You might buy into Scarborough Renaissance Festival’s reputation as a haven for cat ladies, polyamorous-leaning couples and corset enthusiasts, but then you’d be missing out on the big picture. And that picture is so epically medieval, so soaked in mead and turkey grease, so full of swashbuckling and facial hair…

John Steinbeck once said that he was doing his “damndest to rip a reader’s nerves to rags” while writing his classic The Grapes of Wrath. If you’ve spent any time with that tome at all, you know the son of a gun succeeded: He eased you in with droughts and…

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a fascinating person. That’s a statement that can be fairly made without any political underpinning, and it should be thought-provoking to hear what this woman has to say when she speaks at the University of North Texas Distinguished Lecture Series at 8 p.m…

The old adage about suffering for your art means surviving hell, then making the experience palpable for others. Michael Bise has unfortunately been there. His autobiographical drawings are sometimes so vivid they hurt, detailing a childhood full of family conflict and a life spent dealing with a congenital heart condition…

Oh, how far the tattoo has come in recent history. Mom used to whisper that people with tattoos were all convicts and biker gang members. Now she DVRs L.A. Ink and engages her tatted-up hairstylist in serious conversation about her sleeve. The film Tattoo Nation gives us a glimpse into…

At the height of our economic excesses a few years back, you couldn’t throw a stick in this town without hitting a doggy boutique stocked to the whiskers with canine clothing. For some, this was a way to lavish attention on their fur-children, and you’d frequently see Fido lounging at…

Dallas is used to being the brunt of jokes about its supposed superficial culture and lack of a coherent creative scene. But I’ll dare any Twitter-wielding smartass to make such a pronouncement after taking a look at the Big D’s spring calendar — a whirlwind of artsy, literate comings and…

You think you’ve seen it all by now. The Internet is chock-full of 9-year-old opera singers and 11-year-old breakdancing prodigies. The bar has been set pretty high by all those underage “Gangnam Style” impersonators on YouTube, so it’s going to take something pretty crazy to catch your attention. And really,…

Look at your calendars, Dallas — we are lucky, lucky bastards this year. We’ve been blessed with the rarest of St. Patrick’s Day parties: the one-two punch of the St. Patrick’s Parade on Greenville Saturday followed immediately by St. Patrick’s Day proper on Sunday. It’s like God himself sanctioned hair-of-the-dog…

You bought a house. You survived a variety of slumlords, paid off your credit cards and saved like a mofo. You moved the couch in, set up the TV and spruced up the paint — and then realized that your decorating and remodeling expertise is limited to posters that have…

Ever pull up a You Tube make-up tutorial? Those instructional snippets promise to level the cosmetics playing field, giving you the ability to create movie star looks. I tried that once. It assured flawless smoky eyes. The result: I emerged looking like a cracked-out pageant mom. Now I rely on…

The good people of Dallas hear the words “Irish” and “celebration” and instantly think of passing out in a pile of green beads. Ah, the parade. Of course, there is every reason to love our St. Patrick’s Day festivities, but very little of it has to do with Irish heritage…

You know Art Spiegelman. If you’re a comic book junkie (or “graphic novel enthusiast”) you know him. If you grew up in the 1980s, you know him. If you like to read high-falutin essays in The New Yorker, you know him. Speigelman’s work blasts boundaries between literature and art. Also,…

The Oscars: It’s the one night of the year where we kick back and watch as rich people congratulate each other on their involvement in crafting a commercial product. Then we eat lots of snack food. Even the most cynical among us allow the walls to drop for a night…

For most of us, the ability to nail impressions of famous people would be a wasted gift. We’d use our best Bill Clinton voice to call in an order of Buffalo Wild Wings or spend our mornings on the phone sharing our hot sports opinions with Norm Hitzges in full…

When Hollywood tries to revive a beloved film, it usually follows a formula: Take a great story, add in a dose of zeitgeisty marketing and try to make it a “hip” revival. Broadway doesn’t need those tricks. Anything Goes is a prime example of a beautifully done Broadway revival, chock…

Saturday’s Pretty Things Peep Show at the Kessler Theater (1230 W. Davis St.) is a bump-and-grind touring sensation celebrating the best vaudeville talents in the biz. Go-go Amy and her crew of vixens twirl their tassels for sure, but there’s more to this production than just sequins and feathers. Mr…

You might think that you know everything you need to know about the world of antiques and collectibles. After all, you caught an all-day marathon of Storage Wars last weekend, and after three episodes you were shouting at that Brandi chick for even considering a unit full of crappy luggage…

Drinking and inking usually results in one of two outcomes. One, you get tossed outta the tattoo parlor before you can even point at a flash and slur “That one” or two, you end up with a tramp stamp that will haunt you the rest of your days. As such,…

College football is interesting for exactly one reason, and it has nothing to do with fake girlfriends or NFL prospects. We dig it because of the drumline — those percussionist badasses who march out onto the field at halftime and lay down beats so precise and powerful that you’ll forget…

You spent most of your college career dodging lectures, spending afternoons watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes in lieu of macroeconomics class. But now — now that you’re working so hard to repay the loans that enabled said truancy — suddenly you love lectures. Maybe it’s because you couldn’t enjoy…

The past few weeks have been a coughing, hacking, feverish blur of vaccine panic and flu hysteria. If you haven’t had it, you’re lucky; if you have, then you’ve certainly served your time sweating under the covers. And after all that time you spent sequestered with your germs, you need…