::Diverseworks Exhibit Opening Night: Two exhibits we are particularly looking forward to seeing both open tonight at Diverseworks. An opening reception will feature a special performance by Brent Green's 3 Piece Band, MK Guth's Ties of Protection & Safe Keeping Interactive Sculpture, and the DiverseWorks Silk Screen Station where you can build you own t-shirt. And everyone loves t-shirts. Flicker Fusion Since 1914 when the first animated film was made, artists across the globe have......

On Monday, we told you about the super groovy Houston: It's Worth It campaign, the brains behind it, and the accompanying photo book that will be released tonight at a special event at Lawndale. Check. So what else is happening tonight? Glad you asked. Hey, we can't do it all, we need your help in this fight to cover the mean streets of the H. Now get out there and get your event on. The......

Dammit, Houston *is* a literary town! Here's a slew of readings happening this week, from the hilarious David Sedaris to the wry Nick Hornby and the unbalanced Lisa Belkin. Her word choice, not ours. We love books. Wednesday, October 24th at 7:30PM William Henry Lewis and Justin Cronin at DiverseWorks 1117 East Freeway, *FREE* Two heavy-hitting writers with a bucket of awards apiece. Lewis is the author of In the Arms of Our Elders......

Look, we're gonna make this one real easy for you. No thinking involved. Music. Art. Community. And a scientist who raps about space travel to a power point presentation. See? Simple. Houston, Our Ears Depend on You, this Saturday at Diverseworks, materializes Rice Radio's KTRU's presentation of Ashmathitic Kitty's 4th Unusual Animals party. Huh? See, we told you we were gonna make it simple. Just trust us. Or, just keep reading. DiverseWorks is excited to......

Into art? How about dance? You like music? Theater? Have a thing for opera? Or maybe you just (pretend to) like “culture” in general to seem smart and hip and urban? Want to impress a date while not knowing a damn thing about the previously mentioned subjects? Boy, does Houstonist have a shindig for you. Tonight brings us Culture Collision II, hosted by a fleet of Museum and Theatre District young professionals' groups, including the......

::Maurice Manning and Emily Fox Gordon Poetry Reading at Diverseworks:: Giving Houstonians a chance to hear tomorrow’s great writers today. The Inprint Studio Series, presented by Inprint in association with the University of Houston Creative Writing Program and Diverseworks, features some of the best young writers in the country, as well as alumni from the University of Houston Creative Writing Program and leading local authors. Now in its second season, the 2007-2008 Inprint Studio Series,......

Good morning, Houston. In the mood for a really, really bad promotional video? It's your lucky day: May we introduce you to "The Metro Report", a quasi-Colbert Report-style production in which a host, Elliot Roberts, "interviews people on the street" about why they love riding public transportation. Which makes us wonder: Where'd Metro find all these people? Oh, right, they're actually actors — and, according to KTRK's Wayne Dolcefino, this bit of self-promotion cost......

Good morning, Houston. Imagine that you're driving along one day when a traffic light falls from an overhead line and crashes through your car's windshield. You'd think the city would be responsible for the accident, right? Wrong! Just ask Lei Zheng, who was on a shopping trip with his wife and son last year when a traffic light fell on his Volkswagen. Zheng and his family weren't seriously hurt, but they did ask the......

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......

Looking for art tonight? We gotcha covered. It's all over. Tons of it. Tonight, and all weekend long. Check out openings tonight at Diverseworks, Vine Street (Fotofest), UH Downtown (O'Kane), CTRL Gallery, Inman, Finesilver, Kinzelman, Glassell, Blaffer, Art League, and much, much more. We just got tired of typing. See: help wanted. b.s. Artblog has a nicely coordinated list here, and ArtsHouston weighs in with their picks here. Seems like the top of everybody's list,......

August in Houston is horrific enough, but why not give yourself an old-fashioned scare this weekend. Really old-fashioned. As in 88 years old. Considered to be the first horror flick ever, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) has got all the wacked-out trappings of German Expressionism but no sound. Last fall, Houston's Two Star Symphony Orchestra played its own original soundtrack alongside a screening to a sold out show at the MFAH. This weekend, they're......

Tragic news out of east Houston last night: A woman and her 2-year-old son were killed when their car slid into Hunting Bayou, just off the East Freeway. Adding to the tragedy is the fact that the accident could have been totally preventable — KPRC reports that the car went into the bayou when the woman, 27-year-old Asia Horn, missed the exit ramp at Federal Road and decided to try getting off the freeway by......

This is your last chance to see Jana Hunter perform before she moves to Baltimore, MD. Along with KABLE and Hearts of Animals at DiverseWorks this should be an amazing performance and at $7/ticket - you cannot go wrong (it is an all ages performance). The music begins at 9:00 p.m. and DiverseWorks Art Space is located at 1117 East Freeway (I-10 folks), between San Jacinto and Main. Jana is promoting her latest release "There's......

Good morning, Houston. Thanks to everyone who joined us at Kay's last night for the happy hour — and those of you who missed it, we expect to see you next time. Now, go read some news, Our head hurts. >> Turns out it wasn't a foolproof plan after all: Police are on the lookout for Continental Express flight attendant Vivian Fragoza and her husband after Fragoza allegedly used Continental "buddy miles" to fly......

From the "Thieves in disguise" file comes the story of a man who has carried out one robbery and attempted two others — all while dressed as a U.S. postal worker. The guy's first robbery attempt was at an EZ Pawn location at the East Freeway and Lockwood on March 26; he ended up leaving the store when a clerk asked him for ID. But things went better at a nearby EZ Pawn on Lyons......

Ten more red-light cameras have gone online around the city, many of them — like in the last group to begin operating — along the Southwest Freeway. The locations of the new cameras are: West Loop at San Felipe (east frontage road) Southwest Freeway at Bellaire (west frontage road) Bissonnet westbound at Southwest Freeway east frontage road Southwest Freeway at Beechnut (east frontage road) Southwest Freeway at Fondren (east frontage road) Chartres northbound at......

The rain that's been passing through the area since late last night has made things a mess out there: On the East Freeway near Wayside Drive, most lanes flooded just before 6 a.m., causing a big traffic jam, and at least one person died in a car accident that police say was likely caused by the rain. On the plus side, though, this weather should move out of our area by lunchtime, paving the......

Your chances of being caught running a red light just went up: The city's 10 newest red-light cameras go online today, bringing the total number of cams to 20 — not quite halfway to the city's goal of having 50 cameras up and running by early next year. The initial batch of cameras began operating Sept. 1, and since then they have caught more than 3,000 traffic violators, according to HPD: "They've proven what we......

Seriously, what is it with criminals crashing their cars into businesses in order to rob them? Last week we had the story of the guys who got a stolen minivan stuck on the front of a pawn shop in such an attempt, and today, there's word of another smash-and-grab that went slightly better — and worse. It happened early this morning near the East Freeway and Calles, where police say a guy deliberately drove his......

HPD Chief Harold Hurtt announced yesterday that 10 more red-light cameras are being installed around town, some of them on state-owned roads thanks to a ruling from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. Hurtt said the cameras will begin operating in about a month at the East Freeway at Uvalde on the east side, FM 1960 at Tomball Parkway in northwest Houston and eight locations on the southwest side: the West Loop at Westheimer, the Southwest......

Non-profit art center DiverseWorks kicks-off its fall season with the 8th annual Downtown Stomp Around. The free event gives art lovers the chance to view a wide range of artwork in the DiverseWork artspace, O’Kane Gallery at UH Downntown, Fotofest, and the Anam Cara Gallery at Erie City Ironworks. DiverseWorks builds, educates, and sustains audiences for contemporary art, by providing local artists a venue to test new ideas in the public arena. You’ll find......

It's too darn hot for a lot of things, but see what you think of these. Don't forget to email and yell at us if we missed something you wanted to see here ... Friday, August 4 Noisefest 2006: Metal acts from the Houston area. At $8 a day, beginnig today at 6 and tomorrow at 5 pm, the price is right to come headbang and enjoy some upandcoming acts. You saw them before they......

So the East Freeway wasn't the place to be early this morning, thanks to a shooting spree that apparently began with a case of road rage. The shooters were three men in a green pickup truck, the victims were a group of people in a gray Ford Tempo, and a couple of random people got caught up in the mayhem — and beyond that, things aren't too clear. According to KTRK, the guys in......

Police say a grenade was found in HPD's accident division at 61 Reisner this afernoon; an investigation is under way (KPRC says the grenade was live, but KTRK is reporting it wasn't) A shipping truck wrecked and caught fire early this afternoon in the Katy Freeway HOV lane near Gessner, closing all outbound lanes; the freeway is not expected to fully reopen until 9 p.m. Dexter Johnson, accused of being the ringleader of the group......

Two children drowned in unrelated incidents in Richmond on Sunday, bringing the number of kids who have drowned in the area this year to 16, compared with 20 in all of 2005 The investigator looking into problems at the HPD crime lab said he'll need $1.5 million ot finish his work, a price the city may not pay A high-speed police chase ended early this morning with a crash on the East Freeway at the......

It's easy to tell when we're in a sweeps period in TV news — all those sensational crime stories, all those pointless investigative stories. And now KTRK has adroitly combined the two with a story about purse snatchers targeting Sunday shoppers at three area Wal-Marts. Investigators analyzed reports of 17 purse snatchings at Wal-Marts on the North Freeway, the East Freeway and the East Belt, 85 percent of which took place Sundays between 11 a.m.......

Judge Sim Lake dropped three charges against Jeff Skilling and one against Ken Lay moments after the prosecution rested its case in the trial of the former Enron executives today A judge assigned to oversee Carole Keeton Strayhorn's lawsuit challenging Texas' independent candidate rules recused himself from the case because he signed Strayhorn's petition to be placed on the ballot for governor The driver of an HISD school bus lost control on the South Loop......

Houstonist loves photography — especially when it doesn't involve watching our relatives' slides of their trip to Omaha. So we get really excited when it's time for FotoFest, the biennial event that turns the city into an enormous photo gallery. FotoFest 2006, which opens tomorrow, has two themes: "The Earth" and "Artists Responding to Violence." "Artificial borders divide the Earth and determine its use. The pathways of human migration are altered as the need for......

Missing your weekly dose of art? A few notable exhibitions are closing this weekend, but there's still time to check them out: New Texas Painting at DiverseWorks (1117 East Freeway) showcases new work by Texas painters Seth Alverson, William Betts , Bill Davenport , Joey Fauerso, Ali Fitzgerald, Heyd Fontenot, Angela Fraleigh, Francesca Fuchs, Ryan Geiger, Nina Rizzo, Brian Wheeler, Jeff Wheeler, Hilary Wilder and Bill Willis. Closes Saturday. Also at DiverseWorks is Full Stop,......

Several construction projects on the Loop that may cause traffic tie-ups: The connector ramp from the East Loop northbound to I-10 (East Freeway) east- and westbound will be closed from 9 a.m. tonight until 2 a.m. Wednesday. Alternate route: exit Wallisville and U-turn. Exit ramps from the East Loop northbound to the Port of Houston and Clinton Drive will also be closed from 9 p.m. tonight until 2 a.m. Wednesday. On the South Loop, the......