Screens Armchair cinephile
Stranger than fiction Next week brings the release of the latest “you gotta see it” feel-good documentary, the hugely successful March of the Penguins (National Geographic/Warner). Nobody reading this is likely to need much information about the film itself, but your local video store would surely like you to have a heads-up on the release’s…
News Kindergarten college
No naps, no recess: Being 5 is more rigorous than ever The forest green-and khaki-clad students walk down the quiet, well-kept halls of Briscoe Academy in tidy, straight lines. These students are serious about learning and their attitude begins in the brightly colored, carpeted rooms of kindergarten. A charter school in the San Antonio Independent…
Food & Drink A stamp of disapproval
If Congress slashes food-stamp benefits, hundreds of thousands of Americans could go hungry Last week, Lorraine Garay visited a local food-stamp office to apply for benefits that would help her feed her family: a husband, twin 5-year-olds, a 2-year-old, and a second set of twins due in February. Yet, Texas Health and Human Services officials…
News Botoxing San Antonio
To raze Earl Abel’s is to remove a wrinkle in time Among life’s small pleasures is to sit in a wooden chair at the bar at Earl Abel’s, sipping a thick chocolate malt from a cold, tall glass and watching the yellowed hands of a clock round the hour. Plates of fried chicken fly from…
Food & Drink Faux foie gras
Silky tofu is just one of the sublime textures of Thai Taste The trade negotiators have got it all wrong: It’s not Chinese textile imports we have to worry about, it’s the Chinese buffet that’s taking over the world. Granted, the buffet serves a useful family function, but in the face of overwhelming dominance in…
News Party lines
Grey Forest, meet the Wal-Mart movie Byron Faust is the proprietor of Elf Industries, what he calls a “podunk hardware store in a podunk town,” and is not overly worried that a Wal-Mart Supercenter Store could be built up the street at the corner of Scenic Loop Road and Bandera Road. He took over the…
Food & Drink Thanksgiving II: Attack of the clos
Value vino – great wines for under $15 The mags and wags have already decreed it: Pinot noir is the turkey wine of choice. We won’t rock the boat. What we will do instead is look at a selection of wines to elevate and enhance leftovers — the turkey hanging out in the refrigerator, the…
News Briefs
College loans under the knife Getting a loan for college could become more harrowing — and expensive — if Congress passes a bill that would increase interest rates and implement new fees for borrowers. Higher education is among several programs on the guillotine as part of the Reconciliation Bill, a measure to decrease health, social…
Music Brief encounter
Seattle quartet offers a rude, revved-up response to emo The Briefs are in Detroit tonight, playing a show at the Cass Corridor dive venue, Alvin’s. Guitarist Daniel J. Travanti ain’t complaining, though. “Believe me, it looks better than a lot of places we’ve played,” he says. The 1977-style punk rocker who grew up listening to…
News Speed reads
Report issued on election arrest The San Antonio Police Department’s arrest report in the Lorenzo Tijerina case states the election officials were frightened by his repeated questions about election rules. `See “Ballot blues,” November 17-23, 2005` Tijerina was arrested for criminal trespass on Election Day after he refused to leave his polling site, according to…
Music CD Spotlight
Default line – Beavers, rodents, and tortured inspiration What do you think of when someone utters the word “Canada”? I think of a beaver. Those industrious rodents, officially recognized national symbols prominently displayed on Canadian currency, build elaborate structures for themselves. In the determined spirit of the beaver, four hosers from Vancouver who go by…
Feature Pushing for the coast
In South Texas, a canoeist’s dream could be a trip to the Gulf on the San Antonio River Editor’s Note: This the final story in a four-part series examining development along the San Antonio River. See previous stories, “Mission control,” March 17-23, 2005; “No Dick’s need apply,” March 24-30, 2005; and “Living downstream,” July 14-20,…
Music Current Choice
Beyond belief The most successful Christian rock bands often feel compelled to play a game of spiritual peekaboo with the masses. They want the diehard Christian community to embrace them, yet they want to keep enough distance from that community to avoid scaring off MTV. The best/worst recent example of this was Evanescence, whose members…
Arts Danny Geisler’s new world
An infamous artist takes stock of his life and work “I love the sorting more than anything,” Danny Geisler exclaims. We are standing in the artist’s apartment surveying a tabletop crowded with Christmas tchotchkes — tiny fir trees dotted with glitter, injection-molded plastic reindeer, more rhinestones than a transvestite beauty pageant. Danny Geisler, above, is…
Music Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Gear in the headlights Archer Avenue is preparing for what should be a demanding 2006. The pop-rock quartet, which formed on the local club scene, and whose members are split between San Antonio, Houston, and El Paso, recently completed work on its first full-length CD, We Watched The Headlights, We…
Arts Home on the Range
Lost in the supermarket As a New Yorker, I never enjoyed grocery shopping, which is why I ordered my lamb shanks and paper towels on-line. A few clicks of the mouse and the next day they would be delivered right to my door. New York supermarkets are, with a few exceptions, not at all like…
Arts Shop & Learn & SHOP SOME MORE
A two-week exhibit of memorabilia and artifacts commemorating the lives of San Antonio’s early East Side African-American community is the largest exhibition of its kind to date. 7:45 a.m.-4:30 p.m., through November 30, Carver Community Cultural Center gallery, 226 N. Hackberry. Closed Thanksgiving. For more info, call 207-7211. Mr. & Mrs. W.H. Leonard in front…
Music Atomix energy fuels change of seasons
After Sunset – A crawl through the San Antonio club scene Everything feels cooler, crisper in the dark. After the orange-hot breath of summer had melted my core to a steaming pulp, overpowering autumn’s barely-noticeable arrival, I feared I was growing numb from lack of seasons. Sluggish and uninspired, I could do little more than…
Screens Frozen in place
The Ice Harvest isn’t a dark comedy, but it’s no top-notch thriller, either One of the many anonymous internet pundits who haunts the Internet Movie Database says that The Ice Harvest “puts the ‘R’ back into Ramis,” and that’s putting it mildly. Director Harold Ramis may have made his bones back in the golden days…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, this week’s films opened Wednesday, November 23. Based on Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning Broadway show, Rent tells the story of a group of bohemians living in New York City as they attempt to find their place in the world while struggling with…
Arts The Rosa Rose of Texas
Franco Mondini-Ruiz spins mojados, cheese, and coke lines into his own creation myth San Antonio favorite son Franco Mondini-Ruiz has a new book, High Pink: Tex-Mex Fairtytales, that captures his artwork and the laissez-faire late ’80s, early ’90s era in which it was born with typical Franco panache: equal parts wicked humor, sweet nostalgia, politics,…
Screens Special screenings
Death Eaters are gaining strength daily ACCESS San Antonio Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Dir. Mike Newell (2005) The fourth film in the Harry Potter saga has received rave reviews from its target audience. The Quidditch World Cup and a TriWizard Tournament are the backdrops for Harry, Hermione, and Ron’s escalating battles with…
Arts The face in the bag
The Portrait Show suggests we are what we consume Portraiture has a bad rap. Between stuffy ancestor paintings and those awful senior photos with the fog machine, we’ve grown a bit jaded. On the other hand, portraiture happens more than you think. For example, what picture do your luggage contents paint of you at the…
Food & Drink Chicken feed
At 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 16, approximately 150 people gathered and shivered, outside of Chick-fil-A’s new restaurant, 3214 S.E. Military Drive, for the “First 100 Fans” promotion, a chance to win a booklet of 52 free combo meal coupons. Here’s the rub: In order to win the golden nest egg, fans had to camp…
Arts A very merry buzzword: craftivism
Knit with a purpose this Yuletide season If you follow social trends, you know knitting is sexy. Sparkly, feathery scarves, knitted cozies for your iPod and Palm Pilot, and funky skull-motif wristbands are showing up on the streets and the runways, made by everyone from snowboarding high-school guys to stay-at-home moms. The trend started as…
Food & Drink All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Current Online A slow boat from Beaujolais By French law, Beaujolais Nouveau is released each year on the third Thursday of November, regardless of when the harvest began. This year, Whole Foods, 255 E. Basse, is selling private label Jean Lafite Beaujolais Nouveau. At press time,…
Screens Walking contradictions
Johnny Cash was too complex for this over-simplified biopic When Johnny Cash became bored, he’d occasionally grab his gun and start shooting at crows near his Tennessee home. In one famous instance, captured by documentary cameras in 1969, Cash wounded a crow, then spent the next several days obsessively caring for it. There’s an unfathomable…
Screens When a ‘B’ is more than a bee
Myla Goldberg’s bestselling novel is adapted into a frothy, mystical mess While Bee Season’s title might suggest it’s a film about honey-gathering insects, perhaps even a horror flick about Africanized killer bees invading a small town, it’s actually about the duller kind of bee: spelling bees — which have been all the fad as of…
