Fast foodie: Café Green Tea
Green tea has become synonymous with health in the United States. It conjures up images of meditative silences and well-worn handless teacups. It brings to mind foods that may not taste great, but are certainly good for you in some way. Café Green Tea has some foods that are certainly good for you, and some…
Trip the Light: Fantastic EP
This album is further proof that we live in a time when all genres bleed, where the experimental indie rock of Panda Bear heavily borrows the music theory of ’90s trance, two styles once thought to be in different hemispheres. TTL’s Anthony Burchell adopts Panda Bear’s dreamy, hypnotic post-EDM, but keeps it more electronic than…
Christmas lights, cameras, action
Whether you consider yourself secularly illuminated, spiritually attuned, or a runaway developer of your own personal holiday mashup, here are some of the Current’s not-to-be-missed Christmas-themed events coming down the pike. — Yvonne Zamora Santa’s Ranch If you’re driving down I-35 just north of New Braunfels, you can’t miss the 50-foot Christmas tree on the…
Support San Antonio nonprofits and get free stuff for you
Looking for that perfect holiday gift? Well, how about the Book of Free™ Holiday Charity Challenge? For only $50 the Book of Free™ comes with up to $1,500 in gift certificates for FREE goods and services. By purchasing the Book of Free™ you support local nonprofits–nineteen of them. The Book of Free™ is not a…
Interview: Director Simon Curtis on ‘My Week with Marilyn’
There was magic in the air on the set of the film My Week with Marilyn as two-time Academy Award-nominated actress Michelle Williams took her spot on the exact same soundstage Marilyn Monroe had over 50 years prior. “I wanted to recreate an authentic world as much as I could,” My Week with Marilyn director…
Sigur Rós’ ‘Inni’ showing at the Bijou
By Collette Orquiz Sigur Rós Inni (XL) *** The Icelandic band’s 2008 performance at London’s Alexandra Palace gives us a deeper look at their intricate way of captivating audiences. The band’s ethereal vocals and atmospheric guitar soundscapes are so bewitching that it makes you want to be there. Too late for that, but the two-CD,…
…and the (Texas) Grammy nominees are…
The following is a list of artists born or based in Texas (or who spent a considerable amount of time of their career in our state) who have been nominated to the 54th Grammy Awards, to be held in Los Angeles on February 12, 2012. Pepe Aguilar (San Antonio) Best Regional Mexican Or Tejano…
First Friday preview
Room view, British sculptor Phillip King, “Four Decades with Colour” at Blue Star Contemporary Art. The exhibition features more than 20 sculptures and prints, made from 1963 to 2011. Close up view. Phillip John Evett was born in Kent, England, and studied art in Cambridge and Belfast. Professor Emeritus of art at Trinity, he currently…
How to mock a Medal of Honor recipient
How do you turn the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, into a sarcastic jab, a catty office joke? As first reported by the Wall Street Journal this week, Medal of Honor recipient Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer filed a defamation suit against his former employer, major U.S. military contractor BAE Systems…
Texas Summers by Marisha Hicks
A cat warehouse sounds like an incredibly stressful place to live. Never mind that it’s hot. Still a job is a job in this economy, right? I wonder what did send the narrator back to Texas. I like to think that it was homesickness after all and not the cats. Though it could well have…
San Antonio nonprofits present nontraditional holiday entertainment
Want a break from traditional holiday entertainment? Enjoy some of these upcoming shows presented by local nonprofits. A Very Latin Christmas Henry Brun and the Latin Playerz featuring Judi Deleon, Vocalist Presented by: Arts San Antonio Friday, December 2, 7:30 p.m. Charline McCombs Empire Theatre Latin Playerz is described as “an ensemble that incorporates a…
Walking Wounded: The VA missed serious warning signs that presaged local vet’s violent breakdown
Early in the morning of May 27, 2011, Adan Castaneda grabbed his .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and called a taxi to drive him from his San Antonio apartment to his mother’s Spring Branch home, roughly 30 miles north of the city. Standing at the end of the dark driveway, Castaneda raised the pistol and peppered the…
Perry’s Steakhouse opens at La Cantera
Houston-based Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille has ventured into downtown Austin and uptown Dallas since opening in 1979. Now with Monday’s opening they’ve officially sunk roots in San Antonio at The Shops at La Cantera (not really up- or down- town). The Texas chain is known for their dry-aged steaks and pork chops, but folks here…
The Apoca-List
AKA The “We’re Fucked” Index
Family-friendly stocking stuffers
Be nice to children, or it’s coal in your stocking and stones in your shoes. At your wit’s end and don’t know what to do? Try these treats: Hip-hop for the family! Drop by Lila Cockrell Theatre when “Yo Gabba Gabba! Live! It’s Time to Dance!” comes to town Wednesday, November 30. Featuring Biz Markie,…
Fast foodie: The Malt House
Some restaurants become institutions almost by default: they’re conveniently located; your parents (or grandparents) went there; they happen to be open late; they appeal to clueless tourists; the waitresses call you "honey"… or a combination of the above. They are, and we all know them, the Hung Fongs and Casa Rios of the world. The…
Supervielle: Rêverie
Luciano Supervielle’s second solo album, Rêverie, brilliantly sequences live and studio recordings to spin a concert that is almost symphonic in scope, but the French-Uruguayan composer (and keyboardist for Bajofondo) draws his tonal pictures from a small group of instrumentalists who speak jazz, tango, and rock fluently with the sweet accents of the Río de…
Night with Social Hour shows new Northside venue invested in the music
From the parking lot, 502 Bar, wedged between Fast Eddie’s and a regular’s drinking post called Oasis, looks like a just another strip-center pub. Yet there’s supposed to be an established Austin band in here tonight. That bland numerical name? The amount of beers they have in stock? A nod to the dawn of the…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): This would be an excellent week to head down to Pucón, Chile and hire a daredevil to fly you in a helicopter into the caldera of the active Villarrica volcano, whereupon you would bungee-jump out of the copter down to within 700 feet of the molten lava. If that’s too extreme…
The overwhelming success of the Acoustic Medicine Music Series has organizers switch their footing
The future of the Acoustic Medicine Music Series is uncertain, but not for lack of success. When the Current previewed the four-month program in August, its hostess and creator, Melissa Ludwig (from the Melissa Ludwig Band), had a simple goal: elevate a venue to the level of better-known out-of-town music halls while pairing quality regional…
Debora Kuetzpalin Vasquez takes on domestic violence with the power of the Tehuanas
The inside of the Bihl Haus gallery has been transformed into a house filled with color. Everywhere you look, bright, happy paintings cover the walls. Most are portraits of women, often paired with photographs. Between them is furniture, sometimes painted, too. Near festooned couches sits a TV in a living room scene. Nearby is a…
Pillow Talk: Faux Fur EP
There’s no shortage of country/Americana acts coming out of Saytown, with a few trying to appropriate the indie label to cut away from the pack. Only Pillow Talk (of both here and Austin) is turning that trick both honestly and effectively on their debut 7-inch EP Faux Fur. This release is a mopey slice of…
Henry Brun & The Latin Playerz: A Very Latin Christmas
Those who know me know that I’m no Christmas person. So when Henry Brun gave me his own Christmas album to review, I smiled politely and thought to myself, "Crap." Imagine my surprise when I discovered the album is anything but cheesy. Even though it’s packaged inside a colorful, feel-good cover (Santa in a convertible…
The Rolling Stones: Some Girls
The Rolling Stones’ last perfect album arrived at a crossroads for the band. They were coming off a string of disappointing albums in the wake of Exile on Main St., their greatest achievement, and, in a turn of the tides lost on no one, disco had replaced rock ‘n’ roll on the radio in the…
The wrath of Zeus
Local rapper Carlton Zeus is no stranger to controversy. Last October, when he — jokingly, he says — suggested the newly released video for Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup” was “very similar” to the video of his own “Sharpie Solo” (the song was released in July, but the video had been going around for months),…
¡ASK A MEXICAN!
Special Mexicans are Racist Edición
The QueQue: Democrats shimmy, shake to new map, Gonzalez’s retirement, Free testing in SA on World AIDS day
Democrats shimmy, shake to new map, Gonzalez’s retirement In our pre-Thanksgiving political climate, you could feel bad blood simmering between longtime Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett and state Rep. Joaquin Castro, both entering what appeared to be a season of hard slogging in the newly created Congressional District 35. But in a heartbeat, all those “Loyd…
The kids are all wrong
I Hate My Teenage Daughter (8:30pm Wed, Fox) It’s hard to believe that Fox, the same network that premiered New Girl this fall, now gives us I Hate My Teenage Daughter. Where New Girl is a sophisticated take on the sitcom genre, I Hate My Teenage Daughter is painfully old-fashioned, with cornball punchlines that drive…
Baby-bucks Bordeaux
If fine wine prices are an indicator of economic health, then here’s the correlation: after reaching a peak of $3,500 per bottle in mid 2008, the price of a bottle of Bordeaux’s 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild dipped to a mere $3,300 or so in June of 2009. But by February of 2010 it had topped…
Best of Flash Fiction, November 2011
Raising children, I can imagine, is always a task. But being a child is no better (or worse). Clarence Darrow’s penetrating (and obfuscating) quote wraps it up nicely: “The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children.” Of course if that were entirely true, it begs…
