Video by Frank Benlin. Since last year’s Expanded Cinema project, where local artists took control of the OMNI Hotel’s complex and baffling LED-wrapped exterior, we’ve craved another hit. On Friday night, we’ll get it. The 2012 offering was so bold that it left us humbled. It was executed by a…

(Video by Frank Benlin) It’s back. This Friday local video artists take control of the OMNI’s programming for an evening of public art. You’ll want to stake out a great spot early for this 8 p.m. show and make sure you have a radio synched up with KXT’s live musical…

Perched in an upstairs hideaway within Texas Theatre (231 W. Jefferson Blvd.) is Dallas’ newest small gallery, The Safe Room. It’s brought intimate works by local and formerly local talents since materializing magically earlier this year. Its latest offering is the peculiarly crafted Nothing Fits! Told in two stories, united…

Life is stress. Either you learn to manage it or it manifests into an intestinal gremlin hellbent on exacting revenge. Or at least that’s the kicker plotpoint of Bad Milo!, a dark comedy starring Ken Marino (Party Down, The State, Wet Hot American Summer) that screens at the Texas Theatre…

Friday is Social Science night, the event that recently won the Dallas Observer’s Best Night at the Museum award, and it’s sold out. Now, we aren’t telling you this news to ruin your day. We’re telling you so that you can A) get excited if you bought a ticket early,…

During last year’s Expanded Cinema project, which put local video art onto the OMNI’s giant canvas, cars sat abandoned, piled up along the road like the vehicular aftermath of an apocalypse. Fields filled with viewers like some out-of-season Fourth of July. And art did what we knew it could: pulled…

Kiki Smith headlined the Nasher’s Speaker Series last January and the thing sold out, fast. Now more of North Texas gets to glean off Smith: the Irish Catholic talent just moved into the IAA artist-in-residency at the University of North Texas where she’ll work during 2013-2014 academic year. Students will…

Sex shops are like snowflakes — assuming snowflakes wanted to get you laid, like real bad. They each have their own feels and specialties. You shouldn’t drive out of your way for bachelorette party accessories just to find only hand-blown glass anal plugs. Or vice versa. Some shops cater more…

Word on the street is Big Tex got a booty upgrade, so when you go to the Fair’s opening weekend, you’ll want to admire his new assed-up Dickies. Not ready for fried? Fine, there’s plenty to do this weekend, like a great comedy show at Texas Theatre; a burlesque party…

Last night they flipped the breaker, turning on this year’s bigger, brighter and more brilliant Chinese Lantern Festival for a private media preview. It’s changed a lot since we last saw it: there are 17 new scenes, making 24 total, and the overall layout and groupings are more orderly. It…

There’s a spookiness to Big Tex’s new persona. Since the great flambé, we’ve anthropomorphized him into a walking, bilingual, phoenix-like colossus — a super weird way to collectively cope with loss. His “footprints” have been left all over the state like those of some corn dog-divined Sasquatch and public relations…

If the Internet has proven anything, it’s that each touch, taste, smell, sight and emotional and physical interaction has the ability to become fetishized. And for all you know, your grandma’s running a webcam business out of Shady Oakes. So where do all of these kinks get kinky in three-dimensional…

Down in our neighborly city Austin, the comedians have taken over. Local radio programs, movie theaters and start-up venues blast the stuff out nightly, nurturing an increasingly rich talent pool that you should know about. Friday at Texas Theatre’s Behind the Screen Comedy series (231 W. Jefferson Blvd.), where folks…

The “art” of Instagram has its admirers and its detractors. While some say it waters down the craft of photography, lowering the value of the medium as a whole, others would counter that availability creates a more photo-appreciative world. There’s a new show opening Friday that celebrates the filtered square…

There was a time when Dallas was more than an optional post-Austin stop for musicians. From the ’50s to the late ’70s, this city was the Southwestern hub of the music industry and every band worth its spit targeted the place. Dallas was where you went to get your name…

Art’s usefulness is a funny conversation, and one that will be had tomorrow night at Texas Theatre. We think of “art for art’s sake” and the nobilities surrounding that — those lofty Platonic ideals deemed somehow so pure, so intangible that they exist in a mysterious, non-utilitarian fume. But that’s…

Garrison Keillor’s longevity is an interesting play. Broadcasting live from St. Paul for nearly 40 years, his throwback production honors that relatable, wholesome, oh-so-NPR Middle-Americana. But what’s kept him fascinating is the peculiar subversive undercurrent seeping up between the Powdermilk Biscuit commercials. Keillor isn’t as spit-shined as the Lake Wobegon…

Earlier this morning we looked at Saturday’s greatest Flugtag crashes, and boy were they glorious. But there were also those moments prior to gravity’s embrace. Design, manpower and lots of that trigonometry we never thought we’d use merged, creating prolonged moments of flight. The photos of those quick victories, captured…

Gravity is a funny thing. Despite months of planning and trial runs, each of those dedicated Flugtag experimenters inevitably faced The Big Fall. Sometimes it happened right off the ramp. Others were given a few brief moments of flight before it all came crashing down. Either way, we caught these…