I’ve always loved Mexican loteria cards. There’s something about the way folksy, artistic kitsch and cultural iconography come together in a simple bingo game that just makes me happy. Benito Huerta, an award-winning artist, associate art professor at the University of Texas at Arlington and director of the school’s art…
I”Going green” used to be considered a luxury, especially in a faltering economy. But as the Legislature convened last week amid a budget squeeze, a determined coalition of lawmakers and lobbyists acted on the premise that conserving energy is nothing less than an absolute necessity, especially in rough financial times…
Translating live improv comedy to the page is tough, so for a companion to our cover story this week about Mark Orvik, a comedian who’s fighting a life-threatening illness with humor, check out these videos of the troupe’s on-stage shenanigans. And hey, amidst waves of layoffs and foreclosures, we could…
Absurd as it sounds, he insists the culprit was a piece of plastic. Mark Orvik—small-town boy, high jinks master and improv imitator of sleazy rednecks, British barflies and ’80s rockers—was waiting tables at his day job last spring when he accidentally stepped on a plastic bib. It was small, he…
As President Bush packs up the White House in advance of his move to Dallas next week(ish), the National Archives and Records Administration is in the process of trucking loads of paper, electronic and audio-visual documents to a storage space in Lewisville so that when the time comes, the boxes…
Drummer and vocalist Cedric Burnside, grandson of the late, great blues guitarist R.L. Burnside, brings his brand of funk-infused delta blues to the House of Blues tomorrow night for a free 9 o’clock show in the venue’s restaurant. The 30-year-old Burnside, who grew up playing in juke joints and started…
It’s been over two months since Urban Dog Coffee reopened its refurbished doors on Oak Lawn, and the renovated digs are well-worth a visit. The café now includes two rooms of tables, plush chairs and free wireless in a space complete with paintings by local artists and music by local…
With another phone line on hold and an ever expanding to-do list, Debbie Busch listened patiently to yet another bereaved parent who called Fort Hood’s Gold Star Family Support Center for guidance. “And which unit did your son serve with?” she asked, then paused to listen. “OK, well I’m glad…
Year in, year out, Christmas traditions have a way of blurring together into one long series of tiresome light tours and forced viewings of The Nutcracker. Puppetry, on the other hand, is just corny enough to be cool. A colleague of ours here at the DO has a son who…
I’ve always wanted to go to Italy to look at art and consume copious amounts of pasta and red wine, but given the state of my checking account, this musical will likely be the closest I get to Florence anytime soon. Based on the novella, The Light in the Piazza…
There’s something about a three-course tea that makes you feel civilized, as if you’ve taken a stroll through time back to the British Empire or stepped into the pages of a Jane Austen novel. The Dallas Arboretum offers Harvest Tea at the DeGolyer Garden Café Tea Room Wednesday through Sunday…
The belching, cement-producing smokestacks that dot Dallas County’s southern horizon have long befuddled area officials working to comply with federal clean air standards. Facing deadlines, fines and the potential loss of federal funds, a growing group of local governments is mounting a green revolution in the cement market. Two years…
The moment I walk into the Girls Room, I feel out of place. The studio’s wide, mirrored space is punctuated by gleaming silver poles that extend from floor to ceiling, and the purple walls are festooned with pink feather boas and bright, sequined leotards. It’s all so girly, and I’ve…
For as long as most people can remember, the news out of the Texas borderlands has been anything but quaint—reporters and cops gunned down by cartel hit men, warring rivals beheaded, migrants dying in the desert and political fights over how to stop them from crossing. Public discussion about the…
Dallas isn’t exactly the mecca of walking and window-shopping. Which is why the Design District’s Slocum Street soirees are so special. With the street closed off and store doors thrown open under the starry night sky, wandering from one showroom to the next in the open air is almost like…
As mourners trickled out of Lubbock’s Resthaven Memorial Park in the gray chill, Andrew Velez stayed behind. He stood among the gravestones and watched his brother’s coffin laid low in the winter ground. Cutting a sharp figure in his Army uniform, his dark eyes and soft-featured baby face set hard…
Two years ago, Margaret Keliher faced electoral oblivion, but since losing her post as Dallas County judge in the 2006 Democratic sweep of county elections, she has managed to retool her role as an unlikely Republican champion of clean air and conservation. It’s been almost a year since Keliher took…
Ok, I’ll admit it. When I was around 10, I ventured into the closet, my heart set on a magical transportation to Narnia, C.S. Lewis’ fantasy world full of mystical creatures and an evil queen who serves Turkish delight in a sleigh. Imitating Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan, I nestled…
His nightly transformation began with a twinge. Then, gnawing and relentless, it consumed him. At 45, “Steve” was a hard-charging sales manager who’d snagged two promotions in three years. After work one spring day in 2006, he picked up his infant and toddler from day care, had dinner with his…
In 1999, attorney John Carney received an unusual phone call. An American soldier, dialing from Japan, said he was having trouble finding a lawyer to handle his divorce. Carney, who runs a consumer law practice with a sizable family case load, represented the soldier and discovered that though military divorces…
Growing up, when my folks took me to those “living museums” like Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, I was mesmerized by the glass blowers. I’d stand there for hours watching the guys haul those great piles of melted glass, amazed by the swirls of colors that cooled together. Then, when I was…
On a sweltering Saturday at the Dallas Farmers Market, Brandon Pollard is wearing his weekend uniform: a honeybee costume, complete with bobbing antennae. “Buzz, buzz, busy bees!” he says cheerfully as families pause to examine the little black and yellow creatures crawling around in Pollard’s glass-paned observation hive, which is…
