The strange tale of Midget Mansion
Readers of my blog are aware that I am fond of pointing out that San Antonio is one of those places that seems to beget a bounty of weird urban legends. One of the most whimsical and macabre tales involves an estate that had the colorful name of Midget Mansion (also known as Gillespie Mansion).…
Geekdom: The Warm and Fuzzies
Beyond Paycheck welcomes back guest blogger Desiree Prieto who recently relocated to the Big Apple! Desiree Prieto has written for a variety of publications, including the Emmy-award winning NBC Chicago Street Team and The San Antonio Current. She’s covered fashion week Chicago, New York and San Antonio, among other fabulously high-profile events. She only gets…
Café Tacuba to release new album; SA show Aug. 15
When Mexico’s Café Tacuba (aka Café Tacvba) released its self-titled debut in 1992, the world of rock en español was introduced to a unique quartet: acoustic guitar, stand-up bass, drum machine, and a vocalist that wore guarache sandals and straw hat and sounded like a punk charro. Since then, the band reinvented itself with each…
‘Magic Mike’: The Full Channing
Director Steven Soderbergh doesn’t make Magic Mike just about painfully sexy men. He also stuffs a plot, along with dollar bills of course, into the cast’s G-strings. Mike (Channing Tatum) and “The Kid” (Alex Pettyfer), all chiseled abs and asses, star in an all-male revue in Tampa. Mike supports his newbie pal from that first…
Actor Chris Klein talks about ‘American Reunion,’ ‘Wilfred’
Actor Chris Klein reprises his role as Oz in “American Reunion,” the fourth theatrical release of the “American Pie” franchise. Best known for playing clueless high school student council president hopeful Paul Metzler in director Alexander Payne’s 1999 dark comedy Election and for his role as hopelessly romantic jock Oz Ostreicher in the American Pie…
The Wicked Stage on Vibratorgate at the Playhouse
Well, I’m afraid I’ve been AWOL in the Bay Area while the spectacle of “Vibrator-gate” continues to unfold at the Playhouse (see my initial review of Sarah Ruhl’s “The Vibrator Play” here, the Playhouse President’s subsequent interview here and a fascinating piece by Jade Esteban Estrada for Plaza de Armas here). The good news…
Vigil for same-sex couple killed outside Corpus Christi planned in SA tonight
Police have made little progress in the case of Mary Chapa and Mollie Olgin after two hiker’s found the couple hidden in the tall grass this past weekend in a Portland park across the bay from Corpus Christi. Both had been shot in the head. 19-year-old Olgin was pronounced dead at the scene while her…
Obamacare, gonorrhea, UFOs, and Bexar County’s dirty livers
OK. We assume you’ve heard the latest, Mr./Mrs./Ms. One-in-Four San Antonio: you’re about to have health insurance. Yep, the Supremes are smiling on you 350,000 without insurance today. Our hope is that with the expansion of health services you’ll rush right out there and get some STD testing. This double-the-state-average on STD’s like gonorrhea and…
Nora Ephron: A Charmed Life
Eat, Love, and Kvetch By Gregg Barrios Nora Ephron lived a charmed life. Her parents were film writers, and she attended Wellesley. But again, she carved her own career single-handedly at a time when there were few bankable women directors in Hollywood (Penny Marshall and Barbra Streisand come to mind). Her foray into film began…
Open Call for Texas Artists
Beginning today, June 27, artists living and working in Texas are invited to submit material for the Artpace 2014 International Artist-in-Residence Open Call. Applicants will be considered for the statewide shortlist, which guest curators in 2014 will use as a tool to select Texas residents. More info at artpace.org. The 2014 Open Call closes at…
Top Pick of the Day: ‘The Greenest Building’
The Alamo Sierra Club hosts a free screening of Wagging Tale Productions’ The Greenest Building. Narrated by David Ogden Stiers, the hour-long doc explores the role of historic buildings in creating a sustainable culture. Through interviews with architect Jean Carroon, green building consultant Ralph DiNola, preservationist/economist Donovan Rypkema, and others, the film touches on the…
Writer, playwright, filmmaker Nora Ephron, dead at 71
Norah Ephron, one of Hollywood’s most successful screenwriters (Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail) and one of the funniest, wittiest, and most lucid writers of her generation, passed away Tuesday night in New York, the victim of pneumonia. She was 71. Even though her work in journalism and her books established…
Getting high on mariachi: ‘Mariachi High,’ 6/29 on PBS
Mariachi High, directed by Ilana Trachtman and Kim Connell, is not your usual public television Latino hagiography. It is a fascinating documentary on the world of high-school-level mariachi and the key role San Antonio plays in it. As the first U.S. city where Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán (the world’s most respected ranchera group) performed, San…
Man U’s Eric Cantona makes peace with Liverpool
Mick Jones (The Clash) and his Justice Tonight band (with Peter Wyllie and The Farm) was formed to raise awareness on the fight for justice for the 96 Liverpool fans who died at Hillsborough Stadium in 1989 during a human crush, in the worst soccer tragedy in British history. During a June 25 show in…
