From prenatal yoga to organic baby food to avoiding advice from “sanctomommies,” Mother Load takes audiences along as one woman makes the transition from trying to get pregnant to trying to be the perfect parent (of three children under the age of 5–yikes!). Written by sitcom-veteran Amy Wilson, the one-woman…
Jeff Elrod’s work looks like what would happen if you locked a smart kid and a game-free computer in an empty room for 10 weeks. The Texas-based artist’s whimsical creations range from simple, childlike scrawlings to complex meta-paintings with titles such as “Get Off the Internet” and “Pong.” In the…
If there’s one thing the world of buddy comedies is missing, it’s a wacky tale about a resurrected Egyptian god and his tagalong friend, elementary school-aged Joe. At first things are tense, since the falcon-headed Horus won’t quit pecking at the little boy’s delicate skin, but it all works out…
Classic strip teasing doesn’t get the same play these days as it used too. Boas don’t elicit that naughty vibe they once did, and it’s hard to find lacy thigh-highs that won’t fall down. In our instant gratification-focused society, we want our stripping served fast and hot, which is why…
With a dynamic voice and singing-style reminiscent of no one (save possibly Tina Turner), Blues and R&B artist Bettye LaVette has been recording and performing for over 45 years (with but one Top Ten from her debut single). Although the music industry’s inability to define her has prevented her from…
Forget Halloween. I’m sitting here thinking about it, and Valentine’s Day is definitely the scariest quasi-holiday. There are no rules, but my palms get sweaty thinking about the expectations. Is it about the grandeur or creativity of the gesture? What if your date plans a trip to Three Forks and…
For years I’ve told people about the time that I went to a restaurant in San Marcos that only served hobbit food and was staffed by a barefoot waitress. That story has been pretty universally dismissed, and now I’m not sure if it really happened. Maybe it was a dream…
Let’s address the confusion that the title, “Culinary Masters Dinner featuring Julia Child,” may cause. No, the reanimated corpse of Julia Child will not be the guest chef, nor will her remains be served–unless “Lamb Shank” is an obscure nickname of the late cooking show host. Rather, she’s the first…
During the Great Depression–the last one, we mean–lavish, light-hearted Hollywood musicals like 42nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933 helped Americans forget their troubles for a while and escape to a glittering, fantastical world. This weekend, the 49th Annual O’Reilly Auto Parts AutoRama brings a slew of custom-made hot rods,…
This Friday the 13th, fashionistas are expected to pony up a cool half-bailout–excuse me, half millionâ–at the 25th anniversary Valentine’s Day Luncheon and Fashion Show, presented by Stanley Korshak in the Hilton Anatole Chantilly Ballroom. The show will feature designs by Korshak and Brian Reyes, whose pre-spring 2009 collection includes…
The topic of space travel ignites a childlike curiosity of the weightless world outside Earth’s atmosphere. Films like Apollo 13 add to this a nail-biting edge with images of sweaty NASA people awaiting an explosive, post-countdown mishap. But after a successful launch and collective sigh of relief, viewers return to…
To tell the truth, the only time I’ve ever seen Sasha Cohen was on an episode of Project Runway, and I have to say that ice skating fashion leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Though maybe if you slathered some grape jelly on it, it could be a little…
Artist Lillian Garcia-Roig specializes in landscapes, but rather than painting picturesque scenery as seen from a mountain top, she puts the audience directly in the deep woods, bathed in the claustrophobic romance of shadows and light. Her newest exhibit, Autumn Spectacles, showcases 30 of her newest works, a collection of…
Remember when certain fruits and veggies weren’t available year round? When Mom handed you–sitting top dog in the grocery cart–produce she was so excited to see, and later, the fam would be so excited it was (insert random squash or seafood, perhaps) time? That was back when we honored seasonal…
When a political revolutionary starts adorning the T-shirts of kids too young to have even learned about him in history class, it’s definitely time to make a biopic. Che Guevara’s story is now being told in the best way possible–with a Hollywood budget and a documentary mentality. Che first debuted…
It’s the tale of a group of starving bohemian-type artists all crashing together and living in the moment, despite the thick smoke of despair that swirls around them. No, it’s not Celebrity Rehab. It’s Puccini’s 1896 opera, La Boheme. More than a century old, this one could have been written…
Coraline If Alice in Wonderland were retold by the Mad Hatter, it might look something like Henry Selick’s 3-D, stop-motion Coraline, in which the bored, blue-haired 11-year-old of the title (voiced by Dakota Fanning) travels through the looking glass and ends up in a world that strangely resembles her own—except…
The smirky, overbearing and subliminally hostile romantic primer He’s Just Not That Into You—which sold a regrettable 2 million copies when it was published in 2004—seizes on some partial truths about the gender wars and blows them up into evolutionary gospel, as follows: Since cave-dwelling times, men have been programmed…
In the beginning, there was the word. And it was the playwright’s. And the actors said the word. And the audience watched and heard the word. And if the word was good, the audience clapped and stood and felt justified for spending $60 a ticket and missing Larry King. So…
Naming a play after a Betty Wright hit song of the ’70s, playwright J.D. Lawrence sure knows how to point out one particularly messy solution of marital woes. The national touring production of Lawrence’s The Clean Up Woman, opening this week, is not feminist-friendly–it’s the story of journalist Terri Adams,…
If someone were to ask if I wanted to go see dirty, pretty things, then I would automatically assume they were taking me to go watch shirtless, abs-of-steel men wrestle around in mud. Yeah, that’s not really the case with this situation. Dirty Pretty Things happens to be a drama-filled…
Every year the day after Christmas, when I’m completely stuffed after eating a million casseroles and fried turkey and can only fit into my father’s old pair of sweatpants, I tell myself that I am going to start running again. I buy some running shoes, setup my workout playlist on…
