I mean, sure, a murder mystery sounds legit, but did you say “free dinner”? Ramen-slurping, drive-through-frequenting, meal card-swiping college students are officially interested. The University of Texas at Dallas is serving up some warm grub and a cold killer at its interactive murder mystery dinner–and both are on the house…
Females age 16 to 24 are almost three times more likely to suffer violence at the hands of an intimate partner than any other group, strong evidence that teen couples should learn how to resolve conflicts. More importantly, they need guidance to help recognize warning signs that indicate when the…
Everybody who’s anybody–and that means people who know and love This Is Spinal Tap–knows that good music goes to 11. So if the 10 Tenors had just one more tenor, they’d lose the alliteration, but they’d gain awesomeness. Tenors That Go to 11, anybody? The Australian opera group is surely…
I have a confession to make, and it’s not a good one. Growing up I believed the award-winning playwright Tennessee Williams and the country singer Tennessee Ernie Ford were the same person. I was very relieved when I finally found out Cousin Ernie on I Love Lucy wasn’t behind the…
He won VH1’s Glam God and dammit, if he can stand up to Vivica A. Fox and still make hot duds, this guy must be a force. He’s Indashio and he’s making his Texas fashion show debut Friday at the McKinney Performing Arts Center, 111 N. Tennessee St. The runway…
Patricide. Incest. Suicide. Self-inflicted blindness. This isn’t the content of an underground snuff film but a night of classic Greek theater (rated PG-13). For those who haven’t read it since high school, the namesake for everyone’s favorite psychological complex, Oedipus Rex, explores the theme of fate versus free will. One…
Memory is a strange thing. Somewhere in the tangled neurons of our brains lies our ability to make sense out of the things that have happened to us in our lifetime, and the way that the brain stores certain memories seems almost random. Some memories are strongly tied to smell;…
You’ve seen this story before: 1) Private detectives take on gorgeous, seductive female client. 2) Client gives them a dummy assignment. 3) Detectives figure out they’ve been had, but only after learning too much information and putting their lives at risk. While it sounds stereotypical and formulaic in 2009, The…
There has been much talk in the months since Barack Obama’s election about what that historic event means for “the black experience” in the United States. While a sign that black Americans have indeed overcome a number of obstacles in the past century, it remains to be seen whether Obama’s…
Fort Worth artist John Holt Smith’s paintings start with him taking cross-sections of a photograph and manipulating them into colorful striated patterns, which he then copies with his paintbrush onto shiny aluminum panels. The resulting paintings look somewhat like stills from the colorful video sequences the late Jeremy Blake designed…
Delaney boys: NYPD or no, if you can’t tell your mom you’re engaged (or married and expecting) because she’s got such a hold over you with guilt and good cooking, then we’ve either reverted several decades or you’re, how-you-say, a pussy. And that would put an unfortunate slant on the…
Things are always getting bigger in Texas, and no other metropolitan area in the United States is growing faster than Dallas-Fort Worth. Sure, we’re dealing with our urban sprawl, but remember good ol’ yesteryear? Bid farewell to another Texas winter, and say hello to the past at this year’s Spring…
Seems appropriate that someone so adept at impersonating voices, comic Craig Gass, grew up in a deaf family. Without verbal guidance from his parents or sister, Gass relied on the TV to lend him speaking skills. Now he has a stable of go-to voices (many of which are also stand-up…
Cult junkies, trannies and all the rest of you de-virginized Rocky sluts: It’s time to time warp. Again. But theater enthusiasts are also welcome this time. Richard O’Brien’s original stage version of The Rocky Horror Show runs through Sunday at University of North Texas in Denton. Showtimes are 8 p.m…
“Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.” (Genesis 19: 24-15) “Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth as an example,…
The Jazz might be a teeny bit ahead of the Mavericks statistically, but that doesn’t make the boys from Big D an underdog in their upcoming matchup. We’ve got tons of stuff working in our favor: Dirk, Dallas fans, the color blue, Cuban, that Jim Carrey guy–Do they really look…
At the end of 2008, DreamWorks Animation bossman Jeffrey Katzenberg embarked on a cross-country tour, toting 20 minutes’ worth of Monsters vs. Aliens. The reason for his trek? To convince critics that 3-D movies are no longer the snake-oil salesman’s hustle, but the future of filmmaking—if not the very savior…
Careers of baseball players and playwrights have more in common than you might think. Both professions have major and minor playing fields. Both require a consistent string of hits to be considered successful. And the end game is elevation to the “big show” that could mean money, awards and fame…
If I were to spend this space mentioning every AFI Dallas International Film Festival title worth at least a look, there’d be room enough only for a queue of names. So plentiful are this year’s recommended offerings—a majority of the 70-plus features, not to mention even more shorts—that it’s tempting…
Other Gen X/Yers may remember that classic of our youth, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. You may also remember–for me, they’re positively indelible–the hairy-hoary illustrations of ghosts, ghouls and that uber-spooky black dog that followed people around. Andrea Cote’s black-and-white digital prints of body parts overlain with swirling,…
Gustavo Arellano spends his days as a writer, merrily answering questions asked by ignorant white folks and introspective Latinos in his renowned weekly column “Ask a Mexican.” While Arellano spends a fair amount of time responding to harmless (if sometimes politically incorrect) queries such as why Mexicans have green thumbs…
Nothing makes me feel quite as insignificant as pondering dark matter and dark energy. Theoretical concept or not, the mere thought that 95 percent of the universe is made up of something that no one–not even the nerdiest of all scientists–can physically perceive gives me the heebie-jeebies. Well, the theoretical…
