Internationally acclaimed artists, architect, and weirdo Vito Acconci will be lecturing at the MFA tonight. Over the course of his almost fifty year career in the art world Vito has stuffed marbles in his face, bitten himself, and whispered lewd remarks to strangers while inappropriately touching himself in public for the sake of his art. In the 1990's Vito turned his artistic talents to the fields of architecture and landscape design. And has developed......

The Chron picked this up a few days ago, but we feel it's worth a second mention. The Rice Design Alliance in conjunction with the Houston Chapter of the AIA announced two Houston architects, Murphy Mears Architects, (Kirby Mears, Walter Murphy, Kyle Humphries, Jamie Miller, and Gina Lyons) and Stephanie Eugster as finalists in the recent 99K House Competition. The finalists were selected out of 182 entrants proposing a sustainable, affordable house that addresses......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Dwight Watch Dwight Silverman, local tech guru, tackles installing the first service pack for Microsoft Vista. Dwight installs it on various platforms with various results. Dwight's also has been blogging about a workaround for Comcast's unethical treatment of bandwidth, he also unboxes the MacBook Air and touches on what could be the nail in the coffin of the HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray saga. Local Calendar Feb 19:......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Apple Swap Meet Next Weekend It's coming! The Houston Area Apple Users Group semi-annual swap meet is happening next weekend, January 26th at the UH Hilton. Please check the HAAUG site for registration information and fees. Good luck finding that Apple Newton or Lisa you've been looking for! Sprint Nextel To Close 35 Retail Stores In Houston From the Houston Business Journal come this interesting news......

Today the Rice Design Alliance kicks off this years spring lecture series 30N 60S: Latin American Architecture Revisited with guest speaker Francisco Liernur. Proffessor Liernur is Chair of the School of Architecture at Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, Argentina and has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Princeton, Sci-Arc, and Columbia University. His books include Writings on Twentieth Century Architecture in Latin America and Architecture in Latin America 1965-1985. Following lectures will focus......

Perspectives 159: Superconscious, Automatisms Now December 14, 2007 – March 9, 2008 Opening reception December 13, 2007, 6:30-9:00 p.m. Sigh. This is Houston's last hurrah with Senior CAMH Curator Paola Morsiani, and we are sad. Having been with the CAMH for over eight years, Morsiani is heading north to become Curator of Contemporary Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, an internationally renowned encyclopedic museum in the midst of a $258 million renovation and expansion.......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. Indra Vishnampet: Local Entrepeneur Indra Vishnampet who was recently named "Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur of the Year" by The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce Greater Houston sat down with Purva Patel of The Houston Chronicle and answered a few questions about her local multi-million dollar software integration business which has offices in Houston, Canada and India. Missouri City Not Experiencing "Comcastic" Service Hats off to a group of......

::FREE MUSIC MONDAY!:: Yep, two chances today to catch free music from two great local music organizations. Did we mention FREE? Thought so. Just checking. If you're calling it an early day at the office, or happen to be hanging around the Rice University campus at 4:00pm today, stop on by Brown Hall (Room 113) to experience a treat for your ears (and brains---which is technically a part of your ears.) Rice University Shepherd School......

Deconstruction... ...of the environmental kind - not the more erudite nature of Derrida or even deconstructivism (a la Gehry) - is taking place this week in Briargrove and Rustling Pines. 6219 Del Monte (picture) and 306 Wilchester (picture) will soon be upgraded to two stories, stucco, and granite counter tops, but pieces of the old houses seem to have been taken off for recycling. While we're not thrilled about perfectly fine houses being tossed out,......

Worried that you'll show up to the company holiday party in the same boring black dress as the boring payroll chick who sits next to you? Don't fret. Old is new again at Cheeky Vintage. Show up with a one of a kind. Tonight from 6-9pm, join the (relatively) new vintage clothing boutique, located on Richmond near Greenbriar, as they highlight some of their most recent finds for you to show off for your holiday......

How does one respond to a cold front in Houston? Bewilderment? Awe? Some go out running, as I did last night. Cool air, at last no suff'ring. Or bust out sweaters, scarves, hats, and accessories. Play yankee dress-up. Briefly let's pretend that we live in normal climes. Take what you can, now. Go outside, hurry, while the 'squitos hibernate (or die, hopefully). Soon we'll return to flip-flops. Be grateful of that. Up North, real......

Kipling St. cleaned up a bit by Peter Brown Kipling Street, just behind the Alabama Theater/Shopping Center, will be a little more flat this week. 2136 and 2140 Kipling (pictures) are set to be demolished, and the current owner of the two properties - built in 1925 and 1938 - is listed as at-large man #1, Peter Brown. While there are no apparent plans for the land, we assume that they will not be the......

This weekend (Oct. 27 and 28) stop ogling your neighbor’s house from afar -- get in there and indulge your high design fantasies (legally of course). For one weekend every year the AIA allows even the unlikely likes of you a first-hand experience in top-notch architecture. We won’t even mention what it would actually cost to own these gems, but at $25.00 a ticket the fantasy seems like a pretty good deal. This year’s......

In the city of gas, no-zoning and laissze-faire developers, local eco-sensitive construction will get the Houstonist’s attention. So, when we recently spotted this article in Dwell Magazine, we just had to share the good news with as many Houstonians as possible. Matt and Tina Ford seem to have figured out a way to make eco-friendly design both attractive and affordable. Having built in the Houston area for a few years under their company Esplanade......

Houstonist noticed about a month ago that something was missing near the corner of Bissonnet and Mt. Vernon streets, just west of Montrose Blvd. The house didn't seem to fit in, but it sure caught our eye - unfortunately it was recently demolished by the current owners. The house was located at 1 Waverly Court and was designed by Glassman Shoemake Maldonado Architects and built in 1999 to replace a beaten-up 1950s contemporary home by......

On Wednesday October 10th, Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, and co-author of “Design like you Give a Damn” will be delivering the final lecture in the Rice Design Alliance’s 2007 Fall series “Design Activism: Agents of Change.” As much a networking tool as design resource, Architecture for Humanity is instrumental in providing architectural solutions to humanitarian crises around the world. To get a feel for exactly what architecture for humanity looks like, Mr.......

Rice Design Alliance's Fall Lecture Series, Design Activism: Agents of Change will present conscientious designers from across the country who focus on socially responsible design. These professionals believe social accountability shapes the physical environment. Their work integrates civic-mindedness within design practice and education. Each practitioner seeks to establish livable cities and towns, thereby creating a sense of community. Speaking tonight is John Peterson, Principal, Peterson Architects, and Founder, Public Architecture, San Francisco, CA. The......

Ever wanted to live in the house of a Nobel Prize winner? Well, now you can: This 1982 home near Rice University was once owned by Richard Smalley, one of the discoverers of the buckyball molecule (hence the Nobel Prize in chemistry) and a researcher of nanotechnology. Smalley died in 2005, and the home is up for sale by his wife and son. Typically, we don’t care much for the 1980s period homes, but......

We promise that we're not Ethan Hawke groupies here at Houstonist. But don't blame you for thinking that given last week's Flick and this one. Hawke, Texan via Austin, hits the screen in a new film, The Hottest State, and a cult classic, Gattaca. He wrote the book; now Hawke is behind the camera to direct the film. Despite what you may be thinking, State deals with a young couple's romantic issues and not the......

Local tech news in a compact, digital format. AIR Houston Names Richard Yoo Chairman From our friends at abc13.com comes this story about local bazillionaire, Richard Yoo, founder of Rackspace and Hush Labs being named chairman of AIR Houston. AIR Houston is The Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR) which hosts a one-day competition in which web professionals team up with non-profit organizations to help design websites for users with disabilities. We know AIR Houston will......

A day like today reminds us to reflect and look back while continuing to move forward. Photo of the Day by paper by design.......

After an extraordinarily embarrassing event wherein Houstonist unwittingly drove the wrong way down a portion of South Braeswood Boulevard, we decided to thoroughly investigate the nature, goals, and idiosyncrasies of the Braeswood Boulevards. Our results have been quite astonishing and maddening, as these braided hydra-like streets weave, change course, change names, and sometimes suddenly disappear for a portion of their overall path as though it were not no thang at all. Our ultimate aim......

Rice Design Alliance Fall Lecture Series Tonight at MFA Rice Design Alliance's Fall Lecture Series, Design Activism: Agents of Change will present conscientious designers from across the country who focus on socially responsible design. These professionals believe social accountability shapes the physical environment. Their work integrates civic-mindedness within design practice and education. Each practitioner seeks to establish livable cities and towns, thereby creating a sense of community. Lectures are held Mondays beginning today, Sept......

Good morning, Houston. At Houstonist world headquarters, our e-mail boxes are graced almost daily with offers from people who want to move millions of dollars to U.S. bank accounts and allow us to take a huge share of the money just for helping — eh, all in a day. But there's a new e-mail in the same vein floating around now: It comes from someone claiming to be Michelle Kristine Kraiser, the "the Confidential......

OK, so we know it isn't really a residence — at least not right now — we couldn't resist highlighting this incredible contemporary structure on Gallery Row. The building was designed by Albert Marichal Studio of New York and now houses mix. No, we're not sure what's going to happen to the store, but the property is being marketed as a residence, a private office building or (we assume) retail space. We're going to......

We were hoping that the nearly posthumous landmark designation and demolition-delaying rain spells might have given Weingarten Realty that last little bit of time to ruminate over their plans to demolish the River Oaks Shopping Center - unfortunately, according to Cherry Demolition, the bulldozers move in Tuesday to begin the demolition and make way for the big box anchor Barnes and Noble plus a four story parking garage. We were sad to see places like......

Lawndale Opening Exhibit x 3 What's better than a Thursday night opening at Lawndale? Try 3. Saw that one coming, huh? Hey, it's been a long week, we're spent. Tonight, Lawndale Art Center presents exhibitions in three galleries, all opening August 30, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm, with artist talks at beginning at 6 pm. The exhibitions continue until October 6, 2007. In the John M. O’Quinn Gallery will be, Round Up, an installation by......

Happy Hump Day, Houston! A reader's twitter reminded us that today is the two year anniversary of when that bitch Katrina rolled into the swamps of NOLA, giving us lots of new neighbors. If you are reading this as an Katrina evacuee, we are curious as to how you are finding our little town. Hopefully, Houstonist is helping to navagate you through all there is to do. Like this great event tonight. How about......

9602 Moonlight Drive, located in Meyerland at the intersection of Braesheather Drive, is one of our all time favorite mid-century homes in Houston. It was designed and built by Robert Cohen in 1964, and he and his wife lived in the home until 2004 when it was sold to John M. O'Quinn - yes that O'Quinn. From the smell of it, O'Quinn (who lives in River Oaks) let the house sit for three years and......

Today’s Photo of the Day comes from flickr user and Houstonist photo contributor paper by design. This is the view from the 57th floor of the Chase Tower. Amazing, isn't it? If you have a passion for Houston and photography, consider joining over 350 of Houston's best photographers in the Houstonist Flickr Photo Group. If Houstonist uses your photo for Photo Of The Day, submit it here. For more great photography check out the......