Arts : Last chance to CAM like you mean it
Contemporary Art Month officially comes to a close this week with three don’t-miss events: The second-annual Dignowity Hill Pushcart Derby will pit returning champion (and founder) Cruz Ortiz against fellow SA artists and their custom carts. Robert Tatum returns, as does Andy Benavides and a host of other ersatz hotrodders, including Ethel Shipton and Katie…
Mr. Popular
From Deadwood to Scoop, Ian McShane has ample opportunity to be recognized — and cussed at — on the street Everywhere he goes, Ian McShane gets called names. Strangers walk right up to him and hurl profanity after profanity in his direction. “I go down the street and it’s, like, ‘Hey, cocksucker, how are you?’”…
Dead wood
Top-notch actors and a novel setting can’t save Allen’s latest film In Woody Allen’s new film Scoop, a character keeps coming back from the dead, convinced he still has worthwhile information to impart. If I suspected for a moment that Allen were self-aware enough for the irony to be intentional, I’d give the guy a…
Here, eat this
With a little trust, Strangers with Candy delivers — sans poison or razorblades If, as events periodically suggest, “going ugly” (Cameron Diaz, Being John Malkovich; Charlize Theron, Monster; Nicole Kidman, The Hours), “going junkie” (Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a Dream; Jennifer Jason Leigh in pretty much anything) or “going hooker” (Jodie Foster, Taxi Driver;…
Media : That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Another week, another animated kids’ flick, another studio gets another crack at creating 3-D “people” that look just the slightest bit less like horrifying, bloodless ghoulie-pod-creatures than the last batch. Warner Bros.’s The Ant Bully plies the old “get-a-buncha-famous-folks-and-plaster-their-names-across-the-poster” model to draw in parents, as well as the “kids-like-looking-at-brightly-colored-things”…
Armchair Cinephile
No need for a bathroom break The new Pirates movie is two and a half hours long. Superman Returns runs a few minutes more. The Da Vinci Code, as I remember it, was slightly longer than the Spanish Inquisition. Film buffs who can’t afford that much time this summer will have more luck at home,…
Media : Special screenings
WHAT THE #$*! DO WE KNOW!? William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, Mark Vicente (2004) This mind-blowing movie of chance meetings and unexplained phenomena shows the multitude of possibilities that exist all around us, and encourages us to look into the world, instead of just at it. It will follow the exhibit and silent auction of “One…
Sports : Hustle and Flow
San Antonio’s other professional basketball franchise, the Silver Stars, started their recent three-game home stand on a promising note. Their national television contest with the Houston Comets resulted in a tight 67-64 victory and showcased the skills of center Chantelle Anderson, who paced the team with 17 points and 6 rebounds. As with most Silver…
Food & Drink : All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene A memorable Elvis Costello lyric aside, butterflies are not usually associated with conflict, but in the wake of last week’s Hitchcockian swarms of American snouts, a tussle between two local Mariposas seems almost foreordained. On July 20, chef Brian West of the former Café Mariposa announced…
Mambo Italiano
Well, it’s some kind of hot twist on tradition at Luciano at the Strand With the unexpected death of Thomas Benninger and the subsequent closing of his restaurant, Gladys at the Strand, San Antonio lost not only a major culinary talent but a popular venue at an important crossroads. In this city of rampant rumors,…
Food & Drink : The bar tab
Sage advice It was 10 on a sticky Friday night in July, and the dance floor in the Sage bar at the Fairmount Hotel was full. It’s not technically a dance floor, and it only holds one couple (especially when the couple is mopping up the floor the way this one was), but still, in…
Wheat is the new oil
Get ready for Peak Grain: The global cupboard is one major disaster away from bare Brace yourself for crises at the cash register. Major price hikes for food are coming, as Peak Grain joins the lineup of life-changing events such as Peak Oil and Peak Water. Unless this year’s harvest is unexpectedly different from six…
Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Nothing is ‘sacred’ On the eve of their Sunday night show at the Majestic Theatre, Los Lonely Boys suffered a PR embarrassment, as group bassist Joey “JoJo” Sacarais Garza was arrested at Austin’s Omni Hotel on July 22, on marijuana possession and assault charges. The band hasn’t commented on the…
Sol searching
Sexto Sol responds to frontman Sam Villela’s return from Iraq with a collection of pensive groove workouts When Sexto Sol singer-keyboardist Sam Villela left San Antonio for a stint in Iraq at the end of 2003, neither he nor his bandmates knew if their band had a future. As an active-duty member of the U.S.…
Bad appraisal
City officials cite folk artist for violations of safety and trash regulations The Reverend Seymour Perkins doesn’t have a working phone, but his friends always know how to get in touch with him. Perkins, 75, a self-styled preacher and highly regarded folk artist, inevitably can be found on the corner of South Hackberry and Nevada,…
Rock till you drop
No spring chicken, they, but the Lep can still get reasonably Def At a time when critics are fawning over cutting-edge acts like Arctic Monkeys and Tapes ’N Tapes, one refugee from the golden age of ’80s pop metal (whose name is not Bon Jovi) has been selling out venues around the country. And while…
Dereliction of duty
Abbott decides that some Texas vets don’t deserve education benefits. Surprise! They’re immigrants. “Sorry I Asked” could have been the title of Senator Leticia Van de Putte’s January 2006 letter to Attorney General Greg Abbott. An appropriate heading for the AG’s July 21 reply would be “Another Sign (in case you needed it) That Republicans…
I wish they all could be mail-order girls
But international matchmaking law meant to protect foreign brides from abuse has stepped on the seams of some American men’s dreams The climate is the only thing that’s frigid: I’m sorry, Solzhenitsyn, that you lived long enough to see Siberia go from poster child for chain gangs and gulags to an American-man’s bridal marketplace. ‘Ol…
Music : Current choice
Dropping anchor Kacy Crowley’s career arc looks like that of another Austin singer-songwriter, Sara Hickman — only a decade later. Both performers built a word-of-mouth buzz for their intimate, acoustic performances; signed to a major label (Crowley with Atlantic, Hickman with Elektra); had their indie debuts (Crowley’s Anchorless, and Hickman’s Equal Scary People) re-released by…
Chaos and creation in the back yard
Two brothers find a new life through extreme wrestling Vinnie Vegaz stares with piercing, demonic blue eyes at the scrap of barbed wire clenched in his left hand. With his long, knotted, fire-red hair dangling in front of his transfixed face, he appears to be a man possessed. His camouflage-covered adversary T.J. Roe lies motionless…
A spoonful of sugar for those meds
Web Exclusive San Pedro Playhouse’s Carouseloffers more than nostalgia in a time of war The San Pedro Playhouse’s summer production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel opens with a lone man on the first step of a stairway (OK, ladder) to heaven, followed by a delightfully choreographed group of young girls miming the darker, and repetitious,…
CD spotlight – The Fuss
What the fuss Between his tireless work fronting his namesake cover band and his moonlighting lark with the KISS tribute band Love Gun, Chris Boss has learned all the tricks of the classic-rock masters. His new album, The Fuss (also the name of Boss’s new band project), puts his hard-earned virtuosity on full display. Playing…
If you build it, luchadores will come
Antonia Alonzo gave her grandson the gift of wrestling. And it keeps on giving back. Inside a small toolshed on San Antonio’s South Side, a group of about 12 wrestlers stand around talking, lacing up their boots, and changing into costumes for fight night. Some wear official lucha-libre masks and tights; others get into character…
Eco-Gospel
One SA woman converted after seeing Al Gore preach in An Inconvenient Truth Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, with the electricity we use, the cars we drive … The solutions are in our hands. We…
The Urban Geographer – Walk softly and preferably without talking
Step by step … slowly I turned On those days when the outdoors feel like a tropical terrarium at 8 p.m., it’s easy to skip the evening walk. But I take one every day, in the sliver of twilight just before the bats arrive. When the sun is low, and if a cooling breeze kicks…
Home on the Range
A former New Yorker’s guide to the Texas adjustment “And all over the world, strangers talk only about the weather. All over the world, it’s the same, it’s the same, it’s the same.” -Tom Waits For the past week, there’s been much in the news about a Major Heat Wave that has gripped our nation.…
On the street
Spray it, don’t say it When you’re meandering downtown, I implore you to venture slightly east to the stretch of Nolan Street that extends under the bridge between North Cherry and Chestnut streets. There, you’ll find a pleasant surprise. The concrete walls are no longer kissed with half-effort, random tagging. Now the area is amplified…
Last words : When ‘yes’ means ‘no’
Uncle B’s guide to San Antonio RSVPs and other social niceties Perhaps that old social proverb “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” wasn’t coined in Texas, but it is certainly the currency of the realm, other denominations being “Bless her heart,” and “Never turn down an invitation.” If as a…
Arts : The art capades
Gimme something to believe in … Hotfooting it to art show after art show this month in search of that elusive spark of artistic wonder, I’ve generally been confronted by all-too-human attempts at illustrating the everyday. Not that that can’t be fun, too, but a couple of shows have captured an artist’s fleeting glimpse of…
Sports : Hustle and Flow
San Antonio’s other professional basketball franchise, the Silver Stars, started their recent three-game home stand on a promising note. Their national television contest with the Houston Comets resulted in a tight 67-64 victory and showcased the skills of center Chantelle Anderson, who paced the team with 17 points and 6 rebounds. As with most Silver…
Last Chance to Cam Like You Mean It
cam like you mean it Contemporary Art Month officially comes to a close this week with three don’tmiss events: The second-annual Dignowity Hill Pushcart Derby will pit returning champion (and founder) Cruz Ortiz against fellow SA artists and their custom carts. Robert Tatum returns, as does Andy Benavides and a host of other ersatz hotrodders,…
Last Chance to Cam Like You Mean It
cam like you mean it Contemporary Art Month officially comes to a close this week with three don’tmiss events: The second-annual Dignowity Hill Pushcart Derby will pit returning champion (and founder) Cruz Ortiz against fellow SA artists and their custom carts. Robert Tatum returns, as does Andy Benavides and a host of other ersatz hotrodders,…
