News : Front-runner fatigue
Immigration dominates the discourse at low-energy GOP convention The conservative movement in America has long drawn energy from the sense that it’s stuck on the outside, its nose pressed against the window of political power. From the California taxpayer revolt of the late 1970s, to the Reagan Revolution, to the Contract With America, the implicit…
Food & Drink : When in Spain
Las Ramblas leaves our critic wistful for Spanish tapas The center of the culinary universe seems to have shifted. It’s no longer Paris or New York but Spain — and not just because trail-blazing chefs such as Ferran Adriá are fiddling with foams and forming agar-agar into unaccustomed shapes. With his eponymous restaurant and contemporary…
News : Objective, but not independent
Journalists cover the American political system. To what degree should they be allowed to participate in it? The New York Times ethics handbook states that, “journalists have no place on the playing field of politics.” But where do journalists draw the line between their voting rights as citizens and their professional duties? It is, perhaps,…
Food & Drink : Cookin’ up memories
The Kitchen Sisters bring their love of food and lore to the Texas Folklife Festival On June 8, the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, producers of NPR’s Hidden Kitchens, will visit San Antonio to speak at the Texas Folk Life Festival at the Institute of Texan Cultures. Hidden Kitchensexplores America’s food tradition —…
News : The great ape debacle
With three more chimps dead, PETA’s lawsuit against Primarily Primates moves forward Three more chimpanzees have died at Primarily Primates, Inc., an animal sanctuary located in the Hill Country. The sanctuary has been the subject of controversy since February, when Primarily Primates accepted nine chimpanzees and three capuchin monkeys from Ohio State University’s now-defunct primate…
News : Doing asbestos they can
Big Tex waits, but the adjacent hike-and-bike trail is a go Southtown residents are questioning the safety of construction on the Eagleland/River Walk Link hike-and-bike-trail site, which lies just south of the former Big Tex plant owned by developer James Lifshutz. Citizens have opposed Lifshutz’s plans to build residences and retail shops at Big Tex…
Music : Metal institution
Robb’s got a fever. The only prescription? More metal. You’re not a true metalhead if you live in San Antonio and don’t know who Robb Chavez is. Before I knew who he was, I had already seen his banner inside metal bars downtown. I hang my head in shame to admit that I have not…
Feature : Cooking with the Stars
The Silver Stars, that is. The WNBA team works and plays hard together all summer long The WNBA has been around for just 10 years, and our local representative, the Silver Stars (originally the Utah Starzz), have graced the SA hardwood since 2003. With just 34 games in their season from May through August, these…
Music : Current choice
High Colonna If ever a radio station and an artist represented a perfect fit, it would be Austin’s KGSR and singer-songwriter Wendy Colonna. An adult-alternative bastion of tasteful sensitivity and mature gentility, KGSR can be too polite for its own good, but its commitment to serious artists who don’t fit comfortably into any contemporary category…
Arts : Final resting space
Mydeathspace.com memorializes the grislier side of the final log-out Have a quick look at someone’s Myspace.com account. A lot can be learned about the life of a particular person by spending a few minutes scanning the information he or she has provided through blogs, surveys, and photographs. Take, for example, 17-year-old San Antonio native Stephanie…
Music : CD Spotlight
Tough chicks If you thought the Dixie Chicks were pissed when they declared onstage that they were “ashamed the president is from Texas,” then you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s been four years since label disputes produced Home and three years since many of their fans turned their backs on them, and yet, in the…
Arts : A little flash for you button-down types
Gentlemen, it’s time to retire the French blue dress shirt and khaki trouser ensemble you’ve been wearing for far too long. Believe it or not, there are trends in men’s fashion, and they’re not just for rock stars. Like Superman, now every guy can have a secret under his clothing. Granted, everyday men’s clothes tend…
Arts : Artifacts
News and notes from the San Antonio art scene That magical visual-art time of year is just around the corner: July is officially Contemporary Art Month in San Antonio. But like many American festivities, CAM is suffering from holiday creep. Shows billed as CAM events are already open in the city (see our events listings,…
Media : Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Remake?
Sometimes, the scares are sweeter the second (or third) time around By no stretch of the imagination am I what you would call a fan of horror films, and yet, I find myself scratching my head over how many critics (as well as many so-called fans) bemoan the recent resurgence of horror-film remakes. For one,…
Music : Wild grift
Todd Snider applies his storytelling skills to the state of Bush’s America Like most kids besotted with rock culture, Todd Snider didn’t relish the prospect of becoming an adult. At the age of 19, he was so obsessed with clinging to his youth that he openly dreaded his 20th birthday. Then he saw Jerry Jeff…
Media : Just like ‘Home’
Helmed by Altman and penned by Keillor, Companion shows telltale signs of both Robert Altman, that old lion who was so much more gracious than he needed to be when the Academy gave him their “sorry we didn’t do this sooner” lifetime achievement award a few months ago, is no stranger to unfashionable modes of…
Music : Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Shows of note The Bloomington, Indiana, quartet Murder by Death may have taken its name from a Neil Simon screenplay, but this group’s aspirations are decidedly more highbrow. As demonstrated on its third album, in bocca al lupo, the band weds a literary American Gothic aesthetic preoccupied with sin, guilt,…
Media : La vie en ass-kick
French actioner District B13 ain’t high art, but it packs a wallop If you’ve ever sat around pondering what Jackie Chan would look like after a week-long cocaine-and-Red-Bull binge, then you’re about to get the answer. Banlieue 13 (District B13), the latest project from producer and directorial has-been Luc Besson, is a hyperkinetic 85-minute ode…
Media : Special screenings
ONE: THE MOVIE Ward M. Powers (2005) Ward Powers spent two years traveling the country, posing life’s ultimate questions to those of every known religion. “When is war justifiable?” “How do you describe God?” First Unitarian-Universalist Church of San Antonio. 7:45 p.m. Wed., June 7; Fri., June 9; Sat., June 10; and Fri., June 16.…
News : Counterpoint
Meet the new editorial team I have to direct your attention for a moment away from La Familia Flores’ political future (“I don’t close any doors to anything,” Roger said last week of his rumored mayoral aspirations, adding, “It’s a reasonable plan to have.” He was similarly mushy about his mother’s designs on the District…
Media : That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Mia Farrow, Paul Newman and Lily Tomlin? What year is it, again? The Omen redux opened Tuesday, but I’m talking about it again. Deal with it. Why Tuesday? 6/6/06 — admittedly less clunky than the gimmick for the original, which opened on 6/6/76. And it’s generally much, much better…
Arts : Rowing home
John Freeman interviews Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney has always been something of a mystic when it comes to language. Accepting the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, the Irishman described how the voices he overheard on the radio as a child were like portals in time. These exotic sounds coaxed him into a “journey…
Food & Drink : All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Justin’s Ice Cream has learned a few new tricks and taken its show uptown to 2512 N. Main. “We are going to be the first successful transplant from the River Walk,” said Justin Arecchi, adding that they didn’t want to move, but now that they’ve arrived,…
Arts : Framed
Filth! The long-awaited second collaboration between Dan Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, Art School Confidential, may be drawing mixed responses from cinephiles and critics, but one of its unambiguously positive effects is getting Zwigoff’s documentary, Crumb, back into circulation on DVD. A must-see for any comics aficionado, Crumb also reminds us how much the evolution of…
Food & Drink : Ice cream on the clock
It was sometime between noon and 5 p.m. — and where was that playful Time Warner cable guy, Juan de la Playa? Enjoying a cheerful disregard for your installation appointment, and today’s second trip to the ice-cream parlor at Cincinnati and Zarzarmora. (Juan de la Playa was also happy to give the Current a pseudonym,…
Arts : On the Street
Bigfoot a Texan? Maybe everything is bigger in Texas This summer, the Institute of Texan Cultures is hosting a new exhibit that features the ‘wild man of the woods.’ Sorry ladies, no leaf-wearing, muscular Tarzan on display here, but rather one of the monstrous, hairy, ape-like creature otherwise known as Bigfoot. For years, my older…
Media : This devil’s in the details
The new Omen remake foregoes the sledgehammer for the scalpel, with favorable results If it ain’t broke, don’t (upside-down cruci)fix it. If director John Moore employed a mantra while producing his rehash of The Omen, now in theaters, this may well have been it. To wit: Moore’s update of Richard Donner’s 1976 horror standard is…
