Chisme Libre art blogs
Chisme Libre is a fantastical catch-all for the twisted & brilliant keyboardists at the office. For the art-centric reader, we’ve collected the relevant posts here: On the Street: Artpace, Holden’s 101, Justin Parr, Second Saturday, and more Remembering Olvidate del Alamo On the Street: Soap, Lasers, and Prosthetics A Call for Katrina Survivors from Jump-Start…
The Queque
The Queque hopes you’ve enjoyed the campaign trail mix we’ve been serving up lately, and want you to try these delicious nuts: Mayor Phil Hardbody and 18 other candidates on San Antonio’s May 12 ballot did not bother to seek an endorsement from the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio, a chapter of the LGBT national…
The Queque
The Queque hopes you’ve enjoyed the campaign trail mix we’ve been serving up lately, and want you to try these delicious nuts: Mayor Phil Hardbody and 18 other candidates on San Antonio’s May 12 ballot did not bother to seek an endorsement from the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio, a chapter of the LGBT national…
The Queque
The Queque hopes you’ve enjoyed the campaign trail mix we’ve been serving up lately, and want you to try these delicious nuts: Mayor Phil Hardbody and 18 other candidates on San Antonio’s May 12 ballot did not bother to seek an endorsement from the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio, a chapter of the LGBT national…
The Say-Town Lowdown
It is appropriate that a person from Australia, home of the kangaroo, should be the first one dragged before the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. David Hicks, imprisoned there for more than five years, pleaded guilty last week to providing material support for terrorism. Hicks offers us a glimpse into the Kafkaesque netherworld of…
last words
– Illustration by Chuck Kerr
Great Things, Small Packages
Release Date: 2007-04-04 Gorditas Doña Tota 7053 San Pedro 375-8200 7:30am-9:30pm Mon-Sat; 8am-8pm Sun Credit cards Gorditas: $.99-$1.99 Accessible It might seem strange that a commodity that is hardly common currency on Tex-Mex menus hereabouts can serve as the entire foundation of a chain of restaurants, but Doña Tota has parlayed the gordita into a…
last words
– Illustration by Kimberly Aubuchon
Letters to the Editor
mail On the Cover The cast of Uprooted: The Katrina Project parade across the San Antonio River. The production, which premieres this weekend at Jump-Start, is inspired by personal tales of survival in the wake of the hurricane. Photos by Justin Parr. Mail Re: “A routine job, a routine execution,” March 21-27 If Gutierrez has…
The Queque
The Queque hopes you’ve enjoyed the campaign trail mix we’ve been serving up lately, and want you to try these delicious nuts: Mayor Phil Hardbody and 18 other candidates on San Antonio’s May 12 ballot did not bother to seek an endorsement from the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio, a chapter of the LGBT national…
Here’s the Beef
The Akaushi story is so multidimensional that it’s nearly impossible to pin down as one subject. It’s a Texas business story; a nutritional-science story; an animal-husbandry story; and a food story — all wrapped around 11 head of pure Japanese bovine. Plus, the word “Akaushi” is just plain fun to say. I’m not sure if…
Here’s the Beef
The Akaushi story is so multidimensional that it’s nearly impossible to pin down as one subject. It’s a Texas business story; a nutritional-science story; an animal-husbandry story; and a food story — all wrapped around 11 head of pure Japanese bovine. Plus, the word “Akaushi” is just plain fun to say. I’m not sure if…
Cherry Picking Abstinence
Some suicide bombers are reportedly motivated by a Qu’ranic promise: To reward martyrdom, 72 virgins will serve their pleasure in the afterlife. However, those erotic expectations are probably based on a linguistic misunderstanding; scholars contend that the correct translation is not “virgins” but “raisins.” So it is possible that the 9/11 terrorists are now sitting…
Game Theory
11
Game Theory
Virtual Laguna Beach, an immersive MTV world that lets players live the hit TV show. It could have been a disaster. During lunchtime on the first day of the Virtual Worlds conference, the line of attendees snaked out the cafeteria and down the hallways of the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Patrons chattered enthusiastically about the…
Sound and the Fury
Best Bett The International Songwriting Competition recently announced its 2006 winners and local vocalist/pianist Bett Butler walked away with first place in the annual contest’s jazz category. The Nashville-based ISC is generally recognized as the gold standard for songwriting contests and the 2006 competition boasted a mind-boggling panel of judges: Tom Waits, Brian Wilson, Frank…
Fitness Gurus
Gym Class Heroes build a sizable collection of apples. Courtesy photo. Gym Class Heroes 8pm Wed, Apri1 4 $12-$15 White Rabbit 2410 N. St. Mary’s 737-2221 Some bands form in garages. Others, like Hanson or the Partridge Family, are the product of genetics. There are also those that are born out of reality shows. And…
A Fab First Friday
6:25 p.m. 7 p.m. 7:30 p.m. 8 p.m. 8:30 p.m. You only go for the art, you say? Then set down the beer cup, quit tailing that hot maybe-out-of-high-schooler, and follow the Current’s handy guide to a fab First Friday. 6PM: Mo+PoMo UTSA Satellite Space, 115 Blue Star The annual MFA graduate show promises a variety…
Fitness Gurus
Gym Class Heroes build a sizable collection of apples. Courtesy photo. Gym Class Heroes 8pm Wed, Apri1 4 $12-$15 White Rabbit 2410 N. St. Mary’s 737-2221 Some bands form in garages. Others, like Hanson or the Partridge Family, are the product of genetics. There are also those that are born out of reality shows. And…
Skit in a Box
Ever feel like you’re living in the Mojave Desert of contemporary comic theater? It seems the cosmic hope we’ve (at least I’ve) been waiting for has been under our collective nose all along — San Antonio’s own Comedia A Go-Go. This five-strong band of sketch comedians will be rocking their production, Public Axis, at the…
The Say-Town Lowdown
It is appropriate that a person from Australia, home of the kangaroo, should be the first one dragged before the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. David Hicks, imprisoned there for more than five years, pleaded guilty last week to providing material support for terrorism. Hicks offers us a glimpse into the Kafkaesque netherworld of…
Skit in a Box
Ever feel like you’re living in the Mojave Desert of contemporary comic theater? It seems the cosmic hope we’ve (at least I’ve) been waiting for has been under our collective nose all along — San Antonio’s own Comedia A Go-Go. This five-strong band of sketch comedians will be rocking their production, Public Axis, at the…
The Queque
The Queque hopes you’ve enjoyed the campaign trail mix we’ve been serving up lately, and want you to try these delicious nuts: Mayor Phil Hardbody and 18 other candidates on San Antonio’s May 12 ballot did not bother to seek an endorsement from the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio, a chapter of the LGBT national…
The Queque
The Queque hopes you’ve enjoyed the campaign trail mix we’ve been serving up lately, and want you to try these delicious nuts: Mayor Phil Hardbody and 18 other candidates on San Antonio’s May 12 ballot did not bother to seek an endorsement from the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio, a chapter of the LGBT national…
The Bar Tab
Sueños Northwest Center Flea Market 3600 Fredericksburg, Ste. 126 E 5pm-midnight Fri, 10am-2pm Sat, noon-10pm Sun Beer: $2.50 Sueños is the perfect bar for an unlikely niche. Located in the sprawling Northwest Center Flea Market, it’s a surreal oasis amid the throngs of weekend shoppers looking for a myriad of goods. To best appreciate Sueños…
Toast
Are you still speaking to me, dear barfly? It’s been, what? Five months since I promised you a cocktail made with eggs and powdered sugar and frothing with post-Prohibition euphoria? And it’s going to be a while longer before that promise is fulfilled, but you should have thrown out those eggs long ago, anyway, and…
El Original, Normal
Reach for the margarita and flan, in back. Our critic gives them high marks at El Callejon. Photo by Antonia Padilla. El Callejon 13259 Blanco Rd. 479-0910 11am-10pm daily Credit cards Dinner entrées: $13.25-$18.50 Accessible Woe unto any restaurant of the Mexican persuasion that attempts to sneak into town under cover of darkness from places…
Drive Me Crazy
Illustration by Beto Gonzalez What follows is by no means a “best of” San Antonio taco trucks. Rather, regard it as an initial attempt to crack the surface and explore the ubiquitous yet elusive taco-truck scene. As the search continues, some form of rankings may develop, but for now, until a king/queen is crowned, consider…
CHIP Shot
No one has ever accused Texas Republicans of being quick on the uptake — except when it comes to new ways to criminalize abortion and slap the words “In God We Trust” on everything except plastic grocery sacks. So, it should come as no surprise that last week, some Republicans in the Texas Legislature finally…
Drawn Blood
A cartoon by Bob Englehart, killed by the Hartford Courant in 1995. Courtesy Image. Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression Edited by David Wallis W.W. Norton $15.95, 282 pages The Journalist (capitalized when archetypal) knows that a writer hasn’t truly “arrived” until the day his writing is so controversial, so edgy, so…
The Say-Town Lowdown – Guest Column
Eenie meenie miney moe, Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go. The innocent children’s rhyme was not so innocent in its earlier version, before “tiger” replaced the n-word. Fugitive slaves defied the antebellum order and ruthless bounty hunters set out to catch them, by the toe or any other…
From Boyz II Killers
A LONG WAY GONE: MEMOIRS OF A BOY SOLDIER By Ishmael Beah Farrar, Straus and Giroux $22, 240 pages Until he was 12, Ishmael Beah’s only experience of war was watching Rambo and other gory movies. But the story he tells in A Long Way Gone seems a sad lampoon of Peter Pan. Instead of…
The Queque
Oh woe, woe is the Queque, whose wee muckraking heart lies in shards and splinters on the newsroom floor; Express-News crime reporter Vianna Davila has shielded herself from the world and set her MySpace profile to private. 🙁 A couple weeks ago, in a poke at E-N columnist Ken Rodriguez, the Queque quoted Davila’s remarks…
Alamo, The Musical
William Barret Travis (Ben Gamble) looks on while Davy Crockett (Wade Young) shows off his mad-bear ninja skills. Gone to Texas Through April 29 $36.95 dinner & show $20 show only The Church Bistro & Theatre 1150 S. Alamo 271-7791 Churchbistroand theatre.com Know what I love about musical theater? You can always tell how far…
Anti-Immigrant ≠ Patriot
No One is Illegal Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border By Justin Akers Chacón and Mike Davis Photographs by Julian Cardona Haymarket Books $14, 240 pages Mexican-American art has always been problematic in this country, especially when it has to do with workers. Back in 1933, Nelson Rockefeller’s employees revolted against images…
Songs of Ourselves
Poet Edward Hirsch. Courtesy photo. Trinity University Press “Reading as Relationship” Edward Hirsch 6:30pm Thu, Mar 7 Free Trinity University Stieren Theater 715 Stadium Dr. 999-8882 Trinity.edu Poet Edward Hirsch maintains that there has never been a civilization without poetry. His latest book, Poet’s Choice, contains selections from 130 poets worldwide from ancient to modern…
Unleash Your Inner Campaign Monitor
Do municipal politics make you listless? Are you achy and cranky when campaign season rolls along? Do you suffer from insomnia or restlessness, toss and turn at night, or have nightmares in which Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer are pinning you down until you say, “Uncles! I promise I’ll keep them honest!” If you’ve answered…
‘Otherwise’ Updated
On the set: Dianne Monroe and Salwa Arnous. Salwa proudly wears the colors of the Palestinian flag. Photo by Justin Parr. Otherwise Occupied March 9-18 8pm Fri-Sat, 3pm Sun Jump-Start Theatre 108 Blue Star 227-5867 Jump-start.org The second incarnation of Otherwise Occupied, an original play first performed at San Antonio’s Jump-Start in 2005 that asks…
The Mashup
From the Editor The MashUp was fixin’ to be in a bad mood come Saturday. On the last day of February, the San Antonio Public Library Board quietly voted to change the signage at the District 10 Oakwell Branch: It’ll now read The Tobin Library at Oakwell — answering the supplications of the Tobin Endowment,…
Armchair Cinephile
Some critics of Black History Month complain about the safe familiarity of it all, suggesting that George Washington Carver, Rosa Parks, and company are beyond needing an institutionalized, month-long genuflection. Whatever the merits of that position, you have to wonder: Without the every-February ritual, how many commercial enterprises would be willing to gamble on issuing…
   Top Chefs Like It Local
A few of Flavor’s favorite Texan things: Llano Estacado Texas Signature Red, Pure Luck goat cheese, Fain’s honey, Cherith Valley Gardens Pickled Okra, Oak Hill Farms spinach, and locally grown broccoli, thyme, and heirloom tomatoes — all available at Whole Foods or Central Market. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: I have sinned by allowing…
CDs Nuts
Friend and Foe Menomena (Barsuk) Supposedly this Portland, Oregon, band writes songs in little instrumental loops using some kind of studio software that lead singer Brent Knopf programmed himself. Whether their new album sounds like it was recorded this way, I have no idea. I do know that Friend and Foe sounds like it was…
   The Southwestern Chef Incubator
Shelley Grieshaber, director of education at CFA, demonstrates the joy of cooking. It really does make sense that chefs in training would be interested in sustainable sources of food. After all, their future career would be moot if quality produce, meats, and fish were no longer available. They’d become Soylent Green chefs. Not an…
Aural Pleasure
Not Too Late Norah Jones (Blue Note) Same Old Song You’d have to be a self-loathing sourpuss of the first order to dislike Norah Jones. She’s humble, self-deprecating, sensitive, seemingly unaware of her own beauty, and stubbornly resistant to hype and gimmickry. And, just to seal the deal, she loves Willie Nelson. That’s why it’s…
   Field of Greens
Robin Bowman gently plows the fields at Rancho de la Chuparrosa. “Living out here, raising chickens that predators might eat; we might have a rainstorm that might kill 50 chickens at once,” says Robin Bowman matter-of-factly as we stand in one of her poultry yards while Current photographer Justin Parr tries to coax a closeup…
Sound and the Fury
Strong Week Maybe the pre-SXSW flow of musicians on I-35 has something to do with it, but this promises to be an exceptional week in SA for live music. In addition to the seven-night SA Indie Fest — covered elsewhere in this issue and online at Saindie.com, here are some highlights: Eugene Chadbourne, veteran avant-garde…
Snack Attack
Josh Huskin of Lie and Wait pounds the kit at a January 27 hardcore show at Scooby’s Snack Shack. Photo by Tyler Nutter. Sinking Ships, Lie and Wair, Hour of the Wolf, and others 7pm Tue, Mar 13 $7 Scooby’s Snack Shack 1709 Blanco Rd. 732-1939 If you’ve ever dined at a family-oriented pizza restaurant…
Seven-Day Weekend
Girls on the wing: Delphine Gunning and Robin Lambaria are the masterminds behind SA indie Fest, a week-long music event operating out of Revolution Room, Rebar, and the Red Room beginning March 7. Photo by Justin Parr. SA Indie Fest Wed, Mar 7-Tue, Mar 13 $18 (one-day pass); $75 (week pass) Revolution Room, Rebar, and…
6
6
6
6
