100 Dallas Creatives: No. 99 Comedy Queen Amanda Austin

Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. Amanda Austin had the crazy idea to bring long-form improv comedy to Dallas at a time…

100 Dallas Creatives: No. 100 Theater Mastermind Matt Posey

Can you imagine Dallas without creativity? What would this city be like without its artists, thinkers, poets, dreamers, creators? Let’s hope we never find out. These cultural entrepreneurs are making life in this city worth living, vivifying the scene with art, dance, music, events, and so much more. We thought…

Five Events to Celebrate National Poetry Month in Dallas

“April is the cruelest month,” TS Eliot penned to open his poetic triumph, The Wasteland. Poets have written at length about this month filled with spring showers and a sense of renewal. Odgen Nash exhorted readers to marry an April girl; Robert Frost described the days of April as blue…

Texas Pinball Festival Organizers Go for the Guinness Record Book

It was just before the start of the Texas Pinball Festival, the annual gathering of pinball enthusiasts and collectors who brought their prized machines to Dallas/Fort Worth over the weekend for three days of quarter-less play, and an odd quiet filled the 30,000-square-foot play area. Machines from pinball’s heyday filled…

Flappy Bird: In Memoriam

We hardly knew you, Flappy Bird. It’s been just over a week since you first began to pump your little wings on my iPhone, and just like that your creator has returned you to a cage, calling you “addictive” and “a problem.” I know why the caged bird sings, Maya…

Our Five Favorite Rangers Superfans from Rangers Fan Fest

Rangers fans piled into the ballpark Saturday to get a little facetime with their favorite players. Autograph sessions, Q&As, tours of the dugout and a chance to run the bases rounded out the afternoon’s events. We sent photographer Rachel Parker to weave through the masses and find our favorites. While…

At The DIME Store in Denton, Home Is Where the Art Is

On South Locust Street in Denton, between the Davis Purity Bakery and El Guapo’s, sits a small brick building. Inside, children’s stuffed animals, kitchen tea towels, handbags and a menagerie of other items are lined along the walls and arranged on tabletops, in baskets and even on an old stove…

The Tacky Box Helps Kids Stop Saying “Boob”

Your toddler just dropped a Cheerio on the floor and said, “Aww, motherfucking dickjob!” We’ve all been there. But what do you do about it? (After you take a video of it happening one more time, because these days your happiness is based on Facebook “likes” and this moment will…

How Cold Is It? Here’s A Handy Chart, Dallas.

It’s been cold in Dallas lately. Because: winter. And based on the screenshots of the 10-day forecast clogging up the Facebook Newsfeed, you’re all starting to have a collective pants-crap about the fact that it’s not 110°F with a heat index of Shit Steam anymore. I get it. Icemageddon drive-by-boned…