If you’ve ever seen the movie Giant then you’ve already got a handle about how things go in Bryan Burrough’s new book The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes. That movie was fiction (and James Dean’s last film) but all the stories that the…
After living, for many years, in an apartment seemingly made from Kleenex, eavesdropping is sort of like eating trans-fat: You try so hard not to do it, but occasionally it’s unavoidable–you do it against your will, accidentally or say “Screw it. This sounds too good.” Either way it goes, there’s…
The Bible has long been a rich source from which movies, television and the theater have drawn inspiration. From Jesus Christ Superstar to The Last Temptation of Christ to that awful hippie nightmare Godspell. Some of these have been met with criticism, some with reverence and some with an involuntary…
I was quite disappointed to learn that Three Blonde Moms is a touring comedy featuring a trio of mothers gabbing about their daily lives. Sadly, ’90s one-hit wonder 4 Non Blondes didn’t update the band name after dropping a member, having kids and bleaching their way to the gentlemen’s preference…
I’ve always loved Mexican loteria cards. There’s something about the way folksy, artistic kitsch and cultural iconography come together in a simple bingo game that just makes me happy. Benito Huerta, an award-winning artist, associate art professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and director of the school’s art…
Notorious, about a crack dealer who becomes an iconic rapper who becomes a tragic legend, is the first film George Tillman Jr. has directed since 2000’s Men of Honor, about a sharecropper’s son who becomes the first black diver in the Navy who becomes the first amputee to return to…
And so the endless campaign wraps up with a flurry of virtual leaders. Richard Nixon will always be part of America’s dreamlife, with or without David Frost; the Bush II legacy will linger for years, even as W. addresses a yearning for closure. Like our president-elect, Milk arrives from left…
The annual evening of folderol known as Broadway Our Way started out several years ago at Uptown Players as a tossed-together two-night fund-raiser with a cute twist. Performers from the company’s previous season’s shows would sing and dance, with the women taking on Broadway tunes written for men and the…
Will there be a special Academy Award for Best Aryan Costume Design this year? Everywhere you turn in the movies, it’s swastika flags and SS uniforms. Although the Holocaust movie has been on hiatus for a while, lately it seems as if everyone is trying to squeeze in their Schindler’s…
According to press materials for One in 3, statistics show that in a random selection of women–say, for instance, at the grocery store, a sporting event or even church–one of every three will have had an abortion. That’s an interesting statistic, to say the least, for a subject that’s often…
OK, let’s take a poll here. Raise your hand if you’ve already broken (or haven’t yet started) some body image-related New Year’s resolution. It’s cool, you don’t have to tell me what it was…or won’t ever be, for that matter. I have my own I’m not sharing…except to say it…
If Phantom of the Opera taught the theater crowd anything, it’s that people love a good musical about facial disfigurement and love triangles. Jeanne Tesori and Brian Crawley were paying attention to that fact when they penned and opened Violet off-Broadway in 1997. It follows a girl on a quest/roadtrip…
New Year’s Eve is normally one of my favorite holidays, but this year it felt more like an opening act than a celebration unto itself. After all, in 20 days, the entire country would be wiping its slate clean of the Worst Administration Ever–a monumental new beginning that makes replacing…
I vividly remember the first time I used low-res photos off the Internet for a print project in college, which turned out to be a pixelated disaster. Photographer Paul Abbott employs a neat excuse for the pixelation in his photos, however–he wants them to look that way. “Pixelation is a…
Clearly no one can ignore the significance of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. Other than breaking free from a Republican regime, the country can now officially say it’s a bit more color-blind. That’s a good thing. With impeccable timing, The Black Academy of Arts and Letters will host their…
Written by Janell Cannon, the children’s book Stellaluna is about a fruit bat pup who gets separated from her mother during a nighttime owl attack. After landing in a bird’s nest with three baby birds, Stellaluna is then raised by her adopted mother to behave like a bird. Eventually, she…
Because Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873, the Japanese New Year is celebrated on January 1, which, of course, happened a while ago. But if you were too busy sipping Champagne and watching the ball drop to think about celebrating the end of 2008 with Japanese traditions, this is…
You wouldn’t think that mid-January would be prime garden-walking time, but Texas Discovery Gardens in Fair Park, a 7.5-acre organic public garden in East Dallas, has found a surefire way to lure you in. Every third Saturday they have guided garden walks, and this weekend they’ve got a winner with…
If the only purpose of art was to give you the warm fuzzies, the world would be a frightening visual hodgepodge of Anne Geddes photographs and IKEA prints. And while this would likely be a welcome aesthetic among the denizens of SMU sorority houses, the rest of us would ache…
I’ve never been the type of person to follow cookbook rules. I usually end up ruining it by adding too much salt and decide it’s time to order a pizza. If you are one to go by the recipe, however, then who better to tell you how to prepare a…
The description for Almost, Maine probably loses 95 percent of the Y-chromosome set at “romantic comedy,” but when the press material includes boasts like “delightful,” “utterly endearing,” “whimsical” and “the perfect date play,” it’s clearly aimed squarely at females. I’ve endured more than my share of rom-com theatrical productions and…
Maybe if I read books like David Allen’s Getting Things Done, I wouldn’t be sitting here with a scowl on my face, cursing the economy and making snarky comments about everything. Then again, if I did read books like that, I’d be one of those people who reads books with…
