Paloma Luxe
Paloma Blanca cranks out old favorites in swell new surroundings
Beauty In The Details
Scrumptious, enormous, dirt-cheap dishes at Thai Dee
Paloma luxe
The new Paloma Blanca’s open spaces and light interior accompany the familiar fare from the previous incarnation. From front: tacos al pastor, enchiladas “divorciadas” with “irreconcilable” rice and borracho beans, and tres leches cake. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Paloma luxe By Ron Bechtol Paloma Blanca cranks out old favorites in swell new surroundings Paloma Blanca’s…
Beauty In The Details
Thai Dee’s delicate shrimp rolls – fried spring roll sheets housing chopped shrimp and celery – served with honey drenched sweet and sour sauce. (Photos by Laura McKenzie) Beauty In The Details By Laura Fries Scrumptious, enormous, dirt-cheap dishes at Thai Dee Thai Dee is one of those paradoxes that manages to be both hard-to-forget…
The Task of Taks
Guest Column By Julio Noboa The Task of Taks Standardized testing hurts more than helps Throughout the state, students, teachers, and schools are preparing to grapple with the TAKS test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. This state-mandated standardized exam is administered to all students, with notable exceptions, from third through 11th grades in…
The answer is C
Guest Column By Heather Bulla The answer is C The folly of standardized tests In the novel Brave New World, Aldous Huxley discusses his feelings on society’s decline. In the new society, schools separate citizens by their abilities and distribute them where they will function best. In Brave New World, people are “conditioned” to perform…
Tuxes and Toddlers
Tuxes and Toddlers April brings fine dining and family festivals Feast with the Beasts, the annual San Antonio Zoo extravaganza, will feature delicacies from local restaurants. In addition to the regular zoo fun, special entertainment, games, animal close-ups, and a silent auction, there will be a special behind-the-scenes tour. The feast will be held on…
Flooded Out
Neighborhood activist Leon Thomas shows a map of floodplains bordering several East Side subdivisions near Salado Creek. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Flooded Out By Michael Cary East Side residents cry foul in FEMA buyout A marker near City Hall cites the massive deluge that occurred on October 17-18, 1998 as the Flood of the Century.…
Twista Twang
Twista: a hip-hop veteran dealing with overnight stardom Twista Twang By Gilbert Garcia Chicago MC rides his speed-raps to a slow-jam hit There’s something deeply ironic about Twista’s current run at the top of the charts. For years, this Chicago rapper paid his dues, pumping up other people’s hits with his cartoonish supersonic flow. Even…
Clearing the Air
Clearing the Air By Laura Fries UTSA’s Muslim students plan week of awareness Islamic Awareness Week UTSA Campus Monday, April 5 11am-2pm Information tables Noon-3pm Video: The Message 7-9pm Lecture: “Who is Allah? And the Creation of the Universe, Jinn, Mankind, and All That Exist” Tuesday April 6 11am-2pm Information tables Noon-2pm Lecture: “The Unseen…
Sound and the Fury
Sound and the Fury By Gilbert Garcia a week on the scene Synth 13 Sin 13 celebrates its second anniversary on Friday, April 2, with an all-out showcase of retro European synth-pop, in the form of German underground band Wolfsheim. Although the group formed in 1987 – making it more of a peer than a…
All Ears
American Music Club returned with a bang at SXSW. (Photo by Jude Mooney) All Ears By John DeFore Sore feet, ringing ears You can tell the journalists at South By Southwest because they’re always floating theories that start with “This was the year that …” Hungry for trend-defining coincidences, they might note (rightly) about SXSW…
Found In Translation
Found In Translation By Gilbert Garcia It’s easy to understand why the French duo Air is director Sofia Coppola’s musical collaborator of choice. Coppola not only hired Air to provide the soundtrack for her directorial debut, The Virgin Suicides, but got them to contribute a song, “Alone in Kyoto,” to her acclaimed sophomore effort, Lost…
It’s a big world after all
Barbara Ras, director of Trinity University Press, pauses in her office to discuss the press’ ambitious new series, “The Writers World,” a collection of anthologies from around the world featuring accomplished writers on the vocation of writing. The first volumes will be available in approximately two years. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) It’s a big world…
Revenge of the N.E.R.D.
Revenge of the N.E.R.D. By Gilbert Garcia Side projects usually exist as a way for recording artists to blow off creative steam and indulge their weirder preoccupations. Occasionally, by some inexplicable fluke, a side project will sell more records than the mother ship (e.g., Tom Tom Club, Folk Implosion). But rarely does a side project…
Word on the Street
Word on the Street News and notes from the San Antonio Literary scene A Classic Reborn Wings Press will soon release a hardback edition of John Howard Griffin’s autobiographical mid-century American classic, Black Like Me. In Black Like Me, Griffin tells of giving up his life as a middle-class white journalist to disguise himself as…
The Geek Takes the Helm
Hellboy and his Buick-sized fist The Geek Takes the Helm By John DeFore For once, a comic book movie made by a dyed-in-the-wool fan As hard as it is for comics fans to grasp, there are certain otherwise well-educated people out there who don’t know what a “Hellboy” is. So here goes: In World War…
The Heist From Hell
“Inside man” Gawain (Marlon Wayans, left) and Pancake (J.K. Simmons) at each other’s throats in The Ladykillers. The Heist From Hell By John DeFore The Coen Brothers deliver ‘that Coen Brothers feeling’ in spades Most people don’t know that the new movie from the Coen Brothers is a remake. It’s based on a 1955 English…
Playtime in Medieval England
Willem Dafoe (left) and Paul Bettany co-star in The Reckoning. Playtime in Medieval England By Steven G. Kellman ‘The Reckoning’ summons the early spirit of drama The play’s the thing wherein Hamlet catches the conscience of a usurping king. Shakespeare’s melancholy prince commissions a troupe of itinerant actors to perform a play, The Murder of…
Recent Reviews
Dawn of the Dead Dir. Zack Snyder; writ. George Romero (orig. screenplay), James Gunn; feat. Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell (R) Loosely inspired by the second film in George Romero’s landmark Night of the Living Dead trilogy, Dawn of the Dead discards most of the master’s subversiveness. It makes little…
