The polka has a lot to answer for, namely the terrible damage polka-ing did to the reputation of the innocent accordion in this country. In the right hands — the late Clifton Chenier’s, or Flaco Jimenez’s for example — the accordion is a perfectly fine folk instrument that can boogie…

What will become of comic strips when the last printed newspaper rolls off the presses? Can the art form that brought us Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes endure in a digital age? Yes, indeed, it would be just tragic to lose the pages where…

Here’s the Iron Fork deal: Returning champion chef Matt McCallister of FT33 will square off against Richard Gras of Oak in a toque-to-toque competition moderated by restaurateur Kent Rathbun. Each chef receives a basket of ingredients, including one mystery item, and they compete to see who can whip up the…

Among Celtic cultures, the Irish get the most publicity, what with all the boozy parades. But while plenty of faux Irish hurl on St. Paddy’s Day, we bet you’ve never seen anyone on Greenville Avenue hurl a nearly 20-foot-long, 175-pound log through the air. That’s called the caber toss, and…

A man walks into your office with white, chalky powder on his fingers, a nervous twitch and bags under his eyes. Obviously, he’s a school teacher. It’s elementary. Next case, Watson. Um … unless, of course, he’s just some slob who snarfed too many powdered doughnuts with his espresso after…

Are you unfamiliar with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the Tom Stoppard play being produced with a cast of 10- to 16-year-olds at Fun House Theatre and Film? Allow us to sum up the plot in one word: Cabbage, zinc and talcum powder. OK, so that’s not one word, and…

If ever a life deserved to be retold in a grand, bombastic musical, it was Eva Peron’s. You think Jean Valjean fleeing through Paris’ sewers is dramatic? Hah. Peron clawed her way up from poverty to become first an actress, then Argentina’s first lady and finally a sort of secular…

They still call Detroit the Motor City. As if. And Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love? Whoever came up with that one obviously never met an Eagles fans. So let’s not take the whole City of Hate thing too much to heart. It’s not like anyone calls Dallas that…

Did you know that the role of Rosina in Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville was originally written for contralto, but a general shortage of contraltos — who apparently are the operatic equivalent of rhythm and blues’ Big Mama Thornton — means the role is mostly performed by mezzo sopranos?…

Are you, like a certain former U.S. president, a budding artist looking to expand your horizons? Tired of sketching the usual still lifes of bowls of fruit? The Dallas chapter of Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School has just the thing to expand your endeavors into life drawing. Better yet, if you’re…

In Nocturne, a 17-year-old piano prodigy accidentally decapitates his 9-year-old sister in an auto accident. Mom goes nuts. Dad threatens to shoot son. Son heads off to New York, escapes to books, becomes a writer and struggles to comes to grips with the tragedy. No further word on what happened to…

Try saying this: orthotics, carbo loading and rock ’n’ roll. Hmm. Nope. Doesn’t have the same ring as sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, does it? Can’t really picture Keith Richards doing split laps or Jerry Lee Lewis running from anything, except maybe the law. But this is now, when…

You could, one supposes, redo Star Wars without lightsabers, Spider-Man without shooting webs or Peter Pan without wire rigs. But why? That’s the question that arises with Pegasus Theatre’s staged reading of A Degree of Death!, one in a series of 16 comedy-mystery spoofs by playwright Kurt Kleinman. For nearly…

As a fan of daily newspapers, two dark days haunt me: when Bill Watterson produced his last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip and when Dave Barry stopped writing his humor column for The Miami Herald. I can’t tell you exactly what those days were because, obviously, being a newspaper fan…

For most cat owners, purchasing a pet bed is, at best, wishful thinking. You really think Fluffy is going to curl up on some fancy cushioned item when there are perfectly good places already available for his daily 20 hours of napping? Say, for instance, the handmade quilt your late…

It was probably inevitable that someone would create a musical based on the works of Queen. The ’70s band’s flamboyant music has a theatrical bent that seems tailor made for conversion to a big, bombastic rock opera, and that’s what you get with We Will Rock You, the musical with…

Before Spanish conquerors and churchmen stepped foot in the New World, representations of the human heart were not uncommon in pre-Columbian art. Aztecs adorned religious statuary with depictions of human hearts. And skulls. And hands. And human sacrifice. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, images of Jesus (also…

Anyone who has buried a parent knows there’s nothing like a sudden death in the family to uncork a little introspection, reconciliation and the occasional secret. Alexander’s House, a “play with music,” explores the fallout from the sudden death of a gay man, whose passing brings together his partner and…

Ahhh, the DFW Auto Show, that consumerist orgy. This year, it has more than half a million square feet of exhibit space featuring nearly every make and model of cars, trucks and SUVs. Just hundreds and hundreds of shiny new vehicles ready for your close inspection — once you clear…