In Person
Michele Serros at Book People The truth of the matter is, I loathe readings. As a graduate of one of those sometimes venerated, sometimes vilified writing programs, the reading is what going to church was to me as a 4-year-old: long, boring, and bloated with its sense of significance. But when Michele Serros’ new book,…
Straddling Jazz
photograph by John Carrico Though their sound has itsfoundations in the left-leaning outskirts of jazz, an apt description of the Golden Arm Trio’s music is easier if you think in terms of approach rather than genre. For pianist/percussionist Graham Reynolds, the only constant in this ever-evolving Austin endeavor, the creative journey of improvisation comes in…
The Summer Revival Spirit
Summer films = fluff. That expectation can be a pretty fair assumption just about everywhere except Austin. Our prospects here are different because summertime is when three of our favorite local institutions launch special exhibition series devoted to revivals and classic movie fare. The Paramount Theatre’s Summer Film Classics features mostly double bills throughout the…
As Queer As It Gets
Regardless of his state of undress, Christian McLaughlin is making waves in gay fiction. Christian McLaughlin is always up to something. When an idea comes to him, there’s a thunderbolt – not a lightbulb – going off in his head. Anyone who meets him could figure that out because words spill out of his mouth…
Traditional Nouveau
photograph by John Carrico In the vernacular of Western classical music, the word “Concerto” denotes “an orchestral composition for one or more solo instruments.” A similar yet more grandiose term, “Concerto Grosso” signifies “an orchestral composition performed by a small group of soloists.” Here in Austin, that same phrase finds its simplest definition yet: jazz.…
Summer Movie Events
The Paramount Theatre Summer Film Classics 6/11 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: 7:20 6/14 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: 3:00, 7:20 6/16 Topper: 7:20 My Favorite Wife: 9:35 6/17 My Favorite Wife: 7:20 Topper: 9:25 6/18 Arsenic and Old Lace: 7:15 I Was a Male War Bride: 9:40 6/19 I Was…
Coach’s Corner
Professional tennis has undergone a flip-flop. It’s been in the making for several years now, not hard to see if I were looking, which I wasn’t. It took the unexpected, and I hope not fluky, reappearance of the sport’s most star-crossed champion, Monica Seles, and her emotional run to the French Open finals to refocus…
Workin’, Steamin’, Relaxin’, Leavin’
photograph by John Carrico Melodies jumping like bursts of water from an oscillating sprinkler, Elias Haslanger plays his saxophone with a collected abandon, his hands moving in rapid and efficient strides over every key. His method is a meticulous unpredictability, solo jaunts that run wailing, staggered, and askew into the back line. The directions he…
Scanlines
D: James L. Brooks (1997) with Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear To hell with Titanic! If any of the five 1997 Best Picture nominees deserved the award, it was As Good as It Gets. I think it’s safe to say that a better look at the more dysfunctional side of human nature hasn’t been…
Postscripts
Windy City News “Postscripts” briefly changes locale this week from Austin to Chicago, where the Book Expo America recently took place, and where Texas Book Festival director Cyndi Hughes took it upon herself to assemble as many of the nation’s other book festival directors as possible to discuss the state of book festivals. Galyn Glick…
Heart Music
“Tab’s one of those rare people in the world that is not out to make a bunch of money,” says Elias Haslanger of Tab Bartling, president of Heart Music, the label that has put out all three of his CDs. “He’s out to produce music that he believes in, and he hopes to break even.…
Short Cuts
If you’re an Austin Film Society (AFS) member, you should already know this, and if you’re not the news certainly presents a good incentive to join: Steven Soderbergh is coming to Austin to present the premiere of his new movie Out of Sight as a benefit for the Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund (TFPF). The Soderbergh-directed…
Just Can’t Get Enough
Six years after the flushed praise fiction lovers heaped on the gritty Bastard Out of Carolina, Cavedweller by Dorothy Allison (E.P. Dutton, $24.95 hard) is another exploration into the depths of white trash tragedy. But while close parallels to Allison’s own tragic past lent Bastard its undeniable authenticity, Cavedweller’s foray into the wide fictional wilderness…
Austin Jazz & Arts Festival Schedule
Waterloo Park, Saturday, June 13 Main Stage: Reconstruction Brass Band (11am-noon); Austin Jazz Band (noon-1pm); Jazzaholics (1-2pm); Concerto Grosso (2-3pm); Elias Haslanger (3-4pm); Jason Marsalis (4-5pm); Sheila Sanders Band (5-6pm); Don Parker Trio (6-7pm) Side Stage: Creeps (2pm); Tiktok (2:30pm); Vortex Repertory Company (3:15pm); Austin Community School (4pm); Speed the Plow (4:45pm); Ebony Poets (5:15pm);…
Plastic Oh No!
illustration by Terri Lord The splashy brochure ended up with the rest of the junkmail on the dining room credenza and I didn’t look at it again for a week. Finally, during a fit of sorting, the happy, peppy brochure surfaced in the nick of time. “You’re invited to a Tupperware demonstration!” the brochure read.…
About AIDS
George, who has lived with HIV for 12 years, moved to Austin four years ago and was musing last week about one of our most important assets: the David Powell HIV Clinic of the Austin/Travis County Health Department. “Where I lived before, they didn’t have a specialty clinic for HIV, even though it’s a bigger…
Recommended
Friday: Old 97s, Damnations, Liberty Lunch Saturday: Swamp Dogg, Continental Club; Guy Clark, Terry Allen, Ana Egge, Dessau Music Hall Sunday: Digital Underground, Atomic Cafe Monday: Classical Guitar Night, Mozart’s Tuesday: Converge, Today is the Day, Emo’s Wednesday: Man… or Astroman? Clone Project, Stubb’s, Buddy Miles, Dessau Music Hall Thursday: Spring Heeled Jack, Electric Lounge
Elias Haslanger
Kicks Are for Kids (Heart Music) In 1983, pianist Rich Harney released The Promise, an LP that, for many years, stood as the definitive straight-ahead Austin jazz album. What made this record so memorable was how well it crystallized the Austin scene at that particular time, a scene largely centered around the now long-defunct club…
Benefits
SAT 13 Out ‘N Open Golf Tournament to benefit Cornerstone & Metropolitan Community Church, at Jimmy Clay Golf Course. Cost is $85. 708-0536. Crawfish Classic to benefit Texas Neurofibromatosis Foundation, at Carlos ‘n Charlie’s, on Lake Travis, 12:30-8pm. Cost is $20. 528-5557 or 397-1844. SUN 14 South Lamar Bizarre Bazaar to benefit Leukemia Society of…
Jazz Sides
BEN NEILL Goldbug (Antilles) Say what you will about electronica as a genre, but no one can deny it’s opening up whole new avenues for established artists. No, I’m not talking about earthling David Bowie’s recent market-friendly dive into trip-hoppy illbience, but that’s a start. New York trumpeter Ben Neill is far more interesting. He’s…
10th Annual Austin Jazz & Arts Festival
Harry McMillan (center) and the DiverseArts staff. photograph by John Carrico When the 10th Annual Austin Jazz & Arts Festival convenes this weekend in Waterloo Park for two days’ worth of local and national jazz, it will be a far cry from the local festival’s maiden year. “The first year was on West Sixth Street…
Day Trips
State-of-the-art technology meets the age-old sport of horse racing at Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie photograph by Gerald E. Mcleod Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie provides grownup entertainment in a neighborhood of family theme parks along the I-30 corridor between Dallas and Fort Worth. The pari-mutuel horse racing track is a stone’s throw…
Road Shows
JUNE FRI 12 Nick Lowe, Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, La Zona Rosa FRI 12 Compound Red, Sarge, Appleseed Cast, Emo’s FRI 12 Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas, Antone’s FRI 12 Kim Lenz, Continental Club FRI 12 Old 97s, Liberty Lunch FRI 12 Bobby Bradford Quartet, Donald Edwards, Victory Grill SAT 13 Jason Marsalis Quintet,…
Christian McLaughlin
Christian McLaughlin’s first novel, the funny and well-received Glamourpuss, must have placed a good deal of pressure on the young writer as he contemplated his next effort, which we now have in hand – Sex Toys of the Gods (Dutton, $25.95 hard). Fortunately, the book is as funny as the title. The young protagonist Jason…
Page Two
The more things change… Almost a year ago (July 4, 1997), I wrote a “Page Two” about Cencor Realty’s proposed Triangle Square development on state-owned land, in which, among other things, I asked, “…and really, now, isn’t a supermarket about the most brain-dead use of that space you can imagine? Not only is it about…
Viva Bilingual Ed
Students Christian Gonzalez, Ramiro Martinez, and teacher Sylvia Saenz at Sanchez Elementary’s bilingual education classes. photograph by Jana Birchum Molly Ivins has often observed that Texas should function as a “National Laboratory for Bad Government.” We’d take all the really horrible ideas, try them out here, and spare everyone else the mess involved in figuring…
Under the Skin
Under the Skin 1997, NR, 85 min. Directed by Carine Adler, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Samantha Morton, Claire Rushbrook, Rita Tushingham, Stuart Townsend, Christine Tremarco. Samantha Morton makes a stunning acting debut in this wrenching British drama about two sisters, one of whom descends into a self-destructive spiral after the sudden death…
Public Notice
Troubled kids come from someplace. Are parents to blame? Violent entertainment? Economic disparities? What makes kids go down the wrong path? A better question might be, what makes a supposedly progressive society turn its head on its next generation? Camp Fire Boys & Girls not only encourages kids toward higher ground but also encourages adults…
Hazardous Hoofers
illustration by Doug Potter Better look both ways before rushing across the street to present your pet cause to the City Council. At least relatively speaking, jaywalking tickets are being tossed around downtown these days like so many strands of Mardi Gras beads. And at up to $105 a pop, just one of these beauties…
Can’t Hardly Wait
This better-than-average teen sex comedy looks at a bunch of seniors on the night of high school graduation.
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
In the old Fun With Dick and Jane readers, the cat’s name was Puff and the dog’s name was Spot. According to one source, it’s through the liberal application of sulphuric acid that most grocery store meats retain their rosy pink hue. The real name of the James Bond theme is “Bea’s Knees.” The Texas…
A Sister Bridge
The proposed “sister bridge” is designed to facilitate bike and foot traffic from the bridge to other points, including Fifth Street, Toomey Road, Lee Barton Drive, Barton Springs Road, and Riverside Drive. When Girard Kinney was a kid growing up in Austin, he would while away his afternoons with a fishing pole under the Lamar…
A Friend of the Deceased
A Friend of the Deceased 1997, R, 100 min. Directed by Vyacheslav Krishtofovich, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Alexandre Lazarev, Tatiana Krivitska, Eugen Pachin, Constantin Kostychin, Elena Korikova, Angelika Nevolina. In Krishtofovich’s A Friend of the Deceased, the fall of the Soviet Union and its Communist infrastructure brings with it not freedom, but…
A Stone for Norman Mailer
illustration by Jason Stout Has Norman Mailer published a book or sculpted a tombstone? The Time of Our Time is a massive slab of a volume, thick as a grave marker. The collection, chosen by Mailer himself, purports to cover his life’s work; it can’t help but smack of the posthumous. It’s as though Mailer,…
A Niche of One’s Own
Austin’s newest African-American oriented paper is headquartered in these tony West Lake Hills offices. photograph by John Anderson You couldn’t help but notice the new kid in town. In city hall’s free newspaper racks, amid the many community papers – many of which are simply in black-and-white and poorly designed – one paper stood out.…
Junk Mail
Junk Mail 1997, NR, 85 min. Directed by Päl Sletaune, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Robert Skjærstad, Andrine Sæther, Per Efil Aske. Roy (Skjærstad) is not anyone’s idea of a conventional screen hero. He is an unsavory mess whom you would neither care to have standing behind you in a market check-out line…
Food for Thought
In our culture, food isn’t just for feeding. In addition to firing up metabolisms, it also spawns entire industries, many of which use the subject of food to fuel fantasies of domesticity and comfort, or sparks dreams of far-flung adventures and travel. I know, because I happen to spend an inordinate amount of time browsing…
Naked City
A private, two-year battle with lupus ended Monday night for political consultant Mimi Correa, who died at Seton Medical Center several hours after she enjoyed lunch with friends who had visited her at the hospital. Correa, 39, was remembered Tuesday as an energetic, tenacious woman who loved politics. “She was never one to sit on…
The Beyond
A woman inherits a hotel that was built over a gate to hell. Man, I hate it when that happens.
Articulatons
At the end of May, while this writer was out of town enjoying the awesome resources of the Denver Performing Arts Complex (eight theatres, over 9,000 seats), he missed the passing of one of Austin’s less imposing but no less important performing arts spaces. On May 31, Synergy Studio, the dance studio/theatre space/rehearsal hall/classroom that…
Food-O-File
Even the murderous heat can’t slow the local restaurant boom! Childhood friends Kevin Williamson and Sharon Gerhardt have realized their dream of opening a small restaurant in their hometown. Ella’s Restaurant & Bar (#1 Jefferson Square, 458-2148) opened quietly the last week of May, replacing Baby Louie’s. The third partner in the venture is chef…
Salamander Setback
Attorney Robert Kleeman and his clients contend that 23 salamanders were killed when the pool was cleaned in the roped-off area at left. photograph by Jana Birchum Irony and coincidence are ingredients in any good story. Both abounded in Sam Sparks’ courtroom last week. At issue is a lawsuit brought by Austinites Alan Hamilton and…
Exibitionism
Republic of Texas Museum, through September 5 If you somehow got out of taking Texas history back in junior high, do not fear. There’s still hope. Mind you, we live in the capital of this state, where there are more tall tales and legends than you can shake a stick at and where you couldn’t…
Cubanisimo!
Ray Barretto has not only witnessed momentous musical change in his lifetime, he has been at the center of it. As a lifelong purveyor of Afro-Cuban jazz, Barretto has been a pivotal figure in the fusion of jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms, moving the musical hybrid toward the mainstream with his propulsive percussion work. “Because I…
Grassy Knoll Syndrome?
Are local developers trying to close Barton Springs Pool? The following letters, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, were written to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in early 1993. All of them state directly or indirectly that Barton Springs must be closed to swimmers if the salamander is added to the Endangered Species…
Tracking the MACC
photograph by John Anderson 1978 was a tense time for Chicanos in Austin. El movimiento, which had provided a sense of identity and pride in Mexican-Americans, had crested. In East Austin, things were stirring and one thing that annoyed a lot of people was the Austin Aqua Festival � or, more specifically, the boat races…
Dancing About Architecture
Rumors abound concerning the future of local trio/Lone Wolf experiment El Flaco, with a couple of local club bookers saying they were surprised to have approached the band about shows only to be told of “final gigs.” The band wouldn’t confirm the story; when contacted, bassist/singer Rob Gray used the old, “Baby’s crying, gotta go!”…
Break ‘Em Off Some
He may not be Master P, but Party of Five m�dchen Jennifer Love Hewitt’s MTV Movie Awards dress makes the author say “Uhhhhh!” First of all, I want to give a big shout to Margaret for going on vacation and letting a broke-ass college student take over her column this week and next. This is…
