Jasmine Cafe
1911 W. Anderson Ln., 371-0689 Open daily 11am-9:30pm It may sound strange, but one of the things I miss most about Paris is its Chinatown. There, on a nondescript side street, hides a restaurant without a name where specials are scribbled on a board in Chinese and an old man with a pinched brow rolls…
A Starlet is Born
There are beautiful women, sexy women, attractive women, handsome women. Some women are called “cute” or “pretty,” which can either be a euphemism or an understatement. Still, other women have a non-threatening, heartland type of beauty which is often described as “wholesome” and is usually the property of that mythical girl next door. Some women…
Austin Aqua Festival ’96
Okay, you know the drill. It’s the same one that’s been going on now for 35 years now: Austin Aqua Festival. Report to Auditorium Shores starting tonight, Thursday, July 25, for five hours of music (6:30pm-11:30PM weeknights) on five stages. Wear light cottons, possibly some sun block, and bring lots of money for the financially…
Operator… Information… Get Me Jesus on the Line!
Human Nature #1 Fan by Stuart Wade This week’s sign that Nostradamus (or was it P.T. Barnum?) was right: If the contents of the Southwestern Bell Greater Austin white pages impart anything of redeeming sociological value, then the Dallas Cowboys are at least four times bigger than Jesus here. Since last year, something called a…
You Can Lead a HORDE To Water…
Hootie & the Blowfish made an announcement this week that none of their band members are planning to die before their Southpark Meadows show later this year. Okay, I made that up, but only to reassure their fans. I mean, the way KGSR is overplaying them these days, you’d figure one of the members must…
Coach’s Corner
My God, can you believe this heat?” These words are spoken, not by a sponged-out Texan but by two Colorado natives leaving a tennis court. The temperature is 82 degrees. It’s noon. These strangers didn’t seem to appreciate this observation: “If you put together the 10 most perfect days of the year where I’m from,”…
End of the Line
The long, gnarled, nimble fingers that raced, danced, and jumped across countless battered upright barroom pianos are still. The cracked, soulful voice that rasped out the blues to generations of listeners is finally silent. The Grey Ghost is gone, and with him an era. He was the last of the barrelhouse piano players, a first-…
Page Two
July pours sludge-like down its own weeks, thick liquid time careening inexorably forward. Everything is the same every day: the weather, the road to work, the details of the job. July in Texas becomes a blur. Each week there is a new issue. This doesn’t help. New issues are pretty much the same, they begin…
Also Playing
Friday: Ugly Americans, Liberty Lunch; Lucky Strikes, Cedar Street Saturday: Herman the German, Squdge, Shaft, Blondie’s; Alvin Crow, Broken Spoke; Bad Livers, Stubbs; The Weaklings, Hole in the Wall Sunday: Los Pinkys, Jovita’s Monday: Scabs, Steamboat; Showoffs, Rick Broussard & the Shadowmen, Black Cat; Yellowman, Liberty Lunch Tuesday: ThaMuseMeant, Cactus Cafe; Hormones, Shindigs, Reclusives, Electric…
Public Notice
National news has again rattled the cage of our local complacency. While Central Texas is often in the world-wide lens (as evidenced by our Texas athletes in the Olympic Games in Atlanta), our down-home eyes still squint in the limelight. So when that light focuses on tragedy of global magnitude and we are hit so…
Austin Aqua Festival ’96
Okay, you know the drill. It’s the same one that’s been going on now for 35 years now: Austin Aqua Festival. Report to Auditorium Shores starting tonight, Thursday, July 25, for five hours of music (6:30pm-11:30PM weeknights) on five stages. Wear light cottons, possibly some sun block, and bring lots of money for the financially…
No Flies on Waylon
Get ready!” advises Waylon Jenning’s longtime lead guitarist/right-hand man Jerry Bridges, indicating that an all-too-brief 10-minute interview is over. Jennings, 59 years old this day, is about to face a large private audience of Harley enthusiasts in town for a convention. “Okay,” Jennings quips, “get more money!” The Littlefield, Texas native casts his perpetually sly…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Solar power was popular in Florida in the Twenties and Thirties — until gas companies drove the technology out. A “kenning” is a poetic comparison used in Old Norse and Old English literature. A term like “swan road” or “seal’s field” could be used to describe the sea. Eleven U.S. presidents were named after their…
In Memoriam
One of the best friends that this city’s playwrights have ever had is gone. Webster Smalley, who taught playwriting at the UT Department of Theatre & Dance from 1969 to 1989, died Sunday at the age of 75. During his time at the University, Smalley tutored dozens of talented writers, including Robert Schenkkan, Pulitzer Prize-winning…
Nature’s Water Clinic
Know some water-loving Californians thinking about moving here? Invite them for a weekend of rafting on the Blanco River — they’ll be paddling the driest riverbed this side of Death Valley. That oughta cure ’em. In other words, if anything is going to slow growth in Central Texas, it’s the drought. When Comal Springs –…
Food-O-File
Damage from an early morning fire at Z’Tejas Grill on W. Sixth last Friday will close the popular downtown eatery for at least six weeks, displacing their staff. While a few of the employees can be absorbed by the company’s other outlets (Brio!, Z’Tejas/Arboretum), manager Matt Dodson hopes that local restaurants and clubs can provide…
Those Who Can, Teach
It is most musicians’ dream to stand in front of thousands of concert-goers, sonorously playing the music of the masters to wild applause. But just as rich, if not more so, is playing in front of six dozen kids, teaching them the music for the benefit of their generation and beyond. Just ask William Dick…
The Mayor’s Waterloo
The mayor’s privat- ization blitzkrieg is officially in retreat. The revolution has been disabled by a confused but unflagging counter-offensive led by Daryl Slusher last Thursday, and major privatization initiatives proceeding through the bureaucracy will be immediately suspended. So what’s a mayor in his final year to do now? Bruce Todd’s dreams to hustle numerous…
Bonus Tracks
PODUNK Murlin’s Dock (Core) After an embarrassing debut, Podunk nicely proves that with hooks, better production, and a few twisted guitar tones you can indeed outgrow stale Eighties-metal retreads. And although this local band’s still prone to preachy lyrics and cumbersome power ballads, there’s finally enough heavy groove and grit here to place them firmly…
Austin Aqua Festival ’96
Okay, you know the drill. It’s the same one that’s been going on now for 35 years now: Austin Aqua Festival. Report to Auditorium Shores starting tonight, Thursday, July 25, for five hours of music (6:30pm-11:30PM weeknights) on five stages. Wear light cottons, possibly some sun block, and bring lots of money for the financially…
Call in the Rangers
To: Governor George W. Bush From: Robert Bryce overnor, The situation was desperate. Pumping was completely unregulated. Reserves were rapidly being depleted as large landowners competed with small landowners for their share of liquid wealth. Billions of dollars were at stake. Numerous attempts by the Legislature to set withdrawal limits had failed. Uncertainty was abundant.…
Live Shots
ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO Stubb’s, July 13 The last time we glimpsed Alejandro Escovedo, he and his band were looking rather caught-in-the-headlights on the Conan O’Brien show. Still, by the end of their four minutes on network television, “Crooked Frame” was cranking on all cylinders, and Escovedo cut a charismatic figure in the late-night, sidekick chair. Four…
“Trailer Trash #7”
Roy Tompkins Holy 8 Ball Studio July 13 Picture this: Cool little warehouse space on East Seventh. Rockin’ music. Many funky people milling about. Keg. Walls covered in panel after panel of whacked-out cartoon art. Pinch me. I thought I was in New York for a sec. Such was the setting for “Trailer Trash #7,”…
Off the Desk:
“If you have a problem with my report, then file an ethics complaint and let’s get it on!!!!” That’s what Councilmember Eric Mitchell wrote to In Fact’s Ken Martin in an e-mail response, after the editor of the weekly newsletter requested information that was missing from Mitchell’s latest Contribution & Expenditure report. State Ethics Code…
Mighty Blue Kings
Continental Club Sunday, July 28 Ross Bon, singer and leader of the Chicago swing ensemble Mighty Blue Kings, is on the Left Coast, “out and about trying to do our thing,” but the important question is where can you get a decent Polish dog in the Second City? “You got the Maxwell Street Polishes or…
A Life in Fragments
Betye Saar’s exhibition “Personal Icons” is filled with beautiful, carefully crafted and crisply presented assemblages, in which the artist recontextualizes found objects and fragments from her own life to tell a new story. Wandering through Women & Their Work Gallery (W&TW), it is easy to spot the familiar object — a Mah-Jongg tile, silver milagro,…
The Road to Nowhere
So, what happened to the Milk Bottle Motel? I know, I’m the reporter, but I can’t exactly answer this question, since I’m not sure exactly where it was. It was somewhere on FM 969, probably on the Bastrop County side and thus past Webberville, maybe near the Zendik Farm, definitely before the Colorado River bridge…
Waylon Jennings
Right for the Time (Justice) Survival is its own reward, and Waylon Jennings, who’s raised at least 16 different kinds of hell since 1976’s Wanted: The Outlaws, has come full circle. Not only is there a song called “Living Legends, part 2” on Right for the Time, there’s also “Cactus, Texas” (does “Maybe once we’re…
Do They Dare?
It’s a perfect Slam Team Summer: MTV gears up to rock the vote, KISS stages a reunion tour, and Atlanta burns the Olympic torch. In the absence of minor league baseball, Austin needs some locals to cheer for, and slam poetry is both more exciting and participatory than a bunch of wannabes spitting black and…
Slide, Slide, Slippedy Slide
About four years ago,The Austin Chronicle published a complete guide to Austin’s playscapes. While counting the number of swings, slides, and monkey bars in the city’s 78 playgrounds, we noticed a few things that weren’t so fun — missing railings, sharp edges from rusty nails and protruding bolts, inadequate sand or pea gravel in fall…
Surviving HIV
In the early and mid-1980s the general opinion on treatment and survival options for HIV/AIDS were often bleak. The available medical protocols were often highly toxic, suspect, or lost efficacy as the virus became resistant. With the advent of current effective prophylactic and anti-retroviral therapies such as protease inhibitors, people with HIV/AIDS are living longer,…
Playscape Survey Redux
Problems Noted in 1992 Updated Observation Bartholomew District Park 1800 E. 51st St. “Exposed concrete that should be underground, not enough sand, unclosed “S” hooks, slide lacks adequate railings, slide faces south instead of north.” The playground is currently being rebuilt from the ground up. Brooke Playground 3100 E. Fourth St. “Nails sticking out; bare…
Flower Power
When I was in college, my roommate Amy and I were on a constant self-improvement kick. Our major motivational technique consisted of cutting out pictures of things we liked, taping them up in an area most associated with each improvement, and attaching an inspirational note. We had John Travolta (the early years; little did we…
Sixth Street Blues
by Andy Langer It’s no secret that Sixth Street is one of Austin’s most unique areas — a downtown mecca for restaurants, bars, music venues, homes and assorted retail outlets — most of whose owners say they have managed to coexist fairly well over the years, given their diversity. But a pocket of Sixth street…
Sat 27
Prison Break!! Art Auction to benefit Parents Anonymous, at Austin Museum of Art, 3809 W. 35th, 7-9pm. 459-5490. Barton Springs Diving Championship to benefit Barton Springs, at Barton Springs Pool, 9am-7pm. 476-4521. Street Party to benefit Project REACH, HIV eduction project, at Planned Parenthood, noon. Cost is free. 472-0868. MON 29 Performance Poetry to benefit…
Adonis Rising
It’s the face. As the much-touted star of the upcoming buzz movie A Time to Kill, Texas-born actor Matthew McConaughey is a publicity dream. Ensconced in the Parisian ambiance of an airy suite at Dallas’ Crescent Court, sunshine spills freely into the room, shimmering off the young actor’s tousled Adonis curls, coppery wisp of a…
A Taste of Tuscany
Basil’s 900 W. Tenth, 477-5576 Hours:6-10pm, Sun.-Thu.6-10:30pm, Fri.-Sat. Long vulgarized to please North American tastes, Italian cooking has recently gone haute. Many Parisian chefs now betray their beloved butter and serve high-priced Tuscan olive oil with bread. Here in the States, trendy restaurants toss Italian staples like polenta and arborio rice into the culinary blender,…
Jayne Loader’sPublic Shelter
CD-ROM for Windows EJL Productions An interactive multimedia sequel to the 1982 cult-documentary The Atomic Cafe (which Jayne Loader co-directed),Public Shelter is probably the largest gathering of information on atomic weapons and energy to this date — science fiction and science fact. By incorporating a design that utilizes the medium to the utmost (each chapter…
