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Why itâ€™s time for San Antonio to get over its longstanding inferiority complex

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Measuring Up

Editorial

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Why it’s time for San Antonio to get over its longstanding inferiority complex BY B E K A H M C N E E L

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06 News

Justin Rodriguez Is Back and Ready to Focus on Ideas, not Ideology Easy Target?

November’s charter vote could spell trouble for Nirenberg’s reelection — assuming he has a real challenger

Wall Blocker

San Antonio’s Roland Gutierrez files a bill calling for an environmental review of Trump’s border barrier

Culinary Institute of America San Antonio evolves with the addition of its new restaurant

After the Cocktail Revolution

Five trends highlighted at this year’s San Antonio Cocktail Conference

Straight Up

Two new distilleries are getting set to serve in downtown San Antonio

49 Music

An Education in Resistance

Rapping professor Mexstep kicks knowledge on his first solo album in 9 years

On The Cover: San Antonio has a long history of comparing itself to other cities — and coming up short. When we covet what others have, we miss the big picture. Art Direction: Tracie Louck

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Justin Rodriguez Is Back and Ready to Focus on Ideas, not Ideology BY JADE ESTEBAN ESTRADA

n January 12, a carefully curated tableau vivant sat behind former San Antonio mayor Julian Castro when he announced his candidacy for U.S. president at the West Side’s Plaza Guadalupe. That multicultural tapestry represented many cultures and walks of life, but it also rewarded the city’s political elite with valuable media facetime and an association with one of San Antonio’s favorite sons. Former mayor Henry Cisneros and his wife and former councilwoman Mary Alice Cisneros were seated directly behind the candidate. Both seemed to incarnate — like the Virgen de Guadalupe herself — a subliminal blessing of Castro’s hero’s journey. While Justin Rodriguez’s spot on the extreme left of the stage wasn’t as visible to the cameras as the Cisneros’, the newly appointed Precinct 2 Bexar County Commissioner was a recognizable face to many in the audience. After all, he recently took over the spot held by Paul Elizondo, one of the city’s longest-serving power brokers. A week later, I’m sitting with Rodriguez at Café Martínez in the Medical Center, and throughout our midmorning interview, he refers to Elizondo, who died over the holidays, in the present tense. “Paul is so iconic in this community, that you just think he’s going to be around forever,” Rodriguez says. “It’s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I think everybody wants to go in a peaceful manner, but — from a survivor’s perspective — there’s no opportunity to say goodbye. There’s no closure. It just happens.” Rodriguez knows from experience. He recently experienced two deaths in his family. His father died in late 2017, and his sister-in-law was murdered in March of last year, a victim of domestic violence. Now 44, CommishJRod, as he’s called on Instagram, hasn’t physically changed much since I interviewed him in 2012, but he does feel “a little bit wiser.” He’s learned not to “over-promise,” as he says many oﬃceholders are prone to do. “We are people-pleasers by nature,” Rodriguez says. “We want everybody to like us, but we have to keep expectations realistic.” It was during his time on the San Antonio City Council that he ﬁgured out that trying to make everyone happy was a fruitless endeavor. “Councilwoman [Ana] Sandoval recently

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called me and said, ‘I don’t get it. Everybody loves you, Justin!’” he says with a laugh. “I was like, ‘Ana, you haven’t talked to enough people.’” If a metaphorical clock was reset on the night Castro became mayor in 2009, one could argue Rodriguez became a political notable during that awakening. He was elected to the board of the San Antonio Independent School District in 2004, then to the District 7 council seat in 2007. In 2012, he was elected to represent District 125 in the Texas House of Representatives in 2012, where he served until his current appointment. Rodriguez’s latest chapter began unfolding as he packed his bags for the current legislative session. After a few phone calls with Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, he received an offer and was sworn in during early January. It’s the first time in Rodriguez’s public service career that he’s able to focus exclusively on his elected role and set aside his law practice and investment banking work. “I’ve decided to drop everything else I was doing,” he says. “This is something I wake up thinking about and I go to bed thinking about — and I’m excited about that.” Many have already asked Rodriguez if he plans to stay in office as long as Elizondo, and his answer is succinct. “I never look beyond the term that I’m in.” Being on the ballot every few years has been a frequent reminder of the nature of democracy. He describes running for reelection as a sort of “job evaluation.” “I’m going back for an interview, and I’m asking my constituents, ‘How did I do? If I did well, then keep me. If I didn’t, get rid of me. I get it. Maybe somebody else can do a better job,’” he explains. “A lot of politicians loathe the campaigning aspect of it. I really look forward to it.” It’s this philosophy that inspired him to hit the ground running as an advocate for the

precinct. As part of that, he’s meeting with folks like Mario Bravo, who ran against Elizondo last year, to hear ideas on how county government can be modernized. Rodriguez adds that he’ll run for election in 2020, as he must, according to the local government code. “I have a full 18 months to prove myself, right?” he says with a chuckle. Where does his give-and-take philosophy come from? I’ve noticed that many politicians — like Rodriguez’s predecessor — can have a “my sandbox” mentality once they’re elected to public oﬃce. “You know, what I think it is for me is the perspective that things can change so quickly, having experienced a few deaths in the family over the last year,” Rodriguez says. “I think that’s part of what’s changed my perspective.” “So, it’s like a don’t-hold-on-too-tight thing?” I ask. “I mean, yeah,” he responds. Rodriguez seems to enjoy the interaction with his constituents. It’s something he says he missed while in the “Austin bubble,” where getting things accomplished revolved around ideologies. Back in Bexar County, he feels he can focus more on ideas. And it does feel like a new Bexar County. “Nelson has even said as much,” Rodriguez says. “He said, ‘This is a new generation of leadership for the county.’” Some political observers have said Rodriguez deserves this appointed position, but he prefers to stay away from that word. “I don’t like to hear the word deserved. I think it means someone is entitled,” he says. “I’ve got to prove myself every day.” I ask him if he’s a Virgo. “Yeah,” he says. Me too, I tell him. “Are you? Nice,” Rodriguez says, taking a sip of his coﬀee. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

Find more newsmore coverage Find news every day at sacurrent.com

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Easy Target?

November’s charter vote could spell trouble for Nirenberg’s reelection — assuming he has a real challenger BY SANFORD NOWLIN

an Antonio voters’ November approval of propositions B and C, two of the punitive charter changes put forth by the city’s fire union, is the kind of rebuke no mayor wants — especially not six months before another election to keep his job. But that’s what Mayor Ron Nirenberg got. Nirenberg, who faces reelection in May, was out front in the ﬁght against the two amendments, which limit the salary of future city managers and give the union power to unilaterally force contract talks into binding arbitration. And the results, political observers said, signal strong anti-status quo feelings from local voters. “My conclusion after observing the vote is that Nirenberg’s support isn’t that deep and that he’s vulnerable,” said Heywood Sanders, a professor of public policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Indeed, nearly 366,600 voters weighed in on Proposition B, with more than 59 percent casting ballots in favor. The number of “yes” votes alone is more than double the total turnout in each of the past two mayoral elections. Nirenberg’s focus on equity over unbridled development and his refusal to chase the 2020 Republican convention didn’t win points with the city’s old-line business establishment. That may leave him open to a developer-backed challenger, who could leverage the traditionally higher turnout of the city’s wealthier, whiter and more conservative North Side. The North Side’s districts 8, 9 and 10 cast the largest number of votes in the last May citywide election, tallying 12,900, 16,000 and 13,500 respectively, according to Sanders’ data. By comparison, voters in downtown’s District 1 cast just 10,300. Even so, a business-backed candidate has yet to materialize. As of press time, the only three challengers that have ﬁled are Tony Diaz, John Velasquez and Matthew Piña. Diaz and Velasquez are repeat long-shot candidates, while Piña ran as

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

EP Business/Twitter Bryan Rindfuss

a Libertarian to unseat Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush. The wild card may be District 6 Councilman Greg Brockhouse, council’s sole supporter of the union’s charter amendments and a frequent critic of departing City Manager Sheryl Sculley, at whom Prop B was aimed. Brockhouse’s willingness to publicly scrap with Nirenberg hints at a run. However, the councilman said he’s still gauging whether it’s the right move for his family and if his underdog campaign has a shot at taking out the incumbent mayor. Plus, Brockhouse would be far from a conventional choice as a business candidate. His support of the charter amendments put him at odds with every chamber of commerce in the city. “I’m the most pro-business guy on the council, but there are other pieces, like my support of the amendments, that pissed them oﬀ,” said Brockhouse, who won’t announce whether he plans to run until February 9. Even if a solid business candidate does materialize, there’s no guarantee voters will want to change course, said Arturo Vega, a political science professor at St. Mary’s University. Some of the biggest issues Nirenberg ran on, such as revamping the city’s transportation strategy, are still in the takeoﬀ stage. “It’s hard to dislodge an incumbent unless there’s been a major scandal,” Vega said. Not to mention, Nirenberg’s handling of Sculley’s departure shows a willingness to deliver the change voters demanded in November while promising stability to business interests. Barring a major last-minute surprise, council will vote January 31 to approve Erik Walsh, a San Antonio native and longtime Sculley lieutenant. “That choice manages to address the business community concerns,” Vega said. “That community wants a known quantity.”

Wall Blocker

San Antonio’s Roland Gutierrez files a bill calling for an environmental review of Trump’s border barrier BY SANFORD NOWLIN

San Antonio lawmaker has filed a bill in the Texas Legislature that would require the state to study whether the Trump administration’s border wall would increase flooding and environmental damage. Rep. Roland Gutierrez’s House Bill 990 would direct the Texas Water Development Board and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to review the wall›s potential effect on South Texas storm drainage and submit a study by March 1, 2020. The agencies would also be required to come up with ways to mitigate potential environmental damage. “The Rio Grande Floodplain is home to several towns that have seen devastating damage from record breaking floods recently, something that a border wall would only make worse,” the Democrat said. Gutierrez pointed to a recent Texas Monthly investigative article in which engineers warned a fence-like barrier could clog with debris and lead to catastrophic flooding. Beyond its environmental impact, the wall is also a property rights issue, Gutierrez said. Landowners will have their property taken away or carved up to facilitate its construction. Work on an eight-mile stretch of the barrier is slated to begin in Starr County in September — before the deadline for Gutierrez’s proposed study. However, he said the resulting document could provide legal ammunition to allow the state to sue and halt the project. But the bill itself has a significant barrier. Gutierrez will need to win over GOP support in the Republican-controlled legislature. However, he said he’s hopeful some will see the importance of standing up to the administration. “This is about state’s rights, which is everything the Republicans say they’re about,” he said.

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MEASURING

Why it’s time for San Antonio to get over its longstanding inferiority complex BY BEKAH MCNEEL 12

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

few years back, I considered starting a boutique event-planning business but was warned against the idea. Local caterers told me it would never work, that I should move to Dallas instead. San Antonio was just too cheap to sustain any more event planners. Or maybe, I now realize, San Antonians just like to throw their own parties. When a business or cultural institution fails to take off in the Alamo City, a predictable trope is likely to play out, and it goes like this: Our city can’t have nice things. We’re too cheap, too lame, too provincial, too fat, too slow, too low-brow. The critique grows louder when that business or cultural institution happens to be thriving somewhere else, especially in Austin, Dallas or Houston. You know, the three other big Texas cities that so often seem to overshadow us. “There’s no doubt, historically, that’s correct,” said former San Antonio mayor and longtime Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. “For years and years, we felt we lagged behind.” Turns out, underneath that Alamo-shaped chip many of us carry around on our shoulder, San Antonio has some real civic anxiety. In some ways, it may be merited. But, experts point out, it’s also an old and bougie pastime, rooted in classism. And the more we obsess over it, the more distracted we are from recognizing what makes us great as a city and correcting the longstanding inequalities that hold us back. While what some people call the San Antonio inferiority complex plays out in everything from civic debate to cocktail party chatter, it can take its most extreme forms online. When the San Antonio Symphony plunged into its most recent financial woes, a commenter on Texas Public Radio’s website urged the city to pull on its “big boy pants” and finally support its symphony. Never mind that orchestras across the country are grappling with similar financial strains. Responding to a Rivard Report article on SA’s music industry, another commenter claimed that if a real scene was possible in the 300-year-old city, “it would’ve happened by now.” Never mind that internationally recognized performers as disparate as Doug Sahm, Flaco Jimenez and Girl in a Coma all launched their success from here.

Remember the Alamo? Despite its proliferation on social media, San Antonio’s feeling of inade-

quacy isn’t new. The city has strived to be something other than what it is since its founding, says historian and author Char Miller. Its Spanish colonial buildings and forced assimilation of indigenous people were backward glances at Spain and other “civilized” places — and colonialism always comes with a wannabe mentality. As trade and trains brought in visitors, San Antonio became “someone else’s Disneyland,” said Miller, a professor at Pomona College in California who’s made an academic career out of studying our city. It was a frontier town with loads of color, but not necessarily the kind of place that could retain a sophisticated citizenry. “[Visitors] can come in, look down on you, treat you like shit, drop some coin,” Miller explained. “But you’re always held at arm’s length.” This Frontierland persona started shortly after Texas’ statehood as a comparison to the cities of the Northeast — Boston, New York and Philadelphia. However, by the ’30s and ’40s, Texas’ oil boom catapulted Dallas and Houston ahead of us and into that club of elites. And, in 1936, flush with that new success, Dallas pulled a fast one on San Antonio. Of the three major cities vying to host the Texas Centennial Exposition and World’s Fair — San Antonio, Houston and Dallas — SA was considered the natural choice, writes historian Richard Wuthnow in his book Rough Country. It was the oldest of the three contenders, the most iconic. But, in the end, Dallas put up more money, more space and leadership (read: country club buddies) to close the deal. The exposure allowed the Big D to establish itself as the more sophisticated, WASP-y, monied face of the state. Meanwhile, San Antonio remained a dusty relic, too brown and poor to represent the Texas of oil barons and industry. For a while, SA rolled over, according to Miller. It donned cowboy costumes and sombreros and played its assigned part. By 1968, though, the city rallied, ﬁnally hosting its own World’s Fair, Hemisfair, replete with the tower that still dominates the downtown skyline. Other developments also temporarily elevated the city’s proﬁle. Homegrown Datapoint Corp., for example, emerged as a pioneering computer company, joining the Fortune 500 and adding thousands to its payroll. But as the cycles of business go, IBM and other personal computing companies pulled ahead and Datapoint 14 6

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Saturday, February 2 | 9:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. C

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Our distinguished speakers: Cynthia Young, Assistant Curator at the International Center for Photography, New York, New York Nathalie Herschdorfer, Curator at Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography and Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Le Locle, Switzerland Jaqueline Bates, Photography Director of The California Sunday Magazine and Pop-Up Magazine

Registration: $50 for Museum members; $75 for non-members; $25 for students. Lunch is included. | Check-in begins at 9:00 a.m. For detailed descriptions of the talks and to register: samuseum.org/calendar. This is the twenty-second in an annual series of ﬁne and decorative arts symposia underwritten by the Mays Family Foundation. Image: Mike Disfarmer (American, 1884-1959) Untitled (Standing Couple), ca. 1940, Gelatin silver contact print, h. 5 in. (12.7 cm); w. 3 in. (7.6 cm), San Antonio Museum of Art, gift of Ernest Pomerantz and Marie Brenner, 2016.26.57 © Courtesy Steven Kasher Gallery

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Historian Char Miller traces San Antonio’s inferiority complex back to its colonial past.

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6 12 went into a prolonged decline. “We were ahead of everybody, but we lost it,” Wolff said, acknowledging his own frustration when comparing the city to the tech mecca of Austin — the latest in our long line of cities-we-ain’t. “If I have an inferiority complex, that’s it.” What frustrates Wolff most is that San Antonio allowed Datapoint to rise and fall without a lasting investment in workforce or infrastructure. Perhaps consequently, investments in workforce development have become a hallmark of Wolff’s tenure as judge. The last 15 years, he points out, have been radically transformative for San Antonio. As president and CEO of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, Jenna Saucedo-Herrera also obsesses over workforce development.

But she’s less worried about Austin — or even Dallas. “Dallas can be plastic, Austin can be weird, but San Antonio is real,” she said. If SA has failed to reap the same economic beneﬁts as those cities, Saucedo-Herrera argues, that’s because it needs to get better at telling its story, “and doing it loudly.” Others have made this argument — that San Antonio doesn’t brag enough. Or that maybe we do, but that we need to make sure we can back it up.

A Question of Equity Still, historians point out that better marketing can’t make up for the city’s biggest deﬁcit. Development in the 1960s wasn’t

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

happening willy-nilly. It followed a pattern of inequity and internalized classism, if not racism. More than anything, that segregated, unequal approach to San Antonio’s modern development is the real ghost that haunts the city. For all the temptation to deﬁne SA’s shortcomings as results of provincialism or backwardness, its biggest failing is economic disconnection. Miller credits decades of the city’s sluggish growth compared to Dallas — or more recently, Austin — to “an inability on the part of the elite to think of the city as a metropolitan whole.” Even now, the city is working to build downtown into a utopian island without addressing the disparities among the sea of neighborhoods in which it ﬂoats, critics charge.

“The only way to fix it is to look at our problems square in the face,” Miller said. For many of those who grew up outside of San Antonio’s elite neighborhoods, the whole notion of comparing the city to its far-flung neighbors can seem like an alien concept. “I thought that the South Side was San Antonio. We really didn’t go north of [U.S. Highway] 90,” explained Ray Tijerina, chief of staff for charter school Compass Rose Academy. “But I though it was great, so did people that I knew.” Easier to observe were the inequalities within San Antonio. Councilman Rey Saldaña, also a native South Sider, remembers traveling with his high school baseball team to a North Side game and seeing his first Barnes & Noble, then a Borders. 16 6

tickets available at TACOMUSICFEST.COM

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6 14 The two big box outlets sat within miles of each other, while his side of town didn’t have a single bookstore.

Quality or Death Concerns over San Antonio’s apparent backwardness aren’t limited to its economic development, though. Kevin Peckham was gigging regularly with his New York City punk band Ghost Ghost when his wife’s job pulled him to San Antonio. He assumed he’d easily break into the music scene here, but when he realized there was almost no rehearsal space available, that sent up a red flag. For Peckham, that absence signaled an underdeveloped music scene. But that lack of development doesn’t mean that there’s a shortage of local interest or homegrown musicianship. “Not underdeveloped in terms of talent, and not in terms of people interested in music,” he said. What lacked was a professional infrastructure. Bands need rehearsal spaces as much to practice their songs as to build community, according to Peckham. He even briefly considered opening one — a sort of Geekdom for musicians, where artists could store gear and industry pros could offer workshops to help bands, promoters and venues up their game. Such similar places are readily available in “music cities” like New York, Austin and Nashville. However, he points to upsides such as the growing number of clubs like Paper Tiger that are professionalizing the local scene, making it friendlier to touring acts from larger markets. Local flavor is great, Peckham said, but venues and promoters must be reliably professional if they want out-of-town artists and booking agents to work with them. “The music industry is a trust industry,” he said. To leverage its musical strengths, San Antonio must break from its Fiesta mindset, Peckham added. Festivals don’t make a local music scene. Incubators, education and local opportunities do. Despite San Antonio’s emergence as a visual art hotbed, that scene also suffers from a lack of professional training opportunities, participants argue. “There’s a real gap there,” said local visual artist Harvey Morales. To that end, Morales opened La Printería, which offers young, talented artists access to the screen printers as well as informal mentorship. While a few, like Cruz Ortiz, have gone on to develop a recognizable brand, Morales acknowledged that many here still struggle to balance commercial appeal and authenticity. To be sure, San Antonio isn’t alone in dealing with that lack of support. Like many mid-tier cities, it doesn’t have a coastal commerce center’s wealth of corporate foundations or a deep bench of patrons that can help bankroll every aspect of its artistic growth.

Embracing the Culture Even so, ﬁnding and supporting local excellence is well within San Antonio’s reach, said Adriana Rios, project manager for local startup space Geekdom. After growing up in Miami and living in New York City, Rios came to San Antonio with Venture for America, a fellowship program for aspiring entrepreneurs. She represents the kind of talent that San Antonio is pining for, but she’s a little ambivalent about her role in “revitalizing the city.” Rios gets what city oﬃcials are trying to do downtown, but she worries that they’re ignoring its real magic. Much of the development she sees along Houston Street looks like it could be anywhere, but when she travels the West Side, she sees the kind of place-based culture money can’t buy — even though places like New York City are trying. New York is commissioning murals to make certain neighborhoods less drab. On San Antonio’s West Side, murals fostered by organizations including San Anto Cultural Arts are already serving their intended purpose: telling a community’s story. 17 6

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

Pearl culinary chief Shelley Grieshaber said the city is growing to appreciate its culinary scene.

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CODEATHON 2019 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22-24, 2019 TRINITY UNIVERSITY CAMPUS Be a part of VIAâ€™s GoCodeSA Codeathon, an event designed to bring together the best coders, designers, and tech minds in the area, and challenge them to turn bright ideas into smart transit innovation. GoCodeSA Codeathon is free for participants, to compete for cash prizes based on their work. Applicants must register as a group, each composed of at least two and at most five individuals. Tech-field judges will conduct reviews and select the top three entries. More than $10,000 in cash and prizes will be awarded. Register at GOCODESA.com by Feb. 4 for a chance to win $100 gift card.

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Councilman Rey Saldaña is among the San Antonians who saw the inequality in the city before he compared it to the outside.

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6 17 “The Latino culture in this city is unique to this city,” Rios said. When Shelley Grieshaber returned to San Antonio from Austin to serve as director of education for the Culinary Institute of America’s local campus, she wasn’t sure her hometown was ready for it. After all, SA prided itself on a low cost of living, and that included food. Paying for quality ingredients and chef-driven menus didn’t seem like part of the conversation. Now, she hears more and more chefs from other cities wondering how they can get in on San Antonio’s culinary momentum. “It’s changed tremendously,” said Grieshaber, who now heads culinary operations for the Pearl. But, she acknowledges, it took a long time, and the city still hasn’t completely grown up. Restaurants still get pushback when they use more expensive, higher quality ingredients — like top-quality beef or locally sourced greens — in favor of cheaper options. The Pearl, she explained, has become as much about educating aspiring chefs to stand behind quality food as it has been about educating patrons about life beyond Tex-Mex. “It’s about exposure,” Grieshaber said.

Princesses or Queens Exposure is a huge part of visual artist Morales’s model as well. By getting Mexican and Chicano art into the hands and homes of more patrons, he wants to see appreciation for their traditions rise above trendiness and kitsch. Teaching emerging and local artists how to broaden their market with lower cost prints, Morales hopes

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

to spread more local art through the city. Like other fields, San Antonio’s art scene suffers when most of the investment capital is sequestered up on the North Side. Some live entire lifetimes without ever driving on Zarzamora, Southeast Military, or East Houston (except for the blocks around the AT&T Center). On purpose. Equity is about more than the city budget. It’s about the city’s identity. What is essential and representative of San Antonio? Is it Fiesta princesses or chili queens? Can it really be both? No U.S. city seems to have fully figured that out yet. And that’s the dirty little secret about all the places we covet so much. Because we don’t know other municipalities like we know our own, we don’t always see the downside of their apparent growth and vitality. We don’t notice, say, the disappearance of the working-middle class from San Francisco. Or that Houston rounded up its homeless and exiled them from downtown. Much of the time, we only see their parks full of picnicking millennials, and we want some too. We want their people. And to get their people, we think we need to have their stuff.

Portland’s Solution One of the key arguments against San Antonio’s ill-fated 2014 streetcar initiative was that the city had latched onto Portland’s solution to Portland’s problems. Then-councilman Ron Nirenberg argued that for rail to catch on, it needed to solve a real problem. So, he proposed light rail running along a major traffic corridor and voted against the streetcar proposal, which ultimately failed. Now that the councilman has become Mayor Nirenberg with the power to commission Blue Ribbon panels, San Antonio may get a chance to leapfrog the streetcar and seek a transportation solution that serves the whole city. Until recently, such practical investments were out of character for SA. Only recently would the renovation of Wheatley Courts and Bibliotech, connecting hike-and-bike greenways and the development of Pearsall Park have been possible. Even so, there’s practical stuff to achieve at a more granular level — neighborhoods still fight for sidewalks, and school districts battle to close the digital divide. At this point, it seems like we might be turning the corner on the “San Antonio needs a...” strategy for economic development. Those kind of exercises gave us things like the Alamodome — a monument to San Antonio’s pro-football lust and the failed economic promises of sports stadiums. The Alamodome further illustrates who gets screwed every time we have to find a place to put our

shiny new toys. Figuring out the health eﬀects of the toxic soil displaced by the dome’s construction was a post-facto debate after the dubious dirt had already been foisted upon the East Side. The construction of new freeways has a similar habit. U.S. Highway 281 goes so far out of its way to avoid treading on the toes of Alamo Heights and Olmos Park that it spends half the day in absurd quarter-mile traﬃc jams while people navigate its curves. Guess whose neighborhoods were not so painstakingly spared.

Our Own Kind of Cool It doesn’t have to be that way, though. While the business community was investing in sprawl and stadiums, the West Side and in the city’s historic neighborhoods, San Antonio has been putting in some lasting infrastructure of a different kind. Our city led the state in whole-neighborhood preservation, designating places like Dignowity Hill and Monticello Park as historical places, instead of going structure by structure as Austin has done. “Instead of the tool of the gentrifiers, historic preservation has been the tool that has kept neighborhoods whole,” Austin preservationist Kate Singleton said. She praised San Antonio’s early adoption of a “preservation ethic.” Community organizing has also served as a powerful reminder of San Antonio’s rich history of activism. Organizations including COPS/Metro Alliance have staved off some of the more parasitic development efforts over the decades and brought neighborhoods into 2019 ready for a new approach. Community-driven revitalization requires strong community organizing and progressive governance. But San Antonio can’t rely solely on that kind of activism to help shed its inferiority complex. To do that, we all need to love our neighbors. San Antonio must focus on deep, whole-city excellence at home instead of pining away after the dreamy facades of other cities. We have plenty to learn from them, sure, but at the end of the day, the solution cannot be to make our people and places look more like their people and places. Because, ultimately, that’s what all the striving is about. If we take care of the people we have, we’ll thrive and continue creating our own kind of cool other cities can envy. “Name your metric that helps us understand the capacity of a city to meet the needs of all of its citizens,” Pomona College’s Char Miller said. “If you’re not working on those, then you’re not going to be a good city, let alone a great one.” In other words, the antidote to San Antonio’s inferiority complex isn’t another year of rah-rah-ism, or another decade of downtown, or another slogan about us being on the rise. The city is in its 300s now. It’s time to own what we’ve done and what we haven’t. If we wise up to that, we could be the first U.S. city to get it right.

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WED | 1/30 Courtesy of Ruiz-Healy Art ART

‘AGUA VIVA’

Abstraction maintains an appropriately nebulous identity: while the entire genre gets lost on some, others can instead get lost inside abstract art. For every obnoxious parent who claims their “5-year-old could do that,” there’s a thoughtful observer excavating meaning from a work of art or perhaps concocting a narrative all their own. Miles away from the crudely rendered abstractions routinely associated with unsuspecting toddlers, the precise work of Argentinian artist Cecilia Biagini builds otherworldly drama via swirling lines and distorted grids, repeated patterns that are at once organic and geometric, and compositions reminiscent of puzzles, celestial configurations and scientific specimens. Born in Buenos Aires and based in Brooklyn, Biagini works between painting, prints, mobiles and photograms (essentially photographic collages created without a camera). Despite shifts in materials and approaches, Biagini says her diverse yet consistently colorful works “find commonalities in their composition and playfulness.” Having shown locally with Ruiz-Healy Art for more than a decade, Biagini returns to San Antonio for “Agua Viva,” her fourth solo show at the gallery. Named after the Spanish term for a type of jellyfish — which translates as “living water” — the exhibition comprises recent paintings and sculptures inspired by “the movement of the body’s rhythmic contractions while underwater.” During the opening reception, Biagini and collaborator Iloa Biagini-Rosenbaum will complement the works on display by performing improvised pieces combining movement and sound. Free, opening reception 6-8pm, on view 11am-4pm Tue-Sat through March 6, Ruiz-Healy Art, 201 E. Olmos Dr., (210) 804-2219, ruizhealyart.com. — Bryan Rindfuss

Courtesy of Harlem Globetrotters

rooms on the third season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, where she joined the polished clique the Heathers (alongside fellow contestants Raja, Delta Work and Carmen Carrera), and ultimately finished in second place, making her “America’s Next to Next Drag Superstar” (as she touts on her Twitter profile). Born Karl Westerberg in Minnesota and named in honor of her Filipino heritage (Manila being the capital of the Philippines and Luzon the country’s largest island), Luzon boasts a background in graphic design and brings conceptual artistry to her drag craft, donning blond-streaked black wigs reminiscent of Cruella de Vil, cartoonish, cross-eyed expressions that recall slapstick and vaudeville, and amusing getups inspired by everything from carrot cake and popcorn to Imelda Marcos and Jessica Rabbit. (Luzon’s interpretation of Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park” in a

WED | 1/30 SPORTS

HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS L

WED | 1/30 DRAG

MANILA LUZON 5

Serving up a winning blend of old-school sophistication, outré glamour and campy theatrics, Manila Luzon sashayed her way into our hearts and living 22 CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

Big Bird costume is counted among the most memorable lip-syncs in Drag Race herstory.) Since her initial turn on the Emmy-winning series back in 2011, Luzon has remained poised in the spotlight, returning for a short-lived stint on the inaugural season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars in 2012, venturing into the realm of music videos (“I don’t consider myself a musician at all … I consider myself more of a video artist and the music is a soundtrack,” she told the Huffington Post in 2015), appearing in commercials and print ads (for Orbitz, Absolut Vodka and Nine West) and currently lending her diverse talents to “all types of events, including weddings, bachelor parties, birthdays and divorces!” Currently competing on the fourth season of All Stars, Luzon returns to San Antonio for two performances at Heat with local support from snaggletoothed emcee Tencha la Jefa and the Rey Lopez Entertainment Showgirls. $15-$25, 10:30pm & midnight, Heat Nightclub, 1500 N. Main Ave., (210) 3864537, reylopezentertainment.net. — BR

Magnus Hastings

During the Spurs’ recent home loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, Harlem Globetrotter Orlando Melendez traded tricks with the Coyote to the delight of the AT&T Center crowd. Hoops fans can expect similar hijinks when Melendez, the first Puerto Rican to join the legendary team, returns to San Antonio with his full squad. The Globetrotters’ current Fan Powered World Tour offers audiences unprecedented access to directly interact with players via a Magic Pass good for an exclusive pregame event. After the game, fans can participate in free autograph sessions with athletes Big Easy Lofton, Ant Atkinson, Hi-Lite Bruton, Hammer Harrison and Thunder Law, along with Melendez. Female ballers TNT Lister, Torch George and Hoops

THU | 1/31 MUSIC

A TRIBUTE TO EMILIO NAVAIRA L

Known to many by the mononym Emilio, Emilio Navaira III’s award-winning Tejano and country music career spanned decades, earning him the title the “King of Tejano.” Responsible for chart-climbing hits like “Por Siempre Unidos” and the Selena duet “Tú Robaste Mi Corazón,” Navaira is credited with helping spur the popularity of Tejano in the 1990s. In tribute to Navaira, who died suddenly in 2016, the San Antonio Symphony dedicates a night to his hit Tejano tunes. The concert features his sons Diego and Emilio as well as his band, performing in conjunction with the symphony to render classics live in dedication to a man that to many of the performers onstage was not only a musician, but a father and friend. $10-$96, 8pm, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, H-E-B Performance Hall, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, sasymphony.org. — Kelly Merka Nelson

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Courtesy of San Antonio Symphony

Green will also be on hand for a celebration of basketball 93 years in the making. $25-$156, 7pm, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Pkwy., (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com. — M. Solis

“space, weight, time and ﬂow” as a connective thread between choreography-related videos, drawings, sculptures, installations and performance works by Anne Wallace, Ronny Quevedo, Eric McMaster, Raul Gonzalez and Julie Favreau. In addition to exploring movement “as it relates to dance, sports, daily life, eroticism, and more,” the group show also considers “the varied definitions of the terms effort and economy in combination with one another” (free, 6-9pm, Blue Star Contemporary, bluestarcontemporary.org). A few doors down at UTSA’s offsite gallery Terminal 136, Asian-American artist Jave Yoshimoto tackles the concept of “social amnesia” in the digital era via “A Modicum of Truth” a solo exhibition that blends traditional and contemporary ideas and techniques to address real-world tragedies such as the crisis in Aleppo (free, 6-9pm Thu-Fri, Terminal 136, 136 Blue Star, art.utsa.edu). Up the way at FL!GHT, Houston-based Jordan Clough

and San Antonio’s own Pat Kay joint forces to dig up “Heaven’s Trash” — a collection of paintings and mixed-media installations said to “foster rich and colorful notions of the wearisome characteristics of eternal heaven” (free, 6-10pm Thu-Fri, FL!GHT Gallery, 112R Blue Star). And just slightly off the Blue Star campus, Presa House Gallery observes Women’s History Month with “Intersections,” a group show that “celebrates women of color through a diverse collection of 22 artists and their stories told from a variety experiences and perspectives.” Representing a collective effort between six young curators working throughout Texas (Mayra Zamora, Sandra Gonzalez, Jonathan Paul Jackson, Coka Trevino and Presa House co-directors Jenelle Esparza and Rigoberto Luna), the exhibition addresses timely topics including reproductive rights, Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement (free, 6-11pm Fri, Presa House Gallery, 725 S. Presa St., presahouse.com). — BR

THU | 1/31 FRI | 2/1 ART

FIRST FRIDAY HIGHLIGHTS 5

As San Antonians recover from bouts of Seasonal Affective Disorder (aka SAD) and pinch off the tails of ﬂunked New Year’s resolutions, the local art scene is slowly but surely rebooting, giving culture seekers more than a few solid excuses to get out and about for First Friday. As the longest-running art space on the Southtown circuit, Blue Star Contemporary offers a no-brainer of a starting point with the opening of “Effort Economy,” a group show that employs modern dance pioneer Rudolph Laban (1879-1958) and his movement-based theories surrounding

Pat Kay

Find these and more events at sacurrent.com

Carver Box Office (210) 207-2234 or Ticketmaster (800) 745-3000 | TheCarver.org

STUDIOUS SOPHISTICATION

ST E FO N H A R R I S & BLAC KO UT SAT. FEB 2, 2019 | JO LONG THEATRE | 8PM | $35

“MR. HARRIS HOVERED OVER HIS VIBRAPHONE AND MARIMBA WITH HUMMINGBIRD MOVEMENTS, HANDS FLUTTERING IN A BLUR ACROSS THE KEYS.” ~ T H E N E W YO R K T I M E S

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

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SAT | 2/2

Spurs Sports & Entertainment

SPORTS

SPURS VS. PELICANS L

The New Orleans Pelicans make their last regular-season stop in San Antonio this Saturday in the final home game before the Spurs’ annual rodeo road trip. This season’s eight-game gauntlet includes marquee matchups against the reloaded Warriors in Oakland, and a rematch with Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors in Toronto. Traditionally an elite road team in the Popovich era, the Spurs have stumbled away from home in recent campaigns. A strong showing in opposing arenas over the next month would boost San Antonio’s woeful road record and help build momentum after the All-Star break. Despite a left index finger sprain that recently sidelined Anthony Davis, the Spurs must avoid overlooking the scrappy Pelicans. Even without Davis, New Orleans is capable of a balanced attack that can quickly overwhelm unsuspecting opponents. $17-$875, 7:30pm, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Pkwy., (210) 444-5000, attcenter.com. — MS

TUE | 2/5 MUSIC

DEEP LISTENING WITH JESSICA DECUIR y

Despite its reputation as a quirky source of 1950s scifi sound-effects (and the Doctor Who theme song), the theremin has much more to offer than the stereotypical glissandos that spring to mind. Most recognizable as one half of San Anto electronic duo Hyperbubble,

Evan Zimmerman

Jessica DeCuir operates her Moog Etherwave Theremin Pro and Boss loop station with exacting hand movements to create ethereal, looping soundscapes. She returns to Highwire for a half-hour solo set that may open a wormhole to a far-off nebula, if you’re lucky. To pull the audience down to terra firma, double bass and violin duo Dykes and Young will perform their hallmark location-inﬂuenced improvisation. Beginning as smaller, improvised structures, the music progresses into fixed compositions that take cues from the physical surroundings, such as sustained drones against the whistling rush of air through a tunnel, or rippling ostinatos in complement with the rustling leaves and trilling of birds outdoors. $10, 7:30pm, Highwire Art Gallery, 326 W. Josephine St., (210) 827-7681, highwirearts.com. — KMN

TUE | 2/5 - SUN | 2/10 TH EATER

ANASTASIA L

Despite her untimely demise at the age of 17, Anastasia Romanov left a strangely romantic impression befit-

Courtesy of Hyperbubble

ting her title of the Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia. The youngest daughter of Nicholas II (the final tsar of Russia), she lived in royal fashion until her father surrendered the throne amid a mutiny that evolved into a full-on civil war. While living in exile in 1918, her entire family (including Anastasia’s dog) was led to a basement and killed by firing squad. The fact that the bodies of Anastasia and her younger brother Alexei (once heir to the throne) were not found for nearly 90 years sparked pervasive rumors that the pair had somehow escaped their family’s execution. Arguably the most famous lore that emerged from this long-unsolved mystery arrived in the form of Anna Anderson, a Polish woman who impersonated Anastasia in a failed plot to swipe her inheritance. Although she was not the only Anastasia imposter, Anderson inspired both a 1952 play and a 1956 film starring Ingrid Bergman as Anya, a suicidal amnesiac with an uncanny resemblance to the Grand Duchess. Released a decade before the 2007 discovery of Anastasia’s grave, 20th Century Fox’s 1997 animated musical Anastasia also suggests the Grand Duchess escaped her family’s fate and ﬂed to Paris, albeit with a convenient case of amnesia. If you mix all the above ingredients in a fantastical cocktail shaker and strain it over a Broadway stage, you might get a taste of the slice of revisionist history that is Anastasia the musical. With a book by Terrence McNally (Kiss of the Spider Woman, Master Class, Ragtime), and songs by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens (including several repurposed from the cartoon version), it follows amnesiac street sweeper/Anastasia look-alike Anya as she unwittingly joins forces with two con men scheming to nab a fortune from Anastasia’s grandmother in Paris. Nods to the rags-to-riches transformation in My Fair Lady — not to mention hallmarks straight out of the Disney Princess playbook — pepper the perplexed protagonist’s path to self discovery. Sure, it’s been critiqued as disjointed, overly long and riddled by “a serious identity crisis” of its own, Anastasia still gets eaten up by its tweenage demographic thanks to poppy showtunes, upbeat choreography, picturesque sets and a storybook ending. And if ticket sales are any indication, this national tour directed by Tony winner Darko Tresnjak is no exception. $40-$160, 7:30pm Tue-Thu, 8pm Fri, 2pm & 8pm Sat, 2pm & 7:30pm Sun, Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com. — BR sacurrent.com | January 30-February 12, 2019 | CURRENT

LET'S RODEO

SAN ANTONIO FEBRUARY 7-24, 2019

THURSDAY OPENING DAY

PRCA RODEO

AARON WATSON

38 SPECIAL

MARTINA MCBRIDE

TRACE ADKINS

WHY DON'T WE

DARIUS RUCKER

MATTHEW WEST

JIM GAFFIGAN

THU. 2/7 7:00 PM

FRI. 2/8 7:30 PM

SAT. 2/9 1:00 PM

SAT. 2/9 7:30 PM

SUN. 2/10 1:00 PM

MON. 2/11 7:00 PM

TUE. 2/12 7:00 PM

WED. 2/13 7:00 PM

PRCA RODEO

SEMIFINALS

PRCA RODEO

ALABAMA

BRAD PAISLEY

ELI YOUNG BAND

COLE SWINDELL

RUSSELL DICKERSON

LA ADICTIVA

KELSEA BALLERINI

JON PARDI

THU. 2/14 7:00 PM

FRI. 2/15 7:30 PM

SAT. 2/16 1:00 PM

SAT. 2/16 7:30 PM

SUN. 2/17 1:00 PM

SUN. 2/17 7:30 PM

MON. 2/18 7:00 PM

TUE. 2/19 7:00 PM

FINALS

FAMILY DAY ON THE FAIRGROUNDS

SEMIFINALS

LADY ANTEBELLUM WED. 2/20 7:00 PM

XTREME BULLS

SEMIFINALS

SAMMY HAGAR & THE CIRCLE

PRINCE ROYCE FRI. 2/22 7:30 PM

THU. 2/21 7:00 PM

RANDY HOUSER

BRETT ELDREDGE

SAT. 2/23 1:00 PM

SAT. 2/23 7:30 PM

COME EARLY, STAY LATE!

SUN. 2/24 ALL DAY

KICKOFF SPECIAL!

Every Thursday - Saturday enjoy 5 live music stages, dancing, food, drinks and the carnival until midnight. Over 120 bands to perform over 18 days!

Buy two tickets to any evening performance February 7, 8 or 9 and get your choice of two rodeo T-Shirts, or a $10 gift card, or a $10 gift card.

RODEO TICKETS START AT $20

RODEO STAR EXPERIENCE $200

Includes entertainment, fairgrounds, livestock events, shopping and attractions. PACKAGES: Final 5, Mini Plan 1 & 2

View the Rodeo from the Fan Zone, then move stage-side for the concert. Includes parking, meal, 2 drink tickets and a gift. Presented by Santikos Entertainment.

Go to sarodeo.com, Ticketmaster, the SA Rodeo app, AT&T Center Southwest Ticket Office or call 877.63.RODEO (76336).

Over $198 million given to educate Texas youth.

SARODEO.COM 26

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

#SARODEO

MORE THAN AN 8 SECOND RIDE Â®

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9), Trace Adkins (7:30pm Sat, Feb. 9), Why Don’t We (1pm Sun, Feb. 10), Darius Rucker (7pm Mon, Feb 11) and Matthew West (7pm Tue, Feb. 12). $5-$567, 8am10pm Thu-Tue, AT&T Center, One AT&T Center Pkwy., (210) 225-5851, sarodeo.com. — Lori Salazar

SAT | 2/9 SPECIAL EVEN T

ASIAN FESTIVAL 5 Courtesy of Glenn Miller Orchestra

WED | 2/6 MUSIC

GLENN MILLER ORCHESTRA L

The Glenn Miller Orchestra first struck big in 1938, showcasing Miller’s signature orchestration that put the clarinet and tenor sax at the forefront. Although it originated some of the greatest hits of the big-band era, the orchestra was forced to disband when Miller crossed the pond to the European theater of WWII. Things seemed dire when Miller mysteriously disappeared in 1944 after boarding a plane to scope out an upcoming concert in France, but, with hits like “In the Mood,” “Moonlight Serenade” and “Tuxedo Junction” still in heavy rotation, the Miller estate teamed up with Miller’s close friend Tex Beneke to reform the orchestra. Consistently touring since band leader Rick McKinley’s tenure began in 1956, the orchestra has kept Miller’s spirit alive and well into the 21st Century. Under the leadership of Nick Hilscher, the orchestra will show off its trademark big-band pizzazz in a night at the Tobin, filling the hall with a brassy optimism first conjured by Miller in the late ’30s. $53-$76, 7pm, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, H-E-B Performance Hall, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — KMN

Rodeo that showcases the best competitive rodeo athletes from the Southwest region, a barbecue-themed Vaquero Cook-Off, a kid’s culinary experience at Buckaroo Que and a live Texas Wildlife Expo. Kids can enjoy lasso lessons and face painting at Cowboy Boot Camp, activity booths at Youth Day and more. This year’s extravaganza will also feature pony rides, petting zoos, a Western Heritage Parade and Trail Ride, and an assortment of 250 Western-themed vendor booths. If you’re just here to get your country on, the musical roster includes performances by Aaron Watson (7pm Thu, Feb. 7), 38 Special (7:30pm Fri, Feb. 8), Martina McBride (1pm Sat, Feb.

From humble beginnings as a family affair timed with Chinese New Year (aka Lunar New Year), the Institute of Texan Cultures’ Asian Festival has grown into a sprawling celebration that unites dozens of organizations for a day filled with diverse cuisine, eclectic vendors and enlightening demonstrations. In its 32nd year, the kid-friendly favorite observes the year of the pig (or boar) — a beast that represents wealth, but also a lack of urgency as the 12th and final zodiac animal to arrive at a storied fete for the Jade Emperor. (Some believe the pig was dealing with a domestic situation — a wolf destroying his house — others claim it was tardy to the party due to plain-and-simple laziness.) While pigs will inevitably be spotted on Asian Festival signs and

souvenirs aplenty, they’ll possibly be best enjoyed cooked up by more than 20 food booths serving specialties from China, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Korea and beyond. Beyond the bulgogi, ramen, teriyaki dishes and bubble tea (not to mention beer and sake ﬂowing from an “Asian Libation Station”), fest-goers can expect anime, ikebana and bonsai exhibits, high-energy martial-arts demos and performances that run the gamut from K-pop concerts to lion dancers on parade. $5-$12, 10am5pm, UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures, 801 E. César E. Chávez Blvd., (210) 4582300, asianfestivalsa.com. — BR

SAT | 2/9 SUN | 2/10 THEATER

LEADING LADIES

THU | 2/07 TUE | 2/12 SPECIAL EVENT

SAN ANTONIO STOCK SHOW & RODEO 5

For 69 years, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo has celebrated the community’s adoration for Western culture with an assortment of family-friendly activities and entertainment. This year’s main events will include a College

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Courtesy of Aaron Watson

Stuck peddling their Shakespearean repertory to a series of Moose Lodges in rural Pennsylvania, British actors Jack and Leo feel like they’ve struck gold when they discover that an ailing old woman in nearby York is seeking her long-lost English niblings, “Max” and “Steve,” in order to give them a share of her massive fortune upon her death. The duo resolves to pose as the nephews and claim the inheritance for themselves, only to discover upon arrival that the descendants aren’t nephews at all, but nieces “Maxine” and “Stephanie.” Past the point of no return, Jack and Leo dig out dresses from their stash of costumes, and pose as the nieces in a bid for the cash. The Vex puts on playwright Ken Ludwig’s latest farce under the direction of Jim Mammarella, with Jared Stephens and Andrew Olmos starring as Jack and Leo. $15-$23, 8pm Sat, 2:30pm Sun, 7:30pm Thu through Feb. 28, Sheldon Vexler Theatre, 12500 NW Military Hwy., Suite 275, (210) 302-6835, vexler.org. — KMN

sacurrent.com | January 30-February 12, 2019 | CURRENT

calendar SAT | 2/9 SUN | 2/10 SPECIAL EVEN T

BITES, BALLADS & THE BARD

The San Antonio Chamber Choir beseeches thee to join them in the foyer of the Tobin for an Elizabethan-inspired performance. Dine on hors d’oeuvres as actors Anna Gangai and Allan Ross bring Shakespearean scenes to life, followed by choral renditions of the same texts, as set by a variety of composers. In addition to the deservedly canonized The Cloud Capp’d Towers, Full Fathom Five and Serenade to Music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frank Martin’s Songs of Ariel will make a, shall Courtesy of San Antonio Chamber Choir we say, “tempestuous” appearance on the program. But remember: after the choir witchily chants, shrieks and stomps their way through Double Trouble, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi’s sorcerous setting of the opening of Macbeth, take care not to say the play’s name when you discuss the performance — it’s horrid luck to be caught naming the tragedy in a theater! $12-$25, 8pm Sat, 3pm Sun, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, Feik Family Rotunda, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — KMN

SUN | 2/10

Courtesy of NASA and JPL/Caltech

SPECIAL EVEN T

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC LIVE! EXPLORING MARS

National Geographic makes science up close and personal with its National Geographic Live! series, covering topics that range from big cats to deep space. In Exploring Mars, Kobie Boykins will share his perspective as a senior mechanical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Boykins designed the solar arrays on the historic Spirit and Opportunity rovers (Opportunity exceeded its original mission duration by over a decade!), as well as the actuators for the Curiosity rover, which allow it to operate research tools like its robotic arm and have withstood years of extreme temperatures and epic dust storms without skipping a beat. Boykins has partnered with National Geographic Live! to share the science behind these rovers and their ongoing discoveries on Mars, making for a can’t-miss event for anyone with more than a passing interest in the red planet. $20-$45, 4pm Sun, Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, H-E-B Performance Hall, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624, tobincenter.org. — KMN 28

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

calendar ART

Art opening: “Black San Antonio” Tex Pop observes Black History Month with an exhibition said to deconstruct “the African-American movement, and integration in Mexico and San Antonio.” Focusing on the establishment of our African-American community and the legendary nightspot the Keyhole Club, “Black San Antonio” opens to the public with a reception featuring live music by the Foreign Arm and Valerie Campbell. Free, Fri., Feb. 8, 7-11:30 p.m.; South Texas Museum of Popular Culture, 1017 E. Mulberry Ave., (210) 858-8935.

Art opening: “Nuestra Latinidad” Essentially four solo shows under one umbrella, Centro de Artes’ new exhibition “Nuestra Latinidad” combines Houston-based artist Delilah Montoya’s ethnographic project “Contemporary Casta Portraiture: Nuestra Calidad”; San Antonio photographer Joshua Perez’s documentary series “Todo Está Bien, Everything’s Good”; Seattle-based Chicano artist Jake Prendez’s social/cultural investigation “Genetic Memory: Xinachtli to Xochitl”; and Chicago artist Gabriel Villa’s “Human Drive,” which pairs large-scale paintings and drawings that focus on “public housing, urban surveillance cameras, the marginalized, gang culture, family, religion and gentrification.” Free, Thu., Feb. 7, 6-9 p.m.; Centro de Artes, 101 S. Santa Rosa Ave., (210) 206-2787.

Art opening: “Street Fatale Vol. 3: Movement” The Parish unveils a group show exploring movement through the lenses of women street photographers. Free, Sat., Feb. 9, 6-10 p.m.; The Parish, 1624 Buena Vista St.

Art opening: “We are the Ones” Billed as “a fiber art expression of black culture,” this Black History Month exhibition comprises narrative quilts, art quilts, contemporary quilts and other forms of fiber artwork. Free, Sat., Feb. 2, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Carver Branch Library, 3350 E. Commerce St., (726) 999-0328. FI LM

Akeelah and the Bee The 2006 drama Akeelah and the Bee follows title character Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer), an 11-year-old girl from South Los Angeles, who advances to the Scripps National Spelling Bee with the help of her English teacher Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne) and initially reluctant mother Tanya (Angela Bassett). Director Doug Atchison received the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship for the film, which (trivia alert) is the only movie ever produced by Starbucks (F-R-A-P-P-U-C-C-I-N-O). Free, Fri., Feb. 8, 8 p.m.; Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, Will Naylor Smith River Walk Plaza, 100 Auditorium Circle, (210) 223-8624.

Taxi Driver Loner and Vietnam War veteran Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works as a taxi driver at night and spends his days in seedy cinemas, until he meets campaign volunteer Betsy (Cybill Shepherd). Disgusted by the criminal dysfunction and adolescent prostitution he observes, notably of a teen

named Iris (Jodie Foster), Bickle turns violent in this Martin Scorsese classic. Free, Thu., Jan. 31, 7 p.m.; McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., (210) 824-5368. THEATER

Jersey Boys They were just four guys from Jersey, until they sang their very first note. They had a sound nobody had ever heard, and the radio just couldn’t get enough of. But while their harmonies were perfect on stage, off stage it was a very different story — a story that has made them an international sensation all over again. Go behind the music and inside the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in this Tony-winning true-life musical phenomenon. $40-$186, Fri., Feb. 1, 8 p.m. & Sat., Feb. 2, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; The Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333.

RENT Peppered with characters and situations directly inspired by 1990s-era New York reality — punks, poverty, drugs, drag queens and AIDS included — Jonathan Larson’s gritty reinvention of Giacomo Puccini’s 19th-Century opera La Bohème essentially took the theater world by storm, selling out an Off-Broadway run before graduating to the Great White Way and winning four Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. $10-$40, Thursdays-Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. and Sundays, 2 p.m. through Feb. 17; The Public Theater of San Antonio, 800 W. Ashby Pl., (210) 733-7258.

SEPTEMBER 7 AT&T CENTER TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

SPECIAL EVEN TS

Chucho Valdes and Jazz Bata Hailing from Havana, Cuba, jazz pianist Chucho Valdes and his trio Jazz Bata return to the Alamo City courtesy of Arts San Antonio. Co-founder of the fusion-minded band Irakere (which combines elements of Afro-Cuban ritual music, pop, jazz and rock), Valdez has earned six Grammys and three Latin Grammys over the course of a career spanning more than 50 years. $29-$99, Sat., Feb. 9, 7:30-9:30 p.m.; Trinity University, Laurie Auditorium, One Trinity Pl., (210) 226-2891.

Culinaria Restaurant Weeks Proudly “promoting San Antonio as a premier food and wine destination” since 2010, the local nonprofit Culinaria is behind a breezy, boozy 5K Wine & Beer Run (save the date for March 16) and a fullfledged festival spread across various venues (set for May), but it’s arguably best recognized for its biannual Restaurant Weeks that unite San Antonio, Boerne and New Braunfels restaurants offering fixed-price menus with a portion of proceeds benefiting the organization’s outreach and programs. Rolled out in August of 2010 and expanded to include a winter edition in 2015, the initiative functions as an excellent excuse to splurge a little, ideally while trying out one of the new or enduring eateries on your to-visit list. With prices ringing in between $15 and $45 per person ($15 for lunch, $25 for breakfast or brunch, and $35-$45 for dinner), consider it a challenge to amp up your knowledge of San Antonio’s expanding culinary landscape — and maybe find a new favorite in the process. $15-$45, times vary through Feb. 2; visit culinariasa.org for details.

WITH SPECIAL GUEST

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arts

Daniel Conrad

San Antonio’s Got Game Get familiar with the local talent we met at the PAX South convention BY DANIEL CONRAD

aming fans from across the globe gathered in the Henry B. González Convention Center this past weekend to take part in the fifth annual PAX South convention, Texas’ indie counterpart to Penny Arcade’s worldwide video game exhibitions. A misty Friday morning gave way to a sunny Saturday as tens of thousands of attendees rolled into the expo hall, taking in hundreds of demo booths, exhibitors and vendors, tournaments, costumes sexy and flashy, and rows upon rows of tables for people to play board and card games together. Those figures are no joke: registration staffers were fielding passports from the Netherlands and Asian countries, and while a public relations employee respectfully refused to reveal attendance numbers, another Current contributor overheard volunteers marvel that Saturday’s ticket sales rivaled those of single-day sales at Seattle-based PAX West — it and Boston’s PAX East are known for their gargantuan crowds, commonly estimated to total more than 100,000. PAX turns the convention center’s many halls and conference rooms into concert venues, arcades, virtual-reality playgrounds, live-action roleplaying dungeons, competitive fighting game tournament arenas, diversity and inclusivity lounges — one plaza area is dotted with bean bags and christened the Handheld Gaming Lounge. In other rooms, panels feature personalities podcasting live, streamers with disabilities discussing their

craft and psychoanalysts dissecting The Legend of Zelda. And on the show floor, lines form around flashy displays from independent publishers and triple-A studios alike, who set up stations for visitors to demo new games and preview upcoming titles for a short time before passing the controller to the next eager player. The majority of exhibitors descended upon San Antonio from afar, but I caught up with a handful of locals who offered insight on the life of independent game development in the Countdown City. Vicky Sertich, faculty and program coordinator for game development at Northwest Vista College, promoted Swapette Showdown, a video game she’s developing with her partner and fellow Northwest Vista faculty member Joe Guerra along with a small team. “It’s a competitive action puzzler [for] one-to-four players; you play as these cute little anime girls, and they’re battling each other with blocks,” Sertich said. “Kind of like a crazy Candy Crush. We’re still in development, we’ve been working on it since last-last December... and we already have something really fun.” Sertich and Guerra regularly appear on an annual panel featuring San Antonio’s game developers. Sertich said many of her students were working as “Enforcers,” or PAX volunteers, and that some alumni were displaying their own work at separate booths. One of her students was at the nearby

booth for Switch Caliber Studios, a quintet of San Antonians headed up by Eric De Leon to create their first game, Wenches and Loot. Players control Jack, a recent divorcé who goes on an adventure seeking treasure and passion — with boys and girls alike, as Jack is an equal-opportunity lover — through cute pixel art and side-scrolling action-role-playing gameplay. “Basically, if we’re not working our other job, we’re slaving away at this,” De Leon said. “We also have a board game and another video game that we’re going to be doing.” But not until after Wenches and Loot completes its Kickstarter fundraising campaign, slated for summer 2019. That line about hustling in the game development industry was a common refrain at PAX South. These games are, so far, self-funded, and everyone I spoke with offered their thanks to the Greater Gaming Society of San Antonio, a network for game enthusiasts in town. “The Greater Gaming Society has developers, but it also has streamers, consumers, students — so it’s not just for game developers,” Sertich explained. The party doesn’t stop when the convention closes. Houston Gaymers teamed up with the Gay Gaming Professionals and Oculus VR to throw a massive party at the Bonham Exchange Friday night, featuring giant TVs with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, virtual-reality headsets for guests and the chance to party down with a host of indie developers. “Combining nightlife culture with video gaming and providing it in a relaxing form is easy for us,” said Eric Hulsey, graphic designer and founder of Houston Gaymers. “Being at a convention where everyone’s already funneled into one area and they’re looking for things to get engaged with, this promotes a rare opportunity to get more people excited and energized about it.” Gordon Bellamy, president of Gay Gaming Professionals and a 25-year veteran of the industry, had only positive vibes to share as we walked with Hulsey around the main hall. “We are inclusive of all stripes, on 35 6

Daniel Conrad

For three days annually, PAX turns the convention center into a geeky wonderland.

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6 31 and off the rainbow, and people from everywhere,” Bellamy said. “You find, when you work in the game industry, you often have the opportunity to move around a lot. So wherever you may be coming from, you’re part of the community.” Not all home-grown games at the show were digital. Yanaguana Games is a San Antonio-based board game company that has created a variety of innovative yet simple designs. Their most popular product, Stir Fry 18, is an easy-to-learn, hard-to-master bluffing card game that sold out over the holiday season but will soon enjoy its seventh reprint, said founder Michael Britt. Britt started the company with his friends Alex Clifford and Andrew Toth after the trio went to the very first PAX South convention in 2014. “We saw all these people doing it, and we just said that weekend, ‘Hey this looks interesting. Would you like to try doing something like this, making our own games?’ Within three months, Yanaguana Games LLC was formed,” Britt said. They showed off Stir Fry 18 at the following PAX South and sold out, for the first time, that same weekend. The Yanaguana team had two other games to boost this year. “ReChord [is] our guitar-themed Eurogame, where you use real guitar picks and real guitar chords to score points and become the most famous guitarist,” Britt said. The third offering, Blume, is “a tile-laying game where you are building your garden,

Daniel Conrad

Show-goers face off in Swapette Showdown, an upcoming puzzle game by Northwest Vista faculty members. however it has a really neat mechanism where you influence the [value] of the different flowers based on which flowers you planted.” Blume’s art and design comes from the studio’s newest member, Stevo Torres, who showed a prototype version of the game to Britt and lead game developer Andrew Toth at last year’s PAX. The trio became fast friends and Torres became part of the team. “PAX is historically a video game convention, but now it’s picked up quite a bit with board games, and we’re here representing that side of the gaming world,” Torres said. “There are three of us,” lead game developer Andrew Toth said, “but I am currently the only one who is based in San Antonio — that is a slightly challenging aspect” to working together. The team uses online tools like Tabletop Simulator to play-test their games despite the distance. “I think there’s a lot of interest, especially for conventions like these and for more events where the tabletop industry is represented and the ‘geek culture,’ if you will,” Toth said. “I think San Antonio is a hungry market for it, and I only see growth potential.” “There is so much out there, and there is so much available,” Toth added. “There is a game for everyone, and you just need to find it.”

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arts

A Barbara Carrasco, Dolores

Isabel Martinez, VG Got her Green Card

Winter Winners

Five ongoing exhibitions to keep on the radar this season BY BRYAN RINDFUSS

he tallest building in the United Kingdom, a highly controversial 1972 exposition, remixed election signs and the concept of “pictorial reproduction” are among the unrelated subjects up for consideration in four new shows on view at the Southwest School of Art. Curated by David Platzker and circulated by the New York-based nonprofit Independent Curators International (ICI), “Harald Szeeman: Documenta 5” is something of a time capsule, as it brings together publications, critical reviews and other materials associated with the fifth edition of Documenta, a massive art exhibition organized every five years in the German city of Kassel. Under the direction of curator Harald Szeemann and officially titled “Questioning Reality — Pictorial Worlds Today,” that 100-day-long happening of 1972 questioned the confines of contemporary art, jarring viewers with provocative displays in which “‘individual mythologies’ were juxtaposed with ‘parallel visual worlds’: worlds of piety, political propaganda, trivial realism (kitsch), advertising and product aesthetics, and the ‘art of the mentally ill.’” And that’s not to mention a particularly “nightmarish depiction of racist lynch-mob justice in the United States.” As ICI recounts, Documenta 5 “was criticized in 1972 as being ‘bizarre … vulgar … sadistic’ by art critic and essayist Hilton Kramer and ‘monstrous … overtly deranged’ by art historian and art critic Barbara Rose [but] resonates today as one of the most important exhibitions in history.”

CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

An Austin-based photographer whose work deals with outmoded technology, abandoned spaces and cultural artifacts, Adam Schreiber is perhaps best recognized on a local level as the 2010 Artpace resident who parked a DeLorean DMC-12 in the middle of his gallery/studio space, using it as a centerpiece for his International Artist-in-Residence exhibition “Diminishing Return.” Schreiber’s latest local offering is “Copywork,” a solo show “inspired by the labor of careful looking, the labor of position, and the making of reproduction as an experience of unseeing.” A fellow Austinite and Artpace alum, Jessica Mallios spent the spring of 2014 in San Antonio producing “Sight Lines,” an exhibition that employed glass and photographs — including some taken from the Tower of the Americas — to tinker with abstraction, representation and the entire experience of viewing images. For her new series “The Shard,” Mallios took her camera to the observation platform of the Renzo Piano-designed London skyscraper The Shard and zoomed in on the building’s architectural details as part of her ongoing exploration of “optics, panoptical architecture, camera vision and human perception.” Her exhibition also revisits Berliner Fernsehturm, a 55-minute video she filmed in 2017 from the rotating Berlin Television Tower. An official component of DreamWeek, the group show “Signs of Life” represents a collaboration between the Southwest School’s Teen Studio Intensive and esteemed local artist (and regular Current contributor) Gary Sweeney. The project entailed students deconstructing upcycled election signs to create “ransom-style notes” delivering decidedly mixed messages. Following the show’s run, “Signs of Life” will return to the original context in which they were found: “on fences and lawns throughout San Antonio.”

s readers may recall from the McNay’s 2012 exhibition “Estampas De Le Raza: Contemporary Prints from the Romo Collection,” Drs. Harriett and Ricardo Romo gifted the museum an incredible portfolio of more than 60 prints by significant Latino/a artists (including San Antonio’s own Joe Lopez, Michael Menchaca, John A. Hernandez, Leticia V. Huerta, Juan Miguel Ramos, Alex Rubio, Vincent Valdez, Rolando Briseño and Celina Hinojosa). Now seven years later, McNay prints and drawings curator Lyle Williams has revisited the Romo Collection with a sharpened eye on women artists for the group show “Estampas Chicanas.” The exhibition statement reads, “One of the great myths about such important social developments as the Chicano labor movement is that they are progressive on all fronts. However, many Chicana women, especially Chicana artists, have been excluded. This exhibition focuses solely on Chicana artists, many of whom have had to fight to make their voices heard.” A compact exhibition of 19 prints by women artists including Judy Baca, Barbara Carrasco, Melanie Cervantes, Alma López, Isabel Martinez, Maria Natividad and Patssi Valdez, “Estampas Chicanas” employs poppy aesthetics to celebrate icons such as civil rights activist and National Farmworkers Association co-founder Dolores Huerta while offering amusing cultural commentary exemplified by Martinez’s depiction of the Virgen de Guadalupe holding a green card.

‘ESTAMPAS CHICANAS’

$5-$10, noon-5pm Sun, 10am-6pm Wed, 10am-9pm Thu, 10am-6pm Fri, 10am-5pm Sat through May 5, McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., (210) 824-5368, mcnayart.org.

‘HARALD SZEEMAN: DOCUMENTA 5,’ ‘COPYWORK’ AND ‘THE SHARD’

Free, 9am-5pm Mon-Sat, 11am-4pm Sun through April 7, Southwest School of Art, Santikos Building, 1201 Navarro St., (210) 200-8200, swschool.org.

‘SIGNS OF LIFE’

Free, 9am-5pm Mon-Sat, 11am-4pm Sun through February 24, Southwest School of Art, Santikos Building, 1201 Navarro St., (210) 200-8200, swschool.org.

Judy Baca, Absolutely Chicana

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CURRENT | January 30-February 12, 2019 | sacurrent.com

Shoplifters explores the true meaning of family with tenderness and empathy BY KIKO MARTINEZ

ecently nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category, Shoplifters, directed and written by brilliant Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda (Nobody Knows), is an affectionate, authentic and moving story about the importance and true meaning of family. That may sound ordinary to some — and in some sense it is — but Kore-eda takes a complex and beautifully humanistic approach to portray the subtleties of everyday life and transform them

into significant events. Much like the observational method Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón uses in his Oscar-nominated family drama Roma, Kore-eda allows viewers to watch things unfold as if they were standing quietly in the corner and relishing in every single tender moment with admiration and optimism. It’s a skill that is even more evident since Shoplifters is — at times — so heartbreaking. The film tells the tale of the Shibatas, a poor Japanese “family” living in Tokyo, who are able to survive

Crash and Burn Outlaws blends biker subculture with classic themes for a senseless script

t’s taken two years for the Australian biker flick Outlaws to find its way out of cinematic limbo after debuting at the Toronto Film Festival in 2017 to little fanfare. Still, independent studio A24, whose track record has been mostly phenomenal since forming more than six years ago, picked up Outlaws’ distribution rights for a limited theatrical release and what basically looks to be a discreet video-on-demand dump this week. Although A24’s catalog in the last few years has included award-winning films like Moonlight, The Florida Project and First Reformed, the indie company does have a handful of unwatchable flops like Sea of Trees and Woodshock. Unfortunately, Outlaws fits in nicely with those latter two titles. It’s an amateur attempt at making a gritty, testosterone-infused thriller that ultimately implodes because of how serious it wants to be considered. Originally titled 1% — a term used to describe

A24

the percentage of bikers who are not law-abiding citizens — Outlaws tells the story of a power struggle taking place inside the ranks of a criminal biker gang known as the Copperheads. After three years behind bars, Knuck (Matt Nable, who is also the film’s screenwriter) returns to his motorcycle club to reclaim his role as president. He gets enraged when he learns his temporary replacement Paddo (Ryan Corr) has been plotting to get the club to go into business with a rival gang. When the Copperheads renege on the deal, Paddo becomes scared for his life and the lives of his girlfriend Katrina (Abbey Lee) and his slow-witted brother Skink (Josh McConville). With a competing gang leader breathing down his neck, Paddo must decide if he should overthrow

screens

Stealing Our Heart

Magnolia Pictures

through the petty crimes they commit, like shoplifting. The film opens with father Osamu (Lily Franky) and his pre-teen son Shota (Jyo Kairi) stealing food from a local grocery store to share with the rest of their brood — daughter Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), wife Nobuyo (Sakura Andô) and granny Hatsue (the late Kirin Kiki), whose pension is barely keeping them afloat. On their way home, Osamu and Shota notice Yuri (Miyu Sasaki), a little girl they’ve seen in their neighborhood before, cold and alone on her porch. When they take Yuri to their place for dinner, they realize her parents are abusing and neglecting her. So, they agree that if they want to save her, they have to make her a permanent part of the family. It’s an illogical choice in a real-world scenario, but one that Kore-eda embraces unconditionally. Surprisingly, the fact that this likable family unit has just kidnapped a child doesn’t register as immoral, which is a testament to Kore-eda’s ability to find a way for audiences to empathize with each character — characters whose real relationships are revealed later via Kore-eda’s familiar measured pace. Making decisions with their hearts instead of their heads, however, catches up to the Shibatas when Yuri’s parents finally decide that they should look for their daughter and go to the authorities. Winner of the Palm d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (the highest prize awarded at Cannes), Shoplifters never becomes overly sentimental despite the highly sensitive nature of Kore-eda’s narrative. The film runs counter to the idea that “you can’t choose your family.” It’s a lovely concept Kore-eda explores with so much affection and joy, viewers will end up wanting to be a part of the Shibata family, too. Shoplifters opens exclusively at the Santikos Bijou on February 1.

Knuck and take back the throne before things become a biker bloodbath. Directed by first-time filmmaker Stephen McCallum, Outlaws plays out like a really bad, ultra-violent and sexed-up episode of the popular motorcycle drama Sons of Anarchy. It also feels like screenwriter Nable wrote his script after reading John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella Of Mice and Men and chose to adapt some of the obvious themes into a world far removed from it. The final product isn’t impressive, however, when the screenplay is a stereotypical and senseless exercise — one that Nable seems to have thrown together without much thought about dialogue or characterizations. If Nabel and McCallum tried to do what writer/ director S. Craig Zahler did with two of his films, 2015’s Bone Tomahawk and 2017’s Brawl in Cell Block 99, and simply made ridiculous but fun grindhouse trash, maybe Outlaws could’ve found something to latch onto. Instead, it aims for the level of another Australian film, 2010’s remarkable thriller Animal Kingdom, and wipes out. Outlaws is available on VOD platforms starting February 1.

— Kiko Martinez

Find more news Find more every day at film stories sacurrent.com

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Culinary Institute of America San Antonio evolves with the addition of its new restaurant BY LEA THOMPSON

he Alamo City has always been a destination for great food, but the Culinary Institute of America arguably helped put it on the radar for the rest of the world. The CIA-San Antonio is hoping to further build on that reputation with Savor, its new restaurant, opened this month at the Pearl. “I’ve been coming here for 10 years and the food scene has exploded,” said Waldy Malouf, the institute’s senior director of food and beverage operations. “The [current] interest in food is 10 times what it used to be. It was either Mexican food or steak and potatoes. Today, [San Antonians] are taking an interest in their food, where it’s coming from, how it’s cooked and how it’s served. I’d like to think that the CIA had something to do with that” Silver Ventures owner Kit Goldsbury, the billionaire behind the Pearl’s revitalization, helped make the center an official CIA campus in 2008 via a $35 million investment. The

CIA runs schools in New York, California and Singapore, and has helped train many of the chefs often associated with the Pearl’s vibrant dining scene, including Steve McHugh, Johnny Hernandez and Andrew Weissman. CIA’s campus restaurants play a major part in its programs. Designed to educate culinary students before they graduate and move on to professional kitchens, the establishments connect students with customers and help make new cuisines accessible to the public.

Broad Appeal Savor replaces NAO, CIA-San Antonio’s original student-run restaurant, which focused on Latin American cuisine. The institute closed NAO in late 2018 to make way for a new eatery with broader appeal. “For various reasons, we decided to close NAO, return it to Pearl and open a more

food

Savoring Savor

Karissa Rangel and Giant Noise

intimate setting more conducive to education and a better experience for our guests,” Malouf said during a recent kitchen tour. Where NAO was dark and spacious, Savor is small and filled with light. Artist Kelti Smith customized the unique prints and wallpaper found throughout the restaurant, while metal craftsman Robert Diaz De Leon designed the space’s modern ironwork and light installations. Clayton & Little redesigned Savor’s 2,500 square foot building — previously home to chef Andrew Weissman’s Sandbar — as a welcoming, yet industrial modern, space alive with warm light. An open, state-of the-art kitchen allows students and instructors to simultaneously prep and cook, grill, steam, fry and bake dishes for up to 60 guests. “This is probably one of the greatest kitchens in the state,” Malouf said. Savor patrons can expect to see affordable meals and pastries made by students. A threeor four-course meal will typically run $38–$44.

Making the Cut Former CIA instructors, chefs and students have gone on to connect with new creative projects or entrepreneurial opportunities. Chef Elizabeth Johnson, a former student instructor at NAO, has since opened Pharm Table and plans to establish a new restaurant with chefs Hernandez and McHugh at La Villita. Graduate Diego Galicia went on 43 6

Lea Thompson

Top: Savor serves globally inspired dishes such as roasted Brussels sprouts and romanesco. Above: Chef Uyen Pham oversees CIA students preparing dishes for guests at Savor.

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no. “The menu is a true representation of what we teach. I think the guest will really respond to the ingredients and flavors we use.” CIA staff and alumni are also confident the campus and Savor’s broader appeal will bring in new guests, especially locals, who sometimes see meals at the Pearl as inaccessible. “As Austin gets larger and more expensive, it opens doors for chefs and restaurants that weren’t necessarily here just a decade ago,” Malouf said. “For now, we’re looking to become part of the culinary fabric of the city. That’s very important to us.” Savor is located at 200 E Grayson St., Suite #117, in the Pearl. The restaurant is open for dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, from 5:30-8 p.m.

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Fr e

1-23 y ar F E B ru 9 201

Top: Guests enjoy drinks and bites during Savor’s preview event on Thursday, Jan. 17. The Culinary Institute of America restaurant replaces NAO, which closed late last year. Above: Savor offers affordable three- and four-course meal items such as grilled ribeye steak.

6 41 to open Mixtli. Chef Geronimo Lopez left NAO to eventually open and run Botika at the Pearl. David Arciniega, front of house manager for Southtown’s Maverick Texas Brasserie, worked at the CIA for five years in a number of different roles, including server, bartender and cook. A graduate of the culinary program at St. Philips College, Arciniega was working a non-restaurant position when he attended a CIA job fair. “I went to apply for a job on my lunch break, but I ended up going into a three-hour our interview. I had to call my boss and tell him I wasn’t coming back,” he said. “I didn’t have references like some of the other servers and hosts who were hired, but I made the cut.” Arciniega’s first job at the CIA was helping open NAO in 2012, and the experience showed a new side of local dining culture. “It was an eye-opener to see the quality of service they were going for — the plates, the cuisines, the bar program — there weren’t a lot of places in San Antonio trying to achieve that,” he said. “It was a big challenge day-to-day, trying to get people to understand what we were. NAO was the first place that I knew of to host chefs, do these dinners. I was exposed to everyone from Thomas Keller, Rick Bayless, Pedro Miguel — chefs and networks I’d never gotten to meet on my own. I worked along with them.” Arciniega went on to help train several student classes working in the restaurant before launching his own restaurant — Amaya’s Tacos, which closed in 2017. After that, he helped open Botika and moved on to Maverick. “We’re providing a quality education to our students and our guests,” said Savor head chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffi-

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@TwinLiquors • Twinliquors.com *French Wine Sale runs 2/1/19-2/23/19. Discount off regular priced 750ml bottles of French wine. Some exclusions apply. Please drink responsibly.

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food | nightlife

you can make from [plants] that you can find right here in Texas,” said Courtney Hickey, marketing manager for Desert Door Sotol. “Sotol was one of the first alcoholic beverages in Texas, and we know that it was first consumed by indigenous tribes. We’re the first brand to grow crops in the U.S., but we know there are more coming.”

4. SUSTAINABILITY

People got really upset about straws in 2018, and their anger reflected a bigger shift in the industry’s sustainability culture. More distilleries and breweries are growing their own plants, more bartenders are utilizing their available work and health resources — and avoiding professional burnout — and a growing number of consumers are learning about the spirit-making process, from plant to bottle. The Cocktail Conference highlighted sustainability this year with seminars focused on reducing waste behind the bar, events celebrating the processes behind spirits and information on how the industry can grow and improve.

5. NEW SENSORY EXPERIENCES

Sarah Cooper

After the Cocktail Revolution

Five trends highlighted at this year’s San Antonio Cocktail Conference BY LEA THOMPSON

he San Antonio Cocktail Conference and the late Sasha Petraske — a groundbreaking New York mixologist who was a fixture at the event — have helped make San Antonio a stage for new talent, spirits and techniques. Over its eight-year history, the conference allowed us to taste countless new beverages and connect with bartenders, brand reps and mixologists to learn about the best cocktail experiences. Drawing on this year’s event, which ran January 13–20, here are the five cocktail trends to look for in 2019:

1. COFFEE + COCKTAILS

Coffee in cocktails is nothing new, but coffee roasters and houses are increasingly offering quality cocktails made with craft coffee. Pulp Coffee, the official coffee purveyor for SACC, has seen a spike in demand for coffee cocktails and beverages in San Antonio since opening in 2015. “We’re about five years behind [other major markets], but I think we’ll be seeing a lot more cold brew coffees mixed with cocktails than anything else that is served hot,” Pulp founder James Mireles said.

2. GIN IS IN

A new wave of gin hit the global market in 2018, and we enjoyed learning about both emerging and classic brands during the conference. Keep an eye out for labels like Gunpowder Irish Gin — made

with globally-inspired botanicals like cardamom and juniper berries as well as botanical vapors like Chinese green tea and Kaffir lime. Combined, those additions produce a bold, flavorful spirit with a floral nose and a bite. ROXOR, a Texas artisan gin from James Beard Award-winning chef Robert Del Grande and Donald Short, former International CEO for Coca-Cola, benefits from the founders’ knowledge of plants and culinary expertise for a smooth and affordable bottle. “We don’t think of spirits as the healthiest thing, but using plants — fresh grapefruit and lime zest and Texas notes like the pecan — creates a well-balanced gin for classic cocktails or on the rocks,” Short said. “I think people really appreciate the botanicals and the waves of flavor that rearrange themselves in an interesting way as the ice melts.”

From the cheese-and-spirit tastings with Macallan Scotch whisky to a seemingly endless number of bar pop-ups that took place in 2018 and during the conference — including tiki cocktails from Chicago’s Three Dots and a Dash during the bar takeover at Hot Joy — consumers got the opportunity to try new flavor and texture combos while enjoying unique ambiance. We enjoyed seeing glowing drinks, matcha in our glasses, new company and bottle designs. We also heard brands discuss the future of CBD-infused cocktails during the conference, even though we may have to wait a little longer (2020 anyone?) to see those in San Antonio.

3. ALTERNATIVE AGAVE SPIRITS

The demand for agave-based spirits spiked between 2017 and 2018, which flooded the market with mezcal and tequila and also forced producers to discuss long-term sustainability. Expect to see more spirited agave alternatives like sotol and racilla — both sustainable plants with a similar smoky character — in 2019. “People like to experience things that are new, but they want things that are authentic and speak to the land. [Sotol] is an alcoholic beverage that

Sarah Cooper

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Courtesy of Devils River Whiskey

Straight Up

in 2017. Mike Cameron, owner of Devils River, always intended to bring the distillery to San Antonio. The new location will supplement its existing production and expose the brand to tourists and a larger potential geographic audience. And, within the next 18–24 months, the company will bring all production to San Antonio. Some barrels will leave the new facility for distribution. Like Maverick, it will be two years before Devils River’s San Antonio location will have its own aged whiskey, though the company doesn’t plan to offer a light whiskey when doors open later this year. “We have enough production out of our Dallas location to provide the Burns location with whiskey until the aged spirit is ready,” Cameron said. No stranger to the world of spirits, Cameron co-founded Rebecca Creek and currently serves as president for the Texas Distilled Spirits Association. Devils River is looking to partner with area restaurants, such as nearby Playland Pizza, so it can provide patrons with something to munch on while imbibing, Cameron said. Tours will be likely be available at least six days a week, though the details are still being finalized. “We’re excited to be a part of the history of San Antonio’s downtown and join the area distilleries,” Cameron added. “We want to give all visitors a taste of that history with a speakeasy type of feel, and we think this building is perfect for it.”

Two new distilleries are getting set to serve in downtown San Antonio BY JEREMY BANAS

an Antonio has never been known as a whiskey destination, but expect that to change as two new distilleries prepare to open in the heart of downtown this year. Maverick Whiskey, a locally-owned distillery, and Devils River Whiskey, a Dallas-based brand shifting its headquarters to San Antonio, are among the most recent additions to the city’s spirits scene, which already includes Artisan Distillery, Alamo Distilling and Dorćol Distilling. Maverick — owned by Kenneth Maverick, the fourth-great-grandson of Samuel Maverick, a notable figure in Texas independence and San Antonio history — will occupy 14,065 square feet inside the historic Lockwood Building at 115 Broadway. The distillery is expected to open in early March. Much of downtown San Antonio once belonged to the locally prominent family, and the building sits on the corner of the family’s original homestead, Maverick said. “We hope to honor our family name with everything we do, and to give patrons a taste of what Texas truly is,” he added. Head Distiller Rikk Munroe, the original distiller for Ben Milam Whiskey in Blanco, will help oversee production. The space will also include a modest brewing program, though a brewer has yet to be named. As a grain-to-glass distillery, Maverick will make its own neutral grain spirit, in addition to distilling

and aging it onsite. Straight whiskey takes two years of aging before it’s ready to consume. So, in the meantime, the distillery plans to introduce a light, or unaged, whiskey with a shorter turnaround time. “Whereas bourbon has to be aged in a new American oak barrel, light whiskey can be aged in a used barrel,” said Munroe. “The idea is that we can take used cooperage and just age it for a day to get a little barrel character and get the product out to the consumer.” An upstairs tasting room, complete with a Wild West saloon-style bar, will offer patrons a view overlooking the distilling and brewing equipment while they enjoy whiskey, beer and small bites from a limited food menu. The distillery’s third level will have catering services and event space available for private functions. Maverick plans to serve its whiskey and beer onsite for now, with the possibility of limited distribution down the road. Devils River, found inside the adjacent Burns Building, is slated to open by late 2019. The 13,000-square-foot space — located at 401 E. Houston St. — will include a tasting room, gift shop, space for events and a hybrid column and pot distilling system. The building, owned by David Adelman of AREA, already includes the Traveler Barber Shop as a tenant, with a coffee shop coming soon. The Houston Street space marks the company’s second location, after the original distillery opened

Jeremy Banas

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3 3 0 e g r ay s o n s t AUGIE MEYERS CD RELEASE SHOW AND NICK LEWIN

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music

Courtesy of Mexstep

An Education in Resistance

Rapping professor Mexstep kicks knowledge on his first solo album in 9 years BY CHRIS CONDE

hen rapper Mexican Stepgrandfather (Mexstep), also known as Marco Cervantes, told us he was releasing his first solo album in nine years, we were more than a little stoked to get the news. The director of Mexican-American studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio and one third of the hip-hop group Third Root has been actively crushing mics and rocking stages in the region for over a decade, securing his spot as one of the city’s dopest rappers. But it’s not just the amount of skill behind the mic that makes Cervantes one of the illest hip-hop artists in town. His lyrical content reflects the heart of a freedom fighter: a man eager to educate the community about the injustices done to those in marginalized demographics, especially in San Antonio, and to ignite a change in the community, starting with a shift in thinking. On his new release, titled Resistir, Cervantes pulls no punches while going after Trump supporters, colonialism and the prison-industrial complex, all while urging listeners to resist the doctrine of fascism and any other

ideologies that keep peripheral communities enslaved to government systems aiming to wipe them out. Brownout and Black Pumas producer Adrian Quesada added a dose of flavor to Cervantes’ original production of the record. And with help from Quesada and musicians from local bands like Bombasta, the music itself is a celebration of cumbia, son jarocho, Tejano and funk, all while still sounding very hip-hop and very San Antonio. On songs like “Dios Mio” and “Tejano Summer,” Cervantes raps about how celebrating with regional Mexican genres Tejano and Norteño, as well as cumbia, can help Latin people remember their roots and preserve their culture. On “Mal de Ojo,” Mexstep highlights his own experience with Santeria as a means of decolonizing himself. He also encourages the Latin community not to forget the past or the customs of their ancestors. “Here in Texas, there is a history of the

attempted wipeout of indigeneity of Native people,” Cervantes told the Current. “And through that process, there’s been politics of domination, and a way to get out of that is to challenge that colonial thought.” He added: “I feel music can do that. I [also] feel like there’s other ways — other artistic mediums [that can challenge colonial thought]. But as far as colonized people, I’m talking indigenous native history here, and all the racism that comes out of colonial thought — history of slavery, history of occupation, history of subordination. A way to resist this and to challenge this is through music, artistic expression.” Resistir feels like a collection of modern-day Negro Spirituals — songs that took the shape of Latin hip-hop bangers soaked with knowledge on how to resist oppression and journey towards freedom. “With my love for music and my love for language, one of the ways that I can contribute to fighting injustice is through music, and that’s what I really wanted to address in the album,” Cervantes said. Resistir was released earlier in January and is available on Bandcamp and streaming sites like Spotify. Mexstep will celebrate the release of the album with a show Saturday, February 2, at HiTones with Bombasta, Foreign Arm and Apaso. $5, 9pm, Hi-Tones, 621 E. Dewey Place.

Find more music coverage Find more news every day at sacurrent.com

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music

Hometown Hero

At 78, San Antonio musical legend Augie Meyers is releasing a new album BY JAMES COURTNEY

hen we talk about Augie Meyers, there are a couple of non-negotiables. These are the things that you must know, that you hopefully already know, if you are a self-respecting local music fan. One is that Meyers is as puro San Anto as they come, a living incarnation of all the contradictions, curiosities and character that crowds our collective core. The second is that he co-founded two of the most important bands in our city’s history (not to mention the history of rock and roll): the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados. But, did you know he’s collaborated with the likes of Tom Waits, Tom Jones, Townes Van Zandt and Bob Dylan — lending them his ear, his signature Vox Continental and his accordion? Did you also know that since the 1970s, he’s steadily released solo albums — too many to count — full of his tender and rambunctious humor, natural songwriting gift and one-of-a kind playing? Did you also know he dropped the latest of those albums this week? Well he has, he does, and that’s why I talked to him last Thursday, right after he finished dinner at home with his wife and mother-in-law. Of course I wanted to discuss the album and Friday’s release show at Sam’s Burger Joint, but Augie takes his time with everything. He gives off the impression that releasing albums is so much a part of his regular existence at this point that he sees a new one, to some extent, as unremarkable. I didn’t communicate with a publicist or receive a stream of the album in advance, or any of the standard stuff that so many artists now let their PR teams do for them. I emailed Meyers and he emailed me back, asking me to call him. Just call: no time or date specifics, no indication that he had to ask anyone or answer to anyone for his time. You’ve got to admire that kind of untethered nonchalance. And, more importantly, you can hear it in his music. Without access to the new tunes, our talk was rambling and disjointed in the best of ways, kinda like the experience

of seeing Meyers live these days. He’s every bit as captivating a storyteller, smartass and jokester as he is a songwriter, and he’s a damn captivating songwriter. I can tell you the following about the album though (beyond the facts that I’m excited to hear it and will review it on sacurrent.com once I have): It’s titled I Know I Could Be Happy, If Myself Wasn’t Here, which, appropriately enough, sounds like equal parts Zen koan and sad old drinking song. The title is an enigma even to Meyers, who, in his daily hours spent reading and writing, has probably casually tossed off more awesome (and terrible) album titles than you could even imagine. He’s been at work for almost three years now on his autobiography, and has the slyly jovial demeanor of someone who has been fondly reliving both the good times and the bad. The album has 10 songs on it and, like most of the man’s recent output, it’s an amalgamation of styles — South Texas Soul, country, old school rock and roll, Tex-Mex — and attitudes that Meyers has picked up over a long life of running in the best musical circles and listening to the best shit. “Basically it’s like five-to-six originals and some old songs that I’ve always said I’d like to cut one day,” Meyers said, dropping names like Johnny Olenn and Jimmy Clanton like the best kind of self-taught music historian. Apart from this album, Meyers says he’s almost finished with a kind of Texas chamber music project that features solo piano and vocal performances with flourishes of horn and violin accompaniment. Among the most interesting parts of our discussion, apart from the jokes about screwing off in high school (to be expected when you tell a guy like Meyers that you teach English), were those where Meyers slid into storyteller mode. There’s the one about how John Lennon and Paul McCartney bugged him about how to get their Vox Continental to sound more like his. (“They were using the wrong damn reverb pedal.”) And the one about needling celebrated producer Daniel Lanois for simplicity’s sake

Josh Huskin

during the sessions for Bob Dylan’s late career high point Time Out of Mind. And there are my favorite ones — the ones about his wife, Sara Ramirez-Meyers. A quarter-century ago, when making arrangements for their wedding, Meyers’ spouse absent-mindedly took a message from a mysterious caller named Bob, thinking nothing of it. When Meyers protested, not knowing which Bob he was supposed to call back, she shrugged. Days later, a call from Dylan (the Bob in question), led him to gently scold her that it was Bob Dylan who she’d failed to take a proper message for. “Oh, I’ve heard of him,” she said, according to Meyers. “What does he play?” Another time, at a Farm Aid show in North Texas, she was excitedly snapping pictures from the side stage, forcibly moving aside “some little guy who kept getting in the way.” A few hours later, Meyers tried to introduce her to “a longtime friend, Paul Simon.” Simon, recognizing the lady who had

shoved him aside for the sake of her eager photography, wryly said, “Oh, we’ve met.” “But, she was into disco, ya know...,” Meyers offered, by way of defending his lady. Meyers is a man who is full of stories like the kind your favorite tio or grandpa might tell — only legendary and iconic in scope. In the lively (sometimes touching, sometimes fascinating, sometimes crude) yarns he spins onstage, and through the songs he writes and chooses to interpret, it’s these stories and their inextricable links to his magical sound that make Meyers such a true gem of not only Texan, but American musical history. Don’t miss a chance to catch Meyers this weekend as he shares his new songs with the same old earnest and smirking aplomb that has made him a legend among legends and a prime influencer among prime influencers. $15-$70, 7pm, Fri., Feb. 1, Sam’s Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St., (210) 223-2830, samsburgerjoint.com.

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music Rodeo Rundown Five Must-See Acts Headed to This Year’s San Antonio Rodeo BY CHRIS CONDE

h, the rodeo. Few events, save Fiesta, come close to drawing the amount of people the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo brings to the Alamo City every year. And for good reason. On top of feeling like a big state fair with rides, food and chances to kick it with cute animals, the rodeo also books some stellar live acts. Country’s Eli Young Band, Mexican regional big band La Adictiva and comedian Jim Gaffigan all were announced last November, and the rodeo’s added a healthy dose of additional music since then. To help you decide which acts to pile onto your to-do list, we selected five mustsee performers for this year’s SA Rodeo, taking place February 7-24.

AARON WATSON

Las Tesoros de San Antonio/ Facebook

A Light Went Out in San Antonio Red Light Management

passed to bring it back. And, whether or not you dig pop music in the form of five cute dudes, Why Don’t We might add all the sparkle to your rodeo experience you didn’t know you needed, sis.

DARIUS RUCKER

Monday, February 11, 7pm

Thursday, February 7, 7pm

Hailing from Amarillo, Aaron Watson has been active in the country scene since 1999. While his songs are definitely traditional sounding, there’s just enough modern flair in the production to appeal to multiple generations of fans.

MARTINA MCBRIDE Saturday, February 9, 1pm

Matching singer-songwriter textures with elements of modern country and adult contemporary, Martina McBride sings the kind of killer country-pop songs fans of Faith Hill and Shania Twain can dig.

Former lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Hootie and the Blowfish, Darius Rucker is another one of these ’90s artists who’s managed to extend his career into the 2000s and beyond. By matching adult contemporary with soulful modern country, Rucker has emerged as one of the genre’s most beloved performers.

ALABAMA

Thursday, February 14, 7pm

WHY DON’T WE

Combining trad country with Southern gospel and pop, Alabama’s crossover sound garnered the attention of fans from a variety of genres and helped them emerge as leaders of a newer, more modern country approach during their ’80s heyday.

The boy band era was over 20 years ago, so we guess someone thought enough time

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit sarodeo.com.

Sunday, February 10, 1pm

San Antonio Legend Rita Vidaurri Has Passed Away at 94 BY CHRIS CONDE

ejana legend Rita Vidaurri, known for songs like “San Antonio Hermoso,” “Por Que Señor,” “Sacrificio” and “La Esposa Del Caminante,” has died at 94. Vidaurri passed away January 16 surrounded by loved ones, according to a Facebook post from the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, an organization that has championed her legacy. During her decades-spanning career, Vidaurri traveled the U.S., Mexico and Central and South America. She toured with the likes of Celia Cruz and Olga Guillot and played dates with Nat King Cole, Tin Tán, Pedro Vargas and Trío Tariacuri, according to the Esperanza post. Born on the West Side of San Antonio in 1924, Vidaurri gained regional fame in the ’40s and ’50s with her contributions to the ranchera genre. She was the first Tejana to sing at Madison Square Garden. In 2004, nearly 50 years after landing a role as the Jax Beer Poster Model, Esperanza produced the tribute album “La Calandria,” which ultimately brought Vidaurri back to stage, according to the group’s Facebook post. Vidaurri’s final public performance was on November 1, 2018 at the Esperanza, where she sang alongside Blanca Rodriguez and Beatriz Llamas in a supergroup called Las Tesoros de San Antonio. The evening celebrated pioneering Tejana women such as Lydia Mendoza and Eva Garza while honoring each other’s respective “lifelong personal and professional struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia and poverty.”

MAJESTIC THEATRE Spend an evening going behind the scenes at the historic Majestic Theatre!

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is Ruby Celebration, which features Murphy’s former Bauhaus bandmate David J. $35-$250, 8pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 841-3771, papertigersatx.com. — CC

VIOLENT J WITH ESHAM \

Courtesy Of Violent J

Courtesy of Peter Murphy

STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN p

Thursday, January 31 If you grew up going to contemporary Christian churches or just occasionally skim through Christian radio, chances are you have come across Steven Curtis Chapman’s music. He is, after all, one of the biggest names in Christian music. In the 30-plus years that the singer-songwriter has been putting out releases, not much has changed in his sound. That actually isn’t a terrible thing. Probably best described as adult contemporary rock, Chapman’s songs also dip into singer-songwriter folk and straight-up worship music. His Empire Theatre show of-

fers a chance to catch a solo Chapman performing songs from his enormous catalog. $28.75-$48.75, 7:30pm, Charline McCombs Empire Theatre, 226 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 2265700, majesticempire.com. — Chris Conde

PETER MURPHY T

Friday, February 1 Armed with baritone croons that will whisk you away into the deep dark of night, Peter Murphy is a living legend best known for his work in the band Bauhaus. Considered the Godfather of Goth, Murphy was a pioneer who helped create the template for the dark and gloomy genre. This tour, he’s celebrating of 40 years of Bauhaus and will be playing “In the Flat Field” in its entirety as well as other select Bauhaus tracks. Also on the bill

Courtesy Of Marty Friedman

MARTY FRIEDMAN L

Wednesday, January 30 While most probably know him from his 10-year stint as lead guitarist for beloved metal outfit Megadeth, Marty Friedman has carved out a long musical career, and one that’s earned him bragging rights for his technical chops. He’s also a super-interesting cat with a totally unpredictable trajectory — the kinda dude who’s worth following even if speed metal or thrash isn’t exactly your cup of tea. Friedman has released a bunch of solo albums before, during and since his time with Megadeth, and has been part of a few other bands, most notably Cacophony. Most recently, Friedman, who makes his permanent home in Japan, has even tried his hand at recording for anime and collaborating with J-pop stars. A spin of his most recent album, 2018’s One Bad M.F. Live!!, might help you understand what to expect from this week’s show. $17.50, 7pm, Rock Box, 1223 E. Houston St., (210) 677-9453, therockboxsa.com. — James Courtney

Courtesy of Steven Curtis Chapman

Saturday, February 2 There must be a network of abandoned houses in San Antonio full of juggalos. The fans that dress like clowns and have been supporting the horrorcore act Insane Clown Posse since their early ’90s inception seem to show up in the hundreds when anyone from ICP’s Psychopathic Record label plays the Alamo City. This time it’s one part of the actual ICP duo, Violent J. He’ll be performing alongside Esham, whose lyrical content is fittingly macabre. $20, 7pm, Alamo City Music Hall, 1305 E. Houston St., alamocitymusichall.com. — CC

STEFON HARRIS AND BLACKOUT p

Saturday, February 2 In the contemporary jazz world, it doesn’t get much better or bigger than Stefon Harris. The insanely talented vibraphonist, composer and bandleader has received heaps of accolades for his inventive work, including the prestigious Martin E. Segal Award from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, an award for “young artists of exceptional accomplishment.” He has released eight solo albums, including last year’s stellar Sonic Creed (with his ensemble Blackout), and he’s been a part of many other albums in various capacities. Harris’ talents span the spectrum, and he’s every bit as comfortable with jazz as he is classical, hip-hop, pop, funk, and R&B. If you’re a jazz fan, or just love great music and musicianship, you’ll want to count yourself among the attendees when Harris swings through. $35, 8pm, Jo Long Theatre, 226 N Hackberry, (210) 207-7211, thecarver.org. — JC

Courtesy Of Stefon Harris

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wave of post-hardcore and emo — right before “screamo” became a term. And while that term could be used to label pretty much anything pop punk with a hint of screaming, Cursive were and are way artsier. There’s also a maturity to the band’s sound that separates it from trendy rehashes of the genre. $18-$20, 7pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 841-3771, papertigerstax. com. — CC

VINCE STAPLES p Courtesy of Dante Elephante

DANTE ELEPHANTE L

Thursday, February 7 Braiding ’60s pop with ’90s alt rock and dreamy, lo-fi garage rock, Dante Elephante’s sound is about as West Coast as you get. Which makes sense, seeing as they’re from LA and that the band met while attending UC Santa Barbara. Their latest single, last year’s “Call me on the Phone” from the album Rare Attractions, was produced by Jonathan Rado of Foxygen, whose stamp you can hear throughout the entire record. Dante Elephante will headline an intimate night at Imagine Books & Records with support from Vintage Pictures, Quiet Hours and Palm Trees. $5, 8pm, Imagine Books & Records, 8373 Culebra Rd #201b, (210) 239-7380, imaginebookstexas.com. — CC

Courtesy Of Michael Foster

Saturday, February 9 If you’re looking for honesty, audacity and artistry in contemporary hip-hop, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more on point than Vince Staples. The Long Beach rapper first entered the limelight around 2010 as a satellite of the Odd Future craze — the only emcee who could keep up with

CURSIVE p

Friday, February 8 Emo is back from the dead it seems. With bands like Thursday rocking a show in late January of this year and Cursive now coming to town, it seems like the universe may be telling us we’re overdue for a good cry. Emotive, indie and at times screamy, Cursive rose to popularity in the aughts-

Fat Possum Records

Earl Sweatshirt. Since then, he’s proven himself to be among our most adroit, no-bullshit street storytellers. Over a handful of mixtapes, two excellent EPs and three standout LPs (most recently, 2018’s FM!), Staples has honed his craft to a precise science, offering penetrating insight and stark ’hood pathos in the tightest packets of rhyme you can imagine. He doesn’t pull punches or mince words in his flows, in his often-hilarious tweets or in the wise-beyond-his-years persona he reveals in interviews. Don’t miss your chance to catch Staples, one of the best rappers anywhere, as he makes his way to SA. To whet your appetite, sample the man’s work at vincestaples.com. $30-$130, 8pm, Aztec Theatre, 104 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 8124355, theaztectheatre.com. — JC

SOCCER MOMMY L

Def Jam

Sunday, February 10 Last year, an awesome run of female-led indie rock groups rolled through San Antonio — all within a week or so of each other. Alongside Japanese Breakfast, Snail Mail and Football, Soccer Mommy might have been the most exciting of the bunch, considering how dope 2018’s Clean was. If you missed the indie rock-informed singer-songwriter last time she was in the Alamo City, you’re in luck. Sophie Allison, better known as Soccer Mommy, is headed back to for a show at Paper Tiger with Hovvdy and Motiongazer. Sliced oranges not included. $12-$14, 8pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., (210) 841-3771, papertigersatx. com. — CC

like Pitchfork, XXL and Vibe to name a few, and in 2017, he sold out his first headlining tour. Yeah, you could say Omär is more than just an up-and-coming artist. With a voice smoother than butter melting on hot biscuit, he’s proving that with enough talent and perseverance, you can still have a career in the music game. $18-$48, 8pm, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary’s St., papertigersatx.com. — CC

CONTEMPORARY WHATEVER: MICHAEL FOSTER L

Tuesday, February 12 This month’s installment of Contemporary Whatever — a gem of a monthly concert series curated by local percussionist-composer Claire Rousay and focused on presenting some of the best local and touring experimental acts — will feature New York-based saxophonist Michael Foster. And, while the saxophone might conjure tender daydreams of smooth, sonorous sonic silk, in Foster’s inventive hands the instrument seems to have no limitations at all. On numerous solo and collaborative releases — many available on his bandcamp — Foster’s knack for pushing the envelope as a composer and player is readily apparent. For this show, Foster will perform an improvised duo set with Rousay. The pair released an album together on the tape label Personal Archives in December. In short, if you fancy yourself a musical adventurer, there’s probably no excuse for missing this one. Free, 7pm, Fl!ght Gallery, 112R Blue Star, (210) 872-2586. — JC

XAVIER OMÄR 5

Chromatic PR

Sunday, February 10 Even though R&B singer Xavier Omär left SA back in 2014, his parents still live here. And if that’s enough for us to claim him as a local, let’s do it. Even if we can’t, Omär has noted that Alamo City was a launch pad for his music, and since cutting his teeth back in the early 2010s, he’s made some serious moves. He’s landed press in publications

Courtesy of Xavier Omar

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BY SHANNON SWEET Friday, February 1 AMERICA

Though canonized in the soft rock pantheon as the creators of folksy acid-Western classic “A Horse with No Name,” America’s expansive discography is rich with gentle 1970s sounds that seem to embody the Golden State’s coastline. Interestingly, though, the band’s origins were actually in London. $39.50–$250, The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 8pm

THE BOTTLE ROCKETS L

Even though the thought inspires outrage among some purists, country and punk hold a lot of similarities — from anti-establishment discontent to stories of working-class struggle. Formed in the heyday of alt-country, the Bottle Rockets bridge the gap between the two genres. Their devil-may-care attitude and outlaw country jam just may inspire a bar fight or two. $12, Gruene Hall, 7pm

MELISSA MARIE GREEN OF THE MILLIONAIRES HOSTS EMO IS FOREVER

The Millionaires made a killing during the MySpace-era of crunkcore, mixing over-thetop electro beats with cartoonishly raunchy lyrics and scene queen-teased locks. But what set the duo apart was that they were a girl-powered group holding their own against oversexed, heavily-banged dudes with bad reps (see: Blood on the Dance Floor). With Green at the helm, this emo night also promises to be San Antonio’s ultimate throwback party — so long as you want to party like it’s 2007! $5, Limelight, 9pm

Tuesday, January 5 AMIGO THE DEVIL

With a butcher knife and acoustic guitar in hand, Amigo the Devil has carved out a name for himself as a writer of country death songs, telling stories of famed serial killers and sharing his own morbid visions over folksy strumming. Yes, his tales are hummable and catchy, but as soon as they creep under your

skin, don’t count on getting much sleep. $14, Jack’s Bar, 7pm

Friday, January 8 GREEN JELLŸ

Like a nightmarish wet dream involving puppets, sludgy metal and gross-out lyrics involving nursery rhymes and cereal mascots, Green Jellÿ — like gelatin itself — is fun, silly and quite possibly made out of hooves. What else would you expect from the self-proclaimed “World’s Worst Band?” But whatever you do, don’t say “Green Jellÿ.” Despite Kraft Foods suing the band over its original moniker, out loud, fans still refer to the outfit as “Green Jello.” $20, Fitzgerald’s, 7pm

Saturday, February 9 DARRELL SCOTT

Though his shoulder-length mane and saltand-pepper beard make him look like Jeff Bridges’ cinematic SoCal slacker the Dude, Darrell Scott is pure Nashville. Sometimes he strums plucky songs about looking at the bright side during the worst of times. Others, he croons heartfelt ballads to make even the toughest cowboy cry. Another selling point: he was in the final lineup of Band of Joy, formed by rock legend and bluegrass superfan Robert Plant. $20–$120, Sam’s Burger Joint, 7pm

MADEINTYO

Best known for trap banger/three-minute Uber ad “Uber Everywhere,” MadeinTYO (pronounced Made in Tokyo) seemed ahead of his time on his debut mixtape, 2016’s You Are Forgiven. At the time of that release, his heavy, labored flow predated 2018’s hip hop sweetheart Cardi B and his liberal use of the now-overused “skrt skrt” turned out to be a glimpse into the future. $20–$60, Paper Tiger, 8pm

BITES, BALLADS AND THE BARD

As the event’s billing explicitly spells out, “Bites, Ballads and the Bard” will feature scenes and songs paying tribute to the English language’s baddest bard, Shakespeare, while featuring vittles fit for the royal subject matter of his plays. $25, The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 8pm

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I’m a 21-year-old woman, and I have an IUD. I’ve had sex with quite a few men, and one thing seems to be almost constant among them: trying to fuck without condoms. Many of the men I’ve been with seem to be perfectly fine and terribly eager to have sex without condoms. This has always angered me. They generally assume or make sure I’m on birth control, which they immediately take to mean condom-free sex is welcome. I don’t want to have sex without condoms without being in a committed relationship. I know people cheat and monogamy doesn’t mean STIs won’t happen, but it’s a risk I’m comfortable with. I’m so annoyed by how often men try to get out of using condoms (it’s often persistent, even with people I’ve been seeing a while) that I want to start lying and say I’m not on birth control. The risk of a baby seems to be the only STI most men are concerned with. Is it all right for me to lie and say I’m not on any birth control and explain why I lied later on if things get serious? I’m Understandably Distressed

Let’s get this out of the way first: You’re right, IUD, sexually transmitted infections (STI) do happen to people in monogamous relationships. People cheat, people lie, people contract, people transmit. A 2015 study found that people in consensually nonmonogamous (CNM) relationships were no more likely to contract an STI than people in monogamous relationships. The reason? If a person in a monogamous relationship screws around and doesn’t use a condom, they can’t ask their partner to start using condoms again without drawing attention to their infidelity. If someone in a CNM relationship asks their primary partner to start using condoms again — because a condom broke or fell off or didn’t wind up on a cock for some other reason—they’re drawing attention to their fidelity. Moving on… Right again, IUD: Babies do seem to be the only STI many men are worried about. Australian researchers conducted a large study about stealthing — the deeply shitty, rape-adjacent practice of surreptitiously removing the condom during intercourse — and they were shocked to discover how common this deeply shitty practice seems to be. “The researchers estimated in advance that approximately 2% of the sample would report having been stealthed,” sex researcher Justin Lehmiller wrote in a blog post looking at the results of the study. “In fact, 32% of the women and 19% of the men surveyed reported having experienced stealthing … A majority of both groups reported discussing the event with their partner afterward, and most also reported feeling emotionally stressed about it. A majority also considered stealthing to be a form of sexual assault. These results suggest that stealthing is not a rare occur-

rence and we would do well to study it further.” The researchers didn’t ask heterosexual men about being stealthed and, as Lehmiller points out, there are some scattered reports out there about women poking holes in condoms before sex or retrieving them after sex. We don’t need a study to tease out the motives of these women — they want to have a child and don’t care whether their partners do (and that is not OK) — but we could use a study that asked heterosexual men about their motives for stealthing. One question we should put to these assholes: Are they more likely to “go stealth,” i.e., to sexually assault a woman, if they know her to be on some other form of birth control? Or are they just so wrapped up in their own momentary sexual pleasure that they don’t give a shit about babies or any of the other STIs? Moving on to your actual question… Can you lie? Of course you can. Should you lie? In the case of a casual sex partner who might not have your best interests at heart, i.e., some total rando you want to fuck but aren’t sure you can trust, I think you can lie and should lie. This lie doesn’t do him any harm; it’s not like you’re telling him you’re on birth control when you’re not. And if telling this lie inspires some rando to be more careful about keeping the condom on (sometimes condoms fall off by accident), then it’s a lie that made the sex safer for you and for him. And if you get serious about someone you initially lied to about having an IUD — if some dude makes the transition from hot rando to hot boyfriend — and he reacts badly when you tell him the truth, just say (or text) this to him: “I could have waited to fuck you until I was sure you were a good guy. But then you would have missed out on all the awesome sex we’ve had up to now. Would that have been better? And by coming clean now, I’m basically saying that I think you’re a good guy that I can trust. I know that now, but I didn’t always know it because I’m not psychic. Now, do you want to raw-dog me or do you want to complain?” My girlfriend opposes sex work because she believes it oppresses women. Early in our relationship, she demanded to know if I had ever paid for sex because she couldn’t be with me if I had. And I told her the truth: “No, never.” She didn’t ask if I’d ever been paid for sex. (One guy, he blew me, no women were oppressed because no women were involved, it happened twice.) Do I need to tell her? Two-Time Gay For Pay

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“Free Range”— another freestyle puzzle for everyone. ACROSS 1 Video game series where you follow the moves of onscreen characters 10 Food service giant based in Houston 15 Very soon 16 Knightley of “Atonement” 17 La Paz currency 18 Archipelago feature 19 Took the offer 20 Mystical foresight 21 Employer of Africa correspondent Ofeibia Quist-Arcton 23 Idris of “The Wire” 25 Play ___ (cause mischief) 27 Sooner than soon 28 Distributed cards 30 Ballet practice 32 Two before Thu. 33 Journal opening 35 Abbr. before a founding date 36 Musical genre for 1990s punk band Bikini Kill 38 “’Scuse me” 41 Western movie hangout 44 “Chandelier” singer 45 Muscle-to-bone connector 46 Makes the scene 48 Leave behind

50 Stereotypical librarian admonition 52 Shiraz, for one 53 “Tell me ...” 55 Velvet finish? 57 Aptly titled ’80s film about BMX racing 58 RR station posting 59 It’s on a continuum 62 Fulcrum for an oar 63 Character whose headwear had a tag reading “10/6” 64 Ravi Shankar’s instrument 65 Completely broke DOWN 1 Shied away, slangily 2 Still squeaking 3 Meme nickname of Turkish meat-seasoning chef Nusret Gokce 4 “Enough already!” 5 Peace proponent 6 They shun most technology 7 Three-part flavor 8 Tapper’s home 9 English prep school 10 Steers clear of 11 Simple question type 12 Early movies

13 Soldier’s hairstyle 14 Cereal grain item 22 In ___ (“on paper”) 24 Smartphone setting 26 Long-eared dogs 29 Quindec- divided by five 31 Some stone finds at archaeological digs 34 Peanut butter-based Girl Scout Cookie 35 Macaroni shape 37 2020 political event in Charlotte, for short 38 John Stockton has the most in NBA history 39 Sony competitor 40 Eavesdropping range 42 “True, no?” 43 Titles differently 45 “Watchmen” director Zack 47 “Why is this night different ...?” feasts 49 Cub Scout pack leader 51 Anne of “Donnie Brasco” 54 Sch. at West Point 56 “Swell!” 60 “N’est-ce ___?” 61 Inits. for supplementary costs at a car dealership ANSWER ON PAGE 25

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etc FREE WILL ASTROLOGY BY ROB BREZNY ARIES (March 21-April 19): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: You’ll be invited to make a pivotal transition in the history of your relationship with your most important life goals. It should be both fun and daunting! MARCH: Don’t waste time and energy trying to coax others to haul away the junk and the clutter. Do it yourself. APRIL: The growing pains should feel pretty good. Enjoy the uncanny stretching sensations. MAY: It’ll be a favorable phase to upgrade your personal finances. Think richer thoughts. Experiment with new ideas about money. JUNE: Build two strong bridges for every rickety bridge you burn. Create two vital connections for every stale connection you leave behind. TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: You have access to a semi-awkward magic that will serve you well if you don’t complain about its semi-awkwardness. MARCH: To increase your clout and influence, your crucial first step is to formulate a strong intention to do just that. The universe will then work in your behalf. APRIL: Are you ready to clean messes and dispose of irrelevancies left over from the past? Yes! MAY: You can have almost anything you want if you resolve to use it for the greatest good. JUNE: Maintain rigorous standards, but don’t be a fanatic. Strive for excellence without getting bogged down in a counterproductive quest for perfection. GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: Be alert for vivid glimpses of your best possible future. The power of self-fulfilling prophecy is even stronger than usual. MARCH: High integrity and ethical rigor are crucial to your success — and so is a longing for sacred adventure. APRIL: How can you make the best use of your likability? MAY: Cheerfully dismantle an old system or structure to make way for a sparkling new system or structure. JUNE: Beginner’s luck will be yours if you choose the right place to begin. What’s a bit intimidating but very exciting? CANCER (June 21-July 22): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: Your sensual magnetism peaks at the same time as your spiritual clarity. MARCH: You want toasted ice? Succulent fire? Earthy marvels? Homey strangeness? All of that is within reach. APRIL: Sow the seeds of the most interesting success you can envision. Your fantasy of what’s possible should thrill your imagination, not merely satisfy your sense of duty. MAY: Deadline time. Be as decisive and forthright as an Aries, as bold as a

Sagittarius, as systematic as a Capricorn. JUNE: Go wading in the womb-temperature ocean of emotion, but be mindful of the undertow. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: There’s a general amnesty in all matters regarding your relationships. Cultivate truces and forgiveness. MARCH: Drop fixed ideas you might have about what’s possible and what’s not. Be keenly open to unexpected healings. APRIL: Wander out into the frontiers. Pluck goodies that have been off-limits. Consider the value of ignoring certain taboos. MAY: Sacrifice a small comfort so as to energize your ambitions. JUNE: Take a stand in behalf of your beautiful ideals and sacred truths. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: Master the Zen of constructive anger. Express your complaints in a holy cause. MARCH: You finally get a message you’ve been waiting to receive for a long time. Hallelujah! APRIL: Renew your most useful vows. Sign a better contract. Come to a more complete agreement. MAY: Don’t let your preconceptions inhibit you from having a wildly good time. JUNE: Start your own club, band, organization, or business. Or reinvent and reinvigorate your current one. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: Be open to romantic or erotic adventures that are different from how love has worked in the past. MARCH: You’ll be offered interesting, productive problems. Welcome them! APRIL: Can you explore what’s experimental and fraught with interesting uncertainty even as you stay well-grounded? Yes! MAY: You can increase your power by not hiding your weakness. People will trust you most if you show your vulnerability. A key to this season’s model of success is the ability to calmly express profound emotion. JUNE: Wild cards and X-factors and loopholes will be more available than usual. Don’t be shy about using them.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: You’ll have the need and opportunity to accomplish some benevolent hocus-pocus. For best results, upgrade your magical powers. MARCH: Make sure the Turning Point happens in your power spot or on your home turf. APRIL: You should be willing to go anywhere, ask any question, and even risk your pride if necessary so as to coax your most important relationships into living up to their potentials. MAY: If at first you don’t succeed, change the definition of success. JUNE: You can achieve more through negotiation and compromise than you could by pushing heedlessly ahead in service to your single-minded vision. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: A new phase of your education will begin when you acknowledge how much you have to learn. MARCH: Initiate diplomatic discussions about the Things That Never Get Talked About. APRIL: Revise your ideas about your dream home and your dream community. MAY: You have the power to find healing for your oldest lovesickness. If you do find it, intimacy will enter a new Golden Age. JUNE: Solicit an ally’s ingenuity to help you improvise a partial solution to a complex problem.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: Start a new trend that will serve your noble goals for years to come. MARCH: Passion comes back into fashion with a tickle and a shiver and a whoosh. APRIL: As you expand and deepen your explorations, call on the metaphorical equivalents of both a telescope and a microscope. MAY: This is the beginning of the end of what you love to complain about. Hooray! JUNE: You’ll have an abundance of good reasons to celebrate the fact that you are the least normal sign in the zodiac. Celebrate your idiosyncrasies! PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: You’ll have a knack for enhancing the way you express yourself and present yourself. The inner you and the outer you will become more unified. MARCH: You’ll discover two original new ways to get excited. APRIL: Be bold as you make yourself available for a deeper commitment that will spawn more freedom. MAY: What are the gaps in your education? Make plans to mitigate your most pressing area of ignorance. JUNE: Your body’s ready to tell you secrets that your mind has not yet figured out. Listen well.

THIS MODERN WORLD BY TOM TOMORROW

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Here are your fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the next five months. FEBRUARY: The world may finally be ready to respond favorably to the power you’ve been storing up. MARCH: Everything you thought you knew about love and lust turns out to be too limited. So expand your expectations and capacities! APRIL: Extremism and obsession can be useful in moderation. MAY: Invisible means of support will become visible. Be alert for half-hidden help. JUNE: Good questions: What do other people find valuable about you? How can you enhance what’s valuable about you? sacurrent.com | January 30-February 12, 2019 | CURRENT

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