In his heyday, Mozart was a rock star. His talent often rivaled by his own petulance, he could recreate masterpieces effortlessly after hearing them played only once. Those who wished to pass him off as a parrot where quickly shot down as the composer aged and created musical legacies in…
Kwanzaa, day five, is a celebration of purpose. The accompanying lesson is a lovely one, focused tightly on unity and movement, combining under a shared goal to exert efforts forward for community improvement. There are celebrations all over the city during these seven days, but some of the most interesting,…
Put a cork in 2012, it’s done. And whether it was a good one for you or a regular horribilis, the important thing to remember is that the calendar starts anew at midnight, giving you a fresh start and a chance to bro hug errrreybody in proximity. And there are…
It’s time to pack up miniature baby Jesus and tuck away the shepherds. Well, almost. At the Dallas Arboretum there’s still time to get your nativity fix before tiny sheep and magi bearing gifts go out of season. Sunday, catch the Arboretum’s Artistry of the Nativity display, an enormous collection…
There is a photo for Cirque Banquiste that has had the Observer staff intrigued for almost two months. Imagine a pink toy luxury car, sized for a toddler. In front and on top of it is a conga line of poodles, standing on hind legs with front paws resting on…
If you’ve watched Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show, you already know John Caparulo. He’s the guy you didn’t expect: a Southern dark horse in the stand-up race. He’s a rapid-fire of grassroots insights and a high-pressure blast of smile shouts. But what really sets Caparulo apart is his natural…
There’s something wrong with college football. Championship matchups are decided by computers rather than playoffs; coaches change teams more than they do their underwear; and we have too many damn bowl games where mediocre football teams are allowed into the playoffs as a means to hype up advertising bucks. It’s…
The snow came in surprising Denvery blankets over Christmas. It was part of a massive winter storm that froze and sent snow cascading over the South. So, yeah, Dallas briefly turned into the Star Wars-planet Hoth yesterday. Over on Facebook and Twitter, we asked you fine folks to contribute on…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. John Caparulo at the Addison Improv John “Cap” Caparulo earned his own half-hour Comedy Central Presents, which recently aired on TBS, and is now a part of Blue Collar Comedy: The Next Generation…
The sculptor William Cannings is a professor at Texas Tech, but he has a long history with Cris Worley going back to her days at Pan American Art Projects. That an Englishman as accomplished as Cannings ended up in Lubbock instead of New York may seem like a fluke or…
Alex Bentley over at CultureMap Dallas liked This is 40 less than I did, which is totally fine. He makes some solid points, including some that I touched on when I babbled in Apatow’s general direction a couple weeks back. But this strikes me as somewhat insane:…
I read something in Esquire the other day that caught me off-guard. It was about how, despite the near-constant bemoaning of our culture’s waning attention span and the media industry’s cratering business model, we’re actually in a Golden Age for writers. The article, by Stephen Marche, makes a pretty good…
Artists, we know you do your best work under deadline, but don’t let time stand between you and a briefcase full of bills. (Or Publisher’s Clearinghouse-sized check, I haven’t decided yet…) Today, Friday, December 21, is your final chance to fill out an Observer Mastermind nomination. Winners receive no-strings-attached cash…
We all seek regression around the holidays. Presents, apparently, require money to purchase. Shortened work weeks leave you stressing, rather than embracing this period of — what is it? — Joy and togetherness, right. Caffeinate your inner child, then set it loose this evening at the final Adult Crawl Night…
Dropped the ball with New Year’s Eve plans? It’s time to get excited, there’s a whole city’s worth of open bars and festive party hats just waiting for your RSVP. Check out your options, make your reservations and have a coming of age chat with your liver, because 2013 is…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. This is 40 We’re starting the list with a movie this time. Why? Because it’s Judd Apatow, that’s why. This is 40 follows Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) from Apatow’s 2007…
You’re pressing the edge of online shipping, nobody wants to be near the mall and Christmas will be here in five days. We have ideas, or rather the Perot Museum, Nasher and Dallas Museum of Art do. Those gift shops are packed with scores for everyone on your list, and…
If Dallas theater gets much better than it was in 2012, Chicago’s going to be jealous. Dallas’ theatrical community used to lose a lot of homegrown talent to that city with the wind. (And to New York and L.A.) Not so much anymore, as the number of theater companies, performance…
Watching Django Unchained, it’s easy to imagine that Quentin Tarantino had such a blast making his last picture, the ebullient Holocaust fantasia Inglourious Basterds, that he decided to take his whole blood-spattered historical tent show on the road, this time putting down stakes in antebellum Dixieland. Although not technically a…
You can hear the people sing — really hear them — in the long-gestating screen version of that Broadway juggernaut Les Misérables. Countering the standard practice of having the actors in a film musical lip-synch their songs to prerecorded tracks, director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) insisted that all of…
Sadly, country songwriters stand as nearly the only entertainers in our popular culture who craft memorable art on the subject of marriage, the state in which just less than half of Americans spend the majority of their lives. A few years back, Brad Paisley, one of Nashville’s best, wrote and…
In his 2005 novel One Shot, writer Lee Child lays out nine rules for surviving a five-against-one alley fight, a challenge his hero, the ex-Army cop Jack Reacher, is about to face. These include “Be on your feet and ready.” “Identify the ringleader.” “Don’t break the furniture.” Rule number nine…
