Arts Biting sacred cows
Bat Boy The Musical is the anti-Cats A year after the Magik Theater’s evening series for adults went belly-up, a new production has emerged phoenix-like (well, bat-like) from its ashes. Bat Boy The Musical, an improbable 2001 off-Broadway hit about a pointy-eared, gravitationally challenged teenager, now takes flight under the auspices of The Illegimate Theater,…
News Party lines
Former Mayor Garza gets a job Congratulations to Mayor Emeritus Ed Garza. He now has a job that we hope pays more than the $200 monthly stipend he earned for his work in City Hall for four years. These days, Garza, who earned a degree in landscape architecture and urban planning at Texas A&M, is…
News A bachelor’s of combat
Recruiters meet little resistance on college campuses A squad of eight camo-clad U.S. Army recruiters invaded the Palo Alto College campus last Monday, and invited students to tackle a rock climbing wall – but only after they provided the military with personal information on a waiver-and-release form. The recruiters, based at South Park Mall under…
News Briefs
Electronic voting still problematic If you’ve voted in the special ballot-amendment election, then you’re likely familiar with the electronic voting machines, those magical contraptions that ostensibly count your vote. (If you haven’t cast your ballot, early voting ends November 4; Election Day is November 8.) Due to concerns about the reliability of electronic voting, the…
Arts A brown niche? No thanks
Gaytino’s Dan Guerrero wants art to mirror life: Where are the Latino Friends? Dan Guerrero, the son of legendary Chicano songwriter Lalo Guerrero, comes to town this week in his one-man historical (and, according to the reviews, hysterical) musical revue, Gaytino! The younger Guerrero is a veteran of Hollywood and Broadway, the latter which shows…
News Speed reads
WWKKKD? On November 8, San Antonio votes on Proposition 2, which would amend Texas’ Bill of Rights to define marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.” Last week, the Ku Klux Klan of Cleveland, Texas, issued a press release supporting the amendment, stating “Homosexuality is like cancer … if untreated it will…
Arts Snitching on the snitches
Nate Blakeslee takes a hard look at a justice system that relies on criminal informants In Tulia, former Texas Observer editor Nate Blakeslee digs deeper into a story he broke in 2000, that of a tiny Panhandle town where a corrupt undercover officer and some too-easily-convinced juries incarcerated one of every five black adults on…
Screens The indefensible defendant
Capote, the fey, intrepid, and self-aggrandizing gossip, is on trial in Bennett Miller’s film Like Madame Bovary and An American Tragedy, In Cold Blood was instigated by a newspaper article. While reading The New York Times in November 1959, Truman Capote came across an account of four murders in Holcomb, Kansas. Accompanied by his childhood…
Food & Drink All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Pass the bubbly Chef Phil McGauley will demonstrate cooking techniques with Korbel Champagne at Whole Foods Market, 255 E. Basse, on Wednesday, November 9. McGauley, executive chef for Korbel, will prepare seared halibut with champagne marmalade and cilantro-pesto penne and smoked chicken-and-corn chowder accompanied by a…
Screens Armchair cinephile
Titanic legacies Most movie studios have at least one fancy-pants prestige line, an imprint they put on special editions of especially popular titles. Sometimes this designation is nothing more than marketing, but the honor seems appropriate for Universal’s new “Legacy Series,” which launched with two-disc editions of The Deer Hunter, To Kill a Mockingbird, and…
Music Killer instinct
The Bravery respond to charges that they’re calculated new-wave clones When it comes to getting respect in the music biz, the Bravery rank somewhere between the reunited Backstreet Boys and the latest Hollywood actor-turned-rock star. Whether it’s being labeled as Petri-dish-manufactured Island Records commodities or Killers wannabes taking advantage of the new new-wave movement, they…
Food & Drink Curious cucurbits
Winter squash tastes as festive as it looks, and it’s a mighty source of antioxidants In South Texas, autumn is the most ambivalent of seasons – and the most pleasant. In other parts of the country, the leaves are at their brilliant peak, golden and red; here in San Antonio, the live oaks are resolutely…
Screens Sit, boy! Sit!
The technology that will rule the future? The one that needs you the most. After only a few minutes playing Nintendogs, you will appear – to any outside observer – to have completely lost your mind. You’ll be shouting commands at your Nintendo DS, peering worriedly at your tiny computerized puppy and dutifully tapping the…
Food & Drink Badass burgers
Broadway 50 50 is more than a high-class honky-tonk Open Broadway 50 50’s door on a weekend evening and you’ll be greeted by an effigy of Elvis, the acrid smell of cigarette smoke, and the dull roar of conversation and music amplified by concrete floors and hard-surface walls. But somehow, after about 10 minutes, the…
Screens Are those real?
Zathura uses old-fashion special effects to create an exciting alternate reality I have never read Chris Van Allsburg’s popular children’s books, but judging by their previous cinematic adaptations, his name isn’t a big draw for me. Last year’s The Polar Express looked soulless and infatuated with technology over storytelling; Jumanji had a muddled tone, felt…
Food & Drink Mochi madness
Meatless in Steer City According to Japanese tradition, the shadowy man in the moon is actually a rabbit, and it’s using its powerful hind legs to pound mochi, a glutinous Japanese sweet-rice cake eaten as a snack and used in soups and desserts. Apparently, the lunar hare lore stems from a play on words: The…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Based on his own written accounts and experiences in the Gulf War, which can be found in the best-selling book Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles, the Middle East described by U.S. Marine Anthony “Swoff” Swofford are brought to life by Academy Award-winning director…
Music All Ears
Matches made in Heaven and ‘Bizarro World’ Rapper Kanye West’s infectious new outing with chamber-pop innovator Jon Brion, Late Registration `see “True West,” September 15-21, 2005` is hardly the only odd collaboration to bear unpredictably enjoyable fruit lately. The release I’ve been spinning the most is another rap record, and in fact is a team-up…
Arts The Pro-Ams
The Ballet Conservatory of South Texas looks top-notch in an ambitious cross-cultural performance When the Ballet Conservatory of South Texas announced itself as a newly formed company and academy last January, skeptics in the dance community wondered why San Antonio needed yet another pre-professional ballet ensemble. In a beautiful assertion of creative intent, the Conservatory’s…
Music CD Spotlight
Sense of wonder Stevie Wonder’s 1980 tribute to Martin Luther King, “Happy Birthday,” is one of his most irresistible we-can-change-the-world anthems. But it also marks the moment when this R&B auteur’s musical instincts started to betray him. The song christened Wonder’s newly discovered appreciation for drum machines, a bit of sonic hardware that would define…
Arts Super bien!
Artpace diagrams Spanglish, the irresistible future of South Tejas Language may be a barrier, but the human race often lays seige to it in short order. Such is the case in South Texas, where Spanglish, an evolving hybrid of Spanish and English, is the lingua franca. Spanglish is the gas that powers an economy -…
Music Current Choice
Lonely at the top In a way, it’s hard to justify the release of Los Lonely Boys’ recent live album. The disc, recorded at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, comes on the heels of the band’s self-titled 2003 debut effort, and basically recapitulates the glories of that surprise hit. Most bands wait until they develop an…
Arts Social Intercourse
Networking masquerades as family activities this Halloween season As I write this, Halloween is looming – and the scariest thing about the holiday? The cost of costumes for all four of my kids. When did we transition from a society that dressed its kids as ghosts, gypsies, bobby-soxers, and cowboys to one that dresses the…
Music Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene American mavericks Gainesville, Florida punk band Against Me! doesn’t shy away from topical concerns. Its latest album, Searching For a Former Clarity (on Fat Wreck Chords), finds frontman Tom Gabel blatantly bashing the current administration’s foreign policy and gamely attempting to rhyme “Condoleezza” with “North Korea.” As a result of…
Arts In the round
News and notes from the San Antonio theater scene Go East Young Men Two respected members of the local theater community are making an impact on the East Coast this autumn. Ryan Young, a native San Antonian with a bachelor’s in acting from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon, was best known to local audiences for his work…
Feature Woman. Muslim. American.
In her campaign for social justice, Sarwat Husain shatters the stereotypes The car had been following Sarwat Husain for more than 10 miles, from near downtown where she had attended a meeting about the Patriot Act at the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, almost to Loop 1604. No matter how Husain detoured or doubled back,…
Screens Special screenings
A Japanese hero of the Holocaust Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness Dir. Robert Kirk (2000) In July 1940, the Japanese counsel to Lithuania defied the orders of his superiors and with his wife’s help spent four weeks writing visas by hand to help Jews escape the Holocaust. Because of their efforts, almost 6,000 Jews were able…
