Artifacts
Art Post 05.4.07 Art news has been piling up like fluffy airborn spring allergens, readers, and I apologize for sweeping up a big pile before I puff my cheeks and blow a big snuff your way. Starters: Despite a home team of Spurs-championship skill and flair, San Antonio did not bring back the $50K Hunting…
A shining light goes out in Africa
On Saturday, May 5, Anthony Mitchell died in the crash of Kenyan Airways Flight 507, which killed all 114 people on board. Based in Nairobi, he was an Associated Press reporter who had recently broken a story on secret prisons in Ethiopia, and U.S. involvement in the detention and interrogation of prisoners there. The world…
Wreck Me!
wreckin Last night, less than an hour after getting home from work, I got a call warning me that, for my own safety, I’d better lay low for awhile. I’d royally pissed off Wreckin’ Belle, a Rollergirl who pivots and blocks for the Dragon Divas. I was scared shitless. After all, Wreckin’ Belle was her team’s second…
Zinn, where have all the book reviews gone?
In the past month, several of the nation’s biggest book sections — in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta — have instituted major cutbacks or changes to their coverage. This shift in focus is part of a larger trend in newspapers — whose circulations are down, whose audiences are getting older — of moving more content…
last words
The liberation of Paris An open letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger By: Gilbert Garcia Dear Governor Schwarzenegger: As you surely know, the state of California is currently suffering through a crisis of unprecedented urgency. I’m not talking about the Griffith Park fire, the state health-care mess, the looming budget crunch, the immigration debate, or prison overcrowding.…
Pillow talk
Sham*Rock blocks Knockaleptic and winds up for a strike. Photo by Justin Parr. It might be one of those fantasies every man has but never admits: two tight-bodied women at a slumber party, dressed in frilly teddies, kneeling on a bed covered in satin sheets, lightly tapping each other with soft pillows as they giggle and…
Courage
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Armchair Cinephile
Pan’s Labyrinth (New Line): Do San Antonio cinephiles need any prodding to see this gorgeous, frightening fairy tale by Mexican visionary Guillermo del Toro? We won’t tattle if you catch it this weekend and pretend you were hip to it all along. Army of Shadows (Criterion): The flipside of the exploitative thrills found in Black…
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Aural Pleasure
‘Sky’ High Over its 13-year history, Wilco has gone through multiple lineups, breakdowns and reinventions. The only constant may be bandleader Jeff Tweedy’s unwavering quest to follow his temperamental, wandering muse. After chasing it through the assassin avenues of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and getting lost in the chrome hell of A Ghost is Born, Tweedy…
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Aural Pleasure
‘Sky’ High Over its 13-year history, Wilco has gone through multiple lineups, breakdowns and reinventions. The only constant may be bandleader Jeff Tweedy’s unwavering quest to follow his temperamental, wandering muse. After chasing it through the assassin avenues of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and getting lost in the chrome hell of A Ghost is Born, Tweedy…
Aural Pleasure
‘Sky’ High Over its 13-year history, Wilco has gone through multiple lineups, breakdowns and reinventions. The only constant may be bandleader Jeff Tweedy’s unwavering quest to follow his temperamental, wandering muse. After chasing it through the assassin avenues of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and getting lost in the chrome hell of A Ghost is Born, Tweedy…
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After Sunset
Because both music and poetry are born of passion and strive to express the inexpressible, they unite quite naturally. Often it happens within the mind of a musician/poet who utilizes both art forms within a single expression. For me, one such artist is Terence Trent D’Arby, who has always been able to move me with…
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After Sunset
Because both music and poetry are born of passion and strive to express the inexpressible, they unite quite naturally. Often it happens within the mind of a musician/poet who utilizes both art forms within a single expression. For me, one such artist is Terence Trent D’Arby, who has always been able to move me with…
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True ‘Freshman’
Brian Vander Ark Wed, May 16 Jack’s Patio Bar & Grill 2950 Thousand Oaks 494-2309 Because both music and poetry are born of passion and strive to express the inexpressible, they unite quite naturally. Often it happens within the mind of a musician/poet who utilizes both art forms within a single expression. For me, one…
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Tuck in at the Little Aussie
Little Aussie Bakery & Café 3610 Ave. B 826-7877 Thelittleaussiebakery.com 10am-6pm Mon; 10am-9pm Tue– Fri; 8am-9pm Sat; 8am-6pm Sun Credit cards $5.95-$18.50 Accessible A “fair dinkum” dessert, indeed. Add terms such as “tucker” (for food in general, I guess) and “brekky” (yup, breakfast) and you come up with an Aussie. Gotta love ’em. The Little…
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Tuck in at the Little Aussie
Little Aussie Bakery & Café 3610 Ave. B 826-7877 Thelittleaussiebakery.com 10am-6pm Mon; 10am-9pm Tue– Fri; 8am-9pm Sat; 8am-6pm Sun Credit cards $5.95-$18.50 Accessible A “fair dinkum” dessert, indeed. Add terms such as “tucker” (for food in general, I guess) and “brekky” (yup, breakfast) and you come up with an Aussie. Gotta love ’em. The Little…
Tuck in at the Little Aussie
Little Aussie Bakery & Café 3610 Ave. B 826-7877 Thelittleaussiebakery.com 10am-6pm Mon; 10am-9pm Tue– Fri; 8am-9pm Sat; 8am-6pm Sun Credit cards $5.95-$18.50 Accessible A “fair dinkum” dessert, indeed. Add terms such as “tucker” (for food in general, I guess) and “brekky” (yup, breakfast) and you come up with an Aussie. Gotta love ’em. The Little…
The asparagus exception
According to Miss Manners, asparagus is one of the few foods acceptable to eat with one’s hands. The “asparagus exception” originated from a time when people ate using real silverware, which got stained by asparagus enzymes. But even with this exception, asparagus can still be tricky in polite company. Suppose those you’re dining with don’t…
Pillow talk
Sham*Rock blocks Knockaleptic and winds up for a strike. Photos by Justin Parr. It might be one of those fantasies every man has but never admits: two tight-bodied women at a slumber party, dressed in frilly teddies, kneeling on a bed covered in satin sheets, lightly tapping each other with soft pillows as they giggle and…
Letters to the Editor
mail ON THE COVER Take a peek (c’mon!) at our annual Texas* Books Issue (*mostly), a subjective round-up of Lone-Star- affiliated literature that caught our eye this spring. Cover photo by Justin Parr. Correction District 1 City Council Candidate Mary Alice Cisneros served as treasurer on Pete Sakai’s campaign for the 225th District judgeship. We…
Free Will Astrology
By: Rob Brezsny ARIES (March 21-April 19): I’m a big fan of facing your problems head-on and dealing forthrightly with your pain. But what if that approach isn’t always best? Renowned psychologist Richard Lazarus said he wanted to “challenge the view that psychological health demands full realism.” He believed that some sick people get…
last words
Puzzlemaster Dave Maass. Click for larger image. ACROSS 6. Female organs which give our class its name 8. Joan Crawford, to her adopted daughter 9. U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on this abortion procedure 13. Song in which Jim Morrison wants to fuck his mother 15. Also known as the afterbirth 18. Colloquially…
Letters to the Editor
mail ON THE COVER Take a peek (c’mon!) at our annual Texas* Books Issue (*mostly), a subjective round-up of Lone-Star- affiliated literature that caught our eye this spring. Cover photo by Justin Parr. Correction District 1 City Council Candidate Mary Alice Cisneros served as treasurer on Pete Sakai’s campaign for the 225th District judgeship. We…
Letters to the Editor
mail ON THE COVER Take a peek (c’mon!) at our annual Texas* Books Issue (*mostly), a subjective round-up of Lone-Star- affiliated literature that caught our eye this spring. Cover photo by Justin Parr. Correction District 1 City Council Candidate Mary Alice Cisneros served as treasurer on Pete Sakai’s campaign for the 225th District judgeship. We…
Sound and the Fury
Julieta Venegas. Courtesy photo. Up From The Underground Growing up in the border town of Tijuana, Mexico, Julieta Venegas easily absorbed the richest elements of Mexican and American pop culture, and over the course of four solo albums, she’s managed to become increasingly accessible without sacrificing her idiosyncratic impulses. With her moody accordion work and…
The smog lifts
Bill Callahan: Chronicling the lives of the desperate, deluded, and downtrodden. Courtesy photo. Bill Callahan has been making music for more than 20 years, though his name is less familiar than Smog, the pseudonym he’s long hidden behind. Like Drag City labelmate Will Oldham, Callahan has engaged in the name game, apparently deciding that now…
Haley’s comet
Haley Scarnato: Vilified for her talent, lauded for her gams. Courtesy photo. Randy Jackson tends to be the only helpful American Idol judge. While Paula Abdul mumbles useless bonbons such as “You looked like you were having fun out there,” and Simon Cowell plays the bitchy bad cop, Jackson assumes the role of motivational coach.…
Hustle and Flow
Baseball season in the Alamo City officially kicked off last week when the San Antonio Missions hosted the Tulsa Drillers in their home opener. The Missions’ smooth 2-0 win served as a grand re-opening of sorts for the newly renovated Wolff Stadium, and for the Missions themselves, who are now the minor-league affiliates of the…
The more things change …
Mallory Lane nails the title role in Trinity’s Madwoman of Chaillot. Courtesy photo. The Madwoman of Chaillot 7pm Wed & Thu, 8pm Fri & Sat Through Apr 21 $8 adult; $6 senior; $4 student Jane & Arthur Stieren Theatre Trinity University One Trinity Pl. 999-8515 Trinity.edu Sometimes there’s a good reason to dust off an…
A critic’s dream come true
Catching a glimpse of light from the plucky performers at Amphisphere’s Joseph. Courtesy photo. I have to admit that I generally approach the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber with a degree of apprehension that borders on fear and loathing. I can only think of one of his musicals with more than three-and-a-half good songs and…
Mambo is my business
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Oscar Hijuelos will appear this week at OLLU’s literary festival. Courtesy photo. Our Lady of the Lake University 2007 Literary Festival: An Evening with Oscar Hijuelos 7 pm Wed, Apr 18 Free Thiry Auditorium OLLU Campus 434-6711 Ext. 2091 Ollusa.edu After his critically praised debut novel Our House in the Last World,…
The Say-Town Lowdown
OK. Maybe I’ve just gotten old and cranky. Maybe a more sensible person would consider it junk mail and throw it out. The “Foundation for the Future” mailing for the May 12 bond issue just arrived the other day. It is colorful — mostly black and red, with some cute color photos. But it lies.…
The Queque
The Queque’s dilemma: TV turnoff week (Tvturnoff.org) overlaps with the airing of Bill Moyers’s Buying the War, a slam on the sycophant press who buy into Bush’s Iraq war fictions. (Like, after the president’s “Mission accomplished” aircraft stunt on May 1, 2003, NPR’s Bob Edwards saying “The war in Iraq is essentially over.” Good job,…
The Bar Tab
The Menger Hotel Bar 204 Alamo Plaza 223-4361 11am-Midnight Mon-Sat Noon-Midnight Sun Top-shelf martini: $9 Lone Star: $5 “I’m coming to join you, Teddy!” If spirits could talk, that might be a line from one of the many under-age ghosts traversing the infamous Menger Hotel and Bar. OK, they probably wouldn’t be referencing Fred Sanford…
Go with the (free) flow
It’s March 30, and Doug Toney, the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung’s editor and publisher, can only spare 15 minutes to expand on what he said during his three minutes in front of the Texas Senate Committee on Jurisprudence. Then he’s due in court. Toney had testified two days earlier in support of SB 966, the “Free…
The Fast Foodie
Ilsong Garden also serves sushi. File photo. Ilsong Garden 6905 Blanco Road 366-4508 11am-10pm Mon-Fri; noon-10pm Sat I hadn’t eaten Korean food in eons. The last time was in a steam-bath-like haze in L.A.’s K-town, the atmosphere abetted in part by several Korean beers as well as the smell and smoke of grilling meat. The…
Faculty feathers, ruffled
Now is the spring semester of our discontent. Because the educators plowing fertile minds at Northwest Vista College, at Our Lady of the Lake University, and at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science are not merry. In the case of the institution within the five-college Alamo Community Colleges…
Siam so-so
Clockwise from top: Tum Khatalay, Thai Tiger Cry, and Beef Satay from Siam Delight. Photo by Antonia Padilla. Siam Delight 5152 Fredricksburg 524-9019 11am-2:30pm Mon-Fri; noon-10pm Sat & Sun Credit cards Entrées: $6.95-10.95 Accessible It’s 1 p.m., 30 minutes after my lunchtime arrival at Siam Delight, and I have yet to see so much as…
The Mashup
From the Editor I felt a little woozy this morning, and I think the cause was the purposefully eerie yet mournful soundtrack that NPR was using to accompany its coverage of Monday’s shootings at Virginia Tech — just a little too tasteful to work on an Ed Wood film, but now welded in my mind…
The sound of soy
Courtesy photo. Have you ever wondered why the edamame appetizer at sushi restaurants is so expensive? It’s just a small pile of steamed and salted soybeans, still in their pods, and yet can cost $4 to $5. Soybeans — America’s second-largest cash crop behind corn — are currently selling for 7.7 cents per pound, according…
Armchair Cinephile
Courtesy image. This week Warner Bros. enters territory usually left to indie DVD studios, using the 50th anniversary of Pedro Infante’s untimely death to launch the Pedro Infante Signature Collection. Eleven films hit stores this week, with 12 to follow in September; extra features are slim, but surely the budget price ($14.98 each retail) and…
Aural Pleasure
BIG Macy Gray (Geffen/Will.I.Am Music) Macy’s Parade Macy Gray is gifted with the ability to climb inside a conventional R&B track and breathe life into the whole moribund enterprise. Yet even her boundless idiosyncrasies are not enough to save the over-produced, half-baked banality that afflicts the balance of this album. Gray’s talent is such that…
Agua
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