Arts Online quality time
Massively multiplayer games may be the new town square (or hotel room) Weak and bruised from battle, I stagger into the tavern with Skador by my side. This burly dwarf has saved my life several times tonight. He is also my lover. Who would have thought that a gnome sorceress and a dwarf hunter would…
Music Current choice
Country fulks itself It would be fair to say that Robbie Fulks has a love-hate relationship with country music. He loves the music itself, he just can’t stand the people involved with it. Fulks first expressed his distaste for Nashville’s Music Row in 1997 with “Fuck This Town,” a bitterly comic adios to his brief…
Arts In the round
News and notes from the San Antonio theater scene This month it’s all about name-dropping here at ITR, as though I’ve always been a frustrated gossip columnist-wannabe. First off, a warm (through gritted teeth) goodbye to Latrelle Bright, founder and artistic director of The Renaissance Guild, whose friends and colleagues gathered at an invitation-only birthday/going-away…
Music Down low
System of a Down The must-have album for the summer of 2005 is not the typical, fun-loving, noise pollution that engulfs every single moment on the radio, MTV, and the jock-rock albums hitting your record stores. With its third studio album, Mesmerize, System of a Down ruptures through the layers of pop artifice and creates…
Screens Heroism in hindsight
The Great Raid takes its cues from the fuzzy glow that surrounds all things WWII Twice during the past decade, in 1992 and 1996, the American public committed electoral patricide. It rejected two decorated veterans of World War II, George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole, in favor of a younger man, Bill Clinton, who…
Music : Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Culture clashes You know it’s a surreal week on the live-music front when The Mars Volta and American Idol’s Bo Bice work the same stage in a span of 48 hours. The Mars Volta, much hailed, prog-influenced spinoff of El Paso’s At the Drive-In, will open for System of a…
Screens If it bleeds, it leads
Crónicas shows how far the media will go to get the scoop One of the first scenes in Crónicas is a mother and father grieving over the casket of their murdered son. Hovering over them, a cameraman begins to lean in closer to the couple and proceeds to move the man’s arm, which is consoling…
Screens Bouncing balls
One son’s bittersweet look at the Harlem Globetrotter father who traveled between two families Mel Davis played with the Harlem Globetrotters in the 1960s, when the Trotters were something more than the preening basketball clowns they’ve become over the years. This was an era when the NBA was staid and disciplined, before Connie Hawkins, Julius…
Screens Armchair Cinephile
Chappelle MIA, Undeclared rediscovered The news this week is not good for fans of stand-up comedy. According to Charlie Murphy, who was responsible for much of last season’s triumph, The Chappelle Show will never resume production. After we’ve all taken a moment of silence to mourn, and to pray for Dave’s speedy return to the…
News ‘Takings’ advantage
The Ledge likely won’t pass an eminent-domain bill this session, which means government plans trump private property for now After kicking up a dust storm worthy of a Larry McMurtry novel, the 79th Texas Legislature is likely to leave the Supreme Court’s recent eminent-domain ruling roaming freely over Texas’ pastures and subdivisions, at least until…
Screens Special screenings
Movies on the Slab Evenhand Dir. Joseph Pierson (2002) Filmed on location in San Antonio, Evenhand a tale of two beat cops in a small Texas town has received rave reviews for its sense of place and social-realist script and acting. The main feature screens at 9 p.m. Thursday, August 11, at the Slab at…
News Mega scam
Don’t laugh, but SAC professor Gerald Busald is looking for honesty in the lottery commission “Why should I be pointing out there should be truth in government? I’m a math professor.” For the past eight years, San Antonio College’s Gerald Busald has assigned his statistics students to analyze the Texas Lottery, in which they’ve embarrassed…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Delving into the world of voodoo, Kate Hudson (Almost Famous) stars in The Skeleton Key, a thriller directed by Iain Softley (K-PAX). As a hospice worker, Caroline Ellis (Hudson) discovers a secret room in her patient’s home that is filled with disturbing paraphernalia associated with black magic. With a…
News Speed reads
Mystery money San Antonio Police continue to investigate a briefcase of money anonymously left at the Islamic Center, 8638 Fairhaven. Sheikh Yousef of the center discovered the blue case half-open and full of money outside the door around 5 a.m. Wednesday, August 3 while he was opening the building for morning prayers. He immediately called…
Food & Drink Grannies gone wild
Ladies who lunch eat adventurously at Pam’s Patio Kitchen I may be at the top of a slippery slope, but here goes: Sometimes you can tell what kind of food to expect at a restaurant by observing the diners. On my first visit to Pam’s Patio Kitchen, I was the only single male over age…
Feature A summer chill
The 15th anniversary of Heidi Seeman’s murder is a reminder of Bexar County’s 1,600 cold cases, some more than 50 years old February 12, 1993 was a work day for Sheila Smith-Ramirez, so the best she could do was to walk her 15-year-old daughter, Emily García, who was three months pregnant, to the bus stop…
Food & Drink Guess what? Chicken butt!
Tender and succulent, beer-can chicken is no joke A few hazy evenings ago, the only prerequisite for our beer-can chicken barbecue was absolutely no chicken-crossing-the-road jokes. Even so, the sight of a chicken upended with a tallboy in its hindquarters hatched an evening of raunch and bodily humor rivaled only by the potty-mouthed picture The…
Arts Establishing shot
At SAY Sí, young filmmakers find their focus by trying on all the hats With wavy blond hair cut long and combed forward to swoop over his eyes, Travis English looks like a 17-year-old surfer caught miles away from the water. But while wake boarding is a hobby, English dreams of more than big air…
Food & Drink Reunited
Peaches and pigs come together in a love medley The joy of a cooking magazine is more than recipes; it’s the lovely photos, travel writing, and accompanying food banter – the pleasure of dreaming about cooking and eating as much as actually doing it. As a reader, I’m not so interested in attending the Gotrocks…
News Party lines
Mr. Sheridan’s colonia San Antonio Police cars blocked the private road at both ends, nobody in or out at 6251 Culebra Road as investigators from the City’s Code Compliance and the San Antonio Water System conducted the great raid on the La Isla neighborhood in February 20-aught five. There weren’t any gang members dealing crack…
Food & Drink All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Don’t Thai me down Last week, the family that for two years ran Thai Kitchen, 445 McCarty, packed up their pots and pans and disappeared, allegedly returning to Thailand. “We went by there and they were gone,” said Bianca Suwanasung, who owns Thai Kitchen On The…
News Not drowning, waving
As DNC chairman, Howard Dean is buoying his party’s spirits On a recent San Antonio evening, the air was so still and drenched with humidity that the 100 or so Democratic party insiders, candidates, and supporters who turned out to see Howard Dean at La Villita seemed to be treading water rather than applauding. Democrats…
Music Rise of phenom
What becomes John Legend most? Meeting the high expectations that come with his lofty name His label-written biography calls him, “The industry’s latest ‘legend.'” He has been forced to read, “Is he living up to his name?” so many times, he now recites the quote in a goofy voice to show his boredom with lazy…
News Briefs
News flash: African Americans spotted on SAs North Side Youd think if youre going to put on something for the African-American community … said a woman to her friend. … youd invite some African Americans, the friend replied. About 70 people, most of them African American, showed up at an August 4 public discussion, The…
Music All Ears
Christmas in August For some reason, the last month or so has seen a deluge of the kind of lavish, ridiculously cool, or outright desperate products that record companies usually reserve for the Christmas season, when the families of obsessive collector-types are looking everywhere for that one thing their loved one doesn’t yet own. Why…
Arts Wall flowers
Fran Colpitt’s final exhibit is a garden of paintings descended from the mural tradition Fran Colpitt, chairperson of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin, is (hesitantly) leaving San Antonio for a new teaching position in Fort Worth. Now, art isn’t everyone’s obsession, so to put it profanely,…
Food & Drink The quick bread conspiracy
Everyone loves a warm biscuit and the best are made from scratch, right? This month we have been bombarded with press releases from Red Lobster, letting us know that September is National Biscuit Month. I’m not thinking of sending anyone a card, but it stirred a lot of biscuit talk in the office and got…
Arts Sí se puede
Photographer Cecilia Alvarez Muñoz says new Smithsonian exhibit showcases Latino potential “I think that anybody that was born after the camera was made is interested in photography,” exclaims renowned Chicana artist Celia Alvarez Muñoz. “That we continue and pursue that interest is something else.” Muñoz has pursued her passion for photography, and the results can…
Music CD Spotlight
Cole comfort It took Mary J. Blige close to a decade before deciding that she didn’t want any more drama. Keyshia Cole, a clear inheritor to Blige’s no-nonsense, hip-hop-soul throne, seemingly came to that realization by the time she recorded her debut album, The Way It Is. On this album, Cole finds an infinite number…
