Photo via Facebook

At the end of a 2012 interview with Maxwell Anderson, the Dallas Museum of Art's Eugene McDermott Director, I asked him what he'd do for employment if he weren't shaking up the museum world.

He took a very short pause. Then, in an affectionate tone, he said he'd apply for, but be rejected from, managing his wife's career.

It was a warm joke, one that rolled off the back of his throat with a practiced, loving humility. Jacqueline has always been a welcome topic with reporters: They were the museum world's Brad and Angelina.

More »

The Harlem Shake has taken the internet by storm over the last couple weeks, and Dallas has made an admirable contribution to the meme, if there is such a thing. Here are our 10 local favorites:

More »

Jekyll & Hyde's Constantine Maroulis

Last week the Observer's theater critic, Elaine Liner, dedicated an entire mini review to the limelight-stealing, self-animating powers of Constantine Maroulis' hair. The locs are currently starring in the Broadway Series musical, Jekyll and Hyde at the AT&T Center, and it seems her words really started something. Now everyone's chatting about his power mane, and its transformative scrunchy magic. Maroulis' hair is officially (unofficially) the talk of Dallas, a rare feat in our scared land of aerosol.

Cashing in on the head cred, the Center has partnered up with Jekyll & Hyde Salon for one of the oddest promotions we've seen. Happening tomorrow, on Tuesday, December 11, those with exceptionally long, lively hair and the frustratingly bald can score big discounts on tickets to see the show. That's because AT&T Center is setting up a remote box office at the salon from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and ticket price will be based on your hair length.

Yes! They'll measure your mane and subtract $10 for every inch of growth. Plus, if you buy a seat to the show, you'll get a $20 voucher for services at Jekyll and Hyde Salon.

See Also: The Five Greatest Hair Moments in the Musical Jekyll and Hyde

Don't worry, bald folks. Your shine will be celebrated with a flat rate, $50 discount. The promotion is only good for premium seats, which rest originally in the $85 to $95 bracket. But whoever gets measured may buy up to 4 passes with their discount, so send that friend who's still rocking hair extensions.

That rascally non-profit Downtown Dallas, Inc. wants to crack some brews with you. It's launching a weekly pop-up happy hour series and inviting you, and other haggard cubicle workers, to drink craft beer in our city's parks and plazas.

There will be four of the Thursday evening parties, with the first one kicking off this week on August 9 at Pegasus Park (5.p.m.) and another occurring each Thursday for the next month at different locations. Stay in the loop. The spots remain a mystery until D.D.I. announces them on their Twitter and Facebook pages; this week we got 24 hours notice. Scoot on over today and knock 'em back with other Twitter ninjas. You'll get a different flavor of Andrew's beer each week.

Get hip now. These things become crazy once everyone else catches on.

Leonard Volk

Cloudscape, 2009

See also: Jennifer Moreman, a Tyler Artist Who Made Her Name Painting Longhorns, Has Gone Global

Leonard Volk's upcoming exhibition at Samuel Lynne Galleries is not his first -- in fact, he's shown publicly in one other solo exhibition at Brookhaven College back in 2005 -- but it is a rare occasion to see the artist's work in the physical.

Raised in Dallas, Volk purchased his first camera, a Leica IIIc, on January 3, 1950 during a gap year in Europe, and over the next 62 years he amassed a collection of small pleasures, many of them found right in our backyard.

More »

In Cooperation With Muscle Nation. A Collective. / Facebook

Don't get us wrong. We love that Dallas' formal arts scene is backed by faithful supporters able to infuse the likes of George Grosz and Giuseppe Verdi into our cultural consciousness, but this ain't no Arts District kind of event. And that's a beautiful thing.

Beyond the I.M. Pei curves downtown, and subsumed within all the "world-class" posturing, Dallas is fostering an authentic and organic artistic culture of its own. It's the city's burgeoning grassroots arts scene, spearheaded by artists rather than donors, and it exists outside established tradition. Blink and you'll miss it. Find it and you'll find something aspiring toward truly "world class."

More »

August 5: Put it in your planner.

The cyber-orgy of food porn, music articles and drag-you-in photography known as House of Plates is manned (or womanned) by an anonymous group of Dallas bloggers, all hell-bent on showing us the great shit they've found around the city. So of course we like them.

But we like them more when they throw parties.

They've got a major rager in the works. It's going down at the F.O.E. on Sunday, August 5, so take this as an early warning. It looks so slammin' that we might see a repeat of that historic "at capacity" day the Fraternal Order of Eagles reached a few weeks back. Get there early, or wait outside in the sun, hiding your pasty bits from the evil sky orb.

More »

This is the most best caption contest ever.

When we found the looks-totally-Shell-branded arcticready.com website, which includes a build-your-own Let's Go Arctic advertisement, we thought it was real. Turns out, it isn't. But, it's still amazing.

The site is part of a "multi-layered stunt" created by Yes Men. Enjoy.

More »

gallery.unt.edu/exhibitions/id/865

UNT Mural Project Overview (Day 2, In Progress)

We got word this week about an incredible project brewing out in Denton, headed by Blayre Stiller. You might remember that Stiller last lit things up back in April at Cohn Drennan Contemporary, during a Master's thesis exhibition called Blair Blayre with fellow UNT artist, Michael Blair.

As part of her graduate degree program, Stiller has honed her teaching skills, and she proposed and organized a class to be taught with co-instructor Giovanni Valderas called Topics in Studio: Mural Painting for UNT undergraduates. Over the course of the semester, Stiller tells us that the class explored the "history of muralism as well as the efficacy of murals as vehicles for social change and how public art is viewed by audiences as well as its patrons."

More »

galleriurbane.com

Misako Inaoka, "Light Deer," 2012 Kinetic sculpture Taxidermy foam, motion sensor, light bulb, burlap, and paint 36" x 26" x 19"

I like animals. Having grown up in rural Texas with cows and "cy-otes" staring me down on a daily basis, and despite the fact that my someday procuring a lion skin rug or gallant 12 point buck for my wall will likely not serve my dating life well, I am yet enamored with the idea of filling my home with the spoils of great "kills," trophies of some romanticized nineteenth-century ideal of intrepid adventuring. You go places, you conquer things, you put them over your breakfast table or before your fireplace to teach all the other wildlife roaming through Dallas who's boss.

I kid. But, I do often find myself struggling with the idea of taxidermy, in its truest sense. I find it both oddly appealing and upsetting. See, the thing is: I like animals. Like, enough to not want to kill them. The closest I'm getting to a carcass is the food porn over on City of Ate. Which is probably why Misako Inaoka's upcoming exhibition, Muted Imprints, appeals to the very specific and not-at-all-Freudian taste I've outlined here. Inaoka creates breathtaking and gut-wrenching animal figures that shake one's very understanding of "nature" and "artificiality," that which can be conquered and that which, in return, conquers a viewer.

Opening on Saturday night at Galleri Urbane, her solo exhibition comes to us via Boca and en route to Marfa, and it looks like an utter mind-blower. In the best way imaginable.

More »