Do you remember about a month ago when I first complained about being an underpaid journalist? You joined my father in the knowing chuckle of someone saying, “You could’ve been an accountant.” Let’s ignore the cliches about hindsight for a second, while I present to you homes that neither you…
April 8th is like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, your birthday and first time you had sex all rolled into one, lightly fried and smothered in a tangy tomatillo sauce. That’s because April 8th is Rex Manning Day. You don’t know who Rex Manning is, you say, or why on Earth he…
The inspiration for Mark Goshorn Jones’ quirky comedy Tennessee Queer was anything but funny. The Shelby County Commission in Memphis wanted to pass an equal rights law in 2009 that protected LGBT city workers from job discrimination. They eventually did, but they were met with harsh and heated opposition for…
Chances are if you haven’t heard back from Conan O’Brien’s people about tickets to one of his live tapings at The Majestic Theater next week, then you aren’t getting one. So stop crying and using an eyedropper full of food coloring to make sure you cry orange tears to fully…
We haven’t published an article about Conan’s visit to Dallas yet this week. It’s already Thursday. You probably assumed this meant that his visit to our city couldn’t get any better. You thought wrong. Next week, while Conan camps out at the Majestic Theatre, the “Cone Zone” will make various…
It’s Wednesday afternoon and Jesse Morgan Barnett paces through the cavernous space at 2604 Main Street, arranging his works of art. “When you do an installation the space is always in a defensive posture,” Barnett says. “The space looks different now than it will look Saturday. I like to bring…
If you could live your life like Jay Gatsby, wouldn’t you? The suits, the women, the music, the cars, the parties. Of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest character didn’t live happily ever after, but that was then. This is now. There’s no reason you can’t dress up, pack a picnic,…
Seeing a play at Theatre Three is like going to Sunday dinner at the home of an elderly relative. When the old girl feels sharp, she’ll whip up a hot homemade meal with all the trimmings. When she’s having one of her “spells,” you might sit down to a plate…
Dallas Children’s Theater has a charming, heartwarming family comedy in Mariachi Girl. A Latina fifth-grader named “Cita” (Aisha San Roman, in her 20s and a bit curvy to play a 10-year-old) idolizes her dad (David Lugo), a Mexican-born carpenter who moonlights as the leader of a mariachi band. She begs…
The Chicano labor leader César Chávez can now join Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the pantheon of heroes whose world-altering achievements are dutifully recounted in timid, lifeless films any substitute can pop into the school DVD player when the regular history teacher is out. With César Chávez, Mexican director…
To hear Darren Aronofsky tell it, in the interviews he’s given recently to the New York Times Magazine and the New Yorker, there was no way in hell he’d let his special-effects extravaganza Noah, years in the planning, be your run-of-the-mill, candy-ass Biblical epic. The ark built by Russell Crowe’s…
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name is only about one-seventh the font size of the title on the poster of Sabotage, formerly Breacher, formerly Ten, his third attempt — after the full-auto western The Last Stand and the goofy Stallone-co-headlined prison-break joint Escape Plan — in 14 months at a post-gubernatorial comeback. A…
Broadway brings us many wonders: soaring story lines, uplifting anthems, dazzling sets. It’s also chock full of annoying little idiosyncrasies: over-enunciation, stupid stunt casting and a propensity to burst into song as a lame plot device. But we love The Great White Way, despite the fact that it takes itself…
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? Or that…
Chelsea Handler is a unique commodity in the annals of late night. For starters, she’s a woman. As the host of E!’s groundbreaking talk show Chelsea Lately and the author of several New York Times best-selling comedy novels, she’s also pretty damn funny and fearless with the subjects she tackles, whether it’s about the biggest…
It’s hard to say which is more beautiful: George Balanchine’s Serenade set to Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings in C,” or that the inspiration for Balanchine’s choreography was ballet students. Something else to ponder: Is Ben Stevenson’s L, choreographed for 11 male dancers to a percussive soundtrack, a tribute to a certain iconic Minnelli,…
For some artists, the city streets are a canvas. Buildings with blank brick walls beg for the bright colors of a brand new mural. Graffiti artists have been painting Deep Ellum for decades, bringing to life storefronts and back alleys. Jerod DTOX Davies is one such painter, or muralist, as he likes…
If you’re an opera fan, you don’t want to miss this evening of booze and song. The Fort Worth Opera’s popular series Opera Shots returns to the gorgeous outdoor stage at The Foundry in Oak Cliff, 2303 Pittman St. It’s opera in a bar, and it features music by young, talented rising…
If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, maybe it’s because no one knows the forest exists. It might come as a surprise to Dallas residents that the Great Trinity Forest is in their backyard. Well, maybe not your backyard. Yep, those are just…
Most of us were probably still trying to figure out what our majors were going to be and how to hold our liquor when we were 19. Jan Lisiecki, who turned 19 just this week, is already a professional concert pianist with a successful recording and touring career. You can hear…
You’ve always wanted to beat a world record. And if not, you should. Make it happen at the Texas Pinball Festival. At 5 p.m. Friday, you and your fellow pinballers can attempt to shatter the world record for most people playing pinball simultaneously. The current record is 100 people and held by…
If you could live your life like Jay Gatsby, wouldn’t you? The suits, the women, the music, the cars, the parties. Of course, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest character didn’t live happily ever after, but that was then. This is now. There’s no reason you can’t dress up, pack a picnic,…
