Will Texas have provider problems without Planned Parenthood?
On Friday, a Travis County judge denied Planned Parenthood’s request for a temporary injunction to stay in the state-funded Texas Women’s Health Program. If you’re one of the thousands of low-income women who went to Planned Parenthood under the now-defunct federal program for family planning services and cancer screenings, the state Health and Human Services…
San Antonio ranked #3 in Forbes’ New Tech Hot Spots; Here’s why
Forbes has ranked San Antonio as number 3 in its “America’s New Tech Hot Spots.” We think it’s pretty cool to have this type of national recognition during what feels like an urban renaissance here in the Alamo City. Feeling inspired by our silicon hills, we rounded up a list of our favorite tech projects/hubs…
San Antonio Spurs: Block Party
In a continuing trend of the San Antonio Spurs 40th anniversary season, Tim Duncan once again turned back the clock to post up quality numbers in a Spurs win. On Sunday night it was Ricky Rubio and the Minnesota Timberwolves that bore witness to vintage Timmy who patrolled the paint with 12 points, 9 rebounds,…
San Antonio’s Tommy Lee Jones was not amused by the Golden Globes
gif courtesy of twitter user @cjzero Did you guys see this? San Antonio resident Tommy Lee Jones was apparently channeling grumpy cat as he took in the 70th annual Golden Globes in Los Angeles last night. As the always funny Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell teamed up to present the Best Actress in a Comedy…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Music Monday: Purple Rain
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to watch a former tool-calendar model rechristened Apollonia purify herself topless in the waters of Lake Minnetonka; to watch Morris Day groom himself in Jerome Benton’s mirror; to watch director Albert Magnoli stock a Smithsonian exhibit with ’80s glam fashions and mall hair and dawn-of-MTV visual overload (steam!…
Newest latest: Public Enemy’s “Everything” video
“To those who think having ‘things’ is having it all, you may have nothing For those who think they have ‘nothing,’ look around you may have everything.” These are the key lines in “Everything,” the second single off The Evil Empire of Everything, the second album released by Public Enemy in late 2012 (following Most…
GMOs, school lunch, and food as lawns to trend in 2013
Each new year brings new trends in food, eating, and politics. Just what will dominate the American consciousness and be on trend this new year? Here are my predictions for food politics trends in 2013: 1. Genetically-modified foods (GMOs). 2012 marked a banner year for awareness on genetically modified foods. In California, a battle…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Ryan Cabrera
Nicely nutshelled by the Dallas Observer’s music blog DC9 at Night, “Ryan Cabrera is a dude who was born in the Dallas area who used to date Ashlee Simpson and got signed to her father Joe Simpson’s management company and made something of a blip on the national pop culture radar in 2004, when his…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: The Cat in the Hat
Challenged by Houghton Mifflin to write a story “first-graders can’t put down” (employing a vocabulary limited to 225 words chosen from a list of 348), Theodor Seuss Geisel reportedly spent nine months crafting The Cat in the Hat, a masterpiece about a mischievous feline who brightens a rainy day for two latchkey kids. Although she’s…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: “L.A./S.A.” at Gravelmouth
San Antonio and Los Angeles have an art connection that goes way back — it’s documented in actor and art patron Cheech Marin’s acclaimed “The Chicano Collection,” and here in Saytown in “Estampas de La Raza,” prints from the collection of Harriett and Ricardo Romo on view at the McNay till January 27. Both collections…
Sultan of Swag Justin Bieber Comes to the Alamo City, New Tattoo in Tow
Good morning San Antonio! Do you or anyone you know suffer from Bieber fever? Well, fret not because the swaggiest teenage crooner this side of the Atlantic is headed to the Alamo City this weekend. Being the interweb fiends that we are here at the Current, we couldn’t help but stumble upon the Bieb’s new…
Life as One by Shreya Tripathy
Twins share, they say, a bond stronger than most siblings. I can’t speak to the veracity, but this story certainly does a wonderful job of exploring that theme: “They’re not like puzzle pieces that always fit together; they’re the same shaped piece of different puzzles.” This is one of the most fantastically lovely lines I’ve…
Oscar 2013: Top nominees and top snubs
Best motion picture of the year Amour Argo Beasts of the Southern Wild Django Unchained Les Misérables Life of Pi Lincoln Silver Linings Playbook Zero Dark Thirty Biggest surprise in this category: No surprises. If they had picked 10 nominees instead of nine, we would’ve seen either Moonrise Kingdom or The Master possibly make the…
Review: Shatner’s World at the Majestic
Stravinsky and Shatner in the same season? We’re not exactly sure how Arts San Antonio cobbled together its 2012-2013 slate—how many Trekkies will be rioting for Le Sacre du Printemps this spring?—but it turns out that Shatner’s one man show is a surprisingly charming evening of (I suppose) theater. Well, perhaps theater is too grand…
9-Year-Old Quvenzhané Wallis: Youngest Nominated Actress in Oscar History
The 2013 Academy Award nominations are in and, as always, the controversy is abundant. Already, the internet is spewing its always reliable deluge of opinions. “Katherine Bigelow snubbed for best director!” “Give Leo a break already!” “Silver Linings what now?” But the most shocking development to come out of this morning’s announcements is the Best…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: “Transitios”
“Exchange” is a buzzword for the Artpace exhibition “Transitios.” Touching on themes of miscommunication, economy, currency, geography, and culture, the group show explores artistic ideas traversing Mexico City’s borders as seen by Ricardo Cuevas, Miguel Monroy, José Antonio Vega Macotela, Máximo González, and a number of other artists represented in the Changarrito Collection. Falling under…
Resolve to reduce-reuse-recycle
With all the recent talk of New Year’s resolutions, maybe some of you have decided to include renewing your personal efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle. Environmentally friendly practices not only help save Mother Earth, they also help save you money. Did you know food waste and yard trimmings account for up to 25% of…
Man arrested for beating dog to death with machete
What is it that so riled Juan Mendiola that he allegedly beat his dog to death with a machete last night? According to a police report, Mendiola, 29, was “trying to discipline it for chewing up a set of earphones.” Police were called out to OakStone Apartments when neighbors saw medium sized boxer-pit bull mix…
Packed with Heart, Frustration and Plenty of Laughs, Paper Mario: Sticker Star is Flawed but Ultimately Fun
Among the growing pantheon of Mario titles, Paper Mario has always been a diamond in the rough of sorts. When viewed throughout his many iterations and forms, this paper-ized persona has come to represent his quirkiest, yet most dynamically unique adventures in many years. With excellent writing and a growing thirst to try new ideas…
Advocates: Lackland hearings should spark reforms, not more empty promises
For months, advocates for victims of sexual assault in the military have pressured the House Armed Services Committee to have a public inquiry into the ever expanding scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. So far, 30 instructors at the base have been placed under investigation for abuses against 56 trainees, including charges of sexual assault…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Shatner’s World: We Just Live In It
A long and colorful career comes to life onstage in “Shatner’s World: We Just Live In It,” the one-man show Canadian actor, musician, author, and director William Shatner debuted on Broadway last February. Armed with little more than a rolling chair (which he uses as both vehicle and dance partner), Shatner reflects on working as…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Writing at io9.com, Charlie Jane Anders provides "10 Signs You Could Be the Chosen Savior." Among the clues are the following: 1. "How often does someone comes up to you on the street, point at you, gibber something inarticulate, and run away?" 2. "How many robot/clone duplicates of yourself have you…
'Zero Dark Thirty': A moody examination on the greatest manhunt in history
For over a decade, the war on terror has been relentlessly waged at any cost in lives, time, or resources, though as posited by director Kathryn Bigelow’s electrifying and gloomy Zero Dark Thirty, there has been no higher cost than the notion of liberty. While mostly fought in distant lands, this has always really been…
Newsmonger: AF recruiter charged with rape, Chan targets Nexolon deal
AF recruiter charged with rape Air Force officials this week announced a litany of charges against a Houston-area recruiter, saying he raped and sodomized potential recruits, among other crimes. AF officials say Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodríguez sought "intimate relationships" with numerous female applicants and recruiter’s assistants between August 2008 and November 2011 while assigned to…
Solange: 'True'
It’s difficult to mention Solange without mentioning her much more famous and talented sister, Beyoncé. It may even be easier to compare the two and immediately discredit any shred of artistic voice Solange may possess. With producer Devonté Hynes of Blood Orange, Solange dons her best ’80s pop sequins with her latest release, True. This…
Accolades for San Antonians
David Gilbert, chef at Sustenio at the Eilan Resort, released a book of his food travels in Asia this year. He’s been writing up a storm, penning a story about his experience apprenticing in a kitchen in Amsterdam for the annual International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Association writing contest. His story, “The American Apprentice,”…
Black Veil Brides celebrate new album at Backstage Live
Andy Biersack, vocalist and songwriter for L.A.’s Black Veil Brides, has never lacked for ambition or self-belief. But even he has to admit he’s enjoying a unique feeling about Wretched And Divine: The Story Of The Wild Ones, the band’s third album released January 8. “This is the first time in my life that I’ve…
¡ASK A MEXICAN!
Dear Mexican: What is it about Mexicans and collecting old cars? I have three Mexican neighbors with middle-class incomes but in each case, when the old car or truck wouldn’t run anymore, they would buy a nearly new replacement and then just let the old clunker sit in the driveway up close to the house…
Two of La Presy's students, shining on their own, remember their friend and teacher
Lara Bello and Patricia Guerrero aren’t the only ones La Presy inspired, but they are the most high-profile fruits of La Presy’s teachings. On March 31, 2012, New York-based singer-dancer-songwriter Bello released Primero amarillo, después malva (First Yellow, Then Purple), a flamenco-flavored Latin jazz-pop/World Music album with the Ojo Música label. The album (especially the…
Rediscovering La Presy, San Antonio's gift to flamenco
Priscilla Treviño Lozano left San Antonio 33 years ago and never looked back. She sporadically but regularly kept in touch with her family, but only visited on a couple of occasions. For the most part, she devoted herself fully to her mission: to live, breath, dance, and teach flamenco in Granada’s historic Sacromonte neighborhood, one…
Frank Zappa: 'Finer Moments'
What would a trip through the Zappa archives be like? My vision is something akin to the scene from the end of the first Indiana Jones movie, with endless tape reels of Zappa’s insane recording output spanning endlessly in some musky vault. Finer Moments, a two-disc set featuring unreleased material from the original Mothers of…
Phil Anselmo's Down leads metal feast at Backstage
It shouldn’t be this easy to jump back in the saddle after a five-year hiatus from recording. But then, Down isn’t just any supergroup. The New Orleans-based metal crafters, led by the legendary Phil Anselmo of Pantera and featuring members of Corrosion of Conformity, Goatwhore, and Crowbar, has always been greater than the sum of…
Firebird Mexican Grill: High-toned Tex-Mex meets modern Mex
The firebird, a "magical, glowing" creature, is both the subject of a Russian folk tale and the source of inspiration for Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score composed for Sergei Diaghilev in 1910. Firebird is also an open-source database, a former Pontiac model, and a Russian restaurant in New York City… How it also becomes the name…
Lena Dunham strikes again
Girls (8pm Sun, HBO) Part of me would love to be 26-year-old Lena Dunham: widely hailed as a comic genius when her series Girls premiered on HBO last year. Another part of me wouldn’t want to be Dunham at all: forced to show that Season One wasn’t a fluke by delivering an equally brilliant Season…
Washington Cabs: The Non-Next-New Thing
With the new year in, it’s time for this critic to reexamine some old prejudices. Yes, that means deigning to revisit merlot; it’s been down long enough. It implies even seeking out leaner chardonnays, despite a predilection for odd grapes such as ribolla gialla. And it means looking to the cabernet I’ve ignored for years…
'Not Fade Away' fades away
God save us from boomer nostalgia and its endless idealization of the ’60s. Look, I get it. It was an important time for rock and roll, politics, and the upheaval of American social norms. But the narcissism and self-indulgence wore thin two decades ago. Isn’t it enough that the same generation that gave us Freedom…
Judge rules against family that called Northside ISD the Antichrist
Talk of the Antichrist and “the Mark of the Beast” couldn’t sway federal district Judge Orlando Garcia. On Tuesday he denied a student’s request for a permanent injunction to keep her in Northside ISD’s John Jay High School, a science and engineering magnet school, without having to wear a student ID badge. Sophomore Andrea Hernandez,…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: The Growlers
Longtime fans of the eclectic West Coast outfit the Growlers should be plenty excited for their upcoming set at the Korova; the band is touring in support of their long-delayed Hung At Heart album, finally being released on January 22, and will presumably be featuring plenty of new songs. But even newcomers should consider making…
Video: David Bowie releases first single in 10 years; new album out March 12
On January 8, the day of his 66th birthday, David Bowie released “Where Are We Now,” the first single off The Next Day (out March 12). It is his first album since 2003’s Reality. The album, Bowie’s 30th, was produced by Tony Visconti, who has collaborated with him since 1969’s Space Oddity.
