What you’ll find after the jump was posted to Vimeo only a few hours ago: a cleaned-up version version of Ken Harrison’s 1981 doc on Western Swing fiddle-playing legend Johnny Gimble titled, simply, Gimble’s Swing. The film, made for the Tennessee Folklore Society, was exec produced by Blaine Dunlap, another…
Bud Buschardt has spent the last several years writing a book I’ve always wanted to read: a history of the Sump’n Else show, the Ron Chapman-hosted rock-and-roll dance party shot at NorthPark Center that aired on WFAA from September 1965 till January 1968 and featured performances from the likes of…
Those in need of a little light reading this Saturday morning will find on the other side the stack of heads-ups sent to the city council last night, the highlight of which will probably the proposed budget amendments offered by council members before Monday morning’s briefing and straw vote. And…
Just got off the phone with the great Bud Buschardt, for whom I had a question about something I never knew existed, which we’ll get to tomorrow. At which point Bud, a longtime WFAA man teaching RTVF at UNT, told me a few other things. Then, he said: “You know,…
So, what’s our problem? Mostly, it’s La Nina, that little trollop. She’s been messin’ with Texas for a long time. And the relationship between her cool Pacific sea-surface temperatures and dry times here is pretty well established. For nearly 120 years, since we’ve kept any kind of reliable records, La…
We briefed you earlier about PARK(ing) Day Dallas, which organizer Noah Jeppson told us was supposed to help Dallasites and visitors “rethink the function of our public spaces … and have fun doing it.” I just got back from checking out the teensy-tiny parks that have taken over 30 or…
For Jubilee Park residents, it was a party atmosphere in the Flag Room outside council chambers Thursday afternoon, when the City Plan Commission denied Dallas Independent School District’s application to replat two tracts of land near the site of the former O.M. Roberts Elementary School near Fair Park. But this…
Last week the LBJ Express folks were kind enough to provide us with this crude but nevertheless edutaining look at how traffic patterns were going to be shifted in advance of the pedestrian walkway boom that wasn’t, not yet. But this weekend, they insist the Monfort bridge demolition will take…
Earlier this week, The News reported that former Cowboy and smack-talking DirecTV fairy Deion Sanders was hoping to break into the education business. He was just awaiting state Board of Ed approval to open two charter schools in DFW — one in Oak Cliff, the second in Fort Worth –…
Forget what I just wrote below about council members turning in their redistricting amendments by 5 p.m. today. I just got a call from someone at City Hall informing me that, no, that deadline was just changed — at the request of the mayor’s office. The Redistricting Commission office confirms:…
Editor’s note: Observer.com contributor Justin Bitner got drunk and admitted to being a soccer fan, so we made him attend Wednesday’s FC Dallas match against Tauro FC of Panama, FCD’s fifth game of CONCACAF Champions League play. Yes, soccer still has ties. After a battle that sportscasters would definitely call…
A curious tale involving Highland Park Middle School, two UT Southwestern docs, a 362-page novel and a whole bunch of underage kids allegedly depicted as doing things they shouldn’t oughta just hit Courthouse News. Read it for yourself. Long story short: The mother of an unnamed HPMS student (identified only…
Turns out, Mayor Mike Rawlings isn’t the only council member considering submitting an amendment to the final redistricting map sent to council. Last night I was told at least five other council members are planning on offering their own suggested alterations by today’s 5 p.m. deadline, among them Vonciel Jones…
A Friend of Unfair Park asks this morning if we’ve gotten our hands on the Dallas Stars bankruptcy docs, which were filed, as expected, in a Delaware court at the end of the day yesterday. Why, as a matter of fact: On the other side you’ll find a Tom Wolfe…
In May, you no doubt recall, longtime Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews put the Dallas Independent School District’s School of Science and Engineering at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Magnet Center at the very top of his list of the best public high schools in the country. In the video…
Even Rick Perry doesn’t hate science all the time. His uneasy relationship with evolution and global warming notwithstanding, the Man Beneath the Hair understands that sometimes all that brainy shit with the white coats and clipboards can actually benefit him. And that’s exactly what happened in his 2006 bid for…
What you see here, courtesy his Twitter account, is Jonah Hill throwing out the first pitch at yesterday’s Chicago White Sox game at US Cellular Field. When we spoke a little while ago at his Uptown hotel, he insisted: The stands were empty because it was a day game, and…
Thanks to Anna’s unswerving dedication to documenting the entirety of the redistricting process, I’ve become addicted to the proposed maps that may or may not decide council districts for the next decade. So too has Mayor Mike, who may turn in his own amended map tomorrow by 5, the deadline…
There’s no denying it now: Gulf War Syndrome, characterized by memory loss, lack of concentration, neuropathic pain and depression, is a physiological illness, not a psychological one. A UT Southwestern study, published in the journal Radiology, used a specialized MRI that specifically measures blood flow in the brain and detected…
Got this letter the other day, from “The Desk of Leon Lett”: Even though I have three Super Bowl rings, made two Pro Bowl appearances and recorded 22 sacks during my 10-year NFL career, I’m only remembered for two mistakes. Including one monumental mistake I committed on an icy Thanksgiving…
The Dallas Video Festival, now in its 24th year, makes it bow September 21 with a screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialisme at the Texas Theatre, which will be immediately followed by a sequel of sorts to Richard Linklater’s Slacker. The full schedule’s here, and, of course, we’ll have more…
The high-rise standing at 1607 Main Street looks nothing like the one built on that very spot in 1909, when it was known as the Praetorian Building — “the West’s first ‘skyscraper.'” Architect Clarence C. Bulger’s 15-story building, once an ornate, golden-hued tourist attraction, was gutted and stripped bare in…
