Cover Story
Nukes Are Back!
The Bush administration plans for the next (little) nuclear wars
Asian Connection
Asian Connection 1995, NR, 110 min. Directed by David Lam Tak-Luk, Yuen Tak, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Danny Lee Sau-Yin, Michael Chow Man-Kin. If your culinary tastes run to wild boar cutlets served on polenta with green peppercorns and port wine sauce, you can definitely get that in Austin. But taken as…
To Your Health
People laugh when I tell them how much a persistent itch on my back bothers me. Sometimes it even itches so much it hurts. Are there ways to control such a problem?
CD 25: It’s a Small District After All
The congressional race in District 25 is not about race — except when it is.
Lives Less Ordinary
The Austin Film Society’s neorealism and Beyond: Italian Cinema, 1948-1970
Second Helpings
“Second Helpings” offers tasty, bite-sized restaurant listings compiled from new and previous reviews, guides, and poll results. This week’s entries were updated by Erin Mosow. For quick, reliable info about Austin eateries, check here. Burger King Various locations Various hours (late-night drive-through at some locations) If you’re cruising for flame-kissed meat but you don’t have…
Soccer Watch
The Epiphany brings back football. So it’s said, and so it was, on Tuesday, Jan. 6 — the Day of Epiphany, the Twelfth Night of Christmas — the Italian Serie A became one of the first leagues in Europe to resume play after the holiday break. Some countries further north and east are still under…
Naked City
HeadlinesQuote of the Week: “Yes, there is no question at all. Of course we overreached.” — The nicest man in show business, state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, who feels just terrible about the GOP’s success at redistricting. The Dems sought their last feeble hope of killing redistricting before the March primary — a stay…
The Other ‘Alamo’
Brace yourselves, devotees of Alamo and Texas Revolution lore: The prevailing mythology is about to take a few more hits, this round courtesy of Joseph Tovares and his new documentary, ‘Remember the Alamo’
TCB
Don’t wanna meet yo daddy, just want you in my Caddy
About AIDS
“What can we expect in 2004?” is a question I hear often while visiting with varied audiences. So, following are some trends that would seem inevitable, plus some less certain possibilities. Fewer pills. New anti-HIV therapy increasingly includes recently introduced compounds which offer once- or twice-daily dosing, often with only one or two pills per…
Naked City
Temple-Inland’s proposal has enviros — and hillside neighbors — seeing red
Short Cuts
South by Southwest Film 04. March. You. Many others.
The Human Touch
Violinist Laurie Young Stevens finds the passion and flash in baroque music
The Dinertainment Dilemma
Can Kobe Japanese Steakhouse find a balance between the food and the fun?
Naked City
Poll: If Limbaugh did the crime, he should do the time
TV Eye
For those of us nervously watching the erosion of civil liberties and human rights, the next film in the ‘Independent Lens’ series, ‘Life Matters,’ is something of a wistful homage to what seems to be of little value these days
‘Food Wine, and Thou’
In its savory new exhibition ‘Food, Wine and Thou,’ Studio2Gallery offers a feast of artwork whose succulent colors and scrumptious shapes aim to fill that empty space in your hungry heart
Saké on Sixth
Saké on Sixth is presented as a sleek, contemporary place with an innovative approach to the regular sushi bar, offering sushi, sake, and music, so we had to check it out.
Naked City
Bush’s vague guest-worker scheme gets mixed local reviews
DVD Watch
No one knew quite what to expect of 1987’s Dirty Dancing, the tiny-budget film that emerged as the sleeper hit of the summer and the slumber-party movie de rigueur for the rest of the decade. Nora Ankrum explains why and how.
Articulations
Austin won’t be a capital of culture in 2004, Martha Norkunas won’t be the director of Texas Folklife Resources, and Lana Dieterich won’t be opening ‘Always … Patsy Cline’ this week
Food-o-File
Ah, to live the life of the Chronicle Food editor; plus, Gingerbread pancakes, Girl Scouts, and the Gilstraps of Wimberley
Naked City
The former APD assistant chief goes job-hunting at the TABC
Exhibitionism
The lack of passion in Austin Lyric Opera’s Così Fan Tutte transforms Mozart’s curious opera into a prime-time sitcom with a spectacular orchestra.
Reborn Again
Tony Villanueva steps out of the Derailers and into a new paradigm.
Naked City
The Austin Area Heritage Council’s annual celebration
My Baby’s Daddy
Three players learn how to be good fathers and real men amid lots of stereotypes and tastelessness.
Exhibitionism
Elena Manuela Araoz’s minimalist staging of Titus Andronicus cleaves to the bosom of Shakespeare but ultimately loses its humanity.
Phases and Stages
CanDVD (Mute/Spoon) Can guitarist Michael Karoli, who fell to cancer in 1999, best sums up the fusion of high craft and high art that made this Seventies German unit arguably the most critically revered group in all of rock. “Noise was fully integrated into the music,” offered Karoli. “If noise was disturbing, then we knew…
Naked City
Their plan calls for lots of new student housing — but all in one place
Torque
Rev your engines: The first bike movie of the year is here.
Exhibitionism
Newcomers Vernacurious Performance Group create some potent moments in One Flea Spare, but overall, their staging of Naomi Wallace’s highly poetic drama misses its emotional mark.
Phases and Stages
Ice Cream SundayLudwig’s, Jan. 11 It’s become the norm for hip-hop beats to be constructed on turntables and samplers, primarily a function of scarce funding in inner-city school band programs. So where does a one-man rhythm machine, armed at once with bass, keyboard, and drums, fit into the hip-hop’s cultural universe? While the Roots and…
Naked City
The crop of GOP hopefuls for the Austin-to-Houston district thickens
Along Came Polly
Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston date and become more than just friends.
Get on the Ground!
Bett Williams navigates contemporary culture with a wicked pen and a wrestling mat, and she’ll be at BookPeople on Friday.
Phases and Stages
The DarknessPermission to Land (Atlantic) The Darkness: novelty, curiosity, anachronism, or the latest saviors of pure, unadulterated R-O-C-K? While Yanks, provided they care at all, tend to view the four British lads as some combination of the first three, the band has hit their native land like one of their powerhouse riffs. Permission to Land…
Naked City
The plaintiffs seek a stay of the new map from the Supreme Court
Monster
Charlize Theron gives a ferocious performance as serial killer Aileen Wuornos.
Readings
Aux armes, citoyens!
Phases and Stages
IGGY POPSkull Ring (Virgin)GIMME SKELTER(Nettwerk/ Buddyhead) Despite the fact that there’s only one true Skull Ring in rock & roll, Iggy Pop’s best album since 1990’s Brick by Brick rules them all on twin glimmers: Iggy & the Stooges. Punk’s reunited holy trinity — Pop and brothers Ron and Scott Asheton — prove their 2003…
Naked City
The next Travis Co. election (major party primary) is March 9. The voter registration deadline is Monday, Feb. 9.
The Cooler
The performances of William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, and Maria Bello shine as brightly as the lights on the Vegas strip where the film is set.
Readings
The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens by John Rechy Grove Press, 324 pp., $24 With his latest novel, The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens, John Rechy has proven himself to be one of the most versatile and ambitious novelists around. The writer made his splashy debut on the literary scene some 40 years…
Phases and Stages
SCARY MONSTERS AND SUPER FREAKS: STORIES OF SEX, DRUGS, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL AND MURDERby Mike Sager Thunder’s Mouth Press, 480 pp. (paper), $14.95 Bracing, solid magazine writing — the kind you used to find in Rolling Stone before Jann Wenner surreptitiously turned it into Highlights for Big Children — rarely gets its due. Writers are…
Naked City
Under fire from minorities, the school drops its “legacy” admissions program
To Be and to Have
In this documentary, a one-room schoolhouse in France is a microcosm of the teaching universe.
Page Two
An amalgam of influences with a life of its own, the Chronicle is smarter than we are
Naked City
Interfering with black voting rights — it’s the Lone Star way!
After a Fashion
This week, Uncle Style Avatar explore Platforms, Vespa Girls, red pumps that mysteriously turn into black high-tops and back again, and what’s in Blackmail’s trunk
Nuclear Posturing
A glimpse at federal plans to ramp up the nuclear weapons program
Dred Scott, Revisited
The federal court decision on re-redistricting opens an old wound in Texas politics
Day Trips
Before a big plate of smoked brisket and ribs became the national dish of the Lone Star State and the fare of fancy restaurants, it was a quick bite to eat from roadside stands.
Virtually Unkillable: TEA to Resurrect Online Charters
Supporters of ‘virtual schools’ never say die
Austin @ Large: Time to Repeal SOS?
What’s really at stake in the proposed Temple-Inland deal
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
In the first century, Pliny the Elder claimed that mustard would improve lazy housewives.
The Fruit of the Pro-Lifers’ Labors
What Texas women now need to know before an abortion
The Hightower Report
Kill car alarms!; taxpayer-built facilities get corporate names
Luv Doc Recommends: Third Annual Rabble-Rouser Roundup and Fat Cat Schmoozefest
Sincere, earnest, well-meaning people almost always deserve a swift kick in the ass – if only because they’re showing up everybody else. That in and of itself is pretty obnoxious social behavior. Very few people are as irritating as someone with an agenda and no sense of humor about it. Politicians are the worst. Take…
