Arts It’s the boobs, stupid
Funcore Comics says four-star cleavage pays the bills, dude DC Comics, the company behind Batman Begins, is headquartered in New York City. So is Marvel, that other bastion of superhero-dom. Upstart indie presses such as Image and Dark Horse make their homes in California. But the desktop publishing revolution means that aspiring comic-book creators needn’t…
Music Industrial strength
San Antonio College creates a program that dissects the bewildering business of music One of the chief problems with the music business over the years has been that its “music” and “business” sides tend to view each other with suspicion and exasperation. Many musicians would prefer not to think about business issues, and many people…
Arts A fleeting wisp of glory…cam-a-lot
Contemporary Art Month has arrived Wipe that furrow from your sweaty brow, art troopers. Contemporary Art Month has arrived and, as usual, it is scheduled like Paris Hilton, but with oh-so-much more class and a little less self-importance. Comprehensive listings of openings, special film screenings, and musical events can be found in the Current’s calendar…
Music CD Spotlight
Martha, my dear From her album cover, Martha Wainwright stares out through a vermillion haze, the photo enlarged several times so that her features have become slightly unfocused, threatening to come undone. Such willingness by Wainwright to expose herself defines every track of her eponymously titled debut album. Daughter of folk heroes Loudon Wainwright III…
Screens The way we were
Romero’s latest zombies are recovering their memories and basic motor skills while embattled humans lay waste to each other It was supposed to be a trilogy. Maybe it didn’t start out that way, but George A. Romero’s magnum opus certainly made sense in that format: three films – Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of…
Screens Keep those cameras movin’
Cowboy U. Where city slickers learn to be electric horsemen From deep in the heart of Texas comes Cowboy U, a new season of the reality show set in an unnamed place in West Texas that premieres this weekend on country entertainment giant CMT. Despite the dusty glamor that manages to cling to all things…
Screens Small screen
Bare-knuckle politics There’s an old saying in Newark, New Jersey, that the city’s political leaders only leave office by death or conviction. It’s a principle the city’s longtime mayor Sharpe James apparently takes seriously based on the evidence of Marshall Curry’s fascinating, disturbing documentary, Street Fight. Curry’s film follows a brutal 2002 mayoral campaign between…
News What’s good for you is bad for you
Honoring Opus Dei On June 25, a Mass was held in San Antonio honoring Opus Dei, for which Archbishop Jose Gomez served as Texas vicar. A sect within the Catholic Church, it carefully monitors its members’ activities, including forbidding them to read hundreds of forbidden books, including The Book of Common Prayer and John Locke’s…
Screens Armchair cinephile
Dualing divas The fading careers of two of Hollywood’s most famous actresses, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, received a boost in 1962 when they starred together in the claustrophobic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? As if to highlight their linked fates, Warner Bros. has chosen this month to set them against each other with…
Screens New reviews
‘Ladies in Lavender’ and ‘Mysterious Skin’ Ladies in Lavender Writ. & dir. Charles Dance; feat. Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Daniel Bruhl, Miriam Margolyes, David Warner (PG-13) In 1936, a handsome young stranger who washes up on the beach beneath the cottage of two white-haired sisters is like nothing else in Cornwall. Ursula (Dench) and Janet…
Screens Special screenings
Cinema Tuesdays with Texas Public Radio My Darling Clementine Dir. John Ford (1943) Henry Fonda had already played Abraham Lincoln and The Grapes of Wrath’s Tom Joad for director John Ford by the mid-’40s, so casting him as iconic Wyatt Earp, one of the West’s biggest legends, was a natural. The result is widely considered…
Screens That’s a wrap
A remake of the 1953 film of the same name starring Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, War of the Worlds, directed by two-time Academy Award-winner Steven Spielberg, attacks theaters this week. War of the Worlds first gained notoriety when actor Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) dramatized the H.G. Wells’ novel over radio airwaves in 1938. Because…
News Target practice
Despite internal differences, local GOP sets aggressive recruiting agenda Joe Solis picked up his marbles and went home. Shortly after Solis lost the race for Bexar County party chairman to Richard Langlois last year, he launched the South Texas Republicans Political Action Committee, a grassroots effort to recruit more Latina party members and win more…
Food & Drink You get what you knead
Jenny Mattingsley has overcome sexism and hard financial times to become one of SA’s finest bakers It’s Sunday afternoon at Paesano’s Bakery. Technically, the shop is closed. The pastry case is nearly empty; just a few plates of scones, cookies, and muffins remain. But even as a fan blows the last heat of the ovens…
News Briefs
SAPD rape allegation, Minutemen protest, loud and proud, and the House Appropriations committee set to put Big Bird on the chopping block Transexual rape allegation on SAPD back burner Two weeks after a transgendered man was allegedly raped by a San Antonio Police Officer, SAPD’s Community Liaison for GLBT issues hasn’t investigated the complaint. Captain…
Food & Drink All you can eat
Current Online news politics culture News and notes from the San Antonio food scene A party at Liberty Bar? Watch this space. On July 14, Liberty Bar, 325 E. Josephine, will have been in business for 20 years. Though he did tell us that the listing Victorian started in 1890 as the Liberty Schooner, owner…
News Party lines
In South Side debate, Helen Dutmer loses her voice At the first meeting of the entire newly elected City Council, its greener members were still finding their way around the council dais, speaking into dead microphones, calling people to the podium for the wrong issue, and bungling protocol. But the mood was convivial, and people…
Music Wolf man
Without this Hubert Sumlin guy, where would Keith Richards or Jimmy Page be? Longtime Howlin’ Wolf collaborator Hubert Sumlin still plays the low-down, dirty blues. But these days, Sumlin – who’s been plagued by serious health problems in recent years – actually feels good when he performs songs about feeling bad. “I’m ready to go…
News Speed reads
City manager developments, protest of TX death penalty, South TX archeologist seeking volunteers Now that’s bold: After two City Manager snafus – the firing of Terry Brechtel and the near-hiring of Sheryl Sculley – District 1 Councilman Roger Flores is asking his colleagues to consider giving the nod to Interim City Manager Rolando Bono. Bono…
Music Lip service
Emo’s gets a Fatlip During the ’90s, Derrick Stewart was a key member of possibly the most influential Los Angeles hip-hop group outside of NWA. Under the pseudonym Fatlip, he joined Tre “Slimkid” Hardson, Romye “Booty Brown” Robinson, and Imani Wilcox, to form the Pharcyde. The South Central quartet made its official debut in 1992…
News Phoenix rising
Tejano dems seek to reconnect with their base They haven’t won an election for governor, attorney general, or any other executive branch office in 11 years. A failed redistricting battle left them with even fewer seats in the House, and financial experts predict that funding woes will limit the party in coming elections. In this…
Music Sound and the fury
SA Current Online A week on the scene Classified material Since their 2000 debut, Assasynation 101, Assasyn Dynasty has been working to put San Antonio hip-hop on the map. The arty four-man group consisting of Tasz-One, Ibrahim, #9, and Orion Pax has opened for notable national acts including Wu-Tang’s Raekwon, C-Rayz Walz, and the Micranots.…
Feature Renaissance man
When King William was down on its luck, Mike Casey saw an artists’ paradise You may not know him, but you’ve seen him, weaving through downtown traffic on his Schwinn cruiser, wearing a seersucker suit with a straw boater perched on his silver-haired head. Mike Casey could be going to Blue Star Contemporary Art Center,…
Food & Drink Comida casera
‘La Cocina de Mamá’ brings Spanish-style comfort food to American kitchens Ask average San Antonians what they know about Spanish food. Chances are they’ve had tapas, but unless it was at one of the few authentic places in the States, the term tapas is applied to anything from nouvelle snacks to cold cuts. For authentic…
Culture feature Pulse strong, peripherals weak
San Antonio’s arts core is vital, but support systems such as galleries are still struggling San Antonio’s contemporary art scene has become successful enough in the past decade to have inspired equal parts pettiness, hubris, and misguided capitalism. Occasionally it seems as if the community’s leaders are fiddling like Nero as Rome burns in the…
Food & Drink Meatless in Steer City
Dairy be damned – You scream, I scream, we all scream for Rice, uh, Soy Dream For many years, vegans and the lactose-intolerant were outcasts relegated to the fringes of dessert society with the sorbet-lovers and the fruit-ice freaks. They watched like voyeurs as their milk-minded friends worked themselves into a lactose lather, licking ice…
Arts The art capades
Not-so-still life, jewelry that isn’t, and hardworking students start CAM with a bang Russian artist Anika Smulovitz caught curator Rachelle Thiewes eye with her collar necklaces made from used men’s shirts. Karen Mahaffey’s video show at Sala Diaz challenged anyone who came to the June 10 opening for a quick art fix (527 Stieren, 695-5132,…
Music Taco Land-lord
The shooting death of Ram Ayala shatters the underground community that formed around him At the June 24 wake for Taco Land owner Ram Ayala, Juan Miguel Ramos looked around at the hundreds of people who’d gathered in the club’s patio to remember one of the local music scene’s defining characters. It occurred to Ramos,…
