May 30, 2003

Volume 22, Number 39

features

Vaguely Purposed Zombies

Maybe astral projection is the best way to survive one of those nutty First Thursday thingies after all …

BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER

news

The Red Ink Hits the Fan

City Manager Toby Futrell says the budget won't balance without years of tax hikes and service cuts

BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON

Seton Asks City to Move Fast on Children's Proposal

BY AMY SMITH

Farmers Deal OK -- For Now

BY JORDAN SMITH

Does MACC put Town Lake Residents at Risk?

The proposed Mexican-American Cultural Center may block fire access to the adjacent Villas on Town Lake.

BY LAURI APPLE

The Domain of Wal-Mart

BY LAURI APPLE

Getting Sheared by Sager: It's On the (legal) Record

Travis Co. GOP boss Alan Sager gypped his Supercuts workers out of thousands of dollars -- no matter what he says now.

BY MICHAEL KING

Naked City

Headlines

BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON

The Sound of Falling Dominoes

The state budget crisis is only one piece of a much larger, distressing government puzzle.

BY MICHAEL KING

Austin @ Large: The Not-So-Great Divide

Are Brewster McCracken and Margot Clarke as far apart as Austin voters want them to be?

BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON

The Hightower Report

The Bushites lie about WMDs and media conglomeration.

BY JIM HIGHTOWER

food

From Freedom Fries to Fess Parker

Rebecca Chastenet de Géry reflects on Americans eating their words, and Wes Marshall drinks wine with Davy Crockett

Food-o-File

Virginia B. Wood serves up some serious restaurant news in this week's "Food-o-File."

BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD

Second Helpings: A Little Italy, Part I

"Second Helpings" takes you on an Italian tour of Austin.
music

Come Go Home With Me

Houston, where the blues is almost as thick as the humidity

BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

TCB

Takin' it to the streets with the Dixie Chicks, Real Heroes, Ash, and Onion Creek Crawdaddies

BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Phases and Stages

Eisley

Laughing City

Scrappy Jud Newcomb

Turbinado

Charlie Robison

Live

Rhodes, Kimmie, Nelson, Willie

Picture in a Frame

Heybale!, The Cornell Hurd Band

Continental Live, Live at Jovita's

Onion Creek Crawdaddies

Barn Burners & Bathtub Bourbon

Brave Combo

Box of Ghosts

Steve James

Fast Texas

Chulas Fronteras & Del Mero Corazon

Roots of Tex-Mex Music: Chulas Fronteras & Del Mero Corazon

Augie Meyers, Lil Joe Washington, Long John Hunter & Tom “Blues Man” Hunter, Erin James, Walter Daniels, South Filthy, Kim Wilson

Blame it on Love, Houston Guitar Blues, One Foot in Texas, You Had to Go, You Can Name It Yo' Mammy If You Wanna, Lookin' for Trouble
screens

Most Likely to Endure

With the exception of the era-specific music, what the kids like in Dazed and Confused is pretty much the same thing kids like now, which goes a long way in explaining why, 10 years later, the video's a staple in college dorms, owned by kids who weren't conceived yet in the Seventies and couldn't buy a ticket to the R-rated movie when it came out in the Nineties.

BY KIMBERLEY JONES

'Lost Ark,' Resurrected

Three boys, seven years TK, and one heck of an homage -- a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark that earned the blessing of their hero.

BY SARAH HEPOLA

May I Have This Laugh?

What are you laughing at? Cable network Trio -- will release "Uncensored Comedy," three meditations on the state of our sense of humor, in June, to help us figure it out.

BY BELINDA ACOSTA

Short Cuts

Online resources for Austin's indie film community.

BY MARC SAVLOV

Screens Reviews

Rhinoceros (1973)

Ionesco's Rhinoceros is dark political humor at its least subtle, and these days it's wonderfully therapeutic.

Film Reviews

Finding Nemo

We're happy sweet, funny Nemo is back onscreen – 3-D or no.

The Italian Job

arts & culture

Arts Stalwarts

Twelve of Austin's cultural heroes will be inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame at the 2003 Austin Critics Table Awards ceremony, and here is an introduction to them and some of their significant contributions to the local arts scene.

BY ROBERT FAIRES

Articulations

More trouble at Austin Lyric Opera as it fires seven staff members and eliminates its Young Artist Program.

BY ROBERT FAIRES

Arts Reviews

'"Embracing the Present: The UBS Art Collection"'

"Embracing the Present: The UBS Art Collection" contains a broad sampling of contemporary sculpture, painting, and photography from the past 40 years, and among the jubilant range of concerns and expressions, the riot of form, scale, color, and style, it reveals again and again the tension that exists between the technological world and the human one.

Alexander Nevsky

To accompany the screening of Alexander Nevsky, Eisenstein's 1938 epic film about the 13th-century Russian hero and the army he led to defeat a German invasion, maestro Peter Bay led his own army -- some 200 musicians from the Austin Symphony and Conspirare choir -- that performed Prokofiev's epic score with grandeur and a stirring power.
columns

Page Two

The anti-smoking ordinance is an unconscionable social experiment in an already sketchy economic environment; the Place 5 run-off boasts two good candidates, so no need to get ugly; and we report the news, not slurs.

BY LOUIS BLACK

Postmarks

Our readers talk back.

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

BY MR. SMARTY PANTS

After a Fashion

Is In in or is Out in? Is Out in In? Or is In in Out? Is In out? Out isn't even in Austin. In is. Why did we think of Out? This is about In. In is out. It is. Isn't it? Ouch.

BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER

Day Trips

BY GERALD E. MCLEOD

To Your Health

I'm hearing about carnosine as an "anti-aging" supplement. What else is it good for and can we get enough of it in our diet?

BY JAMES HEFFLEY, PH.D.

About AIDS

Letters at 3AM

Within or Beneath the Din

BY MICHAEL VENTURA

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