Volume 23, Number 34
ON THE COVER:
news
Gary Bradley's bankruptcy trial features the spectacular rise of the Lazarus Trust
BY AMY SMITH
The city budget report looks a wee bit rosier, but with plenty of thorns
BY AMY SMITH
Art cars roll through downtown
BY JORDAN SMITH
Competing makers of tongue vibrators get down and
dirty in the courtroom
BY JORDAN SMITH
The current antsiness among broadcasters nails a local favorite
BY MICHAEL KING
The ACC board of trustees selects Robert Aguero as the college's new president
BY RACHEL PROCTOR MAY
Breaking stories from Austin and beyond
BY MICHAEL KING AND LEE NICHOLS
Gov. Perry calls a special session, and pits property taxes against schoolchildren
BY MICHAEL KING
The first days of the special session feature a rhetorical slugfest between the governor and the comptroller
BY MICHAEL KING
Tyco stays the course, and the USDA rolls over for Big Beef
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
Monica's 701 is fine dining, indeed
BY CLAUDIA ALARCÓN
We know they can do breakfast. But what about lunch?
BY RACHEL FEIT
Wrapping up the Saveur Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival means good news and bad
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
music
Is Michael Fracasso's Austin's best kept musical secret?
BY DAVE MARSH
Austin City Limits, cannonized!
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Phases and Stages
In All Their Spelendor
Guests of the Nation
Internal Architecture
Bird
I'm Good Now
Cut 'n Shoot
Love Your Zine, Let's Go to Bed, Snakes and Sliders, Hostile Takeover, Ignorance Park, Platforms, Demonstration
Boxful of Trouble
Eve Monsees & the Exiles
Random Harvest
Impossible Dream
Sunrise to Sunset
A Five and Dime Ship, The Light in the Fog, Concentric, The Long Spring, Calla
Old Man Time, Lament, One
screens
On set with 'Shades of Life,' the multicultural soap-opera access show giving minority actors a shot at exposure
BY RACHEL PROCTOR MAY
John Pierson's 'Spike Mike Reloaded'
BY MARC SAVLOV
LadyFest Texas movie night
BY DIANA WELCH
Google bombs
BY MARRIT INGMAN
South Austin's best-kept video-store secret might not be
such a secret for much longer
BY MARC SAVLOV
How many industries do you know of that can capitalize on dated inventory while ringing up sales for "failed" merchandise?
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Screens Reviews
Film Reviews
A package of some of the most recent animated and live-action Oscar nominees.
Witnessing a mob hit can be a real drag.
As the turmoil of WWII engulfs Hungary, a Budapest eatery becomes home to a love triangle.
Denzel Washington heads up a pulsating kidnapping thriller.
Set in 1950s Iceland, this film is equal parts noirish mystery and coming-of-age tale.
Magic wishing dust allows Jennifer Garner to completely skip over her teens and twenties.
A WWII comedy of errors begins when two British military dentists swap their drills for grenades.
arts & culture
In 40 years of nurturing young people's love for the stage, Coleman Jennings has helped a profession develop, too
BY ROBERT FAIRES
The Accidental Activist tells how the Lysistrata Project became a global anti-war phenomenon, from the perspective of Kathryn Blume, who co-founded and lived it
BY ROBERT FAIRES
City Council adopts new guidelines for the Cultural Arts Funding Program, Michelle Schumann shoots off for a Canadian piano competition, and some 'palpable hits' to get your sweet William for Shakespeare's birthday
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Arts Reviews
It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues is a blues primer covering every variation on the form, and in the Zachary Scott Theatre Center's production its lessons are driven home with verve and fervor and musical excitement
Austin Symphony's return to Mahler's Fifth Symphony under the baton of Peter Bay revealed a mature and confident orchestra pulling itself up another notch
The House, director J. Ed Araiza's third collaboration with the student artists at St. Edward's University, is unapologetically about them, which makes for the show's strengths and its weaknesses
columns
A few modest school-finance proposals
BY LOUIS BLACK
Our readers talk back.
Stephen goes west, sees some big rocks, and only adds to the splendor of the Marfa lights
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
Cab Calloway careers, cosmetic cutouts, and our country's clothing
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
A relative passed away recently, and the duty has fallen
to me to wind up her affairs. We don't know if she left a
will. What can I do?
BY JOE MARRS
Should L-glutamine powder be taken with meals or between them?
BY JAMES HEFFLEY, PH.D.
HIV and STD testing: free and easy
BY SANDY BARTLETT
Bask in the bluebonnets' beauty on your way to some delicious barbecue
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
Our latest batch of gaffes and blunders
Pease Park, Saturday, April 24, 2004
BY THE LUV DOC
Letters to the editor, published daily
sports
Iran left out (again!), Germany mad over beer,
and Cameroon embarassed by naughty uniform scandal. Who said soccer was boring?
BY NICK BARBARO