Public Notice
Burning Books “Does the Austin Public Library Censor?” is the Public Forum to be presented by our local American Civil Liberties Union, Fri, Jun 28, 12 noon (11:30am for those who wish to lunch) at Furr’s Cafeteria, Northcross Mall. Cynthia Kidd, Associate Director and Barry Miller, Associate Collections Coordinator from the Austin Public Library will…
Shortcuts
Quentin Tarantino is not a native son, but with the enthusiasm he exhibits for our local film community, he might as well be. The filmmaker has been as loyal to efforts of the Austin Film Society (AFS) and hometown movie fans as any of the other young directors with tangible Austin ties — and that’s…
Food-O-File
We’ve found the perfect gift for craft-brewed beer aficionados. Texan Paul Myhill, home-brewer and beer connoisseur, has created a beer-of-the-month club called The North American Beer Odyssey. For a mere $15.95 a month (plus tax and standard shipping), subscribers to the service will receive 12 beers from two or three different microbreweries throughout North America,…
Wallace & Gromit
As if our debt to ancient Greece is not great enough (the Olympic games, Pythagoras and Socrates, to say nothing of a good slice of baklava), consider that this great culture of mathematics and philosophy also had a key role in the development of the art we now call animation. Long before people were arranging…
Common Ground
by Virginia B. Wood Local elementary school teacher Carla Marshall and well-known California restaurateur Alice Waters are both women with a desire to reconnect Americans to the earth. And the best way to do this, they think, is through the education of our children. Over the past few years — within their own respective spheres…
Take Me Out of the Mall Game
There were coffee grounds all over the kitchen, shards of glass on the bathroom floor, and, racing in circles through the house, my children, mauling one other and shouting at the tops of their lungs. It was not a good day. When my boyfriend arrived and took in the situation, he kindly suggested that I…
Chez Veggies
Visionary California restaurateur Alice Waters made a whirlwind tour through Austin in late May, signing copies of her new book, Chez Panisse Vegetables (Harper/Collins, $32.50, hardcover) at a benefit for the Sustainable Food Center, and promoting farmers’ markets at the Whole Foods Gateway store. When a customer described Austin’s wealth of great grocery stores and…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Lee Harvey Oswald lived in the 3300 block of Magazine Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter. According to Sir Peter Ustinov, Beethoven borrowed the last movement of his Pastoral Symphony from a “hymn to agriculture” written by the French composer Lefebvre. The Campbell Soup label became red and white in 1898. According to one British…
Coming in From the Cold
To hear Craig Ross tell it, the appropriate response to the release of his debut album Dead Spy Report would be, “Who?” Modest to a fault, and somewhat withdrawn from the local scene, the 32-year-old Houston native and decade-long Austinite reckons that “nobody here knows who the hell I am. And I haven’t gone out…
Bonus Tracks
LONE STAR (Daring/Rounder) Red, white, and blue. The three colors of the Texas flag traditionally stand for courage, purity, and loyalty, but they also stand for elements that are a much bigger part of both our history and our reality: red, for blood; white, for surrender; blue, for sorrow. The lofty ideals set down by…
Articulations
Being Seen While Waterworks makes a splash in Austin this weekend, Dee McCandless and Gene Menger are being recognized elsewhere in the country for their art in the water. Aquamirabilus, their short video featuring six dancers underwater, was chosen as part of the American Dance Festival’s Dancing for the Camera International Film and Video Festival.…
More Hot Butts!
Come on, admit it. You knew that with a new Butthole Surfers album finally out, this column was guaranteed to become “Dancing About Gibbytecture” again — for at least a few weeks anyway. This time, we begin with a phone call from Mr. Haynes, who wanted to assert that, no, he is not bothered by…
Live Shots
KERRVILLE FOLK FESTIVAL CAMPFIRES Quiet Valley Ranch, Kerrville, May 23 — June 16 I’ll admit it. When Rod Kennedy announced that this year’s 25th Kerrville Folk Festival was going to run 25 days, I was one who predicted disaster. The normal 18 days of blistering heat and choking caliche dust are hard enough. What masochists…
The Role of Mentor
Teaching acting — the phrase conjures up images of classrooms in which instructors lecture on the importance of breath control and ways to break a line into beats, in which young performers dutifully present scenes from The Duchess of Malfi or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, then receive detailed critiques involving objectives and motivations, hand…
Also Playing
Friday: Biohazard, DFL, Skin, Back Room Saturday: Eric Taylor, Banded Geckos, Cactus Cafe Sunday: Headhunters, Gingerman Pub Monday: Don Walser, Babe’s Tuesday: Mensclub, Emo’s Wednesday: Vallejo, Steamboat Thursday: Diamond Smugglers, Bon Bons, Cher U.K., Electric Lounge
Craig Ross
Dead Spy Report (MCA) There are two possible results that can occur when a single artist performs most or all of the work on an album; either the thing is a muddy, self-indulgent mess or the triumph of a singular vision shining through. Thankfully, Dead Spy Report is an example of the latter. The disc…
Local Palette
Various Artists Avenue Gallery through July As you drive down South Congress, past G�ero’s and the Continental Club, you’ll find a string of shops — antiques stores, mostly. But, as you pass Rue’s Antiques, don’t blink or you might miss a little gem wedged between Yard Dog and Uncommon Objects: Avenue Gallery. This eensy-weensy space…
Suicide Is No Solution
For nearly a decade, Sims Ellison played bass for Pariah, a local hard rock band whose long, steady grassroots build, fanatic fanbase, and eventual major-label signing made them seem like Austin’s next big thing. And in 1991, when the band finally inked a multi-album deal with a label well known for breaking hard rock acts…
Gillian Welch
Cactus Cafe Wednesday, July 3 It’s a dirty, four-letter word that begins with “F” and ends in “K.” Wrong. It’s “folk” and it’s a word record companies shy away from because to alterna-consumers — those who buy the most records — “folk” is traditional terminology for “boring.” To the average ear, Gillian Welch is decidedly…
Amor Prohibido
Como la flor… Like the flower that dazzles and delights with its beauty and can brighten the most jaded and indifferent heart, if only momentarily… “Como la Flor” was the name of one of Selena’s hits. Selena was already a magnificent flower when her stem — her very life — was tragically severed far too…
AISD Notebook
In a move that may well astonish many, the AISD Board of Trustees on Monday approved the 1996-97 preliminary budget that will spend almost $12 million more on salaries, granting teachers a 5% pay raise, and putting into place a more equitable salary schedule to deliver it. The pay hike, one of several addenda to…
The Nutty Professor
The Nutty Professor 1996, PG-13, 95 min. Directed by Tom Shadyac, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Eddie Murphy, Jada Pinkett, James Coburn, Larry Miller, Dave Chappelle, John Ales. Shadyac’s updating of the 1963 Jerry Lewis classic may be a bit more schizophrenic than anyone involved bargained for, bringing together a kinder, gentler Murphy…
In Search of Selena
You never knew her. Saw her a couple of times. Once at the corner of Riverside and Congress, in a club that changes names every season. She played to a packed house. The headset mike � la Madonna was already standard gadgetry. Yet there was the wholesome girl-next-door as well. You caught a second glimpse…
Paint By Numbers
Art isn’t always pretty, but it seems that when you mix art and tax money, it’s never pretty. When you add race to the pot, you can just about bet that somebody’s gonna get hurt. The City of Austin hands out money to a broad range of artists and arts organizations each year, mostly in…
Eraser
Eraser 1996, R, 107 min. Directed by Charles Russell, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vanessa Williams, James Caan, James Coburn, Robert Pastorelli. Eraser is pretty much what you’d expect from the new Arnold Schwarzengger vehicle: gargantuan explosions, not-so-witty witticisms, deafening gunfire, first-rate special effects work, and, last but most certainly not…
Recruiting Volunteer Massage Therapists
Massage therapy is one remedial treatment in the growing array of complimentary therapists used by people with HIV/AIDS to maintain their health and to treat symptoms associated with HIV disease and some side effects from medications used to treat primary HIV infection and prevent opportunistic infections. To this end, the HIV Wellness Center is recruiting…
Arts Commission’s 1996-97 Recommendations
As of its meeting last week, the Arts Commission’s recommendations put 24.71%, or just over half a million dollars, of the total city arts funding for 1996-97 in the hands of artists of color. Their recommendations appear in the overall city budget broken down by discipline rather than by ethnicity or contract size, making analysis…
Cemetery Man
Zombie movie based on an Italian comic book.
Stencil If You Dare
Dear Suzy, My 1931 house has classic oak flooring. I think it would be nice to have a design stenciled on the wood. So could you hold forth with your expertise in this area? And would it be better to stencil on the already refinished floor or do it while the refinishing is being done?…
The Great Brown Hope
If Channel 6 displayed sound meters during telecasts of council meetings, it’d be a lot easier to predict Gus Garcia’s vote. You’d only have to determine which faction made the most noise. It would help Garcia too, since he could just look at the meter to figure out where he stands on an issue. Indeed,…
Lone Star
Writer/director Sayles squeezes lots of metaphorical juice from the idea of borders in this story filmed on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. Ostensibly a murder mystery, the story exposes many other town secrets.
Benefits
SAT 29 Capital Fest to benefit United Cerebral Palsy, at Austin Music Hall and La Zona Rosa, 3pm. Cost is $5. 263-4146. First Annual Summer Gala to benefit Williamson County Humane Society, at The Inn at Brushy Creek, 4-6:30pm. Cost is $25/$45 couple. 244-9247. Second Annual Block Party to benefit Faith Food Pantry, at 205…
Naked City
When Amungme tribal leader Tom Beanal first filed his $6 billion class action lawsuit against Freeport-McMoRan, few people thought he had much of a chance recovering any compensation for the toll the company’s mine in Irian Jaya has taken on his people’s land. While the judge overseeing Beanal’s case hasn’t ruled yet on Freeport’s request…
Welcome to the Dollhouse
Welcome to the Dollhouse 1996, R, 97 min. Directed by Todd Solondz, Starring Heather Matarazzo, Brendan Sexton, Matthew Faber, Eric Mabius, Angela Pietropinto, Bill Buell, Daria Kalinina. Anyone who has suffered the indignity of junior high school will undoubtedly remember the experience as the wonder years: You wonder how you ever managed to live through…
Coach’s Corner
A rookie “sports- writer,” nervous and paranoid, is attending his first staff meeting. He’s chastised by the opinionated veteran food writer, ominously warning the new kid about “ignoring golf.” The sportswriter’s never played golf. He thinks golfers are dorks. Barton Creek Country Club, April ’92: Determined to prove this premise, the sportswriter enrolls in the…
Emotion Pictures
Film is like a battle- ground. Love. Hate. Action. Violence. Death. In one word… emotion.” That’s American movie director Samuel Fuller talking. Appropriately, this famous Fuller dictum is presented by the director himself onscreen during a cameo appearance very near the beginning of Fuller-devotee Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (1965). Godard, though, is hardly alone…
Day Trips
Neal Mallard and his son Zachary at the Wimberley Pie Company offer the world something that everybody seems to enjoy — homemade pies like grandma used to make. In an old stone building that was first used as a gas station west of the Wimberley town square on TX12, the pie company currently offers 30…
Every Picture Tells a Story
Life is good for Maggie Renzi. As the producer of eight films by John Sayles, with whom she has lived for 23 years, the two have created a world that seems uniquely blessed with cinematic and personal achievements. Together, they have brought to the screen Return of the Secaucus Seven, Lianna, The Brother From Another…
Page Two
In early autumn, 1994, I called my friend Maggie Renzi to suggest that, instead of our planned road trip to Vermont and then, maybe, to Toronto, she come down to Austin and we drive over to Acu�a, Mexico — where Robert Rodriguez was shooting Desperado. If you had asked me directly, I would have vaguely…
` Passion Fish
D: John Sayles; with Mary McDonnell, David Straithairn, Alfre Woodard, Vondie Curtis Hall, Sheila Kelley, Angela Bassett, Maggie Renzi. VHS Home Video Encore Video, 8820 Burnet Rd. Director John Sayles’ portrait of a soap star (Mary McDonnell) who returns to her Louisiana roots after becoming paralyzed is tender and bittersweet, if a tad long. McDonnell…
