Food-O-File
There’s no better time than Christmas to give Texas to a friend. This year’s cookbook output from talented Lone Star authors is phenomenal, with something for every passionate cook and cookbook collector on your list. Soup Someone Else (self-published, $10 paper) by Dorsey Barger, Elaine Martin, and Ruth Carter. This delicious collection of soup recipes…
Closed Doors
Henry Lee by Mark Todd Cindy Sherman and Mark Todd make strange bedfellows. One is subtle and introverted, the other loud and extroverted. She is slick, while he is rough. For these two artists to coexist under one roof seems at first anything but a match made in heaven. However, a closer look at the…
Articulations
You know theatre: Somebody comes onstage, somebody goes off. It’s that way with theatre companies, too — always people coming and going. This week, no local company is more mindful of that than Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre, which is welcoming a new company member with one hand and waving goodbye to a company member with the…
Reviewing Jewish Cooking in America With Joan Nathan
Jewish Cooking in America by Joan Nathan (Alfred A. Knopf, $35 hard) Jewish Cooking in America With Joan Nathan (PBS, Tuesdays, 11:30am, repeating most Saturdays, 3pm, through March) No doubt two things come to mind when you imagine Jewish food: bagels and drab kosher packaging. You might think of things like pickles, olives, salty fishes,…
Yo Ho Ho and All That Jazz
The real Anne Bonny, the original pistol-packin’ female pirate. The most refreshing aspect of TLC’s new special Pirates! was that for two hours I didn’t hear one “arrrgh” or “avast ye mateys!” Instead, academic experts like David Cordingly speak at length about pirates and pirate history, while reenactments, stock Hollywood footage, location shots, and historical…
Exhibitionism
THE SANTALAND DIARIES: A LITTLE ELFIN MAGIC Zachary Scott Theatre Center, through January 3 Running Time: 1 hr, 30 min Oh sure, the place looks like nice enough, what with its painted floor of gingerbread boys and girls, its pint-sized snowmen with gentle coal-nugget smiles, its profusion of presents in poinsettia-red wrapping paper nestled snugly…
Wines for Chanukah
I asked a local wine merchant about kosher wine for Chanukah. I hoped, I told him, to put to rest the Concord grape of Manischewitz. We discussed a traditional menu: matzoh ball soup, gefilte fish, brisket, potato latkes with applesauce, stewed vegetables, and apple cake. His half-joking response: “Is that supposed to sound good?” If…
Scanlines
(“Scanlines” wishes to thank Encore Movies & Music, I Love Video, Vulcan Video, and Waterloo Video for their help in providing videos, laser discs, and DVDs.) Air Bud D. Charles Martin Smith (1997) with Michael Jeter, Kevin Zegers, Wendy Makkena, Bill Cobbs The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh D. Gilbert Moses (1979) with Julius Erving, James…
Other Box Sets
They look like books. At least, they seem to be packaged that way — sometimes they actually have books in them. They carry titles like The Gifts of the Magi, Gold: A Book and Kit, and Ancient Rome Treasure Chest. Sometimes they’re for kids, like the Keepsakes series, and sometimes they’re most definitely for adults…
The Children’s Jewish Holiday Kitchen
by Joan Nathan (Schoken, $14 paper) With Chanukah beginning this week, this children’s cookbook is a great way to get into the spirit of the season. The book has 10 chapters, each on a different Jewish holiday. Each chapter begins with a suggested menu and includes a good selection of recipes. The recipe directions are…
Short Cuts
The world premiere of The Faculty will takeplace in Austin, Texas at the Paramount Theatre on Wednesday, December 16. Director Robert Rodriguez and producer Elizabeth Avell�n will be on hand to present their new filmed-in-Austin, aliens-posing-as-high-school-teachers horror adventure as a benefit for the Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund, which in the three years of its existence…
Books for Imbibing
If you wake up one morning and realize that drinking is becoming a hobby, you have some lifestyle choices to make. One option is to spend every evening at your local bar, telling whoppers and cultivating katzenjammers, the mothers of all hangovers. If you see this as an amateurish pursuit, you and your crowd can…
The Ut Madrigal Dinner
Texas Union, November 18 When I go out for dinner and entertainment, it usually involves Oriental food of some sort and music, something along the lines of Joe Ely, Brave Combo, Delbert McClinton, etc. So it was completely out of character for me to go to the Annual Madrigal Dinner at the Texas Union on…
Video Box Sets
2001: A Space Odyssey All the warning signsare here: brightly colored lights on houses, plastic Kris Kringles leering from roofs, endless repetitions of “Silent Night,” grinning deer figurines in front lawns, traffic jams (and fender benders) at the malls. Aliens visiting from another planet would be terribly confused and might assume that it is an…
In Person
Susan Isaacs at Book People One year before she begins writing a novel, Susan Issacs usually conceives of a character in her mind, and this character later turns him- or herself into a book. But for her eighth novel, Red White and Blue, she started with a larger idea. In Red White and Blue, released…
Box Sets
The Complete Blue Note Sixties Sessions (Blue Note) Herbie Hancock’s first big pop hit was 1974’s fusion blockbuster “Chameleon,” and not since Madonna recorded “Material Girl” has an artist so clearly used a song title as an announcement of intent. Starting off as a hard-bop sideman, Hancock has spent nearly 40 years changing colors, veering…
Giftology 101
illustration by Jason Stout Johnny and I were sprawled out on my big bed, trying out the gift he had just given to me. What a surprise, this fancy version of a cheaper model I already owned and had already broken in with others. I smiled — half-shyly, half-knowingly — when he handed it to…
Postscripts
In the latest issue of The New York Review of Books (Vol. 45, No. 20, December 17), Norman Mailer begins a review of Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full by “offering” a long citation of several paragraphs from his book Cannibals and Christians. Maybe it’s typical for people who write for and are covered by…
Dancing About Architecture
Where were you while all the Big Names were cavorting around town last week? Perhaps you were one of many who fought the crowds to see them in person, either at the Austin City Limits re-taping for Lucinda Williams or the big KGSR concert featuring Williams, Bruce Hornsby, Patti Griffin, Lyle Lovett, and others. Amazingly,…
The Gift of Words
by Mandy Keifetz Fleabites Press, $12 paper Take all the lingering ghosts and graying sages out of the American desert, and what is left? Madness, answers first-time novelist Mandy Keifetz. A gritty, guns-and-drugs place where habits and history allow no one to escape. With her blustery first novel, Corrido, Keifetz helps to create and explore…
All the Pain Platinum Can Buy
L-R: Tony Scalzo, Miles Zuniga, and Joey Shuffield “Here today, gone later today.” It’s hard not to notice that in separate interviews, months apart and fully outside each other’s earshot, Miles Zuniga and Joey Shuffield both quote the same music industry dictum as a way of explaining what keeps them going when they’re already going…
Gifts For Writers
If the writer in your life is fortunate, he or she makes a living writing. More often than not, the writer has a tolerable day job that’s related to writing. But the real writing takes place in the wee hours of the morning or night, after kids, spouses, and household chores are attended to. What…
Land Rush
How did we get here? Remember that, back in the 1960s and early 1970s, when the idea of a downtown waterfront civic complex began to coalesce, there were no skyscrapers in Austin, and the official “central business district” ended at the Fourth Street railroad tracks. The warehouse blocks south of those tracks were renewal-ready as…
About AIDS
Remember when people stopped going to restaurants with male waiters or ceased riding the bus because they were so afraid of AIDS? Boy, have things changed. The American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) recently released a Harris poll indicating that most Americans are not particularly concerned with their risk for AIDS. “Most Americans think they…
CSC Who?
As high-tech companiesgo, Computer Sciences Corp. is not the sexiest of players. It doesn’t build speedy microprocessors, create eye-popping Internet graphics, or bring the furthest reaches of cyberspace onto computer screens. CSC’s business is more mundane, yet in high demand: computer networking and information management. The company’s Austin division, CSC Financial Services, specializes in outsourcing…
Coach’s Corner
A football game, between two teams I don’t especially care about, just ended. Unless you have a satellite, you didn’t see it. No glamour match-up on channel 344. It was an important game for the teams playing, but in the 8-8 NFL, almost every game has “playoff implications.” So, no big story there. I’m watching…
Reflecting on the Deal
What do local community activists and political leaders think of the CSC proposal? We asked several what they thought of the new deal and the process by which the plan came together to win City Council approval last week. Here are excerpts of responses we gleaned from people willing to comment for the record: Sabrina…
Speed
All the buzz around here these days is about how Austin is on a winning streak. Unemployment is low, property values are high. Oh, and Fortune just named us the No. 1 city to do business in, in the whole entire country. Why, then, do we have to offer $8.1 million in infrastructure and $700,000…
Page Two
The Chronicle Gift Guide issues, I think, are unique in that the advertising is as much a part of the content as the editorial. This issue is devoted to our writers and editors bringing to our readers’ attention notable CDs, videos, books, and other appropriate gifts of the season. Our advertisers pitch in with their…
Geek Chic
Windows 98 Upgrade | http://www.microsoft.com/ Win98 runs faster and smoother than 95. With more features and easier customization, any nerd still running Win95 will love this update. About $90. Gizmos98 | http://www.play.com A collection of cool add-ons and utility programs for Windows. $50. Games Games are always a popular gift. Here’s some of the favorites…
Public Notice
Okay, you nailed us. Lame headline. Cut us some slack, man. You try coming up with brilliant one-liners week after freakin’ week. It’s the end of the bleeding year (and one of our bloooodiest in memory, thank you very much: Well wishes, sympathy cards, love offerings in the form of nubile young virgins or cold…
Naked City
Who would have believed the proposed Triangle development could be the least controversial item on a City Council agenda? It was during last week’s meeting, when the council took a breather in the form of an update on the Triangle project’s progress. Joseph Scanga, of Calthorpe Associates — the Berkeley-based architectural firm hired to help…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Banging your head against the wall burns 50 calories an hour. The term “blurb” was created in 1907 by the humorist G. Burgess, who made fun of the ridiculous texts on book jackets by creating one with an even more ridiculous text about Miss Belinda Blurb. In England, the dandelion has been declared an endangered…
Murder in the Suburbs
Found in a Dumpster behind Roger Scaggs’ office, this garbage bag contained the pipe, the knife, five latex gloves, and Penny Scaggs’ wedding ring, diamond necklace, and tennis bracelet. photograph courtesy Travis County District Court On Wednesday, March 6,1996, a cold front blew into Austin from the north. Before she had a chance to bring…
Where the Heart Begins
illustration by Jason Stout “It doesn’t matter what we know, the body requires a kind of pain, a longing that becomes its compass…” — Karen Holden, The Book of Changes The artist is always a stranger. Even when we know her. Even (perhaps especially) when the artist is oneself. There is the “I” you sign…
THE MURDER “RATE”
illustrations by Doug Potter When a murder is committed, not only is there an immediate and incomprehensible loss to the victim’s family, but there is a high toll on the community. All of the costs for prosecution ultimately get passed on to the citizens and taxpayers. The Scaggs trial, for instance — one of Travis…
