ALL EARS — PAYING TRIBUTE
Then there are tributes like Almost You: The Songs of Elvis Costello, which was put out by Austin’s young Glurp label and will be released Tuesday via Bar/None. These are the labors of love, collections of artists hip enough to matter but not big enough to expect a lot of sales, who obviously care deeply…
JAZZ BURST
Bartz first burst onto the jazz scene in the mid-’60s with two albums (reissued in 1998 as a double-album set, Libra/Another Earth). Listening to them more than a quarter-century later, Bartz’ music sounds amazingly contemporary (which doesn’t say much for the “young lions” on the jazz scene today, many of whom are simply recycling the…
CHOICE CUTS
ON THE HOUSE Although the Urban Campfire series holds its “house concerts” in the confines of Lion’s Fieldhouse, the small space affords some of the same pleasures: It is as if you’re sitting in the Golden Circle at the Verizon Center, but your wallet is about $100 heavier. Annie Gallup This month’s installment brings…
(DON’T) TAKE ME TO THE RIVER
An October 2002 report issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (previously the TNRCC) reveals that parts of Walzem Creek, Salado Creek, Lower Leon Creek, and the Upper and Lower San Antonio River are so contaminated as to violate the federal Clean Water Act. The report, also known as a 303d list, is based…
THE GRATEFUL DEAD
As if San Antonio needs another example of the lack of transparency in City government, Councilman Bobby Perez, aka “The Kingmaker” (so named for the way he rules his District 1 fiefdom and knights his political pals) kept the public in the dark when he slipped Hippo on the downtown strip. The Council allegedly approved…
EL MIKADO
First performed in London in 1885, The Mikado is the most popular of the 14 collaborations between librettist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan, and perhaps the most popular operetta by anyone ever. Three years after a student production at UTSA and four years after filmmaker Mike Leigh made it the centerpiece of Topsy…
A DIVINE COMEDY
You won’t see Sister catching her breath or gathering her wits as she waxes nostalgic about the heyday of the pre-Vatican II Catholic church – unless Kathleen Stefano wants you to. A veteran stage and film actor, Stefano applies improvisational talent to her role as “Sister,” a didactic, yet endearing teacher who loves a good…
TO EACH HIS OWN?
When Marc (Philip Kazen) questions the logic of Serge’s (John O’Neill) acquisition, another question arises: What do we value and why? While Serge maintains that the canvas brings him joy, Marc argues that it is “shit” purchased purely for fashion. This question of value is pursued to the point of evaluating the friendship’s value, and…
LAB RATS ‘R’ US
Lab U.S.A. would be the most disturbing comic book ever published if it were a work of fiction. Unfortunately, the book is more than 150 pages of undiluted horror are an academic chronicle of systematic institutional abuses perpetrated over the last century on an unsuspecting American public. Artist and author Kevin C. Pyle’s grotesque, exquisitely…
NOT “JUST ANOTHER HOLOCAUST FILM”
The Pianist “Staggering but very personal” Dir. Roman Polanski; writ. Wladyslaw Szpilman (book), Ronald Harwood; feat. Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Maureen Lipman, Ed Stoppard (R) As the early word about Roman Polanski’s The Pianist has trickled in from the coasts – the awards, the top 10 lists, the glowing reviews – some film…
NEW REVIEWS
THE HOURS “A lion in Woolf’s clothing” Dir: Stephen Daldry; writ. David Hare, based on the novel by Michael Cunningham; feat. Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Jeff Daniels, Claire Danes, Miranda Richardson, John C. Reilly (PG-13) Early in Michael Cunningham’s 1998 novel, The Hours, Clarissa Vaughan, a book editor, goes into a…
FELIZ AÑO NUEVO, CABRONES!
Much like the impeccable timing and collective organizing capabilities displayed by the bread-bakers of La Realidad, this New Year’s Day, the EZLN silently cooked up a massive, militant anniversary occupation of San Cristobal de las Casas, the colonial capital of Chiapas’ Mayan highlands, to mark the Indian rebels’ surprise takeover of the city nine years…
Armchair Cinephile
THIS HARVEY’S HARDLY INVISIBLE Fingers (Warner Bros.) The Duellists (Paramount) Thelma & Louise (MGM) The King of Comedy (20th Century Fox) I’d read enough good things about the 1978 Harvey Keitel vehicle Fingers (Warner Bros.) that when it recently appeared on DVD, I had to see it. After watching it, I went looking for the…
A DIFFERENT NOTION OF LITERATURE
On Sunday, January 19, from 2 to 3 p.m., Gemini Ink will present “A Different Notion of the Beautiful” at the Center for Spirituality and the Arts. Director Maia Adamina, an adjunct faculty member of the English department at San Antonio College, describes the script as an alternative, Eastern-influenced exploration of the aesthetic. “This is…
STILL PLAYING
ABOUT SCHMIDT “Road trip through pointlessness” Dir. Alexander Payne; writ. Louis Begley (novel), Payne; feat. Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates (R) Schmidt is a road movie set on the other end of life’s cycle from Nicholson’s Easy Rider, as full of metaphoric ambition and as devoid of solid meaning. The actor is…
STILL PLAYING
>ABOUT SCHMIDT “Road trip through pointlessness” Dir. Alexander Payne; writ. Louis Begley (novel), Payne; feat. Jack Nicholson, Hope Davis, Dermot Mulroney, Kathy Bates (R) Schmidt is a road movie set on the other end of life’s cycle from Nicholson’s Easy Rider, as full of metaphoric ambition and as devoid of solid meaning. The actor is…
THE AFRICAN INFLUENCE
Hamilton has left his musical imprint all over the cultural map. Eighties fusion aficionados may remember him as the founder of Full Circle, a group that recorded three albums for the Sony/Colombia label. Pat Metheny fans may remember him as a featured vocalist who toured with the group in 1998 and ’99. Children may recognize…
