2005 Mayoral Election Tough love
Carroll Schubert wants to refocus San Antonio on the basics, and it might hurt Carroll Schubert Carroll Schubert was always coming to San Antonio, and he was always going to be a politician, although not necessarily a local one. Schubert left his family’s grain sorghum and cotton farm near Bishop, Texas, where he grew up…
Screens The end is nigh, and it’s about time
NBC’s religious drama ‘Revelations’ pulls from fundamentalists’ playbook Revenge is mine saith the Lord, for cancelling Millennium, a 1990s sci-fi thriller on which I found favor. I still haven’t gotten over it. So be warned, my angels hast opened the bottomless pit of TV shows, where arose a religious melodrama, Revelations. Thus, Wednesdays at 8…
2005 Mayoral Election Serious as a heart attack
Minor mayoral candidates strive for legitimacy With no reliable way to reach him, mayoral candidate Michael Idrogo is as elusive as the ivory-billed woodpecker, but he has run twice for mayor: In 2001, he received 155 votes; in 2003, he garnered 2,410. Although the federal government is planning to close military bases throughout the U.S.,…
Food & Drink The shell is half full
On the Half Shell is shy of oysters, but pleasant all the same Gulf Coast oysters appropriately prepared on the half shell can be ordered in either dozen or half-dozen servings. (Photos by Laura McKenzie) For more than five years, Zinc has been the only late-night hangout in the block bound by Commerce, Presa, Market,…
Theater and stage Long time coming
Thanks to a pending (secret) grant, Centro Alameda may finally become a museum with walls Centro Alameda Director Ruth Medellin stands in front of the theater’s striking marquee, which was relit in 1999 as part of $700,000 in exterior improvements. Medellin says the organization is close to announcing a major grant that will finally complete…
Food & Drink Devil in a red taco truck
The women of La Diabla are deft dealers in late-night traffic Suzette Suarez serves a plate of tacos to Cande Montante from the La Diabla taco truck across the street from club Ritmo Latino on a Saturday night. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Their evening starts late. Around 10:30 p.m., the first customer of the night,…
Book review Thicker than fiction
In ‘Desert Blood’ an academic turned gumshoe tries to unravel the web of lies that hides the Juárez women’s murderers Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s Desert Blood opens in Juárez, the rapidly expanding border town that faces El Paso to the north, with a short, intense description of a kidnapped girl’s final thoughts. Immediately, you know…
Value Vino Vintage aliases
Budding oenophiles on a budget are frequently frustrated by their inability to experience the Big Label bottles. Never fear: It’s common practice in France for chateaux and estates, whose output is strictly limited by law, to use any excess production – even from first-growth vineyards – in less prestigious bottlings. Chateau Talbot’s designated second label…
Book review Immigration imagination
An ‘LA Times’ correspondent follows the trail of Latin-American border crossers and finds a story as old as America As with Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.,” the ballads of Johnny Cash, and the myth of Horatio Alger, time has twisted the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville into patriotism. When you hear of him today…
Tejano Conjunto Festival Conjunto dreams
Guadalupe festival glides into its 24th year with a forward-looking roots celebration Michael Salgado This year’s Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center’s Tejano Conjunto Festival celebrates its 24th anniversary with a nod to the past and a look toward the future. Promising a return to its roots, 2005’s festival emphasizes the traditional, acoustic origins of conjunto music,…
Book review Bucking the past
W.K. Stratton pursues a legendary lifestyle and the ghost of his rodeo-bum father American sports culture is as diverse as it is divergent. NBA hopefuls, competitive cheerleaders, and freestyle BMXicans struggle, fail, and prosper in states of mutual obliviousness. A legend in one milieu can easily die unknown to the readers of People and the…
Music Sound and the fury
A week on the scene – Hairball8 Records and Spring Salsa Festival dancesound jazz andnight clubs the bands furyshows musicians sa current online  sa current online Hairball player When Ryan Davis and his wife Paige relocated from San Diego, California to her hometown of San Antonio two years ago, he felt more enthusiasm…
Shows and galleries The art capades
In Fiesta’s forgotten corners, clever video, and vignettes marvel at our modern weirdness Robert McAn’s miniature world of metaphor is on view in sculpture and photographs at REM Gallery. Above, “Drift,” a mixed-media diorama (2005). Fiesta has a way of displacing San Antonio’s population, congesting some areas and emptying others. I spent a Fiesta Friday…
Screens Two sides of the same coin
The director of ‘Happiness’ and ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’ talks about his appetite for human irony In Palindromes, these actresses play the many personalities of Aviva, as she matures from child to young adult. Filmmaker Todd Solondz couldn’t make an uncontroversial movie if he tried. His latest, Palindromes, plays with fun topics like abortion, hypocrisy…
Screens Home alone in Tokyo
Four children slide into poverty when their mother leaves them to fend for themselves Twelve-year-old Akira (Yñya Yagira) is left to care for his three siblings in Nobody Knows. In the United States, a nation founded on revolt against the mother country, being home alone is not so dreadful. In Home Alone, when Macaulay Culkin’s…
Wines Value Vino
Welcome to Value Vino, a monthly column for both wannabe wine lovers and “already aficionados” with an irreverent streak. For starters, we’ll peg the value cap at $15, but don’t be surprised if we exceed that on occasion; $19.99 stunners (and above) won’t be shunned if they offer bang for the buck. And at the…
Screens New reviews
Hitchhiker, House of D, XxX Read the book first: Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) and Ford Prefect (Mos Def) in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Dir. Garth Jennings; writ. Douglas Adams, Karey Kirkpatrick; feat. Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel, Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman, John Malkovich, Helen…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres What would a year at the movies be without at least one modern war epic set in an era we’ve only read about in history books? In Kingdom of Heaven, three-time Academy Award-nominated director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) leads his own army through the early 12th-century Crusades (the battle between…
Screens Special screenings
SA Film Slam 05.02, and Slab Cinema at La Tuna/Planet SA Film Slam ’05 #2 The 11th SA Film Slam, sponsored by the local chapter of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers and Another Foolish Gig Productions, is upon us, Saturday, May 7 from 8pm-12am at the Apollo Playhouse, 1216 West Avenue. That means…
Food & Drink All you can eat
Mother’s, Yokonyu, Jim’s watch – Day 28 Yo’ mama If you forget to send your mom a card for Mother’s Day, forget the entire day, or even forget that you have a mother, I’m sure she won’t mind. All that matters is that you’re happy, dear; I’m sure her silly day-to-day activities would only bore…
News Speed reads
Bexar mental health crisis, new bus schedules, and good news for cats It’s not all in your head: Look no farther than the jail or city streets to see the mental-health crisis in Bexar County. Funding, services, and public policy regarding those with mental illness will be discussed at a forum sponsored by the San…
News Promises, promises
A study says Friedrich Building is key to East Side revival. But will the City act on the recommendations? The Friedrich Building was cited as ripe for redevelopment in a study by the Urban Land Institute. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) The streets are torn up. Houses are crumbling off their foundations. Drug dealers and streetwalkers…
Music CD Spotlight
Rebel bride Much like her big brother, Robert Rodriguez, Patricia Vonne loves archetypal border characters. Her thoroughly excellent new album, Guitars & Castanets, overflows with romantic references to gypsy cowboys, rebel brides, lonesome riders, cotton fields, tumbleweeds, and the magnetic pull of Texas’ scorching heat. It’s all very melodramatic stuff, but Vonne makes it work…
Briefs Local news notes
Parental consent, speeding the PGA bill, and mercury testing Parental consent laws pass Last week HB 1212, the parental consent bill passed through the Texas State House and Senate Committees, and now goes to the floor for a vote `See “Reproductive Rights Bills Pending” April 21-27, 2005`. Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the…
News Rush to deadline
With three weeks to go in the legislative session, school finance remains unresolved As the story goes, after being captured at a staged archery tournament, English folk hero Robin Hood was sentenced to execution for defying his over-taxing arch-nemesis, Prince John. Robin Hood stood on the gallows with the hangman’s noose around his neck, minutes…
Music Current Choice
Calling Gloria The second coming If you knew Gloria Trevi only by reputation in the ’90s, you’d be tempted to believe that she was a revolutionary figure. Endlessly touted as the “Mexican Madonna,” she was mythologized as a gamine who stumbled into fame and flouted her country’s culture of machismo with an aggressive sexuality. Her…
Artifacts Art around town
News and notes from the San Antonio art scene Mistaken identity The Wednesday of Fiesta, I was fidgeting in an orange polyester formal dress, mightily regretting my decision to view Coronation – the 96-year-old fête at which San Antonio’s upper crust makes like royalty; among the last names of former court members you will find…
Party Lines Beware of the art police
Code Compliance now in the art business Gilbert Barrera wanted to expose San Antonio residents to a host of world-class sculptors when he set up the Sculptors Dominion Invitational three years ago. He searched for a diverse roster of sculptors who do things on a grand scale, and brought them to his parents’ seven-acre estate…
Screens : A Frankenstein for the kung fu crowd
Jet Li’s ‘Unleashed’ is the compelling, ass-kicking tale of a man bred to be a monster Jet Li can’t help himself: He’s been programmed to be an attack dog in Unleashed. Jet Li has made some real dogs in his pursuit of stardom in the English-speaking world. But the first film in which he actually…
2005 Mayoral Election The placid candidate
Populist or policy wonk? Who is Julián Castro really? Julián Castro “Have you exhausted the impersonation issue?” a woman at the Bexar County Republican Party offices asked when the Current called for a comment on mayoral candidate and District 7 Councilman Julián Castro. The fuss over Julián’s absence, and his twin brother Joaquin’s presence, on…
Screens Armchair Cinephile
Boxed and boxless Is there some big religion I don’t know about in which gifts are exchanged in May? I ask because recent weeks have seen the kind of uptick in boxed sets and the like that one usually associates with Christmas. Holiday or not, big-ticket items are making their way into stores. For fans…
2005 Mayoral Election Trial by voters
Phil Hardberger says he’s a friend to the environment – and private property rights Phil Hardberger Phil Hardberger wore a seersucker suit to work last week. Although it might be a fashion faux pas, no one would see it if he takes his jacket off behind the council dais, so his attire should not factor…
Music Hustler mystique
Conference explores hip-hop’s strained relationship with feminism Cathy Cohen, author, professor and director of the Center for Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago, listens as self-proclaimed hip-hop feminist Joan Morgan breaks it down at the Feminism and Hip-Hop plenary in Chicago, Friday, April 8. (Photo by Kate D) Frequently maligned for its…
