If you’re planning to go see the Dan o’ Steel live, you’d do almost as well to find a set list from one of the band’s recent shows, duplicate the song order on an iPod playlist and listen to it on a decent stereo. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the…
The title “The Mahler Cycle” sounds like some low-budget 1970s science-fiction flick where a computer learns to program itself and creates a super-plague that only astronauts from the future can cure, starring James Brolin and Donald Pleasance. Well, it ain’t, folks. In fact it is a series of performances by…
Rock and roll has so many genres and subgenres these days that nobody knows what it is anymore. Well, not nobody. Tom Petty knows. Yes, Tom Petty has always known what rock and roll is and has always been a champ at demonstrating how to play it. With no agenda…
In Zanna, Don’t! every kid has two mommies. Or two daddies. Being gay is the norm, and heteros are closeted in the candy-colored, bully-free, over-the-rainbow world invented by writer-composer-lyricist Tim Acito in his 2003 musical. At Uptown Players, director Coy Covington has picked a young, attractive eight-member ensemble to create…
Perhaps this review should begin with a disclaimer: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Woody Allen’s 39th film as writer-director, will do little to endear itself to the happily-ever-after crowd or those who consider acts of infidelity punishable by impeachment. Leave it to Allen to make a romantic comedy in which all the…
Early buzz out of Hollywood pegged Tropic Thunder, directed and co-written by star Ben Stiller, as the end-all and be-all of movie-biz parodies—a savage beast with a rough touch featuring Tom Cruise in a career-resurrecting role as bald-headed, big-gutted, foul-mouthed studio boss Les Grossman, who does the fuck-you dance like…
Dallas is lucky to have the Asian Film Festival. Your average moviegoer still thinks of Asian films exclusively in terms of kung-fu and samurai flicks. Don’t worry–there will be plenty of the latest and best of those genres represented, but there is a entire movie industry chugging away in the…
Painting portraits of your favorite musicians is a time-honored way of paying homage to the artists you love. But more often than not, it’s not that compelling as art. Sure, the original photograph of Johnny Cash flipping the bird is a powerful image, but how many times do we really…
Lots of high school students draw, but too often, those great works of art never go beyond doodles on notebooks, scribblings in worksheet margins and (shhh…don’t tell) drawings on desktops. Much of it could land the artist in detention. However, some student artists, like those at Moises A. Molina High…
Suppose two guys want to make a Broadway musical about the history of the planet from the beginning of time through the present day. Well, first they’d need some major financial backing, but, when the musical would require a cast of more than 300 actors and cost $83.5 million to…
Ok, I’ll admit it. When I was around 10, I ventured into the closet, my heart set on a magical transportation to Narnia, C.S. Lewis’ fantasy world full of mystical creatures and an evil queen who serves Turkish delight in a sleigh. Imitating Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan, I nestled…
Despite appearances, the Ms. Texas Senior America Pageant, sponsored by Mature Texan magazine, is not a beauty pageant. How do we know? Because the Web site says so. Sure, they’ve got an evening gown competition, a talent competition and a “personal interview” portion, but just because that sounds exactly like…
Imagine you’re a Russian Jew coming to live in America in 1909. Odds are you might wind up in New York City, though there are certainly other places you might logically unpack your bags. Hamilton, Texas, however, is not one of them. But that’s just where the protagonist of The…
The grandchildren of Andy Warhol will soon display their goods at the Mighty Fine Arts gallery. Of course Polly Perez and Erik Tosten are not Warhol’s descendants in the literal or the cheap knock-off sense. Rather, like Andy, these artists find their greatest source of inspiration in consumer and pop…
Open letter to my daughter: Iris, I regret to inform you that you’re forbidden to attend the All Pet Expo. You’ve already turned our house into a petting zoo. Your mother and I would have been content with two Great Danes, but at your insistence we’ve supplemented these monstrous drool-and-stool…
Parents always want their kids to be lawyers. And lawyers do make serious bank, it’s true. But is money alone enough to fulfill that burning desire in your heart of hearts? Local author Christine Son would probably say, “Hell no.” Once a small lawyer fish in a big lawyerish sea,…
This is going to make me sound like a pretentious shoegazing ass, but one of my favorite art pieces in my home is a Mazzy Star poster ripped off the wall of the Bomb Factory circa 1993. That thing has traveled with me to every crappy apartment and house I’ve…
The first thing I envision when I think of Czech art is the kolache. Oh, seriously. Those hunks of perfect, tender dough, the hollow in the middle cradling some perfectly sweet fruit compote and, perhaps, some cream cheese. There’s no telling how many of those delectable bastards I can put…
You know, a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. After getting out of my stone-columned enclosure right around lunchtime I was trying to retie my toga in that swooping fashion that my BFF showed me last week (I like to be up with the latest trends), and…
When we consider the idea of a political cartoon, we often think of a detailed drawing riffing on some error in judgement by one of our fearless leaders. Bill Clinton smoking a cigar. Barbara Bush needlepointing a “Read my lips: No new taxes” throw pillow. JFK picking up a scrip…
Did you know a pro athlete during college, a successful musician when he struggled unnoticed at an open-mic or a porn star when she was a Hooters waitress? That’s cool. It’s also cool to see some emerging fine artists before they become jaded alcoholics or famous generations after we’re all…
Good old LeVar, the big brother none of us had. All he wanted was to open our minds with a book. Hit up your local Borders bookstore now through the end of August and you can share the dream by donating a book to Big Brothers Big Sisters of North…
