Volume 22, Number 50
ON THE COVER:
news
Millions of Williamson County taxpayer dollars pour into a contractor's pocket, and no one seems to know why.
BY JORDAN SMITH
Mayor Pro Tem Jackie Goodman's pro-civil-liberties resolution stalls on the dais
BY LAURI APPLE
Austin firefighters start a blaze of their own in response to the department's controversial budget-cutting proposal.
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
Headlines
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
Here come the constitutional amendments, propositioning you.
BY MICHAEL KING
As other cities catch up, 'Solar Austin' advocates look to prime the green-power pump
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
The Texas Supreme Court rejects Perry and Dewhurst's request for a writ of mandamus against the fugitive Senate Democrats.
BY MICHAEL KING
Why do we pay to watch ads in theatres? And, Newt Gingrich argues that the White House should lie to us more.
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
Nestled at the star-crossed corner of Sixth and Lavaca, the Thistle Cafe is Downtown's latest fine-dining flavor.
BY CLAUDIA ALARCÓN
Virginia B. Wood delivers a half-ton o' news in this week's "Food-o-File."
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
All up in it with Gourmet Takeout!
music
Career advice from Ian McLagan and political counsel from Andrew WK
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Phases and Stages
Aladdin Sane
The Radio One Sessions
ABC Music: Radio One Sessions
The Complete Works Volume One
The Essential Clash
Champion in the Arena, 1976-1977, Dub it to the Top, 1976-1979, Social Living, Man in the Hills, Dry & Heavy
Keep Movin' On, At the Copa, Portrait of a Legend, Legend DVD
'74 Jailbreak, Let There Be Rock, Powerage, If You Want Blood You Got It, For Those About to Rock We Salute You, Flick of the Switch, Fly on the Wall, Who Made Who, Blow Up Your Video, The Razor's Edge
Miles Davis in Person Friday and Saturday Nights at the Blackhawk, Complete
The Box
The Chrome Collection
Close Up
Waylon Live: The Expanded Edition
Amerasia
The Slash Years
Plane Crash City
Stardom
To Lefty from Willie, Willie & Family Live, San Antonio Rose, Honeysuckle Rose
screens
Karen Kocher's multimedia 'Austin Past and Present' tells hundreds of stories in almost as many ways.
BY MICHAEL MAY
The 16th annual Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival opens on Thursday, Aug. 21, 7:30pm, at the Paramount Theatre, with a screening of Girls Will Be Girls. For tickets or more information, visit www.agliff.org or call 799-6327.
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
The Austin Film Society's Texas Filmmakers Production Fund has announced its 2003 awards -- totaling $65,000 -- to 17 "emerging film and video artists in the state of Texas
whose work shows promise, skill, and creativity."
Sarah Hepola shows you how to get celebrities like Robert Heyges to call your cell anytime you want, but ideally on special occasions.
BY SARAH HEPOLA
Hello Murdah, Hello Foddah: Marc Savlov reports from the Alamo's Camp Hacknslash, where more than 1,000 horror fans saw Freddy Vs. Jason while not sloshing their way around a softball field and flashing their kibbles and bits.
BY MARC SAVLOV
The Man Show might be more manly with the addition of Austin-based Sacred Cow Productions' Doug Stanhope and Joe Rogan, but Belinda Acosta wonders if it will be any more watchable.
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Screens Reviews
Charlie Chaplin wanted The Gold Rush to be the film we remember him by. It is, especially in the form of this two-disc release, and Steve Uhler explains why.
Film Reviews
Did anyone realize Camp Crystal Lake is right down the highway from Elm Street?
arts & culture
Denise Prince Martin's photographs featuring lone female subjects in unusual settings are nothing if not lush, capturing the color, luster, and texture of every element with uncanny crispness, but they also reveal in the expressions of their subjects women with stories to tell, women worth getting to know.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
The Austin Circle of Theatres has released the nominations for the 2002-03 B. Iden Payne Awards.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Arts Reviews
Word and Thought, a new comedy by Southwestern University grad Joshua Lellis, tracks a biographical drama about Alexander the Great on its disaster-ridden lurch toward opening night, and its premiere from Cameo Productions and the Austiner Ensemble proves that a theatrical catastrophe is still good for a laugh.
The artists of Mainline Theater Project have given their all to the characters and story of Stephen Adly Guirgis' Jesus Hopped the "A" Train, but sadly, what they have given their all to is a long-winded, superficial, ultimately unenlightening story of ruined life in the New York City criminal justice system.
In Women & Their Work's current exhibit "Biota," Diana Dopson creates color photo boxes with insects that draw out the bugs' beauty in unusual ways and nudges our perception of insects from the pestilential to the subtly reverential.
columns
We're now posting our ever-expanding letters section online, with new letters daily. This, of course, brings up a whole new set of quandaries.
BY LOUIS BLACK
Our readers talk back.
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
I would like to find the best soft drink for my teenage children. How do I choose?
BY JAMES HEFFLEY, PH.D.
Study Confirms Secret Bisexuality as HIV Threat to Hetero Women
BY SANDY BARTLETT
Tillery Street Theater, Saturday, August 16, 2003
BY THE LUV DOC
Letters to the editor, published daily