Day Trips
The Vintage Flying Museum at Fort Worth’s Meacham Airport preserves one of seven remaining B-17 Flying Fortresses still in flying condition. When the warbird rolled off the Lockheed production line in 1944, it was on the cutting edge of modern technology that helped the Allies win World War II. In a rusting World War II…
Wrong Side of the Tracks?
While light rail is being touted in some circles as the best solution to relieve traffic congestion, curb pollution, and rein in urban sprawl, several East Austin residents fear that they’ll find themselves on the wrong side of the tracks if Capital Metro is allowed to go ahead with its plans to run a train…
Jack Ingram
Livin’ or Dyin’ (Rising Tide) Just like his trusty ol’ beat-up Ford, Jack Ingram’s Livin’ or Dyin’ is easy to miss in a lot brimming with shiny, new Nashville Cadillacs. Perhaps that’s why the first words out of his mouth are “I’m a beat-up Ford, you’re a Cadillac,” on the album’s lead-off track, “Nothin’ Wrong…
Page Two
They want to put a fence around Eeyore’s Birthday. Really, what they want to do is get it out of a neighborhood park like Pease and move it to somewhere an event of this size will be more manageable, such as the Travis County Exposition and Heritage Center. This, of course, completely misses the point.…
Houston’s Long Shadow
Senator Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin) just hates to say “I told you so.” But he couldn’t help but admonish his fellow senators last week for not supporting Austin during the last two sessions when the capital city was under attack over its annexation and regulatory powers. He then cautioned his colleagues to protect Houston’s rights, under…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
In Hawaii, you are a haole until you’ve been there five years. After that time, you become a kamaaina. Dust mites living in human bedding eat skin cells that have been shed. It is estimated 25% of an old pillow’s weight is that of mites. A digital watch contains more computing power than existed in…
Tied to the Tracks
The train wouldn’t arrive in Austin for years, but our future already seems tied to the tracks, as a congested city and its beleaguered transit authority inch toward an apparently final decision on light rail in Austin. Over the next 18 months or so, the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority will undertake two studies — one…
Substance and Whimsy
Everybody loves it here. When Texans (and non-Texans) are pressed to explain what it is about the Capital City that attracts them, responses usually include some variation on these themes: the Mexican food, the lake, the barbecue, the live music scene, Barton Springs, Sixth Street, sports events, the Hill Country, the bats, and the fact…
LIGHT RAIL 101: The Facts, Figures, & Terms You Need to Know
Light Rail: According to the experts at the American Public Transport Association (APTA), the “light” in light rail, as compared to heavy rail, refers primarily to passenger volume. This is a function of design; a heavy rail system like New York’s subways runs at higher speeds — thus more frequently — and has larger cars…
THCWAFF Particulars
When: April 3-6, 1997 Where: Four Seasons Hotel, the Salt Lick Pavilion Charitable Beneficiary: KLRU Public Television Founders: Ed and Susan Auler, Fall Creek Vineyards Events: cooking classes, wine tastings, cigar smoker, Master Sommeliers Certificate Courses, Stars Across Texas Tasting Dinner with Chefs Challenge for Beef winners, rare and fine wine charity auction, champagne breakfast,…
LIGHT RAIL U.S.A.: A Quick Scorecard on Other Cities
Atlanta has light rail as part of the extensive MARTA system, given its baptism by fire during the 1996 Olympics. Baltimore has light rail, built and operated by the state transportation department. Is running into resistance from neighboring counties toward expanding the system as far as Annapolis. Boise got the RegioSprinter for a four-month demonstration,…
Age Onstage
subUrbia How old are you? Chances are this isn’t the first time you’ve been asked that question, and chances are it won’t be the last. Age is something our society is extremely keen on keeping track of. We like to use certain ages as mileage markers in the great road trip of life, so we…
SPAMARAMA™ Lowdown
When: Saturday, April 5, noon until dark Where: Auditorium Shores Charitable Beneficiary: United Cerebral Palsy Events: SPAM™ Cookoff, Amateur and Professional Divisions; SPAM™ Olympics, live music Entry Information: 416-9307 Judges: Bryan Beck, leader and emcee; Debbie Pfeffer, Cecelia Nasti, Max Nofziger, Reynolds Wolfe, Billy Forrester, Josh Goodman, Danny Young Refreshments: Hotdogs, hamburgers, sausage wraps, beer,…
Rail-ly Expensive
Capital Metro Shows Us the Money Projected Cost for First Three Light Rail Lines: Red Line (1999-2002): $182.3 million Orange Line (2003-2006): $259.9 million Green Line (2007-2010): $477.7 million Red, Orange, Green (1999-2010): $919.9 million Note: There are no projections yet for the fourth or Blue Line With the combined $919.9 million price tag for…
Articulations
Julie Butridge, artist and director of the gallery at the Dougherty Arts Center, died Tuesday, March 25, in an auto-truck accident on I-35. Butridge had been employed at the center for only two years, but in that time she made a strong impression on her co-workers. In the notice of Butridge’s death in the Austin…
Food-o-File
Mezzaluna (310 Colorado, 472-6770) has been one of Austin’s busiest restaurants for years, regardless of who’s been the chef there. Former Austinite Ed Behrhorst returned to Austin after long working stints in San Francisco and Houston and was snapped up by the San Gabriel Restaurant Group to take over the Mezzaluna kitchen. While in San…
Projected Cost for First Three Light Rail Lines:
Red Line (1999-2002): $182.3 million Orange Line (2003-2006): $259.9 million Green Line (2007-2010): $477.7 million Red, Orange, Green (1999-2010): $919.9 million Note: There are no projections yet for the fourth or Blue Line
Exhibitionism
CRAVING GRAVY: STARVED FOR MEANING Theatre Room,Winship Drama Bldg, UT through April 6 Running time: 1 hr, 40 min On a barren landscape sits a single gnarled tree. Time stands still or has practically no meaning. Two clowns enter and engage in a circuitous dialogue on life, love, and a next meal. The audience might…
Dancing About Architecture
If anyone’s still asking why we keep covering the Survival Research Laboratories in our music section, you obviously didn’t go to last Friday’s SRL show. The most apt comparison is to a Grateful Dead concert, in that it attracted a crowd of thousands trekking down backroads in the middle of nowhere, hopelessly lost. Besides, who…
Light Rail on the Web
Mass transit is building up a fairly prominent presence on the web, and herewith a collection of sites you can check out and learn how Austin’s efforts toward light rail stack up against other cities: Capital Metro Honestly, Cap Met’s own WWW site isn’t very good, and there’s almost nothing on it right now about…
Poetry Festival Continues
When Christina Sergeyevna, director of this year’s Austin International Poetry Festival, says, “It’s hard to structure without it being carnival-like,” she’s giving an entry-level history lesson to the annual event. In years past, the Festival, now in its fifth year, has had a reputation for filling every possible minute of every available stage with words.…
Trusting Twang
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Monte Warden, Kelly Willis, Kris McKay, and Bruce and Charlie Robison eat together occasionally. They’re friends who make a living in the same circle and Austin is a small town. But when the group broke bread at La Zona Rosa last Spring, it was indeed a special occasion…
Mangled Triangle
Don’t breathe a sigh of relief — the crisis is hardly over. The Texas Triangle, the Lone Star State’s premiere source of news affecting the gay and lesbian community, had at least a temporary reprieve from the grave last month with a buyout from a group of investors headed by Dallas businessman Todd Cunningham. The…
In Person: Don Bachardy
His voice sounds like the infamous mother’s in Psycho, the product of an uneasy truce between American and British accents; at about five feet tall, the stand-on-end silver hair of his crewcut neatly defines his frenetic and witty (Isherwood calls him “overenergetic”) artist`s presence. And if you dispel the creepy connotations involved with Psycho, you…
Live Shots
THE CHIEFTAINS Bass Concert Hall, March 25 The pre-Christian Celts believed in a pure immortality of the soul, a spirituality that imbued even the most inanimate and benign objects with great significance. Add that component to the more contemporary Irish propensity to celebrate whatever condition or situation — no matter how miserable or exuberant –…
Naked City
What’s a citywide election without a few high-dollar propositions on the May 3 ballot? This time, voters will be asked to approve six measures. On April 1, Austin Police Deputy Chief Ken Williams laid out the details of Proposition 1, which would authorize a $38 million bond issue to fund the city’s contribution towards a…
Christopher Isherwood
In 1929 the English poet Stephen Spenders wrote The Temple, a veiled autobiographical story of a young poet’s heady experiences in Weimar, Germany among the liberated Children of the Sun, the generation so called only for their hedonistic years preceding the Nazi domination of Germany. But Spender didn’t publish the book until 1988; his introduction…
Upsizing the Ante
In the age of corporate downsizing, it’s heartening to see the arts upsizing. Take, for example, the Old Settlers Bluegrass & Acoustic Musical Festival. A few years ago, Round Rock’s annual fiesta played host to a couple of touring bluegrass bands, a few locals, and was held indoors. Now, in its second year under a…
No. 1 in a Series
TV I: The biggest joke about growing up with television was that it was the perfect place for my parents to dump me with my three brothers when they were feeling generous. When they were mad at us for spending time doing just that, the set was called the “idiot box” or somesuch. In retrospect,…
Isherwood Excerpted
The following quotations from Christopher Isherwood Diaries: Volume One, 1939-1960 (edited by Katherine Bucknell, Harper Collins, $40 hard) refuse easy categorization: Are they aphorisms, sly observations, or just gossipy barbs made in private and never intended for publication? Whatever term seems best to describe them, they originate from an unrelenting self-honesty and piercing insight into…
Music Recommended
edited by Christopher Gray SLASH’S BLUES BALL Back Room, Sunday 6 Why should Austin care about Slash’s latest, post-Guns `n’ Roses vanity project? Because The Artist Formerly Known as Saul Hudson is still the non-traditional guitarist’s guitarist, flush with both soul and style — elements those G3 wankers overlooked. Plus, the reported set list is…
Scanlines
D: Robert Altman; with Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Brion James, Cynthia Stevenson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Dean Stockwell, Richard E. Grant, Sydney Pollack, Lyle Lovett. VHS Home Video Waterloo Video, 1016 W. Sixth Studio executive Griffin Mill (Robbins) drinks designer bottled water and drives a black Range Rover, but he’s still…
Postscripts
Robyn Montana Turner received the second annual Teddy Award for Best Children’s Book from the Austin Writers’ League for her Texas Traditions: The Culture of the Lone Star State on March 21. Turner received her award — a $1,000 cash prize and a teddy bear trophy — at a ceremony at the Governor’s Mansion from…
Road Shows
APRIL FRI 4 Rat Dog, Susan James, Backyard FRI 4 Thinkin’ Fellers Union Local 242, Critters Buggin’, Stinking Lizaveta, Electric Lounge FRI 4 Christian McBride, Bates Recital Hall FRI 4 Radish, Liberty Lunch FRI 4 U.S. Bombs, Emo’s FRI 4 & SAT 5 Old Settlers Bluegrass & Acoustic Music Festival, Round Rock SAT 5 Morris…
Short Cuts
Gone But Not Forgotten, Part 1: What’s the little discussed ingredient that sealed the success of the SXSW Film Festival.97? The Austin audiences, of course. Here’s filmmaker Kevin Smith (Clerks) on his website bulletin board (http://www.viewaskew.com) discussing the SXSW preview of his new movie Chasing Amy: “Screened for a very enthusiastic Austin audience, who threw…
about AIDS
How You Can Volunteer for Change! Every volunteer at AIDS Services of Austin (ASA) makes a dramatic difference in the lives of the individuals we serve by giving the gift of self. The willingness to grow, to be there, to learn, and to serve is the greatest gift of all for a person dealing with…
Burn Down the Mission
photograph by Jason Kaplan Divorce. The dissolution of a relationship. Personal or professional, when the mission burns down, few things are more painful than shifting through the ashes. And yet, the remarkable thing is, no matter how blackened and charred the fire leaves the hillside, sooner or later things start to grow in that same…
What’s Anchoring Neal?
photograph by John Carrico The camera focuses in on the familiar face under the black Stetson hat, a legendary newsman sporting a slice of Americana. The Texas head covering adds punctuation to the ending of a 90-second vignette on the romance and legacy of the cowboy hat, a segment exploring the family-oriented stores that sell…
hearth & soul
Tool Critic I don’t know much about art, but I know what tools I like. Therefore, the big book my friend Tracy gave me, Tools as Art, The Hechinger Collection by Pete Hamill, reached out and grabbed my creative muse by the throat and rattled her until a Swiss Army knife fell out of her…
Austintonio?
We’re really victims of our own lack of vision,” says Ross Milloy, talking about the rapid and relatively unmanaged growth that Austin has experienced over the last 20 years. Milloy, president of the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council, is also making a detailed case for why a proposed commuter rail service linking the two south central…
Spelce and K-EYE
After 40 years in Austin, it’s hard to argue with Neal Spelce’s assessment that he has “institutional memory”– a knowledge of local history, people, and trends that proves handy in both reporting the news and writing his newsletter. And interestingly, it’s a piece of institutional memory that Austinites have about Spelce — his coverage of…
Coach’s Corner
A snapshot of hell: Anderson Lane on a Saturday afternoon would be a good gateway. My worst childhood memories are of being dragged on shopping trips to Marshall Fields. The promise of a peanut butter sandwich (where they cut off the crust) in the Fields restaurant was all that held me together. I’m not a…
MUD Wrestling
This is not an April Fool’s joke. Today, the council will make one of those seemingly meaningless decisions that lead to a city’s demise. You won’t notice a drastic change, but the Austin region will sprawl a little further, and the capital centerpiece will decay a little more. So-called environmentalist Jackie Goodman will team up…
Kids Summer Fun Guide
by Julie Lucksinger illustrations by Kelly Edwards Summertime… when the livin’ is easy… Ah, sweet, sweet summertime…” Yeah, well… we all know whoever wrote that song didn’t have kids, don’t we? Most likely, they didn’t live in Texas either, where the median temperature during the sweltering months hovers in the mid-nineties if we’re lucky. While…
