Portrait of the Artist as an Old Crank
Robert Crumb laughs a lot. In virtually every scene of Crumb, Terry Zwigoff’s absorbing film portrait, the infamous comics artist lets loose with a chuckle or snort or, most often, a kind of brittle snigger. At first, Crumb’s laughter seems in character and perfectly natural (not to be confused with his character Mr. Natural); after…
Naked City
Edited by Louisa C. Brinsmade, with contributions this week by Amy Smith and Chris Walters. FOR THE BIRDS: We have received several phone calls about Midge Erskine, the “Bird Lady” who is struggling to retain her right to have a bird sanctuary on her property within Midland’s city limits. Her story, as told by Robert…
food-o-file
Fare for the Fourth Natural Foods Barbecue Fiesta I-35 and East 38th Street Saturday & Sunday, July 1 & 2, noon-4pm The friendly folks at your local Fiesta grocery are throwing a big barbecue demonstration featuring all-natural food products outside their main store entrance this weekend. They’ll be grilling up Vegetarian Hamburgers and Hot Dogs…
Sunset II
At long last, the Reagan revolution has reached the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA). Dominated through most of the 1980s by populist politician- turned radio commentator Jim Hightower, the agency had little chance to deregulate when everybody else was doing it. Now, under the direction of former Texas House member Rick Perry, the TDA is…
Words & Pictures by Martin Wagner
The comics of Chris Ware should be familiar to many Austinites. His eye-popping full-page tableaux in the defunct Daily Texan weekly entertainment supplement Images, featuring Quimby the Mouse and Sparky the Cat, set standards few working comics professionals could hope to attain… and in those days Ware was still a University of Texas student in…
How Sunsetting Works
Oftentimes, new laws are only enacted for a few years. The idea is that at the end of that period, legislators will evaluate the law’s success, make adjustments, then reauthorize it – or not. Entire agencies are also subject to sunset laws, and the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA), originally authorized for six years, underwent…
Scanlines
ONE FROM THE HEART D: Francis Coppola; with Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Raul Julia, Nastassia Kinski, Lainie Kazan, Harry Dean Stanton. RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video Some people celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks and other types of outdoor festivities. For me, it just wouldn’t be Independence Day without an annual videotape rental of Francis…
Live Music Recommended
Antone’s, Wednesday 5 & Thursday 6 Despite the fact that it has little commercial appeal and could very well just flat-out suck, Chris Whitley’s second album Din of Ecstasy will probably end up on many a year-end “best of” list – including mine. I’ve listened to the damn thing over and over trying to get…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows…
Thomas Volney Munson (1843-1913) is best remembered for his 1909 book, Foundation of American Grape Culture. Looking for zucchini in Great Britain? Better ask for “courgette.” The tradition of Girl Scouts selling cookies began in 1930 when a troop in Philadelphia agreed to help the local gas and electric company demonstrate a newfangled electric range…
Road Shows
JUNE FRI 30 Leticia, Chicago House FRI 30 Peacemaker, Hole in the Wall FRI 30 Toadies, Hi-Fi & the Roadburners, Back Room FRI 30 Chris Smithers, Health & Happiness Show, Cactus Cafe FRI 30 Los Straightjackets, Truth Decay, Meatjack, Bakamono, Emo’s JULY SAT 1 John Wesley Harding, Cactus Cafe SAT 1 Brave Combo, Liberty Lunch…
About AIDS
Access & Information Volunteers Needed AIDS Services of Austin welcomes new and potential volunteers for the access and information phone lines. One of the best tools we have in the form of prevention is education. Getting the facts out to the public. Letting people know what methods are effective for prevention. The phone lines offer…
Show Times
Showtimes listed below start Friday, June 30 and cover the week ending Thursday, July 6. *An asterisk (*) before a title means that no passes or special admission discounts (apart from matinee discounts) will be accepted for any screening. *Parentheses indicate weekend showtimes for Saturdays and Sundays only, unless otherwise noted. *Changes may sometimes occur,…
Coach’s Corner
[Camera pans quiet streets of Clarksville. Voiceover…] Ny life is a Woody Allen movie. There’s a woman I’ve had a crush on for 15 years. For 13 of those years, I was too awed to carry on a conversation with this person. She’s dark, exotic-looking in a Semitic way (my mom would be happy). I’d…
Live Shots
CAKE Liberty Lunch, June 14 Attitude. Everyone’s got it and they’d love to give it to you. Especially from the stage… Yawn. What else ya got? Nonsense? Let’s see it. Mmm hmm, five goofy-looking guys from Sacramento. That guitarist looks like an AV nerd from high school. But the sweaty little mongoose has got the…
AISD Notebook
Shades of a foregone, fractious era came to light at the Monday regular meeting of the AISD Board of Trustees, as board members met until midnight, squabbling with each other and even redrafting language of a rather minor resolution on the dais. And as the weeks and months roll by, the two minority trustees -…
Day Trips
At the Austin Zoo, all of the kids seem to have a good time. As you might expect from a zoo in Austin, the Austin Zoo is not exactly what the name implies. “When people hear the name, they think that it’s a municipal zoo, which it’s not,” says Austin Zoo owner Cindy Carroccio. “When…
Hearth & Soul
Slab Worship Dear Suzy, I have a couple of friends who bought a lot then waited almost a couple of years for a contractor to build the home they wanted. Being environmentally sensitive types, they wanted a pier and beam foundation. The contractor balked, told `em nobody built on pier and beam anymore and besides,…
Austin Chamber Music Center Chamber of Diversity
by Ken Hunt The office of the Austin Chamber Music Center sits atop a hair salon in an unassuming professional building on Burnet Road. As if to prove glamor has nothing to do with music, it is from here that the Austin Chamber Music Center has woven ties with equally committed and respected organizations in…
Film
CRUMBD: Terry Zwigoff. R. Crumb: master cartoonist of the underground comix world. Even if you’re not familiar with his name, I guarantee you’re familiar with some of his images. In fact, that’s how this documentary starts out, with Crumb caustically reviewing his most famous creations: the ubiquitous Keep on Truckin’ guy, the ever-randy Fritz the…
Draft Beer Tasting: Intro
Given the meticulous nature of last year’s Chronicle beer tasting, wherein a panel of experts gave the thumbs-up or -down to the finest porters, stouts and ales available from our city’s premier local breweries, you may be questioning the pedigrees of the tasters you see below. If you know me, for instance, you know that…
Independence Day Activities
THE LAKE TRAVIS ARTS LEAGUEwill sponsor The Austin Symphony Orchestra in a performance featuring an Independence Day Pops program, Sat, July 1, 8:30pm, in the outside amphitheatre at the Lakeway World of Tennis. The concert will conclude with a fireworks display. Tickets are available for general admission with seating in the bleachers or on the…
Babes in Tribal-Land
I don’t think it’s going too far to say that, for better or worse, the American family would not be what it is today without films from the Walt Disney studios. For many of us Boomers, the earliest memory of an indelible impression left by a mere movie is a scene from Pinocchio, Dumbo, orBambi.…
Dancing About Architecture
You’re jammin’ me! Pearl Jam, that is. And you can bet that no matter how mad you are about the last minute cancellation of the megastadium “alternative” act’s Austin (and only Texas) show, Abel Theriot was more upset when he picked up his daily paper on Monday and read the wire service story about the…
Jaxon on Crumb:
If you want the real rap on underground comics, you can find it in our own back yard. Jack Jackson, aka Jaxon, created one of the earliest underground books of the early Sixties, God Nose Comix, right here in Austin, he knew and collaborated with many of the most prominent artists of the period, such…
Sultry, Aggressive, and No-Bullshit Blues by Margaret Moser
The drive out to Sue Foley’s Buda home is one of contrasts: One minute you’re stuck in traffic on the Interstate, and the next one you’re sailing through gently rolling pastures in the town south of Austin. Buda’s too small to get lost in, and Foley’s directions lead to a side street where Rose of…
Our 8th Annual Beer Tasting
Appearance Odor Taste Aftertaste Total Score Average Score Maximum Score Possible 27 32 90 27 176 20.00 Celis Pale Bock 24 26 76 22 148 16.57 Samuel Adams Honey Porter 25 23 75 24 147 16.29 Bass Ale 25 21 69 25 140 15.86 Abita Turbo Dog 23 20 70 22 135 15.14 Balcones Red…
Outhouse Ousted
You can freeze all post- mortems: although the Austin Outhouse was given `til June 30th to reside in its current location at 3510 Guadalupe, Outhouse owner Chuck Lamb was happy to report last Thursday that the blue collar bar that allowed everyone from punk bands to Herman The German to blast its license plate-covered walls…
Pub Grub Revisited
The local brewpub scene has changed some since last year, when we did an in-depth survey of pub grub. The Bitter End and Waterloo Brewing Company are a year older and more accomplished. The Copper Tank just celebrated its first birthday on June 15 and began serving food in the late spring. In early spring,…
Austin, California?
by Rob Patterson Over the past year or so, as rents and home prices have risen, and Austin traffic has grown more crowded and snarled, many of us have asked: Who are all these new people driving our roads and keeping the housing vacancy rate low, and where did they come from? The answer in…
Sisterhood Is Still Powerful Flame Throwers
Fire with Fire by Naomi Wolf Fawcett Press, $12 paper Having been born on the far side of the Summer of Love, I suppose it was inevitable that I should grow up to be a rebel looking for a cause. But while women were marching for rights in the Seventies, I was busy amassing a…
Council Watch
Terminal Fun Councilmember Eric Mitchell found himself in the thick of it on Thursday with the council vote on his plan to bring publicly subsidized fun to the East Austin community. By dint of five ayes and a Max Nofziger abstention (Brigid Shea was in Minnesota tending to “family business”), the council accepted an $8.8…
