Cover Story
Otaku* Overload!!!
After Monster Island Studios sank, Austin’s acting community and Houston animé giant A.D. Vision unleashed talent bent on vengeance and redemption (*otaku = animé geek)
Venom
Venom 2005, R, 85 min. Directed by Jim Gillespie, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Agnes Bruckner, Jonathan Jackson, Laura Ramsey, D.J. Cotrona, Rick Cramer, Meagan Good, Bijou Philips, Method Man. It’s all too fitting that this maddeningly indecisive horror potboiler should slink into theatres in the midst of both the film industry’s traditional…
The Passenger
The Passenger 1975, PG-13, 123 min. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian Hendry, Steven Berkoff. Re-released here in 2005 in its European cut, which is a few minutes longer than the original American release, The Passenger remains a great work of cinema. The…
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea 2004, NR, 73 min. Directed by Chris Metzler, Jeff Springer, Narrated by John Waters. Documentary about the hardy, eccentric residents who live in the Salton Sea area of southeastern California, who are a reflection of their environment. The Imperial Valley’s Salton Sea was created by California’s turn-of-the-century engineering…
Audible Picture Show
Audible Picture Show A unique cinema experience, the Audible Picture Show presents audio-only “films” that have been specially composed for this experience. Presented in complete darkness (all Alamo food service will conclude before the show starts), the Edinburgh-produced show draws on a library of 55 works including some by the animators Brothers Quay, Berlin artist/musician…
Page Two
Requiem for decency
Cookbooks
Chocolate Obsession: Confections and Treats to Create and Savorby Michael Recchiuti and Fran Gage Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 199 pp., $35 Fine chocolates are all the rage these days: the more unique and esoteric in origin, the better. In Chocolate Obsession, renowned San Francisco confectioners Michael Recchiuti and Fran Gage team up to produce a…
Rock & Roll Books
Electric Ladyland: Women and Rock Cultureby Lisa L. Rhodes University of Pennsylvania Press, 310 pp., $24.95 (paper) Q: “What’s your ideal groupie?” A: “Someone who writes for a national paper.” That telling exchange, posed by journalist Richard Goldstein to the Who’s Keith Moon, explains as much as anything in this exhaustively researched and probing book…
Weed Watch
Previously losing at Supreme Court on narrow ruling, Raich now argues medical necessity
After a Fashion
There’s trouble in Nick & Jessica’s paradise, and who are the Butthole Sniffers?!
Cookbooks
Boulevardby Nancy Oakes and Pamela Mazzola, with Lisa Weiss Ten Speed Press, 265 pp., $50 For those who don’t know, Boulevard has been one of the highest-rated restaurants in America’s top food city, San Francisco, since it opened in 1993. After being hounded by friends and colleagues for years to write a cookbook, the duo…
Rock & Roll Books
The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics Annotations by David Dodd Free Press, 480 pp., $35 An integral part of the Grateful Dead legacy is their treasure trove of remarkably compelling songs, many grounded in American folk tradition but also reflective of the expanded consciousness and spirituality of their times. Robert Hunter was the band’s principal…
Point Austin: Hecht v. Dietz
Supremes find high taxes onerous, but lousy schools OK
About AIDS
Recovery from HIV: news or rumor?
Food-o-File
The Domaine Dupeuble Pere et Fils 2005 is the one; plus, taking measure of the Mercury’s rising
Rock & Roll Books
The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Bluesedited by Howard Mandell Billboard Books, 352 pp., $45 Here’s yet another oversized coffeetable music book billed as an encyclopedia. This one should actually be useful to beginners. It’s divided into chapters by decade, in which the story of blues and jazz is told chronologically. A myriad of…
Point Austin: Beside the Point
City capitulates to development plans on the Bull Creek watershed
To Your Health
How do I find out if I have ‘leaky gut syndrome,’ and how is it treated?
Realms of Inspiration
Erik Hokkanen, Finnish and fiddling in Austin
Rock & Roll Books
Swag 2: Rock Posters of the ’90s and Beyondby Spencer Drate & Judith Salavetz Harry N. Abrams, 160 pp., $29.95 (paper) At 160 pages, Swag 2: Rock Posters of the ’90s and Beyond flips through like an exhibition catalog rather than a serious overview of the rock poster’s second most prolific decade. Stacked atop 2003’s…
The Hightower Report
Bush tries branding his critics as unpatriotic, wailing that it is ‘deeply irresponsible’ to question his motives
The Common Law
Unsolicited items in the mail – what happens if the item is for someone else?
Erik Hokkanen Reviewed
Erik and the She-Wolves Melodrama Sweetheart Erik Hokkanen & the Hip Replacements Alive in Austin In a town brimming with able noisemakers, a select group of musicians’ musicians possesses razor-sharp ears and multistyle skills that send others back to the woodshed, like Austinite Erik Hokkanen, a composer and singer who’s equally fire-fingered on fiddle, mandolin,…
Rock & Roll Books
I Hope You Are All Happy NowPhotographs by Nicholas Zinner Evil Twin Publications, 211 pp., $19.95 (paper) Rock & roll photography has always hinged on random moments: Paul Simonon smashing his bass on the cover of London Calling or a shirtless Syd Barrett in the middle of an acid trip. Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick…
Day Trips
Robert Cave’s Albert Icehouse in Albert, Texas, is a great place to stop between Austin and Luckenbach for a cool beverage and live music on Saturdays
Five From the Erik Hokkanen Collection
Erik & the Offbeats, Blue Corn (1989): “Blue Corn was like, ‘I’m an instrumentalist, I’m going to make an all instrumental album.’ The material was coming forth, so I had to develop it, nurture the fresh tunes into our repertoire, age them a little with familiarity, but keep them of the moment. I was like…
What Killed Michael Clark?
The official Travis Co. autopsy doesn’t tell the whole story
For the Imperial Flower Combat Trooper on Your List: Austin-Accented Animé on DVD
There are more animé DVDs out now featuring Austin actors than ever before – enough to ground even Samurai Santa’s Gaijin-class Dreadnaught Sleighcruiser. Here’s a list of our Top 5 portals to animé greatness, each featuring some of Austin’s most notorious actors. All DVDs are available at www.advfilms.com or local DVD outlets. In case you’re…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
His facts will getcha every time
Rock & Roll Books
The Beatles: The Biographyby Bob Spitz Little Brown, 983 pp., $29.95 With the Beatlesby Lewis Lapham Melville House, 147 pp., $12.95 (paper) The Beatles: 365 Daysby Simon Wells Harry N. Abrams, 744 pp., $29.95 Although superfans have made sport of finding mostly minor factual errors in its 900-plus pages, Bob Spitz’s marathon Beatles bio is…
Trouble at the ME’s Office
The Travis Co. Medical Examiner’s Office has had its share of high-profile troubles over the years, prompting the Commissioners Court in October to order an outside audit of the office’s operations. Here are just a few of the more recent low-lights: • In December 2003, the office released the wrong body for cremation. Instead of…
‘SXSW Presents’: ‘Prizewhores’
‘Prizewhores’
Soccer Watch
Women’s college and Champions League heat up
Rock & Roll Books
Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardropsby Tony Douglas Routledge, 272 pp., $19.95 (paper) First with Tony Douglas’ pulpy Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops, and more recently in Peter Guralnick’s epic Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, comes the template for the Boogie Nights of music biopics: The Sam & Jackie Story. Acknowledging Ray Charles’ pioneering path out…
Daniel Rocha’s Last Night: Reconstruction, Recommendations, Reprimands
Chief Knee and APD investigators differ over whether Schroeder’s shot was justified
Film News
Word from the Independent Spirit Awards and Sundance fronts; plus, ‘No Pain, No Gain,’ Bobby Cannavale, and ‘Light From the East’
Oops!
Last week’s article on the Reagan High School Film Festival claimed that the film Haunted starred Austin City Council Member Raul Alvarez. It actually stars Reagan student Roel Alvarez, who is not a council member.
Rock & Roll Books
Tommy Dorsey: His Life and Times by Peter Levinson Da Capo, 321 pp., $27.50 From the mid-Thirties through the mid-Forties trombonist Tommy Dorsey led one of the most popular American swing bands. Frank Sinatra became a national idol by performing with Dorsey’s outfit, and when the swing era ended and rock & roll was taking…
Thomas Declares for Mayor
Pro Tem calls for more inclusion and openness
DVD Watch
The ‘Knowing Me Knowing You’ two-disc set comprises all six episodes of the show, one of the most hilarious satirical comedies in recent memory. and is loaded with special features
TCB
Books, video games, movie stars: TCB investigates this ‘multimedia’ business
Cookbooks
Holiday gift guide
Rock & Roll Books
Spreadin’ Rhythm Around: Black Popular Songwriters, 1880-1930by David A. Jasen and Gene Jones Routledge, 437 pp., $24.95 Tracing fine lines through a history plagued by bold acts of repression, Spreadin’ Rhythm Around: Black Popular Songwriters, 1880-1930 highlights the obscured successes of African-American music between Reconstruction and the Depression. Shackled by the stringent expectations of a…
Clean Water, Clean Government Campaign Kicks Off
SOS Alliance wants more open and more proactive government on aquifer issues
TV Eye
One person’s idea of empowerment is another’s idea of sexual looseness. So, who decides what’s what?
Larkin’s Journey
New York choreographer Regina Larkin keeps coming back to Ballet East
Cookbooks
Holiday Baking: New and Traditional Recipes for Wintertime Holidaysby Sara Perry Chronicle Books, 168 pp., $18.95 Sara Perry knows that people who don’t bake during the other 10 months of the year are likely to bake during the holiday season, and she has put together an inviting and accessible collection of recipes to inspire them.…
Rock & Roll Books
Led Zeppelin: The Story of a Band and Their Music 1968-1980by Keith Shadwick Backbeat Books, 320 pp., $29.95 (paper) Mud sharks and all, Led Zeppelin bestrode the Seventies like a rock & roll re-creation of the ancient myths: two fair-haired boys, a whale of a drummer, and a skinny guitar wizard, goaded by the fates…
‘Real World’ Rap Sheet
MTV louts both raised and caught hell on the mean streets of Austin
King Kong: You’re on the Air, Ya Big Ape!
As ‘King Kong’ storms into cinemas across the globe, the Violet Crown Radio Players are bringing the simian sovereign to life onstage in a ‘lost’ radio adaptation of the 1933 film
Cookbooks
Hidden Kitchens: Stories, Recipes, and More from NPR’s The Kitchen Sisters by Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson Rodale Books, 320 pp., $27.50 I have long been fascinated by food traditions and rituals, as well as by food writing that goes well beyond the plate. While getting my anthropology degree at UT, I used my studies…
Rock & Roll Books
Billy F Gibbons: Rock + Roll Gearheadby Billy F Gibbons with Tom Vickers, photography by David Perry MBI Publishing, 192 pp., $29.95 The first book about and by ZZ Top’s Billy F Gibbons, the most enigmatic Lone Star cat to strap six-strings over his shoulder, is also the first high-concept book in which a rock…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
In the Mix
Consider this brick No. 1 in the fall of the house of Usher.
‘Pale Idiot’: Return to the Rudeness That Started It All
As a celebration of 10 years of rudeness, the Rude Mechanicals are reviving the show that started it all, Kirk Lynn’s absurdist comedy ‘Pale Idiot’
Cookbooks
The Arab Table: Recipes & Culinary Traditions by May S. Bsisu Morrow, 369 pp., $34.95 Cookbooks dealing with a broad range of Arabian cuisine from Middle Eastern countries that are available in the English language are rare. The Arab Table is not only one of the few, but one of the best. Author May Bsisu…
Rock & Roll Books
Steve Earle: Fearless Heart, Outlaw Poet by David McGee Backbeat, 330 pp., $17.95 (paper) 2004’s Hardcore Troubadour by Lauren St. John remains the definitive biography of Steve Earle, making the need for this document questionable. Nevertheless, Fearless Heart distinguishes itself by being less a detailed look at the Texan troubadour’s life and more a behind-the-scenes…
Big Bucks for High School Redesign
Gates Foundation offers money and experience to AISD
First Descent
This vertiginous documentary about snowboarding talks with the sport’s greats and shows them in action, rocketing down crag-encrusted, virgin slopes like buckshot fired from God’s own 20-gauge.
‘Two Donuts’: An Old-Fashioned Treat
‘Two Donuts,’ a play by José Cruz González, was presented to the Widen Elementary School student body by the UT Department of Theatre and Dance as part of its Fall 2005 Youth Theatre Tour
Cookbooks
Fresh Every Day: More Great Recipes from Foster’s Marketby Sara Foster with Carolynn Carreño Clarkson/Potter, 288 pp., $35 My brain practically explodes every time I see commercials on television advertising gastric aids for children. C’mon: They’re children; they’ve just been issued brand-new bodies. The only thing wrong with their digestion systems is that they are…
Rock & Roll Books
Conversations With Tom Pettyby Paul Zollo Omnibus Press, 376 pp., $24.95 Classically catchy, immediately eternal, and uniquely American, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers have conquered radios internationally with perfect rock & roll that cuts to the chase and resonates with every listen. There’s something about Petty’s warbly voice and Mike Campbell’s masterful guitar that pulled…
AG on Sony Spyware: ‘Cloak-and-Dagger Deceit’
CDs contained program designed to limit unlimited copying, but Abbott alleges danger of identity theft
Christmas in the Clouds
This Native American romantic comedy, which won the Audience Award at the 2001 Austin Film Festival, arrives in theatres four years late but seasonally right on time.
Arts Review
An infusion of Lee Eddy into ‘The Santaland Diaries’ makes Zach’s holiday classic even more delightful
Cookbooks
Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn W.W. Norton, 416 pp., $35 We all know that everything is better homemade, but few today have the gumption to tackle making their own charcuterie (using salt and smoke, time and temperature, to cure and preserve meats and other foods). One…
Rock & Roll Books
All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music by Michael Corcoran University of Texas Press, 176 pp., $19.95 (paper) “Researching a story about long-dead bluesmen is fueled by random payoffs, much like slot machines and singles bars.” That’s a line from Austin music scribe Michael Corcoran’s new collection on Texas music, All Over the…
Bike Spill Leaves Former Mayor Todd in Stable Condition
He survived battles with Daryl Slusher … surely he can get through this
Garçon Stupide
Love and sensation: It’s all the same thing to a young gay Swiss man who leads a dangerous life.
Arts Review
A full array of masks populate the photographs of Rosanne Olson and paintings of Ray Donley, making ‘The Fourth Season’ an exhibition full of metaphor for both disguise and liberation
Cookbooks
Cocktails: Shaken and Stirredby Douglas Ankrah Kyle Cathie, 160 pp., $21.95 While you and I might think of a cocktail as a fun mixed drink to start a night of merriment, Douglas Ankrah has taken the concept a step further. For him, it is “creativity, skill and flair in a glass.” If that makes you…
Rock & Roll Books
Conjunto Photographs by John Dyer, with essays by Joe Nick Patoski and Juan Tejeda University of Texas Press, 121 pp., $19.95 Don’t let the stylishly somber cover fool you. Inside John Dyer’s lithe book are vibrant, living portraits of some of the greatest conjunto and Tejano music legends captured in their element – on stage,…
Alcoa, von Gonten Family Reach Settlement in Legal Fight
Critics charge suit was meant to intimidate citizens
All That I Need
Movies this bad don’t often get released anymore, a circumstance that instantly raises the curiosity factor of All That I Need.
Luv Doc Recommends: X-Mas Unwrapped! A Holiday Burlesque
You know what Christmas doesn’t have enough of? Nudity. Cold weather notwithstanding, Christmas just isn’t a very skin-centric holiday. Oddly, even Jesus isn’t wearing his birthday suit in most nativity scenes. He’s all swaddled up like a mummy. Can’t have the baby Jesus spazzing out and doing the Macarena or thrashing around trying to latch…
