news
ELECTION
What's at Stake at City Hall?
City elections bring debate over people, priorities, and propositions
BY MICHAEL KING
ELECTION
What's at Stake in Austin's Schools?
Austin ISD faces a spring election and a brace of persistent problems
BY RACHEL PROCTOR MAY
ELECTION
ACC
Five candidates battle for three open spots on the Austin Community College Board of Trustees
BY RACHEL PROCTOR MAY
Endorsements
Elementary School Limbo Continues
Decisive vote on whether to close two AISD elementary schools comes down to indecisive 4-4 tie at Monday's board of trustees meeting
BY RACHEL PROCTOR MAY
Hidden Evidence?
Reed's attorneys insist evidence unavailable to him during his 1998 trial casts serious doubt on his guilt of the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites, and strongly supports the defense theory that another man was the killer
BY JORDAN SMITH
Connecting the Food Dots
What the war in Iraq has to do with tomatoes and the Red-Headed Stranger
BY CHERYL SMITH
For Their Eyes Only
TWP says there isn't enough money to give them all canes
BY RACHEL PROCTOR MAY
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
Point Austin: Greens vs. Greens
Charter election rhetoric begins rising all around
BY MICHAEL KING
Beside the Point
It's trump and counter-trump in the council vs. charter wars
BY WELLS DUNBAR
The Hightower Report
Turning Cookies Into Armor; and A Regime of Injustice
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
Restaurant Service: A Discussion
Twelve Austin professionals come to the table in an effort to define, demystify, and defend the most controversial aspect of dining out.
BY MM PACK
Food-o-File
El Mesón gets some competition – from itself; plus, an extended Event Menu
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
music
JESSE TAYLOR
Jesse Hercules Taylor
Words and images to preserve Jesse 'Guitar' Taylor
BY RAOUL HERNANDEZ
Freight Train Outta Town
Jesse Hercules Taylor
BY JO CAROL PIERCE
Deal Him In
Jesse Taylor's tornado days
BY MARGARET MOSER
TCB
TCB sees dead people, lots of them, and one extremely live band
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY
Phases & Stages
Arab strap
The Last Romance
Hard-Fi
Stars of CCTV
The Complete Motown Singles Volume 4:1964
The Complete Motown Singles Volume 4:1964
Witch, Om, Facedowninshit, Priestess, Rammstein, Invaders
Witch, Conference of the Birds, Nothing Positive, Only Negative, Hello Master, Rosenrot, Invaders
Saul Williams
Live Shot
screens
Merchant of Death
Director Jason Reitman spins his feature, 'Thank You for Smoking'
BY DARCIE STEVENS
Blue Screen Has Austin Studios in the Green
And what John Walsh catching more crooks has to do with it
BY JOE O'CONNELL
In Print
'Conversations With the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age at the American Film Institute'
BY SPENCER PARSONS
Three Women Abroad
Tuesdays, April 4 through May 16, Alamo Drafthouse Downtown
'The Passing Show' Comes to Town ...
Ronnie Lane doc opens up at Alamo South Lamar
TV Eye
Testosterone on tap
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Film Reviews
Ask the Dust
The legendary screenwriter and occasional director Robert Towne here adapts and directs John Fante's Depression-era novel about a first-generation Italian-American novelist and his life in Los Angeles.
ATL
Wicked smart examination of black kids in modern Atlanta features talented young actors navigating the circuitous path to adulthood while spending their downtime at the local roller rink.
Basic Instinct 2
This wholly unwarranted sequel is so outrageously preposterous (and chockablock with bad dialogue) that the end result achieves a basement grandeur of near-epic proportions.
Find Me Guilty
Like the criminal justice system it portrays, Find Me Guilty (starring Vin Diesel in the dramatic lead) ultimately works a great deal better than you might expect.
Go for Zucker!
As two German families collide, the film explores its characters’ shared history to unravel the challenges of political and personal reunification.
Ice Age: The Meltdown
An exercise in the superfluous, this sequel lacks the original film’s geniality – and all of its pro-environment stumping.
Joyeux Noël
The title suggests a seasonal release, but this remarkable film is very much of the moment, suggesting the futility of war by depicting the “Christmas truce” of 1914 from three sides in the battle.
Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector
A movie so exasperating it's driven our reviewer to escape into song.
The Passing Show
This rock documentary about musician Ronnie Lane can be described in one word (or is it three?): Ooh la la.
Stay Alive
Contrary to the hopes of geeks everywhere, Stay Alive is not an all-zombie musical remake of Sly Stallone's 1983 Saturday Night Fever sequel, but instead a fatuous and dull horror film about gamers.
Thank You for Smoking
This snarkily playful little comedy gets so wrapped up in its own barbed witticisms that it fails to land even the lightest sucker-punches on the institutions it aims to skewer.
Trudell
John Trudell, the Native American rights activist and spoken-word artist and musician, is the subject of this reverential biographical portrait that feels more like a press package than a full-fledged biopic.
arts & culture
Author? Author?
Who really wrote Shakespeare's plays? Writer Amy Freed plays the question for laughs.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
American Fiesta
The American Theatre Critics Association has awarded Steven Tomlinson's American Fiesta its 2005 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Director's Choice
With her choreographic achievements being showcased in Ballet Austin's 'Director's Choice / Evolution,' Gina Patterson explains what makes a choreographer
BY ROBERT FAIRES
In Memoriam
Alfred King, one of Austin's greatest cultural benefactors and advocates, has died at age 89
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Bad Dates
The day after opening in the solo comedy 'Bad Dates,' actress Helen Merino broke her foot, forcing director Dave Steakley to bring in Jill Blackwood as a ringer
BY ROBERT FAIRES
OilBash
Literate, greasy ladies throw down on the Eastside
BY CINDY WIDNER
Arts Reviews
The Glory of Living
As staged by Hyde Park Theatre, Rebecca Gilman's 'The Glory of Living' walks a tightrope between offensive slurs and comical jabs over solemn social issues
Kissing the Goodbye
Dying and the worth of individual lives are treated with a refreshing and uplifting respect in Zell Miller III's family drama 'Kissing the Goodbye'
'Lance Letscher: Index'
Lance Letscher's works in the D Berman exhibit 'Index' are at once sublime, profound, mesmerizing, gorgeous, subversive, and encompassing
columns
Page Two: Life, Fiction, and Selling Out
Life, fiction, and selling out
BY LOUIS BLACK
Postmarks
Our readers talk back.
Letters at 3AM
No matter if it's an unknown young singer like 17-year-old Sahara Smith in a little club on South Lamar (the "unknown" part won't last long in her case), no matter if it's in the room of an unknown poet destined to remain unknown, no matter – there are acts of creation, however desperate, that cannot be stopped.
BY MICHAEL VENTURA
After a Fashion
Stephen takes on 'Project Runway'
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
To Your Health
Useful tips on counteracting the side effects of Fosamex
BY JAMES HEFFLEY, PH.D.
The Common Law
Listen up – illegal downloads & copyright law
BY LUKE ELLIS
Day Trips
Jaree Basher helps emerging talent find a voice at the Garland Opry
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Redefining "going postal," and dirty, dirty Americans
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
Luv Doc Recommends: Southpaw Jones’ First Annual 29th Birthday & CD Release
Cactus Cafe, Thursday, March 30, 2006
BY THE LUV DOC
Feedback
Letters to the editor, published daily
sports
Soccer Watch
Italians fair to middling; and the return of MLS
