Off the Bookshelf
Nightmare Town Stories by Dashiell Hammett Knopf, 432 pp., $25 It’s the language, stupid. Nightmare Town collects 20 long-unavailable short stories from Dashiell Hammett, an icon of 20th-century literature whose influence will continue to be felt well into the 21st. With a handful of novels and a few dozen short stories, Hammett invented a totally…
Mighty Real
At the heart of Scott Fuller’s murder lie questions of identity. An effeminate young man, he was constantly harassed at school (including having been stuffed into a locker), causing him to leave at age 16. Fuller left his family at 17, feeling that his emergent lifestyle didn’t fit in at home. After finding himself on…
Sugarland Express
Laying down the law on Mayberry’s favorite twang-rockers
Record Reviews
Don WalserThe Texas Plainsmen With Yodeling Donnie Walser (Walser Archive Recordings) If you hung out at a VFW or Legion Hall in such West Texas hotspots as Monahans, Lamesa, Big Spring, or Midland in 1964, you may have run into the Texas Plainsmen, with thirtyish Donnie Walser strumming that jumbo Gibson acoustic and yodeling his…
Video Reviews
I’LL CRY TOMORROW D: Daniel Mann (1955); with Susan Hayward, Richard Conte, Eddie Albert, Jo Van Fleet, Don Taylor, Ray Danton. The magnificent Hayward again demonstrates her prowess in portraying alcoholics, this time in the true-life story of chanteuse and general party-girl, Lillian Roth. We begin with Lillian as a little girl, being trotted to…
Second Helpings: American Cafes
Greg Beets profiles Austin’s American cafes .
Off the Bookshelf
My Goodness A Cynic’s Short-Lived Search for Sainthood by Joe Queenan Hyperion, 208 pp., $21.95 Satirist Joe Queenan atones in his latest book for a lifetime of vicious attacks against pop-culture pretense. The results are predictable but amusing as the author backhands the self-congratulatory (Sting, Bono, Susan Sarandon, and Alec Baldwin), and pokes giant holes…
Mighty Real
Finding Identity Jonathan, a young gay man, tries the transformation to female for the first time.
The Hollisters Reviewed
The HollistersSweet Inspiration (HighTone) It’s a crime that petroleum, rocketry, and recently, horrifically low-budget furniture commercials on Conan O’Brien dominate people’s perceptions of Houston, because like Austin, it’s always been a music town. Stir in all those transplanted Cajuns tossing shrimp nets in Galveston Bay, and for the legion of Bubbas fitting valves in Deer…
House Hunting
Underdog Stella Roland challenges incumbent Dawnna Dukes to represent East Austin in the Texas House of Representatives.
Video Reviews
Over the Edge D: Jonathan Kaplan (1979); with Michael Kramer, Matt Dillon, Vincent Spano. People are always puzzled when teenagers go nuts in the suburbs. Just ask anybody in the antiseptic, wealthy community of Plano, Texas, where an astonishing number of kids have succumbed to heroin overdoses. With that in mind, a film like Over…
Making History Personal
History is more than a bound collection of facts; it is something personal, something intimate, something that, even in contradiction, demands to be shared. Robi Polgar gleans that immediate sense of history from two plays currently running in Austin theatres: E Pluribus Unum: Barbara Jordan — One Voice and The America Play.
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Mighty Real
Drag Looking female is a complicated matter. For Goldie it means taping up some cleavage, and taping down the bulges further south —
Dancing About Architecture
Our resident Marshmallow Peep relates the news and hearsay in and around the Live Music Capital…
Two Roads to Justice
Republican Shane Phelps takes another stab at Democrat Ronnie Earle’s job for district attorney.
TV Eye
Hoping to cash in on the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire craze, networks are developing game shows with increasingly ridiculous premises.
Articulations
Changes in artistic direction for two local companies.
Page Two
Welcome to SXSW season.
Mighty Real
Transsexual — while Kelly gets ready in a more traditional way, putting on her bra.
Record Reviews
D’AngeloVoodoo (Virgin) Single white male seeks female, age/race unimportant, for a candle-lit navigation of the erotic avenues and swampy byways of D’Angelo’s Voodoo, possibly to be repeated many, many, many times. Must be willing to bump and grind, let your backbone slip, and pour this premium bottle of liquid sex all over that deliciously fine…
Naked City
Danny Thomas gets the Austin Police Association PAC endorsement; city signs contract with CSC; Bill Gates appears via satellite at the Austin Convention Center; election workers needed for the March 14 primary
Snow Day
Snow Day 2000, PG, 90 min. Directed by Chris Koch, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Chevy Chase, Jean Smart, Mark Webber, Schuyler Fisk, Zena Grey, Emmanuelle Chriqui. Having declared its humble aspirations right up front by top-billing Chevy Chase, Snow Day delivers just enough unexpected charm and invention to earn that peculiar quality…
Exhibitionism
Skipper Chong Warson reviews the VORTEX Repertory Company’s ritual theatre piece Dark Goddess.
Public Notice
This week, your pals at Public Notice hit the drag shows, the lanes, the halls, and the alleys, all while making room for next week’s chocolate binge : all for a good cause, o’course.
Mighty Real
Identity Kelly Kline, shown here, was Fuller’s “drag mother” (see “Mother Figures”). Kelly, who is transsexual (her sexual identity is straight and her gender identity female) performed her first show on a dare. She found in women’s clothes something that spoke to her deepest self, her gender identity. She is no longer male. She is…
Record Reviews
Sekou Sundiata Longstoryshort (Righteous Babe) Though it has several contemporary aliases — word jazz, spoken word, etc. — poetry has been around literally forever. Regardless of the tag used, this literary genre is currently enjoying a resurgence, both in performance and with record labels. It should then come as no surprise that one of Ani…
Naked City
The latest Texas Performance Review says AISD schools are operating under capacity, but AISD says their methodology masks school crowding.
The Whole Nine Yards
The Whole Nine Yards 2000, R, 99 min. Directed by Jonathan Lynn, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Matthew Perry, Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak, Amanda Peet, Natasha Henstridge, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rosanna Arquette. The Whole Nine Yards proves what they say is true: Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile. No matter…
Exhibitionism
Ada Calhoun critiques Ballet Austin’s An Evening With Stephen Mills
Letters at 3AM
Death is not a separation, but a living presence.
Mighty Real
Bodies Transsexual body is a taboo subject for those of us in the mainstream. “What does it really look like?” is our secret question. In the shows, the transsexual body is no longer secret. It is a point of pride and an image of beauty for those who participate in and/or come to the shows.
Record Reviews
Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Poets Read Their Work (Rhino WordBeat) This 2-CD collection of black poets from the 20th century (almost all of them American) takes the listener on a journey through the evolution of the black literary tradition while emphasizing the common threads linking past to present. Langston Hughes’…
Naked City
Austin Energy debates plans, initiated in the last budget cycle, to start burying above-ground power lines.
Boiler Room
Boiler Room 2000, R, 117 min. Directed by Ben Younger, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ben Affleck, Bill Sage, Taylor Nichols, Jamie Kennedy, Ron Rifkin, Scott Caan, Nicky Katt, Nia Long, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi. “People that tell you that money is the root of all evil don’t have any,” says the Boiler…
Exhibitionism
Ada Calhoun critiques the Fabulous and Ridiculous Theatre’s production of All in the Timing
After a Fashion
Local roboticist Brooks Coleman walks the line between art and fashion with his line of sheet metal lingere.
Mighty Real
Sex Jazmine Goode (here and above) was one of Lauryn Fuller’s closest friends. They performed in shows and walked the streets together. Here, Jazmine picks up tonight’s “boyfriend” in hopes he’ll provide a place to party and sleep for the night. Social workers call this “survival sex.”
Record Reviews
Dr. JohnDuke Elegant (Blue Note) What happens when you take the timeless and indefatigable canon of arguably the greatest composer of 20th-century American popular music and run it through the “fonkification” process of one of today’s most inimitable stylists? You come up with this engaging set that has been aptly subtitled “The Doc Meets the…
Naked City
Round Rock residents decry the western alignment proposed for SH130 and plead the case for an eastern alignment before the Texas Turnpike Authority.
The Emperor and the Assassin
The Emperor and the Assassin 1998, R, 161 min. Directed by Chen Kaige, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Chen Kaige, Wang Zhiwen, Lu Xiaohe, Sun Zhou, Li Xuejian, Zhang Fengyi, Gong Li. Remember a few years back when they dug up all those fiercely mysterious terra cotta warriors standing guard in front of…
Mr. Smarty Pants
Lung disease, french fries, and sticks of fire.
Mighty Real
Hormones Part of the illicit trade at the bars is in illegal female hormones, which transsexuals inject in order to develop female secondary characteristics, i.e., breasts, soft skin, and reduced facial hair. The hormones come primarily from Mexico and are a serious danger for those who use them, since they are designed as boosters for…
Record Reviews
McCoy Tyner with Stanley Clarke and Al Foster(Telarc) Partly because of the presence of acoustic and electric bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Al Foster, this is among the best recordings McCoy Tyner’s done in years. Since 1970, his playing has been repetitive and heavy-handed on many albums. He’s still a little repetitive here — it’s…
Naked City
For many reasons, George W. Bush shouldn’t win this week’s primary in South Carolina. But he will, because McCain lacks the resources and party backing to keep his campaign going.
Pitch Black
Pitch Black 2000, R, 107 min. Directed by David Twohy, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Firass Dirani, Sam Sari, Simon Burke, Rhiana Moore, Claudia Black, Lewis Fitz-Gerald, Keith David, Cole Hauser, Radha Mitchell, Vin Diesel. It’s sci-fi season once again, what with this opening volley from Twohy (The Arrival) and a deuce of…
Book Reviews
Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort by Roger Martin du Gard, translated by Luc Brébion and Timothy Crouse Knopf, 784 pp., $35 Even ardent Francophiles might blink at the name Roger Martin du Gard. Besides the fact that he won a Nobel Prize in Literature in the Thirties (qualifying him, alongside such other luminaries of the decade as…
Coach’s Corner
It’s Valentine’s Day, and Mavericks fans are in love with Dennis Rodman. But it’ll pass.
Mighty Real
Mother Figures Kids like Scott don’t necessarily have to go it alone. There is in the drag/transgender community a tradition of “drag mothers,” older performers who take young, inexperienced wannabes and help them learn the ropes. Both Kelly and Goldie serve in this role.
Record Reviews
Caravana CubanaLate Night Sessions (Rhino) The one-of-a-kind, all-star musical gathering for respected public radio broadcaster Emilio Vandenenes’ memorial service spawned the Caravana Cubana sessions, which quickly attracted not only L.A.-based Cuban expats, but many visiting natives. The back story here, of course, is the million-plus selling Buena Vista Social Club CD, and the “what about…
Naked City
Most Texas representatives fare poorly on the League of Conservation Voters’ annual national environmental scorecard.
The Tigger Movie
The Tigger Movie 2000, G, 76 min. Directed by Jun Falkenstein, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Tom Attenborough, Kath Soucie, Andre Stojka, Peter Cullen, John Fiedler, Ken Sansom, Nikita Hopkins, Jim Cummings. Bats in the Hundred-Acre Wood?! For a moment there I thought I’d stumbled into Winnie the Goth, but no, this first…
Book Reviews
The Kind I’m Likely to Get: A Collection by Ken Foster Quill, 208 pp., $12 (paper) My stepfather said to me the other day about the American Northwest, “Well, it’s okay. It rains a lot. Which is nice, if you like that sort of thing.” The Kind I’m Likely to Get, Ken Foster’s collection of…
Day Trips
Take your chum to the Dallas Aquarium at Fair Park.
Mighty Real
Drugs The bathrooms at the Forum are the dark center of the social scene — a place where gender, sexuality, drugs, and sex come together. A performer puts together her look, ignoring the furtive activity around her.
Record Reviews
EnigmaThe Screen Behind the Mirror (Virgin) Whether or not you’ll wet yourself over this third full-length CD from German-Romanian über-producer Michael Cretu, aka Enigma, has a lot to do with how well you handled the first two outings. Cretu, a classically trained composer who chucked it all in the early Eighties for love of pop…
Naked City
Rebuild Austin, a program devoted to improving the East Austin community through energy efficiency, will celebrate its recognition as the 250th Rebuild America partnership with a kickoff block party today, Thursday, Feb. 17, from 12:45-2:30pm at Ebenezer Baptist Church, 1010 E. 10th. Call 472-1472 for more info. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty will…
Book Reviews
A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss Random House, 448 pp., $25 According to the press release accompanying this historical novel, A Conspiracy of Paper “touched off a frenzy” when it was submitted to publishers. It is the story of the first stock market crash in the English-speaking world, and a murder mystery to boot.…
About AIDS
AIDS is not just a big city disease.
Mighty Real
Bright Lights Finally the moment of glory, of beauty, of real acceptance comes — onstage. The performance begins.
Record Reviews
ClintonDisco & the Halfway to Discontent (Luaka Bop) Hop nimbly from pre-fab psuedo-Primus to electro-Japanese pop, then from funky vocorder disco to Beckian Indio-country. At that point, you’re still only a few tracks into Disco & the Halfway to Discontent, the new disc from Cornershop’s Tjinder Singh and Benedict Ayres. It’s as if they decided…
Council Watch
Details of the Bradley Settlement are finally made public and opened up to debate; Bill Spelman announces that he will not run for re-election to Place 5.
Book Reviews
The Hasty Papers: Millennium Edition of the Legendary 1960 One-Shot Review edited by Alfred Leslie Host Publications, 256 pp., $35 Whoever can determine the original goals of Alfred Leslie’s smoky, sexy, oh-so-New York publication, The Hasty Papers, deserves the hastiest reward. First published in 1960 with no budget and little support, the self-described One-Shot Review…
Beyond the Norm
Bistro 88 2712 Bee Caves Road, 328-8888 Sun-Fri, 11:30am-2pm; Mon-Thu, 5:30-9:30pm; Fri-Sat, 5:30-10pm; Sun, 5:30-9pm Set as it is in a chi-chi strip mall in West Austin and given its mostly affluent, predominantly non-Asian clientele, it is easy to suspect that Bistro 88 serves — pardon me if this sounds unbearably politically incorrect — Oriental…
Mighty Real
Working the Streets “I’d bet almost every transsexual works the street at one time or another,” says Sandy. Between the difficulty getting regular work and the costs of performing, which demands a constant investment in make-up and clothes, she says she really saw no other way. “After so many times [prostituting], they get used to…
Record Reviews
LambchopNixon (Merge) This fifth full-length from Nashville’s psychedelic country chamber soul band Lambchop is a highly weird and wonderful concept album that might be about the rise and fall of Richard Milhous Nixon. See, there aren’t any direct references to Deep Throat, Cambodia, or little Tricia, but trying to divine a plot out of leading…
Media Clips
Microradio wins FCC approval, but advocates of the low-wattage stations say the rules for winning a license will prohibit most stations and silence the microradio community’s radical voice.
Book Reviews
Scar Vegas and Other Stories by Tom Paine Harcourt, 216 pp., $22 Tom Paine, named a “Writer on the Verge” in 1999 by The Village Voice, calls himself a practitioner of “new fictionalism,” which is a blend of New Journalism and plot-heavy, old-fashioned storytelling. However he wants to classify his work, one thing is for…
Food-o-File
Cuisines editor Virginia B. Wood reveals who came to dinner on February 5, what they ate, and where their money went, and updates readers on changes in Austin’s culinary world.
Mighty Real
Goode Goode, a “drag sister” of Jazmine’s (that is, a daughter of the same “drag mother”), says that Lauryn (Scott Fuller), even here, didn’t really fit in. “She always wanted to be one of us. Wanted to be a Goode. But she wasn’t good enough, she didn’t look enough like us.”
Record Reviews
Michael PennMP4 (Epic/Fifty Seven) Once you get over the line in “Lucky One,” the first song on Michael Penn’s fourth album MP4, you thought you’d actually avoided hearing — the one that chimes out “Here comes the millennium” — it’s all downhill from there. That’s the last moment of anything other than estimable originality in…
What’s the Frequency?
All FM radio stations are on odd-numbered frequencies, between 87.9 and 107.9FM Ø By FCC rules, a station can be no closer to another station than the second-adjacent slot. Ideally, this would allow for as many as 16 new frequencies on the Austin dial. O Under the new rules, however, microradio stations will have to…
Book Reviews
Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier Dutton, 233 pp., $21.95 When a collection of paintings by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) toured the world in 1996, many became fascinated by Vermeer, and by “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” his painting of a young girl. The girl, who looks over her shoulder at…
Mini-Review
French Wines: The Essential Guide to the Wines and Wine Growing Regions of France by Robert Joseph DK Publishing, 240 pp., $19.95 The French like to torture foreign wine lovers. They produce an enormous quantity of wine in a bewilderingly wide variety of styles. Add to that the mystifying expectation that a buyer will know…
Mighty Real
Isolation At the bar they rule, but on the whole, the experience of transsexuality has to be very isolating. The outside world has not found a way to cope with fear of the male-to-female body. Acceptance and admiration are far from the norm. Violence against transsexuals is common, according to transsexual activists, who say that…
Record Reviews
Aimee MannSongs From Magnolia (Reprise) Movie soundtracks currently reflect one of the record industry’s worst money-grubbing habits, that of gathering an incongruous collection of cash crop bands. Yet occasionally, one hears an uplifting story of creative convergence, like Elliott Smith and the Good Will Hunting boys, or in this case, Aimee Mann and Boogie Nights…
Miracle Man
When an actor’s bio claims 14,000 performances to his credit, you rather expect the fellow to have some good stories. And Eddie Bracken doesn’t disappoint. In anticipation of his appearance at a screening of Preston Sturges’ The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Bracken talks about Sturges, Betty Hutton, Hollywood, and hitchhiking.
Book Reviews
Ungentlemanly Acts: The Army’s Notorious Incest Trial by Louise Barnett Hill and Wang, 225 pp., $24 Little about present-day Fort Stockton suggests it was ever a place of high national scandal. Yet, at a time in this country when incest was not a fit subject for discussion and talk of it a “corruption of public…
The Coffeehouse Chronicles
Neighborhood: The Drag/University Address/Phone: 2714 Guadalupe St./477-6656 Hours: 24 hours Munchables: bagels, pastries, pizza, empanadas, and oatmeal (plain or with the works) Standard Cup o’ Joe: $1.25 Bean Source: Texas Coffee Traders (local roaster) Crowd: off-duty students, denizens of the Drag Artwork: rotating works by local artists Soundtrack: Jane’s Addiction, Tag Team Bonus Points: Rio…
Mighty Real
Working the Streets At 4am, those who haven’t had Jazmine’s luck hit the streets. The long stroll down Congress Avenue is their primary source of income.
Record Reviews
Sara HickmanSpiritual Appliances (Shanachie) There are quite a few things to admire about Sara Hickman’s sixth album, Spiritual Appliances. For the first time, the local singer-songwriter has produced an album herself, and it rocks just a bit more than anything she’s done in the past; the drums are a bit louder, the guitar solos a…
Short Cuts
Upcoming events and workshops of interest to the Austin film community.
Postscripts
Some opening salvos from Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose’s new book Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush.
The Lauryn Paige Fuller Story
Eighteen-year-old Donald Scott Fuller was brutally murdered last year. Jordan Smith explores
Wide Open Heart
Local accordionist Bradley Jaye Williams brings together fish and fowl in his assimulation of Texas polka and conjunto music.
Record Reviews
Le Tigre(Mr. Lady) What’s black and white and red all over — and goes me-owww!? Those who said Cibo Matto listened ahead, so yr disqualified. No, the answer is the Bikini Kill-free Kathleen Hanna’s new band, Le Tigre. Dropping in mid-beat on the Eurotronic opener “Deceptacon” — pure New Wave plasticene — Hanna and her…
Video Reviews
SMASH-UP, THE STORY OF A WOMAN D: Stuart Heisler (1947); with Susan Hayward, Lee Bowman, Marsha Hunt, Eddie Albert. Susan Hayward, impossibly young and beautiful in this Walter Wanger production, portrays Angelica Evans, a young chanteuse with the world at her feet, but who doesn’t want the world. She wants Ken Conway, part of an…
