Arts : Truth is beauty, beauty truth
Sincerity tests the Keats adage with dogs and paper airplanes In an age when contemporary art of the younger set is often marinated in cynicism and visual trends are sometimes dictated by market value, sincerity in art is an engaging notion. Houston-based Artl!es Magazine put notable curators, writers, and artists on the lost trail of…
Media : The unholy mess
But a kernel of truth is buried in The Promise’s pile of CGI Wu ji (The Promise), according to cardinal film-natter supersite IMDb.com, checks in with a pricetag of around $35 million, making it the most expensive picture in Chinese history. Having recently taken in all 100-plus minutes of the U.S. cut, then, I should…
Arts : Truth is beauty, beauty truth
Sincerity tests the Keats adage with dogs and paper airplanes In an age when contemporary art of the younger set is often marinated in cynicism and visual trends are sometimes dictated by market value, sincerity in art is an engaging notion. Houston-based Artl!es Magazine put notable curators, writers, and artists on the lost trail of…
Media : Mission: Katie’s baby
Scientology has the last laugh 1986: Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard dies. A dark cloud looms over Scientology’s Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles as the search begins for the “Chosen One” who will succeed Hubbard and usher in a golden age of humanity. 1990: After realizing he actually agreed to star in Days of Thunder,…
Arts : Home on the Range – A former New Yorker’s guide to the texas adjustment
To austin in only 2.75 hours Last week, I had to go to Austin. By myself. Close readers of this column will know that I haven’t been licensed for very long, so asking me to drive all the way to Austin — solo — is akin to asking me to drive a mule train to…
Media : Game Theory
When in PvP … A few months ago, players on the Illidan server of World of Warcraft learned that their dear friend Fayejin had died unexpectedly of a stroke. She was described by those who knew her as “one of the nicest people you could ever meet,” and her guildmates were deeply saddened to learn…
Media : Y tu película también
Despite a few luminaries, Latino films still struggle for mainstream acceptance In the wake of the political debate on immigration, not only are individuals from foreign countries keen on reaching the U.S., but the arts — specifically cinema — are finding it difficult to bridge the gap between the United States and Spanish-speaking countries, despite…
Media : Special screenings
Slab Cinema Night of the Living Dead George A. Romero (1968) Slab Cinema Kicks off its 2006 season with the zombie classic Night of the Living Dead. 9 p.m. Thursday, May 4, at the slab across from La Tuna at Probandt & Cevallos. Free. 212-9373 for more info. Sunday Movies at the Instituto Dos Crímenes…
Media : Behind the ball gag
Web Exclusive New biopic: legendary Page was more than smiles and leather The Notorious Bettie Page Dir. Mary Harron; writ. Harron, Guinevere Turner; feat. Gretchen Mol, Chris Bauer, Jared Haris, Sarah Paulson, Cara Seymour, David Strathairn, Lili Taylor(R) Plenty of models can boast that women across the country copy their hairstyle. But how many can…
Media : That’s A wrap
Web Exclusive The low-down on this week’s premieres It would be so easy to jump onto the Tom-Cruise-hater bandwagon, but I simply refuse. Truth be told, he might be a bit controversial when it comes to his religious beliefs, but as an actor, he rarely makes bad career decisions. In Mission: Impossible III, Cruise returns…
News : Bloggers of a lesser web
Congress is listening to corporations who want to make the internet an uneven playing field Anyone who doubts that our country is deeply divided should spend a few hours exploring the world of political web logs. Around the clock, day after day, concerned citizens are riveted to their computer screens. Their fingers dance over the…
Food & Drink : On a Bin-der
Bin 555’s menu leaves our critic stuffed, but happy The giant sucking sound we’ve all been hearing lately has nothing to do with free trade — it’s the rush of San Antonio restaurants to Loop 1604 and beyond. Paesano’s, Azuca, Silo, Los Barrios, L’Etoile … it’s a wonder there’s any food left inside 410. To…
News : Unchain my river
Formula restaurants have their place, but it’s not on our central park You’re tired of hearing about the battle over allowing more restaurant chains to settle along the banks of the River Walk, you say? As you occasionally announce to your friends and co-workers, you never go down there anyway. It’s filled with tourists from…
Food & Drink : Man cries over onions
Real Men Cook combines recipes with anecdotes and life lessons “Real Men Cook.” Hmm. If here be truth, then it sort of throws the whole man-mouse quandary into flux for me, as I am, shall we say, culinarily retarded. Delayed. Impeded. Like the type of dude who could burn a bowl of Corn Flakes. That’s…
News : Party lines
Some good news at the Guad, & the Parks Board goes shopping “Architects are quite necessary,” a Current reader wrote after she read last week’s column. “However, they are not evil by nature. It would make much more interesting columns to research how architectural firms actually work and get beyond these fantasies of what goes…
Food & Drink : All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene It’s the filé that makes gumbo taste so good — or is it? Bring your recipe to The Cajun French Music Association’s Gumbo Cook-off, 10 a.m. – 11 p.m. Saturday, May 6, at the Anhalt Hall in Anhalt, Texas. If your gumbo isn’t competitive, bring out…
News : Developing environmental oversight
Radle says Big Tex fight reveals the need for a better process For residents who live in the neighborhood adjacent to Brackenridge High School, an April 19 meeting with developer James Lifshutz, City representatives including District 5 Councilwoman Patti Radle, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, was long overdue. At…
Food & Drink : The bar tab
Riley’s rural jam Way back in September 1933, James Curtis Riley drove to Austin with his uncle in a Model T Ford and camped out on the Capitol steps. In the morning, he was first in line to register for a beer license, which he used to reopen the old Galloway Saloon in Hunter, Texas.…
News : From the counter-propaganda department
‘Interrogation (16041)’: Hoax or crime? A man dressed in what looks like white hospital scrubs shuffles barefoot around a small, square room whose walls seem to be made of plywood. He moves slowly; chains bind his hands and feet. “I see you watchin’ me,” he says. The seat of his pants is stained — apparently…
Music : High-school confidential
With a new album, Marcus Rubio makes his teen-chamber-pop move It’s not easy to put a band together when you’re a teenage prodigy whose musical heroes include Leonard Cohen and Jon Dee Graham. Musicians in your age group are befuddled by your reference points, while older musicians don’t necessarily feel comfortable playing with someone young…
Arts : Let’s do the time warp burlesque!
No one ever said this thing was good. And by “this thing” I mean Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, which most of you know from its also-ungood movie incarnation as The Rocky Horror Picture Show. From left: Robby Ramirez as Brad, Wendy Russell as Janet, Kaeree Wiles as Rocky, Anthony Cortino as Frank, and…
Music : Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Sanden’s Eleven Buttercup will fulfill a longtime ambition of guitarist Joe Reyes by performing their next Wiggle Room show sitting on stools and crooning seven of their beloved hits in the manner of Frank, Dean, and Sammy at the Sands in 1960 (it’s unclear who, if anyone, will be forced…
Arts : Only on Earth
As commentators tirelessly remind us, Southern California is a place unto itself. Especially the Hollywood Hills. Up there, the movies’ gravitational pull eclipses the ocean’s daily suck, spawning a society that is sun-blasted but vitamin-deficient, numbed by its good fortune into a trance of melancholy. The day-trader hero of A.M. Homes’s stylish fourth novel is…
Music : All ears
The best music your TV could wish for Music obsessives are accustomed to making do with some fairly perfunctory efforts when it comes to films about music. Video-store shelves are weighed down with slapdash docs that tell them “don’t whine about lousy photography and thoughtless editing, just be happy you’re getting to see this stuff…
Arts : Here’s soap in your eye
There’s a truck coming. A big, pink-and-blue 18-wheeler -the sort of truck the Knight Rider would have, if the Knight Rider were a 13-year-old girl. It’s full of (simulated) lust, murder, and treachery, with images of impossibly fetching people splashed across the side of it like a wanton, carpet-bomb assault on positive self-image. And it’s…
Music : Current choice
Party man If you want to get a sense of Chubby Carrier’s artistic intent, all you have to do is sample his album titles: Ain’t No Party Like a Chubby Party!, It’s Party Time, etc. It doesn’t hurt to check out the album covers, such as the shot of Chubby on Ain’t No Party in…
Feature Not a drop to drink
An East Texas town’s wells are fouled, but no one is willing to finger the culprits or find water for the residents Gladies Hudson was born on the Lone Star side of the Texas-Louisiana state line, in Panola County, where for decades her family grew persimmons and peanuts, cotton and corn, melon and muscadine on…
Music : CD Spotlight
‘Wise’ cracks The Hard Lessons have been Detroit’s best-kept secret for a few years now, with 2005’s full-length debut, Gasoline, trouncing just about every garage-rock album released that year, including the White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan. And yeah, you read that right: With its marriage of crunchy guitars, exploding drums, and countrified vocals, the…
Arts : Won’t get fooled again
With reports of Iran-war drums beating, how will the media react this time around? Seymour Hersh’s April 17 New Yorker article, which reported that a “messianic” Bush White House was contemplating regime change and tactical nuclear strikes to preempt Iran’s bomb-building program, landed with its own explosive power two weeks ago. The stunning revelations —…
