You would think that if someone were to build the world’s largest zoo in Denton and announce plans to have it open this summer, the public would have noticed by now. It’s hard to be stealthy when you’re moving lions, tigers and elephants into a suburb. It’s even harder when…
4/3 We tried to read Great Expectations twice before giving up and buying the Cliffs Notes. Charles Dickens just never really appealed to us. If you’re of the same bent, or even if you like Dickens, you’re bound to enjoy The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a “music whodunit” based on…
4/4 North Texas’ reputation as a hothouse for budding jazz talent blossoms a little wider this weekend at the Third Annual North Texas Jazz Festival in Addison, a three-day event mixing established national artists with the best of the next generation. Focused around the renowned jazz program at the University…
A youth group that calls itself the Young Conservatives of Texas is taking some credit for the recent firing of a Fort Worth Star-Telegram business writer who called them “anti-intellectual little fascists” in an e-mail. The missive upset the group, though Buzz isn’t sure why. Maybe they didn’t like being…
Texans have to bear the burden of a number of stereotypes: Texas men are brash, gun-loving bubbas; the women are over made-up, big-haired shallow shoppers; we’re all materialistic, right-wing, anti-enviro religious freaks. In reality, none of those descriptions is more than 60 or 70 percent true, tops. Still, the tarring…
Well, isn’t this just peachy? For years now, Buzz has made it known that we are amenable to a little journalistic bribery. Cheap bribery, too. Our soul, we’ve advertised, can be bought for $1.89. Cash or check. Granted, it’s a bit frayed, sort of a fixer-upper, but still cheap at…
Exactly how bad will Dallas’ curbside trash recycling program have to perform before anyone with city government acknowledges that it just ain’t right? Pretty bad, apparently, judging by the latest numbers in a national survey. The survey published last month by the trade publication Waste News found that only 2.2…
So, have you laid in your supplies of plastic sheeting and duct tape to prepare for the next inevitable terrorist attack? Feeling more secure now? No? Not to worry, citizen. Fortunately, the Texas Legislature is way ahead of the feds and is taking its own steps to combat “terrorists”–at least…
A plan to allow Mesquite to operate soccer fields at Dallas’ troubled Samuell Farm (“Farm Teams,” February 6) appears to be rolling right along. We’d like to tell you more about what that plan entails, but it’s a secret. You, Dallas taxpayer, should just butt out and mind your own…
A Buzz reader wrote in to suggest that we make some comment on a Dallas Morning News report last week that the Sheriff’s Department somehow lost 50 keys that could be used to start about 180 cop cars. “Surely this deserves some commentary, preferably of a more flippant variety,” the…
If you are a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or its spin-off Angel, then you no doubt understand why a soon-to-be-41-year-old man has a Buffy poster hanging in his laundry room and a Buffy calendar on his office wall. And to you non-fans out there, let me just say…
It’s hard to ignore Plano-based author H.J. Ralles’ ambition. “Move over Rowling, here comes Ralles,” reads the blunt headline of a press release from Ralles, announcing the release of her latest sci-fi fantasy novel aimed at the preteen market. Let’s see: Ralles, like J.K. Rowling, was born in England. Both…
So what, Buzz wonders, would Martin Luther King Jr. make of the war fever gripping certain parts of the country, specifically that part residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.? Young people putting on uniforms and taking up guns to march: Would King approve? And what if they were marching in a…
>The east end of downtown may be dead, but now it’s getting deadly. A Dallas Observer reporter was padding down Commerce Street the other day, on his way no doubt to pick up some super-important highly damning records–or smokes, whatever–when a chunk of the defunct Mercantile Building nearly squashed him…
Here’s a black-and-white rhetorical question for you: How many people of the opposite race do you socialize with regularly? Schoolmates, co-workers, your kids’ friends and fellow church members you see on Sunday don’t count. We suspect that it’s not many. And we don’t say this meanly, since the same is…
Buzz has a great idea for a high school band’s halftime show: a marching musical tribute to state Representative Tony Goolsby. Yearbook staffs, chess clubs and computer groups should do something nice for the Dallas Republican, too. Why? Goolsby has introduced legislation to stymie school bullies. Praise his name. (A…
This is one of a series of essays in the Dallas Observer’s calendar section demonstrating that some among our staff are, not to put too fine a point on it, one-browed knuckle-draggers. Our subject this week is opera, or specifically The Dallas Opera’s premiere of a new production of Giancomo…
It’s time once again for Buzz to look back on the year that’s passed, to recall the noteworthy events of 2002, to pause and reflect and grind out roughly 4,000 words of warmed-over hash served with a side of wise-ass. All right, let’s roll. Here they come, the events of…
Savage philistine that Buzz is, we’ve never quite understood the appeal of ballet. Yeah, yeah–grace, beauty, all that–we know. But there’s just not enough gunplay or nudity to make an entertaining night out for Buzz. We need some action, some drama. Maybe we need to head out to see Ballet…
I can’t dance. Don’t ask me. Consider yourself warned. My few ventures onto a dance floor with the missus usually ended up with some good Samaritan rushing up, reaching into my mouth and grabbing my tongue to keep me from swallowing it. “I’b okayb,” I’d say as I broke out…
Here’s a rough estimate of how a standard 24-shot roll of film is typically used in our household: Pictures of feet, walls, ceilings, etc. taken by accident: five Pictures of family, friends, vacation spots: eight Pictures of pet cats taken to “finish up the roll”: 11 As you might imagine,…
Maybe Robert Ramirez should have named his new Oak Cliff restaurant the Twilight Zone. Ramirez’s efforts to open the Twilight Café, a bizarre saga that resulted in an ethics complaint and the resignation of Dallas plan commissioner David Spence after he improperly used his city title to get a copy…
