The history of Canadian rock is a strange and wonderful thing. Most people lump Canadian bands into the same dubious category that contains singing drummers and Foghat. There have, however, been a few shining stars in the otherwise pitch black sky of Canadian rock. The most famous and Canadian band…
NorthPark can be a confusing place sometimes. It’s a mall, but it’s not called a mall––it’s a center. I know that sounds a little pretentious (though not as arrogant as, say, The Shops) but NorthPark Center (8687 N. Central Expressway) has done a damn fine job of distinguishing itself from…
When you see Pablo Francisco’s stand-up for the first time, you can’t help but be impressed: The guy can beatbox, and his celebrity impressions are incredibly spot-on. In fact, should he ever tire of comedy, his take on “Movie Voiceover Guy” is so accurate, he could probably be the next…
Dallas Theater Center is adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, the Dallas Theater Center is presenting David Mamet’s Glengarry Glenn Ross at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636…
My first time was at age eight in an old farmhouse. It had a lot of the thrills I now recognize as staples of the experience: the gruesome operating room, the bloody execution chamber and the locomotive barreling toward us. But the creepiest moment of my first haunted house came…
Years ago a local artist and friend of mine introduced me to something so awesomely bad it was great and so campy the excessive gore was more funny than nauseating. The film we watched on a tiny screen via VHS tape was one of Peter Jackson’s (yes, as in, Lord…
The Dallas Mavericks have the uncanny knack of making us dream big and then breaking our hearts. Not this season though. No way. This is the year we shake off our Heat/Warriors hangover and watch Dirk Nowitzki begin to play like the big man he really is. Hey—a man can…
Ever since Harry Potter started playing with his wand under the covers in Prisoner of Azkaban, you knew there was something kinda sexy about the boy wizard. Sure, Harry’s “The Boy Who Lived,” but he’s also “The Boy Who Looks Hot In That Awkward Bathtub Scene In Goblet of Fire.”…
Ann Patchett’s fourth and most critically acclaimed book, Bel Canto, is set in South America but takes place entirely in an opulent living room during a private party overtaken by terrorists. It’s based on the Peruvian hostage crisis in 1996, but Patchett manages to create a vivid world within that…
Saint of the Suburbs, a new exhibit by artist Zoë Charlton, consists of work which “combines the black female figure and the suburban ideal to create a sublime and simple beauty.” From the work we’ve seen, this means paintings that split the difference between samey subdivisions and juicy booties. And…
Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a really classy evening. For one night in October, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Diana Krall collaborate in the symphony’s Arts District digs, with a True Blue-themed backdrop by Todd Fiscus, decorator to the stars (the glitterati kind, not the…
The Donnas started in the late ’90s as the female Ramones, evolved (devolved?) into the female Mötley Crüe with 2001’s The Donnas Turn 21, and with their latest—Bitchin’—they’ve riff rocked themselves into the female Judas Priest. They still have the most trite, horny teenage girl lyrics you can imagine, but…
A friend of mine told me recently that Annie Lennox in the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” video with her man’s suit and bright red hair was a big turn-on for him. After vomiting in my mouth, I thought, well, OK, you’re gay, she was mannish, not cute, but whatever. Different strokes…
7 p.m. Friday, see Kathleen Madigan at the Lakewood Theater, 1825 Abrams Parkway. She’s not the funniest. This isn’t my opinion talking; this is a proven fact. She was on Last Comic Standing. She lost. She was not the funniest. America decided (and, with the popularity of the bastion of…
Dallas Children’s Theater has decided to put on another “live” performance of Night of the Living Dead. The teenagers loved it last year. And hey, why wouldn’t they? There’s something very life-affirming about the dead returning to devour the living. I mean we certainly can’t judge the zombies for their…
The play Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage tells the story of a “feisty rodeo competitor” called Big 8 and a “one-eyed Ukrainian biker named Black Dog,” spoofing the classic Western stylings of author Zane Grey along the way. And if Grey’s name doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps this will—one…
If you can’t beat ’em, laugh at ’em. That’s how the school bully thinks. Teachers around? Just resort to ridicule and cruel jokes. Which is exactly how the Laugh It Up comedy show benefitting the Children’s Cancer Fund at the Addison Improv is treating cancer. No chemo? Try gut laughs…
It’s one of those glib icebreaker questions you’ve heard or used. What would you take with you if you only had a few minutes to leave your home? It lets you get to know someone a little better by asking what he or she truly values. Would you grab family…
If you’re looking for a novel way to begin the Halloween season, check out the Dungeon of Doom, a haunted museum in Arlington (not to be confused with the nearby Rangers ballpark). The Dungeon of Doom features all sorts of freaky exhibits, including renderings of oversized eyeballs, skeletons, corpses, decaying…
If you’re not on the Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl bandwagon yet, that’s OK. It’s good to be cynical. Besides, by the time this goes to press, the ‘Boys could have gone to hell in a handbasket. I doubt it, but it could happen. Either way, the Cowboys/Patriots game is one…
The Kingston Trio influenced popular song far beyond the boundaries of traditional folk music. Aesthetically they may have been a template for boy bands, handsome young men mugging cutely on their album covers. While there is a fair share of love songs in their repertoire, the Trio’s more famous numbers…
Forget Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers and the Jigsaw Killer. (OK, don’t forget them—they could be behind you RIGHT NOW.) What truly chills us is the brutality of the animal world. While most humans use tools to maim and murder, many animals are faster and stronger than us and possess razor-like…
