Last week, I wrote that Jan Jarboe Russell‘s Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson is “convincing.” I was referring to the number of people Russell quotes as well as the biography’s feminist investigation of Lady Bird Johnson as a woman who was willing to put up with LBJ’s philandering and his tendency to mold his wife into a perfect political image. Apparently, it’s not convincing enough. All that work and now this: Last Sunday over dinner, Russell’s 14-year-old daughter Maury (named for Maury Maverick Jr., the civil rights lawyer and journalist whose column appears every Sunday in the San Antonio Express News) dutifully informed her mother that she is “not a feminist.” “I broke out and cried all over my green enchiladas,” Russell said.
Nightmare Cures
For those of you thinking about writing true crime books, think beforehand about all those nightmares you’re going to suffer after viewing those sickening images of death. And what will it be like to listen to hours upon hours of court transcripts that probe murder in gory detail? Don’t ask Suzy Spencer; she doesn’t want to talk about all that. Spencer just mailed in the manuscript to her second true crime book, which is about a former Austin stripper and a man the police categorize as a “self-proclaimed CIA hitman” who killed the hitman’s roommate in January 1995. Spencer has now, after all this time, found a remedy to the nightmares. Leave your TV on all night on mute, but you have to be certain to put it on the Nickelodeon channel. That should make the bogeymen go away.
The Technology of What?
Soon, you’re going to be hearing more about that book whose title is either going to have you shrieking in terror or striking an inquisitive stance. On September 16, former Austinite Rachel P. Maines, author of The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator, and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction, will be at a free event at BookWoman at 7pm to read from and sign the book. On September 17, Maines will speak at Mercury Hall (615 Cardinal Lane) at 8pm. Tickets for the Mercury Hall event are $10 and benefit the Central Texas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and are available at Forbidden Fruit and BookWoman.
ArmadilloCon 21
Texas’ premier annual science fiction convention, Armadillocon, takes place September 10-12 at the Omni Southpark Hotel. Memberships are $20 in advance or $30 at the door. Call Adventures in Crime and Space at 473-2665 for more information.
Readings
Louise Redd will read from and sign her newnovel set in Austin, Hangover Soup, at BookPeopleon Tuesday, August 31 at 7pm… Like clockwork, Kinky Friedman has a new book out, Spanking Watson, and he’ll be at Barnes & Noble Arboretum on Thursday, September 9 at 7pm to read from it… Austin author Frances Nail will read from her two collections of essays, Crow in the House, Wolf at the Door, and God, Cars, & Souvenirs on Thursday, September 9 at BookPeople. In fact, the September calendar at BookPeople runneth over: expect sex columnist Dan Savage on the 13th, 7pm; Elmer Kelton on the 16th, 7pm; George Rodrigue (Blue Dog artist) on the 17th, 7pm; legendary reporter Helen Thomas on the 22nd at noon; and Bill Moyerson the 29th at noon.
This article appears in August 27 • 1999 and August 27 • 1999 (Cover).