News : Party lines
Who’s not beholden? City Council ignored hotelier Rick Drury’s plea last week to rethink approving a contract with a Marriott Courtyard Hotel operator that seeks permission to hang balconies on a multi-story hotel on the site of the former St. Mary’s Catholic School, which sits on the River Walk adjacent to Drury’s own hotel. Larry…
Media : Armchair Cinephile
Provoked conversations Since watching United 93, I’ve been dazed. News reports sound different to me, as if I’m somehow hearing them through both today’s ears and the ones I had five years ago. Many Americans will understandably refuse to see the film, no matter how good and thoughtful it is, but its arrival seems like…
News : TABE to shift bilingual-ed model
In light of a 2002 demographic study by Steve Murdock and Associates suggesting that the future of Texas will be significantly darkened by a failure to successfully educate the Hispanic population of the state, particularly English-language learners and other minorities (as well as a Texas Education Agency estimate that more than 684,000 students in Texas…
Food & Drink : Smooth as silk
Sawasdee’s Thai cuisine is polished, but lacks a certain sizzle It should come as no surprise to the discerning diner — which, naturally, includes all of you faithful readers — that, as in American cuisine, there is a wide range of styles and types associated with what we consider ethnic food. South Texans tend to…
News : On the Street
Rosita’s retirement rocks If you had called me last Thursday evening, April 20, 2006, and if I had been incredibly rude (not silenced my phone) and answered, you would have heard a mesh of hooting, hollering, clapping, drink orders, and mariachis in the background as we tried to converse. No, I was not attending an…
Food & Drink : Mexico City Mole
Tres Moles offers authentic café fare Let’s face it. We live in a town with a Mexican or Tex-Mex restaurant around every corner. With rare exceptions, you can generally count on a tasty, moderately priced meal that will satisfy a specific craving or the need for a quick lunch. Most San Antonians have a favorite…
News : ldquo;Truth tour” addresses immigrant workers’ rights
The typical Immokalee worker’s day begins before dawn and lasts until two tons of tomatoes are picked and heaped into buckets. Workers earn about 45 cents per 32-pound bucket and the pay rate has not increased since 1978. By sundown, workers are lucky to have $50 in their pockets. For Florida field workers, fair wages,…
Food & Drink : Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies
Baking without eggs is not such a nutty idea, after all Even if you eschew the egg for dietary or moral reasons, its versatility is very handy and in some cases, such as baking, even necessary. It is possible, however, to mimic the egg with natural ingredients — thus avoiding the heavy, starchy, sometimes chalky…
Feature A tale of two cities
San Antonians who grew up in Laredo talk about loving, loathing and fearing their hometown Interstate Highway 35 is 1,565 miles of persistent blacktop, unfurling like an epic, sun-scorched tongue from somewhere north of the Twin Cities to the mercurial and contentious region where our nation ends and abruptly becomes another. Ride it north from…
Food & Drink : All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Are you God’s gift to the grill? Put the why and wherefore in a 100-word essay entitled “Why I should be America’s most PAMazing Griller” and ship it off to Pam for Grilling by May 31. If your essay is among 10 finalists, you’ll compete in…
Arts : Modern-day gladiators (?!)
Cage fighting is legal in Texas. Let the rumpus begin “Until about six months ago, cage fighting was illegal in Texas,” explains Michael Shoffner, Xtreme Cage Fighting producer. “You had to use a boxing ring and you couldn’t fight with a closed fist. It was just ridiculous; you had a bunch of guys slapping each…
Music : Customatic for the people
Lil’ Bit and her hard-working roots band are ready for the world Jen Adams, aka Lil’ Bit, may come across as a younger, more brooding Wanda Jackson, but she likes to think that she’s channeling Minnie Pearl onstage, along with that giddy jamboree feeling of Hee Haw. But entertaining in public wasn’t always the plan…
Arts : All that ass
Stephanie Elbel, top, is delightful as the murderous waif Roxie Hart, while Anne Gerber, bottom, provides a tour-de-force of vaudeville kicks and splits as Velma in the Vex’s production of Chicago. The Vex’s Chicago puts its best pelvic thrust forward It’s a bit of a head-scratcher why the Vexler Theatre chose Chicago to conclude its…
Music : Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Injured list Drumming is an athletic exercise, so it’s hardly uncommon for a lifetime behind the kit to take the kind of physical toll commonly associated with a professional sports career. Clay Meyers, the veteran TexasTornados timekeeper, has been sidelined for the last several months by an intensifying problem with…
Arts : More chuckles, chavo
El Chuco y La Che is clever but short on laughs “Put-attention,” Rodney Garza exclaimed, bien pachuco, sipping on a michelada while persuading the audience of the importance of the letter “ch.” Rodney Garza’s one-man show at the Guadalupe is an homage to the Spanish “ch.” El Chuco y La Che is a comedic homage…
Music : Herbie reloaded
With cameras in tow, a legendary jazz pianist once again slips outside the box There are musicians who change the way we think about music, there are musicians who change the way we make music, and then there are musicians who change the world. Legendary jazz innovator Herbie Hancock is all three. Herbie Hancock: “To…
Arts : Lost in space
Challenger Park, Stephen Harrigan’s second novel, is essentially a midlife crisis set in the context of NASA’s manned-space-travel program: Astronaut Lucy Kincheloe is questioning her career choice and marriage when she lands a routine eight-day shuttle mission, her first, to deliver supplies to the Expedition, an international space station. When Lucy becomes stranded on the…
Music : CD Spotlight
Glam slam Prince has religious epiphanies like most of us have breakfast. Like Tom Cruise has inappropriate bursts of laughter. Like Sugar Ray Leonard used to have boxing comebacks. With great regularity. In fact, the conversions have come so frequently that most of us missed at least a few. Here’s a not-so-quick recap: In 1981,…
Arts : In the round
News and notes from the San Antonio theater scene Dr. Paul Boskind, owner of the revamped Church Bistro and Theatre (formerly the Alamo Street Restaurant and Theatre), has appointed SAC adjunct theater professor and fellow King William resident Diane Malone artistic director at the new/old venue. Hired to direct Nunsense (sold-out houses mandated an extension:…
Music : Current choice
Pan Africa Ten years ago, pianist-composer Danilo Perez released an album entitled PanaMonk. Its title perfectly conveyed what Perez has been trying to achieve since releasing his debut album in 1993. Taking the Afro-Cuban rhythmic elements he derived from his youth in Panama and combining them with the harmonic complexities of Thelonious Monk and Bud…
Arts : Best Fiesta bets
As Fiesta revelers pack the streets, it’s always fun to try an event somewhat off the beaten path in addition to the customary standbys. Make good use of the time off from work as the Alamo City shuts down midday on Friday: After the Battle of Flowers Parade, continue your Fiesta celebration at the Sunken…
Media : They call it a ‘specialty thriller’
Don’t be fooled by the sweet, innocent face: Ellen Page is looking to teach Patrick Wilson a hard lesson in Hard Candy. Hard Candy’s creative team talks about its controversial take on pedophilia and revenge Brian Nelson, Hard Candy scribe and beard aficionado, knew marketing his film would be damn-near impossible considering the subject matter:…
Media : Dread Air
United 93 may not be right, or at the right time, but its power is undeniable Maybe United 93 writer-director Paul Greengrass got some of the verbal details wrong in his account of the fourth 9/11 plane that never reached its Capitol Building target, as evidenced by the cockpit recordings recently played at the Zacarias…
News : Counterpoint
Raise high the teachers Texas public-school enrollment is to teacher salaries as Texas’s geographic area is to … Pennsylvania’s! That’s right: We rank second in enrollment, with more than 4.3 million students attending public schools, but our teacher salaries average $41,000 – six grand below the national average – and our annual expenditure per pupil…
Media : That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Although much is still unknown about the fourth hijacked airplane of the 9/11 tragedy, director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) brings the first feature film on the topic to theaters with United 93. The Boeing 757, which is said to have been heading to crash into either the White…
News : School’s out
Facing an education-finance crisis, the Legislature tentatively ponders reform Question: When is a legislative session devoted to school financing not about education? Answer: When it’s a special session of the Texas Legislature mandated by Rick Perry. Close inspection of Perry’s April 17 proclamation calling the 79th Legislature to a special session reveals little mention of…
Media : Bee good
Surprise! Life lessons abound in Akeelah’s story If Horatio Alger were still alive, he would be writing screenplays about underprivileged children who by dint of pluck and luck manage to excel. Though Alger died in 1899, the American Dream lives on, at least in all the screenplays still being written about resolute youngsters who take…
News : Speed reads
If you can’t beat ’em … The City is seeking applicants for several at-large and district boards and commissions that help shape and implement local policy. At-large vacancies include 10 slots on the Convention and Visitors Commission, and five slots on the Watershed Improvement Advisory Committee. Applications for at-large positions must be submitted no later…
Media : Special screenings
DECALOGUE 10: THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR’S GOODS Krzysztof Kieslowski (1989) The last of Kieslowski’s 10 films based on the Ten Commandments, Decalogue 10 is a dark comedy that reveals the error of valuing materials possessions over family. The story begins when two brothers inherit their father’s valuable stamp collection. 4 p.m. Sunday, April…
