News : How to break away from what’s broken
The Mexican election wants to be your role model After a delay, the country got its results and its bad news. The ruling party had stuffed their man into office, and by the most suspicious margin. There were reports of fraud and the kind of signature corruption that gets an illegal act named after your…
Media : Special screenings
Slab Cinema: Blood on the Sun Frank Lloyd (1945) Classic tough guy James (“You Dirty Rat”) Cagney plays Nick Condon, an American newspaperman in Tokyo who must fight a Japanese plot to bomb the U.S., in Blood on the Sun — a film that gives a fairly clear indication of the levels of anti-Japanese sentiment…
News : Death by a thousand vetoes
Scary Presidential Powers 2: the Line-Item Veto Tucked away within a deficit-cutting bill aimed at decimating social welfare programs is a line-item veto proposal that would extend the President’s unilateral powers beyond the wildest dreams of the proponents of “unitary executive theory.” This is a one-two punch by conservative Republicans who think they are on…
Media : Armchair Cinephile
Undimmed stars A year ago, when Warner Bros. unveiled rival box sets devoted to Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, movie buffs were told they’d have to wait a while to see a special edition of the film that pitted one against the other, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. The day is finally here, with…
News : Counterpoint
Build a fence, dig a hole Who’s working harder to suppress the immigrant vote? Anti-Voting Rights Act Republicans or the Minutemen? God love the Minutemen. Those sumbitches have put their rebar where their mouth is. Last week, they began building a wall between us and Mexico, starting in Arizona. I suspect that someone failed to…
Food & Drink : Have your cake…
And decorate it, too. Grams demonstrates DIY roses. Grandmas are experts at everything — or so a cashier at the grocery store told me yesterday. And it’s probably true. For example, it wasn’t long after I arrived at my grandmother’s house today for my cake-decorating lesson that I learned I’ve never washed dishes using the…
Containment policy
For ailing residents of Kelly’s toxic triangle, answers are hard to come by Victor San Miguel stands on the porch of his dilapidated white-frame house on Hollenbeck Avenue and points across the street. Without taking a step off his property, San Miguel provides a quick tour of his neighborhood, but it’s a grim tour, like…
Food & Drink : The pesto of South America
Tired of salsa morning, noon, and night? Try a little chimichurri on your meat Chimichurri. Chimi-churrrrri. It just sounds delicious and exotic. But what is it? Turns out, that’s not such an easy question to answer. The short version is: Chimichurri is Latin-American pesto. Fresh herbs, spices, and oil are blenderized into a thick sauce.…
Arts : Walking the walk
Cuban-born Puerto Rican artist Ernesto Pujol takes on the intangible, step by step Sister Stephen Jane, my second-grade teacher at Our Lady of Sorrows Parochial School, had no patience for the full-throttle, maverick creativity that marked my fill-in-the-blank writing exercises. “The boy listened to the silver music with his circus ears.” I was especially proud…
Food & Drink : The bar tab
Culture club Early-evening sun is streaming through small casement windows framed by regiments of collectible plates and wainscotting, which on closer inspection turns out to be a clever job with brown paint. A small bust of Ludwig — less fierce than some of his likenesses — stares impassively over the sea of red-checkered tablecloths that…
Art : The Urban Geographer
Walk softly and carry a good master plan The Japanese (Chinese) Japanese Sunken Garden Just about everyone who’s lived in San Antonio long enough has memories and stories to tell about the Japanese Sunken Garden in Brackenridge Park. In the popular imagination it has always been a curious piece of exotica, providing the perfect place…
Food & Drink : All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene The big news in the local restaurant industry last week, of course, was the grand unveiling of the Tower of the Americas’ $16-million makeover. Landry’s Restaurant Inc. President Tilman Fertitta says the recently opened Eyes Over Texas restaurant within the landmark is the corporation’s number-one dining…
Arts : There’s a play in there somewhere
Rancho Pancho proves to be a rambly, never-ending story When I was a kid I learned that a mouse named Amos was responsible for Ben Franklin’s great ideas, as well as for the wording of the Declaration of Independence. That mouse, from the classic Disney short Ben and Me, scurried across my mind several times…
Music : Doom merchants
After 15 years, AFI suddenly finds itself at the summit of rock If you want to understand the worldview of AFI, consider the name of the band’s official fan club: Despair Faction. For the uninitiated, that’s the first hint that this veteran Bay Area punk band isn’t peddling escapist fun (escapist gloom, maybe). Frontman Davey…
Arts : On the Street
Freaky friday? Depends on your tastes … “We’ve got another Louie … Vanilla,” purred a disciple who’d poured herself into a patent-leather corset and thigh-high boots for a Friday-night romp. Eyes were set on the bare-chested contestant tethered eagerly with leather wrist cuffs to a rectangular wooden “crossmember play-station,” ready for his spanking. In bondage…
Music : Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Warped speed While the hard-rocking likes of AFI and Helmet will seize most of the attention at this weekend’s Vans Warped Tour stop, the festival also includes a Local Heroes Stage, featuring four San Antonio-area bands: Furthest From the Star, Moments in Tragedy, Prevail Within, and The Tale Of. The…
Arts : One more Slam for the road
Puro¡Slam! co-host Phil West heads back to Austin, but not without a parting word or two Puro¡Slam! co-slammaster Phil West decamped for Austin this month. He and his wife sold their Mahnke Park home and headed up I-35 to the capital, where West will be co-directing the National Poetry Slam, taking place in Austin August…
Music : All Ears
Movies with no picture What do they mean when they call pop music “cinematic?” Like that old label “psychedelic,” it’s one of those “I know it when I hear it” things. Chances are, even if you’ve never heard the adjective applied to music, you’ll agree that the pedal steel and parched mariachi trumpets of Calexico…
Arts : Goodbye silo, hello so flo
Artist Justin Parr is on the move and taking Flight Justin Parr, artist, photographer, and director of Flight Gallery, is a firecracker of youthful exuberance. Still in his mid-twenties, he is like a shot in the arm to the art scene with his omnipresence, citywide sticker campaigns (like “Keep San Antonio Lame”), and love of…
Music : Current choice
Organ grinders “I’m so original, baby/just like everyone else.” So sings Kirk Rawlings, guitarist for the Memphis quartet Organ Thief, on the group’s frequently exciting debut album, Orphan Teeth. It’s the kind of smart-ass gamesmanship you’d expect from a band that actually titled a song “Sound of Sarcasm,” but it’s not altogether unwarranted. Organ Thief…
Arts : 4th of July fireworks
Now deemed an official July 4 event in the Alamo City, the Woodlawn Lake Celebration invites families to enjoy a day of activities and fireworks at Woodlawn Lake Park, 1103 Cincinnati. The event kicks off at 10 a.m. with a patriotic children’s parade, in which participants will be judged for best and most patriotic costume,…
Music : CD Spotlight
Keane, revisited On this side of the pond, Keane made a noticeable splash with their 2004 debut Hopes and Fears, especially with singles like “Somewhere Only We Know” and “Bedshaped,” but these cats from Coldplay country – both literally (Great Britain) and, you know, literally (they’re like musical first cousins) – are never going to…
Media : He’s steel got it
Superman Returns to the big screen after a 20-year absence. It’s been almost 20 years since the last time Superman flew across the big screen, but, considering the debacle that was Superman IV: The Quest for Peace — remember Nuclear Man? — three times that long would not have seemed like just penance. That is,…
Media : Fair and foul in the land of the rising sun
PBS does Japanese baseball with Kokoyakyu David Stern and Paul Tagliabue might dissent, but baseball remains the national pastime — except that the nation in question is Asian. While Americans were being seduced by dunks and quarterback sacks, the sport of Cy Young, Babe Ruth, and Ty Cobb became as Japanese as miso. Teams from…
News : Paying with plastic
Old-school paychecks at the INFONXX call center in SA have gone the way of the 8-Track When Kristin Schimcek learned that her final paycheck from her old employer wasn’t going to be deposited directly into her bank account, she didn’t think much of it. Her name had been removed from the payroll system, she’d been…
Media : South Texas Cinema
News from the greater SA film industry I was perusing a by-region, release-date list for indie purveyor Sony Pictures Classics the other day, and was struck by a disparity I have always sort of peripherally recognized and accepted (if grudgingly), but hadn’t ever really seen — or rather, been forced to notice — in writing…
News : Bus stop or still tilting
In May, the Current looked at a February 2 lawsuit filed by Public Transit Users’ Association member Alfred Ehm asking that trustees for VIA Metropolitan Transit stand for public election `see “Tilting at Transit Buses,” May 10-16, 2006`. About four months after the suit was filed, U.S. District Judge Royal Furgeson opted to dismiss the…
Media : That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Hmm. I could just about swear there’s something big opening this weekend help me out here. Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada. You know, like one a’ them comic-booky ones. Know anything like that? Has Gone With the Wind opened yet? Platoon? How ‘bout Oh. Oh, yeah. Now…
