Hustle and Flow
San Antonio Rampage vs. Manchester Monarchs 5pm Sun, Jan 21 $4-74 AT&T Center One AT&T Center Parkway (210) 444-5000 Ticketmaster.com When most non-NHL fans think of ice hockey, images of burly men with bad teeth engaged in fisticuffs almost immediately come to mind. In recent years the National Hockey League has made efforts to change…
A Side of History
Tommy Moore’s Eastside restaurant preserves culture while serving fabulous fried chicken
Soul Sisters
It was Fantasy Football for theater types, a chance to bring three newly minted local stage legends together for a heart-to-heart, in which affinities were revealed (you never know who’s taped up till you ask) and cultural bridges crossed — not so surprising when you consider their histories: Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, the cross-dressing enigma at…
A Side of History
General Manager Chuck Smith and owner Tommy Moore offer delicious fried chicken and a link to Eastside SA history. Tommy Moore’s Café & Deli 915 S. Hackberry 531-9800 Breakfast: 7-10:30am Mon-Sat Lunch: 11am-3pm Mon-Fri Dinner: 5-9pm Fri & Sat Credit cards anticipated soon Lunch $3.75-$6.75; Dinner $8 Accessible I had lunch with the chief of…
Framed
Pity poor Pogo. One of the first series of newspaper-strip reprints I got really excited about was devoted to Walt Kelly’s Pogo — a high-watermark in funny-pages history, full of talking animals cute enough for kiddies who spouted satire bright enough for adults. When Fantagraphics started issuing reprints in the early ’90s, though, publishing strips…
Spin-off ‘Aces’
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Aural Pleasure
Wincing the Night Away The Shins (Sub Pop) If you’ve heard of the Shins, there’s a good-to-excellent chance that’s because Garden State told you they would change your life. The truth is, Garden State and its Grammy-winning soundtrack changed the Shins lives more than ours, transforming the group into indie deities on par with Death…
You Are What You Beat
A detail from Ted Efremoff’s i2i installation, on view through February 3. Behind the Lines: Mapping Identity Through Conflict By appt. Through Feb 3 i2i gallery 2110 McCullough 744-7887 In an era of political upheaval and global violence, the numbing effects of casualty counts and war propaganda can confound even the most patriotic American. Our…
Spin-off ‘Aces’
Alicia Keys is ready to serve someone a lead salad as a hitwoman in Smokin’ Aces. Smokin’ Aces Dir. and writ. Joe Carnahan; feat. Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Ben Affleck, Peter Berg, Common, Jason Bateman (R) It’s easy to blame Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction for spawning…
Aural Pleasure
Fame Hasn’t Cracked Them Yet Wincing the Night Away The Shins (Sub Pop) If you’ve heard of the Shins, there’s a good-to-excellent chance that’s because Garden State told you they would change your life. The truth is, Garden State and its Grammy-winning soundtrack changed the Shins lives more than ours, transforming the group into indie…
Clothes-Minded – Fashion Deconstruction
Sarah Reynolds on the runway at Limelight, wearing a Vanessa Reveles creation by Paris Ann. “Sleeted In” might have been more prescient, but organizer Abra Schnur had the, ahem, polar opposite weather in mind when she titled January 14’s fashion show at the Limelight “Snowed In.” “My original concept was how hot January can be,…
Spin-off ‘Aces’
Alicia Keys is ready to serve someone a lead salad as a hitwoman in Smokin’ Aces. Smokin’ Aces Dir. and writ. Joe Carnahan; feat. Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Andy Garcia, Alicia Keys, Ben Affleck, Peter Berg, Common, Jason Bateman (R) It’s easy to blame Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction for spawning…
Roasting the Embryos of Abraham
SA embryo broker Jennalee Ryan in her Dominion home. Not since a South Korean scientific “rock star” faked a cloned human embryo in 2004 — “I was blinded by work and my drive for achievement,” a chastened Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk said in 2005 — has genetic material disturbed the reputation of a single person so…
Old-world Fat and Oxtails
A large pig hangs behind the dining-room bar. Drawn with simple lines, it looks like Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web. “It’s Pig the pig,” says Paul Myers, not one to anthropomorphize a load-bearing pillar of his universe. Myers, who has cooked alongside some of the most respected chefs in the nation, including Tom Douglas of Dahlia…
Sister Act
Ashlee Simpson has expended a lot of energy trying to get people to take her rocked-up pop seriously. It’s not working. The Veronicas, twins out of Australia, upped the ante by doing the same thing, only raising the very low bar by writing their own songs and making sure they could sing well before stepping…
Game Theory
My older relatives behaved strangely at family gatherings. We would be sitting on the floor, chatting merrily away over an intense game of Go Fish, and my Grandma would call us into the dining room for the holiday meal. Springing to my feet, dashing toward the door, I realized that my older companions had fallen…
Thumbs Up
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Injections & Ice Storms
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A Side of History
Tommy Moore’s Café & Deli 915 S. Hackberry 531-9800 Breakfast: 7-10:30am Mon-Sat Lunch: 11am-3pm Mon-Fri Dinner: 5-9pm Fri & Sat Credit cards anticipated soon Lunch $3.75-$6.75; Dinner $8 Accessible I had lunch with the chief of police the other day. OK, not exactly with the chief; he and a very large entourage, including men in…
Armchair Cinephile: The Cine-Mini
PICK OF THE WEEK: Robert Mitchum: The Signature Collection (Warner Bros.): Warner can just keep cranking out these star-centered collections, and I’ll happily keep rolling the dice: What’s the gem-to-clunker ratio going to be this time? Does the presence of top-shelf directors Otto Preminger, Vincent Minnelli, and Josef Von Sternberg (?!) bode well? All I…
CDs Nuts
The Good, the Bad & The Queen The Good, the Bad & the Queen (Virgin Records) With vocals from Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz), bass work by Paul Simonon (The Clash), Tony Allen (Africa 70/Fela Kuti), Simon Tong (The Verve), and production by Danger Mouse, we could compare this album to better work by other bands until…
Thumbs Up
Grace Andrews (Sophia Bush) wishes John Ryder (Sean Bean) would use his inside voice in The Hitcher, the remake. The Hitcher Dir. Dave Meyers; writ. Eric Red, Jake Wade Wall, Eric Bernt; feat. Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton, Neal McDonough (R) I get it: You need to see another horror remake like you need…
Injections & Ice Storms
Cohost Connie Wright of All Life is Precious Ministries during the station’s pre-execution show for Johnathan Moore. Tread carefully up frozen stairs onto a frozen porch, where an overweight cat is mewing to be let in. Enter the front door of the house off Drew Street in downtown Livingston into a smoke-filled radio studio. Survey…
Framed
Pity poor Pogo. One of the first series of newspaper-strip reprints I got really excited about was devoted to Walt Kelly’s Pogo — a high-watermark in funny-pages history, full of talking animals cute enough for kiddies who spouted satire bright enough for adults. When Fantagraphics started issuing reprints in the early ’90s, though, publishing strips…
The Bar Tab
The SWC Club 1210 E. Elmira 224-0014 Beer + well drink: $5 The SWC Club is located on East Elmira, on the periphery of the former Pearl Brewery and a few blocks south of the legendary Taco Land. The club has been dormant until quite recently, but like Pearl, it is returning to life in…
Aural Pleasure
If you’ve heard of the Shins, there’s a good-to-excellent chance that’s because Garden State told you they would change your life. The truth is, Garden State and its Grammy-winning soundtrack changed the Shins lives more than ours, transforming the group into indie deities on par with Death Cab (albeit better). They went from relative obscurity…
Thumbs Up
Grace Andrews (Sophia Bush) wishes John Ryder (Sean Bean) would use his inside voice in The Hitcher, the remake. The Hitcher Dir. Dave Meyers; writ. Eric Red, Jake Wade Wall, Eric Bernt; feat. Sean Bean, Sophia Bush, Zachary Knighton, Neal McDonough (R) I get it: You need to see another horror remake like you need…
Injections & Ice Storms
Cohost Connie Wright of All Life is Precious Ministries during the station’s pre-execution show for Johnathan Moore. Tread carefully up frozen stairs onto a frozen porch, where an overweight cat is mewing to be let in. Enter the front door of the house off Drew Street in downtown Livingston into a smoke-filled radio studio. Survey…
Framed
Curses, by Kevin Huizenga, gets the royal treatment from Drawn & Quarterly. Pity poor Pogo. One of the first series of newspaper-strip reprints I got really excited about was devoted to Walt Kelly’s Pogo — a high-watermark in funny-pages history, full of talking animals cute enough for kiddies who spouted satire bright enough for adults.…
Filling Station pumps fresh pizza
The Filling Station 701 S. St. Mary’s 444-2200 Every so often I am confronted with evidence that radically alters my conception of how things are. For example, the typical, affordable pizza economy is something I thought I held some knowledge of, having observed the praxis directly. Additionally, countless anecdotes led me to arrive at this…
Aural Pleasure
Wincing the Night Away The Shins (Sub Pop) Fame Hasn’t Cracked Them Yet If you’ve heard of the Shins, there’s a good-to-excellent chance that’s because Garden State told you they would change your life. The truth is, Garden State and its Grammy-winning soundtrack changed the Shins lives more than ours, transforming the group into indie…
Injections & Ice Storms
Cohost Connie Wright of All Life is Precious Ministries during the station’s pre-execution show for Johnathan Moore. Tread carefully up frozen stairs onto a frozen porch, where an overweight cat is mewing to be let in. Enter the front door of the house off Drew Street in downtown Livingston into a smoke-filled radio studio. Survey…
You Are What You Beat
Behind the Lines: Mapping Identity Through Conflict By appt. Through Feb 3 i2i gallery 2110 McCullough 744-7887 In an era of political upheaval and global violence, the numbing effects of casualty counts and war propaganda can confound even the most patriotic American. Our split political personality screams out for consistency and searches for a sturdy…
Old-World Fat and Oxtails
Oxtails ready for browning and braising. A large pig hangs behind the dining-room bar. Drawn with simple lines, it looks like Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web. “It’s Pig the pig,” says Paul Myers, not one to anthropomorphize a load-bearing pillar of his universe. Myers, who has cooked alongside some of the most respected chefs in the…
Sound and the Fury
CORN SYRUP Saustex Media honcho and Hickoids frontman Jeff Smith has been mighty busy lately. Barely allowing himself time to come up for air after the release of Snowbyrd’s formidable debut CD, Smith has released two discs that should thrill followers of hardcore twang, corn-core, cow-punk, or whatever inadequate category you want to apply to…
Trench with a View
Ken Watanabe plays General Kuribayashi in Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima. Letters from Iwo Jima Dir. Clint Eastwood; writ. Iris Yamashita, Paul Haggis; feat. Ken Watanabe, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Kazunari Ninomiya (R) I get it: You need to see another horror remake like you need a hole in the head. The assortment of recently reincarnated…
The Mashup
From the Editor If last fall’s ugly wrangling over the Nolan Street Clogged Caps mural didn’t convince you that all art is politics, consider the critical issue of transparency, which, like video art, is not embraced equally by all cultural institutions. Take, for instance, Centro Cultural Aztlan, the subject this week of a petition by…
Clothes-Minded – Fashion Deconstruction
“Sleeted In” might have been more prescient, but organizer Abra Schnur had the, ahem, polar opposite weather in mind when she titled January 14’s fashion show at the Limelight “Snowed In.” “My original concept was how hot January can be, and a dream of colder, more wintry weather,” said Schnur. “I asked the designers to…
A Side of History
General Manager Chuck Smith and owner Tommy Moore offer delicious fried chicken and a link to Eastside SA history. Tommy Moore’s Café & Deli 915 S. Hackberry 531-9800 Breakfast: 7-10:30am Mon-Sat Lunch: 11am-3pm Mon-Fri Dinner: 5-9pm Fri & Sat Credit cards anticipated soon Lunch $3.75-$6.75; Dinner $8 Accessible I had lunch with the chief of…
Glass Ceiling
Waiting for the Barbarians Saturday, Jan. 27 and Monday, Jan. 29 7:30 pm Bass Concert Hall, University of Texas at Austin Tickets $15-$109, 800-31-OPERA or www.austinlyricopera.org Visits by Philip Glass to Central Texas, despite what one might expect, aren’t exactly once-in-a-lifetime events. To the contrary: If his appearances at U.T. Austin’s Performing Arts Center were…
Great Scot
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Jimmy on Film?
111Roll the Capitol security-camera footage and see if Leininger was behind the scenes, shaking down legislators
Game Theory
My older relatives behaved strangely at family gatherings. We would be sitting on the floor, chatting merrily away over an intense game of Go Fish, and my Grandma would call us into the dining room for the holiday meal. Springing to my feet, dashing toward the door, I realized that my older companions had fallen…
Hustle and Flow
Pau Gasol is the most slept-on All-Star in the NBA today. After making last year’s Western squad, the Memphis Grizzlies’ seven-footer spent his summer taking MVP honors at the Basketball World Championships in Japan where his Spanish team captured the gold medal. Born in the Barcelona province of Sant Boi de Llobregat, the low-key Gasol…
Sister Act
Meg & Dia: Drifting between grungy rock and weepy singer-songwriter confessionals. Ashlee Simpson has expended a lot of energy trying to get people to take her rocked-up pop seriously. It’s not working. The Veronicas, twins out of Australia, upped the ante by doing the same thing, only raising the very low bar by writing their…
Great Scot
“Uganda, are you ready to rock?!” Forest Whitaker as tyrant Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. The Last King of Scotland Dir. Kevin Macdonald; writ. Peter Morgan feat. Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Gillian Anderson, Kerry Washington (R) Director Kevin Macdonald tackles his first feature, The Last King of Scotland — a fictionalized account…
Jimmy on Film?
Was hometown voucher-advocate Dr. James Leininger in the back hall behind the chamber of the Texas House twisting the arms of wayward legislators on May 23, 2005, while the body debated a school-voucher bill? It’s a question that remains unanswered nearly two years after it was first asked by the folks at the Austin-based Texas…
As Punk As It Gets
AS FILTHY AS IT GETS 8 p.m. Fri-Sun Through Jan 28 $12 general; $9 student, senior Jump-Start 108 Blue Star 227-JUMP Jump-start.org You can guess a lot about a play from the pre-show music. For instance, if a play is preceded by several Belle & Sebastian songs, then it’s probably an autobiographical story about a…
CDs Nuts
With vocals from Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz), bass work by Paul Simonon (The Clash), Tony Allen (Africa 70/Fela Kuti), Simon Tong (The Verve), and production by Danger Mouse, we could compare this album to better work by other bands until my word count was dead and buried, but the truth is, this is an Albarn project…
Not Another Not Another
Illustration by Chuck Kerr Scary Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, Date Movie. Hollywood’s need to satirize its ability to recycle its own recycled clichés is about to get two more additions with this month’s Epic Movie and March’s Superhero! At least the latter didn’t add “movie” to the title, though there’s still time. I’m sure…
CDs Nuts
With vocals from Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz), bass work by Paul Simonon (The Clash), Tony Allen (Africa 70/Fela Kuti), Simon Tong (The Verve), and production by Danger Mouse, we could compare this album to better work by other bands until my word count was dead and buried, but the truth is, this is an Albarn project…
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Surge Protectors
STOP THE WAR MARCH – AUSTIN Austin City Hall 3 pm, Saturday Antiwarcampus@yahoo.com SOUTHWEST WORKERS UNION MARCH – SAN ANTONIO Federal Building, 727 E. Durango Boulevard Press Conference, 10:30 am. March, 11 am. Saturday 299-2666 THIRD ANNUAL BLESSING OF THE PEACEMAKERS PeaceCENTER 1443 S. St. Mary’s 5:30 pm, Sunday 224-HOPE In 1934, at the Nazi’s…
CDs Nuts
The Good, the Bad & The Queen The Good, the Bad & the Queen (Virgin Records) With vocals from Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz), bass work by Paul Simonon (The Clash), Tony Allen (Africa 70/Fela Kuti), Simon Tong (The Verve), and production by Danger Mouse, we could compare this album to better work by other bands until…
On the Street
Deck The Sunset Scavenger When I finally left Los Angeles, I rode a bus from Silverlake to downtown along Sunset Boulevard, stopping at Amtrak’s historic Union Station. From there, I boarded the Sunset Limited and took a lengthy journey back to Texas that ended at San Antonio’s Sunset Station. That trip, I thought, would be…
The Say-Town Lowdown – Guest Column
About two years ago, I applied for a job at an institution run by fundamentalist preacher John Hagee. I had been searching frantically for a middle-school teaching position after the school year had already begun. At that time, Cornerstone Schools, a subsidiary of the Hagee empire, was in need of a science teacher, so I…
Aural Pleasure
If you’ve heard of the Shins, there’s a good-to-excellent chance that’s because Garden State told you they would change your life. The truth is, Garden State and its Grammy-winning soundtrack changed the Shins lives more than ours, transforming the group into indie deities on par with Death Cab (albeit better). They went from relative obscurity…
On the Street
Deck The Sunset Scavenger When I finally left Los Angeles, I rode a bus from Silverlake to downtown along Sunset Boulevard, stopping at Amtrak’s historic Union Station. From there, I boarded the Sunset Limited and took a lengthy journey back to Texas that ended at San Antonio’s Sunset Station. That trip, I thought, would be…
The Say-Town Lowdown – Guest Column
About two years ago, I applied for a job at an institution run by fundamentalist preacher John Hagee. I had been searching frantically for a middle-school teaching position after the school year had already begun. At that time, Cornerstone Schools, a subsidiary of the Hagee empire, was in need of a science teacher, so I…
Aural Pleasure
If you’ve heard of the Shins, there’s a good-to-excellent chance that’s because Garden State told you they would change your life. The truth is, Garden State and its Grammy-winning soundtrack changed the Shins lives more than ours, transforming the group into indie deities on par with Death Cab (albeit better). They went from relative obscurity…
On the Street
Deck The Sunset Scavenger When I finally left Los Angeles, I rode a bus from Silverlake to downtown along Sunset Boulevard, stopping at Amtrak’s historic Union Station. From there, I boarded the Sunset Limited and took a lengthy journey back to Texas that ended at San Antonio’s Sunset Station. That trip, I thought, would be…
That’s a Wrap
I will not rant about how ridiculous the Oscars are going to be this year. I will not rant about how ridiculous the Oscars are going to be this year. Instead, I choose to pick on this week’s movies. Catch and Release Let’s begin with Catch and Release, starring two of the most irritating, um,…
The Say-Town Lowdown – Guest Column
About two years ago, I applied for a job at an institution run by fundamentalist preacher John Hagee. I had been searching frantically for a middle-school teaching position after the school year had already begun. At that time, Cornerstone Schools, a subsidiary of the Hagee empire, was in need of a science teacher, so I…
Aural Pleasure
Wincing the Night Away The Shins (Sub Pop) If you’ve heard of the Shins, there’s a good-to-excellent chance that’s because Garden State told you they would change your life. The truth is, Garden State and its Grammy-winning soundtrack changed the Shins lives more than ours, transforming the group into indie deities on par with Death…
