Round Two: First Amendment case appeal filed
Alicia Ramirez aliciak2010@mac.com The San Antonio Free Speech Coalition and the San Antonio International Women’s Day Planning Committee has filed an appeal in the Parade Ordinance lawsuit case. They announced the appeal at a press conference in front of the federal courthouse. Signs reading Our streets will not be silenced! / ¡Las calles no se…
STUFF TO DO THIS WEEKEND: THEATRE EDITION!
I’ve been kinda overfocused on Contemporary Art Month, about which I have more to say. But here’s a theatre event happening tomorrow that I think will be absolutely fantastic. If you’re at-all interested in acting, you could do no better in this town than collaborating with AtticRep, a troupe who’ve put on consitently challenging, edgy,…
Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ trailer released
Between the down-the-rabbit-hole sequence that looks almost exactly like the 1951 cartoon, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee who look like Pugsley Addams’ unsuccessfully aborted twin brothers, Helena Bonham Carter’s hydrocephalic Queen of Hearts, and what’s pretty obviously an expanded role for Johnny Depp’s Pennywise the Clown Mad Hatter, I’d say the money’s pretty even as to…
The longest yard: Brack digs up its dirty football field
Neighborhood watchdog Santiago Escobedo sounded the alarm yesterday: Brackenridge High School is scraping its football field bare, and he worried that the earth removal was related to the benzo(a)pyrene-contaminated pile discovered in 2006 when the EPA tested the property for potential asbestos residue from the former W.R. Grace plant across the river. (That round of…
Chaléwood No. 15: Jaume Collet-Serra
Jaume Collet-Serra – Orphan By Kiko Martinez San Antonio Current contributing writer kiko@cinesnob.net Growing up in Barcelona, filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra always found himself watching the American movies that played at the local theater. “I grew up learning a lot about American culture from the movies I watched,” Collet-Serra told me during a phone interview. “That’s…
Stream Exponential Records’ latest release
Inca Orange, the latest album from Albuquerque, New Mexico, artist Pollination and the first to be released by SA-based record label Exponential is scheduled for an August 11 drop date, but you can stream it today, for free, right here. The website describes the album as “a noisy, lush combination of distorted analog synths, frantic…
Rumor Mills: Department of Giving Credit Where Credit is Due
San Antonio Lightning Editor-in-Chief RG Griffing, one of SA’s most accomplished chisme practitioners, rang up QueBlog today to take us to task for this week’s QueQue item on the Museo Alameda. In it we reported that the Museo was fixin’ to bounce some checks earlier this month, but Valero delivered on $60,000 in promised funds,…
Live and Local: July tonight at The Gatsby
I’ll be flying solo tonight (Thursday) at The Gatsby to check out local indie-rock quartet, July. Judging by a couple tracks on their MySpace, I’d wager we might just see a good ol’ emo sing-along ’round a couple campfires. Expect tears (mostly mine). It’s a free show, so you don’t really have any excuses, do…
President Castro?
In a July 13 piece, syndicated columnist (and unabashed Sarah Palin defender) Ruben Navarrette Jr. went looking for the Latinobama, a rising-star politician who will be able to exploit the growing ballot-box power of Latinos (projected to constitute one-third of the U.S. population by 2050) while comfortably connecting with non-Latinos. As Navarrette puts it, the…
Climate, coal, farms
Greg Harman gharman@sacurrent.com So now that we’ve wrapped up beating down San Antonio’s highest paid Austin resident*, CPS CEO Milton Lee (read “Lee’s Electric Company”) , it’s time to lift our head from the coal muck and scan the horizon once more. Beneath the back-and-forth reporting on what China/India/developing economies are/aren’t willing to do re:…
Video Game Review: MLB 2K9
Major League Baseball 2K9 Release Date: 2009-07-23 Rated: NONE Genre: Video Game Wii Sports proved that the Wii had the potential to be a great console for the game formerly known as America’s pastime. Its lack of anything beyond batting and pitching was its limitation, however, and Major League Baseball 2K9 by 2K Sports hopes…
This week in plastic guitar games
The makers of Rock Band have big news recently for people pretending to be rock stars, and even for people who legitimately know how to play musical instruments with like strings and shit. In an effort to delay this post from turning into the sad glimpse into my private life it will inevitably become, we’ll…
Federal bailout for some local arts
The federal bailout for the arts â?? which averaged out to about $1 million per state (not that it was allocated exactly like that) â?? benefited two local arts agencies: the Southwest School of Art & Craft, which received $50,000, and the International Accordion Festival, which received $25,000. More grants went to organizations in El…
Up From Below
Up From Below Composer: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes Conductor: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes Label: Community/Fairfax Release Date: 2009-07-22 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Think of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros as the U.S. version of the Arcade Fire. Or the unwashed-hippie version of the Arcade Fire. The comparisons are inevitable, since…
American Central Dust
American Central Dust Composer: Son Volt Conductor: Son Volt Label: Rounder Release Date: 2009-07-22 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording Jay Farrar has been doing the same thing for close to 15 years now, but there’s not much room for error. What is the risk of the alt-country singer — prettiness forever? When you sing like Farrar,…
See Mystery Lights
See Mystery Lights Composer: YACHT Conductor: YACHT Label: DFA Records Release Date: 2009-07-22 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording For fans of the Blow — the Khaela Maricich/Jona Bechtolt electro-pop collab that produced the sublime, sensitive Paper Television — Bechtolt’s current project, YACHT, can feel like a consolation prize. For kids who just want to shake their…
Morris Orchids
Morris Orchids Composer: Morris Orchids Conductor: Morris Orchids Label: Self released Release Date: 2009-07-22 Rated: NONE Genre: Recording July’s too early for list-making, but this self-titled EP by Morris Orchids is one of two local albums I’ve heard this year (Girl in a Coma’s Trio B.C. being the other) that should be required listening for…
Adoration
Critic’s Pick Adoration Director: Atom Egoyan Screenwriter: Atom Egoyan Cast: Arsinée Khanjian, Rachel Blanchard, Scott Speedman, Devon Bostick Release Date: 2009-07-22 Rated: R Genre: Film Our Rating: 2.50 If myths derive from ordinary lives (Zeus, Vishnu, and La Llorona exaggerate qualities each of us possesses), it is also true that everyone mythologizes his or her…
Monkeysoop
Release Date: 2009-07-22 The door man stamps my hand with an inappropriate question: "WWJD?" it asks, "What would Jesus do?" The question’s inappropriate not just because Monkeysoop shares the bill with the likes of Mobile Deathcamp (fronted by former Gwar bassist Todd Evans) and SA’s own AnalPlague, but because once I’ve stepped around Scum Allegiance…
Mexicans at Night
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-07-22 “Mexicans at Night” isn’t the title of an upcoming horror film produced by Lou Dobbs (pause for laughs), but an indie-pop-tinged blues-rock duo from El Paso. Some of the influences are similar, but Mexicans’ straightforward two- and three-minute songs seem an almost intentional antithesis to the legacy of El Paso’s…
Soomin Jung: Coexistence
Release Date: 2009-07-22 Fingers are a dominant theme in new works by Soomin Jung. "Golden Scale," a colored-pencil drawing on Mylar, depicts a plethora of fingertips and thumbs which spread across the entire page. Interspersed with the majority of forms, which are golden-hued, are three human hands in a pale flesh tone. One thumbnail is…
Meg Langhorne: Animal
Release Date: 2009-07-22 Meg Langhorne’s latest exhibition, Animal, on view at Cactus Bra Space this month, contains seven untitled gouache works on paper. Surprise and delight reward the viewer, who is beckoned by the pictures’ bright colors and small size to look more closely. Each image is akin to those found on the covers of…
Margaret Craig: The Glistening
Release Date: 2009-07-22 In Craig’s latest body of work, the process is the point. The show includes two types of objects, created through methods pioneered by the artist. Some pieces are made out of Styrofoam forms covered in plaster. Layers of acrylic and dried epoxy are applied, then sanded down. Peepholes appear in the surface,…
Death of CAM Parade
Critic’s Pick Release Date: 2009-07-22 The original plan for the Death of CAM Parade was for as many people as care to, to dress up in some kinda costume, tote (and play) a bell or a bucket or a kazoo or somesuch, and march in faux-sad procession down a stretch of the new and glorious…
Grain-alcohol storage
Release Date: 2009-07-22 Pop bar quiz The challenging questions: 1. Who is most likely found at the Silo Bar in Alamo Heights? 2. Who is most likely found at the Silo Bar in Stone Oak? The culturally biased answers: a) Yuppie: Young Urban Professional b) Yeppie: Young Exurban Professional c) Yippie: Youth International Party (1960s…
Cold comfort
Release Date: 2009-07-22 In the smoldering intensity of our Texas summer, I often find it difficult to resist a cold, calorie-ridden sweet treat, which inevitably doesn’t sit well with my food conscience afterward. Fortunately for me (and for you eco-friendly health nuts), San Antonio has an OrangeCup frozen yogurt shop. Visible from the parking lot…
Dear Uncle Mat
Something doesn’t feel right in my life right now, but everything seems to bother me so I can’t figure it out. Here are a few things that have happened; maybe you’ll see something: It started a few months ago when my boyfriend of five years started acting really different. He’s in the Army, and he’s…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Storm chasers are people who love traveling around the continent in pursuit of wild weather. Nothing feeds their lust for life more than getting up close and personal with a tornado or supercell thunderstorm. Many of them are meteorologists who are curious about the way storms work; they’re not motivated solely…
Short Shorts
These two short stories are about possibility, but more about inner, uncontrollable fantasy. What’s being envisioned says a lot about the world that these individuals live in or perceive that they live in: Grim, deadly worlds that may or may not actually be. Power lines decimate a family. A man destroys himself. But a quick…
ARTifacts
The unsinkable Katie Brownspecializes in assemblages of found objects. In addition to artmaking, teaching, and raising twins (now 7), Brown’s a founding member of the San Antonio Craft Mafia, a collective that includes Stef Cmielewski, Patti Hinkley, and Laurel Gibson. Her work first came to my attention at Galería Tonantzín at the Guadalupe last year.…
The Weissman Culinary Empire
When San Antonio native Andrew Weissman returned from parts more culinarily adventurous, he sowed his haute-cuisine seed in some of the rockiest ground imaginable: downtown San Antonio, circa 1998, and not on the River Walk, either. Dinner jackets and reservations required, as well as a substantial amount of disposable income. But Le Rêve has thrived,…
Weissman Cometh
Andrew Weissman is moving fast these days. With a clutch of the city’s most highly regarded restaurants already to his credit, he has chomped off an especially big bite this summer. He’s keeping a critical eye on the construction of his new Italian restaurant, Il Sogno, on the Pearl Brewery property, while down the sidewalk…
Lee’s electric company
Critics contend Milton Lee, chief executive of City-owned CPS Energy, has been talking about retiring for years — nearly as long as he’s been CEO. As the city has waded more deeply into one of the most important decisions of the coming decades — whether or not to buy into a multi-billion-dollar expansion of the…
The QueQue
Kickin’ the lata down the road Early July rumors that the Museo Alameda was tight on cash and might not make payroll were apparently true, but corporate citizen Valero stepped up a $50,000 pledge (and a $10,000 table donation for the August 20 gala, which will honor former Mexican President Vicente Fox), and closed the…
LIVE & LOCAL
The door man stamps my hand with an inappropriate question: "WWJD?" it asks, "What would Jesus do?" The question’s inappropriate not just because Monkeysoop shares the bill with the likes of Mobile Deathcamp (fronted by former Gwar bassist Todd Evans) and SA’s own AnalPlague, but because once I’ve stepped around Scum Allegiance vocalist Dave Bones…
“Can’t You See” – Devin’s Inferno
"Can’t You See" is a perfect case study in how not to tell off an ex. Thirty seconds of late-’90s pop-punk power chords isn’t enough time to prepare a well-thought-out speech, so verse one is mostly stammered babble. "I can’t seem to get you off my mind," begins one half-coherent statement, followed by "Now are…
THE SOUND & THE FURY
As KRTU music director and host of the station’s daily "Lunch Feature," Aaron Prado has always seemed equal parts radio personality and jazz scholar: someone who could break down the contours of a masterful Ben Webster solo or the historical significance of a particular Sarah Vaughan vocal. So it’s fitting that the 30-year-old DJ/pianist is…
Primitive passion
Based on a cursory glance at the imagery (a stark monument of a faceless soldier amidst a desolate wasteland) on VNV Nation’s new album, Of Faith, Power and Glory, you could easily dismiss Ronan Harris and Mark Jackson as yet another cold, industrial-rock band lacking any sense of connection to its fans. Harris, VNV Nation’s…
Take two nurses and …
I recently completed an extended work assignment for a college of nursing and got to know many nurses in professional and casual situations. TV has taken a few years to catch up to the notion that nursing’s a booming and valuable profession worthy of dramatization, but clearly its time is here. The nurses I met…
S’NUFF film
Who Wants to Get Adopted?is my pitch for a reality show. The premise is simple: A loving couple with a child-sized hole in their hearts is introduced to several orphans of the hard-to-find-homes-for variety. The children then compete in a talent show, judged (harshly) by the potential parents. ("You’re not coming into our house with…
Boots on the ground
Kathryn Bigelow is an exceptional director, period. Such is the idea advocated by Manhola Dargis in a June 18 interview piece in the New York Times, responding to the conventional wisdom that Bigelow — the muscular director of such action fare as Near Dark, Point Break, and Strange Days — is a solid female director.…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: The mainstream media is making big noise about Sonia Sotomayor likely being the first Latina Supreme Court justice, and that all Latinos should be proud. But Puerto Rican ain’t Mexican! The Supreme Court won’t have a shade of brown until a Mexican is among Roberts and Scalia. What does the Mexican think of…
