Food and drink: SA’s celebrated restaurants and watering holes
Best burger, staff pick
Golden slumbers
The cuisine is awakening at Oro
POP-UP OP ART . . . SORT OF
The McNay showcases a Charles Biederman retrospective On a recent visit, all three members of our party – two writers and one gallery director, people familiar with museum etiquette – were at one point or another admonished by a zealous member of the staff, on guard to see to it that no human hand comes…
MAKING MAD MONEY
madmedia’s annual art party puts the fun in fundraising Madmedia began in 1998 when founding member Elijah Rios premiered his multi-media performance piece, Max the Monster, at Jump-Start Theater. Rios and the actors formed such a bond Past madmedia productions include the provacative play, Jotos del Barrio, which established Jump-Start attendance records in 2002.…
ARTIFACTS
news and notes from the san antonio art scene Finesilver Gallery will function as a compound showcase from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, May 1, exhibiting new work by Lordy Rodriguez, Laura Lark, Loris Cecchini, Chris Sauter, and Courtney Smith. LA-based artist Rodriguez and Houston-based Lark both use unlikely genres of commercially applied art as starting…
TITILLATING READING
It’s not the owner’s manual that your – or your lady’s – boobs failed to come with, but ‘The Breast Book’ is informative The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argues the relationship between culture and language. People defending this theory point to the large number of words Eskimos have for snow, illustrating myriad uses the culture has for…
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Talk of the Devil should be required reading for all who now hold power or worship it Nostalgia – from Greek nostos, return home – is a kind of homesickness. But if Amin, who still plots a return to Kampala, after 23 years of cushioned exile, pines for home, Uganda yet suffers from the…
TWISTED GENES, STRAIT-AHEAD THRILLS
And thank goodness. Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler is a demonic-looking, German-born beast with hoof-like feet, dark blue skin, and a prehensile tail. He teleports, leaving a wispy cloud in his wake, and when we are introduced to him, he’s trying to kill the President. That’s not his fault, though – Nightcrawler, aka Kurt Wagner, is the…
NEW REVIEWS
IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY Dir. Fred Schepisi; writ. Jesse Wigutow; feat. Michael Douglas, Kirk Douglas, Bernadette Peters (PG-13) There is very little happening here, really, just two hours of affected dysfunction. Michael plays Alex Gromberg, who resents his father, Mitchell, and is resented by his sons, Eli (Rory Culkin) and Asher (Cameron Douglas). Other…
Armchair Cinephile
UNUSUAL SUSPECTS ALL AROUND Spirited Away (Buena Vista) Kiki’s Delivery Service (Buena Vista) Castle in the Sky (Buena Vista) My Neighbor Totoro (20th Century Fox) Speed Racer (Artisan) Public Access (Vanguard) OK, time to admit it: For once, the Academy really nailed the Oscars. They didn’t quite ace the nominations, but out of the films…
A HOLLOW FEELING
Loss of life diminishes us all We live on the Northwest Side of San Antonio, where there are patches of wooded areas that are home to families of deer. For some time, as I drove to work, I would see stags and doe and their offspring gracefully leaping fences, idly grazing by the side of…
STILL PLAYING
A MAN APART Dir. F. Gary Gray; writ. Christian Gudegast; feat. Vin Diesel, Larenz Tate, Timothy Olyphant (R) A Man Apart is derivative, mindless, and nauseatingly nonchalant in its depiction of violence, but perhaps most grating is the dialogue. A film this stupid shouldn’t be confusing, but what to make of the slang? To paraphrase:…
COWPUNCHED
Instead of spending money on the hapless cowboys, the city should reprioritize Given this, the Dallas Cowboys and I have a conflicted relationship. It began in the heady seasons of the ’70s when I, an anxious preteen, worked endlessly to divert my father’s Sunday attention from the TV and towards that strange father/daughter distance that…
News Deregulation, not education
House bills let schools set their own standards Editor’s Note: These House bills were scheduled to be voted on April 29, after the Current’s deadline. Go to www.sacurrent.com to see the results of the vote. A decade ago, Texas public schools performed so poorly and were such a national disgrace that the only way state…
UNIFORM CODE
Military harassment: fact or folklore? In a way, it looks like an illogical bit of strategizing. Why would you want to call attention to the idea that people dislike your candidate? But the theory behind such underhanded campaigning is perfectly sound, if morally bankrupt. If you make your opponents look like rude, belligerent wackos, you…
SQUEEZEBOX OFFICE
The 22nd annual Tejano Conjunto Festival celebrates the international growth of South Texas music “Flaco is like a God in Spain, so they’ve been really influenced by him,” says Pilar Chapa, director of the Xicano Music Program at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, and organizer of the upcoming Michael Salgado performs at the 2001…
BACK FROM THE DEAD
Six re-issues + one newly discovered demo = posthumous accolades for Townes When Townes Van Zandt died of a heart attack in New York City at age 52, it seemed like one more nail in the coffin for the American songwriter. Sure, we still have Dylan, but he gets a million dollars now for…
DISTRICT 1: 10,000 YEARS B.C.
San Antonio’s District 1 the seat of San Antonio civilization San Antonio was already inhabited by the time Domingo Terán, accompanied by Fray Damían Massanet, explored the land surrounding San Pedro Springs. Herds of buffalo roamed the plain and the Payaya tribe of Native Americans who lived here called their village “Yanaguana.” The Spanish invaders…
SOUND AND THE FURY
a week on the scene BANG YOUR HEAD San Antonio’s most beloved metalhead to the rescue! Robb Chavez, creator of the cable access show Robb’s MetalWorks, is hosting a showcase of talent from the far reaches of Texas. The event will feature Houston-based band Dereistic, McAllen’s Slow Grind, SA’s Angerkill, Dallas’ Deviant, El Paso’s …
IT’S POLITICAL PLAYOFF TIME
MAYOR Zzzzz. Incumbent and power forward Mayor Ed Garza waltzes through an election that features two third-string guards, Michael Idrogo and Shirley Thompson. Why did no legitimate candidate dare to post up against Garza; is he that invincible? Garza sweeps the series, 4-0. DISTRICT 1 He hit me! He called me names! Call a tech…
SING ALONG FOR A SONG
A seven-night survey of SA’s karaoke scene Karaoke is the next best thing to bowling. From the streets of Kobe City, Japan, the term karaoke derives from two words: karapoo, which means empty, and oke, from okesutura, meaning orchestra. For many, the word karaoke means only one thing: fun. In popular American culture, television’s Solid…
ALL EARS
R.I.P., UNCLE TUPELO AND AUNT NINA No Depression, Still Feel Gone, and March 16-20, 1992 constitute three quarters of the short-lived band’s immeasurably influential body of work, but the little indie for which they were recorded went belly-up some time back, and wasn’t exactly the rock of Gibraltar before that. Now reissued (with generous bonus…
