Plant a pacemaker for Grandpa. Plant empty vodka bottles for Dad. Plant a boxful of used pornography for your little brother. These sound like useful things you can do for loved ones. So how about planting a shoe for Mom this Mother’s Day? You can at Texas Discovery Gardens. To…
Every Sunday for the past few weeks, I’ve watched episodes of Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel. And in addition to introducing me to cave worms that glow like twinkle lights and a bird that transforms into a smiley face during its mating dance, the series reminds me about the…
The first punk rock show I ever saw was the Dead Kennedys. It ruined me for life. From the stage, the band’s wiry, spastic front man seemed more like a conspiracy-crazed preacher than a singer, a political firecracker perpetually poised on the point of detonation. This was Jello Biafra, one-time…
ABC news anchor Bob Woodruff is like that friend whose life is so perfect and great you just hate them for it, but you can’t kick out of your life because they’re so freaking nice and cool. Bob Woodruff is the guy who can eat whatever he wants and never…
The moment I saw footage of Celine Dion singing a “duet” with the King, I pointed my finger of blame right at little miss Natalie Cole. Yeah, she sang next to a screen of her dad, and that’s way more acceptable, but it only led the way to myriad posthumous…
Sometimes fame can be had by simply being related to someone famous. This was Charlie Murphy’s lot in life before he became a supporting cast member of Chappelle’s Show. His pièce de résistance would have to be “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories.” In these skits, he recounts tales of his…
Though our humor tends now toward Eddie Izzard, David Cross or Patton Oswalt, there was a time when we thought Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein were comic gold. I mean, come on, “My Mother Says I’m Sickening”? Or “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout (Would Not Take the Garbage Out)”? That was…
When I think of wine, the usual suspects come to mind—Italy, France, California, wherever Boone’s Farm is, etc., etc.—but I almost never think of Australia. Guess I’m out of the loop. Apparently somewhere in the Outback, the Aussies have trained kangaroos crushing grapes the old-fashioned way, producing fine wines such…
“Look what I found!” That exclamation can indicate the discovery of trash or treasure, or in some cases, both. That’s the case for Central Texas artist and folk-art dealer Steve Wiman, who creates installation art from found objects that could be considered plain. His work features objects in various colors…
Wouldn’t it be nice to be one of the cool kids, just for once? Wouldn’t you like to be asked to the prom—as a sophomore? You would. You’d like to sway slowly under rows and rows of shimmering lights in the school gym to Garth Brooks’ classic “The Dance.” You’d…
Is there anything cuter than a children’s theatrical production of a classic fairy tale? Probably not. And of course there’s no better fairy tale than the book of Genesis, which takes flight as a musical this weekend at the Creative Arts Theater and School, 1100 W. Randol Mill Road in…
Gumbo, that New Orleans treat, is kind of funky and kind of spicy. The same can be said for the Gumbo Kings, an authentic New Orleans Dixieland jazz band. The swinging sextet will spice up the usually sedate lawn of downtown’s Ross Plaza at the Dallas Museum of Art when…
Have you ever thought that the solar system is just like one big molecule and…oh, you haven’t? Maybe it’s just us. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. As part of The British Are Coming…2006-2007 season, Symphony Arlington presents Gustav Holst’s The Planets. This particular concert promises to be a sort…
What is it with the third installments in superhero film franchises? For whatever reason—oh, let’s just call it the lack of fresh ideas commingled with the love of money—they always strike out swinging their third time up to bat. It happened with Superman, when Richard Pryor became a superfriend hatching…
Jafar Panahi is a paradoxical populist. He makes crowd-pleasing art movies, often set in the midst of life—the urban crowd is one of his subjects—and is a virtuoso director of (non) actors. On the other hand, this most widely seen of Iranian filmmakers is also the most frequently banned. Like…
Awash in daily news of mass savagery, collective memory grows short. We feel for the women of Afghanistan, but who these days remembers the war widows and rape victims of the 1992-1995 civil war that sent Yugoslavia to hell and brought it back a divided country? Now comes the young…
Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven is known in America for his flicks about crazy ladies. After all, he helped bring us Showgirls and Basic Instinct. But in Black Book, featured this weekend by the critically acclaimed film series Magnolia at the Modern, we see another side of Verhoeven. Sure, there’s a…
I can’t aim a gun for the life of me—I always sucked at Duck Hunt. I can say with certainty that I would never make a good hunter (besides, I don’t want to shoot animals, anyway, but that’s one girl’s opinion). But the way I figure it, if someone’s going…
Before becoming the Senior Lecturer at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, James Olson was an undercover operative in the CIA. In fact, according to former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Olson “is a legend in the clandestine service,” something that is…
Being an avid collector of sweet rock show posters, I’ve always been fascinated by screenprinting. Unfortunately I have neither the skill or the sense of color to ever attempt screenprinting something on my own. Ditto for lithographs, woodcuts, mezzotints, engraving and pretty much anything else besides pencils, pens and crayons…
I figured out midway through a screening of The DaVinci Code last year that the plot essentially hinged on an elaborate scavenger hunt. Tom Hanks and his hair flew through the streets hunting clues to solve a screwy puzzle with the help of Audrey Tautou and her significant pout. If…
One of my favorite displays in the Earth science classroom was the little box that held the different minerals used in the Mohs hardness scale; of course, over the years some sticky-fingered students had pocketed the beryl and the quartz, and I’m pretty sure there never was a diamond, but…
