Get Instant Gratification

Twenty years from now when our children hear Outkast’s “Hey Ya” on the Oldies station on the radio or Pandora or whatever they’ll be listening to in the future and have to ask us what “Shake it like a Polaroid picture” means, we’ll enjoy a sweet, sad moment of nostalgia…

You’ll Want To Look Back

In the 1970s Elliott McDowell excelled at traditional photography techniques, acclaimed for his keenly printed photographs of unusual, mostly staged shots of comical people and quirky subject matter. The Santa Fe-based photographer’s early black and white images aren’t easily forgotten, and ones like “The Wolf,” “The Bachelor,” “Moonrise Over Rolls…

Might Fine Gets Sublime

A man standing in the scalding Texas sun, sporting a mid drift T-shirt with pit stains and back hair sticking to his skin isn’t what you would call picturesque. Fortunately for you, Mighty Fine Arts (419 N. Tyler St.) is featuring some delicious eye candy for your viewing pleasure with…

A Nose for Drama

Every summer, across the country, outdoor amphitheaters roll out the red blanket for the Greatest Literary Figurehead Ever and begin cranking out night after night of sonnets and stanzas. This is no small feat- catering to a populace whose concept of tragedy involves that time that Maks dropped Kirstie Alley…

The DCT Rids Us of Rats

Imagination is given to you at a tender age. Young and innocent, you use imagination to pretend you’re climbing Mount Everest or swimming the Nile. Your bedroom becomes filled with long lost treasures: rubies, diamonds and emeralds. You’re now a high priestess. You just robbed a bank with Bonnie and…

Is That Considered An Art-Sana?

If there is one thing more relaxing than roaming the galleries of an art exhibit, thrusting your eyes upon beautiful paintings, sculptures and photographs, it’s doing so in the midst of an intense yoga session. Lucky for all you tranquility-seeking art lovers, the Crow Collection of Asian Art will be…

View At Arm’s Length

Contemporary art is a mystery. Its definition is nebulous, beyond the qualification that it be created by someone, you know, contemporary. Sigh. Six Arms to Hold You, a female-centered exhibition by three contemporary Dallas artists, seems simple enough to “get” at first glance. But then the gallery throws in descriptive…

On Dallas Stages, It’s the Season of the Song

High season for musical theater has arrived. Orchestras are tuning up and audiences are turning up to see a couple of vintage and rarely revived oldies, Oliver! and Pippin, and to get their first looks at two hot-from-Broadway hits, Billy Elliot the Musical and Next to Normal. There may not…

A History Of Horrors

When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis set out to create a “master Aryan race,” it wasn’t only the Jews they wanted to do away with. Although Jews were the most significant group of victims of the Nazis’ systematic imprisonment and murder, other targeted groups included anyone with mental and physical…

Zipline It: Harness Up and Fly Over DQ Country

It’s not often you get to be Dan Cortese for the day, but I did a couple Saturdays ago. I spent my morning at National Rowing Day, my afternoon at NY-TX ZipLine Adventures and my evening stuffing tube socks in my bike shorts and telling people to “step off.” I’ve…

Donate Your Lunchbreak to Feeding a Hungry Sumo

Welcome to another edition of Geek-Offs, where you’ll find the perfect distractions to help you muddle your way through hump day each week. Trying to decide on what to have for lunch? If you’re anything like Hungry Sumo, you’ll most likely eat massive quantities of rice and then knock about…

Mavs, Mavs, Mavs! (Cover, Cover, Cover!)

MAVS WIN! MAVS WIN! Oh, and yes, it’s time once again for The Weekly Tease! With today being press day here at Observer HQ, that means it’s time to take a break from celebrating and bring you a sneak-peek of the cover art for this week’s impending issue.If you’re stumped…

Texas Writer Mark Seal’s New Book Is “Rockefeller” Centered

Over the past dozen years, Texas journalist Mark Seal, 58, has worked his way onto a fascinating beat, writing lengthy investigative reportage for Vanity Fair about the foibles of the ultra-wealthy. He’s taken over where the late Dominick Dunne left off, spinning stories involving the rich, famous and felonious from…

Bookmaking in Deep Ellum With the Bradford Sisters

Here we are at the third edition of our photo feature, Profiles In Pictures, where every couple of weeks or so, photographer Sara Kerens brings us an intimate perspective on a different Dallas creative. Along with the parade of images of locals who create with their hands, minds or both,…