Show Low is the name
of the town, and I have no idea why. It’s not far from a place called Fool Hollow. Founded in 1871, it sits on Route 60 in the mountains of eastern Arizona at an elevation of 6331 feet. Brutal winters, cool summer nights. This used to be Apache country — their reservation is just to…
From Page to Screen
Fifty years ago, South African novelist Alan Paton wrote Cry, the Beloved Country as a protest against racism and as an inspiration and celebration of brotherhood. Now, as a stunning film starring James Earl Jones and Richard Harris, along with a South African cast and crew, the novel’s message of forgiveness and hope is made…
A Change of Taste
by Virginia B. Wood Bertram’s Restaurant and Bar 1600 Guadalupe, 476-2743 Lunch 11am-2pm, Monday-Friday Dinner 5-10pm, Monday-Friday (until 11pm Saturday & Sunday) One of the true chal- lenges for a reviewer comes when you’ve found a restaurant you really like, you’ve shared it with friends and they like it, and you’re all set to write…
Star of India
2900 W. Anderson, 452- 8199 Mon-Fri, 11am-2:30pm, 5:30-10:30pm; 5:30-10:30pm Sat & Sun. One look at India’s cuisine reveals a palette of colors to please the eye: mango, chartreuse, mustard yellow, burnt- orange, and plum brown. This food gets its vibrant colors from traditional ingredients like turmeric, tamarind, mint, cumin, and the occasional fruit, all featured…
So, Where Were the Vampires in Before Sunrise?
I guess you’re supposed to figure that any film with the word “Dawn” in the title (Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead: Dead By Dawn) has got to have either vampires or zombies in it, since the first half of Robert Rodriguez’ From Dawn Till Dusk certainly doesn’t give you any clues. Once the bloodsuckers…
Day Trips
What does a 2,700 pound gorilla eat? If the gorilla comes from the Double D Statuary, it doesn’t eat anything. That is because the life-sized primate with a life-like smirk is made of concrete. The statuary, 30 miles northwest of Corpus Christi on US77, claims to be the largest manufacturer of concrete statues and fountains…
Who’s Got the Hootie?
by Andy Langer Edie Brickell always seemed harmless enough. What she and the New Bohemians may have lacked in soul, they seemed to make up for with charm. But since Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars shot up and down the charts in 1988, Dallas’ music scene has found nothing charming about living in the…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
While sleeping, an adult weighing 150 pounds burns up about 80 kcal an hour. According to his memoirs, Richard Pryor knowingly carried on a brief affair with a transvestite named Natasha. He also had the hots for comic Lily Tomlin. The only palindrome of the make of a car is “A Toyota.” The word “barbecue”…
A Room of One’s Own
by Jason Cohen Whenever I go back to my hometown of Philadelphia, there are but two things I have to do: First, I visit the family, and then I go home — home being that nurturing, adventurous place where I spent the better part of my adolescence. Home being the Record Cellar, on not-so-bustling Bustleton…
Food-O-File
In the “It’s Never Too Early to Plan Ahead” Department, Tom Gilliland and Miguel Ravago, co-owners of Fonda San Miguel, are already planning their celebration for December 31, 1999. “Besides being the millennium, it’s also the 25th anniversary of our restaurant,” Gilliland said, adding that they plan to make the event “a culinary and entertainment…
Never Say Never
In last week’s Chronicle, I authoritatively stated that, prior to the Austin Lyric Opera production of Tannh�user, Austin had never seen a production of a Wagnerian opera. Well, I should know better than to make such sweeping statements. No sooner was the ink dry on the page than I received a very polite note from…
The Mermen, Nero’s Rome, Death Valley
Electric Lounge, Tuesday 23 Mermen guitarist Jim Thomas is a guitar savant. He picked up a guitar late in life (30), found he had a natural affinity for it, and suddenly started spewing forth the guitar immortals (Hendrix, Neil Young) he’d been hearing at the music store he worked in. The results are A Glorious…
El Gallo Jiro
4917 Airport, 451-9500 Open daily 7am-10pm If Sixth Street is Austin’s official Entertainment District, Airport Boulevard is our unofficial Entertainment Recovery District (ERD). The diagonal stretch of road between the Interstate and Highway 290 developed a distinguished reputation for lowbrow post-club eating among nightclub refugees and UT students. After a long night of drink specials…
Dance:
MUNTU DANCE THEATRE OF CHICAGO presents “African Visions,” a program combining traditional dances of Africa with new pieces Sat., Jan 20, 8pm. $15. Carver Cultural Center, 226 N. Hackberry. San Antonio. 210/226-2891. Music: THE CORPUS CHRISTI SYMPHONY offers “A Night in Vienna,” featuring music by Johann Strauss. William Buhider conducts. Mon, Jan 22, 8:15pm. $8-23.…
So Let Them Surf…
by Roseana Auten Nowhere do you find more enthusiasm for the god of Technology than among educators,” writes Neil Postman, one of the country’s sharpest critics of Americans’ love of “cheerleading” computer-based technology, in his new book, The End of Education. “There is hardly a school superintendent anywhere, or a college dean, who cannot give…
7 and 7 is
Making “indie rock” of late seems to mean recording on four tracks for a major multinational, but that’s okay: There will probably always be plenty of local combos willing to work out their middle-class passions in a thoroughly unprofessional manner. The inspiration for Veronica’s debut on Candy-Ass may be vaguely riotish, but it’s true mother…
What Galleries Are Doing on the World Wide Web Why Net Art?
by Rebecca S. Cohen I received a postcard from Lucerne this week, from a young friend on her first romp through Europe. She says, “I didn’t even know this place existed until yesterday, and I’m already in love with it.” That’s how I feel about the Internet. One minute I didn’t know it existed, and…
The Road to Ruin
by Nelson England Some Austinites can- not view the towering freeway ramps under construction at the intersection of Ben White and South Lamar without an impending sense of doom. This soon-to-be completed US290/Loop 360 freeway interchange straddles a hill overlooking Barton Creek just three miles upstream from Barton Springs. Within a few years, US290 will…
Recviews
NOMEANSNO The Worldhood of the World (as Such) (Alternative Tentacles) NoMeansNo sound like the kids in the audience who actually enjoyed the poorly received pairing of Blue �yster Cult and the Ramones in 1976 Long Island. They’re obviously punk rockers, but the influence of art rock hangs over them like a methadone habit. So even…
Off the Bookshelf Pop Fiction
Intensity by Dean Koontz Knopf, $25 hard Chyna Shepherd is determined to avoid intensity or involvement of any kind. Chyna, whose life has been shaped by a traumatic childhood of abuse, wants a life without risk. But when she becomes the only survivor of a mass murder, she is forced to struggle against a killer…
What’s So Bad About Impervious Cover?
Environmentalists say that the real issue that the US290/Loop 1 Task Force should consider is the cumulative effect of impervious cover over the Edwards Aquifer recharge and contributing zones. In natural, undeveloped parts of Hill Country watersheds, water percolates slowly through the soil for weeks after a rain, gradually emerging into creek beds through many…
Scanlines
A Jack Kerouac ROMnibus CD-ROM for Windows and Mac* Penguin Electronic Even if I weren’t Jack’s biggest fan, I’d have to say this CD-ROM is one of the most comprehensive and technologically superior I’ve seen so far, succeeding where others fail because it offers more than a book or a video. I’d buy it just…
In Person: Naomi Shihab Nye
December 6, 1995 Bookpeople When I think of Naomi Shihab Nye, the first adjective that comes to mind is “gracious” — as in, unfailingly gracious. Although she continues to build on her ever-mountainous volume of work, she has been regularly involved with editing anthologies she believes need to be out there. For her, there’s also…
Stormwater Quality Control: The State of a Young Art
Highway engineers use two general types of controls to protect streams, lakes, and aquifers from development-associated pollution: temporary controls, which are designed to keep rainwater runoff from carrying loads of silt into creeks from denuded hillsides during highway construction; and permanent controls, which are supposed to filter out sediment, metals, nutrients, oil, and grease running…
Options & HIV
With the New Year comes the inevitable resolutions many of us make to “take better care of ourselves.” For people living with HIV disease this is no exception. As a result, local agencies providing services to people with HIV experience an increase in client request for assistance. Massage therapy is one remedial treatment in the…
Finders,Keepers
by Alex de Marban There’s a hairline fracture in the liberal camp. The issue is Councilmember Jackie Goodman’s performance as chair of the city Housing Subcommittee, a board that recommends housing and neighborhood projects to the entire city council. Goodman’s fellow liberals on the subcommittee, Gus Garcia and Brigid Shea, both bemoan her performance –…
Straw Between My Ears
Some kind reader wrote me a few months ago asking about the feasibility of straw bale construction in the city limits. Considering the enormous volume of mail I receive, it’s not surprising, but no less embarrassing, that I would lose a piece of correspondence from time to time. Fortunately, my finely tuned, steel-trap mind loses…
The Stolen Bride
by Robert Bryce The abduction last week of 24 people by members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) has intensified international attention on the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya. The kidnappings, which occurred 120 kilometers east of Freeport-McMoRan’s vast gold and copper mine, are believed to have occurred on January 8. According to Australian press…
n all the universe,
there’s nothing more obnoxious, more repellently artificial, than a humble Cowboys fan. It’s like faux pearls. It’s like J.R. Ewing telling Sue Ellen he’s sorry and he’s ready for church. It’s Valerie telling Kelly she’ll never steal her boyfriends again because, in spite of their problems, deep in her heart she really respects and loves…
Taking the Low Road
by Hugh Forrest If you own a business, particularly a small start-up venture with little in the way of cash reserves, the threat of a boycott can be rather frightening. You may be operating under the burden of debt, but sales are good and you think that if you can hang on for a few…
Page Two
by Louis Black This story starts a few months back when Richard Linklater (director of Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, and the Austin Film Society) called a meeting of the board of directors of the Film Society, on which I sit. Over the last decade, the Film Society has programmed over 50 different programs,…
Deep Six
The Best and Worst in Austin and National Media 1. Missing Persons. Tired of reading about Ron “impostor on the roster” Weaver? So are we. But at least we are all being truthful about our pasts now, right? Wrong. The Statesman’s January 7 bio of Oliver Revell, the former FBI assistant director hired to investigate…
Page Two: Stop All The Clocks
Barbara Jordan, 1936-1996 Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. From “Funeral Blues” — W.H. Auden “You are the final author of the content of your life,” Barbara Jordan once…
Off the Desk
Austin’s homeless got a 10-day reprieve from enforcement of the new camping ban. Maybe city officials figured that Rev. Martin Luther King’s birthday would be better marked by a parade than a raid of a homeless camp. Look for demonstrations and enforcement to begin on January 25… The rumor mill is churning on whether UT…
It’s a Plot!
Here we are in the b-bbrrrrrrrr-rr of winter and gardening events are already all a-bloom in this green li’l community. While our particular thumbs come in so many colors of the rainbow (except the requisite green, usually), we can’t help but wonder if this is a testimonial to plucky, wishful thinking: If you plant it,…
Art Should Be Brave…
by Steve Hammer His great range as an actor, in tackling roles from Shakespeare to Star Wars, is what has made James Earl Jones one of a few legendary American film actors. His role in Cry, the Beloved Country as a minister whose son is condemned to death as a murderer is one Jones had…
