Each year as the big tops roll into town, it strikes me that the circus is just about the one enterprise that hasn’t changed much over the last century. Why would it? It’s a formula that’s worked beautifully despite economic challenges and technological innovations and is just about immune to…

Should we, as a society, be able to pee freely? It’s an important question, one taken on by our European brethren (who say “no,” by the way) and by a McDonald’s just off the Woodley Park Metro stop in Washington, D.C. (which also says “no,” and asks for a quarter…

Of all the laws on the books in this great land of ours, one of the more patently hilarious is Public Law 91-443, enacted under the 91st Congress in 1970. We think about that time in the early 70s and we know that our government had its hands full with…

We’re taught over years of feminist literature, self-help books and Gilmore Girls episodes that women need to be comfortable with themselves to feel beautiful. We know logically that beauty is only skin-deep and that the real goods are on the inside, but dang if it doesn’t feel heavenly sometimes to…

There are those Friday nights when you spend hours scouring Facebook, trying to cobble together some sort of social experience that won’t end with you slumped in a dirty vinyl booth, listening to bad karaoke and really wishing you hadn’t imbibed that last shot of tequila. And then there are…

No marriage is exempt from some level of strife, including the ones between Catholic nuns and the Big J.C. himself. Hollywood has long mined nunneries for drama (and horror and comedy), and that’s because the sisters have a lotta story to tell. For instance, Saint Bernadette, whose mean-as-a-snake mother superior…

The good people of Nexxus have, among other attributes, impeccable timing, scheduling their Endless Style Bar event right at the point in summer when we give up on putting ourselves together. It’s those days when our carefully blended makeup slides off our faces and our smoothed-out hair goes rogue as…

Crimes of the Heart is part Carson McCullers novel, part Dixie Chicks song — a pseudo-Southern gothic piece chock-full of family melodrama and eccentricities that add layer after layer of plot to the award-winning play. It’s a dramatic standard, a playwright’s go-to since the early 1980s, with lush dialogue and…

We trot out our Americana archetypes every Fourth of July — the apple pie and the ice cream; the fireworks; the pickup trucks and “God Bless America.” We see them paraded in Chevy ads and mattress sales and actual parades. And those are all good things. But they’re a pretty…

RuPaul once told a contestant on Drag Race that she looked less like Sex in the City and more like sex in the alley. It was a perfect summation of drag — flashy, sometimes tawdry and consistently entertaining, but always toeing the line between high camp and just … high…

There are countless schools of thoughts about lady “performers” — the pole-swinging girls with daddy issues, empowered glamazons, victims of the patriarchy, etc. But the academic literature is largely mum on the issue of dudes who take it (almost) all off. Performing in front of hordes of women decked out…

What happens when somebody dies and you don’t feel particularly sad? We all know that it’s basic human decency to crumple a bit and mourn the loss of someone we know when they pass, but what if you just can’t muster those feelings? What if that person was kind of…

Its high-maintenance name aside, there’s something pleasantly practical-seeming about the North Dallas Suburban Foundation for Life Development and Community Involvement Annual Fashion Extravaganza at the Brookhaven Country Club, 3333 Golfing Green Drive. Donning wearable pieces for ladies and men, too, models will strut their stuff in looks that range from…

You’re a dad now, so you get to do a lot of boring things, like meeting with financial advisers and reapplying sunscreen to non-compliant targets. But none of that stuff precludes you from cutting loose once in a while. Thrash’d Swag is a best-of-both-worlds scenario for dads: Not only can…

The paper-thin disguise is one of the most trotted-out tropes in all of story-telling. You know the routine: Somebody throws on a wig or a pair of glasses and close family members and friends no longer recognize them. Hilarity ensues. Take, for example, Mrs. Doubtfire, wherein a working mom fails…

Most people don’t consider Cole Porter much of a badass. He came from privilege, went Ivy League all the way and spent much of his life partying in Paris like a gay Gatsby. But underneath all the frivolity and fun, Porter lived with excruciating pain. An equestrian accident left him…

Cover your pornographic Tinkerbell tattoos and unhinge your wallets, my friends, the LEGOLAND Discovery Center (known to parents as The Toy Store Where You Have To Pay Admission) is unveiling its new attraction June 1 and it promises to be killer. And of course, by killer, I mean your 3-…

You got into an argument with your hairdresser because you ate at Chick-Fil-A and he doesn’t appreciate the chain’s conservative agenda. Your boss just forwarded an email that refers to “No-Bama” no less than five times. You don’t give a shit about being liberal or conservative — you just want…

Memorial Day heralds the beginning of summer, and for all but the hardiest of us it also signals one of the last times we can comfortably be outside until late September. Early forecasts put the temperatures in the low 90s, and we all know that’s nothing. We can grease the…

Tropic of Cancer is one of those watershed books. You hear about it in high school English class from some know-it-all literary snob who tells you how it is stuffed full of sex scenes and was banned in this country for years. And then you procure a copy and read…

If you’ve spent any amount of time in Addison at all, you know that it’s a perfectly nice town with a lot of office buildings, apartments, and a ton of restaurants — chain restaurants, to be more specific. Of course, there’s a lot of backlash around the chain restaurant these…

Nothing strikes dread into the heart of a parent like a birthday party. They’re ominous affairs, whether you’re hosting or attending, full of questions like “Should I serve gluten free cupcakes?” or “Is $20 too much to spend on a gift for someone my kid won’t even know in a…