How sweet the sound of the other shoe dropping. All through Almost, Maine, the captivating comedy at WaterTower’s Studio Theatre in Addison, playwright John Cariani keeps gently postponing the payoff. In a series of 10-minute vignettes, couples fall in and out of love in rapid tumbles of unlikely pairings. They…
With all that we know from history books, photojournalistic images and survivor accounts, is it possible to consider a bomb as a thing of beauty? Is it likely that one could feast their eyes upon a weapon of mass destruction and find a feeling of warmth? A carry over of…
Experts urge parents to read to their offspring, touting it as a bonding activity and a way to strengthen kids’ reading skills. What they don’t tell you is how boring it is to read the same book over and over again. Our kids demand that we reread, say, Everyone Poops…
Most people know Lena Horne for her memorable voice, her classy demeanor and her stunning looks. The actress/singer has been a musical inspiration onscreen and onstage through her artistry alone, but we forget that she played a dynamic role for civil rights. From her first gig at the Cotton Club…
The idea behind a deer lick is to lure in the suckers with the promise of tasty, fruit-flavored salt and minerals, let them grow big and strong and then BLAM-O! Venison! We can only assume that a pope lick works on the same principle; once the pontiffs are comfortable visiting…
I’m not really sure why, but back when I was about 10 years old, I always tuned in to Anything but Love, the ABC sitcom starring Richard Lewis and Jamie Lee Curtis. Looking back, it’s nearly impossible to believe anyone bought the fact that Curtis’ character (Hannah Miller) was actually…
Super Bowl XLII, Glendale. Tickets—$700 and up. Munchies and souvenirs—$200 minimum. Watching the underdogs make NFL ass-kicking history—priceless (in an “after all, they beat the Cowboys, didn’t they?” kinda way). Supper Bowl IX (or Empty Bowls as the North Texas Food Bank calls it), Meyerson Symphony Center, downtown Dallas. Tickets—$25…
Ever wonder who brought North Texans the huge dancing frogs atop Carl’s Corner, the eye-catching truck stop on Interstate 35? Thank Bob Wade, a serious artist with serious range. Alongside the frogs, his portfolio boasts contemporary art that has shown at the Whitney in New York City, the Menil in…
Fine dining is what you make of it, and Chamberlain’s Steak and Chop House is making it an event at the Winter 2008 Cigar Dinner. The feast, featuring such treats as pecan fried oysters, 40-day-aged rib eye and baked Alaska, will be served with a series of Ashton cigars as…
There are worse things than being trapped in a house surrounded by hungry zombies. For instance, you could be a black man in that situation, which almost guarantees your spot on a zombie buffet. Dunno why. Just seems to work out that way. Should you find yourself surrounded by gray-skinned,…
We’ve all heard the rumor: While filming the famous chariot race scene in Ben-Hur (1959), Stephen Boyd’s stunt double died when he was run over by a chariot, and they kept the scene in the final cut of the film. Exciting, no? But is it true? Snopes.com and IMDB attempt…
Gimme Shelter started out ostensibly as a rock and roll concert film but ultimately became a grotesque, intellectual exploration of one of pop music’s great tragedies: the 1969 Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Speedway in California, where one person drowned, another was stabbed by a Hells Angels security guard…
It’s a comparative religion fan’s hottest dream: Kamadeva, the Hindu god of love, and Psyche, the Greek goddess of the soul, uniting as one in a steamy mess. Of course, it’d never work in the real world. Ultimately Kamadeva would want to bring around all nine of his other incarnations,…
Saxophonist Maceo Parker has played with many of the greats. Stints with James Brown, George Clinton and Bootsy Collins’ Rubber Band led him to be forever associated with funk. A solo career as well as guest spots with such devotees as Dee-Lite and the countless sampling of his sounds on…
If you want to learn about a person, you can always peek into the windows or use the “follow them one car-length behind” strategy. But for non-stalkers, the best way to understand someone’s viewpoint, history and social beliefs is to study the art she makes. This is precisely why The…
Anyone who’s ever driven through the Great Plains can attest to its emptiness——miles and miles of corn or wheat in every direction with little besides small towns, Wal-Marts, churches and fireworks stands to break the monotony. But there’s certainly something to be found in all that emptiness——they don’t call it…
Thriller movies are scary. But thriller books are scarier. At thriller movies, you can close your eyes when you get freaked out at the scary parts. Close your eyes while you read a thriller book and you just piss yourself off because you keep unintentionally re-reading the part about nasty…
In this era overwhelmed by objectionable band reunions everywhere you turn, L.A. Guns is easily the most pathetic of all. They are so pathetic, in fact, that they never even actually broke up, at least not for any significant period of time. They just kept on going, switching out members…
I must say, this year’s Oscar nominees are somewhat of a snore. Despite the greatness of some nominated flicks, such as No Country for Old Men, the tone overall is just short of depressing. And Juno is not exactly the strong, snuggly counterbalance that Little Miss Sunshine was last year…
When KISS went back to both their makeup and their original lineup in the mid-’90s, it was one of the most contrived marketing moves ever. But a packed Reunion Arena show back in ’96 proved it worked. What could have been on the heavier side of lame reignited interest in…
Muppet kids apparently have career goals similar to those of human children. In Sesame Street Live’s When Elmo Grows Up, Elmo and friends perform a musical show-and-tell about what they want to do when they grow up—even though Elmo has been a three-and-a-half year-old monster since 1985. They aspire to…
I was set to rip on people who might want to attend this weekend’s North American Reptile Breeders Conference and Trade Show at the Arlington Convention Center. Seriously, who wants a rattlesnake or lizard for a pet? People with intimacy issues? Or how about this slogan: “You’ve made a fortune…
