Cover Story
The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades
Timbuk 3’s Barbara Kooyman looks to a brighter future with Texamericana.org
All Balls Don’t Bounce
Balls across blogs.
Just a Thought
At City Hall, it’s always government by crisis.
UIL Girls Basketball State Championships at the Erwin Center
Austin’s thriftier sports fans know two of the best bargains all year are the annual UIL high school basketball tournaments at the Erwin Center. Next weekend belongs to the boys, but the girls’ tilt got under way early this morning and concludes Saturday night. Right now class 3A’s Texarkana’s Liberty-Eylau and Crockett are squaring off…
Kealing Walkout News
Walk out occurs to protest school splitting?
The Shins’ James Mercer: Fond of Y-O-U
The Shins’ James Mercer winces upon a star.
TXU: Merger or Coal, You Decide
TXU Corps. is pulling the plug on eight proposed coal-fired power plants. Maybe.
Tech Talk?
Omigod – turn to cable Channel 6 right now for an installment of “Tech Talk,” a city-produced quasi-infomercial on the city’s new development tracking software for the “one stop shop” at City Hall (so named as the all-in-one location developers hit to pull permits to rape the city). The Statesman’s got a write-up on the…
More Than You Bargained For
Would you want to earn $13 an hour — less than your peer?
Prine: Then and Now
John Prine’s something old, something new
… And the Horse You Rode In On
Which Texas state agency wants to make every day “bring your pet to work” day?
How Texas Youth Commission Fell
The scandal engulfing the Texas Youth Commission has claimed some scalps, but will the Legislature demand more?
More Pandagon Patter
More with Austin blogger Amanda Marcotte.
Dennis Johnson: Amazing Player, Even Better Person
Dennis Johnson, the head coach of the Austin Toros and a former NBA star, passed away last Thursday from an apparent heart attack. He was 52 years old. After a 14-year career as a player in the NBA, during which time he won three championships and was an All-Star five times over, Johnson came to…
Second Leg of ECL Round of 16 Starts Next Week
The second leg of the European Champions League Round of 16 is next week, March 6-7. ESPN2 has two good games of the week: Liverpool hosts Barcelona on Tuesday, having taken a shock 2-1 lead over the defending champs last week in Spain. Wednesday it’s Lille at Manchester United (both games at 1:30pm on ESPN2).…
Numbers Not Adding Up for City’s Small and Minority Business Department
Problems with certification plaguing the office
South by Oh Snap!
Louis Black sounds off on how much he hates music.
Planning Commission Recap
A veritable construction bloodbath at the Planning Commission last night
More Inconvenient Truths for the Right
As expected, the right is laying into Al Gore again. And as expected, they’re wrong.
Microbrewers Finally Get Bill
Proposal would let small beermakers sell on the brewery premises.
Toros Return to Play Thursday With Tribute to Dennis Johnson
Having canceled last weekend’s games due to the tragic and untimely death of head coach Dennis Johnson, the Toros return to the hardwood this Thursday facing the Colorado 14ers, 7pm at the Convention Center in Downtown Austin. Johnson will be honored in a pregame ceremony which will include a moment of silence, special music, a…
Planning for a Beat-Down
A heavy agenda at the Planning Commission tonight.
The Art of Irony
Winning city piece art says lots about the vibe at City Hall.
R.I.P. ‘Arthur’
The death of Arthur Magazine
Squeegee Your Third Eye
Austin misses Beelzebozo the Clown, aka Pan the Randy Goat Boy, aka Bill Hicks.
Go Get in Line RIGHT NOW
… if you want a SXSW wristband and somehow didn’t sign up for their SMS messaging service. Wristbands went on sale at Waterloo Records around noon today, and if previous years are any indication, they will be gone by close of business if not sooner – last year they sold out around 6pm. Though the…
Supremes Reject Travis Co. Prosecutors’ Yogurt Shop Appeal
Supremes kick Springsteen case back to Travis County
Austin Wranglers Finalize 2007 Roster
Wranglers head coach Brian Partlow and general manager Glyn Milburn had the difficult task of trimming their roster down to 21 players in preparation for their home/season opener, Sunday, March 4, vs. the Las Vegas Gladiators. The Wranglers currently only have one quarterback on the roster, Adrian McPherson, but look to sign a backup this…
The Many Heads of Aaron Turner
Speaking the truth with Isis frontman Aaron Turner
City Council Notebook
What’s poppin’ this week at City Hall?
What Will They Say Next?
How will the right beat up on the Oscars? Plus – did Imus really say that?
Intel’s Impressive Implode
Pics and video of the Intel implosion
Reno 911! Miami With Carlos Alazraqui Live
Reno 911! Miami With Carlos Alazraqui Live 2007, R, 114 min. Directed by Ben Garant. The man who plays Officer Garcia in the comedy ensemble will perform stand-up prior to the two screenings on Saturday night.
Diff’rent Strokes With Todd Bridges Live
Diff’rent Strokes With Todd Bridges Live Child-stardom survivor Bridges is selecting his three favorite episodes of Diff’rent Strokes to show and will talk about them and conduct a Q&A. Plus, some tickets are avaialbe for a semi-private lunch with Bridges earlier in the day. See www.originalalamo.com for details.
Michael Franti: I Know I’m Not Alone
Michael Franti: I Know I’m Not Alone 2005, NR, 86 min. Directed by Michael Franti. Armed with an acoustic guitar and a video camera, musician Michael Franti embarked on a musical journey through war and occupation in Iraq, Israel and Palestine. (Michael Franti and Spearhead will be appearing live at Stubb’s On March 3.)
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley
Before we begin, “Possession Arrow” would like to send our thoughts to the family and friends of the late Austin Toros coach and Boston Celtics legend (by way of Pepperdine University, the Seattle SuperSonics, and the Phoenix Suns) Dennis Johnson, a class-act competitor and an admirable pro athlete. Upon his passing, we made it a…
Patrice Pike to Perform Following UT Women’s Basketball Game Saturday
Rock Star: Supernova runner-up Patrice Pike will perform live following UT women’s final home basketball game of the season vs. Texas Tech to be held Saturday, 3pm, at the Frank Erwin Center. The Lady Longhorns have been struggling of late having lost their last five contests. Their final regular-season game will be in College Station…
Dennis Johnson Memorial to Be Held Sunday
The Austin Toros announced today that a memorial service honoring coach Dennis Johnson will be held Sunday, Feb. 25, 4pm, at the David Chapel Baptist Church, 2211 E. Martin Luther King Blvd. A private service and burial is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles Friday, March 2. The Toros return to play on Thursday,…
Hello/Goodbye
Saying hello to a new Bromberg disc, goodbye to Kirk Rundstrom.
Obama on News 8
Tune to cable Channel 8.
Put Your Money Where Your Beads Are
The hurricane of all charitable party causes is upon us.
Everyone’s Nancy Grace Now
Now the Anna Nicole Smith circus is winding down, what will the media do with its time?
Chronic: Burka Approval Tanks
Why is Paul Burka “the dean” of Texas politics?
Look Into the Light Light Light Light …
Furniture Records refinishes an Oneida classic.
Road Closures a-Go-Go
Lots of closures for Obama & Intel
Those Crazy Brits
If the U.S.’ biggest ally in Iraq is pulling out, why are they sending one of their princes there?
Parsley Keeps Power Over Power
It’ll be business as usual (with the emphasis on business) at the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
An Unreasonable Man
This documentary is a far cry from the dry polemics one might expect from a survey of Ralph Nader’s career as a consumer activist and political candidate.
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
The Skywalker saga deepens with daddy issues and Solo on deep freeze. Uncontroversial take: This is the best Star Wars movie.
The Common Law
Family and Medical Leave Act – Do I Qualify?
Hammer of the Gods
Scandinavia brings the lobster tail to SXSW 07
TPCN Strikes Back!
The Texas Pregnancy Care Network didn’t like our story – but couldn’t bear to tell us.
Ways to Spend Your Time and Money in the Next Couple of Weeks
Including the Animation Show, Oscar parties at the Alamo, and Third Coast Activist Research Night
Starter for 10
This British coming-of-age drama and romantic comedy is fairly predictable, although the charming actors manage to keep the story’s characters just this side of stereotype and mediocrity.
TCB
UK grime dirties up Red River, Explosions in the Sky take to the airwaves, and a local drummer makes his bid for “News of the Weird”‘s Least Competent Criminals.
Day Trips
Harrold’s Model Train Museum in Tyler is the greatest collection of model trains in the state
La Bush Resistance
France and Israel put in a strong SXSW 07 showing, with Holland, Spain, South Africa, and Germany bringing up the International Bands’ rear
The ‘Chronicle’ Responds to TPCN
The TPCN complaints about Chronicle reporting are much ado about not very much.
‘SXSW Presents’
Reel Shorts
Touched by Fire
For half a century, Ishmael Soto has used flame to transform copper, clay, and bronze into works of wonder
Soccer Watch
Champions League round of 16 kicks off, and more
Texas Platters
Explosions in the SkyAll of a Sudden I Miss Everyone (Temporary Residence) Unlocking Explosions in the Sky’s instrumental code requires neither the scientific method nor classical training. Guitar technicians won’t necessarily have the delicate upper hand. Emotions are the only essential. All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone, the Austin quartet’s fourth proper album, follows…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
In Print
Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Businessby David Mamet Pantheon, 272 pp., $22 This from the man who gave us “Always be closing”: “Who, then, will I class against him? What shibboleth, you wonder, will I list to augment your umbrage?” Really, Mr. Mamet? Have you no pithier way…
More Than Just Kiln Time
Ishmael Soto passes the torch to a younger generation
Oops!
Our latest batch
Texas Platters
The 10 songs Michele Solberg chose for Christopher House Songs, a disc benefiting Hospice Austin, are tender mercies written by Townes Van Zandt, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, and Peter Gabriel, among others. Solberg includes her own “Photograph,” as well as a poignant rendering of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” to the weighty mix. What…
The Migas Retention Fund
Plight of Las Manitas and Escuelita del Alma leads to new city program that could help small businesses forced by new development Downtown into expensive relocations and renovations
DVD Watch
Lions Gate and StudioCanal have beaten Criterion to the punch with this intriguing if uneven collection
ProArts/ACC: Keeping Boyd’s dream alive
To honor a man whose name was synonymous with community, ProArts Collective and Austin Community College have jointly established the Boyd Vance Scholarship Fund
As Many Culinary Influences as Islands
Austin’s Philippine “turo-turo” uprising
Texas Platters
LeatherbagNowhere Left to Run (Superpop) Following last fall’s exceptional Love Me Like the Devil EP, the full-length debut from Leatherbag, aka Randy Reynolds, finds the road-weary local songsmith still riding shotgun to his influences. Opener “My Sister” drives hard into Blonde on Blonde-era Dylan, while the chorus of the title track retreads tires once spun…
Farewell, Intel Shell
Gigantic Downtown symbol of bust-and-boom economy comes down
TV Eye
The Black Donnellys knock off Studio 60
Amparo Garcia-Crow: Write this way
Playwright and screenwriter Amparo Garcia-Crow appears to be on a roll, given the way her recent work has been garnering attention from coast to coast
In Print
Memories of Philippine Kitchensby Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan; photos by Neal Oshima Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 232 pp., $35 Filipino cookbooks published in English are rare. It is difficult to consolidate the home cooking of dozens of indigenous cultures with countless variations from a country that is spread out across 7,000-plus islands. The cuisine…
Texas Platters
Sparkle Motion(Super Secret) There’s no doubting Sparkle Motion’s commitment to punk rock. On their debut LP, singer SuzAnimal tells dudes to fuck off (“Pleasure Cruise”), misinforms dudes (“Lie”), and fantasizes about burning down one dude’s house (“Hot Foot”). And when her throaty howl absolutely eviscerates “Drinkin’ & Dialin'” with the rusty shiv, “I know I…
Capitol View Corridors Update
County officials appear unlikely to want to pursue exception to corridors this session
Bach Vocal Music: His wondrous way with the human voice, exhibits A and B
Bach is in the air most splendidly this week, in concerts by La Follia and UT’s Chamber Singers that testify anew to the composer’s magnificent way with the human voice
In Print
Fine Filipino Foodby Karen Hulene Bartell Hippocrene Books, 248 pp., $24.95 Karen Hulene Bartell is a resident of the Driftwood area and a technical writer who lived in Taiwan for five years. She was introduced to the cuisine of the Philippine archipelago by Filipino friends in Taiwan and was encouraged to travel throughout the Philippines,…
Texas Platters
Storyville Live at Antones Storyville’s blues-rock is an anachronism. Seasoned with the magnificently soulful pipes of Malford Milligan, however, the seasoned Austin quintet’s flawless musicianship remains difficult to dislike. Ditto for Live at Antones. Its two CDs and DVD chronicle a January 2006 night with more than two hours of blazing that highlights the charismatic…
Happenings
Happenings For more details on the following, and other events this week, see Community Listings. Friday, Feb. 23 FIERY PROGRESSIVE SOAP BOX SPEECHES features dinner and speeches by Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Barbara Jordan, John F. Kennedy, and others. 7:30-9pm. First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4700 Grover, 452-6168. $20 www.freesoulsproject.org. SEN. BARACK OBAMA Sign up…
365 Days/365 Plays: Week 15
The yearlong festival of plays by Suzan-Lori Parks continues with seven plays performed by the UT Players
Food-o-File
And the Academy Award for best brownie goes to … Mary Louise Butters!
Texas Platters
Sleep GoodFar From the Sea (Big Orange) Sleep Good is Will Patterson, 17-year-old newest member of Sound Team, whose Big Orange label released this self-recorded labor of love. Opener “Dream Tea” recalls the exuberance of Islands’ Return to the Sea with eclectic instrumentation and minor bits of experimentation accentuating the summertime pop. The title track…
Clean Air Ellis Rides Again
Democratic dynamo has three unrelated measures in Lege grabbing attention for their ambitious attempts to reform Texas’ air quality
Arts Review
In the Mary Moody Northen Theatre production of Macbeth, the famously ambitious duo who murders its way to the top might well be the friendly couple next door
Texas Platters
The Lovely SparrowsPulling up Floors, Pouring on (New) Paint (Abandoned Love) Peeling back the layers of the Lovely Sparrows’ debut EP reveals a forgotten past and a broken heart behind each lyrical turn and musical nuance. The quintet’s emotional barriers blend acoustic guitar, accordion, and oddball instrumentation, best demonstrated on opener “Chemicals Change,” while “The…
Business Leaders Hire Lobbyists to Battle Dirty Coal
Coalition of free-market well-to-dos formed to oppose Texas’ 17 proposed pulverized coal power plants fights electric utilities using their own weapon of choice – lobbyists
Arts Review
The funny lead performances in Capital T Theatre’s La Dispute, combined with Mark Pickell’s manic, energetic staging, provide an hour that’s as light as a feather and just as beautiful
Texas Platters
Sparrow HouseFalls Sparrow House, the sheltering solo work of Voxtrot guitarist and Tonewheel Collective cohort Jared Van Fleet, sways the leaves and branches with its first of four seasonal EPs. There’s a warm atmosphere of change enveloping the bittersweet “Foxes (Sighing Like a Furnace),” and the acoustic finger-picking and harmonized vocals of “When I Am…
Point Austin: The Lege Provides
“Alternatives” to health care
Tyler Perry’s Daddy’s Little Girls
Despite the fact that Tyler Perry relies on contrivances and sentimentality, he manages to spin a good yarn in the process.
Arts Review
Arthouse’s exhibition “The Sirens’ Song” is seductive, luring viewers with artworks that hint at storylines and inviting them to make plot from paint
UK Calling
Damon Albarn leads SXSW 07’s UK act armada. Again.
Texas Platters
Full Stride Everything about Full Stride’s two-person metal sounds good. In theory. Amber Dickerson, strapped with a Flying V and full-throttle fuzz, Trent Parker seeking and destroying from behind the drum kit; hell, even the Sepultura-esque logo works. Unfortunately, on their self-released debut, the local duo ultimately sounds like a minimalist nu-metal group with Christian…
Developing Stories
The Concordia redevelopment highlights the need for the city to do more than plan from the dais
Bridge to Terabithia
This excellent screen version of the Newbery-winning novel is not about fairies and enchanted forests but about kids who feel as though they don’t fit in.
Readings
Editor Lou Anders looks for the lost art of the science-fiction anthology
The Celts
The Irish, Scottish, and Welsh stick it to Union Jack
Texas Platters
Brent Fariss & Bill ThompsonAugust – September (Spectral House) No one listens to audio experiments like this for fun. It’s a learned appreciation for the manipulation of sound. On that level, Fariss and Thompson do some interesting things during these two 20-plus minute tracks. “August” climaxes 90 seconds in with swift contrabass strokes before canceling…
Council Watch
“Planned Unit Development” doesn’t necessarily imply responsible planning.
Ghost Rider
The movie adds little to Marvel’s source material, but to be fair, there wasn’t a surfeit of originality in the comic book to begin with.
Readings
Golda Meir’s affair to fictionally remember
Blazing Baile Carioca
Mexico takes on Brazil: winner, metal-based dance?
To the Lighthouse
After 20 years, WTP4 returns to a still unanswered question: Do we need it?
On the Lege
Austin Rep. Elliott Naishtat is leading charges to protect both seniors and children this session
Factory Girl
Sienna Miller nails Edie Sedgwick’s gamine naivete in this biopic, but the film feels far too pat for its own good.
Page Two: Sugar or Salt?
Severed heads, barbecue, and SXSW
The Hour Has 22 Minutes
Pop quiz on Canada, with a SXSW 07 musical cheat sheet
Water Seeks Its Level
A timeline for WTP4
Reefer Madness
Judge supports bid to grow research pot
Amazing Grace
Unfortunately, what makes British abolitionist William Wilberforce a great man is also what makes him dull: his single-minded righteousness.
After a Fashion
This week, Stephen manages to connect Barbara K, the Shangri-Las, and Joey Buttafuoco. Go figure.
Japaniversary
A decade at SXSW and Japan’s musical jack-in-the-box has lost none of its delight. China, Singapore, India, and Iran take their cue, in baby steps.
Be Water Wise
You can play a role in holding off the need for a new water treatement plant
The Hightower Report
Jennifer and the Pork Board; and Women of Wal-Mart Fight Discrimination
The Astronaut Farmer
This note-perfect film by the Polish brothers almost could be a relic from another age, an inspirational drama about staying true to one’s dreams no matter the social, economic, or emotional cost.
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Cookin’ good with Ho Chi Minh and rappin’ with the birds
Pissyourpantstastic
They’re still streaming into SXSW from the land down under
TPCN Flack Attack: No Nutritional Content
Tax-funded anti-abortion group uses PR campaign to smear Chronicle, rather than truly responding to our story
Just in Time for Nader ’08
Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan on An Unreasonable Man
Luv Doc Recommends: Lonestar Rollergirls Putas Del Fuego vs. The Cherry Bombs
Hmmmm … wouldn’t it be great if someone invented a sport that combined sex and violence and speed … and maybe the fakeness of reality TV? How American would that be? More American than pro wrestling? Way. Pro wrestling has its pageantry, no doubt, and it’s practically oozing homoeroticism, but the Greeks beat us to…
