Gaslight
Gaslight 1944, NR, 114 min. Directed by George Cukor, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, Angela Lansbury. Charles Boyer plays a man who tries, quite successfully, to drive his wife mad (hence, giving birth to the colloquial expression of “gaslighting” someone). Bergman won an Oscar…
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad 1958, NR, 88 min. Directed by Nathan Juran, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Kerwin Mathews, Kathryn Grant, Richard Eyer, Torin Thatcher. This movie is one of the greatest examples of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion, special-effects work (monsters, skeletons, and a miniature princess are among its many glories). The film…
Sorry, Wrong Number
Sorry, Wrong Number 1948, NR, 89 min. Directed by Anatole Litvak, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey, Ed Begley, Leif Erickson, William Conrad. In this taut thriller, Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman who overhears a phone conversation about a murder that’s about to be committed. Then…
Stand by Me
Stand by Me 1986, R, 87 min. Directed by Rob Reiner, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, Casey Siemaszko, John Cusack, Richard Dreyfuss. This sweet, nostalgic movie is one of the best things Rob Reiner has been involved with in his career. A Stephen…
Record Reviews
Neil YoungSilver & Gold (Reprise) The gentle side of Neil Young has returned. Some may be excited by this development, but judging by his latest work, the fact that he’s getting older and gentler doesn’t necessarily translate into better. The artist who can’t seem to figure out if he wants to rage or mellow has…
Book Reviews
Stork Club: America’s Most Famous Nightspot and the Lost World of Cafe Society by Ralph Blumenthal Little, Brown, and Co., 298 pp., $25.95 Carl Sandburg went to the Stork Club once. Sherman Billingsley, its owner, didn’t recognize the poet and asked someone what he did. He’s a writer, came the reply. “Tell him to stick…
Eating Between the Lines
Summer isn’t even officially here yet and it’s already too hot to cook. It’s still not too hot to read about food, however, as long as you’ve got a glistening pitcher of tart, cold lemonade, a shady spot, or a reliable AC unit to complement the book you’ve chosen as your summertime companion. Just in…
Record Reviews
SubaSão Paulo Confessions (Six Degrees)Caipiríssima: Batucada ElectRonica(Caipirinha Music) Midway through the dense jungle rhythms of Caipiríssima: Batucada Electonica, a spellbinding journey to the heart of Brazil’s DJ cult(ure), “Pupila Dilatada” comes to life like a virus. Backward mastering gives way to a brainwave synth line overtaken by the six-minute-mile dance marathon pace of a rubboard-sounding…
Technically Speaking
Maybe the idea of lounging in the shade, reading geeky tech books seems a little odd. But then, there was probably a time when the idea of a phone ringing in the middle of a movie theatre once seemed unthinkable — and my (grumble, grumble), how times have changed. Technology is culture, baby, and the…
Record Reviews
New Coat of Paint: Songs of Tom Waits(Manifesto) Tom Waits writes good songs. No, Tom Waits writes great songs, and what makes them great is Tom Waits singing them. In the hands of artists like Lee Rocker (“New Coat of Paint”), Lydia Lunch (“Heartattack and Vine”), and Dexter Romweber (“Romeo Is Bleeding”), they’re still Waits’…
Book Reviews
Groucho: The Life and Times of Julius Henry Marx by Stefan Kanfer Knopf, 480 pp., $30 Stefan Kanfer’s (The Last Empire) new biography of Groucho Marx is a grim little book, chock-full o’ the nuts and bolts of a life badly spent in the thrall of the Bitch Goddess and her ilk. Groucho, as it…
Eating Between the Lines
Whether you’ve got a taste for dishy back-of-the-house gossip from the world of upscale New York restaurants or you’re curious about the spice trade in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Chronicle’s food writers have you covered in their roundup of books about food that would make for good summer reading.
Record Reviews
William OrbitPieces in a Modern Style (Maverick) William Orbit has been shaping dance music quietly but consistently for more than two decades, bending electronica on a whim with amazing results. His astonishingly diverse remix and production credits include Prince, Erasure, Jimmy Sommerville, Depeche Mode, Belinda Carlisle, and Peter Gabriel before taking home the Best Pop…
Technically Speaking
Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech by Paulina Borsook Public Affairs, 256 pp., $24 Paulina Borsook has watched the culture of technology grow up, and she thinks it’s time for a spanking. With her new book Cyberselfish, the former Wired contributor has whipped off her belt to let those…
Record Reviews
Pedro the LionWinners Never Quit (Jade Tree) The second full-length release from Washington state’s Pedro the Lion continues in their established vein of pure indie rock at its most vulnerable and sincere, but this time out bandleader David Bazaan has charged up his chops and plays guitar with more authority, more aggression even, than on…
Book Reviews
Fay: A Novel by Larry Brown Algonquin Books, 504 pp., $24.95 When 17-year-old Fay Jones walked out of the woodlands of rural Mississippi in the middle of Larry Brown’s novel Joe she knew only two things for certain: Her purse contained two wrinkled dollar bills and her father would not have a third opportunity to…
Eating Between the Lines
Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, or, the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History by Giles Milton Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 400 pp., $24 In 17th-century Europe, one of the most coveted commodities was the nutmeg seed. A necessary ingredient in the fashionable recipes of Shakespeare’s day, the nutmeg seed was…
Record Reviews
Fatboy Slim The Fatboy Slim/Norman Cook Collection (Universal/Hip-O)Fatboy SlimOn the Floor at the Boutique: Mixed by Fatboy Slim (Astralwerks) These days former Housemartin Norman Cook is better known to stateside audiences through his Better Living Through Chemistry and the frat-rock-anthem-heavy You’ve Come a Long Way Baby under his nom de wastéd Fatboy Slim, but back…
Technically Speaking
Shutdown by R.J. Pineiro Forge Books, 320 pp., $24.95 Writers, from the minute they first put pen to paper or finger to keyboard, are subjected to the hoary adage: Write what you know. R.J. Pineiro — author and computer engineer at Austin’s Advance Micro Devices — set out to do just that in Shutdown, a…
Record Reviews
Dolly VardenThe Dumbest Magnets (Evil Teen) The biggest flaw with The Dumbest Magnets, the third album from Chicagoland’s Dolly Varden, may be that it’s two tracks too long. While far from fatal, it’s a tough defect to ignore when the two least satisfying songs, “Apple Doll” and “The Thing You Love Is Killing You,” are…
Book Reviews
What’s Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer by Jonathan Ames Crown, 288 pp., $23 Jonathan Ames’ writing is so informal and chatty, reading his essays in What’s Not to Love? is like sitting down with him for coffee, listening with wide eyes and cupped mouth to his bawdy and often…
Eating Between the Lines
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain BloomsburyUSA, 320 pp., $24.95 I know chef Anthony Bourdain’s roman a clef about the upscale New York restaurant milieu makes a great vacation read because I had a galley proof copy with me when I went to Providence, Rhode Island, earlier this spring. By day…
Record Reviews
Alex GopherYou, My Baby, & I (V2) Sacre bleu! Who would have suspected that the French could be so funky? This is, after all, the country that brought us such excruciatingly un-funky cultural snafus as Euro-Disney, Jacques Tati, and Jean-Luc Picard. Okay, Brigitte Bardot was pretty funky in her day, but what have they done…
Technically Speaking
Beyond the Charts: MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution by Bruce Haring JM Northern Media, 174 pp., $19.95 For as long as the recording industry has been an “industry,” it has protested new technological innovations, claiming to champion its artists and their intellectual property rights against the intrusions of copyright infringers. Starting with the player…
Truth and Reconciliation
The assertion of the individual is at the heart of the Austin Museum of Art’s new show, “Liberated Voices: Contemporary Art From South Africa,” which makes it fresh and full of surprises; it resonates with the hungry energy of a country emerging from oppression and brims with experimentation and unique, original perspectives.
Book Reviews
In Her Defense: A Novel by Stephen Horn HarperCollins, 400 pp., $25 “It was a rainy night in the city that keeps its secrets.” Okay, this isn’t the opening sentence of this legal thriller from first-time author Stephen Horn, but it could be. Mr. Horn has decided to embrace the genre wholeheartedly — never mind…
Eating Between the Lines
Ethnic Cuisine: How to Create the Authentic Flavors of 30 International Cuisines by Elisabeth Rozin Penguin, 288 pp., $14.95 (paper) Ethnic Cuisine is a paperback reprint of an earlier edition published in 1983, and it is a valuable asset to anyone with an interest in international ethnic cuisine. Not only does it take an unusual…
Record Reviews
Great Lakes(Kindercore) What if Brian Wilson hadn’t spent the Mid-Seventies in bed? What if he picked himself up from the morass of the 1967’s aborted Smile album and kept right on producing Pet Sounds-caliber Teenage Symphonies to God for the next decade? The wonderfully layered pop soapbox from Athens, Ga.’s Great Lakes evokes a wishful…
Technically Speaking
The Geek Handbook: User Guide and Documentation for the Geek in Your Life by Mikki Halpin Pocket Books, 144 pp., $9.95 (paper) The Geek Handbook is one of those light-as-a-feather explorations into a pop culture sub-phylum. Inspired by The Preppy Handbook, this software-manual parody bills itself as a guide to everything there is to know…
Austin Theatre Critics Table 1999-2000 Winners
The Austin Theatre Critics Table presented its eighth annual awards for achievement in the Austin arts in a lively ceremony at the Continental Club
Postscripts
The kind of ghosts the first writer-in-residence at the Katherine Anne Porter House hopes to encounter and details on how to sign up for the Austin Public Library’s Summer Reading Program.
Eating Between the Lines
From the Journals of M.F.K. Fisher by M.F.K. Fisher Pantheon, 848 pp., $18 (paper) M.F.K. Fisher loved to write and she loved to eat. Frequently she combined the two. The results are the benchmark titles An Alphabet for Gourmets, The Art of Eating, and The Gastronomical Me. Certainly there were times that she ate without…
The Life and Times of Gus Garcia
City Council Member Gus Garcia retires after more than 30 years of public service
Technically Speaking
The Nudist on the Late Shift and Other True Tales of Silicon Valley by Po Bronson Braodway Books, 256 pp., $14.95 (paper) Nobody will ever accuse the players of the high-tech world of being very outwardly interesting. All those old stories of brash twentysomethings raking in twentysomething million dollars overnight have gotten really very commonplace.…
Articulations
Goodbyes and good news at the 2000 Austin Theatre Critics Table Awards.
Off the Bookshelf
Jim the Boy A Novel by Tony Earley Little, Brown, and Co., 230 pp., $23.95 Tony Earley (Here We Are in Paradise: Stories) has bypassed postmodernism, irony — in short, any literary technique that is even vaguely contemporary — in favor of greener pastures. Literally. Jim turns 10 years old as the novel opens in…
Eating Between the Lines
Food in History by Reay Tannahill Three Rivers Press, 424 pp., $16 (paper) Every now and then I run into an old acquaintance, who, upon hearing that I write about food for a living, responds to my occupation with an empty, uncomprehending stare that is usually followed by the somewhat belittling comment, “Hmmm, really? Food?”…
Down to Two
Runoff candidates offer views on city’s future.
Technically Speaking
Katie.com: My Story by Katherine Tarbox EP Dutton, 208 pp., $19.95 When 13-year-old Katie Tarbox logged onto America Online, she thought she’d found an understanding friend. When I bought the story she wrote about her whole ordeal, I thought I’d found an interesting book. We were both wrong. I admit my naiveté, duped by the…
Exhibitionism
Salvage Vanguard Theater has dared to revive the radio adventure serial in its action-packed original The Intergalactic Nemesis and, hard as it may be to believe in this age of Austin Powers spoofery, the company plays it relatively straight and gets impressive results.
Off the Bookshelf
Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins Bantam Books, 415 pp., $27.50 Switters, the CIA-agent hero of Tom Robbins’ seventh novel, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, is described as being “like a puncture in a high-pressure hose, spurting in all directions, spuming with an irrepressible puissance.” The same could be said for…
The King of Hops Returns
Earlier this month, Michael Jackson, a well-rounded Englishman who travels the globe sampling local brews and entertaining faithful beer geeks with educational tastings and deadpan jokes about pop-star pedophilia, made his annual trek to Austin for a beer-tasting dinner at the Bitter End.
High and Dry
The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) continues to proclaim that it is fulfilling its mission as an environmental steward by offering an innovative aquifer protection plan to accompany its water pipeline to Dripping Springs. But LCRA officials and the authority’s board offered a slap in the face to their newfound environmental allies last week, by…
Short Cuts
Upcoming events and workshops of interest to the Austin film community.
Exhibitionism
In the Wee Hours, Heloise Gold’s new dance-theatre collaboration with Mike Arnold and Tim Mateer, explores the nooks and crannies of our dreaming / waking double life in visually stunning, playful, and engaging vignettes.
Local Bestsellers
Local bestsellers are based on recent sales at Austin bookstores selected to reflect varied reading interests.
Food-o-File
Virginia B. Wood explains how Austin became the second city in America to pass a resolution on genetically engineered food and updates readers on other local culinary news.
Roadblock
As the land development battles continue to rage in Hays County, two new thorny issues may complicate matters further. The Hays County Water Planning Partnership, an organization that formed around the battle to stop the LCRA pipeline to Dripping Springs, has sued the county over violation of the Open Meetings Act after accusing officials of…
Video Reviews
BILL HICKS … Sane Man D: Kevin Booth (1989; remastered, 1999); with Bill Hicks For what it was, the original edition of Sane Man was always pretty amazing despite its faults — an incisive young comedian seen at the top of his form, on his home turf, in a jam-packed, hourlong set of his best…
Second Helpings: Ice Cream Parlors
Chronicle writer Greg Beets on Austin’s ice cream parlors.
Page Two
Our “Best of Austin” issue is controversial, which is both surprising and not surprising. Periodically, I’m stopped by someone who exclaims, “It’s just a popularity contest!” Duh! It is just a popularity contest, but one in which a lot of people vote. This is your chance to express your views on everything Austin. There is…
This Blows
Jay Hardwig carefully recounts falling out of love with whistling.
Endorsements: Saturday June 3 Runoff Election
The three-day Memorial Day weekend will temporarily halt early-voting activities in the runoff elections for Austin City Council and the Austin Community College Board of Trustees. But you can still cast your ballot early through Friday and again on Tuesday, the last day. For more information on early voting locations and times, call the city…
Video Reviews
The Best of Alex JonesD: Kevin Booth (1999); with Alex Jones. The newest project from Booth’s Sacred Cow Productions has already necessitated a defensive mass e-mail from him begging, “please, if you find yourself writing me a letter that says ‘Alex is no Bill,’ please save us both some time & don’t send it. Many…
Lush Life
The divine Miss Nancy Wilson brings her lush life to Austin.
Book Reviews
The Cabal and Other Stories by Ellen Gilchrist Little, Brown, and Co., 276 pp., $24.95 In The Cabal, Ellen Gilchrist’s new novella, Caroline Jones is a poet teaching at Yale who moves to California to “whore for the movies.” She hates herself for doing it and returns to the South, where she’s from, to teach…
Public Notice
Public Notice says, “Keep cool this summer and volunteer for a local public service organization.
Record Reviews
Kelly Hogan & the Pine Valley CosmonautsBeneath the Country Underdog (Bloodshot) Ever been with your significant other, holed up in a Motel 6 on a cross-country trip, and feeling like it was time to make friends with a bottle of Early Times to settle your nerves after driving all damn day? This CD in the…
Naked City
A defense attorney claims a police detective held a gun near his client’s head to coerce a confession from him in the yogurt shop murder case; a tree in Town Lake Park will be spared the axe; Austin Energy hits record-breaking energy use.
Video Reviews
Running TimeD: Josh Becker (1997); with Bruce Campbell, Jeremy Roberts, Anita Barone, Stan Davis, Art LaFleur. The phrase “in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope” should be enough to have any self-respecting filmgoer fretting that Running Time must be a gimmicky, overwrought psychological thriller. Well, it’s got a gimmick, sure enough — the same single-camera…
What It Is
Edie Brickell returns to tell the world what she is.
Book Reviews
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris Little, Brown, and Co., 224 pp., $22.95 Thanksgiving with David Sedaris must be something else. There’s his father, the math-obsessed geek who squirrels away everything — rotten figs, limp carrots — for his dinner. There’s the youngest Sedaris, Paul, prone to such dinner conversation as, “Certain motherfuckers…
After a Fashion
DISCLAIMER I have been accused, recently, of being a Fashion Elitist, narrow-minded, and of possessing old-school ideas of what fashion is about. Nonsense. New ideas in fashion are the lifeblood of the industry, and no designer, critic, or journalist can afford to wallow in the past. Fashion is an ephemeral, of-the-moment phenomenon, but the best…
Record Reviews
Virgínia RodriguesNós (Hannibal) Several years ago theatre director Marcio Meireles discovered former manicurist and domestic Virginia Rodrigues, a former church singer in her native Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, and turned Caetano Veloso onto her. Veloso was likewise knocked out by her singing, and set up a record date that resulted in the highly acclaimed Sol…
Naked City
Utilities’ estimates of stranded costs associated with deregulation are coming in, and they’re far higher than the figures originally provided to the Texas Legislature when the law was being approved.
TV Eye
Is there anything worse than that long stretch before the start of the fall season? Thank God for cable.
Dancing About Architecture
Clifford Antone receives a sentence; Heinz Geissler takes over the Antone’s Records label; Ed Hamell is hospitalized after a car accident.
Book Reviews
The Toy Collector by James Gunn BloomsburyUSA, 276 pp., $23.95 The Toy Collector seemed familiar to me, but that’s understandable. I kept comparing the novel to what I know and like. I decided that it’s a cross between Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son and Douglas Coupland’s Generation X because the protagonist is both a drugged-out hospital…
Mr. Smarty Pants
The pace of the Foreign Legion’s march – 88 steps per minute – is almost the same as that of the former king’s soldiers.According to the federal Dept. of Education, 118,701 children were paddled in Texas public schools in the 1996-97 school year (the last year for which data is available).Carl’s Jr. in Mexico carries…
Record Reviews
Susana BacaEco de Sombras (Luaka Bop) For her third album on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop imprint, 50-ish Afro-Peruvian singer Susana Baca shifts from the spotlight-on-vocals focus of her two previous efforts — Soul of Black Peru and its eponymous follow-up — to a more group-based, organic sound. Recorded in a home studio, or more accurately,…
Naked City
The tragic shooting of Austin Parks Police officer William Jones highlights deficiencies in pay and staffing levels in the parks police department.
Committed
Committed 2000, R, 97 min. Directed by Lisa Krueger, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Heather Graham, Casey Affleck, Luke Wilson, Goran Visnjic, Alfonso Arau, Patricia Velasquez. After making her feature filmmaking debut with the magnificent character study Manny & Lo, great things were expected from writer-director Lisa Krueger. Seen in this light, her…
Beat Box
Eminem, 504 Boyz, Drama, Wood, En Vogue, Big Pun, Common, 95 South
Book Reviews
Mondo Desperado: A Serial Novel by Patrick McCabe HarperCollins, 240 pp., $24 Patrick McCabe mixes pop-savvy intellectualism with an edgy, amazingly elastic sense of humor. Mondo Desperado, his first collection of stories (although categorized as a serial novel) is even further over the top than his previous works, most notably Breakfast on Pluto and The…
Coach’s Corner
Coach can’t hit a wedge shot, or make a putt, but he’s trying.
Record Reviews
The Buena Vista Social Club Presents Omara Portuondo (World Circuit/Nonesuch) Buena Vista Social Club the album, Buena Vista Social Club the spinoffs (Rubén González, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Eliades Ochoa), Buena Vista Social Club the movie: Buena Vista Social Club — the franchise. Just when you thought it safe to swim back to Miami, along…
Naked City
No council meeting last week. This week, on Thursday, June 1, the council will formally accept the report prepared by the Police Oversight Focus Group, which recommends civilian review of the Austin Police Dept. A briefing on the report is tentatively scheduled for 5:45pm, followed by a public hearing at 6pm. To read the executive…
Sex: The Annabel Chong Story
Sex: The Annabel Chong Story 2000, NR, 86 min. Directed by Gough Lewis, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring . Some say, “Ouch”; some say, “Wow.” Your response to the following proposition will most probably color the reaction you have to the documentary Sex: The Annabel Chong Story. In 1995, porn star Annabel Chong…
Record Reviews
WeenWhite Pepper (Elektra) It’s futile to try and figure out at any given moment what Ween are really up to. From high-pitched nerd-novelty to earnest old-style country, Gene and Dean Ween have mapped out a career course similar to little Billy’s dotted line in Family Circus cartoons. With White Pepper, the notorious brothers Ween have…
Book Reviews
The Fundamentals of Play: A Novel by Caitlin Macy Random House, 333 pp., $24.95 I began to truly dislike The Fundamentals of Play, by Caitlin Macy, right about the time that George, the narrator, runs into Kate Goodenow, the novel’s heroine, while drinking highballs at the Town Club in Manhattan. My snooty-meter was already sending…
Day Trips
The defunct Comal Power Plant in New Braunfels finds new life as a hotel.
Record Reviews
Steve Lacy 3N.Y. Capers & Quirks (hatOLOGY)Steve Lacy TrioThe Rent (Cavity Search)Steve Lacy/Roswell RuddMonk’s Dream (Verve) In the early Sixties, while still a sideman for Thelonious Monk, Steve Lacy formed the School Days quartet with trombonist Roswell Rudd. Already looked upon as a bit of an oddball for his choice of instrument, this new group…
Naked City
The Springvalley Townhomes, an affordable housing project planned in Williamson County, won approval from the state housing agency despite a long history of problems with its developer.
Bossa Nova
Bossa Nova 2000, R, 95 min. Directed by Bruno Barreto, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Amy Irving, Stephen Tobolowsky, Drica Moraes, Kazuo Matsui, Pedro Cardoso, Debora Bloch, Alexandre Borges, Antonio Fagundes. Da, da da, da da, da da da … You can almost hear “The Girl From Ipanema” drifting its lazy way through…
Record Reviews
Built to SpillLive (Warner Bros.) The first big surprise on Built to Spill’s Live album is how, through the first four tracks, lead singer/guitarist/founder Doug Martsch avoids his well-known penchant for long-winded concert renditions of his songs. The album opens with a slightly shaky take on “The Plan,” the opener of last year’s astounding Keep…
Book Reviews
Sam the Cat and Other Stories by Matthew Klam Random House, 248pp., $22.95 There’s a sameness about the protagonists of Matthew Klam’s stories: All are men in their late 20s or early 30s with well-paying but unsatisfying jobs in advertising or the like, with brash and sarcastic exteriors, and sensitive, little-boyish cores. They’re love- and…
About AIDS
The denial that HIV causes AIDS has no basis in scientific evidence, yet the question persists largely because one noted scientist claimed it doesn’t early in the epidemic. Who are the HIV denialists? The godfather of the anti-HIV cabal is Peter Duesberg, Ph.D. of UC-Berkeley. Media stories sometimes refer to him as a virologist. It…
Record Reviews
Third World Cop(Palm Pictures)Monty AlexanderMonty Meets Sly and Robbie (Telarc Jazz)Horace AndyLiving In the Flood (Melankolic/Astralwerks) It’s hard not to compare Third World Cop’s riveting soundtrack to that of 1973’s The Harder They Come, the album and film that introduced most of the world outside London and the Caribbean to Jimmy Cliff and the wondrous…
Naked City
Herein, a concise explanation of all those weird and voluminous charges attached to your local, mobile, and long-distance phone bills.
