High on Phineas and Ferb

If your kids request one million Popsicle sticks and a few thousand feet of PVC pipe, don’t freak out. They’re just addicted to the Disney Channel’s latest series, or “kid crack” as it’s commonly known on the streets. The kids, and their geeky parents, are all hooked on Phineas and…

Stretch Away Holiday Stress

You probably didn’t chase a squirrel around the house or have to explain to the police exactly how cousin Eddie concocted the crazy notion to kidnap your boss on Christmas Eve, but you don’t have to be part of a Griswold family Christmas to feel the stress of the holidays…

Daring Young Men — and Women

Circuses have changed a lot over the years. Freak shows are illegal in many states, and animal trainers are far more rare nowadays. Even as these circus icons wane, however, clowns and acrobats are in their prime. The Lone Star Circus Arts Center presents Cirque Banquisté, an international showcase of…

Hockey Makes It Fun to Hate

The rivalry between the Dallas Stars and Detroit Red Wings isn’t quite as tense or meaningful as it was when the sweaters with the grand names of Yzerman, Belfour, Federov and Hatcher were skating around the rink, battling for Western Conference supremacy in the late 1990s and into the new…

Here Come the Suns

The highlight of Your Dallas Mavericks’ long-anticipated opening day came well before tip-off, as Mark Cuban’s defending champs decorated the inside of the American Airlines Center with the championship banner. What happened after that erased all the pent-up goodwill: The Miami Heat, humiliated but a few months ago, humbled the…

In Your Mind’s Eye

If you’re not up on your mid-20th century French philosophy, you could read Roland Barthes’ dense semiotics essay “Rhetoric of the Image” to better understand the nature of image-based thought in communication or you could instead visit Gary Bishop’s exhibition Language … Images and Text at Kirk Hopper Fine Art…

Meticulously Simple

Working primarily in red conté that provides her sketches with a distinct earthen hue reminiscent of sepia photographs, Anne C. Weary brings Californian topography back home in her collection, Where the Pacific Meets the Cliffs at Torrey Pines, on exhibition at Valley House Gallery through January 7. Typically spending six…

Five Things We’re Quitting in 2012

Last year, we did some things we’re not so proud of. The year before last too, and the year before that and … well, enough of that. This being 2012, quite possibly the last year before some cataclysmic change such as the planet’s polarity reversing or a Newt Gingrich presidency,…

Texas Multi-Mama Teryn Todd on Making Babies, Reality TV

After the rise and fall of “John and Kate plus Eight” and the on-going popularity of “Nineteen Kids and Counting,” it shouldn’t come as any surprise that a new multiples-themed reality show is slated to kick-off tonight. This one, though, takes place right here in the Lone Star State. It’s…

The Best Damn Films of 2011

What a year it was at the movies! Just reflect for a second all the places we’ve traveled together on our cinematic voyages of 2011 in that theatrical transport known as film. Alternate worlds and realities. All over the map of our own. Forward to the future. Back in time…

Official Holiday Movie Guide: What to See Over the Break

It’s the biggest movie weekend of the year! Let’s check out the season’s offerings at the movie theater… Director David Fincher returns to his bloody roots a la Se7en and takes his own albeit unique stab at The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first in the late Stieg Larsson’s…

Scenes from the 5th Annual Uptown Menorah Lighting

The West Village was hopping last night beneath the glow of an enormous menorah. It was a Hanukkah celebration put on by the Intown Chabad. It was already packed by 7:00pm, with guests picking up their menorah, dreidel, and candle filled goodie bags. Everyone gathered around the heaters, drinking hot…

Deadline Lifeline: Three Arts Events Need You

Artists, educators and craftspeople: there are three upcoming deadlines for opportunities to get involved with local arts events. Once known as a city sans culture, Dallas is booming today with innovative thinkers, and we believe that we’re on the ground floor of an arts revolution. But, a real movement requires…

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer Gets Sweded

Except for the debut of the Three Stooges trailer, this has been a great month for Hollywood teasing upcoming blockbusters. Over on Apple’s trailer site, you can find Prometheus, The Hobbit, and The Dark Knight Rises first official trailer. Damn fine week, ol’ Hollywood. Which means, it didn’t take long…

Dallas Theater Center’s Giant Gets Epic Trailer

Speaking of sprawling, epic trailers… Back in November, the Dallas Theater Center officially announced the cast and creative team for Giant, you know the musical, which is running at the Wyly in 2012 save for some unplanned zombie apocalypse. Now, courtesy of a hat tip from Unfair Park, there’s a…

In Pop Culture, Music and Fashion, Is Boring the New Exciting?

A few weeks ago a photograph titled “Rhein II” (above) by artist Andreas Gursky was won at auction at Christie’s in New York by an anonymous bidder who paid more than $4 million. It is a digital photo of a river and grass embankments on the Rhine. Gursky manipulates his…

Shepard Fairey Coming to Dallas

Artist, DJ, worldwide phenom Shepard Fairey is making a stop in Dallas to spin for the Dallas Contemporary, according to the just-in Save the Date. Fairey, who’s been making the rounds recently for the design of the cover of the recent TIME magazine annual ‘Person of the Year’ issue, will…

Dallas Theater in 2011: Give it a Standing O

The real world beyond their stage doors may have been spinning from disaster to disaster, but somehow in the land of make-believe inside Dallas theaters, 2011 turned out to be an absolute annus mirabilis. There were great shows and memorable performances in grand halls and bijou playhouses all around us…