Gemini Ink presents Community Talk
This Wednesday, October 5 at 12:30pm, Gemini Ink will be presenting “Community Talk” with Renata Serafin and Natalia Treviño. Along with other women from around the globe, they will share their stories about becoming naturalized United States citizens. Treviño’s story, and many others, are featured in Shifting Balance Sheets: Women’s Stories of Naturalized Citizenship and Cultural…
Mary Poppins delivers Banks children from snootery in style
I’m not so proud as to turn up my nose at the obvious wordplay: the touring production of Mary Poppins is, like its titular nanny, practically perfect. Disney obviously has the deep pockets necessary to assemble a superb production team: there’s Sir Richard Eyre, the former head of Britain’s National Theatre, as director; there’s Matthew…
TEDx San Antonio — sharing ideas that sparkle
Susan Price of Firecat Studio recently described TED talks as brain candy. “It’s the coolest thing, to bring innovators and thinkers together to share ideas for the betterment of the world. … It’s not just 18 minutes of speaking at an audience, but the conversation that lends itself to a shared experience–to making the sparks…
Higher Ground: Vera Farmiga shines in her spirited directorial debut
Based on the novel This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost by Carolyn S. Briggs (who also co-wrote the script), Higher Ground is the unusual type of screen gem that will both piss off and captivate religious freaks and non-believers alike. First-time director Vera Farmiga (Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee for Up…
Climate scientists speaking in San Antonio last weekend (video)
In case you missed the Moving Planet event last weekend, here are the talks by Texas A&M climate scientists Gunnar Schade and Gerald North, speaking in the offices of the San Antonio chapter of the American Institute of Architects at the Pearl Brewery Complex. (If you’re feeling daring, play them both at the same time…
Biridiana. Di. by Michael Gallaway
Michael Gallaway takes us through a post-hippie, metafictional romp through the wildflowers reminiscent of Burroughs and Mingus, Ah Um! Think of it as a cross hatching of movies and words and music. As a hallucinating preponderance. Think of it how you like. Or don’t. Read it anyway. Think of how you like it. Still looking…
San Antonio resident’s UFO video of triangular craft receives support from investigator
Back in May I blogged about flying saucer sightings in San Antonio. Based on recent events, it would seem that the city’s skies continue to be a super highway for unidentified flying objects. This past week, a piece of video footage shot by a local man named Mario Vallejo was featured on local news channel…
A tipping-point for Keystone XL, and possibly the climate
Inside the University of Texas’ LBJ library Wednesday, the tame, sleepy nature of the public hearing betrayed the enormity of ideas floating around: property rights, indigenous rights, energy security, risks to water and air quality, worries over unemployment, and fear of an impending climate disaster. A near endless feed of concerned landowners, students, environmental activists,…
Last chance: Carla Veliz’ XXI at Gallery Nord
San Antonio-based artist Carla Veliz spent 21 days abusing a large piece of white silk–beating, cutting, trampling, and covering it with every sort of filth. Then, for another 21-day period, she attempted to reverse the damage. She washed the splattered, torn fabric, and mended its cuts with stitches, filling missing remnants with embroidery. The results…
First look: pop-up galleries in SA
Pop-up galleries have been sprouting in empty storefront windows from London to San Francisco over the past few years. Now SA has some, too. Co-sponsored by the City’s Office of Historic Preservation and Public Art San Antonio, “Downtown Storefronts” debuts today, September 29 with a reception at PASA Studio, 400 North Saint Mary’s, suite 101, beginning…
Q&A: Comedian Bobby Lee ain’t no loser
Eleven years have passed since comedian Bobby Lee made a trip to San Antonio to do a stand-up performance. Lee, who is best known for his role on the sketch comedy series MADtv, will take the stage at the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club from September 30 to October 2. During an interview with me…
The Wicked Stage on Tragedy, A Tragedy
I’ve been thinking a lot about tragedy lately; partly, that’s because we—all of us—have just experienced the anniversary of 9/11, and it’s hard to separate that date, and those events, from the notion of tragedy, writ large. Partly, it’s because I’m considering the creation of an entire course on tragedy at Trinity: I already teach…
Sam Coffman is luring folks back to the land in the face of global insecurity
One definition of survivalism has to do with making it in nature without all of society’s fluff: going primitive. The other definition, perhaps more familiar, involves stockpiling Triscuits and forbidding anyone to use the chemical toilet until the bombs start falling: going paranoid. And while both consider civilization a pretty flimsy concept, Sam Coffman, founder…
Celebrity Fashion Heavyweights Take Over The Texas Hill Country For MADD Charity Benefit
Designer Linda Ellis’s latest collection will be featured this Saturday October 1, at the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Charity Benefit honoring Mary McGuire. “Western Australia and Chile Meets South Texas” is the theme of the haute couture runway show,…
Spiritual life involves salt water pools, body paint, volleyball, and lots of quiet time
A change in the seasons sometimes signals the need for a change in self. And in Texas there are tons of centers for reflection, rest, and spiritual awakening. This is by no means a complete list — Texas is full of places to go believe stuff. Turn down a dirt road and you’ll see what…
Celebrate new fall breezes by diving through them
Feel the wind flowing through your hair and the troposphere blowing through your teeth while leaping from 13,000 feet. While skydiving solo takes weeks of orientation and training, and can break the bank with fees reaching $2,000, Sky Dive San Marcos, located off of I-35 in Fentress, offers tandem skydiving for a more affordable price.…
Jeremy Rifkin on San Antonio, the European Union, and the lessons learned in our push for a planetary-scale power shift
In some ways the quest to transition off fossil fuels is a race for the future. A race that the United States is losing. (It wasn’t the fallout of Cali’s Solyndra so much as China’s $30 billion injection of domestic solar subsidies that has rattled U.S. renewables.) Yet in other ways it’s a dance. To…
More than superb sakes — Izakaya Nin sushi offerings nearly enough, too
Robata grill with special charcoal, sushi rarely seen in San Antonio, vast sake selection… the burden on Izakaya Nin to perform was unfairly heavy from the get-go. So let’s just get this out of the way upfront: many of my unreasonably high expectations weren’t met, and yet I’d willingly go back in a heartbeat. I…
Could the changeup at the E-N signal more consolidation with the Houston Chron?
The quick exodus of the Express-News’ top two editors last week left a newsroom grasping for explanation. The day after Executive Editor Bob Rivard stepped down, sending a rosy email to staff that left more questions than answers, the paper’s No. 2, Brett Thacker, quickly followed, sending his own frustratingly vague goodbye via email. Neither…
Dust off your lederhosen
Head to Beethoven Maennerchor Halle und Garten to celebrate German culture (and that all-important quaffable product German’s brew so well: beer) this weekend and next. Beethoven provides incomparable institutional charm at their annual Oktoberfest revelry. Friday includes, in 30-minute-long segments, performances by the San Antonio Accordion Club, Kelly Singers, Beethoven Kinderchor, Der Deutsche Volkstanzverein, Beethoven…
Texas Comics Showcase
With popular acts like Ralphie May and MadTV’s Bobby Lee performing this week, it’s no surprise that Jeff Foxworthy and company have decided to postpone their October 1 show at the AT&T Center for a to-be-determined date. Among all the laugh-doings this week is a special show that should not be overlooked. On Thursday, LOL…
TCM is your one-stop for all-night-long Monday terrors
“You’re gonna die up there,” says Linda Blair’s character in The Exorcist. It is also the first thing you hear coming out of a dark screen in TCM Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King, a 58-minute special airing as part of Turner Classic Movies’ October-long horror fest. You won’t die from watching…
Primal Screen: Things to watch (or avoid) before killing your TV
Suburgatory (7:30pm Wed, ABC) Suburgatory runs roughshod through the suburbs, laying waste to the malls and manicured lawns. This new satire stars Jane Levy as Tessa, a Greenwich Village wild child whose dad moves her to suburban hell for a supposedly more wholesome life. Levy looks like a young Julia Roberts with Roberts’ way with…
Substance-less style drawn out in 1970s flashback Xanadu
The San Pedro Playhouse’s season opener — a musical evisceration of the 1980 cinematic stinker Xanadu — reveals a few truths. First: it conclusively proves that the years 1975 to 1985 produced the most laughable trends in fashion and choreography since, say, the mid-1500s (and, still, there’s something to be said for Morris dancing). Second:…
Live & Local: Mission Complete! at Indie Fest 2011
Mission Complete!’s performance last Friday at Indie Fest 2011 was summed up in the set’s final number "Metroplex." Guitarist/vocalist/creative nucleus Ryan Teter strummed a boogie lick on his electric, while his band instigated a full-bore clap-along. Teter sang about longing for a simpler highway system, losing his keys, having no internet, and feeling isolated and…
The QueQue: Streetcar desires, Perry Poppin’, Climatologists want to correct data twisters
Streetcar desires As VIA officials shop their own streetcar vision to City Council today, they’re headed for a clash with Mayor Julián Castro and at least one councilman, District 8’s Reed Williams, who dropped their own very different streetcar plan to the Express-News last week. While VIA’s current five-year plan, board-approved in July, calls for…
Say Revenge! debuts with a fun — and furious — shit-talking album
The women of Say Revenge! — half of the co-ed foursome — are the type that, no matter what they say to you, always seem on the verge of laughter. Singer Christina Rodriguez and guitarist Maria Benavides cut each other off constantly, unable to control their excitement when talking about Rough Night, Sugar? It is…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I’ve got a challenging assignment for you. In accordance with your current astrological omens, I am inviting you to cultivate a special kind of receptivity — a rigorously innocent openness to experience that will allow you to be penetrated by life’s beauty with sublime intensity. To understand the exact nature of…
Moneyball
In a world of competitive sports, where a power lifter can basically bench press a bulldozer by sticking a syringe in his ass cheek, it’s getting harder to believe any athlete is performing on an even playing field nowadays. Even without the ’roids, there’s always a company out there manufacturing high tops that add six…
Vegetable sauté from Twin Sisters, $9.89
A bite of what we’re eating at the Current
Group set to capitalize on apparitions at Yorktown Hospital
YORKTOWN, Texas — The idea of a haunted hospital conjures up waves of dread — and not just for those still-too-recent memories of Andrew McCarthy’s performance in that Kingdom Hospital mini-series. Hospitals, with their antiseptic instruments, organ trays, and limbo-like waiting rooms, are already scary enough. But Yorktown Memorial, started up by concerned nuns in…
Handmade in #satx
Local stitchers, cutters, and studders stoke city’s creative fibers Index
Neon Indian: Era Extraña
With his sophomore effort, Alan Palomo triumphs as he abandons the whimsical cartoonish squeals of Psychic Chasms for the pop catharsis of Era Extraña. The profound effort sounds as if a brooding Palomo took too much acid before playing too many 8-bit video games all while jamming out on his Prophet 5 — and we’re…
The Apoca-List
AKA The “We’re Fucked” Index
Fast Foodie: Q at the Hyatt
There are occasions, few to be sure, when a buffet is not evil incarnate. Most Indian/Pakistani restaurants can at least pull off 50 percent of the available items on any given day, for example. And though looks can be deceiving, at least you have an idea of what you’re getting by virtue of being able…
Founding father of H-Town rap keeps pluggin’ in ‘wicked’ industry
Learning about K-Rino (born Eric Kaiser) involves re-evaluating what it means to be hardcore. All Music Guide attributes 24 releases to him in 16 years. However, the discography lacks the latter of his two 2011 releases: Day of the Storm. It would make sense to say he raps with the gravelly timbre of Xzibit and…
Meet the crafters
Merry-juana dealer Chronically Cute, by Devyn Gonzalez, is a marijuana-celebrating home décor and jewelry line made in San Antonio. Weed-leaf cushions, hand-knitted bong cozys, and “’stache” jars are just the beginning of Gonzalez’ vision of 420 crafts. I’ve always done knitting and felt work, and I like weed. There’s nothing like this out there…
GIG ’em an aggie beer
GIG ’em an aggie beer It’s tailgating time again for San Antonians traveling to Aggieland. Though Aggies represent an incredibly loyal fan base, it remains to be seen if they can be loyal to a local beer made just for them. Dean Brundage, one of three founders of the tiny one-barrel New Republic Brewing Co.,…
In case this is the year you finally put those binoculars to use …
When fall hits, Nature trades in her summer decor for rich, autumnal color. The weather changes and plants and animals all change their habits. It’s in the migration of many bird species that you really see Nature changing her linens. And Victor Emanuel knows those linens better than most. His 30-year-old, Austin-based bird touring company…
Chasing Shadows reviews San Antonio’s top haunted houses
Nightmare on Grayson Scare factor ★★★★ Historicity ★★★ Paranormal activity ★★ A San Antonio mainstay for over two decades. Plus: several local paranormal investigators have stated that the Grayson Street location is actually haunted, making this the perfect place to test one’s moxie. 201 E Grayson (210) 979-5522 nightmareongrayson.com Fri-Sat 7:30pm-midnight; Sun-Thurs 7:30-9:30pm $17…
Cheap bars prove to be business models that will outlive all others
Look closely: Wurzbach Ice House offers a model for our future. The bar sits on the naked concrete slab of a former Blockbuster (*1). Adornments are basic: a wraparound tin bar runs the length of the main room, orbited by some booths. Pool tables and darts are over on the other side, where, if I…
Local review of Say Revenge!: Rough Night, Sugar?
The debut album by Say Revenge! walks a fine line. On the one hand, it’s everything expected from a throwback Saytown rock band. It’s danceable pop-laced punk (not dance-punk), with drummer Ed "Frankeneddie" Gutierrez’s beats almost always making a two-step racket, while bassist Chris "Crash" Compean and guitarist Maria "Mari Mayhem" Benavides strum out distorted…
Peter Calthorpe takes on climate change with his vision of urbanism
Peter Calthorpe is probably the most respected urban planner in the world, which has led municipalities from California to China to ask for his assistance in creating livable, sustainable cities. His new book, Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change, accepts that climate change is a real threat, with potentially catastrophic consequences that can only…
‘Top Chef Texas’ only taps two Texan chefs for program
After all the hullabaloo over Top Chef filming in Texas, you’d think they’d pick more Texan contestants. Alas, only Andrew Curren and Paul Qui from Austin will be representing the Lone Star state out of a cast of 29. (Somebody better tell this bunch that San Antonio outdid every other Texas city in Travel +…
The buddy comedy gets a shot in the arm
“You just have to laugh, so you won’t cry.” This sentiment, often expressed in the face of tragedy (and many tragicomic movies), is the driving force behind 50/50, the new film from the creators of Superbad starring Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and Seth Rogen. In a departure from their wheelhouse of raunchy sex-comedies, Rogen and Co. have…
DJ Shadow: The Less You Know, the Better
DJ Shadow’s last outing, 2006’s The Outsider, was a schizophrenic mixtape split between Bay Area crunk and laborious retreads. His apologists called it a mixed bag; his detractors said failure. Shadow stood by it, saying he was cleaning the slate (likely addressing his creative ambitions as much as fan expectations). With his latest, Shadow proves…
Best of Flash Fiction, September 2011
We all inherit bad genes (and good ones, true, but we don’t seem to get all worked up about those). We also inherit other horrible and wonderful things from family members (including stories) like dressers and certificates from the first grade. Ben Tremillo’s “Inheritance” could be a thing like that or a more abstract concept.…
Pedicab burns, La Tuna turns seven
The Pedicab (415 E Cevallos) is gone, burnt to the ground Monday morning. No lives were lost, but it’s the second local music venue in a few months to disappear. (San Antone Café & Concerts, we still miss you.) According to Melissa Sparks, spokeswoman for the San Antonio Fire Department, the losses at Pedicab are…
Briscoe bags 100K in 2012 budget
The Museo Alameda isn’t the only museum in town enduring chronic difficulties — or getting a leg up from the City while dodging standard funding protocols. The Dolph and Janey Briscoe Western Art Museum was originally planned to open in 2010 in a reconverted library on the River Walk, reconfigured with design improvements by noted…
Get outside and challenge yourself at these three destinations
Mitchell Lake Audubon Center As part of the National Audubon Society who’s mission is to “conserve and restore natural ecosystems,” the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center is one out of just four Audubon Recognized centers in Texas. This 1,200-acre area located on the south side of San Antonio is a nice place to enjoy a quiet…
‘Crime After Crime’ chronicles one battered woman’s struggle for freedom
Debbie Peagler has been in prison for the past 27 years for the first-degree murder of her boyfriend Oliver Wilson, a man who forced her into prostitution while she was a teenager, a man who beat her and then molested their children. At the time (1982) there was little by way of outreach for battered…
Mata’s Atelier shines at New York Fashion Week
Story by Desiree Prieto NEW YORK CITY — The entrance to Cult Studios is hidden behind plywood and a closed-off sidewalk when I arrive at the Flower District location near New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology. Inside, Henry De La Paz, a hairdresser originally from the Rio Grande Valley, is preparing models with weaves,…
