Fort Worth Weekly // January 3-9, 2024

January 3-9, 2024 FREE fwweekly.com

Gabby Minton’s Time Since moving here, the singer-songwriter feels more creative than ever.

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E D W A R D

B R O W N

METROPOLIS West 7th is the place for partying — and a little social anthropology.

BY E R I N R AT I G A N

EATS & DRINKS Portillo’s fab Chicago dogs add to Arlington’s chain gang as other, smaller spots die.

BY LAURIE JAMES

SCREEN Bradley Cooper’s Maestro portrays a genius in full flame.

BY KRISTIAN LIN

BOOKS It’s scary, it’s thrilling, it’s gory — must be the Road Kill Texas horror anthology.

B Y H O L LY R A E G A R C I A

fwweekly.com JA N UA RY 3 - 9 , 2 0 2 4 FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY 2

Experience the light and color of France Closing January 28

The exhibition is organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and The Phillips Collection. It is supported in part by Frost, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Fort Worth Tourism Public Improvement District, and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Promotional support provided by Pierre Bonnard, Dining Room in the Country (detail), 1913, oil on canvas. Lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, The John R. Van Derlip Fund. © 2023 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Volum e 1 9

N umber 37

J an uar y 3-9, 2024

STAFF

INSIDE

Anthony Mariani, Editor Lee Newquist, Publisher Bob Niehoff, General Manager Ryan Burger, Art Director Jim Erickson, Circulation Director Emmy Smith, Proofreader Michael Newquist, Regional Sales Director Jennifer Bovee, Marketing Director

Screwdrivers

By Erin Ratigan

Julie Strehl, Account Executive Tony Diaz, Account Executive

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Exquisite Corpses

Death becomes the latest Road Kill Texas horror anthology.

By Holly Rae Garcia

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Wyatt Newquist, Digital Coordinator Clintastic, Brand Ambassador Photo by Jason McDonald

People-watching and talking feminism make for a strange trip through West 7th.

Stacey Hammons, Senior Account Executive

Christina Berger, Edward Brown, E.R. Bills, Jason Brimmer, Buck D. Elliott, Juan R. Govea, Patrick Higgins, Laurie James, Kristian Lin, Cody

Bravo!

Neathery, Wyatt Newquist, Steve Steward, Teri

The complicated man at the center of Maestro proves there’s never enough time in life.

New, New Day

Singer-songwriter Gabby Minton arrives.

By Edward Brown

CONTRIBUTORS

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By Kristian Lin

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Webster, Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue, Cole Williams EDITORIAL

BOARD

Anthony Mariani, Edward Brown, Emmy Smith

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Metro 13 Eats & Drinks Night & Day 17 Music Screen 19 Classifieds Backpage . . . . . . . . 20 Books ATE DAY8 a Week

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CONNECT WITH ART THROUGH COCKTAILS, CONVERSATIONS, AND CREATIVIT Y. Each month you’ll find something different—from performances, artist talks, and unique tours to art making, music, and films.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

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JANUARY 11, 2024 | FREE | 5-8 P.M.

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Prairies & Preservation Delve into artist James Prosek’s depictions of the untamed beauty of the Texas landscape and learn from experts about what you can do to protect wildlife diversity. Join Ed Roberson, the host of the Mountain & Prairie podcast, in conversation with Prosek discussing his exhibition Trespassers: James Prosek and the Texas Prairie.

Seating for the talk is first come, first served.

Generous support provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program.

E R I N

R A T I G A N

Why did I do this to myself?

The question kept running through my head as I sat in my car in a Crockett Row parking garage.

I’ve never liked going to bars. This is a bad idea.

The first thing you should know about me is that I’ve been the “mom friend” all my life. In college, I avoided going to clubs as much as possible –– to the point that my friends knew not to expect me on nights out.

I also have tinnitus, so loud noises and I don’t get along.

The parties I went to in college were movie nights, the occasional five-person meetups for pizza, and chess rounds in my friend Savannah’s dorm. On a typical weekend now, you can find me curled up at home watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 while eating ice cream, so if the weekend line at Brahm’s is my own personal hell, how did I end up in one of the busiest, rowdiest party districts in North Texas on a recent, pre-Thanksgiving break Saturday night?

Because my editor told me to, and I’m afraid of authority.

I also wanted to see if I could get through the discomfort. When you live with anxiety, sometimes you just want to remind yourself that you’ll survive a situation and be OK. It’s a test of sorts –– win the right to be comfortable by doing something uncomfortable once every so often.

I invited along two friends with the promise of drinks and hopefully interesting conversation. We started our adventure at Social House.

Situated near the center of an enormous maze of bars and restaurants around Crockett Street, this spot wasn’t particularly rowdy (yet), and after splitting a plate of bruschetta (6 out 10), we took out our phones and did what any self-respecting millennial with questions would do –– we googled which nearby bars were the best for socializing.

By the time we’d finished our internet sleuthing, the bars were just waking up, and twentysomethings started filtering in. A lot of them.

Women can wear whatever they want anywhere, so if a female bartender’s attire shocks you, you need to question either management or the patriarchy.

The house music at several bars around the block was migraine-inducing, so we went where our eardrums demanded, a patio bar on the east side of Foch Street. (Don’t ask me the names of most of these places because there’s no telling. With so many of them packed together, you often can’t tell when one ends and another begins.)

As we settled onto our uncomfortable stools, we started chatting and looking around. We felt like researchers studying our surroundings. Like David Attenborough examining a pack of hyenas, we listened as a woman behind us got hammered and shrieked to the men around her table.

We also struck up a conversation about the differences between the male and female bartenders. In male-dominated industries, it is common for women to struggle for financial equality and equal respect. Female bartenders are no exception.

The male and female bartenders sported wildly different uniforms. The women wore black sports bras, shorts, and deep-cut tops, while all the men had on branded T-shirts and comfortable pants. This is a phenomenon I’ve heard about, namely that the female bartenders on West 7th are expected to wear more revealing clothes either as required by management or to make better tips.

I don’t know which of the two applied here, but it gave us the impression we weren’t the intended customers.

The observation also prompted the question: “Is this anti-feminist?”

For an answer, we first need to understand what feminism means in the first place. Feminism is defined as the belief that men and women should be politically, socially, and economically equal. That’s it.

Really quite simple.

When you strip the term “feminist” of its rhetorical add-ons (for example, the idea of so-called “man hating”), the philosophy

And though the Irish pub with its rowdy men screaming on the Fighting Irish and singing the “Victory March” together was the only stop that didn’t feel geared toward people looking for a hookup or an otherwise wheels-off evening, there was one theme tying all these bars together –– my feeling of physical discomfort.

I’m not just talking about the noise or the customers’ social theatrics. Or the wooden carvings of naked women that adorned the shelves of bottles behind the Irish pub’s bar counter. I mean feeling unsafe, which followed me from place to place, needling at the back of my mind and forcing me to remember my judo training with every step.

The fact that women feel less safe than men while doing mundane things like walking to their cars is not exactly news.

Still, it’s an important consideration during an evening out, and it was my main sticking point when I took on this assignment. I know what makes me feel unsafe, and walking down a poorly lit road past busy bars is a perfect example. The reminder that a TCU student had been murdered in this area a few weeks earlier didn’t help.

I felt unsafe at the Irish pub, too, when the men started screaming, red-faced at the TVs, banging their hands on the bar counter, and shaking their neighbors’ glasses. This space, like all of them, was male-dominated.

Men controlled this arena, not in a sexual manner like the bar on Foch but in a blatantly aggressive and posturing way. It reminded me that, though the female bartender here was not wearing a sexualized “uniform,” this space still was not meant for me.

I know women can get hyped about sports and lose their minds over it just like men, but there is something unique to male sports-induced raging that makes me shrink in on myself and shudder. It’s the spiritual equivalent of spreading your legs on a chair in public. Sports rage makes me feel the threat of what could happen when a man is just so inclined to do and say whatever he wants, regardless of looking like an animal in public.

When my friends asked me what we should do next, I decided I’d had enough social anthropology for one night. Caroline chuckled at the prospect of turning in at 10 p.m. on a Saturday –– at a time when most bars and clubs are at their busiest. I smiled at this reminder that she is younger and livelier than I am. Then again, this is what I do. I am the mom friend.

Looking back, I can say that the drinks were OK and not as expensive as I’d expected, the bars weren’t too packed, and I hadn’t been harassed, all good things. Still, I’m not inclined to repeat my outing anytime soon.

Nightlife just isn’t my thing, and the pull toward funny TV and ice cream in my PJs is too strong for me to resist. l

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iStock

The nightlife hot spot could also be seen as a case study in inequality.

becomes something the vast majority of people probably support. Anything else is just based on stereotypes. Our feelings about the word don’t really matter. It’s the core belief that does.

So, is a female bartender in a revealing top anti-feminist? No. Women should be permitted to dress however they see fit, according to the tenets of feminism. “But what about requiring them to wear revealing clothes as their uniform?” you might ask. In that case, it’s the management we should be questioning, not the bartender, much like how we should question the management ethos of Hooters and not harass the waitresses.

Empowerment doesn’t come from how you dress but from your ability to decide what you show off. If a bartender or waitress has to dress a certain way to make better tips, we are proving that society hasn’t progressed past the antiquated belief that a woman’s value is greater if she is physically appealing. This is proof that society is still not truly equal. If women were economically equal to men, they wouldn’t have to dress a certain way to make better money.

Every woman on staff at this bar seemed to be wearing the same outfit, and I left suspecting they had a Hooters-esque wardrobe requirement. Depressing stuff.

After scoping out a nightclub down the block, we decided not to bust our eardrums for the sake of people-watching and switched things up by visiting an Irish pub a block away.

“Maybe we could get some more observation work here,” I thought. “There’s definitely a lot of male energy to analyze.”

And, damn, if we didn’t find just that.

Despite a TCU home game bringing a few Frogs to the bars that night, Notre Dame fans ruled here, and the energy was vastly different from our previous stops.

Unlike at our last two places, most of the bargoers here were guys (mid to late 30s, it seems), and though there were only about 20 of them, their enthusiasm made the place feel packed.

Quick side note: Every bar we visited had its own vibe, meaning each spot has something different to offer. For example, if you’re looking to dance but do not want to go to a full-on club, you might prefer Bottled Blonde.

Despite the various vibes among the bars, we felt like most of them were alienating. We agreed the feeling was likely due to the fact that we weren’t interested in hitting on guys (or girls) –– a common activity we noticed throughout the night –– and we weren’t invested in watching the big game.

We just wanted to sit down, have some cheap drinks, and chat comfortably.

Everywhere we went the music was too loud to hear ourselves speak, so deep philosophical conversation was off the menu.

FO R T WO R T H W E E K LY

Go West 7th, Young Woman

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METROPOLIS

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Our hyper-conservative Texas legislature hates vaccines — unless they’re aimed at destroying learning.

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E . R .

B I L L S

Those who know, know.

Those who don’t know, need to be told I am infected. I am a carrier.

I am contagious.

I didn’t realize it myself, at first. And then, when I became aware, I was afraid.

It made me different. I wanted to hide it. I tried to hide it. I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone else to know. I didn’t know what they would think.

It wasn’t my fault, really. I was exposed at a very young age.

I had no idea what I had contracted.

And by the time I understood, it was too late. I never completely recovered. It spread through my existence like a wildfire, and I was horrified by the implications.

Early on, I averted my eyes and tried to conceal the truth. I wanted to be normal and fit in. But I couldn’t. And I didn’t know it then, but I never would.

I was sick, and that was the end of it and certainly the end of any real, normal beginning. A normal life. Commonality with most of those around me. Even some that I loved.

As I grew older, my condition grew worse, but it became more manageable. I was more realistic. I learned to accept the presence of the contagion. I had to accept the finality of my condition, and I eventually did. And I’m glad I did. Even now when people like me are being quarantined.

I was reading a book called If It Bleeds. I was no longer looking for answers or a cure for my condition. Or even an articulation of my affliction. The malaise that defined my existence, practically for as long as I could remember, affected me in unexpected ways and changed the trajectory of my life. It was a sentence to be served.

I was reading If It Bleeds, and a line jumped out. It surprised me, and I read it again. And then I read it out loud.

“A reader is a carrier, not a creator.”

A reader is a carrier, not a creator.

I had been and still was a carrier.

I was exposed to multiple strains of the

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Cour tesy Wikimedia Commons

Handmaid Tells

METROPOLIS contagion very early. I couldn’t list them all.

I remember The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald. I remember The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. Bob Dylan. Edgar Rice Burroughs. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Joseph Conrad. Franza Kafka. Herman Melville. Hemingway. F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Tolkien. Henry Miller. Shakespeare. Poe. H.G. Wells. Joseph Heller. National Defense by James Fallows. Albert Camus, Nietzsche. 1984 — George Orwell. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

by Carson McCullers. Flannery O’Connor.

Plato. Steinbeck.

Steinbeck.

In 1987, I remember sitting in a Texas State University honors course called Science Fiction and the Novel. We were assigned a book to read before each class, and the whole course was mostly just meeting once a week to discuss each reading. A few lectures. I don’t recall an exam. Maybe one or two papers. I can’t remember the professor’s name. Maybe Deduck. Dr. Deduck.

She had been afflicted as well. When she was young, she and a friend went looking for John Steinbeck’s house in Sag Harbor (New York) and found it. Steinbeck accosted them in his driveway and told them to beat it.

Yes, Deduck had been the professor.

I remember reading Ursula K. Leguin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Maybe Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End. And Frank Herbert’s Dune — which has never left me. None of them have ever left me. But mostly I remember The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

It wasn’t my favorite, really. It still isn’t.

It’s embarrassing to admit, now, but I thought Handmaid’s Tale was a little reactionary and maybe even paranoid. It was the 1980s, and abortions were legal, people were pro-choice. And women were free to choose their partners and procreate or not. And have sex and abort the procreation process if they needed or wanted to. It was their body in the civilized world, and it seemed to me that people — even here in Texas — were mostly civil.

So, we read The Handmaid’s Tale and went to discuss it in class. But we had a visitor.

Our custom was to sit in a circle as we discussed the assigned book, knowledge shared, ideas debated. Our visitor was a traditionally attractive woman. Not showy, but sharp. Her hair was longer then and dark brown. Professor Deduck introduced her.

It was Atwood. Margaret Atwood.

I don’t remember what I said. She wasn’t famous yet, but she was the first serious writer I’d ever met face to face. I had a tendency to play contrarian (even then), but I don’t think I did that day. I hope I didn’t.

I doubt Atwood gave me a second thought. She was articulate and mildly daunting. But she wasn’t arrogant or condescending. She answered questions. My female classmates asked several. I was nonplussed.

I’d built up a tolerance. Cognitively speaking, my immune system was stronger by then. My early exposure had prepared me for deeper, prolonged exposures. I could be introduced to new ideas and different perspectives. I wasn’t susceptible to most strains of closed-mindedness. I could process new ideas, views, and opinions constructively and allow them to challenge my weaker positions, my naivete, and even my own ignorance. I could also utilize them to fortify my better-informed perspectives, tweak them, and articulate them more cogently. It happened more than once. It’s still happening.

I was a carrier, and the more strains and contagions I was exposed to, the stronger I got.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Kurt Vonnegut.

Alex Haley. Pablo Neruda. Camille Paglia.

T.S. Eliot. Rainer Maria Rilke. Anne Sexton.

E.E. Cummings. Charles Bukoski. Sharon Olds (who also appeared at my university — I still have signed, dedicated copies of her work). John Gardner. Jack Kerouac. Emily Dickinson. Toni Morrison.

I didn’t shelter in place or turn away from my own inadequacies. I exposed myself more and more.

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Man’s Search for Meaning

by Viktor Frankl. The Last Picture Show

by Larry McMurtry. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Goodbye to a River by John Graves. Yukio Mishima.

Che Guevara. Don DeLillo. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. My Ishmael

by Daniel Quinn. Hunter S. Thompson.

Harold Pinter. Sam Shepard. Mark Medoff. Anthony Burgess. Dalton Trumbo.

Randolph Bourne.

Frankenstein (again). Heart of Darkness (again). Grapes of Wrath (again). Dune, My Ishmael (again, again). “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” Billy Budd, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. “The Wager” by Anton Chekov. So many other contagions. So many additional infections and, dissections.

Inflections, really. Even vivisection.

Atwood had been prescient.

The Handmaid’s Tale is practically Texas by decree now.

McCullers saw it all at 23. Real human beings, with open minds and daring hearts,

are lonely hunters. Steinbeck got ahead of himself. Or maybe just us. In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath may have been filling and growing heavy — growing heavy for the vintage — but they were never harvested. We let them rot on the vine.

That’s why we are where we are today.

I was a carrier for years, but my infection eventually spread. I am now a creator.

And here in Texas — where creators are the cure and more carriers are our only hope, an asinine, government-mandated inoculation to make Texans immune to intellectual development has become a commercial requirement — to preserve the status quo, ignorance — which is the most dangerous pandemic of them all.

There are fewer and fewer Margaret Atwoods every year, and less of the population is introduced to books like The Handmaid’s Tale. The streaming cough-drop version is weak and less effective. The most constructive, evocative exposure is the book, the written word — the ineradicable imprint, the inimitable consumption of meaning, the most profound interaction with her mindfulness and her art.

Mary Shelley’s husband Percy was right. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. And that’s why what they have to say is being mitigated on every social platform and censored in libraries. The spoon-fed, toddler gruel on iPhones or television is bland and contains less intellectual fiber. As much as conservatives complained, raged, and protested about vaccinations and quarantines to protect against COVID-19, they love them, recommend them, and demand them to preserve statewide ignorance, imbecility, and an odious lack of empathy.

And we all know why.

Empathy is an indirect form of telepathy. A serious investigation can lead to mass germination. An insightful anecdote can be the antidote.

Conservatives consider conscientious, thoughtful creators anathema. Politicians want to limit the number of carriers and are committed to dumbing down members of their own constituencies to preserve general complacence.

It’s despicable and dangerous. It’s diabolical and dire. It spells our collective doom.

There is no plague like ignorance, and the Texas Legislature is mandating “vaccination” for us against the only cure. l Fort Worth writer and journalist E.R. Bills is the author of the upcoming Letters from Texas, 2021-2023.

This column reflects the opinions and fact-gathering of the author and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. He will gently edit it for clarity and concision.

E . R .

B I L L S

It’s said that in terms of geological measurement, the existence of humanity is just a blink in the eye of time, that, roughly speaking, we emerged 300,000 years ago in Africa and appeared 30,000 years ago in North America, that recorded human history reaches back only 6,000 years, and that these stretches hardly punctuate a 4.5 billion-year planetary timeline. And yet, even in the blink of our existence, we still get things wrong or simply forget.

For instance, when you see the town of Spanish Fort on a Texas map, it jumps out at you. Not because it’s Spanish — we remember that the Spanish had forts in Texas.

But this one is tucked into a long bend of the Red River, just north of Nocona, Texas, which is named after Quanah Parker’s father, Peta Nocona, husband of Cynthia Ann Parker and a giant Comanche chief who led his band of the tribe in innumerable raids across the Texas frontier from the 1830s to December 18, 1860, when he was slain at the

were boasting about their mighty new partners. When word of a new force in the region reached the Comanches, they marshaled some of their Wichita, Taovaya, and Yojuane allies and headed south. On the morning of March 16, 1758, the Comanche and their 2,000-warrior confederacy attacked the mission, massacred most of its inhabitants, and put most of the mission buildings under the torch. Reduced by various maneuvers in the area, the scantily numbered Spanish troops garrisoned at Presidio San Saba helplessly witnessed the upstream smoke and gunfire.

The enraged Spanish immediately commissioned Presidio San Saba commandant Col. Diego Ortiz Parilla to visit the same death and destruction wrought at Mission San Saba upon the Comanche and their allies. Parilla took a contingent of approximately 600 Spaniards, militiamen, and Lipan Apaches northward, proceeding west of the lower Cross Timbers to the Red River and then traveling east. On October 7, they discovered an old fortification flying the French colors on the Red River. It was protected by a tributary moat and — to the Spaniards’ surprise and wonderment

Fort Worth native E. R. Bills is the author of Texas Obscurities: Stories of the Peculiar, Exceptional and Nefarious.

This column reflects the opinions and fact-gathering of the author and not the Fort Worth Weekly. To submit a column, please email Editor Anthony Mariani at Anthony@FWWeekly.com. He will gently edit it for clarity and concision.

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All that remains of a valiant effort to keep the Spanish from taking more land is this historical marker.

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An indigenous confederacy made a successful stand, though we’ve all undoubtedly forgotten about it.

— manned by Taovaya, Wichita, and Commanche Indians armed with French muskets.

Parilla’s Apaches attempted to cross the tributary but couldn’t. Parilla then brought up two canons. For four hours, Parilla bombarded the fort but with little effect. And during that period, the Spanish were constantly fired upon from the palisaded fortress stockades and attacked on all sides by opportunistic waves of Indian infantry and cavalry.

By nightfall, the Spanish verged on being overrun, so they retreated, hastily leaving their supply train and cannons behind.

It took Parilla’s disgraced soldiers 18 days to return to Presidio San Saba, and the Comanche harassed them all the way. The Spanish never sought further military redress and soon abandoned the San Saba mission and presidio. Within a decade, there was no European influence left in the Spanish Fort area, but in 1771, the lieutenant governor of Spanish Louisiana normalized relations with the Taovaya settlement there via treaty and named it San Teodoro. The Taovayas were decimated by smallpox in the early 1800s and abandoned San Teodoro shortly thereafter.

The Comanche remained a force on the Texas plains until the late 19th century. The ranks of the Taovaya Indians shrank, and they eventually folded in with the Wichitas.

Today, all that remains of their fortified defense against and subsequent defeat of the Spanish is a historical marker mounted on an 8-foot tall shaft of red granite in the town square and the Taovayas Indian Bridge across the Red River, connecting Texas FM 677 to OK-89. Spanish Fort is still worth a visit because it will probably never make it into Lone Star State textbooks. Texas memory is primarily reserved for Anglo conquest. l

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Memory, Loss

E.R. Bills

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Pease River in a battle with Capt. Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Cynthia Ann, who was “rescued” by Ross’ troops, was transported to remaining family in present-day Haltom City.

She repeatedly attempted to escape back to her indigenous family. Quanah would go on to be the last great Comanche chief.

You know — or at least think you know — that the Spanish didn’t have any forts that far north in Texas, but you wonder if the structure is still intact. You may even consider why you’ve never heard of it before.

First, the fort, which included wooden stockades, entrenchments, and a moat (yes, a moat — in Texas) is long gone. A historical marker stands near the original location.

Second, “Spanish” fort is wholly inaccurate. The fortification was actually a French structure built at the location of a preexisting Taovaya Indian village around 1719. Yes, the French were in Texas 300 years ago. The Taovayas had just moved into the region when the French were beginning to venture farther west along the Red River, and the two peoples quickly became successful trading partners.

Third, when the only major defense of the fort was mounted in 1759, the attacking forces were actually Spanish and the fort defenders were a confederacy of almost entirely indigenous Taovaya, Wichita, and Comanche Indians. They were joined and at least rudimentarily trained by stragglers from the original French contingent. When an early Anglo settler visited the ruins 100 years later, he simply assumed they were Spanish, hence the town name of Spanish Fort.

And fourth, the Native American rout of the Spanish at the French Taovaya fortress marked Spain’s earliest defeat in Texas and probably kept them from expanding farther north.

In the mid-1750s, there were rumors of a lucrative silver-mining prospect near present-day Menard, and local Lipan Apache groups were reportedly interested in converting to Christianity. The Spanish established Mission San Saba and Presidio San Saba a few miles apart along the San Saba River to look into the silver claims and proselytize to the Apache. Not long after the two complexes were completed, the Apaches

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NIGHT&DAY Cour tesy Dallas Black Dance Theatre

Afterward, stay for the monthly Night Women Book Club, celebrating classic, favorite, and newly released books from 3pm to 5pm every first Saturday. For info on future events, visit TheDockBookshop.com.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre collaborates with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra at Bass Hall Fri-Sun.

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Ahead of a three-night run at Bass Hall, Dallas Black Dance Theatre Artistic Thursday Director Melissa Young and Dancer/Co-rehearsal Director Sean Smith will be the guests of Meet the Artist at the Kimbell Art Museum (3333 Camp Bowie Blvd, Fort Worth, 817-332-8451) at 6:15pm.

Learn how the troupe will bring life to Stravinsky’s Petrushka through a collaboration with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra.

Tickets are $5 at FWSymphony.org.

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Two great North Texas arts organizations are collaborating this weekend. The Friday Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra will perform the music of Mozart

and Stravinsky under the direction of Robert Spano with performances by the Dallas Black Dance Theatre with choreography by Sean Smith at Bass Performance Hall (525 Commerce St, Fort Worth, 817-212-4280) 7:30pm Fri-Sat and 2pm Sun. Also, the 30-minute lecture series Bachtales with Buddy takes place one hour before every performance.

Tickets start at $26 at FWSymphony.org.

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Alex Tha Great, Lady J, and Lyrical Faith will perform spoken word and music at Saturday the One Mic Stand Show at The Dock Bookshop (6637 Meadowbrook Dr, Fort Worth, 817-457-5700) noon-3pm.

Attendance is free, but you’ll need to download a ticket from Eventbrite.com.

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As a conclusion to the Christmas season and the start of the new year, Sunday University Christian Church (2720 S University Dr, Fort Worth, 817-926-6631) hosts its annual Boar’s Head & Yule Log Festival at 3pm and 5pm Sat and today. A multigenerational cast of actors and musicians will reenact the Epiphany.

This ancient celebration marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas, when the magi offered their gifts to baby Jesus. As for the boar, a symbol of evil, an old legend has it that an Oxford student killed one that was interrupting his studies. The festival is free and open to the public.

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Look out, Meow Wolf.

There’s another immersive experience in Grapevine.

Monday Unreal Garden is now open at Main Event (407 W Hwy 114, Grapevine, 817-416-1111) Thu-Mon thru Mon, Feb 12. Hour-long sessions start at 6pm on weeknights, 9am on Saturdays, and 11am on Sundays. This holographic experience includes exploring surreal landscapes while interacting with virtual animals like Orion the Orca and completing challenges and puzzles. (This event is a great way to experience orcas, in my opinion. Leave the wild ones alone!) Tickets are $39.99 at Eventbrite.com.

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Fans of H-E-B, the mothership is calling you home!

Come to an in-person Tuesday career fair for the new Alliance location set to open in 2024. There will be on-the-spot interviews for most hourly store roles 9am-3pm at the H-E-B Alliance Staffing Office (5650 N Riverside Dr, Fort Worth). You can also apply by visiting HEBCareers.co/careerfair-alliance or text JOB801 to 81931.

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On select Wednesdays at 2pm thru the end of Wednesday January, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (3200 Darnell St, 817-738-9215) hosts My Favorite Films, a series curated by Modern auditorium manager Tina Gorski, a lifelong cinephile. “The films in this series may hold special memories for you. No matter how many times you see them, they continue to draw you in one more time.” Today’s delight is Cold Comfort Farm (1995). In this John Schlesinger TV adaptation of the satirical British novel, Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale), a spirited London society girl orphaned at age 19, finds a new home with some rough relatives, the Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm. With a take-charge attitude and some encouragement from a mischievous friend, Flora brings the backward clan up to date while finding inspiration for her novel in the process. Tickets are free for Modern members or $5 at the museum admission desk or at TheModern.org.

By Jennifer Bovee

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CLOSING WEEKEND! Celebrate Louise Nevelson’s art with tours, art making, gallery activities, and more from 11 a.m.–4 p.m. on Saturday, January 6!

The World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury is organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Generous support for the project comes from The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Carter’s presentation of The World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury is supported by the Ann L. & Carol Green Rhodes Charitable Trust, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; and the Alice L. Walton Foundation Temporary Exhibitions Endowment.

Louise Nevelson (1899–1988), Lunar Landscape (detail), 1959–60, painted wood, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Purchase with funds from the Ruth Carter Stevenson Acquisitions Endowment, 1999.3.A-J

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life, and, unlike Napoleon, it doesn’t feel rushed or perfunctory. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique starts out filming this in crisp blackand-white and then switches to saturated color when the story hits the 1970s. I’m surprised the film does not re-create Bernstein’s TV specials for CBS in which he explained the basics of classical music — and arguably reached even more people than his concert recordings — and B Y K R I S T I A N L I N Bernstein regarded himself as an educator as And now, an apocryphal story about Leonard much as anything else.

Bernstein. Some 40 years ago, he conducted a Making up for that is a dance number Mozart piece at the Grammy Awards ceremony, when Felicia (Carey Mulligan) hears classical and after finishing his performance, he left the music people counsel Leonard (Cooper) to give stage and retook his seat in the auditorium — up musical theater to concentrate on conductjust in time to catch Aerosmith in their 1980s ing and asks what his theater music is like. Not pomp. From the seat next to him, his young only do the couple materialize in an empty male companion of the moment couldn’t help theater where a full-dress performance of his but stare at him. What could the great classical ballet Fancy Free is going on. They also end up musician possibly be making of “Dude Looks joining the dancers as the music transitions to Like a Lady”? As if Bernstein had read his his Broadway show On the Town, and Cooper’s mind, he turned to the young man and said, dancing ability is only part of the delightful “In the end, it’s all just music.” surprise. The choreography is by Justin Peck Whether that actually happened or not, “it’s (fresh from staging Bernstein dances for all just music” was emblematic of Bernstein’s Spielberg’s West Side Story), and Bernstein’s democratic attitude toward his profession. The music is conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. man had a near-mystical understanding of sym- Just hearing the French-Canadian maestro’s phonic scores, but he didn’t carry himself like a renditions through a movie theater’s speakers is mystic. Rather, he was unabashedly showbiz. At worth the price of admission, and Cooper well a time when the classical music establishment imitates Bernstein’s rapturous gesticulations prized difficulty, Bernstein did everything to on the podium during a remarkable 6-minmake it easier, with his TV programs aimed at ute-long single take as he conducts Mahler’s educating kids about music. His concerts gave “Resurrection” Symphony in a cathedral. audiences an erotic charge — he famously said The marriage stuff should pale in comhe couldn’t conduct a piece of music unless it parison to this, but the performances ensure it gave him an orgasm. He knew the atonal com- doesn’t. The role chimes with Cooper’s history posers but declared he would rather listen to the of playing driven, ambitious men, as he conveys Beatles at a time when it required real courage Leonard’s awareness of his rare set of talents for a serious musician to say that. Among and the pressure he feels to maximize all of midcentury Americans (especially Jews), this them in the time he has. Cooper does well capelfin, proudly Jewish composer of much music turing the refined, feminine lilt rounding off his in Hebrew or Yiddish was a prince, a conductor Jewish New York accent, and no less impressive who could throw down with the best Europe opposite him is Mulligan, whose Felicia is aware had to offer, who made Old World culture come from the start about her husband’s homosexualalive like few others but had no fear of new ity but still boils over with frustration when she musics like jazz, salsa, and rock. feels elbowed out of his life by the other men.

It’s hard being married to a man who’s It’s at Felicia’s behest that Leonard baldconstantly jetting off to far corners of the world facedly lies about his sexuality to their oldest to conduct orchestras. It’s also hard being daughter Jamie (Maya Hawke), but then she married to a man who’s constantly seeking out explodes at him for not accepting himself while sex with younger men. Maybe hardest of all is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade goes by knowing that the world expects your own cre- the window of their apartment. Then, too, it’s ative endeavors to come a distant third to your moving when Leonard stands by his wife as she’s husband’s career and the raising of your chil- struck down by the cancer that will take her life. dren, and so it was for the Chilean stage actress Maestro ends with Leonard giving an interview Felicia Montealegre-Bernstein, about his sense of purpose in his which is the fulcrum of Maestro, old age, and his affirmation of Maestro Bradley Cooper’s electrifying his joy in life is also a tribute to Starring Bradley Cooper biography of the complicated his wife’s memory. It’s enough to and Carey Mulligan.

Directed by Bradley Cooper.

Bernstein family. convince you that, as one of his Written by Bradley Cooper songs said, he found a love that The story runs through and Josh Singer. Rated R. was shining like a harbor light. l the highlights of Bernstein’s

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Give a standing ovation to Bradley Cooper and his Leonard Bernstein biography.

Bradley Cooper communes with infinite musical and philosophical truths as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro.

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It’s All Just Music

Photo by Jason McDonald

SCREEN

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MEMORY MAP October 15, 2023–January 21, 2024

BOOKS Diverse, Death

The latest Road Kill anthology of Texas horror is as varied as the state itself.

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MODERN ART MUSEUM OF FORT WORTH 3200 Darnell Street • Fort Worth, Texas 76107 • 817.738.9215

themodern.org

This exhibition was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Pictured: Jaune Quick-toSee Smith, The Rancher, 2002. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 72 ¹/₄ × 48 ¹/₈ inches (183.5 × 122.2 cm). Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; purchased through the William S. Rubin Fund 2005.13. © Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith. Photograph courtesy the Artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York

H O L L Y

R A E

G A R C I A

Cour tesy HellBound Books

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith:

I have lived on the Central Texas coast my en- beefcake than beef jerky, it’s wild and strangetire life, and the horrors here are endless. From ly fascinating. Tom Bont’s “Cotton Candy” is sightings of the infamous chupacabra to the a cautionary tale disguised as a sweet young haunted cemetery behind the Brazos Mall and romance. The ending will leave you reconsidthe ghost of ol’ Brit Bailey haunting a stretch ering your pursuit of happily-ever-afters.

“The Wanderer” by Matt Micheli is of I-35, this region has long been steeped in mystery and lore. Throw in a backdrop of a unsettling and reads like a Texas version of rare cold front and a dark and rainy week, and Stephen King’s Thinner, in which the curse is you have the perfect mindset to dive into Road deserved but the victims are mostly innocent bystanders doomed only by time and place.

Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers, Vol. 8.

Edited by accomplished East Texas author Chris Miller’s “Broken Wings” is a contemPatrick C. Harrison III, this collection features plative descent into, well, a descended angel’s tales of terror and intrigue and a few stories horrifying, dangerous lament. I found myself that might even raise bile in the back of your yelling at the main (human) characters to heed throat. While the editor is known for the wild the harbinger, already! I stayed glued to the and extreme horror of books like Grandpappy page, suspecting but dreading the outcome.

Lawrence Buentello’s “On a Roadside and 100% Match, don’t assume that RK8 is all gore and entrails. There is something for every Somewhere Dark” has a gorgeous ambiance reader and every mood. As Harrison notes in and a stellar conclusion. This one will stay the introduction, “This anthology is as diverse with you for a bit. Then there’s Bev Vincent’s “Turning to Stone,” which breathes new life as Texas itself.”

Emma E. Murray starts things off with a into an ancient narrative from Greek mybang — or, rather, the last few bubbles of breath thology. This is one of my favorites from the from a drowning little boy — in “Lonely anthology. It’s a quick read, maybe one of the Death on a Wednesday, 1pm, at a Motel shortest here, but compelling and wonderfully Outside Marfa.” Murray grabs your attention told. Iphigenia Strangeworth broke my heart fast and doesn’t let go. You’ll simultaneously with “Baby Doll.” Hard to read at times, but pity and hate the main character, but she may I still loved the writing and stylistic choices.

Then there’s “Quincey” by Road Kill be the personification of an entire generation.

Legendary Texas writer Joe R. Lansdale co-creator Bret McCormick. This is great follows with his signature brand of wit, humor, writing with loads of life packed into a sucand shock in “Night They Missed the Horror cinct narrative. “The whole world’s kind of Show,” in which the main characters soon like that, Mick. Things you don’t expect want to eat you. Best you can hope for is to be eaten wish they hadn’t.

Then there is “Nature Calls” by E.R. Bills. by something you want to feed.”

This one is outstanding, with an ending almost Stories are subjective, and while I picked a like that of Doctor Who or The Twilight Zone. few to highlight, know that they’re all well-writJae Mazer follows Bills by marvelously dis- ten. There’s a saying in Texas, “If you don’t like gusting us with “That’s a Peculiar Stain on the the weather, wait a minute.” With Road Kill: Carpet …” in which she begins with a Texas- Texas Horror by Texas Writers, Vol. 8, if you don’t shaped carpet stain, passes more than a handful like a particular story, take a breath and turn the of disturbing scenes, and ends with your jaw on page. Read the next one. I guarantee you’ll love the floor. Mazer’s writing style is engaging, and most of the stories in this anthology. l she nails the main character’s voice.

If you suffer from musophobia, you may Holly Rae Garcia is the author of several want to steer clear of James H. books and short stories Longmore’s “The Problem and is a member of the Road Kill: Texas Horror with Mice.” Fancy a good Horror Writers Association

by Texas Writers, Vol. 8 HellBound Books Bigfoot story? Then you’ll and the Alliance of $5.99-17.99 want to read “Loving the Independent Authors. Visit 345 pps.

Beast” by Robert Stahl. More HollyRaeGarcia.com.

ATE DAY8 of the New Year B O V E E

2.) Stretching from Chicago to Los Angeles with a midpoint in Texas, the legendary Route 66 has great food options all along the way. Learn about a few of them at the lecture Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America’s Mother Road at the Fort Worth Public Library Southwest Regional Branch (4001 Library Ln, 817-392-5860) 10:30am Sat in person or via zoom. Author T. Lindsay Baker of the Center for Texas Studies will tell tales of the eateries and people along the route from his book of the same name. There is no cost to attend.

3.) Ease into a new fitness routine with cardio and cider at Pound & Pour at Atheneum Cider (1029 N Saginaw Blvd, Ste F3, Saginaw, 817-782-9012) 11am Sat. You see, Pound® is (according to them) the “world’s first cardio jam session inspired by the energizing, infectious, sweat-dripping fun of playing the drums.” No drumming experience necessary.

Just bring an exercise mat and towel. Tickets are $20 on Eventbrite.com and include your first post-workout adult beverage.

4.) On Thursdays, Fridays, or Saturdays at 6pm thru Fri, Feb 9, you can enjoy the next Chef ’s Table, a series of private dinner parties for 10, at Taste Community Restaurant (1200 S Main St, Fort Worth, TasteProject.org). For $1,500, you and your guests will enjoy a multicourse meal by the Taste sous chef apprentices, who will gain another enriching culinary experience. The new menu by Chef Mizhraim Pena III includes mofongo con churrasco y chimichurri (twice-cooked plantains with skirt steak); crema de platano (Colombian-style creamy plantain soup topped with cilantro); lubina chilena ceviche con parcha y leche de tigre (Peruvian-style sea bass ceviche marinated in spicy citrus and passion fruit juice); mojo porchetta (marinated porchetta with savory pigeon pea rice and pickled root vegetables); and Puerto Rican bread pudding with coquito sauce. Reserve your date on Eventbrite.com.

Make dishes from Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home at Central Market Thu.

5.) If stepping up your grilling game is on your resolutions list for 2024, start with a course by the nationally renowned Backyard Pitmasters BBQ Classes organization. Keyworth Brewing Company (6428 Davis Blvd, Bldg 1, Ste 400, North Richland Hills, 817-393-3486) is hosting one of the Brisket U classes at noon on Sat, Jan 20, where you will learn the art of smoking, including choosing the proper cut of meat, trimming techniques, rubs and prep, wood selection, smoke profiles, managing a fire, timing, and slicing the end product. The cost is $89 per person at BrisketU.com.

6.) On Thursdays thru Jan 25, attend A Fresh Start to a Healthier You, a four-part adult nutrition series at the Haltom City Public Library (4809 Haltom Rd, 817-8841297) from 6pm to 7pm. Every week, you will receive free samples and recipes, plus live cooking demonstrations. You will learn about creating safe and healthier meals this week, then balancing your day/meal planning on Thu, Jan 11, saving at the grocery store on Thu, Jan 18, and celebrating small bites on Thu, Jan 25. This program is sponsored by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension of Tarrant County, so there is no cost to attend. Sign up at HCPL.TicketLeap.com.

7.) Join the Fort Worth Food + Wine Foundation for a cross-cultural dining experience called Beyond Borders at Whiskey Ranch (4250 Mitchell Blvd, Fort Worth, 817-840-9140) 6:30pm Sat, Jan 27. The multi-course meal will be followed by a panel discussion with the three chefs: Rodrigo Cardenas of Don Artemio Mexican Heritage, Michael Fojtasek of Olamaie, and Tom Perini of Perini Ranch Steakhouse. Tickets are $250 at FWFW.org/Events/Beyond-Borders.

8.) On a daily basis, history buffs and foodies can unite in Dallas and take a JFK Food & Culture Tour. Food Tours of America is the host of this trip through Dallas’ historic West End and Dealey Plaza areas starting at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza (646 Main St) from 9:30am to 12:30pm every day.

Along with the JFK assassination spot, the tour features the Old Red Courthouse and Dallas founder John Neely Bryan’s original log cabin. Culinary stops include Y.O. Ranch Steakhouse (702 Ross Av, Dallas, 214-7443287) and other West End Warehouse District eateries. Tickets are $85 on Eventbrite.com.

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1.) As part of the event series Cook the Book, make dishes from Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home by New York Times food writer Eric Kim at the cooking school at Central Market (4651 W Fwy, Fort Worth, 817-989-4700) 6:30pm Thu. You’ll create a chopped kimchi pancake topped with bacon and parsley and a dipping sauce; roast a chicken and make yangnyeom sauce to complement it; bake spinach with toasted sesame seeds; and make a simple dessert. Ages 18 and up are welcome to attend, and those over 21 will enjoy a glass of wine paired with the meal. Tickets are $85 per person and include all needed supplies and a copy of the book.

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From cooking classes to walking tours, this week’s Top 8 food and booze events will help you learn new things for the new year. There will be much more to follow in our annual Alive & Kicking issue two weeks from now, but this will get you started. Happy New Year!

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Cour tesy EricKim.net

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L A U R I E

J A M E S

From a single hot dog stand in Chicago in 1963, Portillo’s has kind of become Big Hot Dog, with 70 locations in several states. Now including Texas, Arlington specifically and not too far from my house.

The chain’s legendary Chi-style dogs (lots of vegetables, some of which may not belong

Cour tesy Facebook

You can still enjoy your oysters at La Onda, now in Hotel Revel.

on a hot dog) and Italian beefs (a slightly soggy sandwich with au jus instead of ’cue sauce) were enough of a draw that my family visited a Portillo’s in 2018 when my daughter’s ice-skating team competed in Chicago. The bonus of those large Midwestern rinks was experiencing exotic-to-us varieties of meat prepared in unusual ways. The all-beef dogs, the Italian beefs on crusty French bread, and the chocolate shakes were certainly memorable. Five years later, a Portillo’s sign went up in my neighborhood, and when the place opened last month, it was too tempting.

Due to the initial mob scene for dining

in, we ordered online. The all-beef hot dog with a pepper-heavy giardiniera, mustard, and a little onion was absolute nostalgia on a poppyseed bun. The snap of the casing and the mouthfeel of the beefy dog surrounded by the exotically, sweetly hot peppers –– there’s nothing like it outside of Portillo’s.

We were equally pleased by the Italian beef –– thinly sliced meat with roasted sweet peppers on thick French bread dipped in au jus that the Midwesterners call “gravy.” The sandwich tastes fresh enough that you could believe the beef was roasted on-site, though it probably wasn’t.

The chocolate shake was diet-busting deliciousness, and a small one was plenty to share. The onion rings are not tempura-light

here but more solid, salty, and delicious than average. Unfortunately, the plant-based hot dog didn’t taste like much of anything even with all the sweet and spicy peppers and some onions added. Still, we were pleased with dinner at this franchise.

It seems like all that’s being planted in Arlington right now is chains. Nothing in the Texas Live! complex except Lockhart Smokehouse is locally owned. There are plenty of home-grown restaurants within five miles of the mega-entertainment center, but they score from your pre-game dining dollars only if you plan well. And while franchises employ people just like locally owned restaurants do, the Small Business Administration estimates that when you spend $100 at a local business, $48 of that stays in the local community, so Tarrant County benefits in intangible ways. continued on page 15

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Portillo’s classic all-beef bad boy (center) comes with veggies that aren’t usually associated with hot dogs.

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Portillo’s, 4200 S Cooper St, Arlington. 682-318-9015.

10:30am-10:30pm Sun-Thu, 10:30am-11pm Fri-Sat.

Portillo’s is a Chicago chain, and most things are translating well here.

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As other local eateries struggle or close, Portillo’s adds to an extensive list of chains in Arlington.

Cour tesy Facebook

Chain Lightning

Laurie James

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Eats & Drinks

Cour tesy Facebook

The author’s daughter (left) and her buddy celebrated ice-skating gold at a Chicago-area Portillo’s in 2018.

corporate staff — because how long can corporate stay to make sure things run smoothly (and taste great)? If Portillo’s plans to take over the world in 2024, they’ve got a little work to do. I’m not saying that everything’s perfect at our independent eateries either, but if you’re actively mourning Shinjuku, Amy’s, Lola’s, or the Original, make it up to them by supporting the local bars and restaurants we have left this new year. l Portillo’s Portillo’s all-beef hot dog .......................... $3.89 Italian beef sandwich ................................ $7.59 Chocolate shake ........................................ $3.89

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are rumors the food truck is still running, and the semi-legendary Edelweiss German Restaurant left their tricky traffic circle location but may pop up someplace else in town.

There have been some seemingly magical resurrections for local restaurant owners.

La Onda was revived as Hotel Revel’s inhouse restaurant (1165 8th Av). Four Sisters — A Taste of Vietnam reopened in Mansfield (3806 E Broad St, Ste 124, 817-225-2075), and Pulido’s – when was the last time you went to Pulido’s? –– will be saved by the Westland

Restaurant Group, which apparently has a real soft spot for mom-and-pop (or abuelita-and-abuela) joints.

But what does this all have to do with Portillo’s? At a chain restaurant, you can reasonably assume the food’s going to taste the same wherever you go –– from Chicago to Arlington to Iowa. When our local Portillo’s opened, the food tasted just like it did when my family and I visited Second City in 2018. On our second Arlington trip about five weeks later, there were obvious glitches in the mechanics of the drive-thru, and the dogs just didn’t taste as good. It’s possible our second stop coincided with the exodus of the

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The injera bread nachos at Smoke’N Ash are still rolling at the new Arlington location.

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Of course, this is the time of year when food writers traditionally mourn the restaurants that did not survive –– and the 2023 list is a doozy. In Arlington, we lost JR Bentley’s, the perpetually sticky-floored bar beloved by UTA undergrads and alums, and we almost had to say goodbye to Smoke’N Ash when co-owners Fasicka and Patrick Hicks moved their restaurant to a larger space and were nearly allegedly torpedoed by a contractor.

You can still get your injera bread nachos at the new location (5904 S Cooper St, Ste 110, 817-385-9975).

Fort Worth’s Tre Mogli, Zonk Burger, Beast and Co., and Boozie’s all succumbed to the sad statistic that 60% of new restaurants fail within their first 12-15 months. Stalwarts Amy’s Restaurant on the North Side, the century-old Original Mexican Eats Café on Camp Bowie, Shinjuku Station on Magnolia, Lola’s on Berry Street (equally great hot dogs), and Twilite Lounge (killer po’boys) on South Main also shut down, and whether the reason was greedy landlords or a lack of local support, the closures hit many of us in the feels or the empty places in our stomachs where a guisado de Puerco lunch platter or some chicken kaarage would have fit perfectly. Lola’s and Twilite were predeceased by 38 and Vine, and all three were places I’d visited once or twice and liked but never made it back.

Other changes: Ober Here shuttered their brick-and-mortar restaurant, although there

Laurie James

continued from page 13

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MUSIC Gabby Minton’s Time

Since moving here, the singer-songwriter feels more creative than ever.

B R O W N

career shift from hospitality management to her current corporate job, plus the support of her extended family, who take turns watching her two kids, gave her the bandwidth to resume writing and performing — something she said she can’t live without.

Minton recorded her first two singles in December 2021 at 3Fifty7 Studios just southeast of downtown with producer Alberto Ramirez (J/O/E, Tavo tha Trill, Dank817). “New Old Day” and “A World Without,” recorded with her father, multi-instrumentalist Mark Minton, on the snare, were written when she was 18.

“I just sat on them,” Minton said.

“Those are the first songs I wrote in my life.

‘A World Without’ is about dating someone and wanting to remain friends when it doesn’t work out. I’m big on journaling and getting your feelings out. I go back and re-read them. Then I’ll construct them into songs.”

The following year, Minton hit the studio again, this time in Dallas at SadPeoplesDonuts to record the 12-song

LP It’s OK, which features the singer-songwriter on vocals, keyboard, violin, guitar, and xylophone. Although it’s too early to share details, Minton also plans to release an EP this year with producer Samuel Culp (Yokyo).

“I’m trying to branch out a little bit with this one,” she said. “It’ll be a little heavier: less happy-sad and more sad-mad.”

Moving to Fort Worth has sparked her creativity and pushed her to release songs that have waited 12 years to be recorded. She says she’s only getting started.

“It feels like I’m at the beginning of some big things that are coming,” she said. l

Gabby Minton Noon Sat, Jan 13, at Wishbone & Flynt, 334 Bryan Av, FW. Free.

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Minton: “I know people are hearing me.”

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Many of Gabby Minton’s earliest memories are of watching her father perform in and around Garland.

“I wanted to perform from a small age,” Minton recalled. Around 12, she said she “picked up guitar and violin.”

She figured out guitar pretty quickly, something she credits to her musical home life, where listening to records and impromptu living-room jam sessions were a daily occurrence. By seventh grade, she covered “War Pigs” for the middle school talent show. She wrote her first song, “Sam,” at the age of 18, shortly after giving birth to her first son, after whom the song is named.

Minton opted for an open adoption, meaning she could keep in touch with her child. During the Near Southside’s ArtsGoggle in October, the indie-folk singer-songwriter paid musical tribute to Sam, who is almost 13 and lives in Oklahoma.

Since moving to Fort Worth in early 2021, Minton has become an established presence in the local scene, gigging weekly or more frequently at Panther Island Brewing and area bars and restaurants.

Singer-songwriter Simone Nicole ultimately snagged the Panthy award for best female vocalist, but Minton said she was thrilled to be nominated.

“I did not expect that at all,” she said.

“Joe texted me. I was like, ‘What? What is happening?’ It really made me feel good. I know people are hearing me.”

By “Joe,” Minton means rapper J/O/E. The two have been dating since 2021.

Minton, having performed and worked in Dallas, feels Fort Worth’s musicians are the most welcoming and collaborative in North Texas.

Between 2015 and 2021, Minton took a hiatus from songwriting and performing as she raised her second and third children. A

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E D W A R D

Nance Perez @itsnanceperez

B Y

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Pet Care Advice Promotional Feature C o u r t e s y Fa c e b o o k

Shawna has been caring for their own (and other people’s) fur kids for more than 14 years. Her Fort Wo r t h - b a s e d business offers doggie daycare, daily walks, overnight boarding, and wellness checks.

Translation: She’s seen it all.

On an ongoing basis, we will be publishing Shawna’s answers to your questions.

(Think: Dear Abby.) To that end, here is our next Q&A.

Answer: I can SEE why you’d ask these questions (#DogMomHumor)!

I had to consult with the experts on this one. Dogs possess only two types of cones and can only discern blue and yellow. This limited color perception is called dichromatic vision. Humans may have more cones, allowing us to see more colors and see them brighter than dogs do, but dogs have more rods, giving them the edge when it comes to seeing in low light or identifying moving objects. As for night vision, the answer is as clear as day (or, in terms of dog vision, as clear as night).

Yes, dogs can definitely see at night, as the unique structure of their eyes makes it possible to see in settings with dim light or other low-light conditions. Dogs are actually better able to see in low light compared to their human owners. As for bright-light sensitivity, a certain degree of sunlight / bright light sensitivity is normal considering the intense amount of light emanating from the sun and or extra bright lights.

Thank you FUR the great questions!

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Question: With all the lights to be seen this time of year, I’ve begun to wonder… how do dogs eyes work? Can they see color or see in the dark? Do they get blinded by bright lights?

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Readers, do you have questions of your own? Please email CritterCorner@FWWeekly.com.

ShawsPawsPetCare.com 817-296-1769 (call/text)

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SUBMISSIONS We’d Like To Hear From You! Do you have thoughts and feelings, or questions, comments or concerns about something you read in the Weekly? Please email Question@fwweekly.com. Do you have an upcoming event? For potential coverage in Night & Day, Big Ticket, Ate Day8 A Week, or CrosstownSounds, email the details to Marketing@fwweekly.com

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ADVERTISE HERE! Email Stacey@fwweekly.com today!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ARE YOU PREPARED?

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HAVE YOUR DREAM BATHROOM!

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EMPLOYMENT- Engineering

Alcon Research, LLC has openings for Senior Engineer, Process Integration & Automation for the Fort Worth, TX office. Contributes to the design, process development and launch of novel Intraocular Lens Device and Delivery Systems including design and development of new components, products, processes, and tooling; and conducts process research, process development, data collection and analysis and process upscaling for new medical device products. 25% domestic travel is required for periods of up to 2 weeks at a time. Job is 40 hours per week. Please send all resumes to Sylvia Cruz, Alcon Research, LLC, 6201 South Freeway, Fort Worth, TX 76134, Ref. No. RN1223

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Businesses, our annual Alive & Kicking special issue about navigating New Year’s Resolutions will be in the stands on January 17. Send your ideas to us today. For potential coverage, email Marketing@fwweekly.com.

Call For Appointment 682-252-8868 or 817-510-3262