News Briefs
PCB fish study could get underway Two years after the Texas Department of Health issued a fish-consumption ban for parts of Lower Leon Creek, the San Antonio River Authority has funds to begin testing the waterway. According to SARA spokesperson Erika Resendiz, the authority’s board recently approved $125,000 for the Leon Creek PCB study, which…
Screens Armchair cinephile
Feed the world – and watch its movies Just in time to fill the Live 8 vacuum, Warner has released 20 Years Ago Today, a single-disc compilation drawn from the four-disc Live Aid set they put out last year. It’s only 52 minutes long, but a nice glimpse of vintage performances, and a handy reason…
News Speed reads
Pigs are flying Could Governor Rick Perry have a smidgen of an environmental conscience? On July 12, Perry expanded the scope of the special legislative session to include renewable energy. “With energy costs draining family budgets and slowing economic growth nationwide, now is the time for lawmakers to pass legislation that will help Texas become…
Food & Drink Where’d the roe go?
At C!BAL, you can’t always get what you ordered, but you may like what you get In its name, Cibal references Sybaris, an ancient Greek town in southern Italy that was famous for its sensualism and voluptuousness, the root of excess in food and wine. Cibal’s interior design – custom-made blown-glass chandelier, laser-cut steel screens…
FeatureThe beat of a different drum
Once dismissed as fringe science, music therapy proves it can unlock the mind Dr. Janice Dvorkin never had much use for the concept of music as a high-minded art form. Dvorkin, a talented player with a facility for piano, derived little excitement and much anxiety from live performance. To her, music wasn’t about performers on…
Food & Drink Same as it ever was
Olmos Pharmacy may sell on eBay, but its customers receive the same good service they did in 1938 My dining companion arrived a few minutes after I had settled into one of the dozen stools that line the lunch counter at Olmos Pharmacy, which has stood at the corner of Hildebrand and McCullough since 1938.…
Arts Good vibrations
Artist and curator John Mata is ‘just really excited about all the possibilities’ For San Antonio native John Mata, being a better artist might come down to good vibes. Leisurely smoking a hookah in his King William rental, the 28-year-old recounts with mild amazement the reactions he has received since he returned in January from…
Food & Drink Meatless in Steer City
Bad dog – You can bring a tofu dog home, but it won’t bark First of all, why eat a soy knock-off of what is essentially already a knock-off? Do recovering meat addicts crave hot dogs? Maybe. The Hot Dog Council refers to frankfurters, mysteriously, as “specially selected meat trimmings” – and we all know…
Arts Chalk for moonlight
The magic of SAMA’s Resonance from the Past is in its everyday spirituality The new exhibit at the San Antonio Museum of Art, Resonance from the Past: African Sculpture from the New Orleans Museum of Art, opened to a fairly quiet crowd at the members’ reception on June 24 – quiet because it’s difficult to…
Food & Drink Attack of the killer tomatoes
Can’t give ’em away? Here are a few tips for disguising your bounty Ah, the tomato. Summer has delivered us a bounty of this botanical fruit. My father’s plants, of several varieties, produced beautiful, shapely orbs and yielded weeks of blissful bushels. Our friend Donny, an expert horticulturist, planted a community garden where his tasty…
Arts The Cajun curator
René Paul Barilleaux brings his affinity for diverse and cross-bred mediums to the McNay This August, René Paul Barilleaux will become Curator of Art After 1945 at the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, a position created in 2000 and held by only one other person, Malin Wilson-Powell, who returned to New Mexico in spring 2004.…
Music Current choice
Lucero rising Lucero 9:30pm Sat, July 30 The Sanctuary 1818 N. Main 424-0518 After Memphis quartet Lucero’s third album, 2003’s That Much Further West, was hailed by the press (Rolling Stone dubbed it “the country album the Replacements never made”), the proverbial breakthrough seemed imminent. Alas, a label collapse and sundry business problems conspired against…
Arts Bag ladies
Texas designer Enid Collins created wooden purses that still contain joy I should have bought the “Owl and Pussycat” bag. But I was a novice. It was my first encounter with Collins of Texas handbags – in a crowded corner of the Austin mid-century vintage shop Room Service, redolent of spice, faded perfume, and dust…
Music Last call
Carlos and Gene Centeno formed Gonsemble in 1999 as a way to fuse their musical influences. “We’re all jazz musicians but we grew up on hip-hop, so we decided to make a band with a heavy jazz influence but still raw hip-hop,” explains Carlos, who plays trumpet and emcees. “We’re all theoretically trained but we…
Arts Last chance to … CAM-A-LOT
Let us pause now, in this month of visual revelry, to remember the other art forms – children of a lesser muse … Just kidding, art troopers. It’s hard not to feel guilty if we neglect the many other enriching events that happen during Contemporary Art Month. If you skipped out on the Cactus Pear…
Music Sound and the fury
Galapagos foreplay Mark Gonzalez of the SA collective Lotus Tribe spent four months living in Los Angeles earlier this year, and while he was there he fostered a valuable connection. He got together with Mestizo, a SoCal emcee who recently released his second CD, Blindfaith, for Galapagos 4. While talking with Mestizo, Gonzalez learned that…
Arts Artifacts
Movin’ on out The Carver Community Cultural Center and Director Bill Lewis are parting ways at the end of July. San Antonio native Marva Crisp, of the City of San Antonio’s Community Initiatives department, which overseas the Carver, says she is “easing into” Lewis’ shoes. Crisp’s title will be Interim Carver Cultural Center Supervisor, said…
Music All ears
Doing it their way, part two The artists in the last All Ears column `”Doing it their way, part one,” July 14-20, 2005` aren’t the only ones to have carved out their own chunk of power in today’s chaotic record industry. Plenty have, in more and less conventional ways. Take Joni Mitchell. A songwriter of…
Screens Telegenda?
Media outlet Telesur, owned by several Latin American governments, debuts this month, sparking fears of bias and anti-American messages CARACAS, Venezuela – Images of protesters marching through an unnamed Latin American city flashed across the TV screen. The marchers hoisted a caricature of Uncle Sam on a banner reading, “Let’s crush imperialism.” Later the camera…
Music CD Spotlight
Closet case R. Kelly has no shame. In the real world, that’s a bad thing, as demonstrated by his reptilian fetish for school girls too young to legally drive away from his Chi-town sex lair. In the real world, it’s also an embarrassing thing, as when his paranoid diva antics incite members of Jay-Z’s crew…
Screens Winning isn’t everything
Linklater’s Bad News Bears keeps the “hood” in childhood “Ain’t no doubt about it, lady. You got a shitload’a rats down there.” With that opening line, The Bad News Bears announces that it will be no watered-down remake, contrary to the suspicions of many who hold the grumpy original film close to their hearts. The…
Screens The healing power of violence
Murderball proves that one man’s disability is another’s transformation If last year’s Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside offended activist groups with plots they felt portrayed victims of spinal-cord injuries as inert and unworthy of life, Murderball is made to order – proving that quadriplegics can be as ornery, competitive, and vicious as their…
Music Race baiting
The complex politics of Eminem’s position as hip-hop’s best-loved emcee “I think what makes Eminem striking is that he is, if nothing else, a very complex figure,” states S. Craig Watkins, University of Texas professor and author of the forthcoming Hip-Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. “One…
Screens New reviews
Web Exclusive Stealth Dir. Rob Cohen; writ. W.D. Richter; feat. Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Sam Shepard, Richard Roxburgh (PG-13) Director Rob Cohen (XxX, The Fast and the Furious) feels the need for speed but doesn’t even come close to breaking through the troposphere as Stealth loses altitude in unexceptional fashion. When a top-secret…
News The silent epidemic
Suicide-prevention progam comes to town Eight years ago, 16-year-old Jason Flatt put his father’s .38-caliber pistol to his head and took his own life. Jason was an average, all-American teenager. He loved sports, especially football, and had lots of friends. He was white and middleclass. He was also the face of the nation’s typical suicide…
Screens Special screens
San Antonio Underground Film Festival Turns 10 To the list of arts organizations celebrating a milestone birthday this year, add our local Underground Film Festival, which will mark a decade of international experimental cinema with a comprehensive “Best Of” reel: 62 films in three days, July 29-31, at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Westlakes, 1255 SW…
News Big 6 fix
SAHA renovates its public housing, signaling a philosophical change that integrates the very poor into the community The 65-year-old apartments at Lincoln Homes, a public housing development on the West Side, are two-story, military-style cement bungalows, built in blocks that rely on paint for ornamentation. Here and there a window is outlined in faded primary…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres We’ve seen our fair share of machines gone haywire, including a jealous 1958 Plymouth Fury in Christine, a psychotic 18-wheeler in Maximum Overdrive, deadly shopping-mall security-guard robots in Killbots, and aggressive androids in I, Robot. Now, the sky’s the limit as a top-secret fighter jet is struck by lightning…
News Party lines
Be true to your City Council school Mayor Phil Hardberger checked the time and told one of his assistants to make a phone call to round up some more City Council members. It was just past 9 a.m. last Thursday, and Hizzoner was preparing to convene the “Mayor’s Leadership Seminar” in a conference room at…
Food & Drink All you can eat
Local boy eats good Seguin native Randy Harrison, ranked 28th in the world in competitive eating, will participate in the three-day Alka-Seltzer US Open, in Las Vegas, Nevada, airing in three episodes beginning at 7 p.m. July 28 on ESPN. A retired police officer, Harrison works as a night-shift dispatcher for the Bexar County Sheriff’s…
