Volume 26, Number 48
ON THE COVER:
features
SPACES
How to find the contractor needle in the Cro-Magnon haystack
BY RICHARD WHITTAKER
If the ideas are there, design it yourself!
BY TERRY ORNELAS WOODROFFE
When DIY doesn't cut it, hire an expert
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
Going green is easier than it seems
BY ABE LOUISE YOUNG
news
Barton Springs Pool in line for a fixer-upper
BY DANIEL MOTTOLA
BY NORA ANKRUM
UT suffering under plague of field crickets
BY KIMBERLY REEVES
If it's August, it must be budget-making time at City Hall
BY WELLS DUNBAR
Getting back to our Wooldridge Square roots
BY KATHERINE GREGOR
The life and times of a porn-music impresario
BY KEVIN BRASS
"These people are armed; they're dangerous ... violent criminal terrorists," says drug czar John Walters.
BY JORDAN SMITH
New Grounds for Leaving Iraq; and Strengthen the FDA
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
Fried chicken revisited
BY CLAUDIA ALARCÓN
No Reservations, Mindy Kucan's Hot Summer Night, and more
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
Aug. 3-9
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
Food Reviews
The Dallas destination opens in Austin's domain
music
Rockabye baby, on the treetops, when the bow breaks, the cradle will rawk!
BY MELANIE HAUPT
Remembering blues drummer 'Uncle' John Turner, tracking the devil and Daniel Johnston, on-air with Seattle's KEXP, Abandoned Love Records, and more
BY AUSTIN POWELL
Texas Platters
The Stage Names
The Underdog (demo) b/w It Took a Rumor to Make Me Wonder, Now I'm Convinced I'm Going Under, Live at CBGB, Committed to Wind b/w Stow Away, Cut the Kite String b/w Circumsize Me
Tongue & Teeth
Your Town Tonight
Broken Hearts and Tired Legs
Safety First
The Strange Attractors
All Kites Up
screens
Is a local production company that recently finished its first documentary too good to be true?
BY TODDY BURTON
Home Movie Day takes personal memories, preservation to the public
BY CARSON BARKER
Indie Accomplishments
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Screens Reviews
Antonioni vs. Bergman from beyond the grave
Film Reviews
The third film in this series is the best one yet about the rogue CIA spook with the memory of a goldfish.
Bring some bratitude and a passion for fashion, and you'll be almost as giddy as a 10-year-old girl.
Bollywood thriller.
Jennifer Lopez and her real-life husband, Marc Anthony, portray the lives of salsa star Hector Lavoe and his wife, Puchi, in this biopic overstuffed with music-industry clichés.
Although Mahatma Gandhi was the father of his nation, he was unable to help his troubled son Harilal Gandhi.
Cross Napoleon Dynamite's endearing optimism with Ben Stiller's total commitment to his goofy characters, and you'll wind up with a character something like Andy Samberg's hapless stuntman.
Lindsay Lohan knows there are fates worse than her current legal quagmire – starring in this clunker, for example.
An antiques dealer is more at home with his silent artifacts than with his fellow Parisians, until a cabbie teaches him the basics of social interaction.
The film delivers familiar hilarity and some treats you’ll never get on the show (nudity and drunkenness) but steers shy of anything bold and new.
Cheadle leads a great cast through a musical glance at D.C. in the Sixties and Seventies.
When the time comes for an aging gangster godfather in Hong Kong to step down, a bloody battle for control ensues in this vivid story about thug life.
This Swiss film tells the story of a child prodigy torn between his parents' desires to further his career and his own need for normalcy.
Hip-hop culture invades the golf course in this instantly disposable and not terribly funny comedy.
arts & culture
Allison Orr choreographs a new comeback special for the King
BY ROBERT FAIRES
For its annual juried show, Gallery Lombardi asked artists to dive into the fantastical and mythical depths of the ocean
BY ELIZABETH COBBE
In its first new show in two years, Austin's Latino Comedy Project roasts the immigration debate
BY BARRY PINEO
When it comes to the improvisers of ColdTowne, you're in for a really enjoyable time watching these guys do their stuff
BY WAYNE ALAN BRENNER
Spoken-word artists on their art form, the National Poetry Slam, and one another
Arts Reviews
If you go see the Vestige Group production of Cindy Lou Johnson's Brilliant Traces, go for the performances
Martin McDonagh's A Skull in Connemara teeters between the absurd and the just plain silly
Lingo's mosaic of dance and music was accessible, unpretentious, and full of life – much like its creators
columns
'Chronicle' letter-writers and the editors who love them: a field guide
BY LOUIS BLACK
8:15am, the moment Hiroshima was bombed, comes around every morning: It is something we live with
BY MICHAEL VENTURA
Stephen pulls a Carly Simon and gives a wannabe critic one huge eye roll
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
The Crandall Cotton Gin Restaurant offers comfort food cooked all sorts of ways
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
7-Eleven for the homeless and underpants for the illiterate
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
Stubb's, Friday, August 3, 2007
BY THE LUV DOC
Letters to the editor, published daily
sports
Iraq wins Asian Cup, rec leagues currently enrolling, and more
BY NICK BARBARO