Tramontana is the kind of new restaurant I love to find. The owner used to work at The Mansion, and though you have to be crazy to open a restaurant in the first place, he is wise enough (and experienced enough) to start small, with a limited menu, and to...
The gloriously, infuriatingly eclectic Dallas Video festival continues to entertain--and bore The nature of any festival, whether it's centered on food or film, is usually hodgepodge--an eclectic confluence of the sweet and the bitter, the fatty and the lean. It's no surprise that the 9th Annual Dallas Video Festival possesses...
Bark at the goon Ozzy Osbourne's not a man of his word. A couple of years ago, the former Black Sabbath frontman announced his retirement. The world yawned, and it was just as well. His day had come and gone, his demon-metal shtick gone to hell and then some. Whatever...
If you're watchin' a movie and you see a guy droolin' over a porno magazine, you already know the guy's complete character description, right? He's a serial killer who hates beautiful women. Or if you see a guy hangin' out at a topless bar in a movie, he's automatically a...
In mid-November, journalists and editors from across Texas gathered at a downtown Dallas hotel for the annual rite of self-congratulation known as the Katie Awards. Seats cost $50. Valets parked cars. A chocolate pate dessert followed dinner. Free wine flowed as the assemblage settled in for a marathon presentation by...
After the protests, the lawsuits, the scathing editorials, and the state Legislature's disdain when Texas Woman's University was forced to go co-ed last year, the last thing the members of TWU's board need now is to testify before a Denton County grand jury for allegedly destroying public records. But, thanks...
Fresh ink Will Cowtown cotton to another newspaper? Local journalist-cum-entrepreneur Robert Camuto apparently thinks so. Camuto has resigned from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to launch his own alternative weekly. Camuto has a solid journalistic background as a reporter at the defunct Dallas Times Herald, then covering education, Fort Worth politics,...
The taxidermy issue requires advanced autopsy by the serious political ethicist. Not that the scholars at the Texas Ethics Commission have been derelict--indeed not. Their December decree that Texas lawmakers may henceforth disburse campaign funds in order to stuff animal heads, thereafter to reside upon their office walls, is positively...
Editor's departure opens succession struggle at News As in all closed governmental systems, there is intense speculation among the proletariat about the succession struggle at The Dallas Morning News. The need for a new leader came with the formal announcement late last month of the departure of longtime managing editor...
Furry beasts I would like to take this opportunity to voice my disgust with Kirby Fry and Inger Myhre, the villains of the Permaculture article ["Hugging the tree gently," December 21, 1995]. I am outraged that any people could be so cruel and self-centered as to starve kittens to within...
Is the theater really dead? Not in Big D. In fact, a quickie look at area productions in the past year shows that theater in the Metroplex is a surprisingly lively, diverse, and resilient form of entertainment. Consider the options a curious (but not impecunious) boulevardier had to choose from...
Textile art is not new. It's ancient Turkish rugs handwoven by two old ladies in Hereke, or Flemish tapestries keeping drafts out of the castle while simultaneously recalling the Battle of Hastings. It's also early Americana: a wedding ring bedspread passed down through generations. It is usually women's work, functional...
Howard Stern is more likely to come to Dallas in this lifetime than Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg. It doesn't matter if a hip-hop act is booked and advertised in this city, there's no guarantee the show will go on until the act's on stage--anyone who went to see...
Buddy Holly and Willie Nelson could not be more different. Holly was a pop star reared on country, a country boy who craved the big city. Nelson is a country legend influenced by pop, a man more comfortable wrestling in the dirt than dancing on marble. Holly projected the wholesome...
thursday january 4 10th Annual Southwest Boat and Tackle Show: The press material for the 10th Annual Southwest Boat and Tackle Show is rife with references to "the outdoorsman" and "serving the needs of the outdoorsman." If, in the words of Fran Leibovitz, you believe The Great Outdoors is what...
"The Legend Begins," says the sign over Stone Trail. Well, it can't begin if you can't find it. It wasn't just me. The guest who was supposed to meet us at Stone Trail ("at the southwest corner of Midway and Belt Line," as I'd been instructed, with no mention of...
Like a remorseless killer in a grade-Z slasher flick, The Fantasticks keeps coming back. You can strafe it, bomb it, drive it over the edge of a cliff, but it will not die. Since its May 1960 opening, this small, saccharine musical has run through 10,000 off-Broadway performances, and is...
Act II The year is 1988. The scene is Granbury, now brimming with free enterprise, country charm, and overpriced antiques. After the Opera House began playing to sold-out houses, a new merchant class had come to town, snapping up every stone-slab building on the square. This sleepy farming hamlet was...
Bye-bye, Houston Oilers. Used to luv ya, Blue. Lost 'em to Nashville, Tenn., for a $292 million state-of-the-art stadium with 82 luxury suites, 9,600 premier "club seats" and 42,700 season tickets--plus a $28 million "relocation fee" and other goodies. Break Bum Phillips' heart. Rams, Raiders, Browns--same story. Now if all...
It comes in cycles, this "year-in-music" stuff, and 1995 had the misfortune of following one of the most dramatic years in a long time, when such rock monoliths as Pink Floyd, the Eagles, and the Rolling Stones broke box-office records, while a disillusioned youth market shouted out, "Who killed Kurt...
Happy blew year A more overrated holiday you won't find, when the whole world becomes one sloppy-drunk frat party. Call me old-fashioned, but if someone's gonna vomit on me, I'd prefer to know them--or at least be sleeping with them. While I can't think of anything better than bidding farewell...
The rock and roll made in 1995 leaves in its wake a noxious odor (which might be coming from sweaty Blues Traveler John Popper) that will surely hang over 1996 like a black cloud. The bands that will ultimately represent 1995--the superstars and chart-toppers, the major-label success stories and indie-label...
