I just found out that one of my best friends is a glitter-that-flies-out-of-the-envelope person. She sends out those greeting cards where GLITTER FLIES OUT OF THE ENVELOPE. I'm reconsidering our whole relationship. Anyhow, who invented this? Who thought this was a good idea? Who had a meeting and said: "I...
Until last summer, thousands of current and former employees of the City of Dallas had no reason to suspect that their retirement nest eggs might be in jeopardy. Since city employees don't participate in Social Security, they were spared the widespread discomfort afflicting workers who contribute to the federal system...
Getting bigger all the time With the rerelease of the classic film Giant, culture critics are re-examining the Texas Myth. Most are lamenting that the wild-cattin' Texas cattle/oil baron who lived as large as the Lone Star State is as dead and gone as James Dean, who played oilman-party monster...
In one corner: Tom Campitelli, 45 years old, 220 pounds, 6-foot-2, hiding his middle-age spread under baggy shirt and shorts, slow-footed and lacking endurance. In the other: Darla Johnson, 21 years old, 115 pounds, 5-foot-7, with legs up to her collarbone, creamy bronzed skin under tight Lycra bike shorts, and...
It's political theater imported from another time and place. In the packed pews of Kirkwood Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in South Dallas on a recent night, two groups of actors--one speaking English, the other Spanish--reinterpreted a biblical story of Moses seeking God's counsel. In this version, Moses, played by...
On a chilly morning in early November, on his 133rd day under federal indictment, Paul Fielding was waiting impatiently at Dallas Love Field's Gate 12. It was 9 a.m., and he was dressed in a pair of tan corduroy pants, a perfectly pressed flannel shirt, and a pair of brown...
It is nothing but an open field, a nondescript place beside a row of battered mailboxes along Seeton Road near Joe Pool Lake. But for months, it has been a site of pilgrimage for Adrianne Jones' friends. They have visited the field dozens of times since Jones' brutal murder last...
Sho Kosugi is the best kung-fu man since Bruce Lee. Forget Jackie Chan. Forget Jet Lee. Forget Bruce Lei, Bruce Li, Bruce Lea, and Bruce Leigh. It's no wonder that they're giving Hong Kong back to the Commies. They haven't turned out a world-class thwacker since 1974, when Bruce's head...
Film history is strewn with the corpses of underappreciated artists and overappreciated craftsmen. This is not a point over which to become sanguine; rather, it is a simple fact of cinematic life, predictable as the tides. What is less predictable, however, is which directors will fall into which category--and when...
On a windy and colder-than-usual Sunday night in April, more than 3,000 people showed up in Deep Ellum to do nothing more than hear local bands. There were no street fairs, no free food, no mimes, no apartment open houses. No, these people piled into Blue Cat Blues when Josh...
The man at the pulpit with the mass of neatly coiffed silver hair is speaking of sin and redemption, pleading with his flock to forgive him his very human frailties. "No one is free from sin," he says. His eyes have filled with tears. The camera lens zooms in, and...
Jackie Chan, the most popular screen actor in the world, doesn't make movies. He is his movies--a one-man film industry, kicking and spinning and leaping his way into cinemas all over the planet. For more than 15 years, he's helped define and develop the Hong Kong film community, appearing in...
Danny Wettreich, a 44-year-old native of London, England, personifies precisely what many find repugnant about American capitalism. In the 13 years since he moved to Dallas, Wettreich has bought and shut down businesses, shuffled millions of dollars in securities, drawn suspicion from two federal agencies, and thrown people out of...
thursday october 12 Sacred Circles of the People: There is an amazing range of subjects being covered in the two-day "Sacred Circles of the People" conference, from substance abuse workshops to Pow Wow etiquette. The fourth annual event is hosted by the American Indian Center, Inc., a non-profit, charitable and...
The sweat is running through Cal Ripken Jr.'s eyebrows, into his eyes, and it's making him squint. It is just so surrealistically hot, like someone is burning the edges of this scene for a commemorative plaque. And there is Cal, eyes stinging like any man, body temp rising like any...
John Frankenheimer's World War II-era railway adventure The Train turns 30 this year, and it's almost appalling to consider just how infrequently modern-day Hollywood has mustered up the energy and dedication to match its countless splendors. A huge, roiling, clanking, screeching, rumbling hulk of mayhem that seizes you from frame...
At Dallas City Hall, it can take a long time to find the truth. That's because this city manager and city council don't like the public to know what they're doing. So they play games. They have a lot of closed-door meetings. They discuss things they're not supposed to discuss...
The Hon. Thomas G. Jones was angry, though nicely dressed. It was 9:45 a.m. last Friday morning, and I was standing at the service counter of his court in a nondescript strip shopping center in South Oak Cliff, wanting to see some court files; it is the sort of mundane...
Jimmy Caaaaaaan! Luke Wilson was thrilled. It was November 1994, and the star of The Godfather, Thief, and Misery, icon to two generations of aspiring young actors and a walking template of life's rougher passages, was jogging beside him on train tracks near a downtown Dallas factory. A film crew...
