Cover Story
Life and Work, Light and Dark
How the legacy of Townes Van Zandt more than met its match in ‘some dumb New York girl’
Curling Up
Books for any season or occasion, so you might as well buy them for someone during the holidays
Holiday Wish Lists 2005
Give ’til it helps: part one
Box Sets
Just Say Sire: The Sire Records Story (Rhino) Sire was, at its best, Seymour Stein’s whims and hunches on Warner Bros.’ dime. However much the albums did or didn’t sell, only Stein’s splendid ears ever governed Sire’s sizable roster. Several acts didn’t even make Rhino’s 3-CD/1-DVD set, but these did: Ice-T, Lou Reed, Debbie Harry,…
Advocacy Groups Call Proposed EPA Rule Changes Dangerous
White House-backed changes would drastically alter the requirements for reporting releases of dangerous chemicals
DVD Watch
Criterion’s ‘Shoot the Piano Player’ and ‘Jules and Jim’
Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
Spotty comedy delivers on its promise of Total Silverman, but that turns out to be not such a good thing after all.
Curling Up
J.G. Ballard: ConversationsRE/Search, 360 pp., $19.99 (paper) J.G. Ballard: QuotesRE/Search, 416 pp. $19.99 (paper) Anyone possessing a twinge of nostalgia for the heady, innocently sex-positive cultural melange of the late 1980s and early Nineties (Foucault! Baudrillard! ACT UP! The Blonde Ambition Tour!) would do well to revisit the work of both British writer J.G. Ballard…
I’d Much Rather Be With the Girls
What a box set should be:’One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found’
Box Sets
More 2005 Box Sets Count Basie Johnny Cash Eagles The Complete Motown Singles Vols. 1-2 Children of Nuggets Charlie Poole Ramones Doug Sahm Whatever: The ’90’s Pop & Culture Box
Austin’s Energy Independence Challenge
A national contest to be the first city to generate 50% of its energy using renewable sources like wind, solar, and biomass is under way, and Austin wants to win
TV Eye
Apparently, I got it all wrong
Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt
Vivid yet impressionistic, this documentary tribute to the musician Townes Van Zandt brings the life and the music of this songwriter’s songwriter into focus.
Curling Up
Lucian Freud: 1996-2005Knopf, 180 pp., $75 Lucian Freud, considered by many to be the greatest realist painter alive today, once said that he left the painting of faces till last, because “the head must be just another limb.” Out of context, this oft-quoted line would support what some believe of Freud, whose nudes seem more…
Phases & Stages
The Rolling StonesAmerican Airlines Center, Dallas, Nov. 29 The Rolling StonesToyota Center, Houston, Dec. 1 Ian McLagan & the Bump BandContinental Club, Houston, Dec. 1 When your heroes become mortal, so too are you. As up close and personal as it was, the $425 seat at Dallas’ American Airlines Center – courtesy of the band…
Laney Won’t Run in ’06
Senior state Democratic rep promises to remain active in Austin’s public arena after leaving office next year
After a Fashion
Was your Style Avatar caught throwing down with Wilford Brimley(?!) in the grocery store parking lot? Or is it a case of mistaken identity?!
Curling Up
Best AltWeekly Writing and Design 2005edited by Ruth Hammond and La Shonya NcNeil Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, 254 pp., $19.95 (paper) The best writing is often characterized by the quality of its surprises – not O. Henry-type twists, necessarily, but an unexpected word choice here or there or an eye-opening turn in narrative direction. This…
Box Sets
Jelly Roll Morton The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax (Rounder) Around 1900, jazz became an independent form of music, growing from earlier styles including ragtime and marches. One of the genre’s most important early innovators was pianist, composer, arranger Jelly Roll Morton, whose career began as a teenaged pianist in the brothels…
Phases & Stages
MF DoomLa Zona Rosa, Dec. 5 “The best MC with no chain you ever heard,” MF Doom stupefied the healthy house at La Zona Rosa by brandishing a dizzying array of pure lyrical ability. With basic rhyme patterns delivered in a monotone, Doom’s witty wordplay keeps audiences shaking their collective heads in wonder. Just as…
Horses Stolen! Barn Door Confirmed Unlocked!
Long suppressed, Department of Justice memorandum recommended that the re-redistricting map forced upon the Legislature by Tom DeLay and his cronies should be rejected, because it did not sufficiently protect the rights of minority Texans
‘Puerto Rico Mi Patria’
Puerto Rican Folkloric Dance’s original ‘obra,’ ‘Puerto Rico Mi Patria,’ tells the story of how the islanders rose up to repel a British invasion in 1797
Curling Up
The Modern Drunkard: A Handbook for Drinking in the 21st Centuryby Frank Kelly Rich Riverhead, 205 pp., $14 (paper) Frank Kelly Rich isn’t interested in supplying readers with a few drink recipes or drinking games; he wants to restore the honor and respect that his heroes – the Rat Pack, Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, Winston…
Box Sets
Ray CharlesPure Genius: The Complete Atlantic Recordings, 1952-1959 (Rhino) Most box sets are assembled with the idea of gathering together a particular legacy. A few actually achieve said goal, like John Coltrane’s The Heavyweight Champion and The Complete Hank Williams, which combine music and packaging in a way that enhances the listening experience. Add Ray…
The Bloodthirsty Killers of Circle C
Victims take flight! … Officials shrug! … Stealthy predators stalk the suburban streets!
Point Austin: The Schroeder File
For APD and Austin, Knee’s decision was the right one
Heydays (Again)
Creative Research Laboratory is inviting anyone with an itch to draw, paint, or otherwise make a creative mark to join in a 12-hour effort to transform a blank room at Flatbed World Headquarters into something rich and strange
Curling Up
Access All Areasby Ninjalicious Infilpress, 242 pp., $20 (paper) Intended as a “how-to” manual for city hacking – the furtive art of infiltrating the metro underbelly – this triple-A directory of “urban exploration” has become a testament to the life of author Jeff Chapman, aka Ninjalicious, the late Torontoan behind Infiltration, “the zine about going…
Box Sets
Doo Wop: Vocal Group Greats(Shout! Factory) Considering the rabid pace of today’s information society, creating attention spans so short that romance becomes an untimely inconvenience, a nostalgic trip back to simpler times is a necessity. By flux capacitor or Shout! Factory retrospective, Fifties era doo wop wafts saccharine-speckled fumes across any thoughts of forgoing a…
If You Fence It, They Will Stay
Does your kitty love to roll in the dirt? When confined safely indoors, does she cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry? Various products exist to allow safe outdoor playtime where your cat will be content (or at least less audible). If you’ve got a sturdily fenced-in yard, Cat…
Point Austin: Beside the Point
As another protracted legal battle looms, council lends tentative rezoning approval to three tracts of land at 360 and 2222
Ubu Ubu Ubu
A troupe of homeschooled students enrolled in Zach’s Performing Arts School takes on the mad world of Alfred Jarry’s ‘Ubu,’ ‘pschittens’ and all, and makes it a nonsensical delight
Page Two
‘Be Here to Love Me’ captures the poetry and loss of the late great Townes Van Zandt
Box Sets
The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 3: 1963(Motown/Hip-O Select) The first thing to do after peeling the shrink wrap off the purple-coded third volume of Hip-O Select’s march through Motown: Play the vinyl 45 slipped into the cover. Martha & the Vandellas’ “Heat Wave” is the joy of human existence in 2:39. After that, there’s the…
The Battle of the Bonds – Take Your Turn
With two public input meetings left, it’s a good time to review the ups and downs, the winners and losers in the city’s bond package so far
The Hightower Report
You don’t have to be a gabillionaire to maximize your philanthropic impact; and White House’s favorite government contractor mistreating foreign workers in Iraq.
Arts Review
The 10th-anniversary revival production of playwright Kirk Lynn’s ‘Pale Idiot’ smartly unsnarls a taut knot of text and form
Letters at 3AM
On the 25th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, Micahel Ventura revisits the column he wrote at the time of Lennon’s murder when the pain was fresh
Box Sets
Billy JoelMy Lives (Legacy/Columbia) A box set of rarities and demos demands patience from even the most dedicated fan, and luckily, “Piano Man” Billy Joel has enough faithful followers anxious to scoop up material from the once-prolific hit-maker. Everyone else will have a hard time sifting for gems in the 4-CD/1-DVD My Lives, 70 assorted…
Silicon Labs to Move Downtown, Out of Watershed
Company’s decision to move was partly due to concerns about expanding in environmentally sensitive terrain
Arts Review
If you can appreciate a mammoth moonstruck monkey with a tinny growl, you might stretch your ears in the direction of the Violet Crown Radio Players’ King Kong
About AIDS
Keep the ho-ho days merry!
Box Sets
Donovan Try for the Sun: The Journey of Donovan (Sony BMG) In the liner notes for Donovan’s new velvet-encrusted box set, John Mellencamp notes that, at one time, the Scottish hippie-folk icon was regarded as equal to Dylan. There’s a reason that’s laughable today, and it’s not just because Dylan took the piss out of…
School Finance: Where We Are and How We Got Here
The Supreme Court’s ruling leaves a lot of blanks for the Lege to fill in
Texas Documentary Tour
‘Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea’
Arts Review
Andy St. Martin’s oil and acrylic works on birch panels have much to do with early modernism yet seem to find their place in a post-postmodern moment
To Your Health
Do I need a calcium supplement?
Box Sets
Yes The Word Is Live (Elektra/Rhino) There’s no question that punk was a reaction to the bloated rock of the Seventies, with Yes being perhaps the group most cited for the decade’s grandiose quagmire. Yet it’s equally true that Yes’ orchestrated rock was itself a reaction to the trouble-free pop of the Sixties, coupled with…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect.” – December 2003 staff memo of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, concluding that the proposed Texas re-redistricting plan (now in place) violated the Voting…
Asking for It
‘Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic’
Day Trips
Hot Damn, Tamales! in Fort Worth offers the tastiest gourmet tamales around, made with love by the Stavron family
Box Sets
The BandA Musical History (Capitol) Sizable, hardbound, with MOMA-quality visuals, novella-style liner notes, and high-gloss, Madison Avenue layout, A Musical History is a beloved volume of literature. Each successive cast of Capitol’s reissue net has expanded the Band’s pioneering blueprint for modern Americana, and following 2000’s estimable catalog upgrade and 2002’s The Last Waltz expansion,…
Schroeder Sues Knee and City
Austin Police Officer Julie Schroeder, who was terminated last month in connection with the June 9 fatal shooting of Daniel Rocha, seeks an injunction to keep Knee from interfering with her ability to investigate and build a case that could result in her reinstatement
Extra Special
The season’s finest in DVD
Aeon Flux
Its heart is in the right place, but Aeon Flux‘s head is just a little too high to make much sense.
The Common Law
What is deferred adjudication?
Box Sets
Tommy Dorsey The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing (Bluebird/Columbia Legacy) Although white bands were the most popular during the swing era, it’s now recognized that African-American bands like those of Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Jimmy Lunceford were the best in this genre. What’s happened since this opinion has been accepted is that white…
Sheriff’s Unions Back Eckhardt for Precinct 2 Commissioner
Both unions are at odds with current Commissioner Sonleitner
Extra Special
Beavis and Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection, Vol. 1MTV Home Entertainment, $39.98 “I’ve often said that there’s about a third of Beavis and Butt-head that I think is great and am really proud of, another third that is okay, and then another third that’s really, really awful and embarrassing,” writes Mike Judge, the creator of…
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Fusillade No. 1 in Disney’s presumed seven-film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ beloved children’s tales is marred by dodgy CGI work and windy pacing.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Students swearing at teachers, penguins coining credos – what’s next?
Box Sets
Billie HolidayThe Complete Verve Studio Master Takes (Verve) Reflexive dismissal of Billie Holiday’s final recordings is well and truly tested by The Complete Verve Studio Master Takes. Legacy’s 10-CD The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia (1933-1944) remains a singular human accomplishment, but as with another endnote, 2003’s Charlie Parker: The Complete Verve Master Takes, the…
AISD Students Fare Well in NAEP Results
Austin fourth- and eighth-graders out-performed the nation in math and peer urban districts in reading
Extra Special
Everything Else: Vol. 1HomestarRunner.com, $12 In 2002, brothers Mike and Matt Chapman quit their day jobs, all thanks to a leggy but armless white blob with an underbite and a propeller hat: Homestar Runner. He was the main character in the Chapmans’ Flash-animated shorts, giving rise in 2000 to HomestarRunner.com. When his foil, Strong Bad…
Syriana
One of the most uncompromising movies of the year, Syriana is like a living tableaux composed from all the stories that lurk just behind the news, the stories that put human faces on the demand for oil.
Giveable City
The treat of Austin eats
Soccer Watch
The University of Portland won the NCAA Women’s championship Sunday in College Station, with a 4-0 dismantling of a UCLA team that had only given up eight goals all season. Once again, Canadian national team star Christine Sinclair was the engine for the Pilots, scoring two and being named tournament MVP. This weekend it’s the…
Box Sets
Progressions: 100 Years of Jazz Guitar (Columbia/Legacy) This 4-CD box is loaded with name guitarists, as well as some who were or are merely popular. 100 Years of Jazz Guitar though? Not quite. The first track (1906) features banjoist Vess Ossman, but the next track wasn’t cut until 1921. That said, almost everything here has…
State May Have Executed Innocent Man
Newspaper investigation suggests that Ruben Cantu, who was executed in 1993 for a robbery and shooting murder in San Antonio, may have been innocent
Extra Special
RanCriterion, $39.95 Ran is a singular masterpiece, relative more to its visionary director Akira Kurosawa, perhaps, than the neophyte cinephile. A Shakespearean tragedy about a warlord who retires too soon, Ran’s staging is largely representative, Kurosawa’s continued use of traditional Noh theatrics still acting as a shorthand for realism. The film’s lush locations, the epic…
Juarez: Stages of Fear
This film is a passionate if clunky cri du coeur for the kidnapped and murdered women of Juarez, Mexico – a silent epidemic of as many as 450 crimes in the last 10 years.
TCB
Praying for Daniel Johnston, marveling at Townes Van Zandt, and wondering ‘what hath Snoop Dogg wrought’?
Liquid Assets
Texas wines with a little something extra
Box Sets
King Crimson The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson Volume Two: 1981-2003 (Discipline Global Mobile) “King Crimson is one of the few gigs in rock & roll where it’s even remotely possible to play in 17/16 [time] and stay in a decent hotel.” KC skin-beater Bill Bruford’s liner-note quote is all you need to know…
Kidnappings in Iraq Hit Home
Austinite Charlie Jackson was scheduled to be a part of the most recent Christian Peacemakers Team delegation but opted, at the behest of his family, against spending two consecutive Thanksgivings in Iraq
Extra Special
Project Runway: The Complete First SeasonMiramax, $39.99 Just as one generation had the Kennedy assassination forever seared in its memory, another may never forget exactly where it was when the chilling, Teutonically inflected words first fell upon its ears: “You ah either een or you ah out.” Seismic cultural impact aside, it’s possible you suspect…
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
This Chinese film presents an uncharacteristically romantic look at the Cultural Revolution.
2005 Politics Holiday Gift Guide
We’ve heard some of these ideas are even real
Food-o-File
The Capital Area Food Bank could use a hand; plus, ring in the season with events all over town
Box Sets
Talking Heads(Rhino) Packaged in a white plastic block with song titles cut into it, Talking Heads has earned the unofficial title of the “Brick.” While 2003’s multidisc Once in a Lifetime was a greatest hits/career retrospective, the Brick contains all eight of the band’s studio LPs on eight DualDiscs, and musically speaking, it’s an imposing…
Weed Watch: Denver Police Ignore Pot Possession Law
Although 54% of Denver, Colo., voters approved a measure last month legalizing possession of up to 1 oz. of marijuana by adults over 21, law enforcers continue on as though the law doesn’t exist
Extra Special
THE MUPPET MOVIE: Kermit’s 50th Anniversary edition Walt Disney Video, $19.99 THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER: Kermit’s 50th Anniversary EditionWDV, $19.99 MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND: Kermit’s 50th Anniversary Edition WDV, $19.99 THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL: Kermit’s 50th Anniversary Edition WDV, $19.99 It was many years after my first introduction to Jim Henson’s Muppets that I finally clued…
Ellie Parker
This Naomi Watts performance showcase has been slipping into theatres that are presently readying themselves for the onslaught of King Kong, starring Watts as the woman who would be Fay Wray.
Luv Doc Recommends: Trail of Lights 5K
Nobody likes a health nut. Nobody wants a sinewy, sportive, high-on-life, idiot-grinning endorphin junkie getting all up in their chili, talking about waking up at 5am so they can get in their hour and a half of high intensity cardio. On the conversational thrill meter the workout recap raps up somewhere between shop talk and…
