Visual Arts Live models
Three new gallery spaces take different tacks in art, business, and atmosphere Ceramic sculpture, watercolors, and decorative oil paintings fill the walls of the RAC Gallery in the Collection on North Broadway. The Regional Artist Consortium’s 90-plus members operate the space on a volunteer basis. RAC is planning a grand opening party on May 13.…
Music Spreading the word
UIW’s new Internet radio station launches without limits “Sam & Sam in the Morning” co-hosts Samantha Duncan (right) and Samantha Najera get the morning going with lively discussions and music on KUIW internet radio. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Standing face to face in a small radio webcasting studio on the grounds of the University of…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres CAPTION. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) A remake of the 1979 film of the same name starring James Brolin (Catch Me If You Can) and Margot Kidder (Lois Lane in the Superman films), The Amityville Horror takes a well-known story about a haunted house and reawakens the ghosts that once…
Words What if god were a barista?
Blend tops your cuppa with a little spirituality Poet Devyn Gonzales (front) and DJ Ernest Gonzales host Speaker, a night of poetry and music at Blend coffee house on South Flores. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) To merge is a virtue at Blend, a new coffeehouse located at 1502 S. Flores Street that mixes poetry, artwork,…
Music Middle-age crazy
Hacienda Brothers find a country-soul fusion in the Arizona desert Hacienda Brothers: an inspired side project for Dave Gonzalez, front left, and Chris Gaffney. A couple of years ago, Dave Gonzalez and Chris Gaffney rounded up a few musicians and got together to play a birthday party gig. Gonzalez, the leader of the Paladins, and…
Screens Special screenings
Film festivals and exclusive cinema events In the Country Where Nothing Happens Dir. Maricarmen de Lara; writ. de Lara, Laura Sosa; feat. Fernando Luján, Julieta Egurrola, Carmen Delgado. (NR) Released in 2000, In the Country Where Nothing Happens won acclaim at the Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival and was nominated for an Ariel Award, the national…
Culture Living by the thumbs
Men and boys dream of cash and glory at two weekend LAN tournaments Jason Avery from Longview, along with other members of Team Kaos, takes on rival teams in a five-on-five tournament for the game “Counter Strike: Source” at SA-Fragfest ’05. Most days, Marshall Bullard works airport security for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.…
Words Word on the street
News and notes from the San Antonio Literary scene Best of Slam Cheer on Bexar County’s best spoken wordsmiths when San Antonio’s weekly poetry slam, Puro Slam, in collaboration with the monthly Free Verse Fridays, holds their final team selections Tuesday, April 12, to determine the top four performance poets San Anto will send to…
Words Read a peach
Grover Lewis’ prose transcends the ’70s rock era that made him almost famous Let’s face it, there’s no longer anything new about “New journalism.” Using narrative techniques such as scenes, dialogue, and characters in the telling of non-fiction stories is so established as to be utterly unremarkable. The icons of new journalism, foppish dandies and…
News Party Lines
Web Exclusive Helotes: cornfields to Wal-Mart? Helotes residents arrived early for a recent meeting of the City’s planning and zoning commission, and for good reason. The Helotes City Council had locked out many of them during a previous vote to remove a moratorium that would allow Wal-Mart to build a store at the corner of…
Music Festival Uke days
Strum a little ‘Don Ho Gold’ or ‘Ram On’ for rock’s most underappreciated instrument Others might argue for the Theremin or electric sitar, but you could make a solid case that the most underappreciated instrument in rock is the ukulele. Brian Wilson included it in his Smile opus; Pete Townshend strummed one on “Blue, Red…
Screens New review
Fever pitch Fallon proves he’s the Sidd Finch of acting Dir. Bobby and Peter Farrelly; writ. Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel; feat. Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon, KaDee Strickland, Willie Garson (PG-13) Straying from their trademark raunchy humor, the Farrelly brothers (There’s Something About Mary) get in touch with their soft romantic side in Fever Pitch, a…
Screens A movie mogul in Greta Garbo’s mold
John Santikos would prefer to be left alone so he can get on with building more theaters John Santikos stands before one of his theaters. The distractible yet prolific creator has plans to renovate the Galaxy into a 20-plex called the Palladium, with architectural details mimicking the Parthenon of Greece. (Photo by Laura McKenzie) John…
Mail Letters to the editor
On the Cover Bambi, the mascot for the Best of San Antonio 2005. No chihuahuas were harmed during the making of this issue. See all the picks in this year’s Best of San Antonio. Photo by Mark Greenberg. Correction Trademark offense In last week’s article “Kill Bill” `April 7-13, 2005` we swapped a Center for…
Screens Amityville horrified
An evil spirit has taken possession of America’s haunted house “Ggeeeettt ooouutttt! Gettt OUUUUUTTT!” Lots of us have lived in last-choice rentals, roach-infested apartments, or other dwellings that were for one reason or another less than inviting. Yet, not many of us have actually been informed by our own homes that we must leave or…
News Speed reads
Union Pacific vs. women: A federal court in Nebraska has granted two female train engineers class-action status for a sexual discrimination suit filed against Union Pacific alleging that it violated the Civil Rights Act by not providing prescription contraception coverage in health plans for unionized employees. Union Pacific claims that unionized female employees can circumvent…
Screens Old monsters never die
Creepy Classics video store feeds our bloodthirst for Godzilla, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and things that go bump in the night With the almost endless encroachment of big-business video rental chains such as Blockbuster Video and the ever-expanding online Goliath known as Netflix, it has become harder for smaller rental outlets to retain…
Screens Small screens
Not expecting Student sex-ed activist Shelby Knox is planning a path to the White House On June 21, the 18th season of PBS’ P.O.V. series kicks off with The Education of Shelby Knox, a documentary film about a 15-year-old girl’s fight to bring comprehensive, fact-based sex education to public schools in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock has…
Music CD Spotlight
Garbage collection Just when they seemed destined for the dust heap of history, Madison, Wisconsin’s finest rock/electronica quartet kicks it hard with the most guitar-heavy, rhythm-busting, fist-pumping album of their stellar 10-year career. As howling guitars (many taken from the James Honeyman-Scott school of how to make a female lead singer sound ballsy) rip through…
Food & Drink All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene CAPTION. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) En garde! Everything tastes better when it’s served from a stick. Even the most pilloried food item, be it asparagus or black licorice, can become a culinary wonder when consumed from a skewer. In that spirit, newly opened Fountain Grill, 2121…
Music San Antonio Rosie
Current Choice Rosie Flores The final track of Rosie Flores’ 1995 CD Rockabilly Filly languished in the can for quite some time before Flores saw fit to release it: nearly four decades, as a matter of fact. The recording, a brief, a cappella version of the classic “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down,” features a 7-year-old…
Music Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Cannon fodder Just a week after the “Video Trapped the Rapper” tour invaded Sanctuary, a more home-grown, underground hip-hop extravaganza will follow suit. The “Cannonball Jones Tour” (possibly an homage to sax great Cannonball Adderley and his bass player Sam Jones?) features four Texas titans – two MCs and two…
News Gone to the hogs
The Chacón family’s property values suffer from the Toyota buffer zone At first glance, the animals huddled together in a City South sylvan glade, a cow pasture on the Chacón family farm, appeared to be a pack of dogs. But they were too closely clustered in the center of the field, and their heads were…
Screens Armchair Cinephile
A fox in the video store CAPTION. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) With Catholicism finally out of the hot seat and actually the topic of fawning attention from the news media, 20th Century Fox looks prophetic in the release of some catalog titles that, just a couple of months ago, would be badly out of vogue.…
News Briefs
DECK2 Stuart Moore, a war casualty (Photo by Lisa Sorg) The Iraqi war: putting faces to numbers Inside the Broadway Tack and Feed Shop, among 50-caliber shells, American flags, and fatigues, are the headshots and names of the more than 1,550 Americans’ killed in the Iraq War. Innocent faces, wizened faces, faces of all colors.…
Screens The final curtain
Germans come to terms with their past and the Führer who ducked his own reckoning Actor Bruno Ganz, best known to American audiences as the wise, wistful angel of Wings of Desire, brings human scale to the 20th-century’s most terrifying villain in Der Untergang (Downfall), a German film about the final days leading up to…
Election – District 10A scrappy race
District 10 pits upstarts versus veterans Chip Haass Steve Schauer Joey Hernandez Chip Haass, 27, is the youngest member of City Council. A part-time teacher at St. Mary’s Hall, Haass won in 2003 by arguing that his youth and inexperience could be an asset because they would make him receptive to new ideas. In 2005,…
Food & Drink Holy hamburger!
The Lord’s Kitchen serves up a 2-pound burger as good as it is large The Lord’s Kitchen co-owner Charlie Weaver shows off the 2-pound Hurt You Burger at his east-side eatery. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) “You’ve got to check out the Lord’s Kitchen,” a Current staffer said during a recent holiday party. “They make the…
Election – District 8 Bumper to bumper
Love traffic? Try District 8 Carlos Cardenas (Photos by Lisa Sorg) Mike Keogh Bert Cecconi Art Hall Drive near I-10 and Loop 1604 or on Wurzbach, you know that District 8 has a traffic problem. The district, part of which lies over the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone, encompasses parts of northwest and north-central San Antonio,…
Food & Drink Hatched too soon
Café Pechugas has the embryo of a good idea; now to work on execution … From front: Cafe Pechuga’s Sundried Fruit Pechuga – chicken breast stuffed with apricots, cheese, onions, and bell peppers, topped with a sweet mango sauce and served with herbed pasta, red cabbage, pickles, and bread stick; cream cheese flan; and homemade…
Election – District 9The pot holes of Interstate San Pedro
Council candidates discuss the mean streets of District 9 Kevin Wolff (Photo by Lisa Sorg) Weston Martinez Although his father is Judge Nelson Wolff, Kevin Wolff never thought he’d enter politics. “Those feelings changed when I had kids,” he says. “I developed the sense that everyone has a community duty. When two of our Council…
Food & Drink Watergate Salad & fried rattlesnake
Las Cocinitas de Fiesta is a veritable cornucopia of classic recipes and local flavor When Las Cocinitas de Fiesta cookbook arrived at our offices, I was reminded of my Midwestern grandmothers’ 1950s Ladies Literary Club Cookbook, which, though politely bound in gray cloth, was filled with drunken rum balls and mayonnaise-laden pies, equals parts cheeky…
