Cover Story
The Supremes Take a Hit
The federalist smoke from medical marijuana reaches the Supreme Court. Can they clear the air on states’ rights, pot, and the Constitution?
Forbidden Animation
Forbidden Animation NR. Directed by Various. If you’re needing a jolt to shake you out of those “nothing ever changes” blues, then this program of politically incorrect cartoons from previous decades ought to do the trick. Not only can you no longer get away with creating stuff this ethnically, racially, and sexually offensive, but the…
Filthy Guy
Filthy Guy 1980, NR, 88 min. Directed by Kam Yong, Starring Sammo Hung, Shih Tien. Also known as The Return of Secret Rivals, this film stars Sammo Hung as a misfit on the run from a jealous rival.
Big Books
The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledgeedited by John W. Wright St. Martin’s, 1,096 pp., $35The Record of the Paperby Howard Friel & Richard Falk Verso, 304 pp., $23Hard News: The Scandals at The New York Times and Their Meaning for American Mediaby Seth Mnookin Random House, 330 pp., $25.95 Like a superhero, The…
Cookbook Reviews
Holiday gift guide
Box Sets
Left of the Dial: Dispatches From the 80s Underground (Rhino) This 4-CD box is fuchsia, but the music within is an invaluable document of the not-so-distant past. Following a decade and a half of social upheaval beginning in the mid-Sixties, the U.S. and UK spawned a movement of bands that introduced elements of art, theatre,…
Jazz Sides
Chet BakerPrince of Cool (EMI) Chet Baker may still be a controversial figure. It certainly took a long time for me to make up my mind about him. When I was exposed to jazz in the mid-Fifties, it was as a fan of robust hard bop, musicians like Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown. The popular…
Redesigning Johnston High
State funding may move low-performing school to the head of the line
DVDs
Seinfeld: The First Three SeasonsColumbia Tristar Home Entertainment; $49.95 (one & two), $49.95 (three), $119.95 (gift set) After six years of Seinfeld reruns, is a DVD set really necessary? Perhaps not, but even half-hearted fans will find much to enjoy in the long awaited DVD release of the milestone sitcom, available in several configurations. Smartly,…
Big Books
Hippieby Barry Miles Sterling Books, 384 pp., $24.95 What first appears to be a glossy coffeetable valentine to the youthful counterculture movement of the late Sixties, Hippie is truly an impressively detailed and lavishly illustrated effort. Barry Miles’ impeccable credentials as a mover and shaker in London’s mid-Sixties ultra-hip circles give him a unique and…
Cookbook Reviews
I’m Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Bakingby Alton Brown Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 336 pp., $32.50 Alton Brown is best known for his Food Network show Good Eats, but, for those who haven’t seen him, he’s closer to Mr. Wizard than Julia Child. As you might guess from the…
Box Sets
Duran DuranThe Singles: 1986-1995 (Capitol) Who needs classic Duran Duran singles like “Rio” when there’s “Meet El Presidente” waiting to be rediscovered? That must have been the logic behind The Singles: 1986-1995, 14 CD singles of a history better left forgotten. Most people, including Duran Duran fans, likely didn’t know there were 14 singles in…
Jazz Sides
Jimmy SmithRetrospective (Blue Note) There were jazz organists before Jimmy Smith – Fats Waller, Count Basie, Bill Doggett, Wild Bill Davis – but none made the impact Smith did during the Fifties and early-Sixties when he popularized the heretofore seldom heard instrument. Smith had been a pianist, but became fascinated with the Hammond B-3 organ.…
Making Cents of Tuition Plan
Few students, but strong opinions about UT’s rising prices
DVDs
Halo 2Xbox Bungie/Microsoft, $49.99 In the reality of life, war is hell, but in the nonreality of video games, war is a hell of a lot of fun. Witness the gun-toting, grenade-tossing, testosterone-spurting Master Chief, a cybernetic soldier woven from the genetic strands of Gen. George S. Patton and Dirty Harry. As the Master Chief…
Big Books
Masters of Deception: Escher, Dalí & the Artists of Optical Illusionby Al Seckel Sterling Publishing Co., 320 pp., $24.95 Way back in 16th-century Milan, Giuseppe Arcimboldo introduced optical illusion to high art in a series of paintings depicting human faces composed of various objects. He became famous in his own right and inspired many imitators.…
Cookbook Reviews
Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of M.F.K. Fisherby Joan Reardon North Point Press, 528 pp., $27.50 The title of this comprehensive and clear-eyed biography comes from John Updike’s description of M.F.K. Fisher. Prose poet of food and other appetites she was, indeed. To many, Fisher’s work has long represented the ultimate in…
Box Sets
Lenny BruceLet the Buyer Beware (Shout! Factory) It’s fitting that this 6-CD, 71/2-hour, 80-page bop apocalypse should arrive when it does. Ten years have passed since the death of Bill Hicks, the only comic who managed to come within striking distance of Lenny Bruce’s confrontational comedic intellect and rabble-rousing firepower. Moreover, even a cursory glance…
Pink Slips Fly at TXCN
Belo takes a chainsaw to its cable-news channel
DVDs
Tony Hawk’s Underground 2PlayStation 2 Activision, $49.99 Tony Hawk, whose video-game legacy might soon eclipse his skating achievements, gives the addicted a holiday hit. Sharing the spotlight this (sixth) time around with Bam Margera and his World Destruction Tour, the story follows the two as they go head-to-head in what is less a contest of…
Big Books
The Anybodiesby N.E. Bode, with illustrations by Peter Ferguson HarperCollins, 288 pp., $15.99 The premise of N.E. Bode’s (aka poet and novelist Julianna Baggott) The Anybodies is familiar: A girl named Fern has unusual powers and claims to see things her “tragically dull parents” implore her to keep hidden. In Fern’s world, birds turn into…
Cookbook Reviews
Brazil: A Cook’s Tourby Christopher Idone Clarkson Potter, 240 pp., $32.50 I have been fascinated by everything Brazil since I can remember, and my honeymoon seemed like the perfect excuse to finally pay a visit to the country of my dreams. In preparation for the trip, a group of girlfriends gave me this book, which…
Box Sets
Bon Jovi100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong … (Island) The year was 1986. I was a sheltered, chubby high school freshman in a microscopic East Texas town, completely oblivious to what was at the top of the pops. Suffice it to say I had no clue why the gymnasium erupted in screams every time…
A Few Deep Breaths
Except to the feds, medical marijuana is an easy sell
Vo Faces the Challenge
New lawmaker comes to Capitol as election contest rages on
In Print
‘Oscar Night: 75 Years of Hollywood Parties’
Big Books
Esquire: The Meaning of Life: Wit, Wisdom, and Wonder From 65 Extraordinary People edited by Brendan Vaughan Hearst Books, 160 pp., $19.95 We take these things for what they’re worth – delete that “Esquire,” and “The Meaning of Life: Wit, Wisdom, and Wonder” reads all too frighteningly like something you’d find on the cover of…
Cookbook Reviews
The Gourmet Cookbookedited by Ruth Reichl Houghton Mifflin, 1,056 pp., $40 My parents began subscribing to Gourmet in the Seventies, and my first forays into fancy cooking came between the pages of these impossibly glamorous pages. In those days, it seemed as if the magazine deliberately tried to make reproducing the dishes a Herculean feat.…
Box Sets
Michael JacksonThe Ultimate Collection (Epic/Sony) In trying to appeal to both hit seekers and the fan that has everything, this 4-CD, 1-DVD overview of Michael Jackson’s career is a compromise for both camps. While The Ultimate Collection is the first compilation to encompass Jackson’s recorded output from both Motown and Epic, the pre-Thriller era gets…
The Smoke Thickens
In all, as of the Nov. 2 election, 26 states had recognized the medical benefits of cannabis, in one legal manner or another. Ten states have legalized medical marijuana. Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington Seven have passed laws recognizing the potential benefits of medical marijuana and have established “therapeutic…
Los Alamos Up for Grabs
UT contemplates whether to go after the jewel of the nuclear crown
Film News
Under Tim McCanlies’ Spell; plus, accolades aplenty all over Austin
TCB
Crunking up the holidays with a legal spat, an old- world reunion, Dolly, and Derek Smalls himself
Big Books
Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation by Debbie Stoller Workman, 192 pp., $15.95 (paper) The Starving Artist’s Way by Nava Lubelski Three River’s Press, 288 pp., $14 (paper) I have to admit that before I picked this book up, I thought the trend of knitting had gone the way of pogs. Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation – a…
Cookbook Reviews
Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, & Techniques of Classic Bistro Cookingby Anthony Bourdain, with José de Meirelles & Philippe Lajaunie Bloomsbury Books, 304 pp., $34.95 Bourdain has done it again. He’s written a brilliant cookbook of the best of authentic classic French bistro cuisine that manages to also be hilarious, illuminating, wryly acerbic…
Box Sets
Al GreenThe Immortal Soul of Al Green (Hi/The Right Stuff) Thanks to last year’s blessed reunification of Al Green and his Midland, Texas, rendezvous, producer/arranger Willie Mitchell, the soul deity’s I Can’t Stop came to rest atop 2003 Top 10 lists like Noah’s ark on Mount Ararat. Delayed in the discovery was The Immortal Soul…
Mueller: Landing, or Just Refueling?
The Mueller deal is done, but that doesn’t mean the process is over
Findings of Fact
The Dietz decision recounts at length the financial straits of the public schools
TV Eye
In an unusual union between an indie-rooted movie network and another cable network specializing in sensational courtroom dramas comes a sustained, multifaceted discussion on one of the most pressing issues of our time: free speech
Art as Big as the Great Outdoors
Austin Museum of Art has artists transform nature in a huge way – and wants you to help
Page Two
The old political labels don’t quite fit, but new ones have not yet evolved
Cookbook Reviews
Cooking for Love: A Novel With Recipes by Sharon Boorstin iUniverse, 288 pp., $17.95 (paper) Miriam Levy ghostwrites cookbooks for Hollywood stars, is slightly overweight and under-groomed, and has a jaundiced world-view and self-deprecating sense of humor. Her best friend Kate is all that Miriam is not: rich, glamorous, assured, and up for adventure. Together,…
Box Sets
Tony BennettFifty Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett (Columbia/Legacy) As Tony Bennett sings here, it’s a long, long way from May to December. Listening to this 5-CD retrospective gives one a keen appreciation of just how long Anthony Benedetto has been swingin’ in front of the mic. He begins as a dewy-voiced Italian balladeer belting…
Observer to History at 50
The Texas Observer celebrates its 50th birthday
Austin @ Large: Painting by Numbers
Design standards turn out to be (maybe) more than just skin-deep
Christmas Choraling
With Conspirare�s Christmas at the Carillon and Austin Civic Chorus� Sing It Yourself �Messiah�, you�ll get a thrilling dose of that most potent Christmas commodity: song!
Letters at 3AM
‘My love is an imperfect thing but it sings.’ Those are the words to be carved on the tombstone of Michael Ventura’s brother Aldo, an unstable soul who died last week.
Cookbook Reviews
A Blessing of Bread: Recipes and Rituals, Memories and Mitzvahs by Maggie Glezer Artisan, 320 pp., $35 The latest release by award-winning author Maggie Glezer, this beautiful book was inspired when she interviewed a rabbi’s wife about the symbolism of challah, the bread perhaps most closely associated with Jewish tradition. This led to years of…
Box Sets
Dexter GordonThe Complete Prestige Recordings (Prestige) At 6 feet 6 inches, saxophonist Dexter Gordon was a big man with a huge sound who left an enormous legacy for the jazz world to treasure. It’s, therefore, only fitting that it requires an 11-CD set (88 tracks, 17 previously unissued) to document his work for just this…
The Big Three Bike Projects – Still Spinning Their Wheels?
Austin still struggles with bicycle mobility
The Hightower Report
No need for a babysitter, Big Brother will do it; and Britain has moral scolds just like America
Blade: Trinity
Originality is in as short supply as shirt buttons as Snipes’ high tech vampire slayer meets up with what appears to be a steroidal Eurotrash pimp playing Dracula.
Art in Their Stockings
Giving the gift of art this season and don’t know where to start? Try the Blue Genie Art Bazaar and the Gallery Lombardi ‘Xmas Expo.’
After a Fashion
Stephen is all about the holidays. Hide your peacock feathers!!!
Cookbook Reviews
The Pastry Queen: Royally Good Recipes From the Texas Hill Country’s Rather Sweet Bakery & Cafe by Rebecca Rather with Alison Oresman Ten Speed Press, 240 pp., $29.95 As a culinary student pursuing the pastry arts, I keep my eye out for any new books about baking. This book by former Austin pastry chef Rebecca…
Box Sets
Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens: The Big Ol’ Box of New Orleans (Shout! Factory) The swampy bog known as New Orleans has produced some of the most distinct musical styles known to man. Beginning with the Dixieland jazz of Jelly Roll Morton (“I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say”), Kid Ory (“Royal Garden Blues”), and…
Riding the Late-Money Campaign Train
Last-minute campaign contributions come under fire
Ocean’s Twelve
Like Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven and 1960’s Rat-Packing original, Ocean’s Twelve is an elaborate and delightful excuse to get the screen’s biggest and most gorgeous stars in the same film.
Arts Review
Making his debut in ‘The Santaland Diaries,’ Rob Williams creates an elf who’s not so naughty yet who keeps the show nice
Day Trips
The Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock is home to a tribute to one of Texas� favorite sons and also provides a venue for international and local visual art exhibits
Food-o-File
V.B.W. is serious about fruitcakes; plus, the Event Menu is in holiday heaven
Box Sets
Can’t You Hear Me Callin’ – Bluegrass: 80 Years of American Music (Columbia/Legacy) Anyone who grew up south of the Mason-Dixon Line is familiar with harmonies floating up from the pews every Sunday morning. They’re also familiar with taking Jesus and Satan out of such gospel and replacing them with love and drinking. Finally, they’re…
Late Donors to Local House Races
Todd Baxter: $137,18910/25 Hillco PAC: 5,000 10/25 Bob Perry: 5,000 10/26 HOMEPAC of Texas: 1,000 10/26 Stan Schlueter: 1,500 10/26 Mike Toomey: 2,000 10/26 Texas Realtors PAC: 2,000 10/26 Linebarger, Groggan, Blair: 2,000 10/26 Texas Restaurant Association: 1,000 10/26 Michael Stevens: 5,000 10/26 Texans/Lawsuit Reform: 15,000 10/26 Stars Over Texas: 65,000 10/26 Big City Capital…
DVDs
More Treasures From American Film Archives 1894-1931National Film Preservation Foundation, $79.95 The National Film Preservation Foundation is no dummy. After an almost 10-hour free fall through three DVDs’ worth of film that has never been available in the U.S. in any commercial format, “Trailers for Lost Films (1923-1928), 10 Minutes” plunges the saber in one…
Finding Neverland
Johnny Depp delves into the mind of author J.M. Barrie in this adeptly realized celebration of the wonder of the imagination.
Arts Review
Despite many glorious moments in St. Cecilia Music Series’ Baroque Festival Concert II, there was evidence throughout that the musicians may have taken on too much
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Lawrence Welk sells out
Holiday Wish Lists 2004, Part 3
Love. So simple. So simple to overlook. Through our various cultures and tribes, there are so many variations on expression. Such a rich and vibrant vocabulary. So confusing! A Tower of Babel. It’s easy to forget love outside of the immediate kin we sustain, especially when survival of our own is critical. Love is love…
Box Sets
Grateful Dead Beyond Description (1973-1989) (Rhino) More than nine years after the death of Jerry Garcia, the long strange trip of the Grateful Dead continues ever onward. Beyond Description is the logical follow-up to 2001’s The Golden Road, a 12-CD chronicle of the band’s early years, almost entirely with Warner Bros. Here the story is…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
DVDs
The Iron Giant: Special Edition Warner Home Video, $19.99 How do you make a story about a boy and his giant alien robot even cooler? This special edition of 1999’s The Iron Giant gives the lovely, gentle film a fine presentation. As is too often the case, the featurettes tend toward self-congratulation and in-jokes: “The…
A Silent Love
A Mexican and Canadian production, A Silent Love puts an unusual spin on some of the clichés of the romantic comedy.
About AIDS
The number of people over age 50 who have HIV/AIDS is growing, and at a rate faster than the overall American epidemic. With today’s improved disease management tools, more people who were infected during their 30s or 40s are living to see their 50s and 60s. Among new infections, about 10% have always been –…
Box Sets
King CrimsonThe 21st Century Guide to King Crimson Volume One 1969-1974 (Discipline Global Mobile) Mellotronist and guitarist Robert Fripp is the only founding member of King Crimson still in the influential progressive rock band. As such, he’s the ideal candidate to put together this new, official history of the band’s formative years. Noted for its…
LCRA Gets Its Pipe On
A near-unanimous vote to bring surface water to Hamilton Pool Road
DVDs
Eyes Without a Face Criterion, $29.95 Georges Franju’s 1959 grotesque about the perils of plastic surgery in obsessive father-daughter relationships has lost none of its rank charm in the intervening years. If anything, the film, which follows one Dr. Génessier’s (Pierre Brasseur) increasingly desperate attempts to provide his mangled daughter Christiane (Edith Scob) with a…
Overnight
Cautionary tales about the pitfalls of indie filmmaking don’t come more searingly truthful or sober-minded than this.
Big Books
Chris Ware by Daniel Raeburn Yale Press, 112 pp., $19.95 (paper) Yale Press’ newest Monographics release about the work of Chris Ware isn’t merely a case of series Editor Rick Poynor striking while the iron is hot. It might be, in part, a case of compiling a sufficient collection of Ware’s wares real quicklike, before…
To Your Health
Are vitamin E supplements harmful?
Box Sets
NirvanaWith the Lights Out (DGC) Squalling in at more than 31/2 hours of mind-melting audio, 68 of 81 tracks previously unreleased (commercially), and another 75 minutes of the ultimate reality DVD, With the Lights Out reveals only one tiny little bulb in its long brilliant string on the blink – 56 seconds of Kurt Cobain…
Box Sets
More 2004 Box SetsAlbert Ayler Black Sabbath Dave Brubeck The Cure Depeche Mode Tal Farlow Jerry Garcia Davíd Garza The Hollies Low Pan Sonic Peter, Paul & Mary Small Faces
Judge Slaps SOS, Bunch
Enviro group penalized for ‘frivolous’ Lazy 9 lawsuit
DVDs
Dazed and Confused: Flashback EditionUniversal, $19.99 With nine deleted scenes totaling 15 minutes, the Dazed and Confused: Flashback Edition is – to quote Matthew McConaughey’s immortal Zen master high school graduate/stoner Wooderson (natch) – a lot cooler than the film’s no seeds-‘n’-stems DVD debut. The slipcase concealing Frank Kozik’s original yearbook poster art is perfect,…
Rosenstrasse
Von Trotta puts a human face on 1943’s Rosenstrasse uprising, one of the few public, and moreover, successful citizen protests against the power of the Nazi regime.
Big Books
New Comics There’s a goddamn slew of good new comics overflowing the edges of publishing’s ink-stained cornucopia right now, just in time for your holiday shopping. Here are a few of what you and your visually literate friends and family will likely enjoy the hell out of. Fantagraphics’ Blab! No. 15, the latest in their…
The Common Law
Medical Power of Attorney
Box Sets
The BeatlesThe Capitol Albums Vol. 1 (Capitol) That the four albums in this box set, Meet the Beatles!, The Beatles’ Second Album, Something New, and Beatles ’65, are making their debut on CD is extraordinary. Especially considering the fact that millions of households in the U.S. possessed a least one of them at some point…
Gov. OK’s Death Row Reprieve
Four-month stay gives Frances Newton’s lawyers time to review suspect evidence
DVDs
The L Word: The Complete First SeasonShowtime Entertainment, $69.99 It would be easy enough to dismiss The L Word on grounds of hair-gel abuse alone, but where’s the sport in that? Sex and the City long ago obliterated the line between ridiculous and compelling, and The L Word trades that show’s queeny wit (or what…
Big Books
Panel Discussions: Further consideration on comix and graphic novels
Soccer Watch
Of Porto, PSV, and the Big Five
Box Sets
BlondieSingles Box (EMI) “Hey, pssst pssst, here she comes now.” With that come-hither intro for 1976’s “Rip Her to Shreds,” Deborah Harry became the queen of New York New Wave, a title she still holds in her lacquered-nail hand. “Blondie is a band” the attendant press was quick to assert, yet the sextet was first…
Jazz Sides
Miles DavisSeven Steps: The Complete Columbia Recordings of Miles Davis 1963-1964 (Columbia/Legacy) Miles Davis was perceived as a leader of the avant-garde, a trendsetter. Certainly he was from 1949’s Birth of the Cool through the mid-Fifties and his highly influential post-bop work with John Coltrane, Red Garland, and Philly Joe Jones, and late into the…
One More Time for Miller-El
The Supreme Court once again hears death-row inmate’s case
DVDs
The Wire: The Complete First SeasonWarner Home Video, $99.99 There’s a reason why the HBO series The Wire has not captured a larger audience. Unlike conventional crime dramas like Law & Order or the CSI franchise, The Wire is unapologetically demanding. The series ripens with each carefully shaped episode, luring and challenging viewers instead of…
Big Books
Runawayby Alice Munro Knopf, 320 pp., $24 In her characteristically plainspoken style, the esteemed Ontario-based Alice Munro examines a series of partnerships – romantic, parent-child, between friends and neighbors and strangers who cross paths fatefully – in eight stories. Each deals in its own way with disillusionment and hard-won knowledge; the observations herein aren’t necessarily…
Oops!
In last week’s issue, the photo of Molly Ivins on p.26 should have been credited to Melanie West. The Chronicle regrets the error.
Box Sets
The SaintsAll Times Through Paradise (EMI Australia) “The Saints are, with the Ramones, the absolute ground zero of Seventies punk,” notes rock & roll scholar David Fricke. That both acts’ Stooges-like bulwark of pound and fission debuted live in the UK summer of 1976 helped touch off the punk revolution. Back home in Brisbane, Australia,…
Jazz Sides
The Complete Argo/Mercury Art Farmer/Benny Golson/ Jazztet Sessions (Mosaic) With the Jazz Messengers, the Jazztet was among the most important of the touring post-bop groups. Led by trumpeter/flugelhornist Art Farmer and tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, the sextet recorded from 1960 to 1962. Its ranks included greats and near-greats: trombonists Curtis Fuller, Tom McIntosh, and Grachan…
Dewhurst Plays in the Sunshine
Lieutenant governor pushes recorded votes, other open-gov initiatives
DVDs
The OC: The Complete First SeasonWarner Home Video, $69.99 Flying off shelves like so many beach-blanket fist fights, The OC DVD set is your ultimate source for data like: How many OxyContins does it take to level a debutante? Is a MILF more inappropriate when she’s your girlfriend’s mother? And don’t they have paternity tests…
Luv Doc Recommends: The Magnetic Fields
If you’re not feeling the holiday pinch by now, you’re not paying attention. We’re already ass deep in Chanukah, or, as the fundamentalists like to call it, “the C word.” In a few short days you have St. Lucy’s Day, named after the disturbing Sicilian saint who cut out her eyes to get rid of…
