We all love stuff. As George Carlin says, stuff is the reason people need houses. Houses are just a place to keep all your stuff while you go out and get…more stuff! And isn’t art, in its simplest form, just stuff you like to look at? Except it’s not called…
The newly opened Veuve is a monster of a restaurant (10,000 square feet, complete with a waterfall) designed to play on your senses, and they’re pulling out all the stops to make a good impression. Here, you can pay attention to the man behind the curtain as Executive Chef Tony…
I love the Winter Olympics. My beef with them is that they only come around every four years. How could they think I can possibly wait that long before I see some more figure-skating dudes in spandex onesies? But, it’s OK. Because now I can get my figure-skating fix and…
Some stand-up comedians seem custom-made for crossover sitcom stardom (see: Cosby, Seinfeld or Bernie Mac), while others probably should have stuck to playing nightclub open-mike nights in between shifts at the video store. Earthquake’s sitcom pilot for ABC may have flopped a few years back, but the man is back…
The history of pop-punk is long and illustrious. Starting in the late 1970s with the Buzzcocks, it ran aground with Green Day, blink-182 and all those other suburban California tunesmiths who peppered the charts over the last decade like ants on a wedding cake. I’m sure that by 1999, every…
The cathedral organ is best positioned to fill the house of God with music because it sounds most like the voice of God itself, capable of both bombast and whimsy. Its inspirational and reverent sound is explained and demonstrated in The Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe’s The Cathedral…
Down-home Texas singer-songwriters aren’t just a dime a dozen ’round these here parts; they’re a penny a gross. What keeps Adam Carroll from being just another drop in the guy-and-his-guitar bucket is an approach to the well-heeled genre that is both effortless and expert. More akin to storytelling than songwriting,…
As we age, our tastes change. While the eau de vinyl records and Pearl Light beer used to really get us charged up, these days we get excited about bathroom fixtures, great curtains and stainless steel appliances. Ah, to be a grownup. No longer tempted by rows of freshly minted…
The best thing I’ve ever done on vacation is, well, not die. My vacations have included riptides, Mexican taxis and even a Category 4 hurricane, and I figure I’ve used up all my “Avoid Hell’s Gates” passes. So you won’t see me boarding a plane to the Dark Continent to…
In high school, I won a Martin Luther King Jr. essay contest about diversity and was featured—baggy pants, bangs and all—in the local newspaper. I’d forgotten all about it, but when I was home for the holidays I found the old news clipping laminated and posted in my old room…
He could make you quit smoking. He could make you conquer your stage fright and sing that rousing rendition of “Sweet Caroline” you’ve always wanted to sing…Or comic hypnotist Flip Orley could make you piss yourself in front of a live audience (from laughing too hard, mind you). Take a…
In my efforts to figure out what exactly an aquatint is, which failed miserably, I came across a couple of interesting Picasso vignettes: As a boy, the legendary Spanish painter took lessons from his father, an art teacher who often took his son to bullfights. When he noticed his son’s…
Notes on a Scandal, brilliantly adapted by Patrick Marber from the darkly comic Zoë Heller novel, is a grim piece of work—Fatal Attraction for the art-house crowd, shorn of its predecessor’s fearful misogyny. Set in a dreary London where a gray funk of fog and cigarette smoke hangs over everyone’s…
I am sorry to say that Peter did not feel very well that evening. His mother put him to bed and gave him a dose of chamomile tea. ‘One tablespoon to be taken at bedtime.’ But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper. —Beatrix Potter,…
For nearly a decade, Dallas theaters benefited from an unlikely patron saint: Chuck Norris. With his CBS action series Walker, Texas Ranger, shot in North Texas from 1993 to 2001, Norris employed many a local actor to stand on the receiving end of his title character’s faked karate fan-kicks. Regular…
Robert Wilonsky and Jordan Harper recap their top DVDs of 2006: Eraserhead (Absurda/Subversive): Finally available on DVD, David Lynch’s debut film is as captivating and frustrating as it ever was. The print looks great in its own weird way, and the feature-length doc shows Lynch speaking more clearly about his…
Despite Link’s green tunic and Peter Pan hat, he remains Nintendo’s most respected badass. In the long-awaited Twilight Princess for the Wii, the elf hero begins yet another quest to save the world with his trademark bombs and boomerangs. Minor déjà vu aside, Twilight Princess becomes nothing short of an…
You’d think with the Great One as their coach, the Phoenix Coyotes would be one of the better teams in the NHL. But you’d be wrong. Gretzky was great as a player, but so far he’s been a bust as a coach and executive. The Coyotes have missed the playoffs…
There was a time when rock ‘n’ roll was closely linked with concepts of identity, sexuality and gender. Remember Bowie’s skinny androgyny? Lou Reed’s seedy underbelly of drag queens and blow jobs? Iggy Pop’s eyeliner? It’s difficult to picture rock embracing such touchy and complex issues in today’s pallid music…
What are we—Chopped Liver? We’re sure that’s a line that never gets old to the comedians of Chopped Liver. That last sentence was sarcasm, a trait probably appreciated by the small improv ensemble, who are also part of Five Buck Improv (FBI). On Friday, they’ll share a bill with Greg…
Shooting a portrait is all about capturing subjects as they truly are. Well, fine, OK, not exactly capturing the subject, literally, but capturing the spirit of the subject. Their mood, expression, split-second emotion can all be captured in a well-shot photograph. That’s part of the artistic aspect, though—the stuff for…
Saltwater aquaria are often seen as the domain of the rich—those whose Christmas mornings brought a Beemer, a French bulldog and a Blackglama stroller. And while it’s true that a marine aquarium is more pricey than putting a betta in a bowl, with a little ingenuity, you can have a…
