Hearth & Soul
by Suzy Banks The Worms Crawl In Even though we moved 30 miles outside of town, we still have a lot of visitors to our house. Most of them want something. But last Sunday, Gene and Judy Reed drove all the way from Bulverde to bring us something: two buckets of wiggly red worms. Two…
Dying For Dollars
The Texas Observer publisher Geoff Rips (left) and editor Lou Dubose are struggling to keep the progressive publication afloatphotographs by Alan Pogue The Texas Observer is in trouble. The venerable journal of progressive politics in Texas has pathetic circulation, seemingly endless financial troubles, and most recently, internal personnel turmoil. These facts should provoke two reactions.…
Benefits
Rosedale Ride to benefit Rosedale School, at Celis Brewery, 8am. Cost is $20. 835-9594 or 414-3617. Flamingo 5K Run to benefit Travis Co. Sheriff’s Dept. DARE Program, at Village at Westlake, 8am. 327-7596. Race for the Roses to benefit Lance Armstrong Foundation for Testicular Cancer Research, at Zilker Park, 8am. 344-2051 or 344-2037. The Chronicle…
Naked City
At least city council candidate Bobbie Enriquez has never shared fond memories of her college graduation ceremony, as former Railroad Commissioner Lena Guerrero did before word leaked out that she was sans sheepskin. Enriquez last week acknowledged under Chronicle questioning that she fudged a degree on a city employment application six years ago in order…
Coach’s Corner
Who are these people? Sometimes things just don’t work out. For the past five years, I’ve traveled to Palm Springs for the Newsweek/Evert Cup. A few decades ago, this was a minor little tennis tournament, the brainchild of tennis legend Charlie Pasarell, a nice, mid-day interlude to a day of sun, golf, and tennis for…
(Gasp!) Watson Was Right
Former APD Chief Elizabeth Watson may have been right about community policing, but Austin needs a more effective leader to pull it offphotograph by Alan Pogue When 60-year-old Alma Ward was gunned down February 8 while walking across the parking lot of a convenience store at the corner of Manor Road and Loyola Lane, her…
day trips
Real Ale Brewery in Blanco is either a hobby gone crazy or a dream come true for the Conner family. Either way, Charles and Julie Conner and his parents, Phillip and Dianne, are ready to talk about beer to everyone that shows up for the microbrewery tours at 1pm on Saturdays. “I think I enjoy…
(Gasp!) Watson Was Right
Former APD Chief Elizabeth Watson may have been right about community policing, but Austin neess a more effective leader to pull it offphotograph by Alan Pogue When 60-year-old Alma Ward was gunned down February 8 while walking across the parking lot of a convenience store at the corner of Manor Road and Loyola Lane, her…
Page Two
There is very little like the still of Monday morning after the SXSW Film, Multimedia, and Music conferences end. The city is just back to normal — which seems slow, at least for a few days. It was like the time I saw The Wild Bunch in Times Square the week it was released. (I…
Further Reflections
Included here is The Austin Chronicle’s second round of reviews of various films screened during the SXSW Film Festival. (Reviews also ran in last week’s “Screens” section.) The symbols (RP) and (WP) indicate regional and world premieres. BATTLE FOR THE MINDS Dir/prod: Steven Lipscomb; DP: Dean Lyras, Bill Mills; Ed: Steven Lipscomb, Anthony Sherin. 16mm,…
Public Notice
The comet of the century, they’re calling it. This time it seems not to be fizzling out. So, shake your caudal and get out to see the derned thing. Sun, Mar 23, 8-11pm is the 92.4% Lunar Eclipse, Mars, Saturn and Comet Hale-Bopp. Witness it along with the Austin Astronomical Society (AAS) at Wild Basin…
Police Substations
In addition to the main station at Seventh & I-35, APD has two substations and ten neighborhood centers. What’s the difference between the two? The substations are really mini-police stations used to deploy officers quickly into the city’s six sectors — not much touchy-feely interaction between the police and residents there. For that kind of…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
The chicken was domesticated from a jungle-dwelling bird. The “bang” you hear when a gun is fired is not the powder exploding. It’s the bullet breaking the sound barrier as it leaves the muzzle. The official name of the color of the Golden Gate Bridge is “international orange.” Brownsville, Texas once had the largest international…
Taken for a Ride
Patrol Officer Sonia Lopezphotograph by Alan Pogue Patrol Officer Sonia Lopez had been dicked around by somebody at the East Austin Substation for sure, because here I am, sitting in her police car. “It’s going to be a busy night,” she warns me. I laugh to myself that Lopez is just trying to scare me.…
Food-o-File
by Virginia B. Wood The arrival of spring means a variety of things in Austin: wildflowers, new gardens, fresh produce, and restaurant openings. The rainy winter should yield a bumper crop of bluebonnets and also make it that much easier to get a good garden started. The folks at Starbucks Coffee know one component of…
Scanlines
D: Mathieu Kassovitz; with Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde, Said Taghmaoui. VHS Home Video Waterloo Video, 1016 W. Sixth This powerful, black-and-white, French film shot in a Parisian cit� (housing development) follows three racially diverse friends from the projects — a Jew, an Arab, and a black — through a 24-hour period after an inner-city riot.…
Filling Finds
Juan in a Million 2300 East Cesar Chavez, 472-3872 or 472-4382 Open daily, 7am-3pm photograph by John Anderson The catchy name made me want to visit Juan in a Million, but the food and feeling will keep me going back. There’s nothing fancy about this modest east Austin eatery, but still the tidy place fills…
Shortcuts
by Jen Scoville Well, another South by Southwest has come and gone and the city’s still standing. Hordes of musicgoers swarmed the streets over the weekend, but big audiences still came out for the remaining Film Festival screenings too — Saturday night’s premiere of San Antonio filmmaker James Robinson’s Still Breathing at the Paramount sold…
Articulations
Growth, privatization, traffic, noise levels… ever feel like candidates for city office talk about everything but the arts? Sure, we know those other issues are serious, but culture is serious, too, and Allied Arts & Audiences has made sure that the candidates for mayor and city council know that. They’ve lined up a candidates’ forum…
1996-97 Austin Music Awards
Alejandro Escovedo accepts his awards for Singer-Songwriter and Hall of Fame as KGSR deejays Bryan Beck (l) and Kevin Connor (r) applaud.photograph by Bludmuffin The stars at night are big and bright here in the heart of Texas, but if that night is the Awards show, they shine even bigger and brighter. At the 15th…
East of the Freeway
raulrsalinas Red Salmon Press, $12 paper From the book’s first selection, the droll yet cutting “Shame On The Shaman,” Salinas (who profes-sionally uses his name lower-case and without spaces) lets loose with a fluidity and musicality that’s only been hinted at in his earlier works or recent readings. Freeway opens up an intriguing paradox in…
Exhibitionism
POLITE’S PRINTS:WORLDS IN WHICH TO GET LOST Flatbed Press Gallery through April 9 Ahh… a solo exhibition. An all-too-rare chance for an artist to flex her muscles and for us to see an encompassing collection of work by a singular artist. In Austin, where the trend is toward group exhibitions, it’s refreshing to find a…
Dancing About Architecture
Sometimes it only takes six days to make one weak. By six, I’m including just the South by Southwest music festival and the obligatory further abuse of the body that followed on St. Patrick’s Day. There were some, like Rev. Ivan Stang, whose Austin stay began earlier at the Multimedia conference and continued through the…
Inside
Inside 1996, NR, 96 min. Directed by Arthur Penn, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Nigel Hawthorne, Eric Stoltz, Louis Gossett, Janin Eser. Returning to the cinematic screen after a hiatus of sorts, director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde, Target) tackles the complex and gritty reality of apartheid and its aftermath in present-day South…
A Tale of Two Comics
illustration by Nathan Jensen Too often people don’t realize that stand-up comedy is a form of theatre and should be judged by the highest standards. As practiced by the late Bill Hicks it was an art; as performed by David Letterman a craft. Rykodisc has issued four CDs by Hicks, who often appeared on Letterman’s…
The Big Cheese
Wednesday, March 12 TITO & TARANTULA Steamboat, Wednesday, March 12 The phrase “shit-hot,” cribbed from some international band’s bio, comes to mind when trying to put words to Tito & Tarantula’s Wednesday night showcase at Steamboat. The best showcases are usually those you stumble onto by sheer, dumb luck, and when they leave your mouth…
Liar Liar
Liar Liar 1997, PG-13, 87 min. Directed by Tom Shadyac, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jim Carrey, Maura Tierney, Justin Cooper, Jennifer Tilly, Cary Elwes, Amanda Donohoe, Swoosie Kurtz. Now that Jim Carrey’s star quality is as commodified as Jackie Chan’s (he’s even started showing outtakes over the end credits), the main question…
Postscripts
One of Austin’s great contributions to the worlds of both academia and music was John A. Lomax, the UT professor who was one of the first musicologists to take American folk music seriously as an academic discipline. He preserved America’s endangered cowboy song heritage for later generations, and made the world aware of blues great…
Music Recommended
Friday: The Humpers, The Hanson Family, Appalachian Deathride, Emo’s; Four Piece Suit, Webb Wilder, Continental Club Saturday: Dale Watson, Damnations, Electric Lounge; Trisha Yearwood, Travis County Expo Center Sunday: Tish Hinojosa, Eliza Gilkyson, Christine Albert, Catie Curtis, Carol Elliot, Cactus Cafe; Monday: Andra Mitrovich, La Zona Rosa Tuesday: The Cranes, Rasputina, Electric Lounge Wednesday: Bodeans,…
Hard Eight
Bolstered by terrific performances, Anderson’s debut film is a small, deceptively complex, mystery about some gamblers and their quasi-filial bonds.
Poetry as Activism
cover photograph by Bruce Dye To call the scene incongruous might be an understatement: it’s September, and Raul Salinas has just arrived for a reading at the expansive Barnes & Noble superstore in northwest Austin. The reading has been organized by John Berry and Herman Nelson, two stalwart members of the Austin open mike poetry…
Road Shows
MARCH FRI 21 Wade Hayes, Travis County Expo Center FRI 21 The Humpers, The Hanson Family, Appalachian Deathride, Emo’s FRI 21 Plexi, Chimera, Electric Lounge FRI 21 Four Piece Suit, Webb Wilder, Continental Club FRI 21 Shaver, Antone’s FRI 21 Rockapella, Cactus Cafe FRI 21, SAT 22 Hunter Sullivan, Speakeasy FRI 21, SAT 22 Morphine,…
Smilla’s Sense of Snow
Smilla’s Sense of Snow 1997, R. Directed by Bille August, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Julia Ormond, Gabriel Byrne, Richard Harris, Robert Loggia, Vanessa Redgrave, Jim Broadbent, Mario Adorf. Based on the world-wide bestseller Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Danish author Peter Hoeg, the film Smilla’s Sense of Snow is a confounding…
Breakfast at Cisco’s
Sittin’ at year’s end in Cisco’s on the coffee shop side of things waitresses called brusque by pseudo-hip rest’rant ree-vuers mi comadre “Lana…” Sylvia y las dem�s harass the cute cowboys chompin’ down on mornin’ migas while the crazy cooks ‘n’ chefs (no chiefs, here!) drool not being cool as Fred the mailman of 6th…
Audit Says We Oughta Change
illustration by Doug Potter When the police audit finally came out on February 25 — just days after former police chief Elizabeth Watson cheerfully kissed the force goodbye — a subcommittee met to wade through the report on what’s wrong with the Austin Police Department (APD). At the meeting, audit subcommittee member Ronney Reynolds noted…
about AIDS
HIV Infection and Oral Sex One of the primary ways of acquiring HIV is through unprotected sexual intercourse (no condom), thus permitting partners to exchange blood, semen, or vaginal secretions. However, there are different degrees of risk for different types of intercourse, with oral sex by far the least risky. It’s not that oral sex…
Getting Dumped On?
illustration by Doug Potter Shadowed by the arches of the Loop 360 Bridge, the luxurious Austin Country Club decorates the southern bank of the Colorado River. Further up is a thick plateau of evergreens, here and there broken by the rooftops of the rich and sometimes the famous, such as Luci Baines Johnson and Doug…
