Arts – BodyShe ain’t heavy, she’s my stylist
Help yourself to an Aveda treatment and help a salon student graduate Oh, sure, you thought, when Silver Ventures announced last November that an Aveda Institute would be opening on the grounds of the old Pearl Brewery, that’s nice for hairstylists, but what’s in it for me? A $14 pedicure, for starters, in which an…
Music – Feature Piano man-child
Gavin DeGraw is lurking in the waiting room of superstardom, but not for lack of talent There’s a certain prescience to the opening lyrics of Gavin DeGraw’s debut album: “Oh, this is the start of something good/Don’t you agree?” Two years after Chariot’s release, he hasn’t earned the Grammy nods or outlandish record sales some…
Music Sound and the Fury
SA Current Online W.C. Clarkat Luna onJune 16 A week on the scene 97 problems, but a gig ain’t one Country-pop standouts the Old 97’s went three years between releases before reuniting last year to make their sixth album, Drag It Up, their first for New West Records. The Woodstock, New York, and San Diego,…
Arts – WordsRevolutionary femme fun
Cheeky Xika for chickies It’s pronounced “chica,” chickies. Xika is the cheeky new magazine from San Antonio’s eponymous feminist-solidarity collective, and the release party for the second issue, 10 p.m. Saturday, June 18 at Saluté, 2801 N. St. Mary’s, is sure to be hotter than belle hooks in fishnet. Musical entertainment includes Xicano punk band…
Music Music therapy
Local friends unite for a tribute to paralyzed Bay Area musician Dax Pierson Dax Pierson might be the best-known obscure musician on the planet. Pierson – a brilliant keyboard player for Bay Area underground groups such as Subtle, 13 & God, and Themselves – hasn’t sold a lot of records or established himself as a…
Arts – Stage In The Round
Current Online news politics culture Applications for TheatreASAP, Sid Trice passes, Moving up Moving fast… The San Antonio Theatre Coalition is accepting applications from playwrights and directors who are 18 or older and are interested in participating in the second annual TheatreASAP, which will be held Saturday, September 10, 2005, at the Magik Theatre. TheatreASAP…
Screens – Feature When he was bad, he was very, very good
Batman never looked like himself in primary colors and Boy-Scout morality The Batman, as any true comics fan knows, is a grim creature of the night – a self-made überman driven by childhood trauma and a vigilante’s certainty about what’s right and who must be punished. But big-budget matinees and Saturday-morning serials, unlike the most…
Screens Special screens
SA Current Online The Italian Straw Hat, La Mujer Sin Alma, Mark of Zorro, and Camp Cinema Cinema Tuesdays with Texas Public Radio The Italian Straw Hat Dir. René Clair (1927) From the golden age of silent film, a charming farce in which a hapless bridegroom is pressed into replacing a straw hat on his…
Music Urban cowboys
Current choice – Frankie J & Baby Bash Frankie J was born Francisco Javier Bautista in Tijuana, Mexico and crossed the U.S. border with his uncle when he was 2 years old. Growing up in San Diego, Frankie J idolized Michael Jackson and would often perform for his family, tossing a sombrero in the air…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Christian Bale (The Machinist) sports the tights once worn by Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and George Clooney to portray the nocturnal superhero who attempts to save Gotham City from some of its own corrupt citizens in Batman Begins, the prequel to 1989’s original Batman `see “When he was bad…”…
News Up in smoke
States rights go to pot over medical marijuana On Christmas Eve three years ago, Tre learned he had a brain tumor the size of an orange. He needed surgeries, chemotherapy, and $690 a month for medicine to control his nausea and pain. “There was no way I could come up with that money,” he said.…
Food & drink All you can eat
Current Online news politics culture News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Local chef makes good Jason Dady, chef and owner of The Lodge Restaurant of Castle Hills, 1746 Lockhill-Selma, will be the featured chef at the James Beard House in New York City on June 29. The House was started by Julia…
News You’ve been pink’d
CODEPINK uses humor and politics to make a point Last month, during the final weeks of the 79th Texas Legislature, a group of women dressed in hot pink shirts, hats, wigs, and boas made their way through the Capitol in Austin, delivering “pink slips” to offending legislators. Chanting “2, 4, 6, 8 high kicks can’t…
Music Change agents
Perceptionists and the return of politics to hip-hop Underground hip-hop heads have been waiting for the genre’s return to politics ever since Bill Clinton left the White House. The theory was that once the Republicans took power, the bling era would subside, returning the music to its rightful role as America’s Black CNN. Some artists…
News Briefs
Animal facility sub-par, Click > Mouse > Find > Pet, Homeless ID’s Animal facility still sub-par Members of the Citizens for Pound Reform, Animal Defense League, Bexar County Humane Society, and the Animal Care Advisory Board gathered on a warm summer morning last week to discuss the reported deficiencies of the new Animal Care Service…
Screens Ecstatic ambiguity
‘The Holy Girl’ leaves a spa-full of spiritual seekers without answers Eros and Deus are such close allies that Eros was in fact a Greek god. Mystics such as Saint Teresa of Avila often express spiritual transcendence through orgasmic imagery. “The Song of Songs,” the most sensual book of the Bible, is conventionally read as…
News Party Lines
Clearing the Flores hurdle Express-News reporter Greg Jefferson didn’t apologize to community activist Graciela Sanchez over his unfortunate labeling of her and others who recently protested the latest PGA taxing district scam as “communist activists.” Instead, Jefferson reportedly told her it was an error caused by “spell check.” It’s puzzling how this could be a…
Screens Small screen
P.O.V. kicks off its season with a West Texas tale of reproductive revival Ignorance might be bliss, but after bliss comes morning sickness. What the teenagers of Texas don’t know can hurt them, in the form of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. Because of a law signed by Governor George W. Bush in 1995,…
News Speed Reads
Campaign signs, Garza’s door lies in state, Courage eyes D21 Recycle your campaign signs: A week after the election, hundreds of campaign signs remain stuck in the ground, attached to fences, and affixed on about any flat surface the candidates could find. But don’t doom those signs to the landfill; recycle them. Justin Parr of…
Screens It’s ok, i’m with the band
Director Don Argott stage dives into ‘Rock School’ If you asked director Don Argott as a child what he wanted to be when he grew up, astronaut, fireman, cowboy, or even superhero would never have entered his mind. For Argott, it was all about being a rock star. “I have been a musician my whole…
Feature Stick men
San Antonio’s lacrosse community is a tight-knit family that speaks a language of its own The team captains for San Antonio’s Summer Lacrosse League gather around a large table next to the bar at Chris Madrid’s. The polls have just closed on election night in San Antonio, but the subject never comes up at this…
Screens Armchair cinephile
Dad’s heroes – Steve McQueen, Marlon Brando, Gary Cooper and… Howard Zinn If you didn’t already know it, walking into a video store this week probably would tip you off that Sunday is Father’s Day. How could you miss the signals, what with the take-no-guff visage of Steve McQueen staring at you from so many…
Arts – Local filmmakersTwo down, a dirty dozen to go
Local Roaring Bear Pictures is making noir and action films faster than you can say, ‘Shoot’ They might not be as famous as the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix), Coen Brothers (Fargo), or Farrelly Brothers (There’s Something About Mary), but San Antonio’s own Campos brothers are just as passionate about their work as anyone with a…
Food & drink Mint jelly memories
The Little Rhein prepares meat in old-school ways The building that houses the Little Rhein Steakhouse was built in 1847, give or take a year, and the restaurant opened 120 years later. A sense of history, cultural and culinary, lingers in the very bones of the place. The Phelps family, its founder, has endeavored to…
Arts – Local filmmakersFilm at first sight
Dora Peña couldn’t forget ‘Crazy Love,’ so she made it her debut movie When she was 11, San Antonio filmmaker Dora Peña stumbled across Lou Mathews’ short story, “Crazy Life,” in the 1980 Pushcart Prize XV Collection. Peña was immediately drawn to the tale of Dulcie, a strong-willed Latina in love with Chuey, a young…
Food & drink Just peachy
As orchards ripen, it’s a fine time to visit the Hill Country Ripe peaches are one of the great pleasures of summer. Heavy and fragrant, they can be baked into pies, preserved in jam, roasted on the grill, or enjoyed whole, each bite so sweet and texturally perfect you hardly notice the sticky juice dripping…
Arts – books¡Mucha lucha!
Xavier Garza illustrates the chaotic joy of Mexican pro wrestling As a child growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, Xavier Garza remembers being mesmerized by reruns of now-classic El Santo movies. Religiously, he followed the exploits and adventures of the legendary silver-masked Mexican wrestler, whose battles against monsters, mummies, and mysterious mujeres scarcely compared…
Food & drink Food flight
At Stinson Airfield, the food is basic but the ambience is out of this world For my delicate constitution, eating and flying don’t mix. When I’m pounding two Dramamine at an airport water fountain, I’m amazed that people can put away slices of cheese pizza, a couple of beers, a tall latte, a deli sub,…
Arts – Stage All the new world’s a stage
The Guadalupe ignites Tejano and Chicano theater with the first annual teatroFEST Marisela Barrera, theater arts director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, came to San Antonio with the attitude that more mainstream theater-types take to New York. “As a Chicano or Chicana artist,” she says, “if you can make it here, you can make…
Food & drink Fine dining, poor reading
‘Arnaud’s Restaurant Cookbook’ offers better recipes than anecdotes I’ve heard it said that New Orleans folk are as likely to ignore their rich heritage as they are to talk about it, simply because it surrounds them so completely. Still, I couldn’t help but be disappointed by Arnaud’s Restaurant Cookbook, written by Kit Wohl, the restaurant’s…
