Questions remain after Bexar County Jail detox death
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com On January 4, Ricardo Guzman got a haircut. The 43-year-old San Antonio resident wanted to look good when he turned himself in at court the next day for outstanding drug-possession charges. Guzman had no way of knowing that trusting himself to Bexar County could play a part in his death three days…
Carver Community Center brings on the dance!
Here is a video of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, who will be performing at the Carver Cultural Community Center this Saturday. Cool, huh? Click the link for details. Related Stories
BOOK REVIEW: Heart of Dryness shows culture of water waste behind persecution of First Peoples
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com In the history of the conservation movement, notions of wilderness have rarely included people. Homo sapiens were universally tagged as the hapless despoilers of the land. Nearly 30 years ago, writer Gary Paul Nabhan exposed a notable exception to this ingrained prejudice by examining two desert oases â?? A’al Waitpia, located inside…
Centro Partnership: Trickle Down(town) Economics
By Enrique Lopetegui elopetegui@sacurrent.com Update on 1/25/10: Pat DiGiovanni on potential City parking job losses. In a unanimous vote Thursday, the City Council approved a resolution of support greenlighting the incorporation of Centro Partnership, a public-private non-profit umbrella corporation that would oversee the Downtown Alliance (advocacy and marketing), Centro San Antonio (operations and maintenance) and…
ANGELA POWER
San Antonio came out in droves to welcome legendary civil rights activist Angela Davis on Wednesday. Over a thousand people filled Trinity University’s Laurie Auditorium to hear Davis deliver the Martin Luther King, Jr., Commemorative Lecture. Most amazing was the diversity of those attending – from college age students to veterano activists from the 1960s…
Why, another call for entries! Artists: sheckitow
It’s FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, so I’m not gonna sit on this one. San Antonio Art League and Museum wants YOU! Here, read the press release.Then there’s a video at the bottom. There’s a monster at the end of this book! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AT A GLANCE 80th Annual Artists Juried Exhibition Delivery for judging: Friday,…
Cartographers CD re-release
Cartographers’ self-titled debut â?? the subject of our July 29 cover story, which you can check out here (readers raved: “god, what a fuckin long article” and “is the article title a reference to the band the Swell Maps?”) â?? have rereleased that album with actual cover art and shit on Buttercup’s label Bedlamb Records.…
I cannot stop with the videos, now
Elis Regina Ã�guas de Março (written by Antonio Carlos Jobim) Lyrics Ã? pau, é pedra, é o fim do caminho Ã? um resto de toco, é um pouco sozinho Ã? um caco de vidro, é a vida, é o sol Ã? a noite, é a morte, é um laço, é o anzol Ã? peroba do…
Cooper Center bringing green tech, training to West Side
A&M students installing their award-winning off-grid â??groHome.’ (Texas A&M Photo) Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com When former Mayor Phil Hardberger and his eco-logical aide-de-camp Larry Zinn cranked out Mission Verde, an economics-based sustainability plan for Alamo City, back in the waning days of Hizzoner’s Era, they put quiet hopes in the city’s abandoned school houses. With numerous…
Mail (or Fe-Mail) art: call for Artists (plus gratuitous video)
call to artists LoneStar Studios is getting ready for this year’s Contemporary Art Month. Our Second Saturday One Night Only art opening for March 2010 is a group show with a call to artists going out around the world. If you would like to participate in this year’s CAM show at the LoneStar Studios there…
Dr. Berggren in Haiti: Safe, heartbroken, and hopeful
Dr. Ruth Berggren, head of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has been back in Haiti since Monday providing medical care in rural areas. After an inquiry from the QueBlog, Berggren sent us the following email: “We are fine but heartbroken about all…
Wind-powered nuclear warhead facility in our future? Hunters seem to think so
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com Wind power isn’t dead. Not by a long shot. Despite the cancellation of what was being billed as the next world’s largest wind-power complex by former corporate raider, woulda-been West Texas water mogul, and relenting wind-power booster T. Boone Pickens, things are just starting to get interesting for lovers of overgrown pinwheels.…
The Country and the Fury
Scott Miller, founding member of Knoxville, Tennessee, roots rock/alternative country greats The V-Roys (who had Steve Earle produce both of their studio albums), will perform at Sam’s Burger Joint on Wednesday, January 20 (330 E. Grayson, 8 pm, $7-$10, 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com). Miller will be presenting his new solo album, For Crying Out Loud, from which…
Video-rama THANKS MANNY!
HEY! Our online producer, Manny Moreno, taught me how to add videos to the blog. Onwards and upwards, people! OK, so this first video is a musical number written by Italian performer Adriano Celentano in 1972. It’s “about” incommunicability, but has been (rightly, I think) described as a attempt to document and satirize American English…
Not your father’s doctor drama
Measures a dependable but unflashy ride
Dead on arrival
The Lovely Bones mangles bestselling novels appeal
The Book of Eli
The Book of Eli Director: Albert Hughes & Allen Hughes Screenwriter: Albert Hughes & Allen Hughes Cast: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman,Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Tom Waits Release Date: 2010-01-20 Rated: R Genre: Film Our Rating: 2.00 The “book of Eli,” the thick, leather-bound volume making all the trouble in our burnt-out husk of a future,…
Transference
Transference Composer: Spoon Label: Merge Release Date: 2010-01-20 Rated: NONE Media: CD Length: LP Format: Album Genre: Recording The seventh album from Austin’s Spoon is the kind of “experimental” that really might be better described as “adventurous” — taking enough calculated risks to explore new territory without stretching too far beyond their comfort zone. The…
Unbroken
Unbroken Composer: Katherine McPhee Label: Verve Forecast Release Date: 2010-01-20 Rated: NONE Media: CD Length: LP Format: Album Genre: Recording Verve Forecast attempts to do what RCA couldn’t — sell some Katharine McPhee albums. Dropped by RCA after lackluster sales of her 2007 debut, the American Idol runner-up signed to Verve Forecast, a subsidiary of…
I am Ozzy
I am Ozzy Release Date: 2010-01-20 Publishing House: Grand Central Rated: NONE Genre: Autobiography Ozzy Osbourne executed an entire coop of chickens with a shotgun at point-blank range. His first job in the “music industry” was tuning car horns. He had to get a series of painful rabies shots after he bit the head off…
Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
Of the Blue Colour of the Sky Composer: OK Go Label: Capitol Release Date: 2010-01-20 Rated: NONE Media: CD Length: LP Format: Album Genre: Recording Though they’re one of the past decade’s few memorable mainstream pop/rock groups, OK Go have only released two albums. This long-awaited third record preserves everything fun, smart, and snappy about…
Lunch at Papa Louie’s
Release Date: 2010-01-20 San Antonio is strangely short on diners, those homey places that serve the assimilated staples of the American diet and are often beloved by their customers for a singular take on a standard — a Reuben with house-made sauerkraut or a Creole-style egg-salad sandwich. Breakfast tacos you can find on almost any…
Uncomfortably numb
It’s a harebrained idea to describe the debut play of the Rose Theatre’s second season, Alice and the MKULTRA Experiment, as “an adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with LSD” in conversation. Such oversimplification on my part has only yielded the following vexing response: “So … basically, it’s just Alice in Wonderland, then?” Eat me.…
Dear Uncle Mat
I am 22. I just graduated last spring with my undergraduate degree, and I am hopefully headed to graduate school next fall to pursue a master’s and possibly Ph.D. I have always been a very serious student and socially quiet person. I am working at an internship, and my parents are supporting me per our…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Philosopher David Pearce is committed to the abolition of suffering. While he acknowledges that we’ve got a long way to go before accomplishing that goal, he believes it’s possible, mostly with the help of technology. (More at http://bit.ly/8oTsCV.) More than two millennia ago, Buddha also articulated a vision for the cessation…
Nine Minutes with Exene Cervenka
On January 5, I had the odd pleasure of a telephone interview with Exene Cervenka, lead singer of the quintessential Los Angeles punk band X. For those who aren’t familiar with X, here’s a crash course: Founded in 1977 by vocalist and bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom, drummer DJ Bonebreak, and vocalist/artist/writer Cervenka, X…
United in blood
Ask anyone to make you a list of the best and most influential hardcore albums of the early 1980s, and you will see included, somewhere in the top 10 or so, Agnostic Front’s seminal debut LP, Victim in Pain. From the titular opening track, frontman Roger Miret’s voice bellows furiously, “Why am I going insane…
Live & Local
Guitarist-vocalist Marc Anthony Smith’s clothes are an unmistakable signifier of Heavy Feathers’ music: paisley-patterned bellbottoms, Sgt. Pepper military jacket. The band lives up to the unspoken promise, too, producing the sort of music you like to think every bar band in late ’60s San Francisco had a handle on. They cover the Chambers Brothers, Cream,…
The Sound & The Fury
The R House is the latest venue to go under, albeit temporarily. For the time being, all shows scheduled at R House are moved to the Quarry Cantina (7310 Jones Maltsberger, (210) 290-8066), which started 2010 with a bang: rock Mondays and blues Wednesdays (check out W.C. Clark, 9:30 p.m. January 27, $10). Until their…
Special Haiti-edition QueQue
JE ME RAPPÈLE, I’HAÏTI I first landed in Port-au-Prince in December 1971. A student at La Universidad InterAmericana de Puerto Rico, I was slowly winging my way back to Texas for the Christmas holidays. (In those days one could actually book a “student ticket” with stopovers from San Juan to Haiti to Kingston, Jamaica, to Mérida, Mexico,…
Hang time
In the early evening of March 31, 2009, San Antonio author, one-time Green Party candidate, and animal lover Harlan McVea opened a packet of mustard and began to write his suicide note. He was beginning a familiar descent into the hellish chills, cramping, and nausea of drug withdrawal. Though he preferred methadone, which he bought…
Buying poor judgment
Early voting starts next month in Bexar County for the 2010 primaries. The small number of people who actually participate will vote for a handful of candidates they know, and then face dozens of choices for lesser offices between candidates they have probably never heard of and almost certainly know nothing about. By the end of the…
Head Case
When I discovered my daughter had lice in early December, I took it a little too lightly. Which is not to say that I wasn’t mortified and gravely inconvenienced by the discovery, but my response was a bit lax: a hurried Google search, followed by a speedy trip to Walgreens, where I bought the lice…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Readers: Siempre, the wisest words that appear in this column come from ustedes, y the following two cartas prove this maxim. The first one addresses my year-end column, in which a working-class gabacho insisted his people apapachan a Mexicans mucho: Half-Mexican here. I was fortunate enough to catch your column while I was visiting…
San Antonio living, online
Tanji Patton is sitting in front of her MacbookPro, concentrating on the screen, slightly disturbed. “I can never figure out how to connect my Facebook to my Twitter,” she declares with a ‘hmph.’ Multimedia is the buzzword that just won’t quit in newsrooms everywhere, but this former News 4 anchor and host of San Antonio…
Hasta la Victoria!
“Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary’s life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.” — Angela Davis I first heard about Angela Davis in 1969. Fresh out of college, I had been active in the student movement (SDS), the Underground Press (The Rag),…
Resolutions you can live with
The new year is full of optimism and renewed hope. It’s also a time when people make promises to themselves they know they’ll never keep. So let’s forget the gym memberships, saving money, and the diets that take all the fun out of eating this year and make some new resolutions you can keep. Resolutions…
ARTifacts
There will be no opening-night reception at Lawrence Markey for Fred Sandback’s “Untitled (Four-part Vertical Construction in Two Colors, 1987).” Sandback’s installation, which like much of his work is spare and made of lengths of colored yarn, is reportedly too potentially fragile for opening-shindig merrymakers a little buzzed on wine. But that’s all the better;…
Amuse-Bouche
For going on 25 years, the annual Zin-Din at Grey Moss Inn has been a January highlight — for those who weren’t skiing in Aspen or on a beach in the Caribbean, that is. The Order of Original Zin, composed of Grey Moss owner Lou Baeten, former Express-News wine critic Bill Stephens, and me, has…
That’s not gray, it’s silver
San Anto’s own Jump-Start Performance Company begins celebrating its 25th anniversary this week with a revival of its very first production, Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Request Concert, which will be performed in four different homes here and in Austin over the next few months. First up is company Artistic Director S.T. Shimi, who says the updated…
New Year’s Resolutions…unresolved.
Oh, I made so many. Maybe you did too. You can even read some of the ones I made in this other blog post. I tried to distract myself from having made these resolutions in that blog post by doin’ a lot of trash talk about Medusa and people who talk about yoga and/or Burning…
