It’s rare that drinking more beer equates with raising your IQ. Usually it just ends up with you abandoning your britches in some nature-rich landscape, like that one shady bush next to the bank drive-thru. And yet Bottle Cap Bingo is an event that promises to bolster your brainpower through…

Some will tell you that comedian Neil Hamburger wasn’t born in a traditional sense, that he instead materialized in the coat check of a pizza parlor off a frontage road in Atlantic City. Hamburger speaks in a collective “we,” and whether he’s including his phantom “management,” adoring fans or alter…

In a simply magical turn of fate, former talk show host and mayor of Cincinnati Jerry Springer will materialize in Uptown tonight to sing a collection of Elvis-exclusive songs. We don’t pretend to know how we got so lucky, but we suspect that someone hot-wired our wish-making machine, then drove…

Author. Comedian. Television host. Admitted hussy. Chelsea Handler has announced a Dallas visit on her new tour, and tickets go on sale Friday, January 17. The 31-date stand-up excursion will promote her fifth book, Uganda Be Kidding Me, an essay collection with a March 2014 release date. Handler’s North Texas…

Dallas, this Saturday night we experience an embarrassment of riches as nearly every gallery in town opens a new, post-holiday show. From Expo Park to Uptown and throughout the Design District, there are exhibitions that deserve your attention, and you should visit them during their runs. Some, like the MAC,…

Last week my friends saw a touring violinist slurping soup in a noodle house. How did they know he was a violinist? He had the Stradivarius with him, at the table. Keeping a rare violin close is standard practice for top tier musicians who often play instruments on loan from…

Each year we at the Dallas Observer like to get a little rowdy. We reach deep into Dallas culture and pull out the trend makers, the game changers and the party starters. We find the most interesting names in fashion, dance, art and music. Then we take over a venue,…

In much colder parts of the country cold water dips are stern dares, scheduled on New Year’s Day. Designed to baptize the NYE debauchery out of you, the shiver swims prove that you’re still alive, despite all of this calendar flipping business. In Dallas, the timetable is less pressing. (We…

Consider this your warning: Next month Philip Glass will turn an otherwise ordinary Monday evening into a landmark night of experimental chamber music at the Winspear. This Dallas visit — part of the TITAS concert series — lassos in the living legend’s current project, an ongoing duo-recital with violinist Tim…

Welcome to a new year, Dallas! That means you’ve got a clean slate just waiting to be dirtied. Start strong this weekend with art openings, two visits by George Takei (Oh, myyy!), football ragers, classical music, films, burlesque shows, zine release parties and more. We’ve got it all in this…

Masochistic opera lovers veer toward the impenetrable works of Wagner. Regression-prone classical enthusiasts seek out Mozart’s trippy-ass stage productions. People who just love great opera go for Verdi. The Italian king of the craft couldn’t make a flop and in his catalog of famous works, his 1853 La Traviata still…

At 76 years old, George Takei’s career weaves an inspiring blueprint. He could have easily been typecast after Star Trek, doomed to a life trolling nerd conventions as Sulu. Instead he became a champion of gay rights, a speakerbox for Japanese-American relations, an accomplished playwright, an admirably grand geek and…

Unless you’ve got some seedy back alley connections, getting Cotton Bowl Classic tickets is impossible. If you do have those connections, holler. We love shady deals. The 2014 bowl game sold out in record time, leaving Oklahoma State Cowboys and Missouri Tigers fans equally flummoxed. But hey, you don’t have…

It’s interesting that pin-up darling Bettie Page is more of a fascination to modern women than men. Named class salutatorian and voted most likely to succeed, Page could have been anything she chose: She chose to be the queen of bondage and cheesecake photos. Adding to the lady-centric intrigue, when…

Some art is rooted in lofty thought, meant to be sifted and worked over philosophically. Then, there’s the kind of art currently on display at RO2 Gallery’s (110 N. Akard St.) show Objectified. Here you get to play, think and admire, because a whole slew of sculptors, object makers and…

Don’t force New Year’s Eve. That’s a rookie move. If you apply too much pressure to an evening’s plans, you’ll smother the thing and it’ll die on the vine. Here’s how you do New Year’s like a champ: Get a cab with your favorite people, then drink in excess. Make…

So, you’ve been a well-behaved little crumpet avoiding all Downton Abbey Season Four spoilers? You made it through the ice storm, Thanksgiving and Christmas without renting the three import discs from Premiere Video? You didn’t download the app that lets you stream U.K. programming months ahead of its U.S. air…

Blunders, politicking and a few points of honest success topped culture headlines in 2013. Some of it was exciting, pointing to a new era of community interaction and cultural immersion. Other times it felt like we had allowed those old notions of what Dallas is — socialites bickering, sexist opportunists…

If you’re looking for a panel discussion on the current eco-balance of the arts in Dallas, no problem: Art panels are like AA meetings, another one starts somewhere in about 15 minutes. Unlike AA meetings, nobody chain smokes or reaches a grand realization at an arts panel. Implementable ideas are…

Alamo shows your favorite cartoons — with a cereal sidecar — on Saturday morning. That’s not all. We’ve got a Dallas-centric rock doc tonight at the Kessler. A riot grrrl party at Texas Theatre on Friday, where the awesomely named Girls Rock Camp band Sparkle Revolution open for the new…

There’s a lot of crap currently filling the Dallas calendar. It’s the cursed seasonal smorgasbord of tinsel, reindeer and razzelberry waterfalls that leaves you ripe to vomit figgy pudding. But don’t. Seriously. Hang in there because The End Theater Productions is bringing you the hottest transgendered product ever to escape…