The Texas Pinball Festival’s attempt to take the Guinness world record for the most people playing pinball at the same time was not easy to pull off . Sure, it’s just a group of 200-plus guys and gals standing around new and vintage pinball machines playing as though they were…
Mixmaster presents “100 Creatives,” in which we feature cultural entrepreneurs of Dallas in random order. Know an artistic mind who deserves a little bit of blog love? Email lauren.smart@dallasobserver.com with the whos and whys. Amanda Austin had the crazy idea to bring long-form improv comedy to Dallas at a time…
Can you imagine Dallas without creativity? What would this city be like without its artists, thinkers, poets, dreamers, creators? Let’s hope we never find out. These cultural entrepreneurs are making life in this city worth living, vivifying the scene with art, dance, music, events, and so much more. We thought…
The Design District welcomed its latest decor store, Shastra Home, a few weeks ago. The mid-sized boutique specializes in fair-trade artisan goods created in India…
Usually when awkward phrases like “some sort of Asian,” “Dem titties” and “coat hanger abortions” sneak their way into dinner conversations, it’s a good time to wrap up dessert and start making frantic hand signals to your waiter to bring the check. In the insanely popular card party game Cards…
“April is the cruelest month,” TS Eliot penned to open his poetic triumph, The Wasteland. Poets have written at length about this month filled with spring showers and a sense of renewal. Odgen Nash exhorted readers to marry an April girl; Robert Frost described the days of April as blue…
It was just before the start of the Texas Pinball Festival, the annual gathering of pinball enthusiasts and collectors who brought their prized machines to Dallas/Fort Worth over the weekend for three days of quarter-less play, and an odd quiet filled the 30,000-square-foot play area. Machines from pinball’s heyday filled…
Video games have become such a huge entertainment force to be reckoned with that almost every aspect of their development can be classified as its own art form.
If you don’t know about Cards Against Humanity or even what it is and why it’s still the top selling toy and game on Amazon.com, I weep for you.
Alien ass-kicker and record-breaking misogynist Duke Nukem has gotten into a lot of scrapes over the years, whether it was preventing a race of aliens from using their spawn to take over the planet or getting back at them for daring to take the Earth’s babe resources. He’s been relatively…
Three musicians who stuff all the bleeps and bloops from your favorite new and classic video games into new compositions and songs are bringing their 8-bit instruments to Dallas next week as part of a national Total Destruction Tour. Lyricist Brent “brentalfloss” Black, rapper Raheem “Mega Ran” Jarbo and Dan…
We hardly knew you, Flappy Bird. It’s been just over a week since you first began to pump your little wings on my iPhone, and just like that your creator has returned you to a cage, calling you “addictive” and “a problem.” I know why the caged bird sings, Maya…
The world hasn’t been the same since the video game arcade started to die a slow death. The rise and power of the home console almost made coin-ops obsolete. Now, you can play whatever game you want without having to wait for some joystick jockey to get off the damn…
Rangers fans piled into the ballpark Saturday to get a little facetime with their favorite players. Autograph sessions, Q&As, tours of the dugout and a chance to run the bases rounded out the afternoon’s events. We sent photographer Rachel Parker to weave through the masses and find our favorites. While…
On South Locust Street in Denton, between the Davis Purity Bakery and El Guapo’s, sits a small brick building. Inside, children’s stuffed animals, kitchen tea towels, handbags and a menagerie of other items are lined along the walls and arranged on tabletops, in baskets and even on an old stove…
Your toddler just dropped a Cheerio on the floor and said, “Aww, motherfucking dickjob!” We’ve all been there. But what do you do about it? (After you take a video of it happening one more time, because these days your happiness is based on Facebook “likes” and this moment will…
The perennial gaming powerhouse ScrewAttack announced that they will hold another massive gaming-gasm in Dallas this summer, and you have your first chance to pick up your tickets. The annual ScrewAttack Gaming Convention (SGC) will return to DFW on July 11-13 to the downtown Sheraton Hotel and the tickets for…
There’s a peculiar magic that surrounds creation. A collision of matter, sparked by energy, goes on to be viewed as destiny. In recent years our city has experienced a push of new life, a rupturing of culture. An Arts District was built. A museum became communal space. Public art was…
It’s been cold in Dallas lately. Because: winter. And based on the screenshots of the 10-day forecast clogging up the Facebook Newsfeed, you’re all starting to have a collective pants-crap about the fact that it’s not 110°F with a heat index of Shit Steam anymore. I get it. Icemageddon drive-by-boned…
Despite the fact that etsy has officially been infiltrated by crap, there are still a few gems out there. Some even call Dallas their home. Here’s a list of the top etsy Dallas vendors that’ll make you proud to share your tap water with them. They’re listed in no particular…
Last week was a strange one for Tattooed Hippie Pirate Mommas founder Stacy Willingham. She was already getting a ton of publicity for the mom group she founded and the calendar she helped create to raise money for charity. It reached an interesting new level when we reported that the…
The Thursday night Friends of the Dallas Public Library event is sold out, but we’ve compiled a list of a few reasons you should care about his visit to Dallas.
