A Hard Day’s Night
This is the kind of timeless artifact that, decades after its making, still hits the senses like a burst of fresh air. Where a pop star like Elvis churned out silly movies with phony plots, props, and pretense, the Beatles launched into movies playing hyperbolic versions of themselves and their lives of newfound celebrity.
Scanners
Wanna see someone’s head blow up and eyes pop out? Be certain of your answer before casting your gaze on Scanners, an early beaut from Toronto’s king of visceral horror.
Miss Congeniality
America’s Sweetheart plays a detective who goes undercover to vie in a beauty pageant.
Book Reviews
Hillbilly Hollywood: The Origins of Country & Western Style by Debby Bull Rizzoli, 128 pp., $39.95 Despite the title, this photo book is so much more than just a treatise on clothing: It’s also a passionate history of a whole scene, recounting how the flashy suits worn by country musicians were spawned by a generation…
Mr. Smarty Pants
Shanghai is slowly sinking.When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say, “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” However, due to a bad translation, the ads said that “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”The spiders living in five acres of land consume…
Eating Between the Lines
Invitation to Dine: Recipes From My Private Collection by Christine Herzog Doubleday, 160 pp., $25 The old joke goes that in a perfect world the Swiss run the finances, the Italians are in charge of cooking, the French are in charge of romance, the Germans are in charge of production, and the English are in…
Kiddie Spree
“This! This!” screamed Harold. At $299, we’d be spending more on Harold’s first car than we did on mine! Electric cars (to $299) at Toys-R-Us.
Record Reviews
Etta JamesThe Chess Box (MCA/Chess) Johnny Otis hired 16-year-old Jamesetta Hawkins as a singer in 1954 after she lied about her age and forged her mother’s signature for permission to tour. Within a year, her self-penned “answer song” to Hank Ballard & the Midnighters’ “Work With Me Annie” was the bawdy “Roll With Me Henry”…
Faith-Based Homes on Trial
The bills that codified Bush’s support for faith-based social services in 1997 were a reconciliatory step in the state government’s long and often unfriendly relationship with faith-based programs. In 1979, more than a decade before Waco became synonymous with violent confrontation between church and state, inspectors arrived at a Christian children’s home in Corpus Christi…
True Hollywood Stories
James Ulmer dishes the dirt, but misses some facts.
The Emperor’s New Groove
The Emperor’s New Groove 2000, G, 78 min. D: Mark Dindal; with the voices of David Spade, John Goodman. Instead of venturing out to the theatre to see the Mouse’s newest, I’d have been better served by staying home and watching a video copy of 1987’s goofy, endearing animated kidflick The Brave Little Toaster, on…
Book Reviews
Flophouse: Life on the Bowery by David Isay and Stacy Abramson Photographs by Harvey Wang Random House, 160 pp., $24.95 Flophouse, which began as a radio documentary titled “The Sunshine Hotel” on NPR’s All Things Considered, provides a look inside the rooms of four “lodging hotels” (the polite term for flophouses, according to the authors)…
Coach’s Corner
On an ill-advised trip to Europe, Coach comes to a startling realization.
Eating Between the Lines
Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover’s Companion to the South by John T. Edge Hill Street Press, 270 pp., $24.95 Ten years ago, somewhere on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi, I chanced upon a migratory carnivore’s holy grail — a near-perfect pork barbecue sandwich. Inside a ramshackle clapboard general store, an old man served…
Kiddie Spree
Let them sleep in heavenly peace — or at least in a heavenly outfit. Onesies and other children’s sleepwear by Peppertoes ($30-$40) at Dragonsnaps.
Record Reviews
Rhapsodies In Black: Music and Words From The Harlem Renaissance(Rhino) As the song says, you take the “A” train to find the quickest way to Harlem. Yet long before a young Billy Strayhorn penned that fateful anthem while on a subway ride uptown to Sugar Hill to visit Duke Ellington, Harlem was the epicenter of…
Opening the Doors
As college access tightens, minority students and families, and educators, look for ways to help more students.
True Hollywood Stories
The strange and humorous collaboration between filmmakers Steven Soderbergh and Richard Lester
Book Reviews
The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist by Francis Ames-Lewis Yale University Press, 322 pp., $40 Medieval European painters and sculptors were often more “artisan” than “artist,” at least in terms of their standing within intellectual culture. But by the time Vasari’s Lives of the Artists debuted in the middle of the 16th century,…
Day Trips
Burnett’s Christmas Tree Farm outside of Salado is at the end of a great drive into the country. Nothing says the holiday season like taking the family out to a farm on a brisk day, drinking some hot chocolate, warming your buns over an open fire, and returning home with a Christmas tree strapped to…
Eating Between the Lines
Stories From the Hen House by Carol Ann Sayle Self-published, 60 pp., $8.95 (paper) Boggy Creek farmer Carol Ann Sayle didn’t set out to be a writer, but with this slim, cheery volume of children’s stories, she’s self-published her second book in as many years. Both books got their start in somewhat the same way.…
Kiddie Spree
The magic of the train fules playtime dreams as it has done for generations. By Brio (as shown, $575). Starter kit approx. $50) with packages of individual track ($10-$15) and popular accessories, including the Skybridge and Lifting Bridge ($50 each), at Terra Toys.
Record Reviews
Louis ArmstrongThe Complete Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings (Columbia Legacy) The superlatives have been floated for decades: the Rosetta Stone of jazz, the roadmap of American music, the musical shot heard ’round the world. These late-Twenties recording sessions predate most everything we know about popular music. Though most point to them as they would…
Lady in Waiting
On October 10, less than a month before the presidential election, Anita Perry had a kind of dress rehearsal for her prospective role as the first lady of Texas. She and her husband, Lieutenant Gov. Rick Perry, served as honorary co-hosts of the Texas Conference for Women, the first of its kind in the state.…
True Hollywood Stories
Peter Lev’s American Films of the 70s looks at several genres of films (cop movies, disaster films, teen movies, war films, blaxploitation, sci-fi, and feminist films) and puts examples of each genre into the context of the times.
Book Reviews
They Drew Fire: Combat Artists of World War II by Brian Lanker and Nicole Newnham TV Books, 192 pp., $39.95 Thanks to Saving Private Ryan and a tidal wave of tributes to the past century and its greatest moments, we seem to be inundated by books about World War II and the generation that fought…
About AIDS
The festivity of winter holidays is almost here, crowded for most of us with jollity and warm feelings. Many members of our Central Texas community, however, face a bleaker picture – the loneliness and deprivation that so often comes with HIV disease and AIDS. But Holiday Helpers at AIDS Services of Austin (ASA) offers an…
Eating Between the Lines
Alfred Portale’s 12 Seasons Cookbook by Alfred Portale with Andrew Friedman Broadway Books, 400 pp., $45 Alice Waters taught us all many years ago that we ought only to cook with what was in season. And we all learned how right she is; peaches in December, while obtainable, are not good. So we’ve come to…
Kiddie Spree
For sending your wild one out into the jungle that is Austin at holiday time, make sure they’re in style with the Leopard Bag by North American Bear ($28) at Dragonsnaps.
Record Reviews
Richard Pryor… And It’s Deep Too! (Warner Archives/Rhino) Odd that the title of this box set should come from the punchline of an old off-color joke that most of us heard when we were in grade school. Richard Pryor tells that joke on one of the early discs in this 9-CD set, (comprising Richard Pryor,…
Swap Meet
The City Council, divided 5 votes to 2, stumbles toward an agreement with Stratus to trade land or development rights at the former Robert Mueller Airport.
True Hollywood Stories
A copy of this compilation of celebrity interviews should be sent to everyone who works at Entertainment Tonight and Dateline NBC.
Book Reviews
Working Hands by Rick Williams Texas A&M University Press, 127 pp., $45 This exquisite photo essay references the hands of Texan workers in its title, but it’s the worn countenances of a parade of cowboys, oilers, and techies that strike the emotional core of Rick Williams’ 20-year project. Working Hands documents the three primary economic…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
The year 2000 was a big one for books devoted to all types of baking. During the past several months, I’ve received no less than 15 baking books to consider for review. Being a baker by trade, I’m particularly interested in this genre of cookbooks and also likely to be critical of those that don’t…
Eating Between the Lines
The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy Clarkson Potter Publishers, 526 pp., $35 The issue of authentic Mexican cuisine versus Tex-Mex is a particularly prevalent one here in Austin. With so many restaurants serving endless variations of salsas, enchiladas, tamales, and carnes, it’s hard to isolate just what is the true Mexican from the…
Kiddie Spree
“Sorry, Uncle Stephen, 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens is not on my reading list. But I just finished Harry Potter #4 for the second time �”
Record Reviews
The Funk Box (Hip-O) As citizens of the One Nation Under a Groove, at least on a good day, it’s our civic duty to wag that booty. Not just knee-deep, this 4-CD set details the short (roughly 1970-1982, “Sex Machine” to “Atomic Dog”) but happy life of funk as America’s dance music of choice. Disco,…
Text of the Resolution:
Whereas, it is the policy of the City of Austin to discourage urbanization of land over the Barton Springs Zone; and Whereas, Stratus Properties, Inc. has significant holdings over the Barton Springs Zone which the company wants to develop; and Whereas, Stratus Properties, Inc. is open to exploring exchanges that would allow them to develop…
Comfortably Butt Numb
11 movies, 24 hours, 230 stinky film fans — a diary from Harry Knowles’ second annual Butt-Numb-a-thon
Book Reviews
China: The Photographs of Lois Conner by Lois Conner Callaway Editions, 151 pp., $100 Using a large panoramic camera, Lois Conner not only captures what one imagines to be the geographical expansiveness of China, but the effects of time, history, and change on the land and its people. Printed in a larger-than-usual format — the…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
Sweet Miniatures: The Art of Making Bite-Size Desserts by Flo Braker Chronicle Books, 365pp., $22.95 (paper) Renowned San Francisco-area baking maven Flo Braker has updated and added to her wonderful collection of recipes for bite-size treats with this new paperback edition. Braker is a founding member of the Bay area baker’s group, Baker’s Dozen, a…
Eating Between the Lines
Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid Artisan, 346 pp, $40 Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid have produced another culinary tour de force with the release of their newest title, Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, but this one is perhaps their best, for it centers on a…
Kiddie Spree
“That’s for little girls,” says precocious eight-year-old Rosalind. But dressing up is for big girls, too, as she will discover in a few years. Meanwhile, we have Fairy Princess, Duchess, and Evening Glamour ensembles (sizes 12 mos. to 8 years, $17-$58) at Terra Toys.
Record Reviews
The Doo Wop Box III(Rhino) You gotta love the fine folks at Rhino Records for their tenacious pursuit of the quintessential compilation, but sometimes they simply don’t know when to stop. This is especially true during the holiday buying season. The money tracks on the 4-CD The Doo Wop Box III could probably could fit…
Naked City
The Republican response to U.S. Supreme Court judicial activism
11 Movies That Numbed the Butt
1. Destination Mars (premiere) 2. The Hobbit (1977) 3. The Gift (2000, premiere) 4. The Sea Wolf (1941) 5. Wonder Bar (1934) 6. Snatch (2000, premiere) special appearance: Snatch actor Ade 7. Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) 8. Mystery movie whose name cannot be revealed due to an audience pact with Harry 9.…
Book Reviews
I Like Being Killed: Stories by Tibor Fischer Metropolitan Books, 261 pp., $24 “The notion of being paid to do nothing, even if it was simply spending time at home watching the walls, made him almost swoon.” So says Jim, the narrator of “We Ate the Chef.” Jim is a Web designer in his mid-30s…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
The Perfect Pie: More Than 125 All-Time Favorite Pies & Tarts by Susan G. Purdy Broadway Books, 374 pp., $17.95 (paper) New England baking author Susan G. Purdy has revised and updated her early-Eighties hit As Easy as Pie and pie lovers everywhere should be glad she did. If you’re one of those people who…
Eating Between the Lines
Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking by Su-Mei Yu Morrow, 326 pp, $30 In her new cookbook Cracking the Coconut, Su-Mei Yu takes the purist, authentic route to reproducing the incredible food of her homeland. And this is, surprisingly, a quite novel approach in these times of shortcuts and convenience. She places great emphasis…
Kiddie Spree
When Uncle Stephen was young, the idea of your child being in a band was frightening. Here in Austin, it’s a rite of passage. Gig-Maker by Yamaha ($199.95) at Musicmakers.
Record Reviews
Sam CookeThe Man Who Invented Soul (RCA) Sometimes you can tell a book by its cover. The Man Who Invented Soul, bound in the now-standard ‘n’ handy 4-CD hardback book configuration, is adorned with a hideously lifeless, thrift store-looking cheap oil painting — the kind found atop rows and rows of stainless steel bookcases belching…
Naked City
Two committees of the state House of Representatives express disappointment in the state of Texas’ progress on improving its public high school students’ access to higher education.
Power Games
Eight reasons to go on living if you don’t’ own a PlayStation2
Book Reviews
The Hill Bachelors: Stories by William Trevor Viking, 245 pp, $22.95 There’s an echoing sadness in missed opportunities, and William Trevor captures every nuance of it in The Hill Bachelors, his latest collection of short stories. The tales masterfully detail the moments when lives might change — and the quiet ways they go on without…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
The Dessert Bibleby Christopher Kimball Little, Brown & Co., 399 pp., $29.95 (paper) Cook’s Illustrated founder Kimball has written a baking book very much in the style of the magazine he’s known for, which is to say it offers recipes that have been tested repeatedly with each ingredient and technique carefully scrutinized. The author reports…
Eating Between the Lines
The Best American Recipes 2000 edited by Fran McCullough and Suzanne Hamlin Houghton Mifflin, 304 pp., $26 To the rest of the country, Texans boast big hair and big appetites. I’d say we’re big on fun. If you agree, you’ll probably be eager to show off your beauty parlor skills and fashion with a completely…
Kiddie Spree
Zack knows that the pleasure of zipping around with the wind in your hair can’t be beat. Scooters are back ($69-$499) at Toys-R-Us and all over town.
Record Reviews
Elton JohnTo Be Continued (MCA) For those of a certain age — say, anyone born after 1973’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road — confessing a liking for Elton John is a risky proposition, but then anyone who appeals to jet-setting fashionistas and soccer moms alike must have something going on, right? John is the paradigm of…
Naked City
Robert Bryce responds to Richard Suttle’s letter claiming that our statements about the ownership and control of Stratus Properties were incorrect.
Don’t Drink the Water
While pursuing her masters in film at UT, Laura Dunn spent every semester break in Louisiana making Green, a documentary about the toxic 100-mile stretch along the Mississippi River known as Cancer Alley. The film screens at the Alamo Drafthouse this Sunday.
Book Reviews
Pagan Babies: A Novel by Elmore Leonard Delacorte, 263 pp., $24.95 Over time, readers sometimes overlook favorite writers who are overly prolific, take them for granted because they’ve been stalwarts of the bestseller lists for years or even decades. There’s no harm in missing their newest book because, heck, there’s another one on the way…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
Cookies Unlimitedby Nick Malgieri HarperCollins, 384 pp.,$35 This hefty collection of 350 American and foreign cookie recipes is New Yorker Malgieri’s follow-up to books on perfect pastry and overall baking instruction. The book is divided by types of cookie and each recipe is clearly written with just the kind of thorough explanation one would expect…
Eating Between the Lines
Great Wine Made Simple: Straight Talk From a Master Sommelier by Andrea Immer Broadway Books, 310 pp., $25 Food Network junkies will know Andrea Immer from her frequent guest spots on Sarah Moulton’s Cooking Live Primetime. In one of the bastions of absolute male domination, the world of the sommelier, Ms. Immer stands tall as…
Kiddie Spree
Madame Alexander has been creating dreams forever. “I don’t think I could pick just one,” says Rosalind. New collections include the Beatles, Little Women, Alice in Wonderland, and Wizard of Oz ($50-$200) at Terra Toys.
Record Reviews
Little Feat Hotcakes & Outtakes: 30 Years of Little Feat (Warner Archives/Rhino) Little Feat has always been an anomaly among rock bands. They were clumped in with the Southern rock movement that was popular in their Seventies heyday primarily because one of their biggest songs was “Dixie Chicken.” Yet they hailed from Los Angeles, not…
Naked City
After a shutdown prompts an international protest, Rice Radio is back on the air in Houston.
Short Cuts
Richard Linklater goes to Sundance.
Second Helpings: Asian Buffets
Many table-service restaurants with lunch buffets treat their sneeze-guarded fare as some sort of ugly stepchild; find out how to avoid them in this week’s “Second Helpings” on Asian buffets.
Off the Bookshelf
Cowboy Code by Wouter Deruytter Arena Editions, 132 pp., $60 “Wrangler butts drive us nuts,” people say. And strangely enough, it’s taken a Belgian photographer, Wouter Deruytter, to examine the arid masculinity of the West and create an arousing summary of the classic American cowboy’s pure and visceral sexuality. Like Alexis de Tocqueville traveling through…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbookby Beth Hensperger Harvard Common Press, 639 pp., $18.95 (paper) Prolific master baker Beth Hensperger has written 10 books, including several award-winners and also writes a column called “Baking With the Seasons” for the San Jose Mercury News. Her latest work addresses the question of whether or not the taste,…
Eating Between the Lines
The New American Cheese: Profiles of America’s Great Cheesemakers and Recipes for Cooking With Cheese by Laura Werlin Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 280 pp., $35 The Cheese Course: Enjoying the World’s Best Cheeses at Your Table by Janet Fletcher Chronicle Books, 108 pp., $19.95 The New American Cheese is Laura Werlin’s first book and it…
Kiddie Spree
Gundan. Learn to say it now, parents; you’ll be hearing it a lot in the future as Pok�mon steps aside. Watches, trading cards, models, action figures, and every imaginable accessory. Gundan models ($8.99-$299), at Momoko.
Record Reviews
Rick NelsonLegacy (United Artists) Rick Nelson was neither a great singer nor a great songwriter, but rather a first-rate entertainer determined to be more than just a matinee idol and good tenor. The son of a bandleader and singer, Nelson grew up in a television family that was his real family; The Adventures of Ozzie…
Naked City
Saving the land around Waller Creek downtown from flooding proves trickier — and more expensive — than council members or city staff anticipated.
Video Reviews
The first release in the Alamo Drafthouse’s silent-film-with-live-musical-accompaniment series is a video every self-respecting Austin hipster should own.Produced by the Co-op’s Barna Kantor and the Golden Arm Trio’s Graham Reynolds, this is a complete reverse of the Alamo Drafthouse’s series — these are silent films inspired by music.
Kids in Black
That innocuous-seeming crew of people listed beneath the actors in every program, who scurry around in black backstage and hover over the proceedings in the sound and light booth, may not be well-known to most theatregoers, but this silent, hidden army is all-powerful. Techies get almost no share in the glory, but they run the…
Off the Bookshelf
Milan Sklenar: Photographs by Milan Sklenar University of New Mexico Press, 177 pp., $65 So often, when photographers document the impoverished, the result is stark and gritty or romanticized images of “the salt of the earth.” Photographer Milan Sklenar does something entirely unexpected and remarkable: His black-and-white photos are at once simple and straightforward images…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
The Best Quick Breads : 150 Recipes for Muffins, Scones, Shortcakes, Gingerbreads, Cornbreads, Coffeecakes, and Moreby Beth Hensperger Harvard Common Press, 382 pp., $17.95 I have to admit, Hensperger’s recipe for an Avocado Bread With Pecans and Lime Glaze got me into the test kitchen faster than just about any recipe I read all year.…
Eating Between the Lines
Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine 2001 by Hugh Johnson Simon & Schuster, 280 pp., $13.95 Hugh Johnson’s knowledge of wine is encyclopedic, so the title is apropos. This little pocket-sized book is a treasure trove of wine info. Johnson discusses grape varieties, food/wine matching, quality of vintages, and literally thousands of individual wines. Designed…
Kiddie Spree
Defying time and trend, these robot reproductions come from a time that looked into the future, and a time that has already passed. Tin Robots ($6-$30) and the Robotics kit ($110) at Terra Toys.
Record Reviews
The Best of Broadside, 1962-1988: Anthems of the American Underground from the Pages of Broadside Magazine (Smithsonian Folkways) There’s no instrument for protestin’ quite like an acoustic guitar — cheap, portable, and always tuned to the American dream. Pick up the 5-CD Broadside box set, and the strum of the acoustic will haunt your dreams.…
Naked City
Capital Metro decides to send a quarter-cent of tax money back to Austin-area communities, where it will presumably be spent on roads now that light rail has failed. But the future of light rail, it seems, is still an open question.
TV Eye
The Michael Richards Show fizzles, Billy Crystal can’t host the Oscars, and other odds and ends from our harried television columnist.
Articulations
With a tool or two, Austinites can make a lasting contribution to Frontera Productions and the Rude Mechanicals.
Off the Bookshelf
Stars in My Eyes by Don Bachardy University of Wisconsin Press, 262 pp., $34.95 “Oh, how I quail and suffer in anticipation of these sittings with the famous,” portraitist Don Bachardy writes in his fascinating “pictorial diary,” Stars in My Eyes. The book features both the ink portraits of these stars (mostly from the Seventies…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
Diner Desserts by Tish Boyle Chronicle Books, 176 pp., $18.95 (paper) In her position as food editor of both Chocolatier and Pastry Art & Design magazines, Tish Boyle sees lots of very fancy desserts. For this book, however, Boyle calls on the diner memories of her New England childhood, faithfully reproducing the plainly delicious time-honored…
Food-o-File
Cuisines editor Virginia B. Wood samples marvelous mail-order food and relates more local donut news.
Standing Next to a Mountain
Examining the 3-CD Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble box set.
Record Reviews
Brain in a Box: The Science Fiction Collection (Rhino) What is the Brain in a Box? Well, on the outside it appears to be exactly that — an aquarium-like metal and cardboard box containing a more-or-less life-sized human brain. (Psst! It’s actually a hologram!) Inside is a 5-CD collection, each disc dedicated to movie themes,…
The Hightower Lowdown
Cows Go High Tech; Sweet Smell of Poison
Bootmen
Bootmen 2000, R, 93 min. Directed by Dein Taylor, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Richard Carter, Sam Worthington, Sophie Lee, Adam Garcia. “They’re not gay.” / “Pardon?” / “That’s what you’re thinkin’, innit? They’re poofs, nancy boys, gearboxes, bum-jumpers …” / “Who the hell are you talking about?” / “The blokes in the…
Exhibitionism
In the Zachary Scott Theatre Center production of The Santaland Diaries, actor Martin Burke takes the writings of David Sedaris and uses them to run the gamut from high hilarity to absolute panic to striking observation to calm elucidation. And the audience follows him everywhere he goes, laughing all the way.
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
Desserts: Mediterranean Flavors, California Styleby Cindy Mushet Scribner, 347 pp., $30 Former Bay Area pastry chef and cooking teacher Cindy Mushet calls Los Angeles home these days and her first major cookbook reflects the influence that Mediterranean flavors have on California cuisine of late. With similar climates, both areas offer a huge palette of flavors…
‘Twas Christmas in Austin
‘Twas Christmas in Austin and all through the city I wore this big red suit trimmed in white kitty. I had ceased to be jolly and run low on charm, Plus, the weather was nasty, clammy, and warm. The beard made my face itch, the hat made me sweat, The toys were heavy, and the…
Audio Snapshots
America’s premiere archival roots label celebrates the big 4-0.
Record Reviews
The Jimi Hendrix Experience(MCA) With his producer Eddie Kramer having said there’s enough unreleased Jimi Hendrix material in the vaults to put out one new album a year for the next 10-15 years — some 1,500 uncatalogued tapes — the 4-CD, purple-velvet-wrapped Jimi Hendrix Experience box set is just the tip of the iceberg. Actually,…
Just Looking
Just Looking 1999, R, 94 min. Directed by Jason Alexander, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Allie Spiro-Winn, Richard V. Licata, Ilana Levine, Amy Braverman, Patti Lupone, Gretchen Mol, Peter Onorati, Joseph Franquinha, Ryan Merriman. After having indelibly burned his public persona into that of the kvetchy George Costanza on Seinfeld, Jason Alexander turns…
Exhibitionism
The Lover, a Harold Pinter drama staged jointly by ONE Theatre Company and the dance troupe Footesteps, is a turn-on, a balance of music, sweet lines, and sensuality.
Page Two
Right now this column should be about how the Mueller zoning has to be in place before any deal with any developer or how, though it isn’t the outcome I was hoping for, I think the election machine worked just fine. But in the wake of the ice storm, I keep thinking of music and…
Three Quarters of a Baker’s Dozen
Artisan Baking Across America: The Breads, the Bakers, the Best Recipes by Maggie Glezer Artisan, 236 pp., $40 Trust the folks at Artisan to produce the most beautiful baking book of the year, an elegant coffeetable tome dedicated to the emergence of true artisan bread baking across this country. Atlanta food writer Maggie Glezer is…
The Treats of Laredo
“You need prescriptions?” the little man rasps over the morning bustle along Avenida Guerrero, the main tourist drag through town. This is the first question I’m asked after paying my 35 cents and crossing International Bridge No. 1 into Mexico, so naturally I’m wondering, “Do I look like I need prescriptions?” I’m also curious about…
How the Wolves Survived
That band from East L.A. keeps getting better
Record Reviews
Tito Puente The Complete RCA Recordings, Vol. 1 (BMG) God’s band got one helluva percussionist when Tito Puente joined the Big Stage on May 31 of this year, having graced the musical Earth for 77 years. Born in Spanish Harlem to Puerto Rican parents in 1923, Ernest Anthony “Tito” Puente Jr. dropped out of school…
True Hollywood Stories
Men who are women, and women who poison men, and loons who wave guns, and punks who urinate on housewives who happen to love it.
Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport
Documentary about the effort to place children of European Jews during WWII within safe homes in England.
Taking Pictures
This year, for whatever reasons, Dick Holland writes, we have been blessed with photography books of great beauty and intelligence. Several of the leading figures in the canon of 20th-century photography are represented in this season’s unusually rich outpouring, among them Eugéne Atget, Walker Evans, and Edward Steichen.
Public Notice
We’re gearing up for the holiday home stretch. Time to get those Wish Lists in and serve some good causes, all at the same time. Our list of public service opportunities still brims for you.
¡Vamos a Mexico!
Here’s the drill on getting into and out of Mexico without hassle: Your best bet is to park your car on the U.S. side and walk across the pedestrian bridge (Bridge No. 1) at the south end of Convent Street. If you drive across, use extreme caution, as auto insurance won’t do you any good…
Dancing About Architecture
Stevie Ray Vaughan box set hits stands and controversary
Record Reviews
Charlie ParkerThe Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings (Savoy) Charlie Parker was a real bastard. Even his closest friends acknowledged the fact. That such a disagreeable man was, and continues to be, held in such high esteem is testament to Bird’s blinding prowess. This 8-CD box encompasses not only the complete catalogs of the two…
True Hollywood Stories
The Making of 2001 posits itself as the most comprehensive collection of musings on Stanley Kubrick’s classic ever.
Postscripts
Comedy that stands the test of time, and royal dictates that don’t.
After a Fashion
Go shopping with our Style Avatar and you just might find yourself having a black Christmas, which, hopefully will not put you in the red!
Eating Between the Lines
Simple to Spectacular: How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication by Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Mark Bittman Broadway Books, 420 pp., $45 You could look at this book as a series of little cooking classes between the covers. Jean-Georges Vongerichten — chef-restaurateur of New York’s Jo Jo, Vong, Lipstick Cafe, Mercer Kitchen,…
Kiddie Spree
Local curmudgeon and Style Avatar Stephen Moser takes a gaggle of tykes on the shopping trail. O-mi-god.
Record Reviews
The Supremes(Motown) In 1964, there was no women’s movement. In 1964, the pill hadn’t set off a sexual revolution. In 1964, black women were a minority twice over. “The Supremes, in 1964, showed the world that Black was not only beautiful, but Black women were gorgeous and talented. We were ambitious … We were the…
Faith Healers
A look inside the Teen Challenge faith-based drug treatment in Fort Worth suggests that there are problems with Christian drug rehab programs.
True Hollywood Stories
The Catastrophe of Success is anything but a glowing memoir: The director of It’s a Wonderful Life is portrayed as wildly egotistical, as well as anti-union, anti-commie, and generally anti-fun.
