AltWeeklies Wire
'Kaleidoscope': Public Freaks and Private Dicksnew
Get your SAT vocabulary flash cards ready, 'cause Darryl Wimberley has a mystery for you to solve -- one involving a "caravanserai" and a "pan of loam."
San Antonio Current |
Jeremy Martin |
08-27-2008 |
Fiction
Alt Prez: There are a Hundred Ways to Buck the Ballotnew
We've got more than 100 deluded losers and promising dreamers all begging for attention in America's sideshow election. Just because every one of them will lose, that's no reason to ignore them.
San Antonio Current |
Richard Wall |
08-27-2008 |
Politics
The Walkmen Perfect Their Own Stripped-down Post-bender-rocknew
The bare-bones drone that defined previous albums’ least accessible tracks still forms the basis for many of the songs on their latest release, but the edges have been smoothed with a warm and fuzzy vintage sound.
San Antonio Current |
Jeremy Martin |
08-20-2008 |
Reviews
Fast Furious Free Downloadable Book Series Delivers Sketchy Materialnew
Jury: Welcome to the Special Power and Lil' Craze Going on in South America, the first two books released in the Magic Propaganda Mill's new series, are "written, researched, illustrated, designed and published" in less than two weeks.
San Antonio Current |
Jeremy Martin |
08-20-2008 |
Original Work
'Tropic Thunder' Wasn't the Expected Rambo-style Satirenew
What I got, and what I should have expected, was a rather well-produced and spectacle-driven broad action-comedy that should satisfy anyone not expecting a wealth of subtle or subversive humor. Duh, right?
San Antonio Current |
Brian Villalobos |
08-13-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Ben Stiller, Tropic Thunder
'In Plain Sight' is Just Plain Badnew
After a half-decade of success as a station of lovable neurotics — Tony Shaloub's eponymous Monk; the idiosyncratic spies of Burn Notice, etc. — USA's thrown a curveball in the character of Mary Shannon, a neurotic who is quite the opposite of lovable.
San Antonio Current |
Luke Baumgarten |
08-13-2008 |
TV
Sam Phillips Strips Down for 'Don't Do Anything'new
As on all of her best work, Phillips is humble and open-hearted, invitingly tuneful but unsparing in her assessment of the emotional wreckage she sees.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
08-13-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Sam Phillips, Don't Do Anything
Gary Allan's Music Evolves an Emotional Edgenew
Last year's Living Hard followed, highlighted by the hit "Watching Airplanes," in which Allan lays on his car hood at the runway's edge, watching the lights go overhead, knowing his baby's gone, 30,000 miles above, and a million miles away.
San Antonio Current |
Chris Parker |
08-13-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Graham Vickers Examines the Causes and Consequences of 'Lolita'new
Less concerned with text than context, Vickers provides a lively account of the climate in which the novel was produced and received.
San Antonio Current |
Steven G. Kellman |
08-13-2008 |
Nonfiction
The Traditional Vietnamese Noodle Soup is Easy to Fake at Homenew
Pho, a brothy soup of rice noodles and beef, was created about 100 years ago in northern Vietnam. It's pronounced like "fur" without the "r," though it's often mistakenly called "faux."
San Antonio Current |
Ari LeVaux |
08-06-2008 |
Food+Drink
The Offbeats Finally Found a Producer They're Happy With--Themselvesnew
The Offbeats have released several EPs over the years, recorded and produced by friends and professionals, but lead singer and second guitarist Bryan Foster says the band continually left the studio disappointed in the final product.
San Antonio Current |
Jeremy Martin |
08-06-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: The Offbeats
Bubba Hernandez Finds Life After Brave Combonew
Two decades of Brave Combo beat deconstruction--turning "Satisfaction" into a cha-cha or "Stairway to Heaven" into a swing tune (with Tiny Tim on lead vocals, no less)--provided Hernandez with an invaluable musical education, but it also made him hungry for a chance to explore his own ideas.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
08-06-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Paul Westerberg Drops the Biggest Format-busting Format Buster of the Digital Agenew
Westerberg released 49 through TuneCore, a digital-music delivery service, and since TuneCore charges artists only $9.99 a year per track (and 49 is technically only one track), Westerberg could simultaneously be looking at the lowest sales price and the greatest profit margin in the history of the music industry.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
07-30-2008 |
Music
What Laura Says Brings Together Baroque Pop and Rustic Folknew
What Laura Says is really the product of two different bands -- an offbeat pop duo called What Laura Says Thinks and Feels, and a dirty blues trio, called the Expatriates.
San Antonio Current |
Gilbert Garcia |
07-30-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Spittin' Game: Unreal Tournament 3 and Guitar Hero: Aerosmithnew
Exploring space marines and the white-trash version of the Rolling Stones.
San Antonio Current |
Jeremy Martin |
07-30-2008 |
Video Games
