Cover Story
Once Upon a Time in Spain
Guillermo del Toro on fairy tales, facists, and everybody’s new favorite movie
‘Big Media is Ravenous. It Never Gets Enough.’
Incredible speech from Bill Moyers on the democratic need for media reform
‘Juiced’: Say ‘Thanks, Bags’ in Person
The chillier this week’s Ice Capades were, the nicer it’s been to remember that baseball is around the corner. Before the Express defend the Pacific Coast League Southern Conference pennant, resulting in a heartbreaking loss to Tucson in the PCL Finals, they’ll face the team that came within a half-game of edging eventual World Series…
The Thaw Begins
City returning to normal?
The Eyes of the Ranger Are Upon You
Chuck Norris’ WCL rocks the Erwin Center Saturday, January 20
Cap Metro Back to Normal
Back on the bus – Cap Metro says they’ll be back to normal Thursday.
AISD Starting Two Hours Late on Thursday
Austin schools starting two hours late Thursday.
Beckham, Mourinho, Fortitude
In the week in soccer, it’s all Beckham
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley->Razook
From: John Razook To: Shawn Badgley Time: 4:30pm, Jan. 17 Shawn: I am laid low today, my thoughts suddenly turned far from the innocent fun that is sport, particularly college basketball and the game for the ages that went down in my hometown of Stillwater, Okla., last night. You see, Shawn, I watched Why We…
AISD Undecided About Thursday
AISD is still undecided about resuming classes Thursday.
Garbage Collection to Resume Thursday
City garbage and recycling collection resumes Thursday.
Web Predators Aren’t the Problem
Dewhurst’s plan to get ‘Texas tough’ on child molesters doomed to fail
Bus service ending early again tonight
Bus service will end at 8pm tonight (Wednesday).
Still a lot of businesses closed in Austin
It’s a sad day in this town when you can’t find a breakfast taco on your way to work.
Power out for 6,000 Austinites
Thousands of Austinites sans power.
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley
From: Shawn Badgley To: John Razook Time: 11:00pm, Jan. 16 You left them for dead in a ditch on the side of a dusty trail and embraced the Kansas Jayhawks. You revoked your Mario Boggan as Big XII Player of the Year prediction and instead increased the intensity with which you rubbed Kevin Durant’s delicate…
Austin All Iced out… Again
Round up of local closures, bling
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley->Razook
From: John Razook To: Shawn Badgley Time: 10:43 PM, Jan. 16 I’ve vomited twice.
Dist. 29 Goes to O’Day
There was one last state House race to be filled for this session, the special election runoff to fill the District 29 seat vacated due to the passing of Pearland Republican Glenda Dawson, who died in September. There wasn’t any crucial party swing in play here, as both runoff qualifiers were Republicans. Tonight’s results: Mike…
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley
From: Shawn Badgley To: John Razook Time: 10:26 PM, Jan. 16 Son, I do hope you’ll have something to say about this one.
Limited Bus Service Wednesday
Capital Metro will offer limited service on Wednesday.
AISD Closed on Wednesday
All Austin ISD schools will be closed on Wednesday.
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley->Razook
From: John Razook To: Shawn Badgley Time: 11:50pm, Jan. 15 String cheese and ginger ale? Nice. Do let me know how that turns out. Because, when the Big Thaw finally comes, it may be only those who have adapted to such a spartan diet who are fit to rule. We’ll need leaders, true men of…
Capital Metro Shutting Down Early Tonight
Capital Metro buses will stop running at 8pm tonight.
Joel Osteen Swearing in Perry?
Yes, Joel Osteen is delivering the invocation for Rick Perry’s swearing in. Kinda surprising; from his Wikipedia page, he doesn’t sound nearly as Christian Taliban as Rick “Yer all going to hell” Perry would like. Oh well, different strokes. You can watch the swearing-in ceremony online here. [Ed. Note from Lee Nichols: It’s also showing…
Limited Cap Metro Service Today
Bus service is reduced due to icy conditions.
Deep Freeze: What’s Open?
Not too many institutions braving the weather
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley
From: Shawn Badgley To: John Razook Time: 9:49pm, Jan. 15 John: I dip my quill at halftime of the Missouri-Kansas “Border Battle.” I lament the term “Border Battle” – mostly because any interstate college sports rivalry that employs it is competing with every other interstate college sports rivalry; that is to say, there are more…
‘Possession Arrow’: Badgley->Razook
From: John Razook To: Shawn Badgley Time: 5:56pm, Jan. 12 FYI: Durant, Okla., is, in addition to being the Magnolia Capital of the great state, the headquarters of Halliburton. I don’t know what this means. I simply find it interesting. I’m also flattered – though outraged that the rest of the sporting press lets it…
Yippee! No School Tomorrow!
No school on Tuesday
How Is Austin Bracing for the Freeze?
An extremely serious look at the city’s precautions
Follow the Bouncing Big Box
Big Box ordinance winds its way back to council
Inaugural Parade Cancelled; Inauguration Still On
The inauguration parade for Gov. Perry is off, due to icy weather.
Hell Freezes Over
The hell that is Austin
Bats Debut New Goalie, Play Admirably, but Lose 2-1 to Odessa at Home
Tony Quesada (who’s only known as “New Guy,” according to Britt Dougherty in the pregame press conference in Moorsey’s Bar) made his debut Friday night at the chilly Bat Cave and played well enough to only allow two goals but still picked up the loss due to his teammates inability to give him much goal…
The Big Turnaround (and Who’s to Thank for It)
Two weeks ago, my fellow Toros blogger, Dave Mann, and I put forth a few humble suggestions for the team as a sort of antidote against what was quickly becoming a fruitless season. When we published the article, the Toros were a barely anemic 1-12 (their first victory actually coming while our story was being…
P.J. Tucker Assigned to D-League, Toros to Air on NBA TV
Former Longhorn P.J. Tucker was assigned to the Colorado 14ers of the NBA Develpoment League by the NBA’s Toronto Raptors last Friday. Tucker helped lead Colorado over the Toros on Tuesday scoring 15 points and grabbing five boards in the 14ers 95-90 win. We won’t mention what a horrible name the 14ers is. Oops, just…
Eddie Rodriguez, the Blogger’s Friend
Floor access for bloggers?
‘Friday Night Lights’: Up to Now
Real high school football may be over until August, but NBC’s fictionalized account of the Dillon Panthers, currently airing Wednesdays at 7pm, is just heating up. Previously: Street’s family sues the school – and Coach Taylor; Street and Lyla reconciled; Smash’s date with Preacher’s Kid interrupted by roid-induced nosebleed; Landry helps Tim see parallels between…
Survey Says? RG4N Polls on Wal-Mart
Responsible Growth covers Northcross this weekend
Politics of Pizza for Pesos
Pizza Patron makes an offer you can’t refuse
Ron Paul Running for Prez … Again
Congressman Ron Paul is running for president again … time as a Republican
Local Pols Want to Hear From you
Meet with a couple of your elected officials.
Karl-Thomas Musselman Leaving Texas
The owner of the Burnt Orange Report blog is leaving Texas.
Lloyd Doggett Gets Shrill
To his credit, he’s always been
‘Soccer Watch’: Spring Season Begins
It’s been a tough week Merseyside, as Londoners Arsenal blew into town and blew out Liverpool in two straight games, sending them tumbling out of both of the English cup competitions just a week into the new year. First came Saturday’s FA Cup fourth round, where the Reds were defending champs, but the visitors went…
Curse of the Golden Flower
The rather emotionally insignificant melodrama at the center of this film is given only minimal cover from scrutiny by Zhang Yimou’s visual virtuosity.
News/Print
Remembering Robert Solomon
Serato Scratch Live
So you wanna be a DJ, but you just can’t get the hang of beat-matching, and the idea of hauling around 100 pounds of delectable vinyl makes your back ache? Not to worry, Rane’s Serato Scratch Live software enables even the most diminutive of DJs to operate minus all that heavy black wax (www.rane.com/scratch.html). Not…
Beside the Point
Multiple proposals come before council to preserve housing affordability near Downtown
Notes on a Scandal
This movie with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett is a hothouse psychodrama, full of outrageous and florid sentiments that are made semipalatable by the quality of the craftsmanship involved.
Readings
It’s hard to state exactly what makes the photos so captivating. Editor Linda Gordon suggests that Lange’s work is “saturated with conviction.”
Texas Platters
Led Zeppelin Hoot Ruta Maya International Headquarters, Jan. 3 Under a full moon and with Mother Nature providing “The Rain Song,” Led Zeppelin’s mythos and mystique transformed Ruta Maya into L.A.’s infamous “Riot House” Wednesday night for nearly seven hours. Sixty minutes in, Jade Day got Unledded with an ace Joni Mitchell tribute on “Going…
The Hightower Report
The Invaders From Afar; and the Inspiring Power of Kids
Pan’s Labyrinth
Pan’s Labyrinth catapults Guillermo del Toro to the top ranks of international filmmakers: His dark and fertile imagination appears to have no limit.
Page Two: In This World
The all-consuming genius of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth
Texas Platters
Automusik, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth Emo’s, Jan. 7 While Friday and Saturday nights at Emo’s were a nightmare for claustrophobes, 007 shows promise with the Flood’s deluge of are-we-there-yet? jams, boy/girl duo Full Stride’s metallic hellfire, Lomita’s country drone, and the Lord Henry’s dance dance revolution. The Crack Pipes’ solid soul revue on Saturday…
Happily N’Ever After
The animated Happily N’Ever After isn’t just cynically humorless, it’s shoddy-looking to boot.
Day Trips
Add these destinations to your checklist of must-do day trips
Texas Platters
Chili Cold BloodLips (Bloodchili) If only every rock song were as gritty and raw as “Black Ass Woman.” Sadly, the occasional Texas funk slips in, and while wincefully nostalgic, we miss Chili Cold Blood’s gutbucket blues. Lips, CCB’s fifth LP, takes the local trio’s stomp, subtracts the trashcan mic and kitchen recording, and adds in…
Vladimir Who? or Get Thee Behind Me, Satyr
Fairy Tales Deconstructed, Online
Code Name: The Cleaner
For anyone venturing to see this so-called comedy, it will be hard to remember that Cedric the Entertainer is actually funny. Or rather, he can be.
Soccer Watch
It’s been a tough week Merseyside, as Londoners Arsenal blew into town and blew out Liverpool in two straight games, sending them tumbling out of both of the English cup competitions just a week into the new year. First came Saturday’s FA Cup fourth round, where the Reds were defending champs, but the visitors went…
Texas Platters
RokkatoneIn This Life (Grover) As rock steady is to ska, so is RokkaTone to the Stingers ATX. Jonny Meyers and Wayne Myers syncopate their latter band’s walking basslines into reggae’s romantic precursor with groovy panache. Aaron Lack’s steel drum, Laura Phelan’s toy piano, and Myers’ backbone trombone and melodica give In This Life its Caribbean…
Deep Inside the ‘Labyrinth’
The film itself isn’t the only thing remarkable about Pan’s Labyrinth: The tie-in Web site is equally compelling. Accompanied by a prerecorded spiel/explanation from the filmmaker, the site allows online access to del Toro’s actual sketchbook of designs, ideas, and cryptic doodlings – kept since the early Nineties – that eventually resulted in Pan’s Labyrinth…
Primeval
A news crew goes upriver in South Africa to capture a fearsome 25-foot crocodile and also tangles with a local warlord.
TCB
Emo’s surfaces on Playboy.com, a California label floats Austin’s punk scene, SXSW volunteers swim upstream, and a flock of dead birds reminds TCB of their distinguished pop-music ancestors
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Queen Victoria’s burial booty, and catching up with the Oyls
Texas Platters
MundiThe Book & the Flower (International Rain) If music indeed comes in two varieties, bad and good, then the latter never goes out of style – even if it’s seven centuries old. Since no one’s getting rich perfecting ancient and traditional European music, Mundi plays from the heart. The Austin instrumentalists – bassist Mario González,…
At Risk
Nick Cassavetes on Alpha Dog
Alpha Dog
It’s a soggy true-crime drama – too serious to be trashy, too trashy to be serious.
In Search of a New Agenda
What to look for in the 80th session of the Texas Legislature
The Common Law
Personal finances – consequences of writing hot checks
Texas Platters
Papa MaliDo Your Thing (Fog City) If Do Your Thing conjures Dr. John with a dose of Lone Star mojo and a hint of Tom Waits gris-gris, that’s a high compliment to Papa Mali. Malcolm Welbourne’s childhood was steeped in the bayous of Louisiana and his adulthood in the lengthy Texas tenure of reggae’s Killer…
AFS Texas Documentary Tour
The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose
Stomp the Yard
Although littered with clichés and shopworn manipulations, this film’s intervening dance sequences are so captivating that it’s almost possible to forget you’ve seen this movie a hundred times before.
Portraits of the Artists as FronteraFest Regulars
Why they perform year after year after year
Oops!
Our latest batch
Texas Platters
AUX AUX’s self-titled debut EP, evoking the stacked-heel prancers of glam’s mid-Seventies heyday and latter-day scions like Muse, lacks only a feather boa. Its louche trappings can’t slur away an undercooked song or two, but overall, the Austin quartet displays both decadence and depth. Midtempo opener “Carousel” and “Lighthouse” are prototypical Brit-rock, frayed around the…
DVD Watch
The Haunted Strangler, Corridors of Blood, First Man Into Space, and The Atomic Submarine
FronteraFest 2007: The lowdown
Now that you’ve met a few of the players, it’s time to figure out what to go see and when. This year’s Short Fringe – the traditional showcase of performances 25 minutes or less – runs Jan. 16 through Feb. 17, Tuesday-Saturday, at Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd. As always, the Saturday program will…
In Print
Colette Rossant’s The World in My Kitchen
Texas Platters
The Alice RosePhonographic Memory The power-pop ballads produced by the Alice Rose represent the dripping beads of wax from forgotten flames and moonlit candles, the romanticized effects of time and distance on one’s Phonographic Memory. Led by the sincere and seductive cull of singer and guitarist JoDee Purkeypile’s sweet falsetto, “Light Up” rekindles the carpe…
TV Eye
You can put down the book now
‘No American Talent’: Coming around the Mountain from faraway lands
The new series at Okay Mountain is titled “No American Talent” in loving tribute to Arthouse’s annual “New American Talent” show, which is limited to “all-American” artists. In its series, Okay Mountain – which has used satirical exhibition titles in the past – is showcasing artists from outside our borders to demonstrate that the primacy…
In Print
The Brass sisters’ Heirloom Baking
Block 21 Plans Getting Around
High-profile renderings highlight combination of hotel, museum, and music venues for Downtown
Tapestry Dance Company: Movin’ out
Tapestry Dance Company has to leave its home of 10 years, but it’s headed for bigger and better digs in South Austin
El Gringo & the Red House
Amid lounging hipsters, comfort food with a sophisticated spin
Who’s in Charge at APD?
It’s difficult to say who’s running the cop shop these days
Top 10 Visual Arts Exhibitions of 2006 (in chronological order)
Chronicle arts writer Amanda Douberley names the Top 10 visual arts exhibitions of 2006
A Trip to Bountiful Bakery and Cafe
After the death of her young daughter Libbie, longtime Austin caterer Becky Nichols was inspired to create a business where a portion of the profits would benefit children living with cancer
Naked City
Quote of the Week “We cannot continue to have what we had these past few years. We need to hold hands and get along.” – Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, as he withdrew his challenge to Tom Craddick for speaker of the Texas House Headlines• The 80th Texas Legislature convened Tuesday, with the much-belabored House speaker’s…
365 Days/365 Plays: Weeks 9 & 10
The yearlong festival of plays by Suzan-Lori Parks continues with seven plays performed by Two Dave Crew in week nine and seven more performed by Fadi Skeiker Shadows in week 10
Food-o-File
More gingerbread, more openings, and more …
New Twist in Anthony Graves Saga
Former death row inmate freed on federal bond then rearrested because he didn’t have the dough necessary for freedom on state bond set last month
Arts Review
TexARTS’ Big River, its first foray into full-scale musical production, was more than impressive; it was energetic, entertaining, and joyous
Event Menu
Jan. 12-18
Mental Illness and Execution: Supremes to weigh in
Supreme Court will hear appeal of Texas death row inmate Scott Panetti, to address question of how mentally ill a person has to be for an execution to be considered cruel and unusual punishment
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Adapted from Patrick Süskind’s heretofore unadaptable cult novel about an olfactory vampire in 18th-century France, Perfume is a gorgeous but woefully overlong and ultimately misguided mess.
Arts Review
There’s a lot of improv to be seen in Austin, and much of it is good; the Available Cupholders are an excellent example of why and how
Planet Funk Meets Planet Punk
Nu beats on famous bleats
Lobbying Lawsuit Update
Parties in taxpayer-funded lobbying suit are splitting the difference following district judge’s recent opinion
Volver
No working male director loves the community of women more than Almodóvar, and Volver is his ode of love to women’s congress and fortitude.
Arts Review
Volitant Gallery’s pairing of Katy O’Connor and Jennifer Drummond works so well, you might want to gather some friends and go picnic in the woods by way of celebration
Everyone Knows Everyone: An online guide to Austin DJs and the top five MP3 blogs
Okay, so maybe everyone doesn’t actually know everyone, but thanks to MySpace, everyone can download tracks from all of the DJs mentioned above and while away hours, days, years sifting through the myriad MP3 blogs that are even now helping to hatch a whole new slew of newborn DJs and eager old-schoolers. Here’s our pick…
Point Austin: The Other House
Senators meet the 80th with anticipation
Luv Doc Recommends: Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival
If you could put anything on your body, what would it be? Whipped cream, chocolate syrup, and the Budweiser Bikini Team? Almond oil and the Wilson brothers? A gimp suit and a ball gag? Or maybe you’re looking for something more permanent, something that says something about who you are and what you believe in.…
