Day Trips
At Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch south of New Braunfels, springtime is especially exciting. The animals in the drive-through zoo are more active, everything is green, and the wildflowers are blooming. Best of all, though, are all the new baby animals. The largest newborn this season is Hope, a 10-foot giraffe who is dwarfed only by…
Banking on Sixteen
As he spouts off the industry’s vital stats for the last few years, John Kunz knows that music retail has seen serious trouble. Let’s see, square footage has increased by 50% and overhead costs have risen accordingly by the same amount. Due to the tactics of “big box” retailers, the Best Buys who sell CDs…
7 and 7 Is
In life, there are those that tow the line, and those that rattle convention’s cage — shake that fucker for all its worth, until the bolts come loose and the bottom drops out. Music is no different: There are bands that work calmly within the accepted guidelines of their chosen genre, and those that fight…
Cultural Interloper
More than once now, a Chronicle staffer has hung up the phone, turned to me, and asked, “Is Bradley Williams Mexican-American?” No, he’s not. He’s every bit the Polish kid who arrived in Austin four years ago, originally from Michigan by way of San Francisco where he’d been busking. Yet it’s understandable that Williams might…
Page Two
The Chronicle editorial board is in the process of endorsement interviews. The board consists of publisher Nick Barbaro, politics editor Audrey Duff, assistant politics editor Amy Smith, and myself, though other staff regularly sit in on interviews and offer opinions in discussion. The Chronicle interviews candidates by inviting everyone running in a race to come…
Council, Lite
The council and city staff took a little field trip last Thursday, leaving the regular confines of Council Chambers to take the show on the road to a rec center in East Austin. Last week’s was the first in an occasional series of away games that the council will hold in the hopes of bringing…
Public Notice
You’ve got gas? Your gas-powered lawn mower is stinking up the place, not to mention waking us up Sunday mornings with that infernal racket. The EPA says that a gas mower pollutes as much air in an hour as 40 late-model cars. May we recommend one of those push jobs? Or for you real mow-getters,…
The Backstage Crew
The Dream Team Scheme Meet Alfred Stanley, Dean Rindy, and David Butts, Austin’s premier liberal/Democratic consultants. Over the past 25 years, they’ve changed the face of Austin politics and the minds of Austin voters. Their influence is now so strong that of the nine councilmembers elected during the last three elections (four years), they lay…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows…
Presidential candidates with the most royal genes have always been the victors, without exception, since George Washington. In Brazil, flan only exists as a commercialized, artificial, plastic-tasting dessert sold at supermarkets. Real flan is unknown by the majority of the population. The “Dash,” San Francisco’s first gay men’s bar, opened in 1908. According to one…
Butting Heads
Eric Fortmeyer of the Nofziger campaign and Watson’s man Alfred Stanley in a heated exchange photograph by Alan Pogue It was 9:10am on the steps of City Hall, and the Chronicle photo shoot of the consultants was not going well. “Oooh, I just can’t stand to be near scum,” shivered veteran progressive consultant Mark Yznaga,…
Articulations
At the Austin Museum of Art, the Big Wait is over. AMOA has named museum director and curator Elizabeth Ferrer to fill the post of director. The announcement, made by museum CEO Sid Mallory Wednesday, April 9, ends a turbulent year at the museum, begun last March when Daniel Stetson resigned as director just as…
Rants on the Writing of Novels
illustration by A.J. Garces Rant #1. Don’t do it if you can possibly avoid it. It takes much longer than lovemaking or dancing, and requires much more concentration than doing your taxes. Divide fees earned by hours worked, and the pay is usually less than minimum wage. Whether your novel sells (or is even published)…
The Team Players: Who’s Who on the Campaign Trail
Political candidates rely heavily on their campaign operators, and the horde of hopefuls running for Austin City Council are no exception. Here’s a list of key players in the local races, along with spin-doctoring jobs they’ve held in past years. Many of those named here have lengthy track records that extend well before 1992, which…
Exhibitionism
State Theatre through April 20 Running time: 1 hr, 45 min photograph by John Anderson Hard roads. Hard ground. Hard labor. Hard times. This land of ours may be a land of plenty and of opportunity, but it’s hard in many places and hard on many of the people living in them. Woody Guthrie knew…
Food-O-File
Hill Country vintners are certainly busy this month. Hot on the heels of last week’s Wine & Food Festival, the Texas Hill Country Winegrowers Guild is hosting the Texas Hill Country Wildflower & Wine Trail at each of the 10 participating wineries on Sat. & Sun., April 12- 13, 12-5pm. Fall Creek Vineyards near Tow…
Hunting vs. Birding
The Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) is stuck. Stuck in a time when hunters and fishermen were its only constituents, the agency is witnessing a demographic shift for which one critic says it is “supremely unprepared.” Hunting and fishing are declining in popularity. Meanwhile, birdwatching is surging. And yet, the overwhelming majority of TPWD’s…
Catching His Breath
“I saw this really weird guy the other night at Electric Lounge — this guy, `Sxip’ — he was playing the flute, but in a really weird way — like this” — demonstrates what appears to be an elephant struggling to bring its trunk under control — “He was making all these weird sounds… it…
Sunset Restaurant — Tue. Night With the Chef
419 E. Third (on the town square), Blanco, 210/833-5776 6-10pm, by reservation only Feel like a dining adventure? Plan on a 45-minute drive or so, and head into the Hill Country to enjoy the by-reservation-only “Night With the Chef” at Blanco’s Sunset Restaurant. A four-course, Continental cuisine meal featuring glamorous tableside cooking, “Night With the…
Naked City
Hospice Austin wants to buy the beloved Christopher House, the recently closed healthcare site for people with AIDS. If Hospice Austin can come up with proper funding, the nonprofit agency would acquire the Christopher site and provide inpatient hospice care for the terminally ill. Still, some Christopher House advocates argue that the site should continue…
Ordinary Seamen and Ordinary Nobodies
The Ordinary Seaman Atlantic Monthly Press, $23 hard The number of books I have read that take place aboard ships with virtually all-male casts of characters can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. They’re guy books, right? For this reason, I doubt I would ever have even picked up a novel called…
Tatum’s Tonight
Tuesdays at Threadgill’s Upstairs 6416 N. Lamar (in the back), 451-5440 Doors open at 7pm, dinner served at 7:30pm $25 prix fixe If someone had told me two months ago that I would be making reservations for a prix fixe dinner to be prepared by an award-winning chef at Threadgill’s, I would never have believed…
Merriment & What-Not
The Winnie-the-Pooh books have always depressed me, so I can’t claim any expert knowledge of the Myth at Pooh Corner. But I do know that Eeyore’s original birthday party was held over the guest of honor’s objections. So, as it usually does in Austin, real life now imitates literary fantasy. For the annual Eeyore’s Birthday…
Ordinary Seamen and Ordinary Nobodies
A Quiet Life Grove, $22 hard Because I was born in Japan and first spoke both Japanese and English, I have always assumed a special affinity for things Japanese: sushi, flower arranging, silk brocade, and my 12-year-old Toyota. Therefore I was interested to read the latest novel of 1994 Novel Prize-winner Kenzaburo Oe. I recalled…
Sleek But Sporadic
West Lynn Cafe 1110 West Lynn, 482-0950 Mon-Thu, 11:30am-10pm; Fri ’til 10:30pm; Sat, 11am-10:30pm; Sun, 11am-9:30. photograph by John Anderson To look at the front of it and even when you walk inside, you’d never guess that West Lynn Cafe occupies the site and structure of an old gas station. On the outside, creeping flowers…
Fox at 10
Tom Shales wrote “TV Eye” for me this week. Actually, the Washington Post critic wrote his own column for his own newspaper, but there it was, the same subject I’d had planned for this week’s Chron: Fox Network (Ch 2) on their 10th anniversary of their coup against the ABC (Ch 3), CBS (Ch 5)…
In Person: Robert Greer
“June seventeenth turned out to be a six-biscuit day, and Vernon Lowe hated six-biscuit days…” begins Robert Greer’s second novel, The Devil’s Red Nickel (Mysterious Press, $22). Vernon Lowe is a morgue attendant and “biscuit” turns out to be the term for a human cadaver requiring an autopsy. Greer has that all-important knack for grabbing…
Bonus Tracks
CACTUS SMACK CONSPIRACY Old Man Lung (Slave Machine) That Jeff Pinkus engineered this slab of likable but twisted nonsense figures; the Butthole Surfers also made noise this oddly compelling once upon a time. And though the album’s eight studio tracks capture a band wholly committed to stylistic non-commitment, the live-at-the-Flamingo Cantina closing of “Smokin’ Ravioli/J.…
Art Imitates Chef
Most patrons of fine dining establishments have no concept of what transpires in restaurant kitchens. Chefs in pristine whites may greet devoted fans in the dining room, but rarely are civilians invited into the inner sanctum where fragrant stockpots boil, saute pans sizzle, and tempers are known to flare. Even the most avid foodies never…
Postscripts
A giant of the poetry world, Maya Angelou, will highlight the 10th Liz Carpenter Lectureship at Bass Concert Hall on the University of Texas campus on Tuesday, April 15, at 2pm. The theme of the lectureship this year is “Tell Me a Story and Sing Me a Song: A Celebration of Storytelling.” Among Angelou’s many…
Dancing About Architecture
[ This item, which ran in the print edition of the Chronicle, has been removed from the online edition because it contained inaccurate information. The Chronicle regrets the error.] Blue Grass, Blue Waters Speaking of festivals, the weather did its best to dissuade people from attending the Old Settlers Bluegrass & Acoustic Music Festival last…
TV Dinners
The very first television cooking show appeared in 1946, featuring a large, owlish actor-turned-cook named James Beard. The venerable Borden company was the sponsor and the shows were relatively short. The next year, Dione Lucas followed on CBS with a program called To The Queen’s Taste. Beard and Lucas were the pre-eminent American cooking personalities…
About AIDS
If you know that you are HIV-positive, that means that at some time you answered “yes” to the question, “Should I take the HIV antibody test?” It’s likely you’ve been grappling with questions ever since. Perhaps you’ve asked yourself, your friends, or your doctor whether AZT, ddI, Zerit, 3TC, the protease inhibitors, or combination therapy…
Music Recommended
Friday: De La Soul, Maseo, Liberty Lunch; Atlanta Rhythm Section, Fat Tuesday’s Saturday: Suzi Stern-Luna, Dan McKluskey’s; Susie Ibarra & Assif Tshahar, Hyde Park Theatre Sunday: ESPN’s Xtreme Games, Sixth Street Monday: Ray Wylie Hubbard, Threadgill’s WHQ Tuesday: Maryann Price Quartet, Franklin Plaza Wednesday: Monte Montgomery, La Zona Rosa; Thursday: Bellamy Brothers, Hang ’em High…
The Green Gourmet
Caterer and cooking teacher Diana Welsch sees writing and starring in her own ACAC cooking program as the natural progression of her food career. The former commercial photographer segued into a cooking career so she could spend more time at home with her young son. After cooking for clients and teaching classes at venues as…
Hearth & Soul
My Aunt Dot and Uncle Joe traveled the world — Africa, Europe, the Middle East. My uncle was looking for oil. My aunt was looking for doo-dads. Occasionally, when they were between homes, our family “stored” some of their collected treasures at our house: carved wooden tables and camel-saddle chairs the likes of which I’d…
Texas Platters
DEEP LISTENING BAND & THE LONG STRING INSTRUMENT Suspended Music (Periplum) This is a fascinating and spiritually invigorating slice of musical experimentation that transcends the boundaries between artistic disciplines. Formed in 1988, Austin’s Deep Listening Band holds the environment in which music is heard on roughly equal footing with the performance itself. It’s a somewhat…
Scanlines
Parents! Make sure your child gets a Woody! If you’re a parent and you’ve got kids in the house between the ages of Pampers and Pearl Jam, you may already have Toy Story merchandise coming out your ears. Here at our house we have the video, the action figures, coloring books, pop-up books, and something…
Benefits
Classical Musicians Jian Wang, Corinne Chapelle & Heasook Rhee will perform Fri & Sun to benefit Sri Atmananda Memorial School, at Ceremony Hall, Sri Atmananda School, 4100 Red River, Fri, 8pm; Sun, 4pm. 371-7065. Austin Festival of Dance featuring members of the New York City Ballet, Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Houston Ballet, Ballet Austin, and…
Egg Cartons and Foam-Rubber Wallpaper
illustration by Jason Stout It’s dead easy, getting a band going in Austin. At least that’s what trickled down the grapevine the whole time I was growing up in South Texas. Old houses were as plentiful as empty Shiner bottles and could be had just as cheap. Once situated here, you needed only an egg-carton-and-foam-rubber…
Short Cuts
When the University of Texas appointed noted documentarian Paul Stekler to be the new head of the RTF Dept. production faculty, did they have any idea that they were getting a future Peabody Award-winner in the bargain? Last week brought the announcement that Stekler’s lauded TV series Vote for Me: Politics in America, a lively…
Coach’s Corner
I’ve been to NikeTown, Nike’s showcase superstore on Chicago’s swank Michigan Avenue. It’s an impressive place: a three-story Nike theme park, loaded with gadgets and whizbang gizmos intended to entice tourists — and it does, mobs of them — filling the subconscious with all the mellow, free-spirited sights and sounds of what it is to…
Road Shows
APRIL FRI 11 Barenaked Ladies, The Odds, Backyard FRI 11 Onyas, Emo’s FRI 11 De La Soul, Maseo, Liberty Lunch FRI 11 Atlanta Rhythm Section, Fat Tuesday’s FRI 11 Clandestine, Cactus Cafe FRI 11 Supersuckers, Joseph Arthur, Shag, Stubb’s FRI 11 Black Family, Hole in the Wall SAT 12 Widespread Panic, Backyard SAT 12 Susie…
