The Herbal List
This is a bit of a sleepy weekend…until you get to Saturday.
Thursday, February 18
Free Day at the MFAH — It’s another gorgeous Thursday! Stroll through the MFAH and grab a drink in the cafe or a bite from the food truck. All day, MFAH, FREE.
Friday, February 19
Olivia Block performs Aberration of Light — Nameless Sound presents this multi-channel, multi-media surround version of Aberration of Light, by Chicago experimenter Olivia Block. Originally conceived as an expanded cinema collaboration including filmless 35-millimeter projectors, Block will present a version of this piece in the darkened venue with 4 speakers surrounding the audience with sound. 8 pm, MECA, $13 ($10 for students).
The Amazing Nina Simone — Much beloved and often misunderstood, Nina Simone (1933–2003) is one of America’s most overlooked musical geniuses. The Amazing Nina Simone finally illustrates her story, through interviews with musicians, friends, and family members. The documentary follows Simone from the segregated South of the 1960s and the fight for racial equality to the worlds of classical music, jazz joints, and international concert halls—all while delving into her artistry and intentions, and answering long-held questions about Simone’s songs and controversial statements, and the reason she left America. 7 pm, MFAH, $9. (Also showing on Sunday the 21st at 5 pm.)
Karen Stokes Dance at Discovery Green’s Friday Night Sights — Karen Stokes Dance premieres Tree People, created specifically for Bruce Munro’s Field of Light. KSD dancers draped in green robes appear and disappear amid the glowing stalks installation, resembling fantastical creatures at play. Stokes’ signature quirky gestures interact with the lights on the stalks, as well as lights on the dancers’ foreheads. 7 - 8 pm, Discovery Green, FREE.
Catastrophic Theater presents the Hunchback Variations — In The Hunchback Variations, noted composer Ludwig Van Beethoven and noted hunchback Quasimodo team up to chair a panel on sound design. More specifically they are explaining their fruitless efforts to create the impossible cue that baffling sound effect described at the end of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. The panel follows the pair’s frustrated efforts, complicated by the fact that they are both quite deaf. At the University of Houston Engineering Lecture Hall, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, PAY WHAT YOU CAN.
Saturday, February 20
Kiss or Pie, a Community Chest Fundraiser — Koomah is everybody’s favorite intersex gender bender. Community Chest will help them raise money for chest reconstruction for themself, and then later even others. At this fundraiser in Menil Park, for a mere $10, participants will have the option of either kissing or pieing other participants in the face. Menil Park, 2 - 4 pm, $10 to play or FREE to watch.
Weiner Dog Races — In addition to being adorable, dachshunds are known to be a stubborn breed. Imagine trying to get these little guys to do anything, much less run in a straight line! In between horse races at the Sam Houston Race Park this Saturday, over 40 weiner dogs will compete for their own title. Gates open at 10:30 am for simulcast and 4:30pm for live racing. First post time will be 6pm. Tickets for the family-friendly event start at $7 for adults and $4 for kids and seniors. Sam Houston Race Park.
Artist Talk by Debra Broz — Mixed and Mastered: Turntable Kitsch explores the alteration and customization of the sentimental trinkets in our everyday lives. By mixing, sampling, and adding layers, Debra Broz and Nick DeFord rework found tchotchkes. 2:00 pm, HCCC, FREE.
Houston Roller Derby Season Opener — After closing out one heck of a 10th-anniversary season in 2024, Houston Roller Derby will open the 2024 season with a crash. This double-header season opener event between the Valkyries (2015 titleholders) and the Brawlers, and long-time rivals, the Psych Ward Sirens vs. the Bayou City Bosses will be a hard-hitting, wheel-spinning fight to the finish. Revention Music Center, 6 - 10:30 pm, $15 - 20.
Kings of the Road by Wim Wenders — The final film in Wim Wenders’s Road Trilogy, Kings of the Road is about a friendship between two men. Bruno, aka King of the Road (Rüdiger Vogler), repairs film projectors and travels along the inner German border in his truck. Psychologist Robert, aka Kamikaze (Hanns Zischler), is fleeing his own past. When Robert drives his Volkswagen into the Elbe River, he is fished out by Bruno. Thus begins their journey through a German no-man’s-land, from the Lüneburg Heath to the Bavarian Forest. The old moving van with the film projectors in the back becomes a metaphor for the history of film and also covers themes of loneliness and postwar Germany. 6 pm, MFAH, $9.
Sunday, February 21
H-Town Folk Punk Show — Come clap your hands, stomp your feet and sing along to Scrap Kids (PA), Chatterbox and the Latter Day Satanists (CO), Sidewalk Slammers (HTOWN), My Pizza My World (HTOWN), Chad hates George (HTOWN). 8 pm, Satellite Bar, $5.
Monday, February 22
Go see Glover Gill play solo tango piano at the Continental Club for Free. Or
Go see They, Who Sound at Avant Garden for the best in local avant garde improvisational music (possibly with Nestor’s pizza oven in action). Or
Go to the Monday Night Jazz Jam at Cafe 4212. Or
Have a pizza and a frozen mojito and shake your booty at the Flat.
Tuesday, February 23
SWAMP February Salon - Meet Producer J.O. Malone — J. O. Malone is an American film producer who has established himself as a game changer in the independent film industry with seven films going into production in 2024. Meet Malone and network with other industry professionals at Southwest Alternate Media Project’s monthly salon. 6:30 pm, Dean’s Downtown, FREE.
Wednesday, February 24
Jason Moran artist talk — Houston native Jason Moran is a jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader who mines a variety of musical styles to create adventurous, genre-crossing performances. CAMH is pleased to welcome Moran in conjunction with Jennie C. Jones: Compilation. Moran will examine Jones’s use of experimental jazz to inform her aesthetic and conceptual approaches to art making. 6:30 pm, CAMH, FREE.
