on its feet and running, but questions remain, however, about its future. Are the Toadies really back, or has a ghost of the band only temporarily been dragged out to promote their last album? Reviews of the live…
HAIKU NEWS
HAIKU NEWS most of Europe goes to the Euro leaving Brits to finger their pounds Arafat, Sharon know: in the wild wild West Bank it’s always high noon Israel, slouching toward Bethlehem, scratches apocalypse itch China doesn’t want its own to ogle Google giving it the gong business rival poisons patrons in China bull in…
UP AGAINST THE SPRAWL
The Sotos’ lives depend on VIA, as do those of thousands of other passengers who don’t own cars or can’t drive. Besides those riders, many VIA devotees choose to take the bus because they hate driving in traffic: the gridlock that largely contributes to the San Antonio’s air pollution, including its 17 days of ozone…
SPIELBERG — CATCHING UP TO HIS OWN TALENTS
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN “Nothing fake about it” Dir. Steven Spielberg; writ. Frank Abagnale Jr. (book), Jeff Nathanson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen; feat. (PG-13) This is the year to learn to love Steven Spielberg again. Hurry up — there are only a few days left. DiCaprio (allowed here…
JOE “BY GOD” BARFIELD
This isn’t just happening to me: Barfield looms large on the San Antonio music scene. He is a one-man boogie section that seeks out each and every one of us, thwarting any plans of staying home for maybe just one night. Chances are you are one of more than 4,000 recipients of Barfield’s weekly e-mailer…
ALL HIS LIFE FOR SALE
Freyer documents his quest to imagine no possessions in All My Life for Sale, which includes pictures of each item, a description of its history, its ultimate sale price, and its current fate. (Many updates come from the author’s in-person visits with his customers; strangely, many buyers were “out of town” when he swung by…
HOW TO MAKE AN AMERICAN NATIVITY
At first glance, the piece seems innocuous enough. Most passersby probably never register the carnage so casually set before them. Ramirez cleverly copied the pattern of traditional folkloric imagery, but offers outrageous pop substitutions for principle players, set against the smoldering skyline of post-9-11 New York City. Festive Christmas presents literally scream with corporate logos.…
LOFT(Y) ASPIRATIONS
Night owl Yepes and his equally nocturnal partner, painter Courtney Reid, were frustrated with the slow pace of art-by-committee, grants, and proposals, and were chafing at the restrictions of political correctness, so they brainstormed over a series of afternoon breakfasts. Eventually, they came up with a proposal of their own. The idea is intriguingly simple:…
NEW REVIEWS
Before 1953, Irish children who lost their mothers were appropriated by the state and placed in Catholic orphanages, even if their fathers were still alive and willing to care for them. Evelyn dramatizes the struggle of Desmond Doyle (Brosnan), a hapless, bibulous, unemployed house painter, to retrieve his three young children — Evelyn, Maurice, and…
Armchair Cinephile
Ready? Got all the kids out of the room? (Mom’s still reading, but at least she has been warned.) The appropriately named Blue Underground studio has as part of its mission the preservation of ’60s/’70s European art-porn. If that label means little to you, the new Justine and Eugenie are prime examples from the genre’s…
STILL PLAYING
ANALYZE THAT “Dull sequel to a so-so movie” Dir. Harold Ramis; writ. Ramis, Peter Steinfeld, Peter Tolan; feat. Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, Lisa Kudrow, Joe Viterelli, Joe D’Onofrio (R) A blah sequel to a so-so movie, That goes further into flaky psychoanalysis than This did. But it’s too much to ask us to care…
WAR BY VIAGRA
On CNN, “War with Iraq” is featuring a new generation of stealth birds of prey capable of spotting a tan-colored camel in a buff sand dune. The CNN reporter, young and peachy-flush with the joy of flying in a spy plane with strapping young soldiers, is beaming her joy to earth: “At twenty-three, the lieutenant…
