Food-O-File
Channel Surfing Channel surfing the other night revealed a Charlie Rose segment in which the talk show personality hosted a round-table discussion with some of the nation’s top cooking talent, New York chefs Daniel Boulud, Gray Kunz, Anne Rosenzweig, and Jean-George Vongerichten. In response to a question about employees, all the accomplished chefs agreed on…
Downtown Developments
by Kayte VanScoy, with contributions by Mike Clark-Madison, Kevin Fullerton, and Jenny Staff Residential: The Brown Building (1) Who: LBJ Holding Co. What: 90 loft-style apartments Where: 708 Colorado When: Completed Built more than 60 years ago, the long-vacant office building once was considered “the nerve center for Texas,” housing such bigwigs as President Lyndon…
Articulations
Love Is Sweeping the Country Yes, yes, I know that as an arbiter of culture for Austin and the Greater Central Texas area, I should be focused on the imminent arrival of the two titans of classical music who will be descending upon us Sunday, but I’ve caught a whiff of romance on the wind…
Gumbo Weather: Winter Warmup, Cajun-style
There is a time — even in the lush tropical swamps of south Louisiana — that can be accurately described as “winter.” It’s a couple of months around the holidays when huge oak trees shed their brittle brown leaves and stand naked against dreary gray skies. The rural back roads are clogged with field tractors…
The Human Element
The Salvation Army will build a homeless shelter on this parking lot adjacent to its existing facility at Seventh and Red River photograph by John Anderson It’s been nearly a year since Mayor Kirk Watson announced his $12.3 million homeless initiative for Austin and the downtown area, a plan that initially drew both praise and…
Exhibitionism
MY VISITS WITH MGM (MY GRANDMOTHER MARTA): SURVIVING IN AMERICA The Acting Studio, through February 13 Running time: 1 hr, 50 min In Edit Villarreal’s My Visits with MGM (My Grandmother Marta), a modern granddaughter, grown up and no longer living in Texas, returns to the burned-out shell of the home of her grandmother, rekindling…
The Sultan’s Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook
by �zcan Ozan Periplus Editions, $29.95 hard Creamy eggplant with tomato and yogurt sauce … pur�ed pumpkin with coriander and brown sugar. After I whined to my editor for the thousandth time that I’m in a perpetual search of an Afghani cookbook so I can re-create these dishes at home, she handed me The Sultan’s…
The Reason for the Season
illustration by Jason Stout In this season of true love and cheap chocolate, it seems uncharitable to point out how all this glorification of love can’t help but contribute to rising divorce rates. Essentially, it is because the Valentine’s season isn’t about love, it is about the act of falling in love — about the…
El Coraz�n de Santa Barraza
Santa Contreras Barraza grew up in South Texas — Kingsville, to be exact. The rough and dusty land of vaqueros, nopales, and javelinas influenced her so much that she has made it an important element in the wonderful and intense paintings she has created over the years. The harsh terrain taught her about survival and…
Dancing About Architecture
The Bates Motel went out with a bang as expected last Saturday, with a number of bangs, crashes, and screams. In fact, if there was anything truly shocking about the evening, which culminated with a batch of Austin’s Finest chasing down Sixth Street after an axe-wielding thug, it was how under control the violence remained…
Academy Leader
Wes Anderson seems content justto make small talk about the University of Texas philosophy department. “Is Allaire still there?” he asks as he tries to remember as much as he can about some of the Austin faculty under whom he earned his undergraduate degree. “Hochberg? Is he the guy with the curly hair and he’s…
Writes of Winter
The KGB Bar Reader edited by Ken Foster William Morrow & Co., $14 paper Some background: Back in the summer of 1994, Ken Foster took a job as volunteer literary events coordinator for a second-floor bar in Manhattan known as the KGB Bar. Foster, a writer himself, made a special effort to invite young writers,…
You Do Not Tear Down Landmarks
photograph by John Carrico In the looming shadow of the massive Texas State Capitol, it’s easy to miss. The bus stop on the corner might call your attention to it, or the benches nearby if you need to take a load off, but if you’re at the intersection of 11th Street and Congress Avenue, you’re…
Scanlines
D: Peter Weir (1998) with Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney Jim Carrey in The Truman Show A few short months ago, the world was stunned by the bizarre and sudden confluence of the words “Jim Carrey” and “Oscar.” It still doesn’t seem so strange to think that Jimbo might get the nomination, though he…
Toma Mi Corazon
Who says money can’t buy love? Well, okay, maybe you can’t buy love, but you can sure buy a heart at the Seventh Annual Toma Mi Coraz�n fundraiser for the La Pe�a arts organization. Artists, students, celebrities, politicians, dignitaries, locos, and others have decorated wooden hearts which you can bid for and then give to…
Record Reviews
Up Up Up Up Up Up (Righteous Babe) According to Up Up Up Up Up Up, an album partly recorded right here in Austin, drugs are bad, the homeless have been criminalized, and the erosion of America’s industrial base coupled with a shift to a more service-oriented economy has caused great hardship in certain regions…
Short Cuts
Invasion of the Film Directors: Maybe it’s just the warm-up for the SXSW Film Festival, but Austin will be rolling out the welcome wagon for at least a couple of film directors this week. In the case of Rushmore’sWes Anderson, it’s more like the director will be rolling the wagon in our direction. On Friday,…
The Thing in the Lake
The Homecoming “Not understanding Pinter is a very great pleasure. To feel the elusiveness of his meaning is, in fact, to come close to its essence.” — Alistair Macaulay Five times in this decade, you could find a revival of one of these Pinter plays — Betrayal or The Homecoming — onstage in London or…
If You Build It …
In West Austin, where the major new developments such as the Austin MarketPlace and Scott Young’s proposed Museum Park office complex are scoring high on the city’s Smart Growth matrix, architectural renderings of the future buildings are visually inviting — surrounded by landscaped plazas, shaded with awnings, with built-in boarding lanes for buses, and self-contained…
Being on Top
story and photos by Sam Martin photograph by Sam Martin Riddled with coffee, I am an unstable tangle of nerves as I drive this expedition westward across the green Hill Country and into the flatlands. The roadkill along I-10 is particularly macabre tonight, introducing nauseating waves into my already churning gut. Over and over I…
Postscripts
Mixed Notes Congratulations to Louis Sachar, whose book Holes has won another award. The American Library Association announced on Monday that Sachar has won the Newberry Award for Holes. Wow: first the National Book Award and now the Newberry. And congrats to Host Publications, a local small press devoted to publishing international literary titles, which…
A Long Time Coming
After more than a decade of planning, why are these dreams finally starting to materialize now? The answer is, in a word, detente. According to Austin political veterans, the de-escalation of hostilities between developers and environmentalists has allowed for redirecting energy toward points of local pride. The rancor has evaporated, and suddenly the political will,…
Exceptional Balance
Mezzaluna Gateway 9901 Capital of Texas Hwy (Gateway Market Shopping Center), 372-8030 Mon-Thu, 11am-10:30pm; Fri, 11am-11pm; Sat, 5-11pm; Sun, 5-10pm photograph by John Anderson The opening of this younger sibling of the popular warehouse district see-and-be-scene restaurant was eagerly anticipated by Northwest patrons last year. The new Mezzaluna opened to swarming crowds and never seemed…
In Person
Chitra Divakaruni at Book People At Chitra Divakaruni’s reading in Austin January 28, Book People’s reading room was packed to the gills and 45 copies of her book Sister of My Heart were sold. Selling 45 copies didn’t deplete Book People’s stock of the title, but considering that Divakaruni is perfectly aware of the perils…
All That Glitters
In a curious way, as the city’s left hand tries to maintain a local stake in the corridor, its right hand may guarantee that Waller Creek will never be Glitter Gulch. Many citizens have puzzled, and property owners raged, over the city’s planned new (and large) shelter for single homeless men, next to the Salvation…
Just the Facts, Ma’am
A popular book on television shows posits that the theme from Dragnet is arguably the most recognized four notes of music since Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Who am I to argue? For a few years in the late Sixties, the ominous “dum duh dum dum” meant earnest police drama, the righting of wrongs, the triumph of…
About AIDS
The coming of the new millennium brings promise in the fight against HIV/AIDS. New therapies have helped to redefine the future of those infected with HIV. Although a cure is not in the immediate future, science has given us a renewed opportunity to live and enjoy life. Hopes and dreams are once again within our…
Visions of the West
Big plans are in theworks for downtown’s western edge, with retail, residential, and office developments expected to break ground by midyear. From top, an aerial view of the Austin MarketPlace,a retail-intensive project at Sixth and Lamar scheduled to open in spring 2000; Museum Park, a Scott Young office complex above retail, planned at Fifth and…
Coach’s Corner
If you have aboarding pass with a number, you must be traveling on Southwest Airlines. If you have a boarding pass with the number 122, you’re shit out of luck. I know otherwise bright people who think Southwest’s the way to go. I’d sooner travel on a yak caravan than the Greyhound of the Sky.…
The Ayes of March
Ever since the city of Austin and Computer Sciences Corp. entered pre-nup negotiations for what could be the most complex public-private union in local history, city officials have placed the multi-faceted proposal under tight spin control. Assistant City Manager Toby Futrell has taken the show on the road, meeting with downtown and neighborhood groups, and…
Day Trips
Birdhouse Day at LBJ State Park outside of Stonewall provides activities on birds and their habitats, Feb. 6, 10am-noon. 830/644-2252. Vegas on the Gulf is the theme of Mardi Gras week in Galveston with parties, parades, and concerts, Feb. 5-16. 888/425-4753 or http://www.galvestontourism.com. Marriage of the Port Ceremony accompanies every tour at the Messina-Hof Wine…
Horse Race
Developer Scott Young holds a rendering of his planned office project. photograph by Jana Birchum In 10 memorable years, Austin’s downtown office market has gone from bust to boom to booming like crazy. This dramatic turnaround in the city’s core has developers’ heads spinning over the prospect of turning dirt in an area of town…
Page Two
Times are good. It is the opportune moment to plan and build for the future. On the drawing board are a new City Hall complex and a new downtown museum of art. The city finally seems to be taking the initiative on the future of public transportation. Only when Chronicle publisher Nick Barbaro looks up…
The Lay of the Land
You’ve heard of this thing called Smart Growth, right? At that point when the entire Central Texas region panicked en masse about growth, downtown renewal ceased to be a boondoggle unworthy of broad public support. And by now, we’ve grown blas� when enviros and progressives support expanding the Convention Center and subsidizing a downtown shopping…
Mr. Smarty Pants
Former professional wrestler Chief Jay Strongbow’s real name was Joseph Scarpa. The serial number of the first B-2 bomber prototype (82-1066) was chosen to honor the Battle of Hastings, which was fought in England in 1066. In the battle, Saxons led by King Harold II were defeated by a French force led by William, Duke…
On the Lege
There’s no need to worry that David Dewhurst is anything but a true businessman at heart. That became evident when, after unceremoniously firing 110 of his employees on his first day in office, the freshman land commissioner asked Gov. George W. Bush to approve raises for his top stockholders — er, executives — to bring…
Public Notice
Whooooooo, Valentine’s Day is coming! Doncha feel sexy? No? Oh, come on now. It’s the season of luuurv, February (the Official Spring� of Austin, Texas), you know, hearts and flowers and all that rot. Well, here are a few benefitty type of things to get your Love Mojo stewing: * Show your Valentine the Love,…
Pacifist Professor
Barbs continue to fly in the KOOP radio wars, in unexpected places: The January/February issue of the newsletter of La Pe�a, a local Latino arts organization, gave KOOP programmer Eduardo Vera, a supporter of the unpopular KOOP board of trustees, a platform to throw inflammatory charges at his opponents, specifically KOOP volunteer Pat Powell, station…
Warrior Witches in Hell
illustration by Jason Stout Most dramatic TV shows depict cops, doctors, and lawyers — professions on the gritty interface between working citizens and the powers that be; professions that most of us are at best leery about. It’s as though we watch TV to reassure ourselves that the agents of Officialdom can be depended upon…
Naked City
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, has cash. Lots of it. In fact, only six members of Congress have more money in their campaign accounts than Doggett. According to the Jan. 13 issue of Political Finance & Lobby Reporter, Doggett has $1.27 million in unspent campaign funds in the bank and is one of 167 members…
