One Christmas, after begging my parents for months, a much-beleaguered Santa brought me a toy train set. My pride and joy was a Union Pacific locomotive that magically puffed real smoke (that unfortunately smelled like cooked carrots, much to my 10-year-old chagrin). The tracks wound through “Sweetwater,” a town with…
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it some sort of involuntary muscle spasm? No, dear friends, it is the incredible, unexplainable phenomenon known as Riverdance. Spawned at the superstar-creating Eurovision Song Contest in 1994, this Irish song and dance sensation quickly spread across the globe faster than…
Lars von Trier has a heavy cross to bear these days. Not only is he responsible for the 50 minutes I spent watching Antichrist that I will never get back, he’s also credited in some circles with the downfall of Danish cinema. That sounds dramatic, but in the years since…
Smoking weed and skipping school…ahh, high school. Pregnancy scares and getting caught in an awkward situation in the bathroom by your crush…ahh, high school. Hanging out in the mall food court during smoke breaks and the age-old tale of stoner student vs. uptight teacher…ahh, high school. Having your best bud…
Despite the title, Len Jenkin’s new play Port Twilight has nothing to do with Stephenie Meyer’s teen vampirism-as-metaphor-for-sexual-frustration book series. Unless, that is, the cultural juggernaut is allegorically addressing alienation, that other facet of teen angst, with intertwining tales of mad scientists, a B-movie filmmaker, a homeless rabbi and an…
Even after all these years, it still stings that Steve Nash defected to the Phoenix Suns. But as a former denizen of Arizona, if there’s any other Western Conference team I’d even think about cheering for, it’d be the Suns. Not the Lakers and especially not the Spurs, thank you…
Henry Cho has said he does not want to be known as an Asian comic. Too bad every article ever written about him talks about how he’s Asian and a comic. And clearly a weekly paper calendar listing is the time and place for a meaningful discussion about race and…
Forget about a visit with Santa this Christmas–dinosaurs are roaming the city! Besides, that fake beard and old man cologne scares the crap out of kids anyway. The Museum of Nature and Science invites families to spend the holidays with the ancient behemoths during Dinosaurs in December. The Dino Guide…
Picture it: It is Thanksgiving Day (it was only a couple weeks ago so it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine, right?). The turkey won’t be done for another hour or so. The football game hasn’t started yet. You need a moment to sit down and rest, so you take…
There are plenty of jokes to make about the Philip Johnson Glass House. You can go for the obvious with some joke about not throwing stones (because the house is made of glass, get it?) or act more refined by throwing out a Howard Roark reference (“Ayn Rand would love…
As the weather turns colder (finally), your alcoholic musings might turn to traditional winter beverages such as hot toddies, Irish coffees or a few nips of brandy from the cask of your neighborhood St. Bernard. But just because it’s getting frosty is no reason to turn your back on that…
Michael Martin Murphey was born in Oak Cliff, but his heart belongs to the deserts and mountains of the Old West. With a background in the California country-folk scene (even playing with Michael Nesmith of The Monkees) Murphey soon realized that his true calling lay in the old-fashioned cowboy songs…
Maybe the traditional holiday elements enlighten and lift your spirit. Maybe you look forward to the toy soldiers, snowflakes, snowmen and peppermints, and that’s all fine and dandy. But what if there was more to see this year? What if you got the chance to witness some of ballet’s finest…
The thousands of runners who’ll be pounding the pavement at the Metro PCS Dallas White Rock Marathon this weekend can leave their iPods at home. A few dozen bands, including the hilariously named Fat Sandwich Band, will be turning out rock, country, pop and hip-hop tunes along the 26.2-mile marathon…
OK, OK, so you’ve got your motorized snowman out front, and Rudolph’s set to take off from the roof. Or perhaps you have a yard-sized menorah nestled in between your two oak trees. Dial it all back a little and let Dallas Heritage Village show you how to celebrate a…
Here’s how magical Christmas is: For one day this season, the holiday can move the potty-mouthed servers at a tourist-trap chain restaurant to drop the “grumpy” routine and be nice to kids for a lunch shift. This is so out of character that it’s almost troubling. What else might happen…
The day job occasionally requires me to spend some time in jail. For research purposes only, I assure you. Anyway, you learn lots of interesting things about human nature when you observe folks that are incarcerated. Some of those things I’d rather not know, but others are a little more…
Nothing kills a movie faster than Paris Hilton. That’s why Repo! The Genetic Opera didn’t even make it onto my radar. But now that the rock opera is edging into Rocky Horror territory, it’s worth giving a second chance. Amber Does Dallas, an evolving local performance company, is performing a…
The Road, Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning, post-apocalyptic survivalist prose poem—in which a father and his 10-year-old son traverse a despoiled landscape of unspeakable horror—was a quick, lacerating read. John Hillcoat’s literal adaptation, which arrives one Thanksgiving past its original release date is, by contrast, a long, dull slog. Fidelity to…
Given his preference for static, symmetrical, scrupulously color-coordinated and art-directed compositions, it’s less surprising that Wes Anderson has gotten around to directing an animated feature than that it took him this long to do it. Likewise, if Anderson—a nostalgia merchant whose ostensibly contemporary films always seem to be unfolding in…
The hardest words for some playwrights to type: The End. Two new plays on Dallas stages right now—Bill Fountain’s Crushing Grain at The Dallas Hub and Allison Moore’s Slasher at Kitchen Dog Theater—each clock in at less than 90 minutes, but both suffer from pernicious run-on syndrome. Here are single-act…
Adam Richman, host of Man Vs. Food on the Travel Channel, makes a living going from city to city to take on eating challenges. “Challenges?” you may ask. “You mean challenges like trying to get healthy food providers into blighted areas to supplement the fast-food and convenience stores that are…
