Glow For It, You Freaky Aliens

Nobody knows how to do camp anymore. Humor in modern film and TV is so wrapped up in irony that not a sliver of campiness can wedge in among all that hyper-awareness. Luckily camp’s heyday has left behind a treasure trove of silly but gratifying works that made us squirm…

Tingly Spines

If you’ve never seen an installment of Naked Girls Reading, you might have some preconceptions about what exactly is involved. You’d be right on a couple of them: One, there ARE naked girls. Two, they ARE reading. (You’re batting 1.000 so far.) But here’s where things might diverge from what…

Lips Unzipped

You can’t make this stuff up … said no fiction writer, ever. Mostly because they are pretty sure they can. But despite the twisty plot lines, similarities to our own lives and outta-nowhere narrative bends that authors, screenwriters and playwrights create in their minds, there’s nothing we connect with more…

I Vote For SweatPants

We’re at that dead part of the season where it’s not consistently sweater weather, but we can’t quite get away with spring stuff — despite what The Gap would have you believe. But in this late-winter sartorial purgatory, there is so much hope for the coming season: the promise that…

Treatments for Consumption

A day trip to Denton is in order. You haven’t really been back to appreciate all it has to offer in a while — you’ve got fond memories, sure, but it’s been too long since you’ve visited your favorite old haunts or checked out what’s new and exciting. As you’re…

A Legacy Told Through Dance

When you look at the cultural fabric of Dallas, you see a fair amount of artistic trailblazing: the DMA, for example, taking museum/community interaction to the next level this year; or gallery owners who have defied odds and set up wonderful outposts and spurred an arts revival. But few artists…

A Dream On Foot

Oh, but who doesn’t love a parade? Especially the kind that brings a city together, lining streets from downtown to Fair Park with cheering children, for a loud and proud event that celebrates the legacy of a man who truly made a difference. The 32nd Annual Martin Luther King Jr…

Like Rowing Crew For Lazy People

If you’ve ever accidentally oared a buddy in the face, or rowed enthusiastically in circles until you figured out that coordinating your efforts equals forward movement, you truly know how much fun can be had in a narrow little boat. And while the Dallas-Fort Worth area may not be the…

Flow forth, Romance

David Garrett looks like he should be emblazoned across one of your mom’s old romance novels, edging Fabio out with the dull end of a giant sword and ripping bodices off some busty Ren-Faire enthusiast. The blond hair flows, the perfectly groomed stubble glimmers against his tanned skin and for…

Doin’ It For Themselves

Buddy movies are so very “been there, done that,” right? Old cop, young cop. High-ranking cop, goofy patrol cop. You know the drill. But John Sayles takes the tale and renews it with his latest noir-esque thriller, Go For Sisters, featuring two African-American women in the lead roles. Yolanda Ross…

Your Selfies Could Be Art

Your Instagram account is chock-full of perfectly framed eye-candy, prompting mass “like”-age and plenty of comments about your obvious talent. Maybe it’s time to take your photography to the next level? If you’ve been thinking about stepping it up, Makerspace, 2995 Lady Bird Lane, is right up your alley. Venture…

Oh Shit, Sherlock

The Game’s Afoot is bloodless bedlam, like Murder, She Wrote but without the dogged bad luck. The slapstick who-done-it play is your classic murder mystery. A holiday party in 1930s Connecticut is all fun and games until someone ends up dead. But this is no ordinary home. It’s the castle…

FYI: The Middle Kingdom Isn’t from Tolkien

With the Chinese New Year fast approaching, there’s no time like the present to catch up on a few thousand years of Chinese civilization. Shen Yun gives quite the primer, rolling through classical music and dance representing each region and every dynastic era comprising the Middle Kingdom’s history. See more…

Keep Your House Apes Occupied

The presents are opened, the leftovers are questionable and you still have your kids at home for another week. It’s beginning to look a lot like … a total nightmare. Don’t fret. There are still plenty of holiday holdovers to occupy those precious little snowflakes — like the Sparkle! spectacular…

A Different Kind of Drumstick

Christmas is past and all that happy family Norman Rockwell stuff is done. There’s no question you need to get out to shake your tail feathers a little bit, and there’s no better way to let off some of that post-holiday steam than to buy yourself a stout cocktail and…

See Landscapes in Meadows

Until Pablo Picasso came along with all his cubes and chest hair and lady friends, the star of the Spanish art world was Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida. Sorolla specialized in stunning (and seriously, they are stunning) oil paintings of Spanish life — including scenes from the sea and fishing villages,…

Ring That Bell Again

There’s not much that can be said about It’s a Wonderful Life that hasn’t been said before. Even the most cynical among us are drawn in by the story of the suicidal George Bailey and his journey through what life would have looked like had he never been born. It’s…

Fishing For A Holiday Hit

Small-town Christmas is the best. Of course, the big city has its perks during the holiday season — ice-skating rinks, ballet productions and shopping meccas chief among them — but it almost seems that the Christmas spirit looms largest in the tiniest of hamlets. It’s the places where the local…

Rat King? Dated Him.

As a society, we long for things that are fresh and shiny. We don’t have much use for the things we’ve already seen or experienced. Out with the old, in with the new — unless, of course, we’re talking about a tradition. When the month of December hits, it’s like…

Maggie Smith Makes Life Worth Living

Why are we all excited about the premiere of Downton Abbey? Anyone who has followed the series at all knows that what’s in store can’t be much better than, say, a zombie apocalypse: Horrible things are going to happen and good people will be lost. But I suppose the good…

@SwanLake Is My Twitter Handle

You’re usually pretty en pointe when it comes to planning a good date night, but lately you’ve been off your mark. Dinner and a movie get pretty meh after a while, even with the best of company, so you’re looking for something that’ll sweep your better half off their feet…

Inertia Don’t Play Here

The state of the arts in North Texas is so dynamic, so fresh and so very exciting these days that you almost feel like you should be sporting a beret and practicing finger snaps. There’s sculpture strewn about town and Big Happenings almost every weekend in our so-not-quaint arts district…