Dallas-based Lily Hanson is master of what art critic Charissa Terranova has called “the soft uncanny.” Or maybe it’s the “snuggly strange.” A sculptor and textile artist, Hanson creates large abstract squishy objects by meticulous sewing and stitching of fabric and foam. She recently received the Dallas Museum of Art’s…
When he spotted the pretty woman standing on the front lawn of a stately home in Highland Park, Alan Rehrig whipped his Bronco into the driveway and climbed out. The former college basketball star shook her hand and asked if she knew anyone who had a garage apartment for rent…
You know you’ve made it as a Dallas birder when the guard at the south side sewage ponds knows your name. When you take binoculars on a run around White Rock Lake. When you check the Dallas Audubon Society to see if there have been any new sightings of birds…
Woe is they: So if the best-educated minds in the country get together and agree on one particular point of view, what would you think? Would you say, “These guys are all pretty smart and well-trained, so that’s probably a pretty good point of view.” Or would you think that…
When “Emily” first saw Anand Jon in October 2005, he was walking through the terminal at DFW Airport like a rock god: long mane of black hair, sultry eyes, billowing white shirt and attitude to burn. Blond, blue-eyed, with the kind of fresh beauty that cannot be faked with makeup,…
In elementary school I discovered Land of Oz in the public library. I’d never heard of the movie or Judy Garland. I thought the Land of Oz was found only in the series of adventures written by L. Frank Baum, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz through the 14th book,…
The old-fashioned quilting bee had a lot to recommend it: skilled women trading gossip and sewing tips and a tad of wisdom when called for. The Lakewood Knitwits have exchanged batting and tying for skipping and purling, but the theory is the same: conversation and busy fingers. The Knitwits host…
What it is about women and hats? The days are long gone when they were required daily wear, but we still leap at any opportunity to wear beautiful chapeaux. Each year, the Women’s Council of the Dallas Arboretum hosts a Mad Hatters Tea Party to benefit the Women’s Garden, with…
The 120 dutiful souls who’d answered their jury summons on January 9 had been sitting in the historic Waxahachie courthouse listening to lawyers drone on for hours. Then suddenly things got weird. The prosecutor had finished asking questions of potential jurors when David Finn stood up. The 43-year-old Dallas defense…
The second book in Patrick McManus’ Bo Tully mystery series will make you shiver and giggle at the same time. In Avalanche, quirky Sheriff Tully goes to investigate a missing persons report at a hoity-toity mountain lodge. When snow rumbles down the mountain he becomes trapped in the middle of…
The late actor Jeremy Brett inhabits the character of Sherlock Holmes in my imagination now, thanks to the PBS series in which he portrayed the brilliant but tormented detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle. Dozens of actors before and since have tackled the role, including Peter O’Toole, Michael Caine, Christopher…
Germany’s The Lives of Others won the Best Foreign Language category at this year’s Oscars, but in a fair world, it would have won Best Picture over Martin Scorsese’s blood-soaked game of cat and mouse in The Departed. It begins in 1984 in East Berlin when spying by the Stasi,…
The fact that O Brother, Where Art Thou? did not win a 2000 Oscar for best screenplay based on previous material—the award went to Traffic—proves that members of the Academy don’t read. I mean, come on! Joel and Ethan Coen collaborated with Homer, the Greek poet with some serious writing…
Fascinated by the supposed discovery of the “lost tomb of Jesus,” unveiled last week on the Discovery Channel? Karen King, professor of ecclesiastical history at Harvard Divinity School and author of The Gospel of Mary of Magdala, will be discussing her newest book, Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and…
In the month when Hollywood director James Cameron makes a splash (or belly flop) with The Lost Tomb of Jesus, a unique exhibit arrives at Fair Park with 350 rare artifacts from the Holy Land. Created in conjunction with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology, the interactive exhibit…
It’s never done. But the work of many women in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya is beyond endless. They scratch the ground with sticks to plant vegetables. They carry heavy loads on their heads and jerrycans of water on their backs. All while caring for…
When Jim Moseley sat down at the Dean & Deluca store in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 9:30 a.m. last Friday he was nervous. Officer Harry Inch had assured the businessman that Inch and other members of the Violent Criminals Apprehension Team would take down the target before she got anywhere…
In the wake of Academy Award season, it’s time to remember the work of Horton Foote, one of the most underappreciated theater and film writers of our time—mainly because he doesn’t blow his own horn, I guess. He received an Oscar for the screen adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird…
The flu season in Texas started out mild but came on like a tiger in late January, prompting the closings of several schools in the area. That’s when Texas and Oklahoma went red on the influenza map posted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Grapevine resident Joe Lastinger,…
For Darrell Bock, the notion that Jesus of Nazareth married and had children is like the game Whac-A-Mole. The researcher and professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary only recently has caught his breath from tours for his books debunking the mega-best-selling Da Vinci Code—which claims that Jesus…
Plans to replace the historic Dreyfuss Club at White Rock Lake, which burned to the ground last fall, are ongoing, but what caused the fire that destroyed the vintage city building remains “undetermined,” according to a Dallas Fire-Rescue report obtained by the Dallas Observer. Arson cannot be ruled out. “Everything…
Sometimes simple ideas have astonishing power. In 1990, students at a high school in Michigan were trying to find a way to raise money for a food drive. Their art teacher gave them an idea for a class project. The students made ceramic bowls, invited paying guests for a simple…
