Demythified
Kirby Warnock investigates his grandfather’s indictment of the Texas Rangers Then said Gregorio Cortez, With his pistol in his hand, “Ah, so many mounted Rangers Just to take one Mexican!” — “El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez,” as printed in Américo Paredes’ With his pistol in his hand In 1915, Roland Warnock, then a 19-year-old working…
Soujourn to the Ballot-box
A couple of thirty-somethings cast their votes for the first time I must sojourn once to the ballot-box before I die. I hear the ballot-box is a beautiful glass globe, so you can see all the votes as they go in. Now, the first time I vote I’ll see if the woman’s vote looks any…
Fuck all
A strange new documentary asks ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?’ It’s hard to respect a film from the get-go that substitutes the word “bleep” in the title for what must be the most popular four-letter expletive in use today. As I’ve mentioned before, nowadays the word fuck has as little to do with its…
New reviews and special screenings
Jude Law is a pale imitation of Michael Caine’s impeccably dressed, soulless cad in the remake of Alfie. ‘Alfie, Polar Express, Tripa Love,’ and the Arit in Berlin film festival New reviews Alfie Dir. Charles Shyer; writ. Shyer, Elaine Pope; feat. Jude Law, Marisa Tomei, Susan Sarandon, Omar Epps (R) So, Alfie, what is it…
North to freedom
Ben Tibber is neither cute nor condescending as the young David, who is making his way on foot from Bulgaria to Denmark after escaping from a forced labor camp in I Am David. The journey is dark but the soul is light in this young-adult-fare film A boy needs more than a compass, a pocket…
Armchair Cinephile
This is entertainment! Back in the dark days before home video, cave dwellers had few ways to see vintage movies. In that climate, That’s Entertainment! was a gift from heaven. A greatest hits compilation of MGM musicals, it freed decades of opulently staged song-and-dance sequences from the tiny screens and degraded color of the living…
Recent reviews
Birth Dir. Jonathan Glazer; writ. Glazer, Milo Addica, Jean-Claude Carriére; feat. Nicole Kidman, Cameron Bright, Danny Huston, Lauren Bacall, Anne Heche, Peter Stormare, Ted Levine (R) Unlike most body-swap tales, Birth isn’t played for magical whimsy. Nicole Kidman has just become engaged after an appropriate mourning period for a dead husband. As the news becomes…
Movin’ on up
The basic Frito Pie ingredients are easy on your pocketbook and even easier on culinary klutzes. (Photo by Mark Greenberg) Frito Pie’s humble origins may be the secret to its growing appeal among the jet set Frito Pie, as many a food writer has noted by now, is an all-American food, evidenced by its ability…
David vs. Goliath
(Photo by Mark Greenberg) Citizens band together to fight Wal-Martization of Scenic Loop Road Local folklore says a Polish mercenary named Juan Menchaca married an Azteca woman and settled on a Spanish land grant in 1821. He earned a living robbing stagecoaches that rattled through the little valley that follows Helotes Creek en route to…
Old favorites
Jim Peyton’s ‘The Very Best of Tex-Mex Cooking’ Until recently, we were safe. Even the exotic Nonya cuisine of Malaysia was receiving more attention in the food press than our own comfortable Tex-Mex. But lately, all that has begun to change. Robb Walsh’s The Tex-Mex Cookbook was the first wide-circulation treatise to hit the shelves,…
The back of the pack
David Cobb Third parties look to get into the thick of it in 2008 A week after the elections, President George W. Bush is spending his political capital, Democrats are still stumbling around like zombies, and third parties, accustomed to receiving votes in tenths of percentages, are reassessing their strategies for significantly denting the two-party…
All You Can Eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Recently opened: Pei Wei Asian Diner, 1802 N. Loop 1604 East (in the Northwoods Shopping Center), opened last month. Pei Wei specializes in pho, a classic Vietnamese comfort food of hot broth and noodles. Their menu consists of salads, noodle bowls, rice bowls, and appetizers, including…
Man with a horn
George Morín: a music veteran with experience playing Tejano, jazz, pop, and R&B. (Photos by Mark Greenberg) With JazzSuave, George Morín stakes his claim on international, instrumental pop A few years back, George Morín got a call from a local band to play a New Year’s Eve gig at The Dominion Country Club. Amongst the…
All Ears
The rest of the world OK, I’m not one of those sore losers who has spent the last week pretending to make plans for global relocation. (I imagine it’s hard to find good breakfast tacos in France, and Italians can’t sing country music.) But I do think it would be nice to help the rest…
Pearls of wisdom
Belt Buckle, Cartier Paris, 1930. Platinum, gold, baguette and single-cut diamonds, black enamel. The creative process for jewelry is the same whether it’s diamonds or tin Cartier Design Viewed by Ettore Sottsass, now on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, begins with a narrow portrait gallery of bejeweled rulers: kings, queens, chiefs, maharajas,…
Sound and the Fury
Rick Broussard A week on the scene Floore’s show Floore’s Country Store, Helotes’ historic honky tonk (forgive the runaway alliteration) kicked off a new music series on November 3 with a gig by alt-country favorites, the Derailers. The series, called “KJ-97 Presents Free Fireside Concerts” (hosted by San Antonio contemporary C&W station, KAJA 97.3 FM),…
Future tense
Jimmy Eat World — sweet and sour, just right Jimmy Eat World’s massive commercial success with the 2001 album Bleed American (retitled, post-9/11, Jimmy Eat World) came as a left-field surprise, but it wasn’t hard to understand. An idealistic, earnest Arizona quartet with indie-punk roots, they rock hard while also conveying sensitive-guy enlightenment. Musically, they’re…
Say it again
Raku sculpture by Wimberly-based artist Catherine Lee, on view at the Southwest School of Art & Craft through January 9. Lee, who works in a variety of mediums including metal and paper, “likes seeing how the material informs the process.” Artist Catherine Lee sculpts an elemental language Artist Catherine Lee has the voice of a…
Ornette’s harmolodica
Ornette Coleman The man from Ft. Worth, and the aesthetic of free jazz Fort Worth native Ornette Coleman may not be a household brand like Miles or Coltrane outside of jazz circles, but within the music world his name is huge. A revolutionary thinker and composer, he was instrumental in the “free jazz” movement; on…
Mantel masterpieces
Maquettes from one of Pompeo Coppini’s many public commissions throughout the state, the Littlefield Fountain on the University of Texas at Austin campus, are available for adoption during the Coppini Academy’s Adopt a Masterpiece event on Sunday, November 14. Sponsors will receive the first bronze casting of the maquette. A drive to save Pompeo Coppini’s…
