Arts Artifacts
News and notes from the San Antonio art scene Where oh where has our arts-funding process gone? It’s disappeared deep into the bowels of City government, where it is scheduled to be examined February 13 in the Urban Affairs Committee, after which it will proceed to the full Council for approval. Or amendment, as was…
Music Nature meets nurture
Years of classical training finally pay off for the gifted Natalia Zukerman “It was required that I play an instrument. Just like a chore, I had to go practice,” Natalia Zukerman explains. Choice, you see, was never part of the equation for this talented singer-songwriter. Her father, Pinchas, was a celebrated violinist and conductor, her…
Feature Would the rich gay, white men please stand up?
The faltering Diversity Center reveals the LGBT community’s political weakness “Are you looking for the Diversity Center?” asked a woman, standing across Warren Street, of the person peering through the Center’s caged door. “Because it’s gone.” It’s gone, all right. While there is a light on in the hallway and a banner still hangs from…
Music CD Spotlight
Foxx hunt Cocksure playa and sly trickster — Jamie Foxx’s dual personae derive from an unquenchable but equally unassuming creative ambition. From Booty Call to Steamin’ Willie Beamen to Collateral, Ray, and choruses for Kanye? Of course, and why not? And yet each project gets a particular wink and a smile, just to let you…
Feature In the company of men
Josh Doyen is the new president of UTSA’s first gay fraternity, Alpha Lambda Tau. (Photo by Nicole Chaves) The president of UTSA’s gay fraternity talks about changing attitudes on campus Josh Doyen is a graduate student in political science and the president of UTSA’s chapter of Alpha Lambda Tau, a national gay fraternity based in…
Music Current Choice
Suicide by punk The Suicide Machines are pissed off, like a lot of Americans. But if you haven’t heard of them, don’t dismiss them as yet another new band of upstart, suburban punk rockers who think they have something to say about the state of world affairs and, in particular, the current White House administration.…
Feature “I don’t”
Not everyone in the LGBT community is sold on the idea of same-sex marriage “President Bush said he’s troubled by all the gay weddings going on in San Francisco. Then again, he also said he’s troubled by Bert and Ernie’s relationship in Sesame Street.” – Conan O’Brien Although President George W. Bush’s stance on gay…
Music Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Slam dunks In recent years the NBA’s All-Star Weekend has become an unofficial music industry gathering, particularly for folks in hip-hop and R&B. With this year’s game taking place in Houston, hip-hop’s current “it” town, the hype and festivities have grown to Texas-sized proportions. For Spurs fans, the excitement kicks…
Culture A crown fit for a queen
Miss Gay SA is back, my pretties. Don’t forget to curtsy. A few Saturdays back, in keeping with decades of hallowed tradition, our nation crowned its 80th Miss America under the glittering neon stars of the Vegas strip. And you missed it. No, it’s OK; don’t feel bad. So did roughly 99 percent of the…
Arts The triumph of froth
Ostensibly the more frivolous of the two, Marivaux trumps Pulitzer winner Nilo Cruz Theater is a writer’s medium. Production values aside, plays depend for their relevancy, longevity, and import on the craft of the playwright. The Triumph of Love, written by Pierre Carlet Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux in 1732, is on onstage at…
News Big Tex lives to fight another day
Developer James Lifshutz withdrew the proposed zoning change for his Big Tex site from the City Council agenda February 9. The Zoning Commission had recommended that Council approve the application for the Southtown property, which would allow Lifshutz to build multi-family housing and retail outlets on the site of a former W.R. Grace vermiculite-processing facility.…
Arts One more for the road
Jump-Start’s Chuck Squier followed a well-beaten Texas path out of the closet Piney Woods, white-bread Kilgore is pretty much about Friday-night football games and dating your college sweetheart, even marrying her. God forbid you should come out of the closet as a homosexual man. Homophobia’s thicker than seed ticks in the loblollys; gayness is equated…
Feature Progressive pulpits
GLBT-friendly churches are the antidote to the Religious Right When discussing the issue of homosexuality, Christian leaders generally fall back on a familiar refrain: Love the sinner, hate the sin. Even if you accept the first part of the statement — and that’s hardly the look of love we see in the eyes of Jerry…
Media Stars of David
The fifth annual Jewish Film Festival shines in the SA firmament If I had a dime for every time the word “Jew” appears in a Hollywood film released between 1927, when The Jazz Singer made movies talk, with a Yiddish inflection, and 1947, when a journalist (Gregory Peck) in Gentleman’s Agreement pretends to be Jewish…
Media South Texas Cinema
News from the greater SA film industry When we left the South Texas film scene last month, two films, La Tragedia De Macario and El Escape De Los Santos, were accepted to the Sundance and Hollywood DV Film Festival respectively. Happily, both films were picked up for national distribution as a result: Arrival Pictures, which…
Media What’s past is not past
A French celebrity is haunted by his youthful misdeeds Caché begins with what the French call trompe l’oeil: The eye is tricked into accepting as real the opening image, a stationary long shot of a residential facade. We soon learn that the opening scene is part of a videotape left in a bag outside that…
Media Special screenings
Mana – Beyond Belief Dir. Peter Friedman and Roger Manley (2004) Mana – Beyond Belief is the first film of three in the Onscreen at Artpace 2006 series organized by former Artpace resident Dario Robleto. In the film, Friedman and Manley explore the different incarnations of “mana,” or divinely derived power. 6:30 p.m. Thursday, February…
Media Armchair Cinephile
Punks, pimps, and preachers I don’t know how many Current readers know the name Tom Snyder, or ever saw his ‘70s talk show. Those who did may find it odd to think that this square character hosted such rowdies as Iggy Pop, Johnny Rotten, and the Ramones on his program, but those encounters are just…
News Briefs
Grandfathering vote slated for February 16 City Council last week postponed a public hearing and vote on the City’s grandfathering ordinance until Thursday, February 16. The public hearing begins at 5:30 p.m.; the vote will follow. At issue is the amount of time undeveloped land can qualify for grandfathering, also known as vested rights. When…
Media That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Racial tension rises high in Freedomland when a white woman’s car is allegedly hijacked by a black man with her 4-year-old son asleep in the back seat. But with the sketchy story Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) gives to police detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson), the New Jersey cop…
News Telling it straight
Why a gay and lesbian issue? Why not? When Proposition 2, known euphemistically as the “marriage amendment,” passed last fall, I felt dismayed but not surprised. After all, with the blessing of President George W. Bush, the emboldened Religious Right has become entrenched in American politics and culture — so much so that Texans were…
Food & Drink My morning with Wayne
The co-owner of W.D. Deli is an awfully nice, awfully chatty fellow It’s mid-morning at W.D. Deli, and sunlight is streaming in the large front windows of the restaurant, creating a warm pool of light around the table where I sit, unsuccessfully trying to harness a conversation with Wayne Beers: the green thumbs we didn’t…
Feature Politics is personal
City Councilwoman Elena Guajardo is SA’s first openly lesbian elected official Several weeks ago, über-conservative and perennial City Council heckler Jack Finger approached the Council dais and remarked that District 7’s Elena Guajardo, a “ho-mo-sex-yoo-ull,” was serving as Mayor Pro Tem that day. Roger Flores of District 1 came to Guajardo’s defense and told Finger…
Food & Drink Lullaby of spiceland
The buffet is just a savory distraction from the sweet seduction of the dessert case A Little India seems to be developing near the corner of Evers and Wurzbach. Two Indian stores have occupied the turf for some time now, and into the ’hood lately has come India Sweet & Spiceland. (Gotta love the name.)…
Feature Local lesbian and gay resources
ARTS Alamo City Men’s Chorale Gay and gay-friendly, 18 and older PO Box 120243, 495-SING, acmc-texas.org, webmaster@acmc-texas.org EVENTS PrideFest Happens each June, location TBA 601-5243, pridefestsa@yahoo.com PrideSA Block Party Sponsored by North Main Street bars Happens each June Texas Gay Rodeo Association San Antonio Chapter 823-2635, tgra.org TGRA rodeo will be held in Seguin August…
Food & Drink Hedonism without pleasure
Myra Kornfeld’s latest cookbook is all work and no flavor Myra Kornfeld writes books that make healthy folk feel great about cooking responsibly, albeit slowly. Her first cookbook, The Voluptuous Vegan, is the meatless, dairyless guide many vegans turn to when a change of palate pace is necessary. Her new book, The Healthy Hedonist, is…
Feature A lifeline for parents
PFLAG doesn’t want families to go into the closet when their loved ones come out Yvonne Jonas wants you to know that she is available anytime. “Sometimes when I answer the help-line phone it’ll be some woman crying her heart out; she can’t even catch her breath,” says Jonas, the one-woman band who runs the…
Food & Drink All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene If you’ve long considered trading in your baseball cap for a chef’s hat, now might be the time: The National Restaurant Association predicts a record $511 billion sales in 2006. Furthermore, the Culinary Institute of America, based in Hyde Park, New York, is coming to San…
Arts Pin-tucked to order
Guayabera legend Dos Carolinas is stitching for the Fiesta season Having given up hope for winter this year, we might as well turn our thoughts to the foundation of any San Antonio gentleman’s spring wardrobe: the guayabera. And we’re not talking about your grandpa’s guayabera either — in a Latino city like San Antonio, your…
Music Get Smart
For the Mechanical Walking Robotboy, the third lineup is the charm When Chris Smart formed the Mechanical Walking Robotboy in 1997, he was so fed up with the unkempt, ear-splitting attack of grunge rock, he decided to go as far in the opposite direction as possible. Along those lines, he and his new bandmates established…
