1. Highlight: Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Jaap van Zweden Named Conductor of the Year This was the Year of Van Zweden, according to Musical America, which named Dallas’ intrepid maestro Conductor of the Year for 2012. JvZ made the most of his year in the spotlight by presenting consistently exciting, critically…
When the end of the world comes to knock, it’s best to be prepared. Have your home in order, and all that. So we at Mixmaster thought it would be fun to sew together some of art’s most disturbing, prophecy-strangling, all-out night terror-inspiring legacy pieces. This way, your aesthetic muscle…
This year brought with it a full-on art assault, and it was nice to see Dallas chumming up the headline waters. If, after this last year, you still think art is a gentle sport, where paintbrushes seductively caress canvases and everyone sips red wine, you weren’t paying attention. Things got…
They look like Mrs. Claus’ sexytime footware, but there’s a note attached. It explains that they were likely owned by another female icon, the star of Laugh-In, stand-up goddess and occasional Broadway stand-in, The Amazing Phyllis Diller. The knee-hitting, red vinyl go-go kickers were snatched up in a lot sale…
I think the Mayans just had better things to do than extend their dayplanner out, indefinitely. Perhaps they predicted Google Cals and Siri, then took another look at their elaborate and lovely circular documentation of time and thought, “Well, screw that.” So this Friday we’ll all share a few human…
A couple weeks back we told you that comedy rainmaker Judd Apatow was in Dallas to promote his fourth directorial effort, This is 40, a sort-of spin-off of 2007’s Knocked Up. As part of that press tour, Apatow — who also directed 40-Year-Old Virgin and Funny People — spent one…
Mixmaster art critic Betsy Lewis picks her favorite works of the year: BEST PIECES “Aragh,” Morehshin Allahyari and Richie Budd, from “Monstrous Coupling” at UT-Dallas Allahyari’s and Budd’s “Aragh,” from UT Dallas’ high-spirited exhibition “Monstrous Coupling,” mixed political commentary with simplicity of execution and a complex concept. Three mundane objects…
#10 The whole gang showed up Santas, reindeer, Jesus and other late-December icons partied 400 deep on Saturday night at Dallas Santa Rampage, 2012. After an initial meet-up at Mockingbird Station, the gang spread cheer the responsible way: by piling onto public transport and infiltrating neighborhood watering holes. Peppermint schnapps…
A dream comes true for the young and drunk at heart this January, as the Perot Museum announces a new program called Social Science. It will be a series of late night parties geared strictly for adults, with cash bars spread throughout the venue’s many levels. That means you can…
There wasn’t a single reference to the Connecticut shootings on this weekend’s holiday edition of Saturday Night Live, but there didn’t need to be. The show’s cold open — usually reserved for luke-warm political sketches — said it all. Watch it above, and see a few of the other sketches…
If you aren’t one of the 175,000 people who have already visited the Chinese Lantern Festival in Fair Park, give your inner cheapskate a sloppy high-five. Your laziness has paid off, because the illuminated production has just announced a holiday gift to the community with half-priced admission this evening, on…
Artists in graduate programs have the financial double-whack of student poverty and artist income. Don’t worry guys, there’s a green light in the distance. The Dallas Museum of Art and the Dallas Art Fair have joined forces to offer the very new Art Ball 2013 Awards, cash prizes available to…
Santa must have received your exceptionally poignant, well-crafted letter detailing your desire to spend evenings with your favorite modern literary icons. I mean, this list of participating authors in the 2013 Arts and Letters Live series is insane. Let’s just check out a few of the biggest names. Art Speigelman?…
Do you like the DC Comics version of Batman? Do you like the circus? If you’re a fan of these two frankly disparate concepts, then the American Airlines Center has something for you over the next few days. But is this something any good? Judging by last night’s opening performance,…
If you’re just now looking at a gift guide, congratulations. You waited it out. We knew you would, champ. Your reward for lazy patience? You can ride our holiday shopping coattails to gifting glory because we’ve searched Dallas and the interwebs to find 27 presents that are as affordable as…
As the tornadoes blew in on April 3, most of us did the logical thing and sought shelter at Medieval Times (it’s a fortress, after all). But not local photographer Parrish Ruiz de Velasco: he was in Lancaster, in the thick of it with his camera. He caught some great…
I hope you’ve done your power lunges, Dallas. I don’t want you to pull anything sprinting from one amazing party to the next. There’s so much going on: art lectures, screenings of The Jerk and Wake in Fright at Texas Theatre, a beer buffet in the Arts District and a…
Every Thursday we highlight the best comedy of the coming weekend. Find more comedy events at dallasobserver.com/calendar. Loni Love at the Addison Improv Named by Variety and Comedy Central as one of their Top 10 Comics to Watch, Love has been seen on VH1, Chelsea Lately and even CNN. This…
Patrick Short didn’t run off to the Yale School of Architecture because he felt compelled to reinvent a skyline or establish a high-end construction project. “He went into architecture so he could learn how to make better sculptures,” says his friend and fellow Boston University alum, Joshua Goode. “He wanted…
Gay-male weepies have left a long trail of tears, stretching back to the sobbing, self-loathing queens of The Boys in the Band and including high-prestige pictures like Philadelphia (1993) and Brokeback Mountain (2005). The genre, most prominent during the first decade of the AIDS pandemic, has used melodrama to bid…
It’s dispiriting that a film about the romantic life of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who cultivated a small coterie of mistresses, should exhibit so little interest in what so engaged its hero: the women’s individual hearts and minds. Instead, Hyde Park on Hudson quickly introduces us (and FDR) to the president’s…
Secrets of time travel are revealed in On the Eve, the high-flying new musical at the tiny Magnolia Lounge in Fair Park. According to the whimsical script, written by Dallas actor Michael Federico, all you need to float back and forth across centuries are a hot air balloon, a Hula…
