Arts & Culture

Despite Link’s green tunic and Peter Pan hat, he remains Nintendo’s most respected badass. In the long-awaited Twilight Princess for the Wii, the elf hero begins yet another quest to save the world with his trademark bombs and boomerangs. Minor déjà vu aside, Twilight Princess becomes nothing short of an…

You’d think with the Great One as their coach, the Phoenix Coyotes would be one of the better teams in the NHL. But you’d be wrong. Gretzky was great as a player, but so far he’s been a bust as a coach and executive. The Coyotes have missed the playoffs…

There was a time when rock ‘n’ roll was closely linked with concepts of identity, sexuality and gender. Remember Bowie’s skinny androgyny? Lou Reed’s seedy underbelly of drag queens and blow jobs? Iggy Pop’s eyeliner? It’s difficult to picture rock embracing such touchy and complex issues in today’s pallid music…

What are we—Chopped Liver? We’re sure that’s a line that never gets old to the comedians of Chopped Liver. That last sentence was sarcasm, a trait probably appreciated by the small improv ensemble, who are also part of Five Buck Improv (FBI). On Friday, they’ll share a bill with Greg…

Shooting a portrait is all about capturing subjects as they truly are. Well, fine, OK, not exactly capturing the subject, literally, but capturing the spirit of the subject. Their mood, expression, split-second emotion can all be captured in a well-shot photograph. That’s part of the artistic aspect, though—the stuff for…

Saltwater aquaria are often seen as the domain of the rich—those whose Christmas mornings brought a Beemer, a French bulldog and a Blackglama stroller. And while it’s true that a marine aquarium is more pricey than putting a betta in a bowl, with a little ingenuity, you can have a…

When I was a young lad, I went fishing nearly every summer on a charter boat off the coast of South Padre Island. Almost invariably, the captain of said vessel would play Jimmy Buffett cassettes during our voyage, ostensibly believing the friendly sounds of “Cheeseburger in Paradise” would draw in…

I did a fantastic job warming the bench for my high school soccer team. Sure, in Texas, the benches stay pretty warm on their own—but my soccer coach saw from the first day that I had talent in the ways of bench-warming, and she wouldn’t let those heat-radiating cheeks go…

Law and Order taught us to question lie-detector tests. Since we know polygraph results can be unreliable, scientists are digging deeper (thanks to brain imaging and neurotechnology) to show us the truth. Cool, right? Not so much—now we have to deal with the ethical problems of tapping into people’s brains…

Back when I was in my big ’50s phase at about 12 years old, I was appalled to learn that my mother once traded an Elvis autograph (my granddad rode on a plane with him once) for Pat Boone’s. Seriously. See, she grew up on oil bases and all the…

Little kids are funny. They can’t walk very well, they’re not very smart and they smell weird. They’re like a bunch of tiny Anna Nicole Smiths. My favorite thing that happens when the little bastards are around is when their parents pick them up in the air and smell their…

If there’s any animal that’s definitely been screwed over by mankind, it’s the turtle. We’ve polluted its habitat, stolen its eggs, caught it in fishing nets, driven some species to near extinction and, perhaps most heinously, forced it to live at the mercy of small children. The film Amphibious (Login-Logout)…

With a film title like The Cave of the Yellow Dog, I’m not sure what to expect. My first thought was a mashup of Crouching Tiger and any Jim Jarmusch film. However, when I read details about the movie, six words killed any interest there might have been for this…

Quick, be an Englishman! Do your Cockney damnedest! Chances are, you just straightened up a bit, acquired an invisible monocle and said something like, “Right ho, Jeeves!” Or, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t take orders from a newspaper article, you just kept reading to find out what…

Urban Gypsy’s upcoming symposium of writhing tribal gyrations features a class called “Dancing Darkly—Introduction to Gothic Belly Dance.” Despite the ominous title, we’re guessing it has little to do with listening to Bauhaus and ritualistically burning your forearms with a lit cigarette. Sorry to disappoint. But there are still a…

The Oceanaire Seafood Room at the Westin Galleria, 13340 Dallas Parkway, has its seafood flown in daily. Not trucked, not driven. Flown. Anyway, in celebration of the restaurant’s four-year anniversary, it is offering a special through the month of January. Between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., Chef Chad Kelley will…

During the holiday season last year, I visited my in-laws and was treated to the DVD of whatever “blue-collar” comedian was hot at the time. I don’t remember the comedian’s name or even a single joke, but I do remember deciding that I must not have been blue-collar enough to…

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go…Uptown? That’s not the song that we’re used to, but it works. A similar new twist on old favorites can be found at the Uptown Players’ Broadway Our Way fund-raiser. This year’s event takes selections from hits such…

As a former college runner and current disdainer of cookie-cutter cities, I am going to have an unusual dilemma next week. Ordinarily, I’d love to race the Resolution Run, but as luck would have it, it will be held in Addison, the home of every chain restaurant known to man…

While still a relatively new sport compared to baseball, basketball or couples ice dancing, freestyle motocross has already forged its own memorable history within a few short years. We all remember where we were that fateful day in 2000 when Carey Hart first pulled off a backflip in competition. I…

Back in the early to mid-’90s, I had the biggest crush on my friend Jon. When we hung out there was always this undercurrent between us that said we were a good match…in my mind anyway. Unfortunately, youth on both our sides and naïvete on mine resulted in nothing happening…