Cover Story
The LCRA Moves to Turn on the Tap
Future of Hill Country waits on Authority’s decisions on water plan
Purple Rain
Do you know what it sounds like when a dove cries?
Keoma
Keoma 1976, NR, 97 min. Directed by Enzo Castellari, Starring Franco Nero, Woody Strode. A late entry in the spaghetti Western cycle, Keoma stars Franco Nero as a mysterious man on a trail of revenge.
TCB
Armadillos to Addictions: a shopping guide for discerning Austinites
Rock & Roll Books
Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rockby John Harris Da Capo Press, 426 pp., $18.95 In 1997, in the UK, as went Oasis, so went the nation. Incoming Prime Minister Tony Blair, the giddily boyish face of New Labour, sailed into No. 10 Downing Street on a tidal wave of infectious British…
Will the Water Flow at Northridge?!?
Travis County finally finds a way to bring water to tiny Northridge Acres
In Memoriam: Robert Ellis Patterson
Robert Ellis Patterson, artist and owner of the Robert Ellis Patterson Gallery in South Austin, died Friday, Nov. 19
DVDs: Part One
From Ferrell in an elf suit to Bergman at the end, the best discs to gift this season
Rock & Roll Books
The Rose & The Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad edited by Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus W.W. Norton & Company, 320 pp., $26.95 “Ballad” is one of the least understood words in the English language. Over the course of several centuries its meaning has shifted from a way to preserve history…
Medi-Mari at Supreme Court
Patients challenge federal right to prohibit medical marijuana use under state law
Arts Review
In ‘Sabina’s Letters,’ Cuban artist Eduardo Mu& #241;oz Ordoqui offers images in which video correspondence is projected onto everyday objects from his U.S. environment
Soccer Watch
Fanless football in Italy, and potential American European champions
Rock & Roll Books
Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington by Nadine Cohodas Pantheon Books, 523 pp., $24.95 Dinah Washington had a way with songs. That bittersweet, clarion voice, grounded in gospel, was ideally suited for blues, R&B, pop, and even rock & roll. Her instinctive interpretive skills were a natural for jazz and allowed her to…
APD’s Crack Crackdown
Operation C’Ya Later hits the Downtown streets
Page Two
The touchy, touch Republicans have become the party of make-believe
Food-o-File
Tom Pederson’s Cocoa Puro is prevalent; plus, coming, goings, and more in this week’s roundup of Austin food news
Rock & Roll Books
Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of its Second Centuryby Gary Giddins Oxford University Press, 632 pp., $35 There are reasons for Gary Giddins, long the chief jazz critic for the Village Voice, being one of the most highly respected and well-known jazz critics in the country. He’s an articulate, sometimes witty writer, whose prose…
AISD Redesign: Grazing and Gazing
The school district holds the second in a series of forums on curriculum reform
After a Fashion
Stephen lays down the law – in his own style
Holiday Wish Lists 2004, Part 2
Please. So difficult to say. So easy to forget. So easy to think inappropriate. “Please.” It’s okay to ask. Sure, the philosophies that make it seem weak, pathetic, uncool to ask for that which is needed are in power right now, slowly dark-aging our collective psyche with suspicious disdain and self-doubt. But, baby, know this:…
Rock & Roll Books
Django: The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend by Michael Dregni Oxford University Press, 278 pp., $35 In the jazz guitar pantheon, Eddie Lang, Django Reinhardt, and Charlie Christian form an unchallenged triumvirate of early innovators and standard setters. For almost 70 years since he burst into international popularity, Reinhardt has remained a favorite…
The Sunny Side of the District
The ‘I am AISD’ report paints a rosy picture of Austin schools
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Resisting enemy interrogation, government- subsidized health care, and hula dancing
Rock & Roll Books
Rockpile Although the blockbuster Dylan biography dominates the season’s rock & roll books, there are dozens and dozens more of note, including another half-dozen titles here. The least notable is Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate, edited by Christopher J. Washburne and Maiken Derno (Routledge, 366 pp., $24.95, paper). This collection of essays…
Commissioners Court: A Flood of Planning
Travis County takes up the Onion Creek flood plan, and other regional matters
About AIDS
“Help! I engaged in high-risk sex last weekend, and now I’m really worried about HIV exposure. Is there anything I can do?” This is a fairly common question. The short answer is “Yes.” The longer answer is “Yes, but …” There is an HIV prevention technique called post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, for persons who believe…
Rock & Roll Books
Chronicles: Volume Oneby Bob Dylan Simon & Schuster, 293 pp., $24 Studio A: The Bob Dylan Readeredited by Benjamin Hedin Norton, 336 pp., $24.95 You’ll find Sam Shepard’s 1987 one-act “A Short Life of Trouble” near the middle of Studio A: The Bob Dylan Reader, which, of the 30 or so such collections published over…
Rock & Roll Books
Hip: The Historyby John Leland Ecco/HarperCollins, 405 pp., $26.95 Standing strategically at the crossroads of America’s multiracial divide, hip navigates floods of cultural mud as if dancing with style. Arriving in this “sweet land of liberty” by way of shackles and chains, the elusive concept of hip is traced by New York Times journalist John…
Allah Made Them Funny
Muslim comedy tour tickles the Austin faithful
To Your Health
Are vitamin E supplements harmful?
Rock & Roll Books
Scar Tissueby Anthony Kiedis, with Larry Sloman Hyperion, 465 pp., $24.95 Four hundred sixty-five pages in which the words “cocaine,” “heroin,” and “syringe” are shot through more than most prepositions. Chapter after lurid chapter of sex with Ione Sky (a picture even), possibly Sinéad O’Connor, and prerequisite punk rock sodomy in a stairwell. Broken backs,…
Sore Winners
The GOP seems determined to make representative government a game of ‘winner-take-all’
The Common Law
Do-not-resuscitate order
Rock & Roll Books
Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Outby Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield Da Capo Press, 568 pp., $18.95 (paper) If Bill Graham hadn’t actually existed, Hollywood would’ve had to invent him. The man most responsible for turning concert promotion into a multimillion-dollar industry, he towered over his profession – which he stumbled into…
We Had a Little Plan …
The decision of the Hamilton Pool Road waterline waits – or doesn’t – on the outcome of three regional planning efforts
Austin @ Large: The Job Description
Why sane people don’t run for City Council
Day Trips
The Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo might be the most famous steak house in the world, or at least in Texas
Rock & Roll Books
Fell in Love With a Band: The Story of the White Stripesby Chris Handyside St. Martin’s Griffin, 226 pp., $12.95 (paper) Remember Dan Rather’s weird, funny metaphors on election night? Imagine trying to read an entire book composed of such witticisms, but not nearly as quaint as “hotter than a Times Square Rolex” or “walking…
LCRA’s $10,000 ‘Stepchildren’
Eager to open the tap for new development, the LCRA wants a premium from the folks who already live out West
On the Lege
Banning birth control; reforming Texas justice
All About the Others
The Austin Film Society’s Besides Almodovar: Other Spanish Directors
Rock & Roll Books
Elliott Smith and the Big Nothingby Benjamin Nugent Da Capo Press, 218 pp., $23.95 “This is the story of an artist who just wanted to do what he did and stay alive, and there’s nothing simple about that,” begins music writer Benjamin Nugent in his ode to fallen songwriter Elliott Smith. But this is not…
Westward Re-Ho?
Here’s a thumbnail update on the developments-in- progress in Western Travis Co.
The Hightower Report
All-American Spam adopts an English accent; and big airlines stiff their workers
In Print
‘Made You Laugh: The Funniest Moments in Radio, Television, Stand-Up, and Movie Comedy’
Rock & Roll Books
Art of Modern Rock: The Poster Explosionby Paul Grushkin and Dennis King Chronicle Books, 492 pp., $60 Line one, chapter one: “Fueled by a curious mix of psychedelic and punk rock, the roots of the silkscreen movement were laid down in Austin, Texas, in the Eighties.” Ground zero was River City studio space shared by…
The Depot Comes to the District Hat in Hand
Austin ISD considers a tax giveaway to mendicant Home Depot, and the question is, who pays?
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
Kirby Warnock’s ‘Border Bandits’ raids the Alamo with the ugly truth of 1915 Texas.
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
Rock & Roll Books
The King & I: The Uncensored Tale of Luciano Pavarotti’s Rise to Fame by His Manager, Friend, and Sometime Adversaryby Herbert Breslin and Anne Midgette Doubleday, 308 pp., $25.95 “Whore.” “Pimp.” “People creamed in their pants.” Folks skimming pages of The King & I might think they’re reading about Lenny Bruce instead of Luciano Pavarotti.…
The ‘Observer’ Celebrates 50
‘The Texas Observer’ marks its 50th Anniversary with a symposium on politics and media
Communing in the Air
With ‘Lounge!,’ Arthouse transforms itself into a space that swings
At Your Service
The holidays outside the box: unique gift ideas for your favorite culinarians
Rock & Roll Books
The Wilco Bookedited by Dan Nadel and Peter Buchanan-Smith PictureBox Inc., 160 pp., $29.95 You won’t find a Henry Miller essay in Avril Lavigne’s book. Part scrapbook, pseudo-album, and graphic designer’s wet dream, The Wilco Book is three parts indie pretension. Photographs of the band, writings by Tweedy et al., essays by Miller and Rick…
Bicycle Nomads and the Winds of Change
Backers say winter migration to Mexico creates ‘a whole new way of life’
‘Lounge!’ Action
With “Lounge!,” the space is just the beginning of the conversation about the community’s interaction with art and architecture. The curators have provided a sampling of books on art and architecture for visitors to sit and read, and they’ve provided iPods on site for listening to audio art by Weightless Animals (Mandy McIntosh, Kaffe Matthews,…
WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception
“News dissector” Danny Schechter examines the media’s complicity in promoting the war on terrorism.
Big Books: Part One
From Zora Neale Hurston to the National Football League
Rock & Roll Books
Metallica: This Monster Livesby Joe Berlinger, with Greg Milner St. Martin’s Press, 310 pp., $24.95 Title aside, Metallica: This Monster Lives never misleads the reader into thinking it’s all about music. In fact, as readers learn, music was banned from author/ filmmaker Joe Berlinger’s childhood home. Meaning, readers looking for insight into Metallica will be…
State Energy Plan: Dependent and Dirty
The Texas Energy Policy Council goes backward into the energy future
Gimme Them Biscuits
Austin theatre’s barnyard brothers are ready to take over TV – and the world
Closer
Love’s fractured fairy tale, writ small and petty and almost too real to bear without flinching.
Basket Weaving
Give the gift of Austin flavors for the holidays!
Rock & Roll Books
Zappa: A Biographyby Barry Miles Grove Press, 320 pp., $25 With little in the way of original interviews or illuminating research, the best thing about Barry Miles’ biography of Frank Zappa is that it’s a mildly compelling literature review. Even casual fans will scoff at the notion of this being the definitive word on Zappa’s…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
The Three Scrooges
Three different stage versions of ‘A Christmas Carol’ are playing this season, and one of them is sure to please the discriminating Dickens-lover in your household
Luv Doc Recommends: Project Transitions’ Holiday Swing
Like it or not, the holiday season officially began at around 6am the day after Thanksgiving – that being the wee hour when all the Wal-Marts, Targets, Kmarts, and whatnots decided to open their doors on the largest shopping day of the year. No doubt countless caffeine-cranked rubes were there even earlier: oily noses smudged…
