Exhibitionism
Harry Ransom Center, UT Permanent display Claude Vignon’s David With the Head of Goliath, circa 1616-22 With springtime in the air, there is a genuine feeling of rebirth in Austin these days. The city is building stadiums and museums. The University of Texas is bursting with youth and philosophy. Our athletes are winning national awards.…
No Law & Order
Jeff Beck Thanks to the addition of Wednesday night South by Southwest showcases two years ago, the Austin Music Awards aftershow choices are no longer limited to the Iguanas’ annual festival-eve set at the Continental Club. In 1997, for instance, Tito & Tarantula laid waste to Steamboat as Jimmie Vaughan and Lou Ann Barton’s headlining…
Spotlights
ROCK OPERA Rock Opera In a perfect world, Roche Laboratories would have paid Austinite Bob Ray to produce this genuinely warped, pharmacologically oriented tale of gutterpunk sniping and Lone Star drug running. That company’s signature slacker sleep aid, Rohypnol, makes myriad appearances and fills the role of McGuffin as various characters scramble to score, scam,…
Alternate Universes
Pandaemonium: A Novel by Leslie Epstein Griffin Trade, $14.95 paper Writing about that alternate universe called Hollywood has always been an especially tricky proposition, and probably not one that should be taken up by a fellow who has not lived by its starlight and perhaps died by it, too. There’s just so much grit and…
The Money Flow
SETON PAYMENTS TO THE CITY OF AUSTIN 1996 1997 1998 Equipment & Inventory 14,600,000 Lease Payments 2,032,344 1,864,764 1,864,764 Reproductive Services 8,720 8,720 8,720 Total 16,714,064 1,946,848 1,946,484 CITY OF AUSTIN PAYMENTS TO SETON Charity Care 5,600,000 5,600,000 5,600,000 MAP/CAP 6,658,839 5,823,332 5,304,115 Physician Services 4,787,736 4,920,622 5,056,431 Home Health 180,000 180,000 180,000 Total 17,226,575…
A League of Their Own
Bud Shrake photograph by Todd V. Wolfson Nowadays there’s so much filmmaking happening in Austin that it’s more than a buzz, it’s more like the rumble just before a volcanic eruption. Often, the town that Richard Linklater’s Slacker helped put on the film map more closely resembles a Studio City backlot than the campus paved…
Postscripts
Last November, Barnes & Noble announced that it intended to buy the Ingram Book Group, a book distribution source for bookstores, for $600 million. Ingram is the primary distribution source for the vast majority of the nation’s independent bookstores, which depend on distributors because they can offer books to bookstores from many different publishers and…
CSC: Take Two
As for last week’s council meeting, for a while at least, it looked like things were going to be substantially quieter than they have been in recent weeks. Following an early afternoon executive session, the council convened to pass the majority of their agenda items on consent, with neither discussion or public comment. Most items…
Fellow Travelers
Numerous writers are now part of the Austin screenwriters colony. Listed below are several prominent writers whose work will either be on screens soon or has been recently optioned. Sarah Bird recently completed an adaptation of her novel, Virgin of the Rodeo, for Warner Bros. and just finished writing a movie for TNT. “It’s about…
About AIDS
Our friend Kerry e-mailed last week to relay an item currently making the Internet rounds in Austin, especially among techies. It’s an excellent example of the urban myth genre: “Warning — MUST READ Be careful the next time you go to a cinema. These people could be anywhere!! An experience of a friend of my…
Seton Healthcare Network
The Seton Healthcare Network is a division of the Daughters of Charity National Healthcare System, one of the largest health care systems in the country. The system is known as much for its business acumen as for its charitable work. And the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree: In 1995, the name “Seton” was…
What Bandwagon?
Like many women of myage group and economic stratum, I own a personal computer with a CD-ROM player, a coffeepot with a timer, a microwave oven, and a pair of fancy running shoes. What’s different about mine is how much newer they are than everyone else’s. I’m not quite sure why, but I seem to…
Coach’s Corner
If you take Fred Waring Boulevard east into the desert toward I-10 and make a right at Washington Street, you’ll come across an immense stretch of bulldozed desert. The churned-up land is empty — not even any earth-moving machines to deflect the whine of the desert breeze. There’s a little shack on the west end…
On the Lege
How dumb is Ron Wilson’s HB1871, designed to keep Robert Mueller Municipal Airport open even after Austin-Bergstrom International is operational? Not as dumb as his HJR 64, proposing that Austin become the state-run District of Travis, but pretty bad. Here’s just a few of the reasons: Back in 1989, the Legislature passed a bill telling…
Etiquette for the End of the World
First, to the pantry. No electricity means no refrigeration and no way to cook, so we’ll have to rely on highly processed, canned foods. I own one can of oyster stew that an ex-boyfriend made me get out of his house more than two years ago, a can of beans and tofu wieners that I…
Day Trips
St. Patrick’s Day parade runs through downtown San Antonio around 2pm on Mar. 13 with the traditional dyeing green of the San Antonio River and river parade on Mar. 14. 210/497-8435. Market Day and Opry in Georgetown’s courthouse square combines a variety of vendors with country & western music, Mar. 13. 512/930-5302. Bloomin’ Hill Country…
Naked City
The razzle-dazzle roll-out of “George W. Bush: The Presidential Candidate!” continued Sunday afternoon as The Big Tease introduced his star-studded exploratory committee to 200 reporters and well-wishers at the Austin Convention Center. But since all we’ve really learned so far from the Bush coronation is that superficiality equals popularity, we decided to avoid analysis and…
Party Like It’s 2659
Because of the calendar! The Gregorian Calendar is the calendar most of us swear by. It has been with us only since 1582. Think about it — the last millennium change in the year 1000 (later on that) wasn’t even counted on the same calendar system we are using today. So does anybody really know…
Page Two
The gray gushes into black. The whole place is lit, the walls covered with page flats for the issue that are very gradually being filled up. Ads and copy added to each page. The body of the Chronicle being stuck to the skeleton. There is calm and chaos, everything is moving slow and everything is…
Can’t Pay Their Way
Uninsured Medical Encounters in the Austin/Travis County Clinics 1995 1996 Self-Pay 0% 28,528 29,204 Self-Pay 25% 425 2,232 Self-Pay 50% 19 4 Self-Pay 75% 9 10 Self-Pay 90% – 30 Self-Pay 100% 2,363 3,011 Total Self-Pay 31,344 34,491 Total Med. Encounters 102,014 112,172 Uninsured encounters represented a disproportionately large portion of the surge in Austin/Travis…
Divine Intervention
What would you sacrifice for financial security? Managed care restrictions, technology advancements, and increased competition have forced health care organizations to ponder that question more and more frequently. And when Catholic providers like Seton promise fiscal peace of mind and quality care, the answer at least half the time tends to be reproductive services. The…
Public Notice
Keep yr jeans on, pard’ner! The Rodeo’s a’comin’. The Austin-Travis County Livestock Show & Rodeo, that is. Last week, we reported that the first big event of the steer ropin’ season is the Live Animal Auction, Wed, Mar 17, 11am. Hynuk! We were wrong. The first big event is the Untamed & True 2 Tour…
Making Hay Out of Y2K
A spectacularly attended Austin City Council meeting held recently brought together Mayor Kirk Watson along with the heads of the city’s utilities, waste management, fire, police, the Office of Emergency Management, and the city’s chief information officer, Linda Beth Brady, all of whom assured the eager attendees that order would prevail and things were being…
The Have Nots
Southeast Travis County resident Jose Cordoba joined the ranks of the uninsured last year when he lost his job and family health plan in a management shuffle at a Doubletree Hotel, where Cordoba had been a banquet manager with 14 years of experience. Up until then, he and his family had been seeing the same…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Ducks are capable of sleeping with one eye open. The ancient Spartans invented identification discs (“dog tags”) for soldiers going into battle as a means of identifying the dead, an idea not routinely used again until World War I. Mummy toes were wrapped individually. Some members of the Jain sect of Buddhism have so much…
Love Your Television
Marilyn Munster and our author: loved but strange Completely bummed was my reaction upon reading Margaret Moser’s farewell at the end of “TV Eye” last week. Her trips through TV land were trips I took with her. What would I do without Moser’s TV Eye? How would I navigate that surprising, maddening, and sometimes brilliant…
Food-o-File
Two important presentations scheduled for the upcoming week should appeal to folks looking for plant-based alternatives in their diet. While not strictly vegetarian, The Phytopia Cookbook (IPG, $18 paper) uses in-depth scientific research to create delicious, healthy, and healing recipes that bring plant-based foods to the center of the plate. Dallas food writers Barbara Gollman…
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Nick Broomfield A few days into my quest for an interview with documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield, I began to feel like a Broomfield manqu�, stalking serial killer Aileen Wuornos or Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss — or trying to outfox Courtney Love. His L.A. office told me he was shooting commercials abroad but agreed to relay…
Mexican Food 101
illustration by Lisa Kirkpatrick Embrace the heat. I read that shred of feel-good advice years ago in an article called something like “Ten Ways to Be Less Cranky.” It was instantly clear that whoever wrote it hadn’t been to Texas, where you quickly learn that 100-degree heat is the enemy for a full third of…
Players, Prisons, Pit Stops, and Girl Gangs
Foxy Brown Women fighting to the death in the Philippine jungle. A cannibal family living in isolation. Fistfights, gunfights, catfights, car chases, and explosions. Pistols hidden in bushy Afros. Razors hidden in bushy Afros. Snickering wa-wa guitar-and-bongo soundtracks. Welcome to the film world of director Jack Hill. The name might not be familiar at first…
SXSW Records
Who Else! (Epic) Fitting that the latest from �ber-guitarist Jeff Beck contains the cut “THX138,” a fitting nod to �ber-filmmaker George Lucas’ first film THX-1138, because Beck’s hour-long Who Else! — like Lucas’ 1970 sci-fi drama — is futuristic without being formulaic. In “What Mama Said,” the British string slinger quivers over a jungle beat…
New World Pioneer
Yesterday someone asked me why SXSW Film had chosen to honor Jack Hill and just who he is. To me, the only question is, “what happened?”: Why, after directing six terrific pictures in six years, did he disappear? Why, after coming up in a group of new directors whose members included Francis Ford Coppola, Martin…
Mum’s the Word
The Brackenridge Hospital Oversight Council is many things to many people. From the name, you might presume that it is the body providing oversight of Seton’s management of Brackenridge.Not quite, says City Manager Jesus Garza. “The oversight council was never intended to oversee the [management of the lease]. It was to oversee [certain categories of]…
Sid Haig
The name may not be familiar but I bet Sid Haig’s face is, due to four decades of film and TV work. Haig played the judge in Jackie Brown, the emperor in Emperor of the North, and a guard in Point Blank. On TV he appeared in episodes of Charlie’s Angels, MacGyver, The Fall Guy,…
Articulations
To give some context to the story at right, here’s a backward look at new plays in Austin. The city has been blessed with playwrights for some time. You can dip into the archives at UT and find students in the storied Curtain Club producing original material for the stage back in the 1920s. Since…
Natural Appeal
Reckless Kelly As is only appropriatefor the last Austin Music Awards presentation of the century, the 1998-99 show looks like it’s going to be just a little different this year. Fear not: MC Paul Ray still has his gig, the backstage area will still be teaming with a wall-to-wall pit of confusion and schmoozing, and…
Jack Hill Tribute Schedule
Jack Hill and veteran actor Sid Haig will be at many of the screenings, and Quentin Tarantino will introduce many of them as well. Passes for the free Spider Baby and Switchblade Sisters outdoor screenings are available at Waterloo Video, Friday, March 12, 11am, until they run out. Admittance to all other screenings requires a…
Land of 1,000 Dramas
Planet Theatre: Tomorrowland Funky, renovated barn where VORTEX Repertory Company artistic director Bonnie Cullum recently crowed that this year’s VORTEX season was composed entirely of new works. It’s indicative of Cullum’s fervor for material on the far side of tomorrow and the pride she takes in her theatre’s status as an incubator of new drama.…
1998-99 Austin Music Awards
Wednesday, March 17 Austin Music Hall, 7:55pm sharp 7:55pm MEG HENTGES 8:25pm RESENTMENTS 9:05pm KINKY FRIEDMAN 9:40pm RECKLESS KELLY with JOE ELY 10:20pm DAV�D GARZA 11:05pm MONTE, BRUCE,KELLY, and CHARLIE All times subject to change.
Scanlines
D: Tiffanie DeBartolo (1998) with Ione Skye, Mackenzie Astin, Jennifer Aniston Twenty somethings in coffee shops. Day-dreaming, unemployed artists. Sounds like a typical Friends episode if not the latest slacker comedy. In a sense, Dream for an Insomniac is both. After all, it’s got perky Jennifer Aniston cast opposite a slew of pretty faces and…
Alaskan Heat Blue Dot
Through March 27, Hyde Park Theatre Running Time: 1 hr Prepare the altar, ’cause I’m comin’ up to confess: I’ve always felt a curious coldness about performance art theatre — nonlinear, if you want to get technical, strange and artsy if you wanna be dismissive. Without a story to hold onto, without characters with which…
Dancing About Architecture
Here it is — the penultimate issue of the Chronicle before South by Southwest starts. Wait a minute. What am I saying?! Every year the boundary where SXSW begins blurs a little bit more, and since the Interactive Festival will be gearing up by the time many of you read this, this week’s paper is…
Short Cuts
By all rights, this column should be devoted to honoring the memory of Stanley Kubrick, who died in his sleep this week five days after showing the director’s cut of his new movie Eyes Wide Shut to his producers at Warner Bros. There is much to say and too little space, but I promise we’ll…
