![]() ![]() and Morrissey among generous helpings of jazz, blues and soul, and liberal pours - watch those martinis - Warren's fosters an atmosphere that's much more down-home than those fancy chandeliers might lead you to believe the off-duty bartenders can often be found carrying on animated conversations with the dependable crew of regulars on the other side of the bar. (We're not holding our breath.) Besides the ritzy decor, jukebox that squeezes in college-rock heroes R.E.M. But until we find a better place to relax with an after-work cocktail or two, or lube up for a show at Jones Hall or Verizon Wireless Theater, we'll keep throwing the awards Warren's way. ![]() The walls of Warren's Inn are already covered in plaques commemorating the bar's previous Best of HoustonĀ® wins for everything from Best Jukebox to Best Bar, period, so we just hope there's room for one more. Nouveau offers a free drink for any ticket stub from a local symphony, theater, ballet or opera production. (With a happy hour that stretches until 9 p.m., that can be a lot of Lone Star.) The atmosphere and clientele vary from night to night - expect a steady diet of Mazzy Star and Cat Power at the Tuesday ladies' night Wednesday's all-Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald evenings are ideal for unwinding with a tasty Tito's martini and both the volume and mingling-singles factor get way turned up on weekends - but whenever you go, expect your fellow patrons to be gainfully employed and well versed in the arts. The bar's surreal glow makes it a perfect spot for networking at one of the many corporate-underwritten happy hours - which, be aware, can get pretty crowded - that have come to roost there, or just soaking up the $1 Lone Star cans one by one. With more than 100 vintage, always-lit Tiffany-style lamps, Midtown's Nouveau Antique Art Bar is both an aesthete's refuge and a stoner's paradise. But perhaps the best part of the journey was stepping out of Neill's "Grotto" onto the elevator, pushing the button to the first floor, turning around and watching the curtain close on that otherworldly realm. It was genuinely disorienting, weird and hilarious, and it transported us out of Lawndale in a really cool way. Linking it all together was Kia Neill's second-floor "Grotto," a dark, tight cave with hanging stalactites and blinking crystals overgrown with Spanish moss - one of the most otherworldly things we've experienced in Houston in a while. Shawn Smith forcefully evolved (or devolved) nature into a two-room horror show in which time-traveling, pixilated vultures feasted on obsolete technology. Monica Vidal and Jasmyne Graybill fused the organic and synthetic to Cronenbergian heights of freakiness. It was a thrill to explore the building's three floors feeling like an invisible spy or an investigator of strange phenomena. In late 2009, Lawndale Art Center presented a group show that transformed the place into a dimension-shifting sci-fi world. Bise's brave series of drawings opened a childhood rabbit hole and dared us to fall in with him. At others, we empathized with the disappointment parents feel when their children engage in repulsive acts. At one moment, we felt sympathy for Bise's cartoon-nightmare doomsday visions and the corporal punishment he received in religion's name. And Bise gave us personal sketches of childhood rites, both disturbing and compassionate. The most impressive work, Revival, depicted an ecstatic tent-revival scene of 100women engulfed in an evangelical frenzy. In all of Bise's drawings, the detail is unbelievable - the textures and patterns on clothing, the hairstyles, the jewelry. It might have been easy to interpret some sort of political agenda or bitterly judgmental attack lurking in Bise's subject matter, but rather than exorcising childhood demons, Bise's confessional tone revealed a benevolence and tolerant acceptance of the belief system he would eventually discard. For his solo exhibition "Holy Ghosts!" at Moody Gallery, Bise, an atheist, delivered an apocalyptic series of drawings based on his own experiences growing up in a radically religious family.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |