LocoRoco arrived with impossibly high expectations. This ridiculously cute new game for the PlayStation Portable debuted as a demo in April, and since then, the gaming press has tripped over itself to anoint it the successor to Katamari Damacy or Guitar Hero. Now the game’s finally here, and at first…
After Sex (New Yorker) Bob & Tom Radio: The Comedy Tour (Image) The Boris Karloff Collection (Universal) Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (Strand) 8th & Ocean: The Complete First Season (Paramount) Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema (Wolfe) Gilmore Girls: The Complete Sixth Season (Warner Bros.) Go for…
The message of Women and Horses and a Shot Straight From the Bottle is, “Mamas, do let your babies grow up to be cowgirls.” The play by Los Angeles playwright Mary F. Casey is getting its world premiere production–and a strong one in most respects–at Echo Theatre at the Bath…
While I certainly respect her skills with a guitar, Bonnie Raitt’s songs have never really given me “something to talk about.” Her hair, however, is a different story. A sparkling red mane accented by a streak of gray, Raitt’s mop has long sported a color scheme found more often on…
“Writers are shameless spies,” wrote Tennessee Williams. All the pleasures—and pain—of the writer as voyeur provide the core of Vieux Carré, a little-produced drama by Williams. Based on a year the author spent in the French Quarter of New Orleans from 1938 to 1939, Williams portrays the various inhabitants of…
The Black Academy of Arts and Letters is celebrating 30 years—and they’re doing it big. This year’s 30th Anniversary Black Tie and Red Carpet Season Opening Gala features a who’s who list of black star power. The lineup includes appearances and performances by no less than Oleta Adams, Erykah Badu,…
I’ve often wondered the what-ifs of life—the ramifications of social smoking, how far I can push my hair color and still be taken seriously, my future as a cat lady. Here’s something I never really wondered about until author Laura Numeroff brought it up: If You Give a Pig a…
Technology may have made it easier to access new music, but it’s also taken a lot of the fun out of discovering it. Internet music services such as Last.fm and Live365.com provide user-programmed streaming radio with varying degrees of success, as the selections are often limited and of questionable quality…
Unlike the goddess Athena, mortal women didn’t spring forth into the world wearing a helmet. But we did “spring forth” armed with similar potential to do great things. The 2006 Athena Award, given at this year’s Women’s Business Conference, honors Wendy Lopez (owner of engineering design and environmental planning firms)…
There’s a certain irony in receiving a black-and-white press release for a one-night-only art event from a gallery with a mission of providing space for eclectic art. Well, there is a little blue on it. I’m hoping for a more colorful display at Mighty Fine Arts’ Big as Night. And…
If Stephen Baldwin played himself in a movie, it would be his most entertaining role ever. Imagine if Mötley Crüe and Kirk Cameron were one guy and that guy always referred to himself in the third person. In a 2004 interview with New York Magazine, Baldwin explained his goal to…
The Sub-Zero Wolf Grilling Demonstration and Fine Wine Dinner seems problematic. How long does it take to heat up a grill in such weather? Then, wolves are endangered, so you’ve gotta get ’em from Nigel at Black Market Meats ‘R’ Us. I don’t have to tell you what kind of…
Johnny Cash had the kind of voice that is oft-imitated but never duplicated, a rich, booming baritone perfectly fitting for a true giant of American music. Sure, Joaquin Phoenix did an admirable job of portraying the country legend in Walk the Line, nailing Cash’s persona and onstage mannerisms, but his…
A lot of people complain about how bad classic bands are after they get back together for their umpteenth reunion tour. There’s truth in that, but there’s also the sad fact that some bands can’t reunite for whatever reason—usually dead members—and in their place, the oldies touring circuit gets inundated…
O, promising blues boy, where did you go? You offered us Lie to Me and Wander This World and despite their still-green qualities, we wondered if something wonderful might still come of you. Then we heard Turn Around, and though your name is on the front we couldn’t find you…
Jeff Foxworthy is the comic equivalent of Rascal Flatts—someone who pretends to represent the authentic South, who, in fact, appeals mostly to Sun Belt suburbanites who wear pleated khakis to wash their SUVs. Despite his redneck shtick, Foxworthy isn’t the Springsteen—or even the Billy Joel—of the South, but a minstrel…
Who doesn’t love getting felt up for a good cause? This week, it’s breast cancer research. For everyone who gets fitted for a bra at specific Neiman Marcus stores, underwear company Wacoal will give $2 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Choose Wednesday at the Neiman’s downtown, 1618…
Gary W. Moore never knew that his father once had a promising major-league baseball career. At 15, his papa, Gene Moore, was the best catcher anyone in his small town of Sesser, Illinois, had ever seen. Then his baseball career was interrupted by World War II, and he was shipped…
It’s not enough that Governor Rick Perry owes his political career to good fortune and better timing. Now he’s creating his own luck. After six years in office, during which he belatedly passed a school finance bill that doesn’t seem to do a whole lot, Perry wound up being such…
His voice is warm and comforting, like a bowl of homemade oatmeal on a winter’s morn. His words are as sweet as rhubarb pie, and his face is a doughy mass. Anyway you slice it, Garrison Keillor is delicious. He’s like the Barry White of the Midwest. But instead of…
It seems the caveman/frat boy idea of manhood is more prevalent than ever. There’s an oiled-up, bikini-clad starlet on the cover of every men’s magazine, and beer commercials have gone from celebratory to just plain oppressive. Even certain bank commercials describe their checking as “maximum strength” while denouncing their competition…
“There is no them and us. There is only us,” says San Antonio artist Michael Nye. No, he’s not talking about the race, age or gender issues that we see in society every day. He’s talking about mental illness, from anxiety to depression, from schizophrenia to bipolar disorder. After losing…
