Enter the Hugos
Jack Faust by Michael Swanwick Avon ($23, hard) City on Fire by Walter Jon Williams HarperPrism ($6.99, paper) Frameshift by Robert J. Sawyer Tor ($23.95, hard) Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons Bantam Spectra ($6.50, paper) Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman Ace Books ($21.95, hard) I’ve finally figured out why speculative fiction is poo-poo’d by…
Texas Platters
PATTI GRIFFIN Flaming Red (A&M) On the title track/opening number of Flaming Red, recent Austin transplant Patti Griffin is introduced with a drumstick count-off, swirling rawk guitar line, and a harp riff so fast that it sounds like a Public Enemy-style siren. Collectively, it’s the sound of nervous energy exploding, and Griffin certainly has a…
Postscripts
Borders Books and Music has recently filled its apparently much-desired community relations coordinator position; the store received some 300 applications from local and statewide individuals for the job from one ad alone. Does Borders tend to hire CRCs from within the company? Borders manager Dan Finn says that “it depends. We want the best person…
Road Shows
JULY FRI 31 Lilith Fair, Southpark Meadows FRI 31 Front 242, Back Room FRI 31 Les Savy Fav, Rock*A*Teens, Emo’s FRI 31 Fury III, The Moves, Hole in the Wall FRI 31 Alex Coke, Skylight Gallery FRI 31 Drugstore, La Zona Rosa AUGUST SAT 1 Yes, Alan Parsons Project, Backyard SAT 1 DAG, Steamboat SAT…
Are HIV Meds Causing Blood Fat Levels to Rise?
George, who is HIV-positive, began the new HIV medications two years ago. They have dramatically reduced his HIV level and improved his T4-cell count. Previously bedridden, he now feels better and is even contemplating part-time work. But recently he has developed diabetes, a disease unknown in his family, and his abdomen is swollen with fat,…
Confessin’ the Blues
“Blues is sufferin’ music.” – Martin Banks, Blues Family Tree Video (1991) “[Blues music] was (and is) the lament, the comment, often mocking or ironic, of the solitary individual, bereft of the support of tribe or close-knit society, facing alone, on personal terms, a hostile or indifferent world.” – Daniel Kingman, American Music: A Panorama…
Benefits
THU 30 Lilith Fair Merchandise (CDs, books, T-shirts, tumblers, etc.) to benefit Literacy Austin, at Lilith Fair at Southpark Meadows and at Starbucks Coffee stores. 524-7626. FRI 31 Summer in the City – Cornerstone’s Austin Men’s Party (cAMP) to benefit Cornerstone, at Zilker Park Clubhouse, 7-10pm. Cost is $15. 708-1515. SAT 1 Duckling Fun Fest…
Withering on the Vine
Austin Community Gardens’ Sunshine Gadens suffers from neglect due to funding cuts. photograph by John Anderson In the often-brutal world of the nonprofit community, every wrong decision tests an organization’s strength to survive. Is it better to stick to one’s principles, or tell funders what they want to hear? Should a group adhere to a…
Coach’s Corner
It’s a pathetic sight, really. The tents have long ago been pulled up. The ringmaster’s drunk. The lion tamer has quit the show. The circus, after a long and tumultuous run, has left town. The star of the show, a multitalented man who could charm bears and strike fear into the tigers, a man skilled…
Austin Community Gardens
Director: Frank Fuller Founded 1975 To volunteer or for more information, call: 458-2009 Location: 4814 Sunshine Dr., Austin 78756 Size of largest farm/garden: 5 acres SUSTAINABLE FOOD CENTER Director: Kate Fitzgerald Founded 1992 For more info, call: 385-0080 Location: 434 Bastrop Highway, Austin 78741 Size of largest farm/garden: 3 acres
Day Trips
Ann Merck’s Western Vision looks toward the east in the Liberty Hill International Sculpture Garden. Artist Mel Fowler had a studio in the oldest building on Main Street and gathered the art work for the high school lawn. photograph by Gerald E. McLeod The International Sculpture Park on the grounds of Liberty Hill High School…
A Budding Hamlet
illustration courtesy David Weekley Homes A while back, when the city of Austin passed its Traditional Neighborhood District (TND) zoning ordinance, we commemorated the occasion in “Corner to Corner” with a mock ad (tired journalist’s trick though it was) for “Public Realm Village,” the worthy and righteous mixed-use, high-density, character-filled and transit-oriented subdivision of local…
Page Two
“The End of History” is a theory that has held currency in some circles over the past year or two. Briefly, the argument is that, with the end of the Cold War, and the increasing globalization of the culture and economy, we are entering a period where historic events (as we’ve known them for the…
A Groovy Kind of Love
llustration by Doug Potter And you thought brokering peace between the developers and the environmentalists was a neat trick. For an encore, Mayor Kirk Watson is undertaking nothing less than the pursuit of racial reconciliation in Austin. It would take a city government on a serious winning streak to pull off a deal like the…
Public Notice
One of our fave fundraisers is back in town, this year at Barton Creek Square and Lakeline Malls. Each year, area homebuilders and architects manifest visions of kiddie wonderland and create playful playhouses for the purpose of raffling them off so that normal schmoes like you or we might enjoy watching our little ones’ eyes…
Is That All There Is?
Assistant City Manager Joe Lessard photograph by John Anderson The rumors started over a year ago, but it should come as no surprise to those familiar with the protracted pace of city government that it took this long to hear that Assistant City Manager Joe Lessard would be leaving his post at the city of…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
Delaware is called “the chemical capital of the world” because DuPont and Zeneca make their bases in Wilmington. The phrase “gung ho” started off as “kung ho,” which was an abbreviation for a Communist organization, the Chinese Industrial Cooperative Society. In 1963, IBM employee Arthur Samuel became the first person to teach a computer to…
Naked City
Stakeholders in the proposed Triangle Square project have settled on Calthorpe Associates – a “new urban” community design outfit out of Berkeley, Calif. – to help navigate a neighborhood-friendly development on the 22-acre plot in north central Austin. The selection of Calthorpe settles, at least for the time being, the feud over the future of…
Lost Pines, Found Feasts
Common Ground 398 Old Austin Hwy., 321-3213 Tue-Sun, 11am-2pm; Fri & Sat, 5-8pm Georgie Anne’s Coffeehouse 706 Pine, 332-2200 Tue-Sat, 9:30am-6pm; Sun, 11am-3:30pm Live music: Sat, noon-2pm Common Ground photograph by John Anderson Day trippers who find shade under the soaring evergreens at Bastrop’s Lost Pines State Park will be happy to learn that this…
Resuming Normal Programming
The lights were dim, the room quiet, and the television on FOX last Monday evening. Weezer and I were rigid with anticipation as we sat on the couch and chair. Suddenly, with a great torrent of cheesy guitar, our second most-anticipated event of the summer had arrived: Melrose Place was back. I clicked the TV…
Food-O-File
Whew, I left town for a week in July and new restaurants or rumors of new restaurants popped up faster that grasshoppers in those sun-scorched Texas cornfields pictured on CNN. Here are the ones I know about for sure. Downtown fans of Vietnamese noodle bowls are glad that the popular Cong Ly has added a…
Scanlines
D: Don Siegel (1956) with Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Carolyn Jones, Larry Gates Invasion of the Body Snatchers D: Philip Kaufman (1978) with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright Body Snatchers D: Abel Ferrara (1994) with Gabrielle Anwar, Meg Tilly, Forest Whitaker, Billy Wirth, R. Lee Ermey. Gabrielle Anwar in Abel…
Lagniappe Cajun Cafe
1310 Hwy 620 South, Suite 7-A (Lakeway Plaza), 263-8464 Mon-Fri, 11am-2pm, 5-9pm Closed weekends until after Labor Day Lagniappe Cajun Cafe photograph by John Anderson The assignment was to find another review subject in the Bastrop area, but the Cajun place I remembered on Hwy 71 East was nowhere to be found. Since I was…
Shortcuts
If you’re picking this issue up just as it hits the streets and you happen to be hungry, your best bet is to hie yourself over to the Alamo Drafthouse where on Thursday, July 30, at 8pm, it’s Spaghetti Western/Spaghetti Feast night. Screening will be Sergio Leone’s immortal epic Once Upon a Time in the…
7 and 7 Is
Vinyl is dead. Again. “Nobody is doing vinyl,” says Craig Stewart at Emperor Jones, whose partnership with Trance Syndicate ends when that local indie ceases to exist. “Nobody is buying it either.” Ain’t that the truth. No surprise, then, that Stewart says his Pip Proud/Alastair Galbraith pairing will probably be the label’s last 45. If…
Webb on the Web
photograph by Jon Lebkowsky Hard-working, prolific genre-bending author Don Webb has worked from Austin for many years, producing unique works of short fiction usually categorized as horror, fantasy, or science fiction, or by neo-marketing terms like slipstream or avant pop. His writing reflects his fascination with magic, myth, alternative cultures, technology, secret histories, conspiracy theories,…
Exhibitionism
Zachary Scott Theatre Center, July 28 Don’t you hate hearing that you just missed the greatest thing and you can’t see it again? Well, sorry to gloat, but you did and you can’t. Conceived as an informal new career-boosting benefit for one of the Zachary Scott Theatre Center’s most dedicated crew members, Shannon Richey, Tuesday’s…
Dancing About Architecture
It’s ladies’ day in Austin this Friday, with thousands heading out to the Lilith Fair outdoors at South Park Meadows to see the stars including Sara McLachlan, Natalie Merchant, Bonnie Raitt, Erykah Badu, and Liz Phair. Attendees will get the chance to observe a number of renovations at the Meadows, as revealed during last weekend’s…
She Was a Good Pig
illustration by Roy Tompkins Mildred was freaking. This didn’t concern me too much. We’d adopted her in the spring of ’97, as a companion for Skinny, but the relationship never quite panned out the way we’d hoped. Mildred was aggressive, given to screaming when things weren’t going precisely her way, biting any hand that reached…
Rude Awakening
photograph by John Anderson Theatre training isn’t a subject you hear much about in these parts. Outside of the university programs and the handful of classes offered by this company or that artist, the development of theatrical craft just isn’t discussed. For good or ill, Austin theatre artists prefer to channel their energies into creating…
On a Carousel
Big Man at the Carousel Jay Clark and his “frustrated cheerleader” Stella Boes. “I had an uneventful childhood,” recalls retired one-man band Jay Clark, centerpiece of Austin’s eclectic Carousel Lounge for more than 30 years. “Except for two things.” Those two things, unfortunately, were the loss of one eye at age 3 and the loss…
Articulations
A friendly word of warning: If you’re placing a call to Sharir Dance Company any time in the near future, don’t be alarmed when the person who answers the phone doesn’t say, “Sharir Dance Company.” The Austin troupe, which just marked its 15th anniversary, is heading into its “sweet 16” season with a new name,…
The Waiting Is the Hardest Part
St. Martin’s Press published acclaimed Austin writer Bradley Denton’s three most recent books: Blackburn, Lunatics, and One Day Closer to Death. And the New York-based publisher has rights to the first look at his novel-in-progress. But, despite hopes it would be finished before the fall, it looks like Gordon Van Gelder, the editor who brought…
Recommended
Friday: Alex Coke Quintet, Skylight Gallery Saturday: Axx of Jahpostles, Flamingo Cantina Sunday: Crystal River Jazz Band, Donn’s Depot Monday: Joe Valentine, 311 Club Tuesday: Diana Jones, Cactus Cafe Wednesday: William Topley, Continental Club Thursday: Little Joe y la Familia, Antone’s
