Raymond Tatum -- the Raymond Tatum -- is the chef at a restaurant founded by former rock & roll road cooks Kent and Beth Hayner that has downtown prices in a Highway 71 space with Hill Country class. Oh, and it's fusion food without being fusion.

BY WES MARSHALL

Food-o-File

"Food-o-File" sets sail with news about food cruises & more tamales.

BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD

Second Helpings: Coffeehouses Part I

"Second Helpings" is coming to you caffeinated.

Food Reviews

Arkie's Grill

Rachel Feit steps out of time to sample the soulful fare at a longtime Eastside lunch counter.

music

Story Book Children

Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez duet their way into Austin's heart.

BY MARGARET MOSER

Dancing About Architecture

All news: noise ordinance gripes, AMN budget crunch, Sound Exchange faces rent shortfalls, Williamson County refuses to give up on an amphitheatre, Clifford Antone back on the streets, and the first SXSW 03 confirmees. Plus, three music deaths.

BY KEN LIECK

Phases and Stages

Kenny G

Wishes: A Holiday Album

John Tesh

Christmas Worship

various

Christmas All Over the World

America

Holiday Harmony

Raffi

Christmas Album

Jim Nabors

Christmas

Charlie Daniels

A Merry Christmas to All

Bob Rivers & Friends

White Trash Christmas

n / a

Santa Claus is Coming to Town / Frosty the Snowman

Clay Walker

Christmas

Patty Loveless

Bluegrass & White Snow

Alan Jackson

Let It Be Christmas

Jo Dee Messina

A Joyful Noise

Carly Simon

Christmas is Almost Here

n / a

The Best of Celtic Christmas

n / a

Maybe This Christmas

Los Straitjackets

Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas

n / a

Christmas Grass: A Celebration of Christmas, Bluegrass Style, O Christmas Tree

screens

Being Charlie Kaufman

Will the real Charlie Kaufman please stand up?

BY KIMBERLEY JONES

Of Antidotes and Elixirs

The Dobie begins a one-week run of Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast on Dec. 20.

BY SIDNEY MOODY

Trigger-happy

Game geek paradise, but only for one more weekend.

BY KIMBERLEY JONES

Butt-numb-a-thon 4

The lineup.

BY KIMBERLEY JONES

Short Cuts

How to make T-shirts without violating child labor laws.

BY MARC SAVLOV

Coming Soon

Trend Watch

BY BELINDA ACOSTA

Screens Reviews

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

There is plenty of bad and ugly to go along with the good, yet each character in Sergio Leone's American opus seems to live inside a cinematic glass orb in which his virtue and his vice settle like snowflakes around an elegy to himself.

Film Reviews

Adaptation.

Gangs of New York

The Lower East Side gang wars of the 1860s are brought to life by Scorsese.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

At once a fanboy's wet dream and an engaging, emotionally supercharged epic adventure

Two Weeks Notice

The Wild Thornberrys Movie

arts & culture

Transforming a Neighborhood Near You

Since 1985, Austin's Art in Public Places program has placed more than 100 works in 57 facilities, transforming not only the look of the city but neighborhoods and the lives of people in them.

BY SARAH HEPOLA

The Blue Christmas Prom

With the Blue Christmas Prom, the good folks at Refraction Arts Project are giving you a chance to give a really nice "in-your-face" to high school and the torture of school dances.

BY BARRY PINEO

A Piece of Work

In Conspirare's annual Christmas at the Carillon, the choir's performance of Jonathan Harvey's The Angels engulfed the audience like a sudden preternatural shower of light.

BY MOLLY BETH BRENNER

Articulations

The consultants hired by the city to evaluate its arts funding process have submitted a report to the City Council, legendary comedy club the Velveeta Room has been replaced by Funnies, and Rob Nash brings season's greetings to Austin before an Off-Broadway run.

BY ROBERT FAIRES

Arts Reviews

The Little Prince

There are some lovely moments in the musical version of The Little Prince produced by the State Theater Company, and the cast does a fine job of bringing to life Antoine de Saint-Exupery's unusual characters, but the tension that makes the book so special is too often exchanged in the musical for language that is cheery and precious.

A Christmas Carol

In this version of A Christmas Carol presented by Second Youth Family Theatre, actors use minimal pieces of set and costumes to conjure the many places and characters of Dickens' familiar tale and move through the text with intense focus, knowing exactly what story they need to tell and telling it well.

Ratgirl's Holy Rockin' Christmas

With Ratgirl's Holy Rockin' Christmas, Ratgirl proves herself a real artist by tossing the yule's manifold manifestations into an artistic blender, from which she serves up holiday cheer in a mighty mythological melange, a veritable Xmess.

columns

Page Two

More than the insanity or weaponry of Saddam Hussein, we should fear the deepening of a rift between the Muslim world and the West. The haste with which we are building toward war in Iraq is sending the wrong message to both.