Exhibitionism
NAKED TEXAS ART: SENSUOUS WOMEN AND BITTER EXES Holy 8 Ball Studios, through February 28 Two things are immediately apparent with James Johnson’s paintings: They are executed by a man with exceptional talent as a painter, and they serve as an obvious metaphorical pressure valve for his highly charged emotions. Put these two components together…
Parallel Universe
photograph by John Carrico It has been said the world over that Americans have no sense of history. Where are your castles, your cathedrals, your pyramids to remind you of all that has come before? Where are your testaments to civilizations past? Silly child, you have none. You are too little. Just a baby. When…
Short Cuts
While in Houston a couple of weeks ago, actor Seymour Cassel just happened to hear about the Austin Film Society’s “John Cassavetes Film Series” currently underway here in town. Cassel was of the definite opinion that his presence was just the thing the series was lacking. So, to remedy matters, the longtime Cassavetes stock player…
Ut Press Fellowship
UT Press is accepting applications for its 12th publishing fellowship, which provides for a year of experience in book publishing for a graduate of UT Austin; its objective is to help prepare Fellows for careers in book and journal publishing, with an emphasis on scholarly publishing. The fellowship begins September 1, 1998 and ends August…
Recommended
Friday: Santiago Rodriguez, Bates Recital Hall; Rising Lion, Flamingo Cantina Saturday: Slobberbone, Amberjack Rice, Hole in the Wall; Clandestine, Cactus Cafe Sunday: Lonely Land, Lisa Richards, Steamboat Monday: Lower Class Brats, Black Cat Tuesday: Gold, Magnatone, Emo’s Wednesday: Boxcars, Broken Spoke; Hepcat, Slackers, Gadjits, Liberty Lunch Thursday: Leftover Salmon, Steamboat; Sixteen Deluxe, Ursa Major, Electric…
Movies From the Mount
Buffalo 66 Independent films are all the rage these days. Suddenly, everyone wants a piece, be they filmmakers, actors, producers, buyers, distributors, agents, journalists, or garden-variety culture trendies. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Sundance Film Festival, where for 10 days every January these intersecting interests converge high up in the Wasatch Mountains…
In Person: Martin Amis at Book People
At first, there was something dubious about the idea of Martin Amis touring behind Night Train – a relatively slender detective story. In fact, Night Train is so short and genre-specific it feels a lot like a side project – like Michael Jordan’s golf game or Johnny Depp’s musical career. And not only has Night…
Record Reviews
YOU AM I Hourly, Daily (Warner Bros.) Stars in their native Australia, having won that country’s equivalent of a Grammy for this, their third release, You Am I elicit a big Who Are You? in this country. That said, it seems the Aussies have better taste than us Yanks, as this is an infectious collection…
Have a Cow
photograph by Claiborne Smith Amarillo’s Wolflin Village, which not so long ago was an abject, sparsely populated strip mall, is now the kind of elegant shopping center Oprah Winfrey’s staff would flock to in an effort to surround her with comfort if she happened, for example, to be stuck in Amarillo for five weeks or…
The Message of Dreams
Does it take a kind of heroism to tell stories?” I asked Beaumont native and author Lisa Sandlin during our phone interview, not long after her most recent collection of short fiction, Message to the Nurse of Dreams, received the Austin Writers’ League’s Violet Crown Award. Sandlin replied, “Oh, I think that may be too…
Roadkill
Austin Music Hall Saturday, February 7 Yes, it’s award season. And as coveted as industry hardware can be, celebs often do some bizarre things with their accolades. Kurt Cobain’s Grammy traveled with wifey Courtney Love as she apparently used it to weight down her arm so that she could find a vein. Then there’s the…
Gagging Graglia
Caption photograph by SOMEPHOTOGRAPHER / illustration by SOMEARTIST When the Rev. Jesse Jackson came to the University of Texas last semester, he urged the 5,000 gathered to fight for a diverse college campus by protesting the Hopwood decision. He also urged them to treat law professor Lino Graglia like “a moral and social pariah,” as…
Sandlin’s Message
When I was a kid, I was forever bringing home sparkly rocks, chunks of quartz I’d found beside the highway that ran past my house. I remember that the adults around me thought it was cute. But I was deadly serious in my determined searching. It seemed altogether possible that treasure would be found out…
Road Shows
FEBRUARY FRI 6 Front Range, Cactus Cafe FRI 6 Mustard Plug, The Suspects, Emo’s FRI 6 Randy Beckett’s Rebel Train, Speakeasy FRI 6 Santiago Rodrigues, Bates Recital Hall FRI 6 Bill Kirchen, Sam Dogg & Cosmic Cowboys, Continental Club FRI 6 Nashville Pussy, Gaunt, Electric Lounge FRI 6, SAT 7 Big Ass Truck, Mercury Lounge…
Benefits
FRI 6 Dragsville Surf Soiree to benefit KOOP Radio, at Bates Motel, 371 E. Sixth, 8:30pm. Cost is $4. 480-8121. SAT 7 Austin Poets at Large, featuring Glosso Babel & John Cutaia to benefit Fringe Fest, at Quackenbush’s, 2010 Guadalupe, 7pm. Cost is by donation. 452-1663 or 416-7435. Evening of Music w/Leeann Atherton, Dosmillard, Shades…
Tiffing Over the TIF
illustration by Doug Potter “We all need to take a cold shower on this Waller Creek deal,” said Robert Knight, a property owner along the creek, early Monday morning. Knight, who has been organizing creekside property owners for several weeks, says that the current frenzy surrounding Waller’s revitalization is premature. And, strangely enough, before the…
Coach’s Corner
A rule of the jungle: The further you get from the playground, the stuffier and more pretentious the rules and the officials of games become. And that, sportsfans, spells G-O-L-F. Only in golf (okay, maybe tennis) could a real “controversy” erupt over an issue which defies the very definition of common sense. I don’t know,…
A Watershed Year?
It’s just one tract of land among many in the Barton Springs watershed that is slated for development. But the controversy surrounding the 84-acre Brodie tract, located at Loop 360 and Barton Creek, could portend even larger battles over the application of the Save Our Springs (S.O.S.) Ordinance and development in the Barton Springs watershed.…
Day Trips
Naegelin’s Bakery in New Braunfels has been honored by the Institute of Texa Cultures as the oldest continuosly operated bakery in Texas. Most people would stop by for the delicious strudels and pastries even if theplace wasn’t 130 years old. photograph by Geral E. McLeaod Naegelin’s Bakery in New Braunfels turns 130 years old this…
It’s Hard to Say
by Marc Levin The left versus… photograph by Clark Patterson Who was it who said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say it at all?” A person subscribing to that theory would have hated being a student at the University of Texas this past year. While the campus has grappled with the fallout from…
Page Two
Sometime in the early Seventies, I ended up living on the Gulf Coast of Florida. I was staying in a house that was bracketed by shuttered porches. I lived in the one on the east side; its opened wooden shutters looked out onto the banks of the Peace River that flowed out back. We were…
Doomed to Repeat It?
Herman Sweatt waiting in a UT registration line photograph courtesy Texas Student Publications There’s a former University of Texas Law School student over in Houston, George Washington, Jr., who sees the Hopwood decision as a step back in time – to a time when you could count the number of black UT Law students on…
Public Notice
Don’t forget! Your unlucky Valentine’s Day (remember it falls right after Friday the 13th this year) might be a tad luckier, especially if you spend Friday night at the Austin Latino/a Lesbian & Gay Organization (ALLGO) Baile de Amor, Fri, Feb 13, 9am-1pm at Austin North Hilton & Towers, 6000 Middle Fiskville. Tickets are $15…
Hopwood Fallout
The Talk The Present The Past The Future
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
Adam (of Bible fame) wasn’t really named Adam. It is considered unlucky to pick up a coin you didn’t drop if it’s showing tails, but okay to turn it over for the next person. It’s good luck to pick up a heads-up coin. The worst luck is reserved for those who ignore coins laying around.…
Law of the Land
illustration by Jason Stout In March 18, 1996, Texas had the dubious honor of becoming the first state in the country to have its race-based admissions policies at its higher education institutions legally banned by the courts. Two years later, minority communities throughout the nation are still reeling from the Hopwood decision handed down by…
The Body Politic
illustration by Jason Stout About 10 minutes before the President’s State of the Union address, CNN cut suddenly to what they called a “news conference” in Oregon. Under glaring lights a pained wife held the hand of an earnest husband while he confessed to an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky, he said, bragged of fellatio…
Cream of the Crop
photograph by Doug Potter In the wake of Hopwood, Texas’s institutions of higher education are suffering under their newfound reputation as affirmative action deadbeats. With several of UT’s first black law students still alive to tell the tale of being forced to attend a “separate but equal” school in a basement because only white people…
Food-O-File
A few weeks ago, I got a call from a woman in Atlanta who wanted to send a meal to an Austin family experiencing the loss of a loved one. She was looking for a service that would deliver a home-cooked meal for four to six people at a reasonable price. I was at a…
Naked City
The news of John “David” Cavness, Jr.’s beating and stabbing death last month has rattled the lesbian and gay community. No one is going on record and calling it a hate crime, but the homicide has raised grim reminders of the dangers of pickup encounters. Police last weekend nabbed two of the three murder suspects…
Seeing Stars
Proyecto Huevo by Louis Benedit, 1976-77 According to Mari Carmen Ramirez, the curator of Latin American Art for UT’s Huntington Art Gallery, the exhibition “Re-Aligning Vision: Alternative Currents in South American Drawing” was conceived as a “constellation” rather than a general survey exhibition. By this she means it is an “an arbitrary configuration of seemingly…
Casual Kosher
The Kosher Deli at HEB Far West photograph by John Anderson HEB Far West 7025 Village Center Dr., 502-8445 Sun-Thu, 7am-8pm; Fri, 7am-4pm Small grocers and family-run restaurants traditionally champion ethnic cuisine. Large markets may appease occasionally adventurous cooks; they rarely satisfy the truly specialized ones. In Austin, however, several larger stores nourish select cultures…
Channel Surfing
Displaying the buoyant talent that has made her an international star, Pamela Anderson Lee takes home video to new… er, lows. The Grim Reaper stood by me last week. Okay, maybe it just seemed that way because I had a horrible case of flu. Usually, I watch a lot of TV when I’m ill but…
Articulations
The Austin Museum of Art must be doing something right. It’s just received another hefty show of financial support. On Monday, AMOA Director Elizabeth Ferrer announced the receipt of a $100,000 contribution for season support from Dell Computers. As one of the few local corporations of any size (read: with any depth to its pockets),…
Dancing About Architecture
“If the musical equivalent of S.O.S. [Save Our Springs] doesn’t happen, we’ll cease to exist.” So says Tim Hamblin at the Austin Music Network (AMN) of the possibility of the cable channel’s survival after today’s (Thursday) council meeting. The council will be considering three alternatives: It can allocate more money so AMN can continue operating…
Girls in the Hood
Filmmakers Tina DiFeliciantonio and Jane Wagner Lisa no longer believes in Adam and Eve, and is pretty sure she knows how children are made. De’Yona thinks more about singing gospel than meeting boys. Anna’s parents forbid her from even walking through the halls with the opposite sex, and Raelene has dropped out to spend more…
Postscripts
For many people, February means “cold,” but for many publishers, it means “literary.” February is not the time when: a) Christmas books are sold, b) summer reading is sold, c) sweet Mother’s and Father’s Day books are sold, or d) Danielle Steele and other highly commercial authors come out with their books (usually May). It…
Lasting Legacy
The late Carole Kneeland I have to confess that I was only vaguely familiar with Carole Kneeland until about a week before her death, when a colleague alerted me by e-mail that the former KVUE news director would soon be gone, a victim of cancer. “She’s the type of reporter that TV news needs more…
Scanlines
D: Kenneth Branagh (1996) with Branagh, Julie Christie, Derek Jacobi, Jack Lemmon, Kate Winslet, Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Dame Judy Dench Othello D: Oliver Parker (1995) with Laurence Fishburne, Kenneth Branagh, Irene Jacob, Anna Patrick Richard III D: Richard Loncraine (1995) with Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, Robert Downey, Jr. Iago…
