The General
The General 1998, R, 124 min. Directed by John Boorman, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jon Voight, Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Brendan Gleeson. I’m no expert on Irish history, but I can only assume that when one of their criminals is singled out as unusually flamboyant, this should be viewed as a…
My Name Is Joe
My Name Is Joe 1998, R, 105 min. Directed by Ken Loach, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Anne-Marie Kennedy, David McKay, Lorraine Mcintosh, Gary Lewis, Louise Goodall, Peter Mullen. “My name is Joe.” The words tell only half the story. The other half is the part that follows: “… and I’m an alcoholic.”…
Cruel Intentions
In its fourth film rendition, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is adapted for the high-school set.
The Last Days
The Last Days 1999, NR, 88 min. Directed by James Moll, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Irene Zisblatt, Tom Lantos, Dario Gabbai, Renee Firestone, Alice Lok Cahana. Co-produced by Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, this documentary speaks with five survivors of the Holocaust, all of them originally from Hungary,…
Food-o-File
The owners of The Grape Escape (314 Congress, 236-9463) must consider the Paramount Theatre (713 Congress, 472-2901) to be their favorite Avenue neighbors because they’re donating their most exclusive, expensive dessert wine for a Paramount fundraiser. On Sunday, March 7, 5-7pm, 65 lucky patrons will have the opportunity to sample Chateau d’Yquem 1984 in limited…
CEACO’S Basic Needs Program
CEACO’s projected funding sources for Basic Needs — the agency’s cash grants and food program — in 1999 are outlined below. However, the $17,878 CEACO listed as Texas Workforce Commission funding was news to TWC director of communications David Beshear, who says no one at TWC could track down any such arrangement with CEACO. CEACO…
Scanlines
(“Scanlines” wishes to thank Encore Movies & Music, I Luv Video, Vulcan Video, and Waterloo Video for their help in providing videos, laser discs, and DVDs.) As the legend goes, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Fred “Hammer” Williamson was carried out on a stretcher after the first play of Super Bowl I. This after he loudmouthed…
Art
“Dance Show,” Skylight Gallery (Mar 4); “Definientia II,” Gallery Lombardi (Mar 4); “New Work by Virginia Fleck,” Women and Their Work (Mar 4); “Standing, Sitting, Sleeping, Sinking,” Lyons Matrix Gallery (Mar 4); “N-O-N,” Terra Children’s Gallery (Mar 5); “Texas Film Art,” Pro-Jex (Mar 5); “C-21 Expo — Metamorfosis,” Austin Visual Arts Association (Mar 6); “David…
Midnight Tacos
100-B E. North Loop, 453-2200 Daily, 5pm-midnight; Deliveries, Sun-Wed, 5pm-3am; Thu-Sat, 5pm-4am Their sales pitch may target the late-night, beer-soaked, campus crowd, but anyone with an eye for convenience can appreciate the Midnight Tacos gimmick. Here’s the deal: You call them anytime between 5pm and way into the wee hours of the morning, and they’ll…
Council Takes Long Day’s Journey Into Night
illustration by DOUG POTTER The stamina of Austin city councilmembers was tested again last week with another long night of policy-making. From billboards to landfills (see “Solid Waste Land,” p.26), it was an endurance test for all parties. Love them or hate them, the councilmembers may well have earned their 30-grand-or so salaries just by…
Short Cuts
South by Southwest is upon us. This week’s “Screens” section focuses on aspects of the SXSW Interactive Festival, while next week’s section is devoted to coverage of the Film Festival. And if you open the new March 5th issue of Entertainment Weekly you’ll find even more coverage of SXSW. In an article titled “Making the…
Articulations
Well, Susan and Michael Dell have stepped up to the plate for the new Austin Museum of Art downtown museum. And they think it’s your turn to do the same. On Tuesday, when AMOA went public with the capital campaign for its new permanent facility, it announced the jaw-dropping contribution by the Dells — a…
The Lhasa Moon Tibetan Cookbook
by Tsering Wangamo and Zara Houshmand Snow Lion Publications, $14.95 paper In the process of researching a cookbook project, I’ve had occasion to run across a few Tibetan cookbooks which were written in the late Forties, after World War II. One was a guide for American troops; the other was produced by the United Nations.…
On the Lege
Edited by Lisa Tozzi, with contributions this week by Erica C. Barnett and Robert Bryce. Under the Big Top “Warning: Prolonged exposure to the Legislature may be hazardous to your health,” cautions the entrance to the Texas Legislative Carnival, a new Web site written by Bill Wells, a longtime state employee and observer of Texas…
The Wizards of Austin’s Webzines Behind the Curtains
Content Love Knowles of “Babylon” photograph by KENNY BRAUN I’m five minutes late and a little nervous when I walk up to Web master Harry Knowles’ handle-less, black plastic, Psycho-movie-poster-clad front door and accidentally pull a decorative wooden sconce off its nail. Cursing the luck and fumbling with the broken piece of house that I…
Exhibitionism
Planet Theatre, Through March 21 Running time: 2 hrs, 30 min The unexpected choice by boundary-pushing VORTEX Repertory Company to mount this seemingly straightforward adaptation is clear from the start: Kirk Smith has pulled the disparate parts of Dickens’ long, tortuously wrought plot together with a mix of verve and passion, intimacy and grandeur. Bonnie…
The Inspiration of Necessity
photograph by Todd V. Wolfson The sound is unmistakable. Even filtered through a screen door of the red brick apartment building, the trumpet dances out into the warm air like a cool breeze. Is that him? It can’t be him. And there’s a piano. Bill Evans, maybe? But whose horn? And what’s the tune? Damned…
New Power Structure Could Mean Curtains for KOOP The End is Near
Eduardo Vera, KOOP Comunity Board member and much-villified memeber of the “Cadre” photograph by Jana Birchum KOOP Radio is doomed. That is the only conclusion I can reach after viewing the events of the past two weeks. The great experiment to combine democracy with public media is on the brink of collapse under the combined…
Internet Outlaw Michael Wolff Shoots Straight
“Nobody knows what’s going on. The technology people don’t know. The content people don’t know. The money people don’t know. Whatever we agree on today will be disputed tomorrow. Whoever is leading today, I can say with absolute certainty, will be adrift or transformed some number of months from now. Whosoever screws with you will…
So What’s Funny?
photograph by Kenny Braun The veteran actor lies on his deathbed, gasping his last breaths. A sympathetic friend at his side observes that dying must be hard. The actor’s eyes widen and fix on the speaker. “Dying is easy,” he croaks. “Comedy is hard.” Ba-da-boom! Ba-da-bing! The anecdote is well-known in the theatre, especially among…
7 & 7 Is
Thanks to the affordability, convenience, and proliferation of compact discs, vinyl singles have become largely a promotional tool, or worse, a vanity project. Once the cheapest, easiest way to get one’s music heard, today manufacturing 45s can be costlier and more time-consuming than putting together a CD. And yet one thing they’ll always have over…
Stader Steps Out
Assistant General Manager Ellen Stader presented the following letter of resignation to the KOOP board of trustees last week. Comments in brackets are her own editorial clarifications. “I am hereby submitting my resignation as Assistant General Manager of KO.OP Radio. I see no way to remain a paid staff member and also keep my sanity…
Girls Don’t Play Lead
illustration by Michael Sieben Pans clatter against pots. Babies are diapered and strapped into high chairs. Televisions prattle, doors slam. A floor and ceiling under it all, I am playing the piano in the relative tomb of the basement. I am telling myself a story: “This is about a girl who is in a haunted…
Celebrity Cynosures
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis Alfred A. Knopf, $25 hard When I was assigned to review Glamorama, I decided not to read any press about it first, to avoid the storm of righteous outrage and pretentious reverence Ellis’ novels inevitably provoke. Unfortunately, in escaping the danger of having someone else tell me what to think…
The Medium Is the Music
photograph by Todd V. Wolfson To hear Courtney Audain’s speaking voice is to be charmed by its musical cadence, a lilting tone whose gentle volume turns to beatific praise when raised in song. A man of leonine beauty accompanies this voice, black, shiny braids cascading over his shoulders and the dark walnut polish of his…
Naked City
The coronation of George W. Bush continued on Tuesday when the coy governor announced the shocking news that yes, he really is thinking about running for president. Bush told a throng of Texas reporters (scribes from the New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal were told to wait outside the gates of the…
Girls Don’t Play Lead
illustration by Michael Sieben Pans clatter against pots. Babies are diapered and strapped into high chairs. Televisions prattle, doors slam. A floor and ceiling under it all, I am playing the piano in the relative tomb of the basement. I am telling myself a story: “This is about a girl who is in a haunted…
In Person
Himelstein & Schweser at FringeWare The particular strain of punk rock emerging from Washington, D.C. in the early 1990s was all about entrepreneurial spirit and idealistic youth. It’s no surprise, then, that Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing, which chronicles a fictional character’s absorption into the D.C. scene, bears that lineage. Authors Abram Shalom Himelstein…
Dancing About Architecture
The Austin Music Awards has finalized its musical lineup for the Austin Music Hall on March 17, 7:55pm, with confirmations coming in from Dav�d Garza, Meg Hentges, and the Resentments. You can add them to the extant list of Kinky Friedman, Reckless Kelly with guest Joe Ely, and CMT heaven, better known as Monte Warden,…
Solid Waste Land
Controversy has dogged the city’s garbage disposal contract, too. Last year, the city staff recommended sending nearly 90% of the city’s trash to the WMI landfill on Giles Road. But concerns about a two-decades-old hazardous waste disposal site at the landfill forced the city to rethink its plan. And in early February, Carter & Burgess…
Public Notice
No, these folks care a lot. And we have a chance over the next few weeks to show them that the work they do for longtime homeless Austinites is not only appreciated, but downright inspirational. A few weeks ago, in the Chronicle’s special downtown issue, Bryan Mealer reported on the work and expansion of Caritas…
Girlfriend to Girlfriend
In the summer of 1997, newly pregnant and shocked, I staggered into a bookstore to sort through the daunting amount of material on what the next 40 weeks had in store for me. There were books that tracked the weekly development of the growing fetus (eww, lanugo, huh?), and books on nutrition (“cover your food…
Waiting for Christmas
photograph by Todd V. Wolfson When Meg Hentges walks onstage at the Austin Music Awards next week it will be only her fifth live appearance in almost three years. While that track record certainly makes her an Austin anomaly, even for an artist launching a new album, consider this: Hentges’ former band, the celebrated Two…
Can’t Tell The Players Without A Scorecard
1. The city dump near Bergstrom is now closed. 2, 3. For now, the city’s trash will be split between facilities operated by TDS and BFI. 4. Recycling will be handled at a city-run facility on Todd Lane in southeast Austin. 5. WMI’s existing landfill on Giles Rd. is out of the loop for now……
Postscripts
The San Antonio Public Library Foundation’s Copyright Texas Reading Series, which has highlighted “twenty celebrated novelists, poets, journalists, screenwriters, and essayists” every year since 1995, kicks off this year’s series at the Main Library Auditorium (600 Soledad) on Sunday, March 7, at 6pm with readings from local authors Carol Dawson (The Mother-in-Law Diaries), Southwest Texas…
Picks to Click
It’s a simple process, really, choosing “Picks to Click” — Austin musical acts the Chronicle thinks deserve special attention during South by Southwest. While the paper’s “Picks & Sleepers” (starting next week) highlight a handsome portion of the approximately 200 local acts playing the music conference this year, “Picks to Click” spotlight musicians we feel…
I Want My MP3
illustration by Schonna Manning Imagine, for a moment, what it’s like to be a musician (musicians, bear with me). You’ve written some music you think is good — or at least good enough to get a shot at a record contract. Maybe you’ve recorded a demo CD and you’re playing out at venues all the…
About AIDS
It’s often said that Texans are lucky that the Legislature only meets every other year because if it met all the time, we’d always be in danger. The implications regarding perilous meddling by our lawmakers are certainly borne out in two bills currently pending which would require HIV testing before a marriage license could be…
It’s Always the Nice Ones
At first glance, the five members of Austin’s Kiss Offs look like nice, responsible photograph by Todd V. Wolfson young adults who always know when to say when. You don’t normally think in terms like “nice” and “responsible” when you think of rock bands, but a laconic Sunday afternoon of Tex-Mex brunching al fresco with…
Thanks for the Memories
Johnny “Tarzan” Weismuller lost enough times to gripe, “Me sit in trees 17 years. Me watch ’em come and go. In the pantheon of television pageantry, award shows hold a special place in my heart. You’re thinking that it’s probably the fashion parade that I love, and you wouldn’t be incorrect. How could we forget…
Coach’s Corner
The fine state of Maryland is not known for much other than crabcakes, Camden Yard, and the setting for NBC’s cop show, Homicide. If I missed something and offended a Marylander, I apologize. Deep inside a Maryland state prison, in solitary confinement, sits one unhappy — temporary — resident of this, I’m certain, outstanding state.…
Four-Track Rhapsody
photograph by Todd V. Wolfson With a snap of the fingers, you’re fast asleep. A deep sleep. Your eyes are closed, body still, breathing steady, but your mind is wide awake. “Just waking up,” sighs the sleepy chorus of voices, rounded guitar tones rising to the surface like air bubbles. The back-alley trumpet call of…
A Web of Influence
Doug Block filming himself In July of ’97, I began online discussions with filmmaker Doug Block that were excerpted in the Chronicle a year ago [“Making Movies on Cyber-Location,” Vol. 17, No. 25]. We had been discussing the making of Block’s latest documentary Home Page, a film which showed how some people — and specifically…
Day Trips
Daffodil Days Festival celebrates Round Rock’s new title of Daffodil Capital of Texas with music, food, games, and an array of artists, Mar. 6. 512/218-5499. Hill Country Antique Show brings a variety of dealers to the Kendall County Fairgrounds in Boerne, Mar. 6-7. 830/995-3750. Remembering the Alamo Weekend commemorates both sides of the conflict with…
Texas Platters
(Wildebeest) Utter the words “Herb Alpert tribute compilation” too loud in my neighborhood and you’ll get more than a “Taste of Honey,” bub. To devotees of the Tijuana Temple, the thought of covering Herculean Herb is akin to flag burning. And covering the Brass Bard sans brass — an arrogant lack of trumpet on 14…
Why Wall Street Is Betting on Austin’s Multimedia That Magic Touch
illustration by Jason Stout The rush is on — you strike it rich now, or stop complaining. FG Squared did it. These four guys scrapped their college classes at UT, got $500 together, combined their computer, engineering, guitar, and verbal wit skills, and started a “multimedia” company. Dad was not happy. But producing business-to-business promotional…
Page Two
This is the first of three SXSW special issues we’ll be publishing. This week there is a strong focus on new media, next week is film, and the week after, of course, the Austin Music Awards along with a load of special SXSW music coverage. All of these issues will include coverage of other areas…
East Austin Nonprofit Mired in Controversy CEACO Sinking
Ginger Eways, executive director of CEACO, declined to sit for a photograph. photograph by John Anderson On Dec. 9, at the height of the holiday season, not every Austin family had reason to celebrate. For poor and struggling families, the holidays can seem a cruel reminder that times are tough, which is where nonprofits like…
Where Everything Is Music
Digital image from the “Monsters of Grace” cyberopera. We have fallen into the place, in Baltimore when he was small where everything is music. Radios in his father’s shop, and all the records that didn’t sell, We have fallen into the place where he saw Einstein and his violin bow upon the beach of farewells.…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
The Babylonian god Marduk died, spent three days in the realm of the dead, defeated chaos, and then came back to life. In England, garden thievery has grown to such extraordinary proportions that Scotland Yard has officers who specialize in plant theft. There are about 8,000 toothpick-related injuries every year in the U.S. According to…
Who Funds CEACO:
1997 actual revenue 1998 approved budget 1998 revised budget 1999 proposed budget Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services $155,412 $143,742 $143,742 $143,742 TDH immunization awareness $22,611 $22,611 Criminal Justice Youth at Risk — Governor’s Office $36,906 $36,906 Tx Workforce Comm — Success Women: case mgmt & mentoring $126,262 $164,140 Non-Govt. Grant $98,000 Corporate Foundation Grant…
Shiny Happy City
There’s no end to the happiness … just look at the latest economic figures in technology for the metropolitan area: Austin is home to 1,750 high-tech firms that employ about 110,000 people, representing nearly one-fifth of total employment for the area; we had the highest growth rate in the state last year at 4.6%, over…
Before a Key’s Been Struck
illustration by Jason Stout “But they’re useless,” Picasso said of computers, “they can only give you answers!” Sure, on one level Picasso was just being cute. Even when he made his quip, about 30 years ago, it was obvious computers would supply much more than answers. The issue is far more subtle: The greatest value…
Art as Politics
As a performer, director, and producer with over 20 years of experience in Austin theatre, Boyd Vance draws on his creativity with hopes of uniting this city’s African-American community. “The real deal,” Vance says, “is that theatre and art can function as a political thing, taking and mobilizing people to do something that’s important.” Vance…
Conduit Digital Film and Gaming Festival
Let the dealmakers have their IPOs — the Doom Generation has the Conduit Festival. It’s two days and nights of digital film, shorts, animation, computer game cinematics, and an exhibition of retro arcade games celebrating the convergence of digital technology and cinematography through code. The festival runs from Mar 14-15 in the middle of the…
Winner Schnitzel
Alpenhof Steak Haus 16018 Hamilton Pool Rd., 263-9875 Tue-Sun, opens 6pm Queen Elizabeth, Dan Rather, Alfred Hitchcock, and me. What’s my link to this motley crew? One thing, at least, is that we’re a random sampling of the people who have been fed by the Kohler family, now grooming its seventh generation of chefs to…
TDH Audit Findings
A 13-page Texas Dept. of Health audit of CEACO included 19 findings, resulting in TDH demanding a refund of $3,535. The findings are as follows: 1. CEACO has no written accounting manual. 2. Written allocations for joint costs (i.e, rent, utilities, office supplies) were not provided. 3. Mileage logs are not consistently verified by supervisor.…
Thinking Outside the Box
photograph by Kenny Braun Back in 1988, while serving tenure at Austin’s fabled Origin Systems, expat-Brit Chris Roberts created one of that company’s flagship computer games, the wildly popular Wing Commander series, which posited a fierce interstellar battle between the Earth-based Confederation and a scheming race of feral aliens called the Kilrathi. The game caught…
