Britney Spears: ‘Britney Jean’
Britney Jean is the pop queen’s personal record, where we get to know the real Britney, via a concept album on the “loneliness of pop life.” The concept holds through about the first song. It’s a good one too, even despite its clunky alien-as-outsider metaphor. Track two is “Work Bitch,” and things quickly fall off…
Special Project Social Announces “Soup Night”
It should read SOUPER Fantastic Happy Shop…get it? (Courtesy) Soup is so hot right now. Special Projects Social has announced its first-ever “Soup Night” on Saturday, December 21 inside the Super Fantastic Happy Shop (231 E Houston), part of the city’s downtown pop-up shops. The $35 all-inclusive event will include cocktails, soup, bread and a…
Bar Bummer: Boneshakers to close
Expect a big goodbye blowout. (Current Files) In Mondays-are-the-worst news, Boneshakers Tap House and Pizzeria (306 Austin) has a announced it will close its doors by year’s end. The bar, which relocated from the Southside bank of the San Antonio River at 116 W Mitchell in mid-2012 to the Dignowity Hill Historic District, was known…
5 Things You Have to Do This Week
Mon 12/2 Crowbar Sludge metal? Doom-core? Whatever you want to call this veteran Melvins-meets-Carnivore powerhouse, there is no doubt this is guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein’s baby. Lineup changes aside, New Orleans’ Crowbar has been getting louder and meaner (though not necessarily slower) since 1991’s Obedience Thru Suffering, a stunning debut they may finally be able to…
10 Soups for Surviving A Cold Snap
There’s another wintry weekend coming our way. Keep warm with any of these soup recipes: 1. The classic: Via Cooking Light Chicken noodle soup via Cooking Light 2. Barley goes great in soups: Via Saveur Mushroom Barley Soup via Saveur 3. Everything’s better with tortilla strips: Via The Pioneer Woman Chicken tortilla soup via The…
10 Free Events Happening This Week, Dec. 2 – Dec. 8
1) Screening of “Gremlins” Tuesday, Dec. 3 6:30 p.m Ushering in Christmas time, Joe Dante’s 1984 legendary black comedy comes to life this Tuesday as part of the library’s Cinema Soledad series. Patrons are encouraged to bring snacks to enjoy while watching the 80’s camp horror classic. Location: Central Library (600 Soledad St.) 2) Gallery…
Quarry Farmers and Ranchers Market Releases Community Cookbook
Here’s the book cover. (Courtesy) Here’s another gift for food lovers: The Quarry Farmers and Ranchers Market will release its first community cookbook this Sunday, December 8 during its weekly market. The cookbook was part of its second anniversary celebration and contains 79 seasonal recipes from members, chefs, culinary professionals and customers. The book is…
Same-Sex Couples File Suit To Defeat Texas Marriage Equality Ban
Update: A federal judge in San Antonio has set a February court date to hear the lawsuit brought forth by two same-sex couples seeking to overturn a Texas amendment banning marriage equality. Federal District Judge Orlando Garcia will hear the case at 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 12 at the John H. Wood, Jr. United States Courthouse in San…
7 Weird Cookie Cutters for Cookie Cutter Week
I swear I don’t make these things up. It’s Cookie Cutter Week. Here are six weird/wacky cookie cutters that exist for some reason: 1. Holiday hedgehog: Via Williams-Sonoma “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a…hedgehog?” 2. For the gun enthusiast: Via Truly Mad Plastics…
Lunchtime Links: Will Ferrell Anchored Actual Local News as Ron Burgundy, The Best Cyber Monday Deals, UIW partnership opens door for Chinese medicine classes, Right-Wing Evangelicals Claim ‘Good Christians’ Can’t Get PTSD + More
1. Will Ferrell Anchored Local News as Ron Burgundy and It Was Perfect “One of the best parts of having a new Anchorman movie coming out (besides the fact that, hey, there is a new Anchorman movie coming out) is the many public appearances by the film’s star, San Diego’s premiere co-anchor Mr. Ron Burgundy.” (Jezebel) 2.…
‘Diamond on Vinyl’ Out on VOD: A Dream Ensemble Cast
Henry (Brian McGuire) and Charlie (Sonja Kinski) in ‘Diamond on Vinyl.’ The big selling hook of Diamond on Vinyl, the second feature film directed by J.R. Hughto (The Thin Time) is the co-starring role of Sonja Kinski, granddaughter of Klaus Kinski (Nosferatu the Vampyre, Aguirre, The Wrath of God) and daughter of Nastassja Kinski (Tess).…
‘The Battle of amfAR’: Two Women That Changed AIDS Forever
Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor and Dr. Mathilde Krim created amfAR, America’s first AIDS research foundation. When research scientist Dr. Mathilde Krim asked actress Elizabeth Taylor, who was devastated after the AIDS death of her best friend and colleague Rock Hudson, to join forces and create an AIDS research foundation, the Hollywood star instantly agreed. A…
Paul Walker (1973-2013): ‘Fast & Furious’ Star Dies in Car Crash
Actor Paul Walker, known worldwide for the Fast & Furious franchise, died Saturday after a fiery car crash in Santa Clarita, CA., near Los Angeles. He was 40. The crash occurred at 3:30 pm, when a Porsche Carrera GT hit a light post and was engulfed by flames. A statement in the actor’s Facebook page…
Bonehead Quote of the Week: Cynthia Dunbar on Texas Science Textbooks
In a victory for science, the Texas State Board of Education approved factually accurate science textbooks for the state’s public schools last week and fended off attempts by evolution deniers to dilute the text, giving pro-science advocates a rare chance to celebrate. But the books’ passage didn’t please everyone, including hard right-wing former SBOE member,…
Black/Brown Unity in SA: Third Root Unveils “Three Shots” Video
Third Root, SA’s politically charged hip-hop duo of Easy Lee (Mojoe) and Marco Cervantes (Mexican Stepgrandfather) have released the video for “Three Shots,” the new single off the Stand For Something album. The track, produced by DJ Ninja, features Apaso and REL from Chisme. The video was directed by Eye Aye Eye Productions. “We’re fans…
Mujer Artesana: The Spirit of Creativity at the 24th Annual Mercado de Paz
“Nos toca luchar por nuestro espacio”, was the theme for the discussion with mujeres artesanas (artisan women) from all over Mexico. The Esperanza Peace and Justice Center hosted a plática or discussion for international vendors this past Thursday. It ended up being a sneak peek of the amazing work of indigenous women who come from…
Food Coma Links: Thanksgiving Flash Mob, 50 Free Apps We’re Thankful For, Three unpublished J.D. Salinger stories leak online, SeaWorld Float Sparks Macy’s Day Parade Protests, Listen to an…
…unreleased Velvet Underground song, ‘I’m Not A Young Man Anymore’ + More
10 Things You Have to Do This Holiday Weekend
Fri 11/29 Wild Party When last we checked in with Wild Party, the quartet was on a serious roll, having just come off a slew of national tour dates, building buzz from a hot EP (All Nighter), and courting interest from labels and fans alike. Things have been relatively quiet for the indie-pop outfit these…
Australia’s Stereosonic Festival to Livestream During World AIDS Day Weekend
(RED), the company co-founded by Bobby Shriver and U2’s Bono to engage people in the fight against AIDS, will celebrate World AIDS Day weekend with a global livestream of Sidney’s Stereosonic Festival, Australia’s largest dance music festival. The livestream begins Saturday, November 30, and continues on Sunday, December 1. You’ll be able to watch the…
Attention: Casting call for new food competition show
FRANKENFOOD will hold a casting call in San Antonio. (Courtesy) SPIKE TV is searching for mad scientists in San Antonio with have made extreme culinary creations to compete in a new food competition show, FRANKENFOOD. It doesn’t matter if you bake, grill or fry, you can enter to compete with the hopes of winning $10,000…
Hanukkah Tips Via Chef Andrew Weissman
The chef-restaurateur shared tips on how to jazz up your Hanukkah feast. Chef Andrew Weissman took over our @sacurrentflavor account today! Read on for tips on making this Hanukkah even better: [View the story “#Weissman Takeover” on Storify]
Shot of the Week: The Apple Pie Shot
It’s a bit messy. Pumpkin is so last week. It’s time for apples to shine. For this week’s shot, I recalled one of my favorite college-age concoctions: an Apple Pie shot. It’s quite simple, really. Combine equal parts vodka and apple cider or apple juice with ice, shake and pour into a shot glass. Top…
Brunch Watch: Bite adds Sunday brunch menu
Expect more takes on lobster and salmon for brunch. Lisa Astorga-Watel is making a few changes over at Bite (1012 S Presa). The restaurant will start serving brunch on Sunday, December 1, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Menu items range from $7-$28 and include salmorejo (a bread and tomatoe soup), chorizo frittatas, calzones, watercress…
Lunchtime Links: Mexican teenage assassin to soon live freely in San Antonio, Corgi Twerks to “Bubble Butt,” Watch the Pilot for Dan Harmon’s New Adult Swim Show, 4 ‘Magic’ Phrases to Use if Cops Stop You with Pot + More
1. Mexican teenage assassin to soon live freely in San Antonio “Now 17, Edgar Jimenez Lugo, a drug cartel killer known as ‘El Ponchis,’ is released from Mexican detention after serving three years. A U.S. citizen, he will soon be living in San Antonio.” (LA Times) 2. VIDEO: TAYLOR SWIFT, PRINCE WILLIAM & BON JOVI SINGING “LIVIN’…
Ranger Creek Introduces .44 Texas Rye
Ranger Creek selling 300 bottles of batch numero uno. (Courtesy) Ranger Creek Brewery and Distilling (4834 Whirlwind) is releasing its latest baby, .44 Texas Rye. The whiskey will be available for purchase from noon to 5 p.m. on November 30. The brewery and distilling company will release the first 300 bottles of batch No. 1 at…
Big Hops Growler Station Offering Pre-Thanksgiving Discounts
Big Hops is having a sale on its growler fills. Your in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving….beer will help. Today, November 27, Big Hops Growler Station (8313 Broadway) is having a big sale on growler fills. The station, which is poised to open a second location in the coming days, will have a $1 off for filling up…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Thinking inside the box will be a crime against your nature in the coming weeks. The last place you want to be is in a pigeonhole. I advise you to stay far away from tight squeezes, claustrophobic “sanctuaries” and “convenient” confinements. If you’re in a one-size-fits-all situation, you simply won’t be…
Texas is Funny Records Celebrates with Two-Night Showcase
Here’s a bit of old news: the music industry is a rough business, especially for a local record label. “It’s a labor of love,” said Marcus Gossi, one half of the team at Texas is Funny Records, founded in 2009 by Scott Andreu with the simple aim of supporting some favorite local acts. “I mean,…
Red Square Scores With Endless Vodka Supply
Red Square Bar’s website espouses two things: Good vibes and great vodka. By and large, this bar delivers on both. Jumping to the “great vodka” part, simply put, if this is your liquor, then this is your bar. With more than 50 varieties of the spirit, Red Square can whip up and ungodly slew of…
Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs get schooled in ‘Kill Your Darlings’
Director John Krokidas and his screenwriting partner Austin Bunn make a savvy choice in their decision to bring the story of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs to the screen. Understanding that an appreciation and knowledge of the Beats can be self-limiting in terms of box office (such recent efforts as On the…
Beer for Your Bird: Pairing local brews with Thanksgiving standards
While some retailers have already moved past Halloween and onto Christmas, let’s not forget Thanksgiving is upon us. It’s often a celebration that puts many of us into a food coma for days, and we anticipate the Big Meal with a vigor that only our culture can produce. The question becomes though, what barley soda…
Artpace’s Latest IAIR Show Has More Than One Missing Piece
The man who isn’t there, the ghosts of New Orleans and deserted buildings at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa are employed to examine themes of abandonment and aftermath in New Works 13.3, the International Artists-in-Residence exhibit at Artpace. Paola Morsiani, formerly senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and now director of the Neuberger…
6 Local Holiday Gift Markets
Last week, we provided you with more than 50 gift ideas easily available at local establishments. But, oy, the driving, and the walking, and the screaming directions at Siri, and the circling for parking. Now we know why people like malls. If only they weren’t so … mall-ish, and we could spend freely shop to…
New Law Helps Release SA Four, Gives Hope to Others Wrongfully Convicted
The evening of November 18, hand-in-hand, Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera and Kristie Mayhugh—joined by Anna Vasquez—stepped into freedom for the first time in more than a decade. Incarcerated for crimes they say they didn’t commit, the women, known as the “San Antonio Four,” embraced family, friends and supporters, who waited patiently outside the Bexar County…
Bumpy Ride, Fresh Results at Tuk Tuk Tap Room
As the first in a string of eateries slated to open on the Government Hill side of Broadway, Tuk Tuk Tap Room promised the city a serendipitous pairing of serious craft beer and Asian street fare as prepared by a James Beard Award-nominated chef. While the making of the restaurant took a bit longer than…
Hanukkah: A brief culinary history
Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights–and food and drink–begins this year on the evening of Wednesday, November 27, and lasts through the evening of Thursday, December 5. The holiday, which has given rise to a host of culinary customs, celebrates the rededication of the Jewish temple and the Macabee victory over the Seleucids in the second century…
5 Must-have Augie Meyers Moments
Ask five Augie fans for their favorite Augie Meyers album, and they’ll give you five different answers. These are my choices, all easily found online or in your local record store. Sir Douglas Quintet The Best of the Sir Douglas Quintet(1966) Mendocino(1969) Get them all, but these two are the key albums by the San…
Should You See the ‘Oldboy’ Remake?
I’ll admit it, I fell hard for the original Oldboy, the film that launched South Korean director Park Chan-wook to prominence worldwide with its impressive reception at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. While some critics sniffed at the film’s graphic violence and twisted plot—Manohla Dargis suggested its popularity was “symptomatic of a bankrupt, reductive…
Flavor File: Adios BIN 555 and CIA Bakery, hello Umai Mi and whiskey at Minnie’s
The Constant Re-Inventor is at it again. A few (or rather 86) lucky diners were the first to find out about chef Jason Dady’s next dining concept this past Saturday at BIN 555 (555 W Bitters). The Asian dinner was a grand preview of Umai Mi, which Dady (right) hopes to open sometime in January.…
Savage Love: Depressing
I’m a 21-year-old gay male who loves listening to the Savage Lovecast as I bike to school. My question: Can someone grow out of or “quit” a fetish? For me, I’m an ABDL, which stands for “adult baby/diaper lover.” I get turned on by putting other guys into diapers or having other, usually older, guys…
Augie Meyers on Kissing Death Goodbye and the Eternal Hustle
Every time I get together with Augie Meyers, I want him to lead with a joke. Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk about your new album, whatever, but make me laugh first. “I don’t know, man,” he tells me at Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant, his favorite diner for the last 40 years. “My jokes are kind of risqué.”…
7 Ways to Get Your Drink/Grub On This Week
Friday, November 29: The Riverwalk comes alive with the holiday spirit and Q on the Riverwalk’s got you covered. The restaurant inside the Hyatt Regency will feature a dinner buffet during the holiday parade with a wintergreen salad bar, smoked turkey breast, pulled pork, baked beans and more. $22, 6-10pm, 123 Losoya, (210) 510-4477, or…
Blue Star Contemporary’s New Year’s Resolution: Hire Executive Director
Steven Evans and former Blue Star Contemporary board chair Ed Valdespino earlier this year It’s been a bumpy year for Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum. First, the institution, like many other establishments in and around the Blue Star Arts Complex, dealt with a chaotic level of construction both inside and out that made simply entering…
9 Cocktails to Help You Survive Thanksgiving
Who says indulgence should stop at turkey and desert? Try these seven tasty Thanksgiving cocktails to take the edge off this holiday season. 1. Warm up with an Apple Toddy: Via Food Network Apple Toddy via Food Network 2. Cozy up with Hot Buttered Rum: Via Food Network Dolan’s Delicious Hot Buttered Rum via Food…
10 Tasty Recipes for Turkey Day Leftovers
You can’t keep those forever. Get rid of your turkey and stuff in no time with these fab recipes: 1. Pot pies are the shit: Via Food Network Second Day Turkey and String Bean Pot Pies via Sunny Anderson/Food Network 2. Brunch it up: Via Food Network Eggs in purgatory via Giada De Laurentiis/Food Network…
Snacktime Links: You Can Now Visit Middle Earth on Google Maps, ‘Wrecking Ball’ on Chatroulette is a Thing of Beauty, Inside the World of Competitive Laughing, 12-Year-Old Mexican Girl Is Touted as ‘Next Steve Jobs’ + More
1. Twenty Huge Trends That Will Dominate America’s Future “The 2013 list includes two new geographic centers of the American economy, evolving patterns of relationships, robots, and the changing energy landscape.” (Business Insider) 2. NBA Usher vs. Little Kid: ‘Dance Cam’ Battle for the Ages “What we have here is an epic, adorable and downright impressive dance-off between…
SA Cocktail Conference Tickets Are On Sale
All of the booze will be available this January. (Courtesy) Booze lovers, get to your nearest computer. Tickets for next next January’s San Antonio Cocktail Conference are finally on sale. Available online, tickets include the now-usual line up of classes, soirees, tasting and parties. Or you can skip all those painstaking decisions and get an…
One Direction Coming to SA on 9/21/14
British teen sensation One Direction have just announced the North American dates of its Where We Are 2014 stadium tour, which begins April in Latin America, moves to Europe in May, and comes to America in August. They will be stopping in San Antonio on September 21 at the Alamodome. Tonight, they will have a…
Listen to Bekah Kelso’s Dark Take on “Frosty the Snowman”
Frosty the Snowman by Bekah Kelso “Make your way through the snowy darkness with the creepiest incarnation of Frosty the Snowman you’ve ever heard,” is how 2013 SA Music Awards Best Singer-Songwriter/Best Song (“Sequoia”) winner Bekah Kelso describes “Frosty the Snowman,” her dark take on the Christmas classic. “Laugh. Enjoy. Beware.” Those who know me…
