Good morning, Houston. Remember Mayor Bill's agreement with Clear Channel that would result in the removal of nearly 900 billboards across the city? Well, it's not necessarily a done deal after all: On Wednesday, six City Council members voted to delay the plan, saying they still had questions about its ramifications. The problem, they said, was that the deal would allow Clear Channel to move remaining billboards: "We're allowing new billboard locations to pop......

Filled up on turkey and dressing? Here's some event stuffing fer youse. add event to your Google Calendar view all events on the Houstonist Google Calendar [26 MONDAY]Double Feature: Monday Movies at MFA and Domy BooksMemories of Irving Berlin (last Monday)Bayou City Concert Musicals | doors at 7pm, ensemble Theatre ($20) [27 TUESDAY]Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison: book signing and discussion | 3pm, Barnes & Noble Town & Country (free)Rice Humanities Lecture: An Ordinary, Everyday......

Bayou City Arts Festival - Downtown Need tickets to this weekend's Bayou City Arts Festival? We gotcha covered. We scored a few pairs, so drop us an email at monica (@) houstonist dot com and we'll hook you up. (And not like the time we tried to hook you up with our boyfriend's 3rd cousin. Sorry about that.) This all can be yours, for the low, low price of free (aka send an email to......

Houston's Theater District is having an Open House this Sunday, August 26th from noon to 5PM, while also hosting Taste of Downtown, meaning there's lots to sample for free, free, free! Besides about 40 million performances, there will also be backstage tours, sneak previews of the 2007-2008 Theater District seasons, Q&A's with performers, activities for the kids such as costume trunks and an instrument petting zoo, free refreshments, season ticket information booths and lots......

Have what it takes to be a roller girl? Weeeelllll, here in HTown, we get our action two ways - flat track (which Houstonist loves and follows and has since the proverbial get-go) and, banked track. Calling all skater chicks and roller derby aficionados!!! The South Side Roller Derby, Houston's Banked Track league, is holding boot camp tonight from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Pearwood Skate Center. Late notice? Never fear, there will......

The Voice Behind Harry Potter Makes Apperance & Tape-Signing So you spent all weekend ravenously getting through the final chapter in the Harry Potter series. Still hungry for more? Jim Dale, the narrator of all seven Harry Potter audiobooks will put on a performance and will be available to sign copies of the audiobook tonight at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church. Jim Dale became "The Toast of Broadway" [NY Times 1981] when he created......

Beehive: The Musical! Now through July 18th, head out to Miller Outdoor Theater to see the sensational "Beehive: The Musical!"producned by Houston TUTS. Performances are nightly at 8:15pm. Grab the hairspray and come on down to the rockin' 60s musical, featuring more than 35 of the hottest hits of the girl groups and female singers of the era. FIVE WAILING WOMEN, ONE HOT BAND, AND 25 CANS OF HAIR SPRAY A WEEK can only......

We were kind of interested last week when we noticed the story of Frederic "Ric" Brame, the 72-year-old dance instructor who is facing a charge of sexual assault of a child. Brame, who taught dance in Montgomery County, allegedly began assaulting a former student when she was 12 or 13 years old — but that wasn't all: Investigators say that, for years, Brame has pretended to be noted movie and Broadway dancer Tommy Rall. And......

Dance, Dance. Double-header Dancing tonight in the form of two of Houston's best dance companies: The Metropolitan Dance Company and City Dance. >>>Summer Dance with the Houston Met Dynamic, exhilarating and high-energy. It’s how critics and the public alike describe the performances of Houston Metropolitan Dance Company. To complete their stellar season they are brining their artistry to Miller Outdoor Theatre for a free performance, Summer Dance: The Best of the Houston Met Season tonight,......

So here's a new twist on the old attempted robbery story: In Pearland, a man tried to rob his wife's pizza restaurant Monday — and now both man and wife are charged with aggravated robbery. Here's how it went down: Police say a man grabbed an employee of the Little Caesar's in the 5400 block of Broadway on Monday morning as she left the restaurant with a bank deposit bag. The man said he had......

Opening Night: The Musical of Musicals @ Theater Lab Can't decide on plans for tonight? Well bring your indecisivness to the ultimate variety of muscial theater, for tonight's opening of Theater Lab Houston's The Musical of Musicals - The Musical! "A hilarious satire of musical theatre". One story becomes five delightful musicals, each written in the distinctive style of a different master of the form, from Rodgers & Hammerstein to Stephen Sondheim. The Basic Plot:......

The Tommy Tune Awards ceremony was held last night, and several high schools walked away with armfuls of very tall statuettes. We're just kidding, but Klein High School did rule the night with five awards for their production of Oklahoma. If you're not familiar with the high stakes game of high school musicals (not High School Musical), then you might not know what the Tommy Tunes are. Let us inform you. The Tommy Tunes are......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

If you're still upset about Felicia's uncalled-for elimination from America's Next Top Model this week, have no fear. Houstonians are making their mark on reality shows all over the tube. Check it: Grease: You're the One That I Want: Alvin native Austin Miller might be Houston's best bet since Chloe Dao. Austin is one of two potential Dannys (Dannies?) left on the show. With extensive vocal, dancing, and acting training and experience, he was considered......

TUTS Apprentice Conservatory Training holds Auditions for Teens Got teens? Then you probably got drama, too. Put that pouty, self-absorbed, emotional crap to good use: the THEE-ata! Houston's Theater Under the Stars' Humphreys School of Musical Theatre announces its fourth annual ACT@TUTS (Apprentice Conservatory Training at Theatre Under The Stars). The program will hold open auditions for The Stephen Schwartz Project, a new musical revue featuring songs by the award-winning Broadway composer and lyricist......

The Bayou City Art Festival is happening this weekend (Friday-Sunday) at Memorial Park, and Houstonist has two free tickets to give away. The Bayou City Art Festival has been held by the Art Colony Association since 1996, but traces of it date back to 1971. It is consistently one of the top-rated festivals in the country and it was rated one of AmericanStyle Magazine's top 5 fairs and festivals in 2005. The festival is held......

Houstonist's new year's resolution: More shelterporn in 2007! To kick things off, we take you to this ultra-cool house in Glenbrook Valley, the jet-era neighborhood along Broadway just north of Hobby Airport. Because we have a soft spot for mid-century modern homes, Glenbrook is one of our favorite neighborhoods in Houston (and we've shelterporned there before, in case you've forgotten). The house — which has only had two owners since it was built in......

Choreographer Donald Byrd, who was nominated for a Tony for his work in the 2006 Broadway production of The Color Purple, is bringing Indian industrial/club dance music to Houston this weekend. Seattle-based Spectrum Dance Theater, for whom Donald Byrd is the artistic director, will perform at the Wortham Center's Cullen Theater - part of the IW Marks Dance Series tonight and tomorrow night. A pre-performance lecture by Donald Byrd begins each evening at 7:10 in......

With five Golden Globe nominations and talk of possible Oscar nominations in the wings, the film adaptation of Dreamgirls is getting a lot of exposure. The soundtrack is currently on top of the charts, the movie is in the top five at the box office, and former American Idol star Jennifer Hudson is receiving lots of praise for her performance as Effie White in the movie. While Hudson’s singing in the movie is good,......

Culinary Adventures are back this week and include some music to boot! We hope you find some fun to participate in. • Spanish Vintner Dinner: Pico’s Mex-Mex – 5941 Bellaire • Vintner Dinner: The State Grill – 2925 Weslayan • Bonny Doon Wine Event: Piatto Ristorante – 11693 Westheimer • Johnny Walker Tasting: Prime Time Steak House – 9275 FM 1960 West • Partida Tequila Tasting: Makenzie’s American Grill – 9330 Broadway • The......

Woody Allen's latest, Scoop, is his second British-set film starring Scarlett Johansson in a row, and while there are definitely some problems with Scoop, we for one hope he keeps the trend going. Though not nearly as interesting or engaging as last year's Match Point, which garnered an oscar nomination for original screenplay, Scoop certainly has its charm. That charm begins with the plot: a light-as-air bit of nonsense about a journalist who comes back......

It's raining, it's pouring, so get out of the wet and join Houstonist in finding out what's doing in H-town for ten dollars or less.... Friday, July 28 Houston Shakespare Festival presents fantastic, professional productions of Shakespeare's masterworks at Miller Outdoor Theater in Hermann Park. Tonight, they present Titus Andronicus, an early and oft-misunderstood Shakespeare about lust, power, greed, revenge, and, oh right, gore. 8:30 pm. Free. (100 Concert Dr. in Hermann Park). Saturday, July......

City Council today voted to cut the budget for MediaSource, the company that runs Houston's public access cable channel, by a third New sports authority head Janis Schmees: Houston's doors are open to any sporting events, especially if they're Olympic-inclined A northeast Harris County man who had been evicted from his home shot up his former neighborhood, then shot himself when he became cornered by police A 2-year-old was found today wandering down the middle......

What is it with Metro buses and danger lately? Last week there was the story about the guy who refused to get off a bus and threatened the driver, and today we have news of a man who shot another man in the head on a bus last night. It happened just before 8 p.m. on a Metro bus near the Gulf Freeway and Broadway; the gunman reportedly pulled out a handgun and shot the......

Get on the bus and get over to the Bayou City Art Festival this weekend in Memorial Park. This annual Houston event, put on by the Art Colony Association, is outdoor art gallery on an 8/10 of a mile loop featuring over 300 artists that create nineteen different forms of artistic media. The Art Colony Association is dedicated to putting on high quality art festivals to provide financial support to local organizations - to......

Firefighters at a southeast Houston fire station had a surprise early this morning when a longhorn wandered in through one of the station's garage doors. There's not much to say about the story, really, other than that a longhorn wandered into a fire station (just in case you didn't get that part). KHOU has video of the bovine visitor, which seemed to spend most of its time standing around looking confused and peeping demurely from......

A man fleeing the scene of a traffic accident was killed in a hit-and-run early this morning in the 5900 block of Hillcroft; police are still looking for the owner of the gray pickup that ran him down Suspected gang leader Ivory "B-Stupid" Harris was caught near New Orleans today; Harris is believed to be lined to homicides in Houston and New Orleans Federal officials gave a Livingston-based utility company $3.3 million in hurricane relief......

It's officially Christmas weekend, and that can only mean one thing... well, that actually means quite a few things, come to think of it, but in the context of this -ist List it could only mean one thing: the movies. Tons of them. There are so many movies opening over the next three or so days that Houstonist can't even fit the highlights into one entry. The Golden Globe nominations are out and families......

More today on the pair of female criminals we noted yesterday. Now, police think the women may be linked to five or six recent robberies and auto thefts: Sgt. Robert Ruiz of the East Side divisional gang unit has been involved in such investigations for more than 10 years. He said he does not remember the last time he came across a pair of female partners in crime. "In most crimes committed by females,......

Months after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, art is beginning to imitate life — and this weekend, Houstonians have the chance to be part of that art in an unusual way during Playback Theatre's Stories After the Storm. Playback gives improvisational performances in which audience members interact with the actors. According to the theater: Someone tells a story or moment from their life, chooses actors to play the different roles, then watches as their story is......