Crockett, Otis Elevator Co. fined for 2011 elevator death
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, which oversees the state’s elevators, has fined Otis Elevator Co. and the Crockett Hotel for the 2011 accident that killed Gloria Rodriguez, a longtime housekeeper at the downtown hotel. Three days after Christmas 2011, Gloria Rodriguez plunged seven stories to her death down the Crockett’s service elevator shaft.…
Happy April Fool’s Day & Happy National Poetry Month
How do you combine celebrating poets and stupid pranks in one post? Like this: http://www.hulu.com/watch/331284
National Poetry Month Begins Today
It’s National Poetry Month, and the organizers in San Antonio are once again starting things off with a serious prank they call Slam The Town. As a DIY celebration to open NPM, choose a poem and hand it out on the street, place it in someone’s work mail slot, email it, put on FaceBook, tweet…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: ‘The Girl’
David Riker’s La Ciudad (1998) belongs among the best films about undocumented immigrants. With The Girl, Riker turns to inhospitable norteamericanos. A screw-up who has lost custody of her son and inhabits a squalid trailer, blonde, blue-eyed Ashley (Abbie Cornish) resents Mexicans whose wages exceed hers in a San Antonio supermarket. Desperate for cash, she…
Livin’ La Vida Rosa: How Draco Beat Cancer and Topped the Latin Charts
It’s hard to believe Draco Rosa (fka Robi Rosa, even though “you can call me anything you want, bro,” he said) was once a contemporary of Ricky Martin in Puerto Rico’s legendary (and insufferable) boy group Menudo. But he’s also the only Menudo member to enjoy critical respect in the music world. His solo albums,…
Review: 'Game of Thrones' Season 3 Premiere
The bearer of broadswords and dragons returned to its drooling masses Sunday night. Game of Thrones, the fantasy television adaptation of author George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice novels, is a ratings juggernaut. Season 3’s premier, “Valar Dohaeris,” continues the series’ prominent writing and character development, while only giving viewers the…
Marnie Stern: 'The Chronicles of Marnia'
Marnie Stern does seem like a character from a rock ’n’ roll fantasy story. A self-taught Van Halen with the voice of a hyperactive teenaged J-pop star, a composer with an alien sense of rhythm, and a lyricist just as likely to speak in pep rally chants as introspective abstractions, Stern is always all of…
Please Touch the Artwork at “The Color of Blind”
“Please touch the artwork” was the recurring prompt last Saturday at the group exhibition “The Color of Blind,” curated by Trina Bacon and Katherine Brown. Presenting tactile works by Steven DaLuz, Susan Budge, Kathy Sosa, Andy Benavides, Robert Tatum, William Vance, Oscar Saenz and 40-plus other artists from the San Antonio and Austin areas, the show…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: “Paintings, Prosecco, and Peacocks”
Taking Contemporary Art Month out with a bang, SA art bad boy Franco Mondini-Ruiz is presenting a four-day art extravaganza at his compound on the West Side that will inaugurate three new venues. Casa Leal Botanica is a reincarnation of his famed Southtown art menagerie that delighted a disparate but savvy crowd at the turn…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Soul Asylum
Don’t cry for Soul Asylum, San Antonio — the truth is, they never left you. Strange as it may seem, the proto-grunge hit makers haven’t charted in 15 years but never actually got around to breaking up in spite of deaths in the family, plenty of membership turmoil, and the usual fussing and feuding. Longtime…
Guest Post: San Antonio Pets Alive
San Antonio Pets Alive! wishes you a Bright Spring. This time of “New Beginnings” is very important to our mission of uniting our AWESOME four legged citizens with loving owners where they can BLOSSOM and be an important part of the family. Join us this weekend to meet a new family member: SAPA! New Beginnings…
Last Chance: Andréa Caillouet and Flag Boy Twin at The Epitome Institute
For small art spaces — even ones with portentous names like the Epitome Institute — opening and closing parties are the times to count on visiting. In between, it’s usually “by appointment only.” But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing; rather, it’s proof that we are an event-driven city, keeping parties closer to…
Fiesta Survival Tips
Meet Isis Madrid. She’s our digital content editor. Isis moved to San Antonio from Boston, Mass., last summer, which means she’s never before experienced the cultural behemoth known as Fiesta. She needs advice, lots of it. Because she both lives and works downtown, Isis can’t really run or hide from the 10-day explosion of parades,…
Q&A: Actor Dylan McDermott likes throwback feel of ‘Olympus Has Fallen’
Actor Dylan McDermott stars as Secret Service agent Forbes in the Antoine Fuqua-directed action film “Olympus Has Fallen,” which opened at theaters last week. In director Antoine Fuqua’s action film Olympus Has Fallen, actor Dylan McDermott (The Campaign) plays Forbes, a Secret Service agent who is caught in the middle of a terrorist plot when…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Contemporary Art Month Closing Party
If you’ve been keeping up with Contemporary Art Month, the time has come to cast your vote for the Cammies. With titles like “The Through the Looking Glass Award for Bending Perceptions” and “I Am Not Spock Award for Doing the Unexpected,” the awards (above) are presented during the CAM Closing Party, a celebration that’s…
Video Premiere: Marnie Stern’s “Immortals”
Hot off the release of her latest record, The Chronicles of Marnia, guitarist fatale Marnie Stern brings us the music video for its debut single, “Immortals.” The Pitchfork darling recruited director Allie Avital Tsypin to showcase the dualities of her persona in this washed out representation of yin and yang on crack. Stern’s sensitive songbird perched in her Upper…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: Grito de Mujer
Founded by Dominican writer Jael Uribe in 2009, Mujeres Poetas Internacional seeks to enhance the work of women poets and reclaim their place in literature. Throughout Women’s History Month, Uribe’s movement connects poets, artists, and literary groups in more than 30 countries through Grito de Mujer Festival Internacional de Poesía. Translated as Woman Scream, the…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: JD Samson
A former projectionist who joined the feminist electroclash trio Le Tigre in 2000, JD Samson (born Jocelyn Samson in Cleveland) is co-founder of the performance art group Dykes Can Dance and a founding member of the Brooklyn-based music/art/performance collective MEN. Out since age 15, Samson’s uncompromising style has made her an icon of the underground…
The sour side of life in South Texas' Eagle Ford Shale
(See video of industrial flares surrounding the Cernys’ home) Off-duty San Antonio cops directed a thick swarm of traffic outside the Panna Maria community center in sleepy Karnes County one evening last December. Blue-shirted Marathon Oil representatives beamed, greeting more than 1,000 local landowners who gathered to talk oil, gas, and riches. But from the…
Justin Timberlake: 'The 20/20 Experience'
Whatever the reasons for and results of his seven-year musical hiatus, Justin Timberlake’s return is an exultant record that delivers on the promise of previous work. Timberlake’s sweltering upper-register crooning sounds saccharine and effortless as ever here. He and longtime collaborator/producer Timbaland treat us to a batch of songs almost exclusively focused on sweet lovin’…
Julie Speed at Southwest School of Art
Edouard Manet’s Olympia sparked scandal at the Paris Salon in 1865, not just for the female figure’s nudity, but also for her direct, confrontational gaze, the frank stare of a prostitute rather than the demureness of Ottoman Empire odalisques painted by male artists since the 16th century. Texas artist Julie Speed inserts a 21st-century woman’s…
¡Ask a Mexican!
Dear Mexican: About six years ago, my wife and I adopted a little baby boy. He is “pure” mestizo and we are complete wabs. I’m a little dark because of my mixed Arab heritage, but my wife is a major league blanca. He is a sweet little gabacho growing up in a wab world. I…
State to Repo COSA's Payday Lender Ordinance?
No good deed goes unpunished, a phrase that’s more than just cliché when it comes to politics. At the beginning of the year, a City ordinance restricting credit access businesses, more familiar as payday and auto title lenders, went into effect. However, those restrictions appear to be in jeopardy as the Texas Legislature considers a…
Nick Shan: 'Music Therapy Vol. 1'
Even at its weakest (the first four tracks, filled with chorus-less songs or tracks that are nothing but aimless choruses), Nick Shan’s seven-track solo debut EP is a strong statement that’s all bark and bite. This funky, catchy little gem of pop is one of the best sounding local albums I’ve heard (credit goes to…
Sexto Sol plays with the old Chicano soul masters
There used to be a time when the young looked up to the old. Dylan looked up to Guthrie, ’70s rockers went back to the ’60s, and classic rock stations were thriving. Now, we live in idiotic times — in order to be “relevant,” you have to be “young.” Get me any writer who chose,…
'The Gatekeepers,' Israel's unprecedented look at itself
Except for isolated cases like Errol Morris’ Oscar-winning documentary The Fog of War (starring former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara), in our buck-passing, “no comment” culture it’s almost impossible to imagine former American security officials offering up the kind of candor, regrets and blunt assessments of their country, leaders, and policies as the six former…
Touring the city for a cocktail classic
The Old-Fashioned is classic enough to have a glass named in its honor. Yet writing of the venerable drink’s history, Ted Haigh, aka Dr. Cocktail, proclaims that from simple origins as a whiskey cocktail of rye, bitters, sugar, water, and maybe a splash of curaçao, “it morphed into a veritable fruit cocktail with oranges, orange…
The Strokes : 'Comedown Machine'
About a minute into opener “Tap Out,” right around the time its Bad-era MJ groove morphs into a chorus that must have been lifted from some lost Psychedelic Furs B-side, it’s fair to wonder what the hell is going on with the Strokes’ latest album. The quintet isn’t done, though: check the Duran Duran guitar…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I was too lazy to write your horoscope this week, so I went to a website that hawks bumper stickers and copied a few of their slogans to use as your “advice.” Here you go. 1. Never follow a rule off a cliff. 2. Have the courage to honor your peculiarities.…
'Mr. Selfridge' turns a department store into the greatest show on earth
“Mr. Selfridge” (8pm Sun, PBS) Jeremy Piven provides Masterpiece Classic with a jolt of American energy, rousing the series from its recent Downton Abbey lethargy. In the eight-part “Mr. Selfridge,” Piven plays the real-life Harry Gordon Selfridge, a brash Chicago huckster who pioneered the modern department store in turn-of-the-century London. Before Selfridge arrived, English shopping…
Best of Flash Fiction, March 2013
Six-worders. Lovely. I’ve touted them before. Search the SA Current blog for Don Mathis and you’ll find some excellent examples (as well as a couple of other great flash fiction pieces of his). Or look for Gary Muenster’s alliterative six-worder. The ones I have for this week are a little different, but fit nicely. We…
Industry News: No James Beard Awards for San Antonio, whomp-whomp
Sad news for San Antonio — the James Beard Award finalist list is out, and none of our hometown heroes made the cut. Chef Michael Sohocki from Restaurant Gwendolyn and chef David Gilbert, formerly from Sustenio, were both nominated for Best Chef in the Southwest as semifinalists. And Bruce Auden’s Biga on the Banks was…
'Spring Breakers,' as brainy as a beer bong
There is a long and colorful tradition of teen crime-spree films loaded with guns, wild music, booze, and always ample helpings of sex: all designed to generate maximum controversy and to shock the living crap out of establishment stiffs. Spring Breakers, director Harmony Korine’s wildly audacious art-trash mind-fuck, falls squarely in this continuum but it…
El Ceviche de Waldito's chef is happy to meet you
Texans are fond of saying about each other, “He never met a stranger.” Well, native Peruvian Waldo Castro, chef and owner of this small restaurant just north of Loop 410, fits the description perfectly. A gregarious guy who started washing dishes in Miami 30 years ago, Castro made his way through top hotel dining rooms…
Wavves: 'Afraid of Heights'
From his days making shit-caked beach-gaze virtually by himself, Wavves’ Nathan Williams — who now records and tours with Jacob Cooper and Stephen Pope — has come a long way as a songwriter on his fourth LP. While some parts may seem overly-wrought and a tad too Green Day-indebted, Afraid of Heights ultimately has something…
International-artist-in-residence Exhibition 13.1
One of the most anticipated shows in town is the international-artist-in-residence exhibition at Artpace, on view three times a year at the renowned project space. Presenting fresh work by a trio of guest artists chosen from Texas, the United States, and abroad, SA art aficionados look forward to seeing how their local artists rate compared…
How to close abortion clinics under the guise of women's safety
From the outset, state Sen. Donna Campbell was eager to help Texas pro-lifers pick up where they left off in 2011. During last year’s heated campaign to unseat Jeff Wentworth, she hammered the “liberal, pro-choice Republican” for voting against Texas’ infamous sonogram law, which, among other things, requires that doctors describe the development of the…
Vicki Grise's play 'blu' at Guadalupe Theatre speaks with true voices of the barrio
Vicki Grise’s play blu depicts the struggles of barrio life through voices seldom heard in American theater. It has been performed in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to critical acclaim, but though the New York-based writer claims San Antonio as her home, the 2010 Yale Drama Award-winning play — chosen by playwright David Hare…
Fracking Feature Sneak Peak Video: Industrial Flares in Karnes County Texas
This week, we profile a family living in the Eagle Ford that’s fed up with fracking near their house. Here are some videos Mike Cerny took of industrial flares at oil and gas sites near his rural Karnes County home. Click the cover below to check out the full article.
Guest Post: San Antonio Pets Alive
Our goal at San Antonio Pets Alive! is to save homeless yet adoptable pets from needless euthanasia. We pull dogs and cats directly off of the city’s euthanasia list EVERYDAY. Our kennels are FULL of loving and wonderful pets who want nothing more than a home and people to LOVE. Another aspect of our rescue that sets…
Stay Current with the Pick of the Day: “New, Newer, Newest”
Founded in 1994, San Antonio’s own SOLI Chamber Ensemble was among the first chamber ensembles invited to perform at South by Southwest. Winner of a 2013 CMA/ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award, the ensemble (Ertan Torgul, violin; Stephanie Key, clarinet; Carolyn True, piano; and David Mollenauer, cello) puts a fresh spin on 20th- and 21st-century classic music,…
