1995 Austin Critics’ Table Nominations
For the third year, a gathering of theatre critics from local publications has produced their list of outstanding achievements in Austin theatre from May 1994-April 1995. Members of the table are: Michael Barnes and Jamie Smith, Austin American-Statesman; John Bustin, West Austin News; David Mark Cohen, Texas Triangle; Jerry Conn, Westlake Picayune; and Robert Faires…
Slaughterhouse Three
It’s not a pleasant thing to think about, but there’s an Austin City Council election less than a year from now. Scheduled for May 4, 1996, it will be a rugged race for incumbents. Taxes are soaring, the sales tax surplus has been appropriated for baseball, some 911 calls go unanswered, while the council plans…
Dancing About Architecture
Now I’m finally starting to figure out how noise ordinances work. You see, you can’t play amplified music in a residential area unless you can prove that it’scommercially viable! That’s why the cops can bust a perfectly cool set by a really hot band at your party, but they let Don “Mister Environment” Henley and…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
More criminals are condemned to death in the Harris County, Texas, courthouse than anywhere else in the world. According to an interview in the New Yorker, actress Glenn Close was once a member of the arch-conservative singing group Up With People. Robert Boyle, a 17th-century physicist and chemist, recommended enemas of tobacco smoke, and eye…
Daytrips
The heavy logs of old Fort Parker stand as a monument to the pioneers who settled in Texas. The fort is a replica of the one built by the Parker family in 1834. The rough-hewn logs of the fortress walls take the imagination back to May 19, 1836, when nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker was captured…
Supersizing the Scene
As if I-35’s entrance and exit ramps weren’t challenging enough, fleets of tour buses and equipment trucks have be-come yet another obstacle on the highways in and around Austin. And as for parking near Sixth Street, the recent influx of tour buses deposited outside the Driskill and Omni seems only to have aggravated the space…
In the Beginning There Was… the Demo
Musicians all want pretty much the same thing: to make a living at their art – to not have to support themselves doing horrible, low-paying work like selling blood or substitute teaching. They want radio play, a solid fan base, good reviews, and regular gigs at clubs that pay. Without these things, music is a…
Austin’s Comic Strippers: Part of the Big Picture
Would you pay $100 for a piece of your own art? Divya Srinivasan did. The UT student paid $100 of her deposit at the White House Women’s Residence for the door she turned into a work of art. It may have been Room 101, but since “they took all the fixtures,” including the number, she…
Crossing the Lines
The close-up is of a mottled beard, flecked with feathers and vomit, with small bird parts dripping from the hairy nest. Penny Moran Van Horn’s scratch-board story “A Bird in the Beard” ends with the perfect panel of the fowl-strewn Casanova cocking a drunken eyebrow, spewing, “So… you wanna spend the night, babe?” This work…
Hearth & Soul
Dear Suzy, Here’s another question from the “my home was built in the Thirties and I want to…” department. A lot of the panes of glass in my sashes are very old. You know the type; you can see those wavy lines that make looking through them very akin to looking at a mirage. Well,…
Around the World in Tasty Ways
The Empanada Parlour 500 East Fourth Street, 480-8902 Open Sun 10am-4pm, Mon 7am-3pm, Tu-Sat 7am-8pm India meets Mexico,” says Ash Corea, owner and sole cook at the recently opened Empanada Parlour, describing the seasoning in her tasty, turkey-stuffed pastry. “It’s a pur�e of cumin, cinnamon, coriander, clove, turmeric, cardamon, and chipotle sauce.” Not many cooks…
Letters at 3AM
Since Timothy McVeigh’s arrest as the prime suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing, journalists can’t agree on how many states have “patriot militias” (the figures run from 30 to 50), nor on how many people are in those militias (some say 15,000; some 100,000). But most reports and interviews mention “black helicopters” – a belief…
Food-o-file
Yogi Restaurant Dobie Mall, 2021 Guadalupe, 474-0808 Open daily 11am-8pm The Dobie Mall food court continues to expand its diverse collection of eateries with Yogi Indian restaurant. Rumored to have been started by a man who began by selling meals to students from his home, Yogi features a small selection of Indian dishes (sag, curries,…
Zeroing in on No Tolerance
One day in 1993, a 17-year-old El Paso high school student broke into his teacher’s home with a shotgun. He shot and wounded Gudrun Aguirre, a French and German teacher, and killed her husband. This was the same student whom Aguirre had repeatedly sent to the principal’s office for discipline. Once, the student slammed her…
On the Lege
Sorry, Honey. I’ve had a hard legislative session: One thing stood out amid the pomp and circumstance at last Saturday’s short-lived gubernatorial inauguration of Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos – the rain. Emblematic of many of his legislative efforts this session, the rain and threatening skies forced the opening entertainment to move inside and likely kept some…
Public Notice
LE$$ IS MORE: Once it was strictly a Hallmark deal – manufactured sentiment, yours for two bits, a gimmick to tide retailers through the slow stretch before the grad-and-wedding season. Now it’s a Consumer High Holy Day, with weeks of buildup, pounds of Sunday ad inserts, glossy promptings for every price range. Guilt or gilt:…
Walking the High Finance Wire
We’ve all heard the disturbing rumblings which, like a massive 747 listing dangerously as it comes in for a landing, threaten to become a financial disaster for the city’s new airport at Bergstrom. There have been reports of costs going up while federal funding is slashed; of Councilmember Brigid Shea berating the city’s own consultant…
Naked City
Edited by Louisa C. Brinsmade, with contributions this week by Andrea Barnett, Robert Bryce, and Daryl Slusher. TERRORISM COMES HOME: On April 28, Sam Hamilton, the state administrator of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), left his job after receiving numerous death threats, he alleges, from property rights activists. Threats were also made against…
Spelling Out the Policy
While a number of school districts in the state have what they call “zero-tolerance” policies regarding drugs and violence, most in the Austin metropolitan area define their rules loosely, allowing for flexiblity when determining how to discipline a student who has been caught with drugs. Many school officials say they are in the process of…
Girl Crazy
In Austin theatre, women are never far from center stage. The pool of talented female artists in our town is so incredibly rich that producers, directors, and playwrights of both genders are perpetually cooking up projects to showcase them. The past year is perfect proof, with its bounty of shows featuring all-female ensembles (Torque, The…
AISD Zero Tolerance Statistics
Under the proposed state zero tolerance policy, any student who gets caught with drugs or a weapon, and any student who assaults someone on school grounds, would be removed from that school and given the option in most cases to attend an alternative education program. The state estimates that 3,600 students will be placed in…
Page Two
When the Chronicle food section decided to add a listings and news column several years ago, I asked Phil Born, an old hand on the Austin restaurant scene, to write it for us. As a frequent reviewer of both restaurants and books for the Chronicle, Phil was a natural choice. He came up with the…
About AIDS
There are many ways in which you can provide a vital service to people living with HIV/AIDS in living with dignity. We are looking for caring volunteers who have some time to dedicate in serving on the front line of combating the disease. Helpers: Provide ongoing practical support, such as house cleaning, assistance with meal…
I Hope You Bought It for the Article…
People ask what I do. I say write. They ask what. I say articles. They ask where. I tick off a few places. The Chronicle, Elle, Self, Seventeen, GQ… While all this seems enough to impress the person asking, invariably it is the following response that is the showstopper: Playboy. Yes, it’s true. Not only…
Bonus Tracks
SOLITUDE AETURNUS Through the Darkest Hour (Pavement) Take Dee Snyder loaded on painkillers and Prozac, add some doomy, Sabbath-like guitar arrangements, mix it all up with a healthy helping of sinister, Slayer death-rage, and you would have a pretty good idea of what the Houston-based band Solitude Aeturnus’ new album feels like – one of…
Return to Gender
From hand-mailed zines to glossy manifestos, when it comes to bad girls and good artists, there’s a riot going on. Women all over the world are sharpening their pencil points, unsheathing their X-acto knives, and uncapping a flood of ink. Here’s suggested reading to incite your own girl revolution. Ask your local comic dealer about…
Coach’s Corner
The baseball season is underway, sort of, and I’m riddled with guilt. I feel guilty there was no pre-season preview. I’m expected to know where Oral Hershiser’s playing, what’s wrong with Johnny Oates’ wife, and can the Rangers possibly be as bad as they were last year? But the truth is, I don’t care. My…
Record Reviews
Whereabouts Unknown (Ripe & Ready) Geez, ya gotta cut USA Today a little slack for mistakenly printing Nixon’s picture as Roky Erickson: Ol’ Mojey-Wojey is, after all, doing his best Roky on the cover of his latest, Whereabouts Unknown. And although the sign on the back cover of the CD has the indigent-appearing Nixon holding…
Council Watch
Ex-Neighborhood Housing Direc-tor and current developer Gene Watkins is roaming the corridors of City Hall more and more these days, and raising ethical questions since he’s not registered as a lobbyist. His latest affordable-housing proposal, under Gene Watkins Development, Inc., is a plan to turn the historic Stephen F. Austin Hotel, located at Sixth and…
Scanlines
I remember mama. Lots of mamas in lots of movies. Mothers and mammies, matrons and moms. Traditional moms, unconventional moms, moms with partners, and moms without. The good, the bad, and the indifferent; the saints, the sinners, and the shrews. Movie moms can be symbols, icons, plot devices, or anchors; sometimes they even resemble human…
