Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Bang your head While the TV show “O.C.” might portray SoCal as the land of rich, surf-lovin’ mall rats, Orange County metal band Eighteen Visions, takes a darker view of life. If you’re a Headbangers’ Ball fan (and who isn’t, deep down?), you can hear the crushing “Waiting for the…
Requiem for a way of life
Aisha Minot-McGhee and Earley B. Teal perform a scene during a rehearsal of Valley Song at San Pedro Playhouse’s Cellar Theater. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) A South African playwright confronts the emancipation of his people and his granddaughter Athol Fugard grew up in the Karoo, a semi-arid expanse in central South Africa, and, after international…
All Ears
Travel guides for music lovers Two recent and very worthwhile box sets give themselves over entirely not to a band or record label, but to a place. Both locales are storied lands – tourist attractions known for quaint local customs, high living, and hybridized ethnicity, but also home to poverty, crime, and just enough strife…
Equal and opposite reaction
San Antonio native Leonard Cruz brings his improv performance DanceChance to Jump-Start January 14 and 15. Leonard Cruz improvises a performance from memory and suggestion Leonard Cruz wants to give you something willfully strange. It’s an accumulation of experiences he has cultivated from years of dancing across boundaries, from Korea to Italy to Venezuela to…
You won’t feel a thing
Warning: This record is for MEDICAL USE ONLY Considering that last week the globe (or a transfixed portion of its population) celebrated World Hypnotism Day, what better time to explore Lesson 1 of A Visit to Dave Elman Classrooms in Medical Hypnosis, a vintage slab o’ vinyl from 1960, purchased at a local library book…
The book of Ellen
Jade Esteban Estrada takes a shot at historical revisionism through the eyes of some of history’s most influential velvet gentlemen and lipstick lesbians. (Photos by Angel Hess) Comedy Central’s Jade Esteban Estrada rewrites history in pink He’s been called “a show biz messiah” and “a talented man truly on his way to the top.” He’s…
Badass B3
Current Choice Mike Flanigin Trio Wed, Jan 19, 9pm, $5 Luna Live Music Club 6740 San Pedro Mike Flanigin brings ‘Super Soul’ cool to Luna It has two 61-note keyboards, nine stops, nine preset keys, a volume pedal, drawbars, a Leslie speaker, and weighs between 300 and 400 pounds. And Wednesday night at Luna, Mike…
Rehab for a pervert
Kevin Bacon stars in The Woodsman as newly paroled sex offender Walter Rossworth with Eve, Mos Def, and Kyra Sedgwick. I’m OK, you … we’re not too sure about A popular diversion among movie mavens consists of identifying the fewest possible titles that link another actor to Kevin Bacon. Bacon, who is 46, will presumably…
New reviews
Racing Stripes Dir. Frederik Du Chau; writ. David Schmidt; feat. Hayden Panettiere, Bruce Greenwood, and the voices of Frankie Muniz, Mandy Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Jeff Foxworthy, Whoopi Goldberg (PG) Although it attempts to camouflage itself as a horse of a different color (or pattern for that matter), Racing Stripes is a sincere effort in the…
Special screenings
Border Bandits Dir. Kirby Warnock (NR) Kirby Warnock’s well-received documentary Border Bandits returns to the Alamo Drafthouse Westlakes, the scene of its sold-out November screening. Based on his grandfather’s recollections of atrocities committed by Texas Rangers against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, the film is a compelling addition to scholarship questioning the Rangers’ role in Texas’ history.…
Recent reviews
A Very Long Engagement Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet; writ. Jeunet, Guillaume Laurant, based on the novel by Sébastien Japrisot; feat. Audrey Tatou, Gaspard Ulliel, Jean-Pierre Becker, Dominique Bettenfeld, Clovis Cornillac, Marion Cotillard, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Julie Depardieu, Jean-Claude Dreyfus (R) The film begins in the infamously muddy and claustrophobic French trenches of World War I. Five French…
House of hollow timbers
Zhang Ziyi plays another enigmatic protegée in director Zhang Yimou’s follow-up to the breathtaking Hero. The heir to ‘Hero’ falls short Forget Sideways (which received so much advance hype that some moviegoers felt they were being sold a forged masterpiece) and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (which wasn’t half the movie the first was, yet inexplicably…
Armchair Cinephile
The year in review, courtesy of DVD It’s the season of Top Ten lists. If you’re even mildly adventurous online, you can find hundreds of people competing to tell you what the year’s best movies are. Unfortunately, many of the contenders were hardly seen in these parts. Q: How is it possible, for example, that…
Old meets new
A shopper walks down one of the aisles at El Mercado on a recent afternoon. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Changes afoot at Market Square A restaurant worker wearing a trademark white shirt and black trousers hoists a squeegee, gently nudging a puddle of rainwater away from the entryway. Mid-afternoon sunlight slowly warms the pavers in…
Sultan is swinging
Waitress Layla Mery shows off some of the Middle Eastern specialties available at Sultan Café. From right: hummus, spinach pie, Sultan kabob platter, fool mudammes, and dolmas (stuffed grape leaves). (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Middle Eastern food with a kick Little more than a year ago, most San Antonians were innocent of the hookah. Shisha,…
Devastation in your cup
While some suppliers and importers anticipate a price increase for Sumatran coffee, Alan Hilowitz, spokesperson for Starbucks, says the company “doesn’t believe that there will be an impact on Starbucks supply chain and are confident in the short- and long-term supply of Indonesian coffee.” (Photo by Julie Barnett) The tsunami hurt the supply of Sumatran…
Mardi Gras and kitchen stars
Pub Gras It’s barely the new year, but Sherlock’s Baker St. Pub & Grill is already thinking Mardi Gras. From January 15 through February 8, patrons at Sherlock’s, 16620 Hwy 281 North, will receive Mardi Gras beads, some of which can be redeemed for prizes. To enlighten the non-New Orleans folk, traditional bead colors are…
Going underground
Lynne Padilla (left), Anna Padilla, and Emily Pettit check out the entrance to the Robber Baron cave on San Antonio’s Near Northeast Side. The three women are part of a large group of volunteers working to restore the cave and its surroundings. (Photos by Mark Greenberg) The Robber Baron Cave Restoration Project is transforming an…
Split decision
Which is superior: XM or Sirus? It depends on your musical tastes The one thing that has been consistently correct in the excessive media speculation about Howard Stern’s move to Sirius’ satellite radio service is this: Radio will never be the same, simply because Stern will bring legitimacy – and thousands of subscribers – to…
