Volume 21, Number 17
news
BY LAURI APPLE
New state and federal regulations threaten the Clean Air Act
BY LEE NICHOLS
Parents organize group in an effort to reform Child Protective Services
BY JORDAN SMITH
BY AMY SMITH
Police officer Tim Enlow's "racial profiling" case may not be open and shut.
BY JORDAN SMITH
BY LAURI APPLE
Resurrecting Cointelpro; The Cold Side of 'Workfare'
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
The Tastes of Taste
Two books that dissect the palate -- one metaphorically, the other scientifically. And Chronicle wine writer Wes Marshall gives the lowdown on the spots in Austin for finding good deals on Champagne.
How to give a gift and help the Austin community this holiday season.
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
Greg Beets provides a fast-food tour of Austin in this week's "Second Helpings."
music
Kid rockers Three Hourz Sleep confront their first major crisis when their drummer moves away.
BY MARGARET MOSER
That was the year that was in the Live Music Capital
BY KEN LIECK
Phases and Stages
International Superhits
Music Ear Bleeding Country: The Best of Dinosaur Jr.
Rotten Apples -- Greatest Hits
The Best of Pigface
Music Strategies Against Architecture III: 1991-2001
Greatest Hits
The Best of
Greatest Hits Volume 2
LoveSensualityDevotion
Echoes: The Best of
The Best of Ocean Color Scene
Eee-O 11: The Best of the Rat Pack
Anthology Volume One: Cowboy Man
Greatest Hits II
The Best of Lightning Hopkins
The Best of Mississippi Fred McDowell
The Best of Randy Newman
The Dirty Story: The Best of ODB
Greatest Hits
screens
Behind the Screens
A new play by Neal LaBute falls flat on paper; new and reissued books about gay and lesbian Hollywood, Andy Milligan, Alan Smithee and the auteur theory, and Maya Deren reviewed.
Local filmmaker and UT RTF student Bennie Klain has been invited to screen his new short film, "Yada Yada," at the Sundance Film Festival. It's the second film he's ever made -- it's also his second film to show at Sundance.
BY MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN
Does Wes Anderson's new film, The Royal Tenenbaums, seem familiar? Why not ask David Foster Wallace?
BY SIDNEY MOODY
We are potential Davids all, at this time and in this place more than ever before.
BY MARC SAVLOV
Keeping one eye on television and the other on pop culture
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Screens Reviews
This 1978 animated Rankin & Bass production of Tolkien's The Hobbit works successfully on both a children's and a universal level.
Film Reviews
Mann's film, which has some terrific moments, hits the highlights only. Will Smith, layered in subtle facial prosthetics in order to resemble Ali, does no disservice to the memory of the Greatest, but the best thing here is Jon Voight, who loses himself thoroughly in the role of sportscaster Howard Cosell.
arts & culture
The digital age has ushered a new era in visual art, with the Internet offering artists a new medium for the creation of art, an infinite space to display their work, and a marketing tool. But with this expansion of creative opportunities come sticky questions of ownership and the communal experience of art.
BY ROB CURRAN
Called by no less than The New York Times "the suavest of all male cabaret performers," Steve Ross is the personification of refined, romantic, elegant, and effervescent cabaret, and that makes him an ideal guest artist for the debut season of Austin Cabaret Theatre.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
The National Endowment for the Arts puts federal grants in the stockings of nine Austin arts organizations, and Ben Bentzin takes leave of Arts Center Stage.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Arts Reviews
With Ariel Dance Theatre in Concert, the collaboration between the ever-energetic, always searching, always stretching herself Andrea Ariel and composers Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski and operatic soprano Cheryl Parrish generated the heat and light of a pure flame that was bright and intense and exhilarating to see.
For its debut show, the Silverstar Theater Group staged Rebecca Schwarz's The USO Christmas Show, a new musical set during a 1940s radio broadcast. But inconsistencies in style had the Forties ambience fading in and out like a distant radio signal.
In Rob Nash's new show, he performs characters performing bits of Romeo and Juliet, and all the different parts come together like a theatrical jigsaw puzzle joining itself on the stage before us, forming a fine drama within a sharp comedy of eros and social dynamics.
columns
The curse and the blessing of living in interesting times
BY LOUIS BLACK
Our readers talk back.
We are swiftly losing our civil liberties as a result of the USA-PATRIOT Act, although this administration has shown it is not impervious to citizen complaints.
BY MICHAEL VENTURA
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
At Fred's Lounge in Mamou, Louisiana, the good times roll pretty early.
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
What would you give if you could give any celebrity in the world anything? Happy Holidays from "After a Fashion!"
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
I've heard that beans are good food, but I have a problem with excessive gas after I eat them. Are they worth it?
BY JAMES HEFFLEY, PH.D.
Happy New Year...and thanks for your support all year
BY SANDY BARTLETT
What with the computer crash and the gas grill fiasco, you're lucky you're even getting a column from The Coach this week. Random thoughts are a bonus.
BY ANDY "COACH" COTTON
Letters to the editor, published daily