What do Swatch watches, nude bodies and neon lights have in common? Aside from collaborative efforts in 1980s porn movies, the Conduit Gallery’s current exhibitions. San Fran’s Rex Ray offers New Works featuring his “designer” art that rips magazines apart and reassembles them (with a little paint) to create gorgeous…
The impact of Woody Guthrie on the American landscape cannot be overstated. From riding the Depression-era rails and writing the immortal classic “This Land Is Your Land” to playing union meetings with Pete Seeger and inspiring a young Bob Dylan, the man did no shortage of interesting things in his…
It’s a pretty well agreed-upon fact that if the State of Texas charged a dollar for every tacky, big-haired, drawling, cow-tippin’ Texan stereotype portrayed in the media, we’d run a surplus forever. Texas outsiders have been responsible for some pretty egregious depictions of our fair state throughout the years (and…
How sword fighting and not, say, pistol duels or throwing knives, evolved into a slick Olympic sport, I’ll never quite understand. With button-tipped foils and thick safety gear, fencing has almost entirely removed the element of danger that always made swashbuckling such a good time. Used to be, you could…
Not to pooh-pooh the arts or anything, but do any of you really think the average dad wants to spend Father’s Day at the Nasher Sculpture Center? Yeah, me neither–though I suppose more than a few might be interested in talking to whoever maintains the museum’s lawn. (How do they…
Artists Daniel Mirer and Raven Schlossberg have much to say about male stereotypes in their respective new exhibits, In the Finest Tradition and The Road South. Mirer’s photographs place manly men in architecturally intriguing spaces, from a horn player in a marching band playing under a stone arch (OK, maybe…
The film Slumdog Millionaire didn’t go over so well in my world. I was excited to see it, and I liked it and all, but then my stupid boyfriend and I had a huge fight over whether or not we should stay in the theater to watch the big choreographed…
Food for Thought is a cleverly named gala to benefit Big Thought, a Dallas nonprofit serving some 300,000 students and teachers with creative learning programs inside and outside the classroom. Thriving Minds summer camps, for example, offer artistic and cultural enrichment at no cost to children. They’re also–as I suspect…
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…it’s an oversized, dog-like creature flying through the sky? WTF? No need to worry, it’s just Falkor, the luckdragon from The Neverending Story, passing by. You know the iconic fantasy film which was based on the German novel Die unendliche Geschicht? Never heard about…
Saloons, outlaws and whiskey brawls–old-time Western shoot-outs aren’t reserved for re-runs of John Wayne shows. Did you know that Doc Holliday (in case you’re not familiar with the name, I’m referring to Val Kilmer’s character in Tombstone) actually got his start in Dallas? Shocking, huh? Before coming down with gambling…
Got Ideas? Then ladies, you’re in luck! Kelly Ripa and TLC are casting for a new show where female inventors can produce and market their ideas into everyday household products. Join the ranks of Ruth Handler, the inventor of the Barbie Doll, and Ida Forbes, the inventor of the hot…
Don’t take it literally: the Eat Me-Drink Me exhibition opening this month at the Goss-Michael Foundation is more about whimsy and imagination than about actually ingesting anything. Take Ian Dawson’s imaginative, brightly-colored “Henri and Henrietta”–a charming, toothy pair of hippo-esque creatures perched on white blocks, their heads thrown back and…
“In the fairy tale criminal justice system, the characters from fairy tales and nursery rhymes are represented by two separate yet equally ridiculous groups: the fairy tale police who investigate the fairy tale crime, and the fairy tale district attorneys who prosecute the fairy tale offenders. These are their stories.”…
It’s fun to read about trophy wives getting dumped, being crushed and coming to realize that there’s more to life than planning parties and buying Prada. Well, it’s not always fun, but when reading Gigi Levangie Grazer you find yourself rooting for the heroine, hoping she will triumph against the…
Dads don’t cook–they grill. It’s more manly to stick a beer can up a chicken’s ass than it is to sous-vide, so when it comes to paternal cuisine, we haven’t expected a lot of variety or experimentation from the old man, but the cooking school at Central Market (5750 E…
Since the heady days of the 1966 flower power uprising, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has been trucking along the country-rock highway. Starting like many groups of the day as a jug band, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band soon found its niche in the influential sub-genre of “country rock.” Its…
Everybody likes to think they were the first to come across a great idea, band or film. Trouble is, you’re a nerdy schmuck and unless you’re God Herself, chances are you’re as late to the game as anybody. But some people are truly, truly old-school–like Dame Edna, the cross-dressing drag…
Serious theater exploring the existential boundaries of the human condition, provoking deep thoughts and stirring the soul—Uptown Players’ production of Jamie Morris’ Mommie Queerest does none of that. Thank God. After months of downers and drear, we kvell in the quick quippery of Mommie Queerest, an all-male tribute to and…
Want to know how a city works? Start by watching 1974’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a primer in which subway hijackers test how long it’ll take a million bucks to pass through Gotham’s plumbing. Turns out an hour is just enough time to roust the hated mayor…
Director Kirby Dick doesn’t actually stick his camera under any Capitol Hill bathroom stalls in the new documentary Outrage, but his goal is more or less the same: to catch conservative, family-values politicians with their pants down. Armed with a chorus of incriminating voices from across the alternative press and…
Gender is a comedy mainstay for a simple reason: It can be boiled down, packaged into neat little stereotypes and fed to audiences anxious to validate their behavior in the name of inborn sex traits. Ha ha, ladies–men are stupid oafs unable to process any emotion more complex than hunger…
BMX freestyle pro Rick Thorne has 27 screws in his head. His worst accident was probably a 1996 crash into the corner of a loading dock, which left him with a broken palate and eye socket. “Fluid from my brain was leaking out through my mouth,” he imparts. Somehow he…
