Live Shots
Storyville’s Malford Milligan eggs on the Mighty Zor’s Doyle Bramhall II at Antone’s February 20 photograph by John Carrico THE CRYSTAL METHOD, BT La Zona Rosa, February 13 Okay, so right off the bat it’s Friday the 13th, and by 4:30pm, my Crystal Method experience is resembling something out of Spinal Tap. Having contacted the…
And Now, a Word From Our Subject…
Justin Hall speaks… I’d like to share a Doug moment here: He sent me the 15-minute sample (which isn’t on the Web as far as I know – even for folks with T1s). I hadn’t seen it yet, and I thought, hey, why not show it at Christmas, and maybe my family can meet some…
Articulations
Time flies, it seems, not only when you’re having fun but when you’re educating dancers. How else to explain the fact that this weekend the UT Department of Theatre & Dance celebrates the 60th anniversary of its dance program? Why, it seems like only yesterday that young Texans started streaming onto the Forty Acres with…
Press By the Numbers
In the interest of seeing how many mentions some of Austin’s musical “media darlings” have garnered recently, the Chronicle’s online services director did a search to see how many times their names came up in the Chronicle (this figure includes club listings). BAND VOL.16 VOL.17 Ana Egge 135 77 Derailers 183 115 Damnations 156 168…
Scanlines
D: Herbert Ross (1981) with Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Walken, Jessica Harper, Vernel Bagneris, John McMartin Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid D: Carl Reiner (1982) with Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, Carl Reiner, Reni Santoni, George Gaynes The Man With Two Brains D: Carl Reiner (1983) with Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner, Paul Benedict, David Warner,…
The Great Critic Test
illustration by Robert Faires No one likes a critic. Largely, critics are viewed as the killjoys, the tomato lobbers, the heartless shrews who dare point out faults in an artist’s creation, who suck the soul out of the work to feed their own minuscule egos. They are the bottom feeders of any creative endeavor, universally…
Ken Lieck’s Dancing Lessons
“What can these people possibly be thinking?” That’s a question that runs through my mind often when I’m cobbling together the Dancing About Architecture column each week. It springs to mind when I receive an “urgent fax” about a show that won’t occur for a month and a half. It leaps into my brain when…
Short Cuts
SXSW Film (March 13-21) and SXSW Interactive (March 14-17) beckon ever closer. Passes for the Film Festival are now on sale at Waterloo Records. The cost is $45 (which includes tax and service charge). Look for the festival listings on p.55 of this issue (pull-out supplements to come next issue). One exciting film that has…
Postscripts
“The curiosity is the extra head”: Sentences like this occur with alarming regularity when speaking to Carol Thurston, who will have her third book, The Eye of Horus, published by Avon in spring 1999. The local writer, former UT journalism professor, and Lloyd Doggett speechwriter has crafted “an ancient mystery solved in the present” that…
The Chicken and Egg Deal
True to his reputation for self-promotion, Paul Minor e-mailed a pithy quote for this story on music press. “All I have to say on the subject is this: `The squeaky wheel gets the grease.'” Better yet, the Superego frontman also proposed a matching headline: “Squeaky Wheels – Austin media darlings reveal how they get the…
Marathon Man
illustration by Jason Stout Brave? Inspirational? Strong? Try stupid. Marathon runners are stupid. The collective stupidity of the folks at the finish area of the recent Motorola Marathon was easily several times that of a Trekky convention. The human body was not meant to run 26.2 miles. Supposedly, as physiological machines, humans expire at around…
Exhibitionism
UT Recreational Sports Center, February 21 Running Time: 50 min There’s just something appealing about dancers trapped in a glass box. Like watching fish in an aquarium, seeing the dancers in there, in a specialized atmosphere, as opposed to out here conveys a sense of mystery and meditation. In fact, I wouldn’t be very surprised…
Al’s New Coffee Grinder
The League of Nathans is the next big thing in Austin. By year’s end, they will be selling more albums than Stevie Ray Vaughan, playing for bigger crowds than the Butthole Surfers, and scoring with more chicks than the Sexton brothers… combined. Can’t wait to see ’em, can you? Well, you never will. Ha ha.…
In Person
Emily Wortis Leider at Book People Were she alive today, Mae West would have appreciated Emily Wortis Leider’s truncated biography of her, Becoming Mae West (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30 hard), but not just because Leider stops the action in 1938 at the end of the sexpot’s Paramount career, before her naughty girl act festered…
To Preserve and Protect
Mary Baughman, Olivia Primanis, and Pat Ingram in the HCR’s book conservation laboratory. photograph by Kenny Braun A visitor enters the book conservation laboratory on the fourth floor of UT’s Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center tentatively, eyes watching where not to place fingers and other delicate objects that might easily be pressed, pounded, or excised…
Recommended
Friday: AMN Benefit, Voodoo Lounge Saturday: Hollowbody CD release, Electric Lounge Sunday: Inner Circle, Liberty Lunch Monday: Bunny Stockhausen, Emo’s Tuesday: Gaither Vocal Band, Palmer Auditorium Wednesday: Vance Gilbert, Cactus Cafe Thursday: Gibb Droll, Jono Manson, Bruce Henderson, The Mercury Lounge
Coach’s Corner
“Is anybody going to San Antone? Or Phoenix, Arizona? Any place is all right as long as I Can forget I’ve ever known ya…” — as sung by Charlie Pride Late Saturday afternoon, driving through a cyclonic storm, with traffic on I-35 plowing through a deluge at five mph, I was starting to wonder if…
Benefits
FRI 27 Panoramic Light Show and musical performances to benefit the Austin Music Network, at Voodoo Lounge, 308 E. Third, 10pm. Cost is $5. 451-4894. SAT 28 Water Street Seafood Co. Grand Opening to benefit Austin Symphony Youth Programs Endowment Fund, at 3908 W. Braker, 7-10pm. Cost is $14.343-6523. Spaghetti Dinner & Auction to benefit…
Road Shows
FEBRUARY FRI 27 Cheri Knight, Continental Club FRI 27-SAT 28 Jimmy McGriff, The Mercury Lounge FRI 27-SUN 1 James Intveld, Continental Club SAT 28 Brooks & Dunn, Travis County Expo Center SAT 28 Kelley, Skychurch, Austin Music Hall SAT 28 Lawrence Juber, Flipnotics SAT 28 Crash Worship, Voodoo Lounge SAT 28 Freestyle Fellowship, Electric Lounge…
The State’s Needs vs. Privacy Protection: a Delicate Balance
Last week I reviewed why Texas Department of Health (TDH) believes by-name reporting of HIV-positive people will resolve their need for better data. Why has such opposition arisen to the proposal? And how does a society balance the government’s need for information against individual’s rights to privacy and safety? HIV+ people and many of us…
The Flying Sausage
According to U.S. Air Force statistics, the B-1 is three times more likely to be invloved in serious accidents or crashes than the rest of the airplanes in the fleet. photograph by Robert Bryce It’s time to face the facts: The B-1 bomber has been a failure. The most recent crash of a B-1, on…
Day Trips
At the Peaceful Habitations Rose Gardens north of Boerne, antique roses fill the Hill Country air with their sweet fragrance. photograph by Gearld E. McLeod The Texas Rose Rustlers might be coveting that old rose bush in your grandmother’s front yard. But not to worry. Before taking a small sampling of the bush they always…
Into the Woods
“We’ve gone from affordable to premium, and that’s… causing gentrification. There can be both good and bad in that.”– Cherrywood NA leader George “Buzz” Avery photograph by Jana Birchum First, let’s get the name straight. Is this Cherrywood? Or Maplewood? Wilshire Wood? Delwood? And would that be Delwood I or Delwood II? Or is that…
Page Two
This morning in The New York Times there was an article on how Blenheim ginger ale had become a new Southern trendy drink. I was stopped in my tracks. In late ’72, I lived in an old decaying plantation house a few miles outside McColl, South Carolina, somewhat north of the town of Blenheim. The…
Lefty Changes His Spots
illustration by Doug Potter Some people thought I was going to cause trouble just for trouble-causing’s sake,” says Councilmember Daryl Slusher of his career change from investigative journalist to councilmember. As a writer, Slusher made a name for himself ferreting out the hypocrisy and waste of the same governmental bodies on which he now serves.…
Public Notice
Who needs a social life, when Austin’s public service community provides soooooooo many options for eating, drinking, and being merry, all for a good cause? Just look at this week’s events. Austin finest chefs will be a whirling cyclone of Ginsu™s (or whatever cutlery those pro-types brandish nowadays) as they prep for the annual fundraiser…
Temper, Temperament
Lora Livingston Karen Parker Two ambitious judicial hopefuls – Karen Parker and Lora Livingston – hail from distinctly different professional backgrounds. So it stands to reason that both candidates are trying to parlay those differences into a Democratic nomination for the 261st District Court bench. Parker and Livingston square off in the March 10 primary,…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards. A recent study by Italian scientists showed that male impotence can be cured by sending men on a virtual-reality (VR) journey through their youth. In a trial involving 50 men, some as old as 75, a success rate of 84% was achieved. God is a single parent. Campbell Soup…
Endorsements
County Judge: Valarie Bristol and Sam Biscoe (dual) Last year, both of these lifelong Democrats resigned their respective county commissioner seats – Biscoe in Pct. 1 and Bristol in Pct. 3 – to run for the county judgeship, and Austin’s progressive/enviro community has been wringing its hands ever since. Both candidates have strong liberal credentials,…
The Mouse That Roared
Ever since I described the national organic regulations proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last December as one of the top food news stories of 1997, I’ve been on the receiving end of a deluge of information from local and national activists who are vehemently opposed to the proposed regulations as written. Because…
Naked City
Now it’s war: Negotiations have broken off between Cencor Realty and neighborhood groups opposed to the Triangle Square development. This sets up the mother of all Planning Commission battles for March 24, when the Triangle lands on the PC’s agenda. The Neighbors of Triangle Park and other neighborhood reps also met on Monday with Land…
Getting Involved
For more information about the USDA’s proposed National Organic Program, contact http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop. The public comment period on the proposed NOP has been extended until May 1, 1998. Public hearings on the subject are being held around the country, with one of them having been held in Austin on February 12 and another in Ames, Iowa…
Cruel and Unusual
James Barker never recovered from the massive head injuries he received at the hands of another inmate. Apparently, James Barker feared for his life. The convicted burglar was a prisoner at the Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony. Not a model inmate, Barker had been in numerous scrapes with guards, but in the early part of…
Food-O-File
Because one of my main interests is the concept of food as an expression of culture, I’m pleased when circumstances offer me the opportunity to learn from experts in the field. Next week, in connection with the current exhibit at UT’s Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center commemorating the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer, noted authority…
On and On
Fair warning that March’s “TV Eye” columns are likely to cover a lot of turf over the month due to extenuating circumstances � namely South by Southwest � and also may contain a guest columnist. (Aside from the Austin Music Network’s dedicated coverage of the Austin Music Awards and attendant festival coverage, SXSW seems uniquely…
Dancing About Architecture
A couple of things have been brought to my attention recently that may seem unconnected, but taken together could bode ill for the city of Austin. First, Kent Benjamin, following a discussion with songwriter Marshall Crenshaw, sent me an e-mail detailing how in 1970, Beverly Hillbillies producer Paul Henning took a liking to the town…
Making Movies on Cyber-Location
Doug Block was already an award-winning independent director, cameraman, and producer when he encountered the World Wide Web and found Justin Hall’s website, Justin’s Links (http://www.links.net), a best-case example of personal web publishing, wherein Hall discloses all aspects of his life in three-dimensional hypertext. Hall’s friends and lovers are alternately fascinated, embarrassed, and horrified by…
