Arts & Entertainment

What a doll. A talking doll actually. Its official name is the Bill Engvall Blue Collar Comedy Tour Talking Plush Doll, part of a set that includes comics Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Ron White. Engvall in fine plush costs $15.95. Requires three AAA batteries. Chirps a dozen of his best lines. Sample: "The only reason I got married--my gym membership ran out."

A talking doll isn't an Oscar, but it's a nice trophy for a performer who started out 23 years ago DJ-ing and hosting open mike nights at the old Comedy Corner and Café Dallas. An early profile in the Dallas Observer was Engvall's first good ink, and he's never forgotten it. "You guys have been with me from the start," he says by phone from his second home in Park City, Utah (home base is Manhattan Beach, near L.A.).

Born in Galveston during Hurricane Audrey in 1957, Engvall started cracking wise as a precocious kid whose family "moved a lot" when he was young, he says. He got serious enough in college to graduate from Southwestern University in Georgetown, heading for Dallas and a teaching career (or so he told his folks). Instead, he was drawn to the comedy clubs that were just beginning to feature big-name headliners.

Engvall says he watched Garry Shandling, Robin Williams and Jay Leno work the club rooms. He studied their material and how they handled audiences. He soon became a regular onstage at the Comedy Corner, where, he says, he not only slung drinks as a bar back when he wasn't at the mike but also mopped floors and helped drunks stagger to their cars.

After two years of journeyman work as an opener and middle act, Engvall and wife Gail U-Hauled to L.A., "the mecca of comedy," he says. His goal was "to become a big TV star." Back in the '80s, that was the dream of almost every stand-up. But Engvall's timing was off. Jerry Seinfeld, Shandling and Roseanne had yet to score their long-running TV hits. Stand-ups weren't yet being tapped as potential sitcom stars.

Engvall says he remembers prepping for his first major TV audition. Gail was six months preggers when he asked his wife to help him run dialogue. "Years later I was to find out that as we were reading the lines together, she nearly went into labor," he recalls in his online biography. "Not because it was time to have the baby, but because I was so bad at acting that she nearly freaked."

A good acting class helped the comedian land a guest shot on Designing Women. He'd later work for a year on Delta, playing the role of Delta Burke's brother. Then came what he calls his "big break"--doing The Tonight Show with the master himself, Johnny Carson. "I was as scared as I have ever been," he admits. His act went over big. He expected the phone to ring with offers. Instead, crickets. Nothing. For two years.

So back on the road he went, honing the persona he'd started developing 10 years earlier. In 1992, the American Comedy Awards named him Stand-up Comic of the Year. He was booked year-round as a popular club act. He finally got what would turn out to be a bigger break than sharing the couch next to Carson's desk. A job as Jeff Foxworthy's opening act would launch a solid friendship and a still-booming stage partnership with the "You might be a redneck..." star.

Along the way, Engvall came up with his own signature catchphrase, "Here's your sign."

In his best-known routine, he offers "Stupid" signs to people who ask smack-the-forehead questions. Like the time he flew to a corporate gig on a tiny prop-jet: As the plane landed on an airstrip in rural Arkansas, it hit a deer. When Engvall called home that night and told Gail the story, her response was, "Were you on the ground?" Cue the catchphrase: "Here's your sign." The bit became the title routine on Engvall's first CD, which would become the top-selling comedy CD of 1997, selling more than half a million copies. He followed that with CDs titled Dorkfish and Now That's Awesome, selling more than 2 million of those. He made comedy music videos for Country Music Television that were such hits they made it onto the country music charts.

After all that success, Bill Engvall has somehow stayed the same twinkly-eyed guy-next-door he was when he first took the stage at the Comedy Corner. He works clean. He giggles at his own material as he performs it. And since teaming with Foxworthy and the Blue Collar comics, he's become known as the nice one who tells gentle wife-and-kid tales on the blockbuster Blue Collar Comedy tours. He costars on its half-hour spin-off WB series, just renewed for another 13 episodes. The third Blue Collar Comedy movie will be shot this fall.

"Being on TV has really jacked it up," says Engvall of his celebrity quotient. "I'm selling more tickets than I ever did." Blue Collar Comedy is one of this year's top 50 touring shows, "right up there with Sting," he says. (The tour returns to Dallas' Majestic Theatre April 14, 2006.)

Now 48, Engvall's writing a film in which he'll star, and he's on the road three out of every four weeks with the Blue Collar gang or soloing at lucrative corporate appearances.

Gail and two kids who grew up with a dad in showbiz serve as endless sources of new material. Even Engvall's trademarked line comes around to bite him now and then. "My son was playing a tune on the piano not long ago. I asked him what it was, and he said it was from the soundtrack of Harry Potter. I said, "The movie?' And he said, "No, the book. Here's your sign, Dad.'"

As a comic who's known lean times as well as fat success, Engvall says he takes nothing for granted. "The reality of stardom happening to me was pretty slim," he says. "I still get up in the mornings and think it's this dream that just keeps going on. Every goal I've set, I've achieved."

And is that plush doll a good likeness? "Nope," he says. "Looks just like Robert Goulet." --Elaine Liner

There's a lot to consider when naming the best news anchor, but in the end, it always comes down to that indescribable "it" factor that radiates from the tube, and that's exactly what has us tuning in to Fox 4 on a nightly basis to watch Heather Hays ply her craft. Sure, it helps that she's easier on the eyes than John McCaa and his creepy mustache (after all, she was crowned Miss Hawaii USA in 1992), but she is silky smooth while segueing from soft to hard news and has a voice and face you can trust. She's also relaxed enough to joke around with co-anchor Steve Eager, and has proven to be quite a football prognosticator, as she regularly outperforms Mike Doocy and the sports crew when picking weekly winners for each NFL game.

Hunt is the only real biko on the council—determined to see Dallas transform itself from a generic regional car-centric Blah-ville to a unique, truly cool Biko-City that will draw creative, productive, entrepreneurial people from around the world. But don't trust us on that. Let her explain in her own words. On her website, Hunt says: "Policymakers and city staff will only be persuaded to create real complete streets with real bicycle infrastructure in Dallas (and not a failed, faux version) if they 1) learn how other cities have successfully made the transition from car-centric streets to ones that are bike- and ped-friendly, 2) understand how important complete streets are to our city's future economic development (attracting the "creative class" and thus the companies that want to hire them), and 3) hear the public express a real interest in redefining our city to make it more livable."

We haven't decided if we're totally happy with the Wyly as an audience-friendly theater space (those hard green chairs are enemies of spines), but we're certain there's no other local theater company so fine and so deep-benched with talent as Dallas Theater Center's Brierley Resident Acting Company, which calls the Wyly Theatre home base. Just look at the list of company members: Cedric Neal, Liz Mikel, Sally Nystuen Vahle, Matthew Gray, Lee Trull, Abbey Siegworth, Hassan El-Amin, Chamblee Ferguson, Christie Vela and Joel Ferrell. They include veteran classical actors, comedic talents, dynamic singers and dancers, interpreters of the avant garde, double-duty director-actors and some just downright gorgeous leading ladies and men. DTC's artistic director Kevin Moriarty eschews typecasting, which means plenty of diversity (in age, gender and ethnicity) in his shows. What we like best about the resident company concept, however, is that it keeps these fine actors paid for their work year-round. That makes them part of our arts community that much longer.

Founded in Dallas by PR guy Cooper Smith Koch, Gay List Daily is a slick, free e-publication blasted out via e-mail every morning to thousands of inboxes. Dedicated to all things trendy and gay, it's fashioned after Daily Candy, offering tips and reviews of culture and couture, food and frivolity and whatever else is striking the editors' fancy on a particular day. The writing is crisp, witty and appropriately (though only slightly) bitchy. The company's just getting into the group coupon biz, too, and has expanded its daily e-blasts to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta. Whether you're stag, hag or drag, this informative e-pub will put a little gay in your day.

The backstage area at Oak Cliff's newly restored Kessler Theater has everything a band could want on show night and more. Lots of free parking directly behind the venue? Check. A convenient backstage door for pre- and post-show smoke breaks? Check. Plenty of room for stowing gear? Check. Upstairs lounge for setlist writing, beer drinking and groupie courting? Check. And finally, your own bathroom complete with shower? Ding, ding, ding—we have a winner. Owner Edwin Cabaniss and artistic director Jeff Liles clearly put as much thought into this space as they did into the actual show room—easily the best listening room in town—so it's no surprise to see local bands begging for another show as soon as they get off the stage.

There was a time not long ago when a decent playlist on the radio could only be found via satellite. With some local radio stations stuck in the '90s and others on a steady rotation of Black Eyed Peas and, umm, more Black Eyed Peas, the best music on the airwaves actually came from a sports talk radio station. But thanks to the fine folks over at KKXT-FM 91.7 and their public supporters (it's easy to become one on their website), you can hear from Wilco, Ariel Pink, The Rolling Stones and Beach House all in the same half-hour. Judging by the wide range of folk, blues, classic rock and indie rock, their "Music To The Core" motto is more of a manifesto. And, though they encourage membership from listeners, there's plenty of room for public radio freeloaders, too.

Patrick Kennedy's cause is a daunting one: winning over truck-loving locals to the car-free lifestyle, and hoping those building this city proceed with an eye on livability. And yet, something about the 31-year-old blogger and design consultant recalls a guy voted "Most Likely To Succeed" back in high school. Well-spoken, opinionated and lively, his blog posts sometimes take on the look of academic white papers. Like plenty of other successful bloggers before him, Kennedy's audience has snowballed as a series of profiles and guest-columnist invitations have put his ideas about the future of Dallas in front of more influential and less sympathetic readers. Melding urban planning theory with minutiae of Dallas history, Kennedy's ideas for promoting walkability and sustainability—at the expense of those who'd build more highways—start to make a lot of sense. Then again, he may just have us distracted with all the big words.

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza has become a serious international repository of documents, films, periodicals and research dealing with the Kennedy assassination, much of which the museum is now making available to the public in a sunny reading room staffed by a full-time academic research librarian. You do have to call ahead for an appointment, but the reading room is designed to be open and welcoming to all interested persons, according to Nicola Longford, executive director of the Sixth Floor Museum. The full collection amounts to more than 35,000 items, all of it indexed with the latest software and accessible through touch-screen monitors at small work stations. But instead of carrels in musty stacks, these work stations are desks next to big open windows looking out on the site of the event. Opened June 29, the reading room is an exciting addition to the life of the city.

In a sweep of 60-foot lipstick-red walls on its glass facade, the new 2,200-seat Winspear Opera House welcomes theatergoers into Dallas' finest new arts facility. In its first season, the Winspear wowed audiences with Broadway tours of the Pulitzer-winning drama August: Osage County, the Tony-winning musical Spring Awakening and then the topper, the world premiere of Jake Heggie's magnificent opera adaptation of Moby-Dick. With acoustics that are just about perfect, the Winspear is a grand, graceful venue for music or the spoken word.

Heading in with a mix of hope and skepticism, we weren't exactly sure what to expect from Neil Young's high-dollar solo performance June 7 at the Meyerson Symphony Center. Would we get an hour and a half of classic Neil? Or an hour and a half of Greendale (which is what we got the last time Neil rolled through town in 2003)? Thankfully, it was the former, with plenty of classics interspersed with a smattering of new material. He even brought out Old Black, his trusty '53 Gibson Les Paul, for solo electric performances of "Ohio," "Cinnamon Girl" and "Down By The River," which rivaled anything the DSO has ever played in the building for sheer volume and power. It's one of those shows that will stay with the people who witnessed it for years to come, and if you weren't there, you should definitely still be kicking yourself.

Thanks to an incredibly energetic bunch of neighborhood advocates, particularly Go Oak Cliff and Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, the Bishop Arts District has become the best place to go for a festival. Even better, they're the kind of creative, exciting, invigorating fests that make you proud to live in the 'hood. It seems like just about every month there's some kind of reason to dance in the streets, whether it's an art crawl, a homebrew festival, a Mardi Gras parade or the wildly successful Bastille Day party. Better yet, there's usually some kind of civics lesson, whether it's the Better Block Project showing how code changes could make livable, walkable urbanism possible or the emphasis on bicycling at the Tyler Street Block Party and Bike-In Movie. Thankfully, the political undertones don't get in the way of a good time.

WFAA chief meteorologist Pete Delkus is behind one of DFW's most popular twitter accounts, @wfaaweather.com, with more than 10,000 faithful followers. Sure, it's great to see accurate forecasts pop up in your twitter feed—it got really exciting during February's "Snowmageddon," especially—but mostly it's just satisfying to give the man a friendly ribbing whenever he misses the mark. He's a good sport about it, though he will lecture you on your potty mouth, so keep it clean while you're keeping him honest. Wait a second...is that rain we hear? Dammit Delkus!!!

There's something really satisfying about sending a laugh through the office cubicle farm. And when a friend directed us toward the local blog Good At Internet, we knew we'd hit gold. The site features graphic and/or idea mash-ups...which means our descriptions won't do them a bit of justice. "Herve VillaChe" features the Fantasy Island star's face on Che's portrait. "Guinnessis" is a pint of executive-rock draught. "Weird Owl"? Guess. "Conway Twitter," "Ben Folds Laundry" and "Rhett Midler" are especially good. But "Danzig with the Stars"? Brilliant. And it's all totally appropriate fodder for sending to coworkers while they're on conference calls or sitting around a big meeting needing to keep their shit together. Why? Because the entire site was born of the 9-to-5. Graphic artists Aaron White and Jordan Roberts come up with the ideas while riffing off one another during smoke breaks at work (said breaks probably directly account for the entry featuring the pack of cigs with Bob Seger on the carton entitled "Segerettes").

First, some definitions. Daily newspaper: We only have one in this burg. Newspaper columnist: A newspaper writer who manages to get out of his/her bathrobe at least once a year to do some useful reporting. Point is, we've already narrowed the field. But of what we have to work with, Katie Fairbank, author of The Dallas Morning News' "Problem Solver" column, is way at the top. Whether it's a guy who can't get Oncor to answer the phone during a power outage or somebody trying to get her whole family vaccinated for yellow fever, Fairbank always comes up with much more than a solution. Her writing is so clear and reporting so thorough that it's fun to read her column even if you never ever in your whole life plan to get vaccinated for yellow fever. Her items deal with problems on a broad spectrum of life and provide interesting little vignettes from the lives of real people...as opposed to the lives of columnists (you know who you are).

Dallas' top musical comedy stars come together every year for this gender-flipping revue that raises funds for Uptown Players. Men sing Broadway anthems written for female characters; women sing the men's songs. So you get a much darker jailhouse scene from Chicago and a sidesplitting version of "The Game" from Damn Yankees. Among the talented actors who perform in this annual extravaganza (scheduled next for May 2011) are B.J. Cleveland, Coy Covington, Sara Shelby-Martin, Denise Lee, Natalie King and Linda Leonard, all veteran pros on the DFW musical theater scene. What began as a one-night-only show many years ago is now a two-weekend event that plays to sold-out crowds and standing O's.

Just one week after California-based party promotion company Insomniac made its Electric Daisy Carnival debut in Texas with a well-attended (some 11,000 purchased tickets), gorgeously presented (the art installations around the fest's Fair Park offering were enough to make even the drug-free trip out), city of Dallas-backed offering, all hell broke out at the fest's Southern California version, which has a 17-year history. More than 200 left the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum-hosted festival injured and more than 100 concertgoers were taken to the hospital. Thankfully, that wasn't the case in the Dallas edition, which instead felt more like a free-love hipster affair soundtracked to electronica than anything else. To their credit, the folks at Insomniac have already hired a consulting agency to make sure that instances like that one never happen again, so here's hoping the California crises don't make Dallas officials balk at the thought of bringing this party back to town. Because make no mistake, it was a party—one of the most memorable ones of the year. And when you can enjoy a rave like this—and without taking drugs, like we did—it must be a good time.

For 30 years, the hundreds of members of the Turtle Creek Chorale have sung for the love of singing. Its an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization. Its 200 or so singers, all men, pay dues to be part of the group whose mission is to entertain, educate, unite and uplift our audiences and members through music that is distinguished for its innovation, diversity and artistic excellence. Besides concerts, they donate a combined 100,000 hours to rehearsals and service projects and to performing more than 50 benefit shows each year. They are Dallas largest and loudest glee club, part of a long tradition of all-male singing clubs that harkens back to the 1700s, when men in Europes German-speaking countries gathered in small groups to sing short songs called glees and catches. The popularity of glee clubs spread to England and then to the Ivy League colleges in the United States in the 1800s. Thanks to the TV series Glee, interest in group and choral singing has had a sudden resurgence, which has boosted interest in and the audience for big choirs like the Turtle Creek Chorale.

This year the chorale will perform its 31st season of formal concerts at the Meyerson Symphony Center, beginning with A Night for Peace at 8 p.m. October 18. That event is part of the Chorales Partners in Harmony program started seven years ago to reach out to churches. There are now 44 religious institutions affiliated with the chorale. (The latest to join is Congregation Shearith Israel.) The first joint concert of the season will feature the Turtle Creek Chorale, the SMU Meadows Chorale, Dallas Wind Symphony, Lay Family Organ and more than 300 singers in a mass choir performing peace anthems by Bach, Mendelssohn and Moses Hogan.

Big shows are nothing new for the chorale, which performs a series of standing-room-only Christmas concerts at the Meyerson every year. They have played sold-out concerts in Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin and Prague, and made two appearances at Carnegie Hall. Other milestones in the chorales recent history are the Texas premier of Night Passage, a one-act opera based on the arrest of Oscar Wilde; and the premiere of the TCC-commissioned work, Our Better Angels, composed by Andrea Clearfield with text by Robert Espindola.

The chorale also achieved another first recently with its co-performance with the United States Army Chorus. This event was the first time a gay-centric chorus has appeared with a U.S. military music ensemble. The chorale has recorded 36 CDs and several DVDs. There are concert videos on YouTube and they have been the subject of a couple of documentary films, including the poignant KERA-produced film After Goodbye: An AIDS Story, chronicling the impact of HIV-AIDS on the friends, families and members of the chorale. To date, the group has lost more than 200 members to HIV-AIDS since the 1980s.

Though the chorale is styled as a gay-friendly organization, conductor and artistic director Dr. Jonathan Palant prefers not to refer to it as a gay mens chorus. Being gay is not a requirement for membership and there are straight men in the group, Palant says. The group operates with no political agenda, though of course we have beliefs for equality and basic civil and human rights, says the conductor.

However Palant defines it, the all-male chorale membership is full of couples, many of whom met at rehearsals, and there are not a few ex-partners who met in the chorale, broke up and still sing on the same stage together.

Whats so special about the chorale is that its so much more than a chorusits a family, says Palant, who has a doctorate in choral conducting from the University of Michigan. It has become a sanctuary for many members who have been ostracized from their families, or who live far away from them. We are like brothers. It is, in many ways, a fraternity.

Among the singers currently in the chorale, only a few have been there since the beginning. Palant says theres about a 50 percent turnover in membership every three or four years, a natural progression given the transient nature of todays job market. The group did hold a reunion in its 25th year, gathering all the past conductors and as many chorus members as they could round up.

If theres a challenge for the future of the chorale, it is finding new ways to outdo ourselves, Palant says. In Dallas, its a constant struggle to top our last performance. Financially, however, theyre in good shape, finishing last season with a six-figure surplus on a $1 million annual budget. One way theyre saving money is by using social mediaTwitter and Facebookto do free marketing. Palant estimates more than 70 percent of current ticket sales are spurred by e-mail blasts, Facebook and Twitter posts, and online mentions by sites such as Dallas-based Gay List Daily. Going into the new season, Palant frets a little about increasing competition for the arts dollar in the Dallas Arts District. Competition for those disposable consumer dollars is greater now than ever, he says, but we have an ever-growing arts culture in this city, so its a wonderful problem to have.

Think back to the geeks in the camera club, hanging around the darkroom after school and arguing about their F-stops. So what if they weren't the ones carried off the football field in a giddy swarm of cheerleaders? Ten years later, we all know who the real cool kids turned out to be. And since Photopol.us came around, they even have a camera club of their own. Hosting shows in photo galleries around town, they're among the usual suspects you can expect to find with a booth at just about any über-hip Oak Cliff street festival, but the biggest network's online, with a mutual appreciation society built around a blog and a Flickr network for any and all shutter-lovers to trade photo tips like they used to do back in the darkroom.

Listen, Queen of the Lake: Don't think for one second that you've slipped one past all of us. We watched your video for "Window Seat," which came out right before the release of your latest opus, New Amerykah, Part II: Return of the Ankh, and we totally got the message you were putting out there in your low-budget clip about "groupthink" and the dangers that can come with being a member of the pack, rather than a lone wolf. We understood it. But we also saw you taking your clothes off in the clip until you were butt-ass nekkid, lying "dead" on the X that marks the spot where JFK got shot in Dealey Plaza. Sure, we took it at face value as an homage to Matt & Kim's earlier nude-in-Times-Square music video and a chance to pass along a message. But, more important, we knew that it was also a potentially incendiary offering—one the conservative political types in this town would too willingly jump all over. And boy did they: On the basis of a single complaint received by the cops (one that, for the record, came after the video's release, and not after its filming), you got smacked with a $500 fine for disorderly conduct. A shame, for sure. But, more than that, a small price to pay. No PR firm in the country could have given you that kind of national hype heading into your album release—and, if they could, they would've charged you at least 100 times that much. You turned a crappy situation around and made it work for you. For that—and, really, for a whole bounty of other reasons—we hope you know this much: In Dallas, Ms. Badu, you bow to no one.

Best Bit of Lawyering

When Judge Tena Callahan went full bore and ruled the state constitutional ban on same sex marriage violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, lawyers for one of the gay men, known in court documents only as J.B., told the judge not so fast. Sure, it was great she was ruling in their clients' favor but perhaps there was a way not to do it on such broad constitutional grounds with all its my-Constitution-is-more-supreme-than-your-Constitution snootiness. J.B's attorneys, Pete Schulte of Dallas and James Scheske of Austin, argued that granting a divorce to a same-sex couple in Texas is not against the Texas law that bans same-sex marriage. On the contrary, it promotes Texas law because it ends a same-sex marriage. See, granting a divorce would mean one less same-sex marriage in Texas, which Texas would say is a good thing. It's an argument J.B.'s attorney made to the 5th Court of Appeals. Too clever by half you say? Well, maybe, since the 5th Court ruled against granting the divorce, but stay tuned. This isn't over yet.

Unfailingly elegant, except when he's playing the odd redneck slob, Dallas theater actor Regan Adair is usually the best reason to see whatever play he's in. Over the past year he's been on a roll of great roles, starring as a 1950s TV comedy writer in WaterTower Theatre's Laughter on the 23rd Floor (by Neil Simon), as a suave businessman in love with a chubby chick and as a dunderhead factory worker hellbent on treating women like chattel in Dallas Theater Center's trilogy of Neil LaBute's Beauty Plays, and as a 1940s movie studio exec in Circle Theatre's premiere of Bruce Graham's Something Intangible. Adept at accents (he was hilarious as Bertie Wooster in several theaters' versions of the plays of P.G. Wodehouse), Adair is a fave among directors who appreciate his professionalism and his ability to dig deep into characters' psyches. "He goes to that place every time," says Kevin Moriarty, who directed him in LaBute's Fat Pig, "even in rehearsals."

Dallas Theater Center returns to its old home at Kalita Humphreys Theater one more time this year for the last performances of its beloved version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Adapted by Richard Hellesen, with music by David de Berry, the show is a heart-melting, spectacularly staged run-up to the holidays. This year's production, directed by DTC company member Matthew Gray, will star Dallas actor Chamblee Ferguson as Scrooge (he's played Bob Cratchit before). Funny, scary, soul-stirring, this Christmas Carol has for many years been the most popular show in DTC's season. So to the cast of the farewell run of this old fave, "God bless you, every one!"

The collective known as the Dallas Family Band seemed to rise out of nowhere last summer, with at least one of its member acts—a formidable list that includes Jacob Metcalf, The Beaten Sea, The Fox and the Bird, Wheeler Sparks, Spooky Folk and Lalagray—popping up on nearly every folk-tinged bill in town. It's their guerilla supergroup performances as the Dallas Family Band that generate the most attention—you can find them busking at the occasional street festival or outdoor concert—but it's the group's irrepressible spirit and fervent commitment to songcraft (See the Beaten Sea's excellent debut album for further evidence) that really make them worth listening to. Sure, at times the Family Band sounds a little like a church camp sing-along that's about to bust into a spirited rendition of "Kumbaya" or "One Tin Soldier," but in our culture, a bit of positivism is a breath of fresh air.

2010 marked the first year that Dallas' pride and joy of celluloid and big screens left the AFI umbrella and adopted its own moniker: The Dallas International Film Festival. And it was a banner year thanks to the delicious programming talents of artistic director James Faust, senior programmer Sarah Harris and chairman of the board Michael Cain. There were roughly 30 films ranging from big budget to local indie, spread from morning to night over the festival's 10 days (and we didn't miss a one).That there were gems that still replay on our brain-screen some six months later says much about the quality of the selections: in particular, the lush, dramatic Italian-set I Am Love; the captivating, adventurous Korean spaghetti Western The Good, The Bad, The Weird; the comedic yet troubling doc The Red Chapel; the sinister yet sympathetic Lovers of Hate; and the absolutely uplifting Thunder Soul. DIFF2010 was safely some of the most gratifying (albeit emotionally exhausting) time we've spent in a theater seat.

From Reunion Tower to One Arts Plaza, there are plenty of landmarks on the Dallas skyline to catch your eye—and Justin Terveen shoots them all with monkish dedication. What makes his work stand out, though, is the way an abandoned high-rise tower, a run-down shack on Deep Ellum's fringes or a homeless guy in a doorway all get treated with equal reverence. "The importance of preservation, and what we've lost—that's been a big part of what's fueled me," Terveen says. It shows in his repeat trips for fresh angles on 100-year-old landmarks that are staring down the wrecking ball. In the six years since the 31-year-old shooter moved downtown, Terveen says his focus has always been the same: "grit, streets and old stuff"—three things Dallas does best.

A member of Dallas Theater Center's Brierley Resident Acting Company, Vahle has been acting professionally for 25 years. Known for her versatility and strength in a variety of roles (she once played the title role in Macbeth), Vahle's had a great run of star turns recently. She was lovely as royalty in DTC's pop-art A Midsummer Night's Dream, then turned in what was arguably the best performance of the 2010 season as Linda Loman in that theater's intense staging of Death of a Salesman. Opposite New York actor Jeffrey DeMunn as Willy, Vahle gave a breathtaking performance as a woman determined to hold her family together as her husband slowly lost his grip on reality. Those who saw that Salesman and heard Vahle reinvent the "attention must be paid" speech will never forget her in that role. The SMU grad (from the MFA program) is also an assistant professor of acting and voice at University of North Texas. (Pay attention, kids.)

Costume designer Aaron Patrick Turner makes the metaphorical silk purse out of sows' ears for many a local theatrical production. Working on lavish budgets or on the "Can you get it free?" plan, Turner has earned a reputation as a meticulous creator of beautiful period costumes. Among his best are the clothes he made for Trinity Shakespeare Festival's Twelfth Night, Amphibian Stage's Icarus, Contemporary Theatre of Dallas' Oldest Living Graduate, Rabbit Hole and The Cemetery Club, and this summer's elegant 1930s wardrobe for the comedy The 39 Steps at Stage West. As local stage costumers go, Turner's got the title of "best" all sewn up.

Regular readers of the Observer music section won't find this nod as much of a surprise. The best local release of 2010? That's easy: It's Sarah Jaffe's Suburban Nature, a collection of heartbreaking, vulnerable tunes penned by the prodigious 24-year-old Dallas native, who for the past year has toured the country supporting the likes of fellow DFW products Midlake and Norah Jones while making quite a name for herself along the way. The praise she's earned has been plentiful, coming even from national outlets like Paste magazine and USA Today. Jaffe's blend of indie rock, folk and pop is intoxicating, relatable and, most of all, pleasant. And it's tough to find just one reason why. Her wavering vocals, her close-to-the-vest lyrics, her tasteful guitar picking and strumming, and her impeccable backing players' performances all add up to a powerhouse record.

The Conduit isn't just a "walk in, stand and stare" sort of art gallery. Oh, sure, you can do that all day long, but the spacious gallery nestled in the Design District doesn't require you to keep still or whisper your thoughts. You will feel the creative energy in the air, and if you're fortunate to make it to an opening or art happening, you'll definitely see it in full force. Art devotees come out in droves to celebrate what owner/director Nancy Whitenack and assistant director/Project Room curator Danette Dufilho have to showcase. The gallery has featured interactive sculpture, video art installations, large scale paintings, site-specific installations and murals, text and diary adaptations and collage. Conduit shows three full exhibitions concurrently, most of them of solo artists—many of whom are no strangers to our state. Whitenack says there is a strong representation of artists working in Texas, and an equal amount of other artists scattered across the country.

We always heard if you didn't graduate high school and go on to become a professional dancer you'd be relegated to watching So You Think You Can Dance? from your couch for eternity. Wait, what? No. Contemporary Ballet Dallas knows that isn't the case when it opens its East Dallas doors almost daily and welcomes adults to revisit dance classes typically reserved for kids and teens. Naturally, children's classes do abound, but so do ones for adults, and for all experience levels. It's possible to start from the beginning—or just recover what time has erased—with an encouraging, professional dance instructor and a beginner ballet or tap workshop. The school also offers hip-hop dance and Nia movement as well as jazz and samba. The old saying isn't true. You can go back...and gain some muscle tone doing it.

In three years as artistic director at Dallas Theater Center, Kevin Moriarty has experienced the high of moving his company into the shiny new Wyly Theatre downtown, and the low of a box office bomb like the Bible-themed In the Beginning (which he directed). But nobody faults the guy for taking big chances. Moriarty, an Indiana native who came to Dallas after working at major theaters on the East Coast, is a bold director of classics and new work and a major champion of local talent. All of the actors in his stagings of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and of Neil LaBute's Fat Pig (part of DTC's three-month long trilogy of The Beauty Plays) were hometowners, a blend of veterans of DFW stages, SMU drama students and kids from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where Moriarty also teaches. In Moriarty's biggest production to date as a director, this summer's $800,000 "revisal" of the 1966 Strouse-Adams musical It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman!, he provided plum roles for lots of thesps who'd paid their dues at Kitchen Dog Theater, WaterTower, Contemporary Theatre of Dallas and other houses. Being in a Moriarty show has become the new benchmark for what it means to be a Dallas actor. We can't wait to see what he does next and who gets to be in it.

Everybody's got to start somewhere and many a Dallas actor, director and playwright have been launched from this annual summer festival of fringe theater companies overseen by Bath House regulars Marty van Kleeck and David Meglino. Only troupes that don't have their own home stages can qualify for this three-week event, which features mostly new scripts (none more than an hour long) and fresh, new faces. Such up-and-coming talents as The Drama Club started at FIT, as did Matt Lyle's Bootstraps Comedy group, which has since transferred to Chicago. A dozen different one-act plays rotate in repertory throughout the festival, with marathon viewings on weekends. For diehard theater lovers, FIT is a feast.

Ain't no party like a Cool Out party 'cause a Cool Out party don't quit. Quite literally, actually: For the past few years, Dallas has flocked to Tony Schwa and Big J's weekly residency upstairs at the Cavern, which remains the best DJ-helmed party in the Dallas area. Even as more DJs have become hip to the fact that Monday nights are the new Fridays, and that Greenville Avenue's the place to bring those weeknight crowds, Schwa and J have never skipped a beat. They spin their disco and hip-hop tunes for their loving, regular, strong crowds and let the music do the talking. Even in the face of new weeklies at Kush, Sugar Shack and Billiard Bar, all of which aim to take a bite out of Cool Out's reign as the best weekly in town, the duo just seems to be getting stronger and stronger. Perhaps it's their infectious energy and welcoming spirit. More likely, though, it's that they know what music to play to get people dancing without inhibition. It's time the competition came to grips with a certain fact: Cool Out's not in danger of cooling out any time soon.

The goal of Art Conspiracy is simple: to bring artists together to create, in 24 hours, art that can then be auctioned to folks who can't/don't generally buy art...while they enjoy live music. The proceeds may benefit a pre-selected charity, but in reality, the event draws so many creative people (and fans of creative people) that the entire art scene gets a boost. There's just one thing: That 24-hour art is how-you-say amazing. The auction scenes are animated thanks to talented auctioneers and can be, well, politely cut-throat if two folks are really gunning for the same piece. Prepare yourself ahead of time. Thaw the credit card or visit the ATM for a couple-three days. Practice your mantra: "It's OK. It's for charity. It's OK. I can write it off my taxes." Exercise your dominant arm, making sure you can raise it, wave a program or achieve a predetermined signal in a quick, smooth motion. Get there early and do a once-over of all the pieces. Now you're ready to bid Art Conspiracy.

There's a reason why WFAA's 10 p.m. newscast is consistently atop the Nielsen ratings: Veteran anchors Gloria Campos and John McCaa are the strongest duo in the game, and relevant stories take precedence over those, found on other stations, that we sometimes confuse for infomercials. Gary Reaves, Rebecca Lopez, Jason Whitely and Chris Hawes highlight a deep crop of reporters who track down stories other stations either aren't looking for or are afraid to touch. Top-notch investigative reporters Brett Shipp and Byron Harris, political guru Brad Watson, popular weatherman Pete Delkus and opinionated sports director Dale Hanson round out a stellar team, and even if local news isn't your thing, it's always worthwhile to watch the uncomfortable banter between Delkus and Hansen—always a train wreck waiting to happen.

In 1997, three years after taking the nation by storm with their still-holds-up-quite-well major label debut, Rubberneck, the now-seminal North Texas rockers in the Toadies went back into the studio to record their follow-up. The resulting album was Feeler, a disc that the band now looks back upon as perhaps the best in its catalog. Thing is, Interscope Records, to which the band was signed at the time, didn't agree. In fact, it straight up hated the sucker and just scrapped it. And with that move, the Toadies' eventual breakup in the early '00s was essentially cast. Sure, the band came back to Interscope and released Hell Below/Stars Above in 2001, but the damage had been done; the band had all but been forgotten in a world suddenly obsessed with nu-metal and rap-rock. But the Toadies would eventually get their revenge. After re-forming in 2008 and releasing their well-received comeback record, No Deliverance, on local label Kirtland Records, someone pitched the idea of re-recording Feeler and putting it out for the fans to finally judge; after all, Interscope may have still owned the recordings, but the Toadies owned the songs. Earlier this year, the band got its revenge, releasing Feeler on Kirtland and continuing its resurgence—a resurgence, mind you, that finds the band bigger now than it ever really was in its supposed heyday. Oh and one more thing: Releasing Feeler on Kirtland gave the band the chance to finally do something it had always wanted to do, but never could while on Interscope—talk shit in the press about the terrible, terrible judgment of the major-label hacks who clearly don't know a good thing when they hear it.

It's no small thing being branded an activist judge in Texas, particularly because judges are elected and the state is so conservative and activist judges raise the ire of heavily financed tort reformers. Add to this the fact that the judge is in family court where the law is rarely challenged or changed, and you can sense how much courage it would take to grant a divorce to a gay couple in Texas, when there's a state constitutional amendment forbidding that same gay couple from ever getting married here in the first place. Yet in October, two men who were legally married in Massachusetts and had moved to Dallas presented themselves before the 302nd District Judge Tena Callahan and requested a divorce. Not so fast, said Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who tried to intervene in the case, representing the state's interest in defending the constitutional ban. But Callahan refused to let him join the party and then ruled that the Texas ban on same-sex marriage violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. She later amended her ruling and based it on the Texas Family Code, but what the heck, the line was drawn. Although the conservative 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas reversed her ruling, Callahan's decision might have sparked an Austin judge to rule in the same manner. With this ruling also on appeal, before the more liberal 3rd Court of Appeals, the case may be in the courts for quite some time. We can only hope that Judge Callahan will be too.

You really have to hand it to KKXT-91.7 FM. Even if its playlists are pretty random, the station, with its tag line "music to the core," is a refreshing entity amid the national corporate-helmed options cluttering your FM dial. Never is the KERA sister station and NPR affiliate's free-form nature more evident than for two hours on Sunday nights when Paul Slavens takes over the airwaves. Slavens knows no format. He'll play whatever he wants—and, more often than not, whatever you want—so long as it's original and different from what you'll hear elsewhere. He'll play old, forgotten AM classics, oddball pop tunes and, perhaps most endearingly, plenty of local tunes. A musician himself—a genius behind the keys and in improvised lyrics—Slavens knows firsthand that not everyone wants to hear the same Rihanna song over and over. Or, in KKXT's case, even the same Wilco one. Slavens takes us on a sonic adventure that's perfect, calming listening to end your weekend and start your week. His cool-as-ice on-air vocal delivery doesn't hurt either.

Yes, AMC NorthPark 15 is part of a major chain. But, hold up, naysayers. It's also got ample leg space (good for shopping bags and tired legs), great sound and a burly concession stand. The theater provides both 3D and non-3D options for films available in both formats, and offers a killer blend of mainstream big-budget flicks and indie/art house films. If you're playing hooky, there's really no better place to rock out a double (or triple) feature thanks to the well-staggered viewing schedule and numerous distractions to fill gaps between shows. And, really, who are we to bitch about AMC MovieWatcher rewards and line-avoiding ticket kiosks? The Inwood, Magnolia and Angelika are fine destination theaters, but when you're strolling through the merchandised masses and need an escape, AMC NorthPark is a silver-screened heaven.

If only because you can only shoot so many portraits in front of brick walls and murals, the Traveling Man has been a welcome addition to the Dallas cityscape. But after a year of keeping watch over Deep Ellum's western front, the hulking guitar-headed robot man, towering public art installation and friend to all giant metal birds, has finally shed his novelty. A year ago as we watched the Traveling Man come together, artists Brad Oldham and Brandon Oldenburg said the design was all about nodding to Deep Ellum's history—from the Traveling Man's pants of steel to a creation myth about an elm tree and a bottle of gin—while haters complained it was too corporate, too whimsical or even too reflective. A year on, though, the argument's died down and this three-piece sculpture series has become something else entirely: a familiar welcome home into the city's best-loved neighborhood.

If you attended any musical theater productions in or around Dallas over the past 12 months, you probably saw 21-year-old SMU theater major Katharine Gentsch singing and dancing somewhere just behind the lead actors. Since September 2009, she has appeared in a remarkable string of shows: as a "Hot Box Girl" in Guys and Dolls at WaterTower Theatre, in the chorus of Breathe at Uptown Players, playing the little sister in Sanders Family Christmas at the Bath House Cultural Center (a role she'll reprise this fall), singing and dancing in Lyric Stage's Showboat, in Bye Bye Birdie at Richland College and in a different, professional production of the same show at Lyric, hoofing it in Uptown's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and in Garland Summer Musicals' 42nd Street, and most recently in Lyric's big-budget My Fair Lady. When she's not onstage, Gentsch is tweeting about how much she loves musicals. One day soon she'll get that starring role, but until then save a little applause for the pretty redhead just out of the spotlight.

Presented last fall by The City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs in conjunction with Theatre Communications Group, the Free Night of Theater launched a national program to bring new audiences to live theater performances. Thousands took up the offers of free tickets from Kitchen Dog Theater, Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, the Eisemann Center, Rover Dramawerks, Teatro Dallas, Dallas Children's Theater, Dallas Theater Center and Shakespeare Dallas, plus a dozen others. The generous cooperation of these arts organizations raised awareness of this city's great theater companies and allowed many new audience members to experience the excitement of professional live theater for the first time.

His biggest career accomplishment? Saving the governor's kidnapped son all the way back in 1985. And, OK, maybe he's been riding that train about 25 years too long at this point. But the fact remains: Dan Stark is a goddamn hero, folks. And it's not just his mustache, his always-present aviator shades, his sweet 1979 Trans Am or the fact that he lives in a trailer in the shadow of the Fair Park Ferris wheel that does the trick. No, it's that somehow, against all odds, Stark and his straight-laced partner Jack Bailey, despite being pinned with petty crime investigation after petty crime investigation, manage to bust big-time punk after big-time punk—and at a clip of about once a week, no less! It's impressive to say the least. Add in the fact that he does this while bedding female witnesses left and right—while drinking on the job—and, really, that's a man worth decorating. The guy's already had one TV movie made in his honor. At this point, he deserves a ridiculously highly rated TV series. Maybe on Fox?

Conventional wisdom holds that rich guys don't like to air their dirty laundry in public, which is likely why the descendants of H.L. Hunt settled their family feud on the courthouse steps in May. It's also why we relished the opportunity to view the dirty laundry filed by billionaire Ross Perot Jr. against billionaire Mark Cuban in the form of a civil case that alleged Cuban had racked up so much debt during the nine years he has been running the Dallas Mavericks ($270 million) that he had basically run the team into the ground. Perot claimed that Cuban's bad management had jeopardized the 5 percent minority interest Perot, through his Hillwood Properties, still retains in the Mavs. Claiming that the Mavs were nearly bankrupted by Mark Cuban seemed about as likely as saying that the Rangers weren't nearly bankrupted by Tom Hicks. Although Perot did his talking through lawyers, Cuban took his case to the Internet and e-mailed various press outlets, telling them that the lawsuit was an act of desperation on the part of Perot, who had lost big on his Victory Park development. No matter the right and wrong of it, the public was given a glimpse of rich guys getting all shitty with each other. And the prospect of watching how the rich play hardball remains as the lawsuit takes on age and animosity.

Sure, a classy dinner, a bottle of wine and a movie says "romance," but it's not exactly the stuff of sweeping love songs. No heartbroken musician out there pens tunes about the time they had the fish at Central 214 and rented The Proposal. A song-worthy kiss comes with hints of danger, apprehension and excitement. Your heart will go pitter-patter with both love and adrenaline when you make a late-night run at climbing the fence of AT&T's telephone pole-climbing training ground at the corner of Bryan and Fitzhugh in East Dallas with the object of your affection. The barbed-wire is easily conquered with a thick flannel blanket, and there are plenty of footholds at the northwest corner of the compound. We're not saying it's like taking candy from a baby, but we are saying that maybe we know a girl who did this in a mini-skirt, unscathed. And once you've shown your prowess at trespassing vertically, getting horizontal is the easy part.

The Texas Pinball Festival will celebrate its 18th annual event this March, proving that even in the age of Wii and PlayStation, people still appreciate the craftsmanship and tactile experience of their favorite arcade games. A flat fee gets you in the door for unlimited play on a plethora of machines—for a much heftier fee, you can even take some of them home. You'll see machines you thought you'd never see again, from cool, vintage '70s Playboy and Capt. Fantastic games to those based on best-forgotten '90s films like Demolition Man ("Featuring Academy Awards Winning Actress Sandra Bullock!"). And if the pinball isn't enough, the people watching is amazing—whether it's the hardcore competition players or the blinking light salesmen or the drunk middle-aged couples down from Oklahoma, hoping to rekindle a little of that teenage feeling with a sweet multiball or two.

Dallas used to be dotted with little bait and tackle stores where you could acquire a little bit of equipment and a whole bunch of information just by stopping in. Now, of course, the huge category-killers like Bass Pro Shops and Academy have driven most of the mom-and-pops out of business. One of the interesting exceptions to that rule is Barlow's, just south of Arapaho Road on the southbound service drive of Central Expressway in Richardson. Barlow's maintains a serious Web presence, selling specialized bait and equipment to guides and dedicated fishermen. Maybe that's what allows them to keep the retail store open. However they do it, their store is a great place to pick up inside scoop on area lakes from Texoma to Fork. The people behind the counter know what's biting, where and on what. Sometimes you don't even have to ask. Just slouch around and keep your ears open, because somebody else is always up there trying to pick up some secrets.

No small matter, balancing the public's right to a free and open judiciary against the privacy rights of the litigants who play within its courtrooms. But Dallas County District Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons has spent much of his public career trying to strike that balance. On July 26, he made court records available over the Internet, initially releasing more than 13 million images to the public. Currently the dockets of 10 criminal courts, eight civil courts and all seven family courts can be viewed online. Documents for the remaining courts will be available by year's end. This may be a boon to the media but not so much to those litigants who object to public disclosure of private matters. To assist in these privacy concerns, individuals can request that their Social Security numbers be redacted from documents and certain records—those not required by law to remain public—may be restricted. Lawyers and the media will have access to all documents save those sealed or made confidential by law. Tricky business, maintaining some semblance of privacy in an electronic world. But Fitzsimmons seems bent on trying to get it right.

Driving through Highland Park can be a blissful experience. Something about passing by the well-manicured lawns, unbelievable houses, and beautiful women jogging behind blonde Gerber babies in strollers always takes our mind off of our car's busted air conditioner—for a moment. Tucked away in the middle of it all sits one of the area's most beautiful gardens: Lakeside Park. A wide canal meanders through perfectly landscaped grounds until it reaches a peaceful waterfall underneath a wooden bridge. Droves of lily pads cover the water's surface, and long leafy branches provide shade for several park benches. Kids love the park's giant teddy-bear statues, and for adults, it's the perfect location for a romantic picnic or just a leisurely evening stroll.

We tried to kindle up some way of choosing between Dallas' two national chain giants, but truth be told, deciding between them is like trying to pick your favorite leaf in the Amazonian forest. Similar discounts, similar in-store readings, similar selection of new titles. You got your coffee, your fairly limited selection of books on CDs. Oh, if only there were a way to reach up into the air and effortlessly retrieve a decision between the two, or some magical, electronic piece of wizardry that we could use to calculate which is better. But we're lightweights when it comes to making those sorts of decisions. We're all thumbs. And we're seriously hoping that someone gets our point in time for our next birthday. This too is a hint.

It would be wrong to pigeonhole Bows and Arrows as just a craft haven. It's so much more than that. The multi-use space—owned and operated by visual artists, entrepreneurs and general Renaissance couple Adam and Alicia Rico—is at once full-service floral shop, art gallery, depot for handmade specialty gifts, and yes, a center for classes that range in topic from floral arranging (basic, wedding and more) to fiber arts (felting, batik) to paper works (screen printing, chandeliers, monoprinting and more). All classes are taught by artists (such as Lizzy Wetzel and paper nerds) who may be experts in their own field but don't scoff at even the most inexperienced new student. Plus, classes are so inspiring you'll want to assign your own homework. When was the last time that happened?

On some level, 22-year-old Fort Worth-residing Yasmine Villasana had the right idea when, back in June, rather than slowing down upon approaching the exit toll booths at DFW Airport, she sped up, angled her car toward the between-booth barricades that, in her defense, kind of do look like ramps, and flew right over the tolls. Sure, she suffered minor injuries, saw her car go up in flames and got arrested by police, but we'd be lying if we said we didn't understand her plight. We hate those tolls; it makes no sense that we have to pay just to get into the airport and drop our friends off at their departure gate. So, no, we don't blame her for going all General Lee on the place—we're actually thinking about doing it ourselves next time.

The days are long gone when crowds of kids gathered around a big ramp at Bachman Lake, sporting mullets and neon surf wear, to catch the city's best skateboarding stars in action. That's not entirely a bad thing, but what today's skaters have gained in fashion sense, they've largely lost in tight-knit community vibes that once coursed through Dallas' smaller skate scene. Keeping the old spirit alive, Guapo's a hangout built around old local skate legends, with an eye on "passing along the stoke" to the next generation. It may not look like much from the outside, but this warehouse in the Cedars is home to the best bowl and street-style skating in the city. It's a private club most days, but two or three times a month, open houses let any budding skater roll in and check it out.

Luit and Jamie Huizenga or their employees are always up in the middle of the night making runs to D/FW Airport, because they import flowers directly from the bloemenmarkt, the Amsterdam Flower Market, rather than buying through broker/distributors in the United States. That makes Cebolla the place to go, not only for floral arrangements but for your own fresh robust cut flowers for your own creations. Luit is Dutch and knows the Amsterdam market like the back of his hand. Jamie is a genius designer. Together in an earlier life they created Dr. Delphinium. Their new store on Maple is a sight to behold whether you buy anything or not.

Browsing Penzeys Spices' selection of more than 250 different herbs, spices, seasonings, sprinkles and blends from around the world is enough to make one's head spin. Especially while trying to choose between numerous different peppercorns, chili powders or cinnamon (they stock more than a half-dozen different varieties of each), but, luckily, as you sniff your way around the store, the knowledgeable employees are always ready with suggestions to help you spice up any recipe from tacos, burgers or curries to cakes, cookies or custards. But the best part about Penzeys is that if you don't have time to make a trip to the store, there's always the expedited shipping from the company's online catalog. Penzeys has sold its world-wide array of spices by mail order for more than 20 years now, opening its first storefront in '97. (The Dallas spot opened in 2005.) Our new favorite purchase is the new salt-free Arizona Dreaming, which is an all-purpose blend that lends a "South of the Border" flavor to any dish. Warning though, once you go Penzeys Spices, you never really go back.

Never pay the fee for a red-light camera ticket. Just ignore it. The city can't prove you were driving the car, and all they'll do is send you warning letters. That's just one bit of free legal advice we—er, someone we know—happened to overhear in the waiting room at the law firm of John Gioffredi. That person we know had a traffic-ticket situation far more complicated than a mere red-light ticket, involving multiple petty offenses with steep fines that had built to a fiscally impossible sum. Yet the very day they walked in, all warrants were lifted and he was able to get his driver's license back after months of nearly pissing his pants every time he saw a cop in the rear-view mirror. To top it off, the cases were all dismissed without having to pay a dime in fines.

We're total music geeks, and in our DVD collection you'll find more than a few rock docs on our favorite bands, from the Stones to Wilco to Arcade Fire. The guys at Good Records are exactly the same, only they've decided to invite all of you over every Monday night to watch their music DVDs, eat popcorn and drink beer while lounging on the store's bean bag chairs. So far, their Music Movie Mondays series has presented documentaries, biopics and concert films featuring the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Daniel Johnston, Rush, James Brown, Brian Jonestown Massacre and more. So get out of the house this Monday and commune with your fellow music lovers. It's completely free, after all...unless you walk out with an arm-load of new records, in which case you're still supporting a good cause.

Dallas boasts many fine man-made bodies of water—but only one of them starts dancing when the beef song comes on. Purists will insist it's "Hoe-down," from Aaron Copland's "Rodeo" suite, just one of the handful of Texas-themed songs that accompany the dancing water by Fair Park's Hall of State. The new fountains in the 700-foot pool, designed by the folks who did the Bellagio's fountains in Las Vegas, were part of a $12 million renovation that also added two giant statues that replicate original pieces lost after the park's opening in 1936. The fountains only run on special occasions, but when they do, it's like reliving the end of Ocean's Eleven in your own back yard.

There comes a time in the life of every relationship, be it a marriage or a couple in need of a jump start, when the two just need to get away without really getting away. Maybe the kids are too young to go too far, or Mom's got caretaker fatigue, or date night has gotten mundane. Sure, there is always the Ritz or The W, but then afterward, how can you afford to feed the kids? Not so with the historic Belmont Hotel, which has the vibe of being cool and reasonable at once. It's a different aesthetic from these other fine hotels, more swank than luxurious, more urban then urbane. Take the Art Moderne architecture, the stunning view of downtown Dallas, a swimming pool that hosts a "Dive-In Movie" series, a great bar and patio, and a barbecue joint (Smoke) that dares call itself upscale. To say that it feels as though you have been transported out of the city doesn't do the place or Dallas justice. It just feels good to be there: a nearby adventure for those in need of renewal. Or raw hotel sex.

Homecoming Queens Filmmaker Israel Luna stirred up controversy with his Ticked Off Trannies with Knives, but just wait for the next two films in his transploitation trilogy. By Elaine Liner PHOTO BY MARK GRAHAM

With his transploitation indie film Ticked Off Trannies with Knives, Dallas writer-director Israel Luna earned the crown as this years king of underground cinema controversy. That was fine with him. The more sparkly dust he stirred up with his little $50,000 revenge fantasy about characters named Emma Grashun and Rachel Slurr, the more film festivals he and his extravagantly coiffed leading ladies were invited to. An awful piece of cinema, wrote one blog critic at the movies festival debut. But Varietys critic dug it, comparing Luna to slash-and-trash filmmakers Roger Corman, Russ Meyer and Quentin Tarantino, and writing that The films physical deformities are hardly out of line with the sense of transgressive edginess perpetrated by Luna, whose subjects are meant to representand who can argue?one of the final frontiers of societal intolerance. Note that the same review ends with this: Production values are deliberately and appropriately horrible.

And how does Luna describe the plot of his film? A group of transgender women get their revenge on the lowlife rednecks that bashed them, he explains. Then he cant help himself. Its the sequel to Howards End. Hes kidding, of course. But it was no joke when, at the esteemed Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan, the film drew the ire of GLAAD, which disapproved of Lunas use of the word trannies, among other things. To pacify the protests, Luna made some tweaks to the final cut, taking out the real names of gay-bashing victims. The backlash had one major positive result, however; it brought attention and support from one of Lunas idols, Pink Flamingos and Hairspray filmmaker John Waters, who praised the movie and talked it up on cable TVs Joy Behar Show.

TOTWK was featured at this summers Q Cinema in Fort Worth, at the Philadelphia QFest and at the horror-only Another Hole in the Head Festival in San Francisco. The film has been picked up by a distributor and will open on Halloween as a midnight feature at the Inwood in Dallas and on other screens around the country. A DVD due out later this year will be a 20-minutes-longer directors cut with extras that include a blooper reel and interviews with the cast.

Luna, 38, is a self-taught moviemaker who never went to film school. Born in Las Vegas, Nevada, he was raised in tiny Wellington, Texas, up in the Panhandle. He started making small, scrappy, gay-centric movies 10 years ago. TOTWK was inspired, he says, by exploitation films of the 1970s and 80s, campy gore-horror like I Spit on Your Grave, as well as by recent real-life hate crimes against people in the LGBT community.

Shooting for a few weeks with a group of actor friends he plans to use in more films, Luna was writer, director, cameraman and editor on Ticked Off Trannies not because Im a control freak, but because I couldnt pay anybody else to do these jobs. I didnt even pay myself. He says he plans to use his Dallas-based stars, Krystal Summers, Kelexis Davenport, Willam Belli, Erica Andrews and Jenna Skyy, in the next two films in a planned transploitation trilogy. Financed primarily by individual donations, including generous checks from a Dallas lesbian in her 80s, Lunas films are made with little support from more mainstream-oriented Dallas-based film professionals. The Dallas film industry has not been supportive of my work at all. Its been me doing it on my own, bringing in friends, hiring cast and crew. Im more appreciated outside of Dallas, says Luna.

Future work on Lunas schedule includes shooting a short high-definition (via iPhone video) documentary called 5ive, featuring five LGBT hate crime victims talking about their experiences. Then its on to the next film in the trannie trilogy. Luna envisions it as the ultimate grindhouse zombie thriller, pitting angry armies of the undead against the only two groups of survivors left on a zombie-dominated earth: members of the LGBT community and Bible-thumpers. Kurt Cameron has had the Christian film market to himself for too many years, Luna says. So what would happen if in a movie Kurt was left behind and had to count on gay people to survive? Now thats a complexity we havent seen before. And I already have a name for one of the main trannie charactersBeth Ann Phettamin.

Working title: Kicking Zombie Ass for Jesus. Something tells us dealing with ticked off trannies was a slice of heaven compared with what will happen when that movie opens.

There is much to recommend about this Bishop Arts District chocolatier—from the truffles to the "Crack In A Box" bridge mix—but the "Chubby Nuts" are a good place to start: a mix of macadamias, soy nuts, almonds and hazelnuts, all candied, salted and covered in chocolate and powdered sugar. They're so much a staple of mad scientist-confectioner Katherine Clapner's repertoire they've even found their way into inventions like her frozen chocolate-apricot-mole Push-up Pop. Clapner runs to local and seasonal foods, gleefully tossing around tastes like paprika, habanero and curry in homemade marshmallows, kettle corn and truffles. The uncluttered interior leaves much of the confectioner's work out in the open, while folks behind the counter are almost suspiciously patient answering even the most basic questions.

You know the pool scenes in The Sandlot? The ones with the oh-so-hot Wendy Peffercorn teasingly applying suntan lotion to her sun-kissed skin from her perch above the 1960s community pool that the baseball-obsessed neighborhood kids go to only when it's too hot outside to play a game? Well, the pool at Fraternal Order of Eagles Lodge No. 3108, not too far from the Dallas Arboretum and White Rock Lake, is pretty much exactly like that—only, there's no Wendy Peffercorn (or any lifeguards, for that matter), and instead of dozens of kids, it's mostly attractive twenty- and thirty-somethings showing off their bathing suit bodies and freshly applied skin ink. Also: There are two bars (one inside and one outside), and, after paying a $7 cover charge to enter the place (assuming you're not a member), the beers won't even cost you four bucks. Plus, the whole place feels like it's ripped out of the '60s, which, OK, it probably was. FOE's pool is a slice of the past, updated to placate the contemporary.

The Consignment Store may have a generic name, but its selection is second to none. Items found throughout the 15,000-square-foot showroom in North Dallas are from manufacturers from around the world and include various dining tables, sofas, desks, armoires and beds. While most of the inventory is used and antique furniture, knickknacks and clothing are also for sale. In addition to the unique assortment of items, The Consignment Store commits to daily price reductions to make room for new inventory. Lower prices and a steady stream of new goodies—we knew there was a reason they've been in business for 24 years.

You just can't rush cheese, and you're a fool if you try. Everything about cheesemonger Rich Rogers' Oak Lawn Avenue shop suggests a slower pace, from the rustic wooden tables and cheese boards to the cool light streaming in from outside. It'd take awhile to work your way through Scardello's cheese case, packed with edible science projects from around the world, cheeses that gush when sliced, cheeses rubbed down with espresso and veined with obscure tastes, cheeses made from the milk of strange animals. With regular cheese classes to peel the mystery off the dairy world's most pungent members, and late-night jazz to challenge even the strongest of constitutions, Scardello has brought a little more culture to one food that, by definition, already had plenty.

While studying to become a Master Gardener, Janet Smith conceived of this lovely little public garden in 2005. It was completed two years later by the Dallas County Master Gardeners and garden designer Carmel Womack, and now blooms with all manner of flowers as a sustainable, year-round garden designed to attract butterflies. The plants are watered with a drip irrigation system and the garden is accessible by a ramp, with benches for a comfy sitdown. In the middle is a specially commissioned sculpture, Whirl, by Austin artist John Christensen. A lovely addition to the Bath House environs.

If you haven't been to Sprouts, picture Whole Foods with better produce and prices. The wide aisles also allow for easy navigation of the fresh fruits and veggies, and the staff is always helpful and friendly. The Arizona-based company's business model was developed more than 30 years ago in San Diego as Henry's Marketplace, and its first store opened locally in Plano five years ago. The only downside is that Sprouts is located in a dry area, meaning beer and wine sales are prohibited. But being a one-stop shop has never been Sprouts' forte. It has always counted on customers making a second stop. After all, it's not like they carry laundry detergent either.

Located right in the heart of Uptown, which, in case you didn't know, is where every pretty college coed in Texas is required to live upon graduating, the McKinney Avenue location of the Albertson's grocery chain is, without a doubt, the greatest grocery store in the entire metroplex—and not because it has a solid selection of produce and the same exact things you'll find stocking the shelves of every other modern-day supermarket. No, this Albertson's location deserves a nod for another reason entirely: Its patrons. We've shopped all around town looking for the stores with the best deals, and you know what we've found? The prices are all pretty much the same everywhere. But this location—and we've been there enough to say it's not even up for debate—has far and away the best-looking crop of shoppers you'll find at any grocery store in the city, and maybe even America. Mom always told us to try meeting a nice girl, and to maybe look for her in a place that isn't a bar. Well, thanks to the McKinney Albertson's, we're finally looking. Probably too much.

The Texas Discovery Gardens now include a new wonderful butterfly conservatory that is basically a rain forest in a three-story greenhouse brimming with exotic butterflies. Elevated walkways allow guests to follow the butterflies all the way up into the tops of the trees. For $200 you can take 40 kids there for a unique and memorable birthday party. The thoughtful folks at the Discovery Gardens provide decorations and have even come up with gender-specific themes: "For the Love of Butterflies" for girls, and for boys, "For the Love of Bugs." You get two hours, an educational gift for your child and the staff does the clean-up. Kids can roam out into the outdoor gardens if the butterflies aren't enough. Two shifts, Saturdays and Sunday. Make reservations.

Taking the old-fashioned wood-paneled escalator up to the women's fashion floor at the downtown Neiman Marcus transports the shopper back in time, but only briefly. Because while she'll feel like Audrey, Marilyn or Jackie on the way up the glamorously lit moving staircase, once she spots row upon row of designer denim, edgy cocktail attire and new takes on designer classics, she'll be sure she couldn't be anywhere but right here, right now, in Dallas' most storied and respected women's clothing department. To be sure, there are more affordable and less intimidating places to rifle through the racks in search of something fabulous, but there's nothing quite like fingering a soft, little black knit amid the history and prestige of Neiman's. For those on a budget, the store's seasonal close-out sales can be fantastic opportunities to take home something special. Priced-out, regardless? Neiman's impeccably dressed mannequins are great inspiration when it comes to creating new pairings out of anyone's closet.

After a tummy-full of corn dogs, fried what-have-you's and a gastro-churning spin on the Techno Power carnival ride, a State Fair of Texas patron could be forgiven for just wanting to have a sit for a minute. But that's not what State Fair of Texas patrons do. Because if you've come in from halfway across who-knows-where to see the best of what the state has to offer, you won't turn around after one go-round on the Texas Star. Whereas Dealey Plaza and Reunion Tower are surely nice places to take ferners, a few minutes at the Kennedy site and one round at Reunion are plenty. The State Fair demands a full day's devotion, with every aspect of Texas' storied past and present on display for locals and tourists alike, from our rich rural past to Texas' finest tradesmen and technology. And there's also that little matter of Texas being the best at deep-frying absolutely anything. If that doesn't impress tourists, they can just mosey on back to wherever they came from.

Last time around, it rained, and the Bishop Arts Mardi Gras still drew a crowd of "four to five thousand," according to organizers. So imagine what size mob will show up next year if the weather is good. Which it will be. The planning is already under way, with an evening masquerade ball slated for the Kessler Theater March 5 and a full-blown beads parade at 4 p.m. March 6. This being Dallas instead of the Big Easy, we can expect lots of bawdy cheering from the crowd and cries of "Show us your ankles!" And some of those crazy girls may do it! Not a thing to miss.

Best Think After You Drink

Getting together with your smartest friends to drink is always a fun time. But now, if you have a well-rounded gang of friends with a diverse range of interests, you can win acclaim and a bar tab too. (And we mean it when we recommend a wide-ranging group—having nothing but bookworms from your fiction workshop isn't gonna help when a sports question comes up.) If you're bored by the sluggish readings of Trivial Pursuit cards at other pub trivia nights, this fast-paced match is right up your alley.

Maybe you don't want to show up here with a big roll of tweed from your vacation in Ireland and tell them to whip you up a suit, but if your needs are more of the mundane alterations variety, Unique Tailor is the stop you want to make. It's a little place with an unflappable staff of tailors able to handle anyone and anything from the biggest crazed diva in Highland Park ("Why does my butt look so huge?") to the East Dallas plumber who tore his coveralls in a tight crawlspace ("Got anything for me to wear while I wait?"). For easy stuff, pants shortening, waist-letting-outing and so on, they do a 24-hour turn-around. Nothing takes more than a few days. If you have a problem with the work, they do it again. Prices are very reasonable—no gouging—and they tell you ahead of time what it will be. Can't ask for more than that.