Cover Story
Who Is Stella Burden, and Why Are They Saying Those Terrible Things About Her?
When the Rude Mechs do a show about acting, they find madness in the Method
It’s Hard to Use a Calculator with a Hoof
Dems count up ‘at-large’ delegates
Colin-oscopy
Colin Meloy sings! Live!
The Brits Do Texas
Wire in the Blood comes to Austin
Live Texas Relays Blog
Follow the action of one America’s greatest track & field meets live online
High School Playoffs, Dynamo Season Opener, and More
High school playoffs continue this weekend. Locally, Dripping Springs plays Hays in the 4A Girls regional final, and Leander Vista Ridge plays New Braunfels Canyon in the Boys 4A regional final on Friday; no local 5A schools made the third round. The UIL Championships are next Thursday-Saturday, April 10-12 at the Round Rock ISD athletic…
‘A Handsome Bearded Man … in Their Front Yard Every Morning’
Get your Allen Demling signs!
Gay THIS, Mr. Man Chin
Show Jay your “gayest” look!
An Interview With the Toros Marcus Williams
The NBA is a league where upside is everything. Potential is such a primary part of negotiations and evaluation, sometimes it seems that it matters more than what actually happens on the court. A lot of the time, guys have a ton of potential, but never put the effort in. Funny thing. Marcus Williams has…
Vigil for Tejano Legend Emilio Navaira, April 4
Announcement of vigil for Emilio Navaira hosted by several Tejano music organizations.
It’s the Truthiness: Colbert Wins a Peabody
TV satirist Stephen Colbert wins prestigious Peabody Award.
HighTone Records RIP
A roots label goes under; a Geezer cries
Republicans for Montford?
New claims DA candidate is popular with powerful GOP forces
Spurs Defuse Rockets
I made the trek to San Antonio for the Rockets/Spurs game this past Sunday. It surprised me that the franchise chose to replace their long-loved, time-out-distraction personality Crazy Lou with Big Stan. I mean, seriously, how do you get fired from selecting which nosebleed row gets to fly the Club 200 “Spirit Section” banner? Did…
All Dressed up With Somewhere to Go
Two young Alabama women were allowed to kick up their heels at prom this year.
Grupo Gold
Chatting with Grupo Fantasma’s Adrian Quesada
Local Ladies Wanna Cast Some Fame
Locals compete on Famecast; the rest is up to you.
Shade Rolls Out of Council Race?
This April 1 release from the Shade campaign
Scenes From the Convention
Pictures from the Travis County Democratic Party Convention
The Other McCain
When campaign signs send the wrong message
Dems: Do Not Disturb
Travis County Democratic Party takes day off, leaves nice message
Walker Steps Down as Cap Metro Board Chair
After 11 years, says time for “someone else” to take on “exciting challenges”
Obama Picks Up Big Celeb Endorsement?
Which local Web icon and friend to movie makers was spotted at the Travis County Democratic convention?
HAAM Happy
A little girlie action at Nancy Coplin’s big six-0
It’s a Tough Subject to Speak On…
Author Nonie Darwish talked at UT about Islam and anti-Semetism in the Middle East
AG: Still Wants the Stripper Surcharge
Attorney general to challenge ruling that nudity tax is unconstitutional
What Happened to D.J. Augustin on Sunday?
It’s pretty amazing how far out of it Texas was for its Elite Eight game with Memphis in Houston. Though there are plenty of reasons for the blowout the Longhorns suffered at the hands of the top-seeded Tigers, one of the biggest was D.J. Augustin’s lack of presence in this game. Though he was the…
Danny Thomas: Love Machine
Danny in his vintage blues.
Early Voting Begins Today
Monday-Friday voting is for the April 8 run-offs
Is That Libertarian With a Big ‘L’ or Small ‘L’?
Ron Paul supporters make power-play at GOP SD-25 convention
Raw Numbers From Travis County Democratic Convention
Obama wins handily, reflecting the popular vote from earlier this month
Titty Tax Hits the Floor
Judge calls $5 nudity surcharge unconstitutional
Wranglers ’08 Season Kicks Off Saturday Night
It’s been a topsy-turvy offseason for the Austin Wranglers. This biggest change for the fifth-year franchise is dropping from the Arena Football League proper to the arenafootball2 where they will face teams from the cities of Spokane, Wash., and Lubbock as opposed to New York and Philadelphia. The good news is that the recent disbanding…
Dirty Tricks Around County Conventions?
Texas Democratic Party warns against misleading info that county conventions have been cancelled
King of Kombat Komes Back
MMA at the Crockett center to see championship bout
Zeppelin 3
“Free trip to Norway,” read the email subject line. That got my attention. So did frostbite and snowbanks downstairs in the open-air train station at the Oslo airport in February three months later. “Arctic Circle,” pronounced my father when first informed of Norwegian hospitality. Top of the world, ma! If I ever harbored designs to…
Bill Callahan Appears
Sunday at Mohawk
A Bloodcurdling Day in the Neighborhood: ANC Council Candidates Forum
Tense ANC candidates forum on Wedensday.
Gun (Rights) Fight in Williamson County
HD-52 Republican run-off race gets negative over Second Amendment claims
Another Drug War Casualty: Young Mother Shot While Holding Infant Son
Ohio prosecutors charged police Sgt. Joseph Chavalia with two misdemeanor crimes related to the January shooting death of 26-year-old Tarika Wilson in botched SWAT raid
Remembering Ortralla Mosley
Today (Friday) marks the fifth anniversary of the death of Ortralla Mosley, the 15-year-old Reagan High School student who was stabbed to death on campus by her ex-boyfriend
‘Matt & Ben’
This stage comedy is about just who you think it is, only the well-known guys are played by gals
Phases & Stages
Be Your Own Pet Get Awkward (Ecstatic Peace!) Get Awkward opens fast and hooky, a Ramones-style rah-rah-rah. Then, Be Your Own Pet gets growing pains. The Nashville quartet was barely out of high school for its 2006 self-titled Ecstatic Peace! debut, racing at hyperpunk speed through tales of bicycling and partying. On Get Awkward, they…
Point Austin: Poor Rich’s Almanac
Three cheers for Oppel’s Statesman
Shutter
Shutter is a shabby American remake of a Thai movie about a couple who sees mysterious images in photographs.
Arts Review
The Bedlam Faction’s latest is a wildly entertaining marriage of Shakespearean history and wacky, absurd humor
Phases & Stages
Donita Sparks & the Stellar Moments Transmiticate (SparksFly) Donita Sparks is no dummy. The former L7 frontwoman knows there’s room for more rock & roll Runaways. “Infancy of a Disaster,” centerpiece of the L.A. blogger’s first solo album, whiffs traces of her former onslaught’s brick-heavy “Pretend We’re Dead,” but its fattened fuzz-tone guitar and a…
‘Chronicle’ Endorsements, Travis County Early Voting
You may still be recovering from the March 4 primary – but there remains a bit of unfinished business. Here are our endorsements in the three Democratic contests that remain unsettled and are on the Travis Co. ballot (depending on your precinct) for the April 8 run-off. Early in-person voting runs Monday-Friday, March 31-April 4.…
Naked City
Quote of the Week “So?” – Vice President Dick Cheney, in response to ABC reporter Martha Raddatz pointing out that “two-thirds of Americans say [the Iraq war] is not worth fighting, and they’re looking at the value gained versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.” Headlines • The U.S. war in Iraq…
Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns
Tyler Perry’s latest feel-good drama about African-American family relationships scores its best casting with Angela Bassett in the lead, but otherwise falls prey to Perry’s slipshod filmmaking technique.
Arts Review
This new adaptation of The Trojan Women is fueled by an earnestness that is the show’s blessing and its curse
Phases & Stages
She & Him Volume One (Merge) With M. Ward playing Lee Hazlewood to Zooey Deschanel’s Nancy Sinatra, the indie-folk mainstay’s production plying retro-AM arrangements behind the actress’ surprisingly powerful voice, the pair’s debut exudes a breezy pop and twang both seductive and naive. Contemporary touchstones skip between April March and Jenny Lewis – the Hollywood…
Day Trips
Natural Bridge Caverns outside of New Braunfels has expanded their spelunking options with the new Illuminations Tour
Counting Fish Tales
New Lady Bird Lake carp limits intended to protect bigger fish; increase interest by adding competitiveness
21
Kevin Spacey plays Mephistopheles to a cadre of M.I.T. whiz kids, who do a better job of counting cards at the Vegas blackjack tables than counting their loot.
Arts Review
The Ransom Center exhibition reminds us how the written word sparked a cultural revolution in the 1950s
Phases & Stages
These United States A Picture of the Three of Us at the Gate to the Garden of Eden Teaming D.C.’s Jesse Elliott and David Strackany (aka Paleo), These United States’ debut is, as the title suggests, an exploration of exile and frustration of paradise just beyond reach. Elliott’s scratchy voice rolls like a more soulful…
Playing Through
The Texas men’s basketball team is making a believer out of this doubting Thomas
Hernandez Beating
At issue is 2005 arrest made after man got into fender bender near Burnet and Steck
Stop-Loss
A real-world fuse burns throughout the military drama of Stop-Loss, the Austin-lensed film by Boys Don’t Cry‘s Kimberley Peirce that stars Ryan Phillippe.
News/Print
The All Poetry, All the Time Edition
Phases & Stages
The Miles Davis Reader: Interviews and Features from Downbeat Magazine edited and compiled by Frank Alkyer Hal Leonard Books, 354 pp., $24.95 More has been written about Miles Davis than any other jazz musician. With a career that spanned six decades and spearheaded every significant stylistic innovation during that time (mid-1940s to 1991), Davis remains…
Soccer Watch
Big Austin Aztex announcement, U.S. thumps Poland, and more
Curious Development Afoot Over Aquifer
Proposed development in sensitive recharge zone prompts requests for contested case hearing with commission charged with reviewing developer’s land application permit
Run Fatboy Run
Funnyman Simon Pegg stars in this soft and plodgy rom-com: Sadly, this by-the-numbers redemption tale careens uncomfortably from sentimentality to stomach-turning sight gags.
After a Fashion
It’s easy to blush around hunky Cliff Redd
Phases & Stages
Is Snoop Dogg even a rapper anymore? The LBC mogul who once dropped Doggystyle has gone soft. Maybe it’s the peewee football. Or Girls Gone Wild. Whatever the distraction, Ego Trippin’ (Doggystyle/Geffen) plays as an R&B album set to spoken word, Snoop taking the easy road rhyming “hiz-erb” with “biz-ird” on the Isley Brothers-sampled “Press…
Beside the Point
Pollen count moves up as sales-tax receipts slide
Who’s Responsible for the Littlefield Spill?
City and state hunting through archives to work out who will foot bill
Married Life
This film’s wonderful, amoral resignation makes Married Life so deliciously different from other period-set crime stories, and its terrific cast keeps thing percolating.
Letters at 3AM
Nations get into deep trouble by following inspirational leaders, left or right
The Common Law
Alternative Options for Legal Help
City Shaper
Visionary. Brilliant. Guru. Uncompromising. Sinclair Black has been tagged with all those accolades, and now he’s getting the medal to prove it. The honor from the Congress for the New Urbanism – to be presented at its upcoming congress, CNU XVI, in Austin, April 2-6 – recognizes Black for his efforts to make Austin a…
‘Statesman’ Editor Retiring; Paper’s No. 2 Stepping Up
Rich Oppel stepping down in June, at which point Managing Editor Fred Zipp takes over
Event Menu
• The Alamo Drafthouse Iron Chef Battle Celluloid series continues tonight when Alamo chefs John Bullington, Trish Eichelberger, and Elijah Horgan take on challenger chef Lawrence Kocurek of Roy’s restaurant. The secret ingredient is director Preston Sturges’ classic zany comedy The Lady Eve, starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck. Each team will present five dishes…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
The first modern water bed, the last chance for witches and their friends to stir up trouble before spring, and more
Sinclair Black: Transforming Visions
Sinclair Black – Austin’s original New Urbanist
Laws Draws Criticism for Racial Slur
Mustang Ridge mayor pro tem and water company GM refers to possible immigrant detention center as “holding pen for ________”
Lulu B’s Vietnamese Sandwiches
The French colonization of Vietnam gave birth to a delicious fusion on bread
The Hightower Report
Come On, Congress, Get Some Gumption; and No Punishment for Exxon Malfeasance?
New Urbanism and the Booming Metropolis
The big top of New Urbanism is coming to town – CNU XVI: New Urbanism and the Booming Metropolis – a congress that will showcase, shame, and enlighten our local development leaders April 2-6. Not unlike a certain local music-industry conference, the annual Congress for the New Urbanism carries an impact and popular appeal that…
Council Candidate Forums
The times and places
Gourmet on the Go
St. Dalfour’s premade meals in a can are perfect when you’re on the run
DVD Watch
Revisiting Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm and its survey of the moral dissolution of American life through the Nixon era
Local Pundits
Here are a few of the congress sessions that feature local panelists and presenters: The Conservative Agenda & New Urbanism (Mike Krusee, Terry Mitchell) Envision Central Texas Open Session (Jim Walker) New Urbanism 101 (Mike Krusee) The Design of Mueller Airport (Catellus Development Group) Park Once Strategy (Brewster McCracken) Smart Transit, Smart Streets, Smart TOD…
Happenings
March 27-April 3
Food-o-File
Texas finalists in the Gallo Family Vineyards Gold Medal Awards, the Loft Bar at Finn & Porter debuts new menu, another Lamberts, and more
Back in Action
After a moviemaking hiatus, writer/director Kimberly Peirce returns to screen with Stop-Loss
Everyone’s CNU: Free Public Events
Come and discover what the New Urbanist buzz is all about! The CNU conference events listed below are open to the public. Citizen activists, students, developers and real estate professionals, elected officials, city and county staff, and nonprofits are especially encouraged to attend. All listed events are free; all occur at the Austin Convention Center…
Off the Record
A prostitute-turned-pop-star exposes her Austin roots; Voxtrot readies for round two; and Rock City Icehouse goes to 11
Mini-Review
Sagra Enoteca & Trattoria 1610 San Antonio St., 535-5988 Lunch: Monday-Friday, 11:30am-5pm Dinner: Sunday-Thursday, 5-10pm; Friday-Saturday, 5-11pm Brunch: Sunday, 11:30am-4pm Happy hour: 5-7pm weekdays with $2-off cocktails and half-price pizzas in the bar www.sagrarestaurant.net This new Italian eatery first showed up on the local radar a few months back when word got around that the…
Film News
Austin’s hopping again, with TV and film projects set to shoot soon; plus, Smithville’s got a Poop Bandit
Recommended Sessions
For Chronicle readers only, there’s a special discounted nonmember rate of $225 (mention the Chronicle at on-site registration) available for the New Urbanism 101 program. It includes Opening Night With Henry Cisneros event. Both events take place in the Austin Convention Center. New Urbanism 101: The Crash Course Thursday, April 3, 9am-5pm, Room 6 Presenters:…
More Voices: Sinclair Black
For this article, we asked people around the community and the country for observations about Sinclair Black. The comments collected below help fill out the portrait of the man and the architect. – K.G. “I have a hard time thinking of Sinclair Black as a “New Urbanist” because he was preaching his unique brand of…
Mini-Review
Dong Nai Vietnamese and Chinese Cuisine 4211 S. Lamar, 444-1593 Monday-Saturday, 11am-10pm; Sunday, noon-9:30pm Last week I stopped in at a little Vietnamese restaurant, an unimposing strip-mall joint near the Target on Ben White. I ordered the tofu vermicelli bowl ($5.75), and it was wonderful, perfect, just the way I like it: a cold bed…
On the Road, From San Fran to Taipei
Two new film series globe-hop and bebop
Unveiling WebberVilla Muse!
Austin, Webberville leaders find common ground in “VillaVille”
We Come From the Land of the Ice and Snow
Sword drummer Trivett Wingo hammers out an appreciation of Led Zeppelin III
Phases & Stages
Van Morrison Keep It Simple (Lost Highway) “No wavelength, no mileage … nothing is what it’s supposed to be,” sings Van Morrison on the second track of Keep It Simple, a simple declaration that the Man is back in the saddle. Morrison’s first collection of originals in longer than most of us can remember relies…
On the Road, From San Fran to Taipei
The Mad Ones: The Beat Film Series “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing.” – On the Road, Jack Kerouac Born in…
Growing Pains Hit West Campus
Area’s utilities systems weren’t built to support rapid development taking place
The Sword Reviewed
The Sword Gods of the Earth (Kemado) “Hear the horns, pounding hooves,” prophesies JD Cronise in “Lords,” as galloping guitars conjure “visions of cities aflame.” “Die by the sword or in chains.” The omen could pass as a mission statement for Austin’s premier alchemists, who live by the code and take no prisoners on sophomore…
Neon Exodus
For 22 years, the electrified mural on Fifth Street has been a local landmark, but now it’s coming down
Phases & Stages
The Black Crowes Warpaint (Silver Arrow) The Robinson camp revisits the swamp with bawdy blues-revival muck jams as seventh LP Warpaint dances to hard-hitting rhythms and Southern-fried guitars with the addition of North Mississippi Allstar Luther Dickinson. Lead-in “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution” nods to the Crowes of old, joyful sounds paced by younger brother…
On the Road, From San Fran to Taipei
Ascending Dragon: Films of Greater China: AFS Essential Cinema In the world of international arthouse cinema, minimalist Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang is known for his aversion to dialogue. From his debut film, Rebels of the Neon God, through 2006’s I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, Tsai has been cultivating a style that features verbal interactions…
Appeals Court Weighs Plea to ‘Correct Miscarriage of Justice’
Rodney Reed’s fate goes to Criminal Appeals
UT School of Music
Ernest and Sarah Butler make the largest-ever donation to a music school at a public university
Phases & Stages
Widespread Panic Free Somehow (Widespread) Widespread Panic is still best consumed live, where the band’s songs can evolve into musical magic. Free Somehow, the Georgia sextet’s 10th studio work, once again proves that axiom true. It’s certainly their most adventuresome, but overdone production touches from Terry Manning (ZZ Top, Al Green), who brings horns and…
TV Eye
If you’re someone who doesn’t snicker at the tight, flashy outfits and the flying-saucer-sized sombreros, then you will appreciate Compañeras, about the first all-female mariachi band in the U.S.
Can Austin Meet New Air Rules? Don’t Hold Your Breath.
Onward through the smog
The Unforeseen
Executive-produced by Robert Redford and Terrence Malick, Dunn’s award-winning documentary looks at the history of Barton Springs, Gary Bradley’s role in development issues, and the relationship of Austin’s environmental activism to the world at large.
Luv Doc Recommends: Nancy Coplin’s Big 6-0 Benefit for HAAM
There is so much money in Austin. It’s crazy, isn’t it? All those penthouse condominiums, lakeside estates, and hillside mansions that stretch all the way to the horizon and beyond have to be owned by someone, right? Who are these people? Where do they come from? And most importantly, where did they get all that…
Our Story Begins
Our Story Begins brings together works from three of the author’s short-story collections, along with several new tales
