Seeing “No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston” at the Contemporary Arts Museum, I think about the tremendous difference it makes when a city understands the role its own artistic community plays in cultural vitality.

Crafters are coming out of the closet, and they won’t stand for their reputation of yester-years as granny-types with spindles of yarn and litters of cats. Teresa Burkett caught up with Stephanie Hindall, who heads Etsy Dallas, and asked her about the growing sense of coolness in craft.

More often than not, we find ourselves with an out-of-town visitor from some less breakfast challenged locale (like Austin or San Francisco) racking our brains for someplace other than the handful of trusty standbys to grab a couple of breakfast tacos or a stack of pancakes and coming up empty.

Poetry
“So you don’t
remember me? Don’t you think I know you,
sugar boy? I had your name
burned in the flesh of my body.”

The city needs to slash its budget and has proposed cutting the Office of Cultural Affairs altogether, merging it with the library. But eliminating the department is not only a mistake, there’s no need. Here’s how to moth-ball the OCA until times are again brighter.

Photo Essay
The original Parkland Hospital on the corner of Maple and Oaklawn once housed a mental ward, a morgue, quarantined tuberculosis and chronic illness patients, and served as overflow jail space for Dallas County’s corrections department before it was finally shuttered in 1975.

At midnight, the new smoking ordinance goes into effect, and places like this, where the stale smell of cigarette smoke is as much a part of place as the wood-paneled walls and the sticky beer on the floor, will be instantly changed. Or at least that’s my suspicion. A dive without cigarettes sounds like a hooker without cheap perfume. The fragrance is not necessarily pleasant, but that’s not why you’re there.

Letter From Schweinfurt
The Bavarian curtains are wretched, nasty little lace things that are hung on the lower half of the windows and are often embroidered with even more hobbit-like scenes. People in Bavaria compete with their curtains like Highland Park residents compete with their Christmas lights.