Volume 23, Number 2
ON THE COVER:
news
A UT editor says he lost his job at the Center for Mexican American Studies for complaining about administrative malfeasance.
BY JORDAN SMITH
Environmental and community groups have come together to defend South Austin against plans for three new Wal-Mart Supercenters.
BY AMY SMITH
City Hall's left wing carries the day as the budget season draws to a close
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
Jim Hightower's latest assault on the plutocracy hits the bestseller list.
BY MICHAEL KING
State Constitutional Election, Sept. 13, 2003
Headlines and happenings from around Austin and beyond
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
The City Council takes a hard look at the budget crisis -- and blinks.
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
Sen. John Whitmire flees exile in Albuquerque and says he'll return to the Senate with or without his Democratic colleagues.
BY MICHAEL KING
Perry calls a third special re-redistricting session, and the Dems explore their options.
BY MICHAEL KING
The Assault on the True America; Delay's Judicial Witch-Hunt
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
Paletas on the streets of Austin, paletas on the streets of Mexico!
BY CLAUDIA ALARCÓN
Virginia B. Wood brings all-you-can-eat news.
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
Food Reviews
There aren't any pushcarts at Jegimajo!, but you can sure get a taste of the Philippines there.
music
Okkervil River's Will Sheff and Centro-matic's Will Johnson find common ground.
BY MELANIE HAUPT
Goths, Goths, Goths
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Okkervil River Reviewed
Down the River of Golden Dreams
Lo-Fi Mojo
Whiskey and the Devil
November
In My Dreams
Echo Base Soundsystem
Stick Figures
Romp, New & Approved
Four Under Par
Run That by Me One More Time
Wise to You!
Welcome to My World
The Golden Apples, Only Lovers Left Alive
Tomorrow Is Fat and Old
Loud New Shit, Winter 2002-03, 58:34, Wild Yams, AuditoryFlickerFusionThreshold
The Soul of a Man, Soul Party!, The Marked Men, Revenge of the Bad Apples
screens
The Cinematexas International Short Film Festival
BY SHAWN BADGLEY
Austinite Robert Rodriguez has, of course, been a maverick from the get-go, but it's wife and producer Elizabeth Avellán who often seems the cogent heart and soul behind her husband's outrageously entertaining productions.
BY MARC SAVLOV
AFS's Texas Doc Tour brings the formidable Héctor Galán and his 'Visiones' to One World Theatre.
BY ANNE S. LEWIS
Dispatches from the 2003 Film Festival
BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN
The Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival has announced its winners.
Can Female Gaming Pros Reconcile State of the Art Technology with a
BY COURTNEY FITZGERALD
Paul Beck and Jason Archer, video artists and Waking Life animators, are the proud owners of a pair of matching Latin Grammys for their video for Mexican hip-hop rockers Molotov.
BY MARC SAVLOV
Game on!
BY MARC SAVLOV
Work and family, work and family, work and family. That perpetual sitcom theme keeps it up this fall, and Belinda Acosta accepts it with an asterisk.
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Screens Reviews
"You make sounds like you're a mean little asskicker. Only I ain't convinced. You keep talkin', I'm gonna take your head off."
Film Reviews
At the center of its uniquely beating heart, American Splendor is a heartfelt valentine to Everymen (and Women) everywhere
A festival breakout shocker that twists genre conventions into a jarring battery of scares.
If you don't already worship Derrida, this film won't change your mind.
A grim and unmistakable masterpiece of bleak, black sorrow.
Neurotic con artist reunites with abandoned daughter in a surprisingly sweet bait-and-switch.
Samuel L. Jackson as an auto-theft detective, perhaps in over his head. Not reviewed at press time.
The third film in Robert Rodriguez’s south-of-the-border action trilogy is a whole lot of movie.
Mysterious doings in a Catholic sect, on the whole more silly than scary.
arts & culture
Six of the finest theatrical artists in Austin discuss their work behind the curtain designing lighting schemes, mixing sound, and creating and constructing sets and costumes and how their careers have been affected by the fact that they're women.
BY MOLLY BETH BRENNER
Annie Weisman's satiric drama Be Aggressive, receiving its area premiere from the State Theater Company, gives a shout out to cheerleading as an outlet for teenagers to make themselves heard.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
A bright design firm on the Austin theatre and film scene, Star Costume & Clothiers, falls to earth, and folk artist Brother Jeremias Mysliwiec passes away.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Arts Reviews
Perdita, playwright Monika Bustamante's chilling exploration of what can happen when loss barrels its way through everyday lives, is one of the most tightly crafted and beautifully written works of the year, and its production at Hyde Park Theatre is of sterling quality.
Theater at the J's production of Cabaret makes good use of the large hall at the Dell Jewish Community Center, creatively weaving the cabaret's musical shenanigans into the more serious larger story, in which the central characters fend off the accelerating horror of Nazi Germany by choosing not to see it.
For the Austin Symphony's season opener, conductor Peter Bay and company made a pleasure cruise of Smetana's "The Moldau" and turned Sibelius' Second Symphony into a ride through the perfect storm, while guest Emanuel Ax led a refined reading of da Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain.
columns
It's been two years since 9 / 11, and we're under attack.
BY NICK BARBARO
Our readers talk back.
It was a "Mighty Real" period in at least one young man's life: Oh, those heady disco nights! Oh, the power! The Passion! The psychedelics! Oh, it's all within reach through the grace of MP3s! Oh, I should have saved them!
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
A new exhibit at the New Braunfels Museum of Art & Music in Gruene documents the love and skill that musical-instrument makers around America put into their creations.
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
I want to break the lease on my apartment, so I can move in with a friend and save money. My landlord says I still have to pay the remaining five months rent. Is there any way to break the lease and avoid paying rent?
BY LUKE ELLIS
After my third baby I didn't lose the weight I gained during pregnancy, and I have even gained some more. What is going on?
BY JAMES HEFFLEY, PH.D.
BY SANDY BARTLETT
Paramount Theatre, Sunday, September 14, 2003
BY THE LUV DOC
Letters to the editor, published daily