The Miami Beach
Convention Center shimmers and twinkles in the sticky Florida twilight. With the exception of godless Las Vegas, Miami Beach is the sexy, sultry capital of the United States. It’s not the Miami we know today; a different time, a different place. Castro’s revolution is five years old. Marijuana and cocaine are foreign words, not yet…
You Say You Want a Resolution…
by Marion Winik When I sat down last night to make my New Year’s resolutions, I went totally blank for a minute. Which is strange, because I’ve been making pretty much the same list for the past two decades. All of a sudden, this year, I had to think. Now what was it I was…
Hold Up Those Cards!
No “Quarles” about it, while UT “Routt”s out the competition, you can help in the fight against cancer. Three-Point Attack on Cancer is Tom Penders’ and Jody Conradt’s challenge to UT basketball fans to pledge donations for every time the Runnin’ Horns and the Lady Longhorns make a three-point whoooosh — and that can add…
Blanco River Cooking School
Wimberley, Texas Leslie McGrath, 512/847-2583 For years I heard chefs and students alike describe their visits to Leslie McGrath’s pastoral cooking school in rural Hayes county as “heavenly,” and after attending a class there in November, I finally know what they mean. A food lover and gracious hostess, McGrath has staked out a little corner…
The Censure of Attention
by Patrick Earvolino Coyote Cafe 612 W. Sixth, 472-0612 Dinner daily 5:30-10pm Type. Chile head and renowned chef Mark Miller created plenty of it when he brought his Santa Fe-based Coyote Cafe to town last year. The decision of one of America’s premier restaurateurs to test the Austin market brought national attention and underscored the…
Day Trips
The Ezekiel Airship soared more in the imagination of its builders than it did in reality, but it gave the town of Pittsburg in northeast Texas one of the most unique tourist attractions in the state. Pittsburg was carved out of William Pitts’ plantation in 1854. By the late 1800s it was the county seat…
Excuse Me, Sir, We’d Just Like to Ask You a Few Questions…
It’s that time of year again, and the Chronicle’s Music Poll kicks into full swing this week with the ballot you’ll find on page 9 of this issue. You’ve got until February 2 to vote for your fave blues bands, rock bands, albums, hall-of-famers, and one-armed Celtic/Lithuanian trombonists (I made that last one up), by…
Page Two
The morning began with a voice mail message from a reader saying that a local radio station said that the Chronicle staff rigged the results of our annual Music Poll. The station reportedly said that if we didn’t like a band or thought the winner was “too popular,” we would change the results. Some variation…
Black and Tan Fantasy
by Raoul Hernandez Duke Ellington. The name alone evokes so much — style, elegance, grace. A certain regal bearing. And images: Grainy black-and-white stills from another time and place. Like Harlem in the Twenties, when underworld refinement flourished in mob spots like the Cotton Club. Splashs of red satin ballrooms from San Antonio to Catalina…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
John Belushi’s old extension at NBC was 4103. Dan Akroyd was at ext. 4104. Tiny mites known as Demodex are probably crawling on hair follicles near your nose and eyes right now. Hard to remove, they are believed to be beneficial by cleansing follicles and unclogging glands. Dueling in Congress was outlawed in 1838. The…
Black and Tan Fantasy
by Raoul Hernandez Duke Ellington. The name alone evokes so much — style, elegance, grace. A certain regal bearing. And images: Grainy black-and-white stills from another time and place. Like Harlem in the Twenties, when underworld refinement flourished in mob spots like the Cotton Club. Splashs of red satin ballrooms from San Antonio to Catalina…
Food-O-File
Though the Manor airport never took flight and gambling at Manor Downs hasn’t become the financial boon it was advertized to be, there is still a serious attraction in Manor, the 47-year-old Texas roadhouse Cafe 290. Longtime owner Andy Taylor recently sold the cafe to a group of talented and well-traveled former Four Seasons employees.…
Janis Joplin, Texas, and the Big Beat
“I’ll tell you ’bout Texas Radio and the Big Beat…I’ll tell you ’bout the hopeless night Wandering the Western dream Tell you ’bout the maiden with raw iron soul” — Jim Morrison, “The Wasp” The Cosmic Giggle must have been in full-tilt hysterics on January 19, 1943 when the oil refinery seaport of Port Arthur,…
Longhorn Po-Boys and Falafel
2901-B Medical Arts, 495-9228 11am-11pm Mon-Sat, 11am-10pm Sun Just like the strings of pawn shops and “gentleman’s clubs” that surround military bases, you’ll always find sandwich shops around a college campus. It’s a textbook case of niche marketing — a nearby population needs a quick, straightforward lunch between classes. Offer students sandwiches and they will…
Traditional Music Fest
Dougherty Arts Center, Sunday 14 What do Irish, Scottish, gospel, Hungarian, Romanian, Scandinavian, Brazilian, blues, jazz, country, and swing music all have in common? Fiddles? Survey says… close, but no Cedar Street cigar. Pipes and tin whistles? Dancing? No and no. Answer: they’re all loved equally by the Austin Friends of Traditional Music, whose yearly,…
Bonus Tracks
SARAH ELIZABETH CAMPBELL A Little Tenderness (Dejadisc) I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: this Northern Californian’s voice has more Texas in it than most Texans have in their entire beings. This reissue also upholds Campbell’s reign as the Queen of Melancholia. I’ve heard that nothing cheers the sad better than a great sad…
Life on the 38th Parallel
by Alex de Marban Behind the streets of abandoned buildings and red-light activity that’s made Central East Austin infamous are contradictions of prosperity. They are the neighborhoods of the East Side, many of them thriving enclaves of charmingly historic homes and tidy yards, each with its own story. Depending on the economy of the times,…
AISD Notebook
The regular meeting of the AISD Board of Trustees on Monday featured few items for action, but plenty of talking, both before and on the dais, about trustee Loretta Edelen’s “Six Point Plan.” The plan, introduced in May by Edelen and other black leaders during the district’s budget deliberations, calls for “full restoration of funding…
Gospel Postponed
The most ambitious project on the Zachary Scott Theatre Center 1995-96 season will not open on February 3 as originally scheduled. The Gospel at Colonus, an adaptation of Sophocles’ Greek drama Oedipus at Colonus set to gospel music, has been postponed until September, according to ZSTC’s Managing Director Dave Steakley. Steakley, who is directing the…
The Grapes of Bruce
by Alex de Marban Things picked up in 1996 right where they left off, with the city council passing an ordinance that seems destined for lengthy and costly court challenges. In addition to those flaws, critics say the mayor’s new “anti-homeless” ordinance may tie up the city municipal court docket with scores of new Class…
Austin Lyric Opera Makes History With Tannh�user Our First Wagner
by Robert Faires This is big. Very big. This Tannh�user being produced by the Austin Lyric Opera January 12-14 at Bass Concert Hall, is no run-of-the-mill operatic production (if such a thing even exists!). It’s a big one. And that isn’t big in terms of the set, though John Boesche’s scene designs — envisioning a…
Off the Desk
TateAustin, the bustling downtown ad and PR firm which is home to the new Chamber of Commerce chief Kerry Tate, recruited one of Austin’s finest at the end of last year. On December 13, APD public information officer Ann Taylor resigned to join TateAustin. Tate says she recruited Taylor because she “has the perfect blend…
In Person: Maya Angelou
On Monday, November 20, 1995, Bass Concert Hall rustled with the energy of swirling autumn leaves. The lights went black, and quiet anticipation blanketed the aisles, save the few giggles and shushes which stole from the near-capacity crowd. The black slowly yielded to floodlights revealing a choir: Hush! Hush! Somebody’s Calling My Name! The Huston-Tillotson…
Low and Outside
by Mike Clark-Madison This is a tale of two fields. On the corner of Riverside and Vargas, one block east of Montopolis Drive, lies a community soccer field. It is not, truth be told, a pretty place. There is no turf, just beige sand and sparse buffalo grass transcribed by the white chalk lines demarcating…
Jeremy Reed’s Top Ten Short Reads:Spoken, Sung, and Scribed
* Loose Women by Sandra Cisneros. If Ms. Cisneros published four more books of poetry this year, I would find myself scrambling to fit them all in. * Wammo’s Poetry Slam, Tuesday nights, Electric Lounge. There is no better ring leader for local poets than the cigar-and-Guinness spout that makes up Wammo. * Where the…
Guest Retrospective
Chris Todd, a Producer at Human Code and writer of Scheherazade, the gameflow system for Wing Commander III and IV shares his favorite computer games of all time. 1. Civilization Go back to the original in all its suggestive iconic glory; one of the few computer games to withstand the test of time (and still…
Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods Rage of Innocence
Twenty-one years after the United States ended its Vietnam involvement, the nation is willing to take unblinking looks at its horror, and publishers are regularly printing books they would previously have rejected for striking too sensitive a chord in the national psyche. Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien’s In the Lake of the Woods (Penguin, $10.95, paper),…
Film Sense and Sensibilities
by Patrick Taggart Some last thoughts on on 1995 before the new year becomes old: Tsunami used to be a good word, I suppose, before it was kidnapped by television’s talking dog news anchors and employed for descriptions of just about everything. That includes what it really is — an ocean wave caused by a…
Volunteer: New Year’s Resolution
Often times in the new year we want to commit to losing weight, exercising more, or helping others. Volunteering can be one of the most satisfying personal endeavors you may ever undertake. AIDS Services of Austin (ASA) offers a variety of roles for interested individuals. ASA provides an information phone line to the general public.…
The Wacky Web We Weave
by R.U. Steinberg Condiments and the Internet. My, how they go so well together. Of course, I don’t mean smearing ketchup all over your FTP server or anything like that, it’s more in a poetic sense; the Internet as a condiment for life on your computer. Just the right amount adds the necessary spice you’re…
Floored by the Season
Winter must be the season when eyes are downcast; recent questions have all been about floors. Are people avoiding eye-contact with visiting in-laws? Has the passing of another year and its intrinsic threat of our mortality caused folks to humbly contemplate their toes? Or am I simply digging too deeply in order to avoid answering…
Site Specific
No time for directionless Web wandering? R.U. Steinberg and Paco Xander Nathan each give a list of suggested locations of Internet interest below: http://www.eat.com/learn-italian.html: The site of Mama Cucina, brought to you by Ragu, allows you to learn Italian and get hungry for tomato sauce at the same time. http://www.toyota.com/:The Hub at Toyota’s site features…
