Benefits
FRI 22 Sprint 56K Criterium to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation, at Sixth Street, Downtown, 6pm. 800/496-4402. SAT 23 Evening of Middle Eastern Food & Entertainment to benefit local Grass-roots News Network Conference attendees, at Ararat Restaurant, 111 E. North Loop, 7pm-midnight. Cost is $4. 445-8881. SUN 24 Night of Music w/Amberjack Rice, the Mittens,…
Pete’s Principle
Pete Winstead has seen Austin’s path to the future, and it’s a toll road. The former chair of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce was wearing a new hat earlier this month when he addressed the first ever Austin-San Antonio regional planning conference at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos — that of the…
Coach’s Corner
I don’t like peas. In fact, I detest them; fresh peas, canned peas, black-eyed peas, whatever. A pea is a pea is a pea. The way they squish in my mouth makes me want to vomit. Split pea soup is the grossest thing imaginable. Already chewed-up peas, spit into green soup. I’ve hated peas since…
Proposed Toll Roads
A. Hwy 183-A Cedar Park/Leander Bypass B. The Big “T” SH45 and MoPac Extension C. SH130 (MoKan) TxDOT and the Texas Turnpike Authority favor an alignment west of Long Lake, while local officials and East Austinites insist on a route further east.
Day Trips
Roses are not the only beautiful plants you will find at the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence. The nursery sells a wide variety of other unique home and gift items. photograph by Geralf E. McLeod The gardens of The Antique Rose Emporium on the southern edge of Independence, just north of Brenham, assault the senses…
Beating A Path To SH130: Private Roads, Public Interest
The Texas Turnpike Authority (TTA) has yet to put out a request for proposals on SH130. In fact, until its meeting in South Padre earlier this month, the agency didn’t even have any contracting rules in place. But that didn’t stop a consortium of private companies, calling themselves Road and Bridge Builders Inc. (RBB), from…
Page Two
The time has come to talk of SH130, a road project I’m leaning in favor of, even though the whole enterprise makes me queasy. I’m pretty sure Chronicle publisher Nick Barbaro disagrees with me at least somewhat on this one so I’ve asked him to join this discussion after my rant. Let’s begin on what…
Matthews, My Man
It’s easy to be cynical about politicians. It’s even easier to write nasty things about them. But every once in a while you meet a good one, a politician who isn’t interested in getting rich, who strives to do the right thing, and who speaks out on important issues that no one else seems to…
Public Notice
When you think Sixth Street, what’s the first thing that pops into your head? A belch? A throbbing bottom? A barely recognizable blues lick? If you thought “speed,” it probably had nothing to do with tachometers. If you thought “crank,” it probably had nothing to do with gears and pedals. If you thought “good cause,”…
So Long, Farewell…
The cast of NBC’s ER hanging up their scrubs until fall 1998. Auf Wiedersehen, … adieu. When the phone rang at 8:12pm last Thursday night at home, I went ahead and answered it, knowing the poor soul on the other end obviously didn’t have a clue most of the free world was watching NBC’s Seinfeld.…
Articulations
We’re four for four, in terms of recent weeks featuring items involving architecture and the arts scene in Austin. Who knows how long we can keep this streak running; for now, it’s enough to say that there’s a new development in the search for an architectural firm to design the new Jack S. Blanton Museum…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
1998 marks the 100-year anniversary of the word “slacker,” which originally meant someone evading military service during wartime. Scientists in Scotland think they have isolated the gene that explains why some lifelong smokers never come down with cancer. The gene’s job is to make an enzyme, glutathione S-transferase, which appears to protect people against damage…
Summer Sneaks
by Marjorie Baumgarten and Jessica Reisman The clawed toe of Godzilla has finally set down – officially kicking off the summer movie season. After months of teasers, the original Bigfoot has arrived and promises to be every bit the summer spectacle the movie business thrives on. Size does matter. Joining the nuclear lizard in the…
Exibitionism
Planet Theatre, through May 24 Running Time: 1 hr Somewhere in a chilly fault line of the mind, underneath dreams, myth, fairy tale, and pure giddiness, lurk the odd characters of Rembert Block’s new work Beauty Vultures and the Plague of Sleep. Another in a long line of bold, expressive productions from the VORTEX Repertory…
Food-O-File
The May issue of Food Arts magazine arrived last week and I’ve had a bug up… uh, I mean a bee in my bonnet ever since. This issue boasts three articles about Texas. First is an informative piece about the great Beef 101 class for chefs, food journalists, and food service professionals offered at Texas…
Summer Film Events
The Paramount Theatre Summer Film Classics 6/9 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: 7:15 How to Marry a Millionaire: 9:35 6/10 How to Marry a Millionaire: 7:15 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: 9:35 6/11 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: 7:20 6/14 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World: 3:00, 7:20 6/16 Topper: 7:20 My Favorite Wife: 9:35 6/17…
AMOA and Mexic-Arte Shows Take Us to Personal Places
Private Worlds by Sam Martin and Rebecca S. Cohen In Octalan, a tiny Oaxacan village in Southern Mexico, life probably hasn’t changed much in the last 50 years. Men still ride their bicycles through the dusty streets, and the old colonial-era church still gongs its bells. Women in dresses carry fruit and bouquets of red…
Attention to Detail
Tocai of Austin 601 W. Sixth St., 457-8880 Mon-Fri, 11am-2pm; Mon-Thu, 6-10pm Fri-Sat, 6-11pm Tocai of Austin photograph by John Anderson During the mousse-heavy Eighties, restaurateurs tried to make a go of the upscale wine-bar concept, offering a deep selection of fine vintages to the newly moneyed yuppie population. As a concept, the logic seemed…
Scanlines
(1984) w/ Eddie Blazonczyk, Henry Jasiewicz Sprout Wings and Fly (1982) w/ Tommy Jarrell Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980) w/ Alice Waters, Werner Herzog Gap-Toothed Women (1987) w/ Lauren Hutton D: Les Blank Appalachian fiddler Tommy Jarrell and his sister Julie Lyon from Sprout Wings and Fly Imagine the life of director…
SWTSU’s Top Twenty Triumph
Creative Writing students and faculty at SWTSU’s annual M.F.A. Prom photograph by Jana Birchum According to a recent issue of Poets and Writers magazine, the number of graduate programs in creative writing has quadrupled in the past 20 years – from 50 in the late 1970s to a total of 208 last year. Critics blame…
Texas Radio and the Really Big Beat
When bureaucrats in Washington changed the laws that govern radio some 70-odd years ago, a goateed doctor from Kansas named John R. Brinkley headed down to the Texas/Mexico border and built the world’s most powerful radio station. When bureaucrats in Washington changed the laws that govern radio two years ago, a Dallas dealmaker named R.…
Short Cuts
If it seems as though you’ve seen numerous mentions of filmmaker Kyle Henry in these pages recently it’s because, well, you have. May has been a big month for him. We ran a story on Henry a couple of issues back when his documentary American Cowboy was featured as part of the ongoing Texas Documentary…
What’s My Line?
photograph by Shadrock Roberts These days, people spend more time talking about the information highway than about old-fashioned locomotives and railroads. And while the average Austinite may not give much thought to railroads, Union Pacific — America’s largest rail company — looms large on Austin’s transportation horizon. Without the cooperation of UP, or in the…
What’s Left of the Dial?
Eric Raines photograph by John Anderson Victoria, Texas is not the kind of place where you might expect to find a revolution going on. A quaint town with an approximate population of 60,000, Victoria’s biggest claim to fame might be as the birthplace of Popeye (yep, the comic strip started there), or as the hometown…
Dancing About Architecture
Last week we covered the events of May 14, which, as you all know, was declared by the Mayor and Corporation of Austin, Texas to be Bevis Griffin Day (Griffin is playing the SIMS benefit Rolling Stones Hoot Night at the Continental Club tonight, by the way). I added that this time around, I’d be…
The Faculty
Cyrus Cassells, poetry This fall, Cassells, author of The Mud Actor (National Poetry Series Prize) and Soul Make a Path Through Shouting (William Carlos Williams Poetry Prize and Pulitzer Prize nominee), joins the faculty. His new book, Beautiful Signor, was also nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is currently a finalist for the Lambda Poetry…
Recommended
Friday: Kimmie Rhodes, La Zona Rosa Saturday: Clutch, Shine, Liberty Lunch Sunday: Yellow Bike Benefit, Club De Ville Monday: C. Ridge Floyd, Paramount Theatre Tuesday: Dynamite Boy, Red Boxing, Emo’s Wednesday: Alamo Suite, Speakeasy Thursday: Marshall Tucker Band, Dessau Music Hall
Bulworth
Bulworth 1998, R, 108 min. Directed by Warren Beatty, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Warren Beatty, Halle Barry, Oliver Platt, Jack Warden, Christine Baranski, Paul Sorvino, Richard Sarafian, Don Cheadle, Isaiah Washington, Amiri Baraka, Sean Astin, Laurie Metcalf. Smart, funny, and even a little bit dangerous, Warren Beatty’s new film Bulworth is an…
What’s in a Number?
For the past two weeks, the Chronicle has been covering former SWT professor Michael Blumenthal’s grievances against the university, specifically Blumenthal’s sense that SWT hired poet Cyrus Cassells for a permanent teaching position (for which Blumenthal also applied) because Cassells is black. Blumenthal is white. Long before Hopwood attorney Steven W. Smith, whom Blumenthal chose…
Record Reviews
GARBAGE Version 2.0 (Almo) Three years ago, this Madison, Wisconsin-based four-piece cannily combined three notable producers (Steve Marker, Butch Vig, and Duke Erikson) and a Scottish fireball (Shirley Manson), and produced an album so good (Garbage) that it left the inevitable question, “Can they do it again?” Version 2.0 is an unqualified “damn straight.” When…
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The legend of the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson abides in the performance of Johnny Depp.
SWTSU: The Party’s Over
Known in the 1980s as “the party school,” SWTSU has grown up. Last year, the university was listed number 25 in Money magazine’s list of “best buys” and was labeled a “hot spot” in Newsweek’s annual college issue. Here are just a few of SWTSU’s recent accomplishments: * In 1997, Roy and Joann Mitte pledged…
Road Shows
MAY FRI 22 Medeski Martin & Wood, Stubb’s FRI 22 Liquid, Liberty Lunch FRI 22 The Get-Up Kids, Braid, Three Years Down, The Hookers, Emo’s FRI 22, SAT 23 Rising Lion, Flamingo Cantina SAT 23 Wallflowers, Semisonic, Tonic, Fat, Whiskeytown, Naked, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Jolene, Muscadine, Austin Music Hall SAT 23 Clutch, Liberty Lunch SAT…
Hana-Bi (Fireworks)
Hana-Bi (Fireworks) 1997, NR, 103 min. Directed by Takeshi Kitano, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Takeshi Kitano, Kayoko Kishimoto, Ren Osugi, Susumu Terajima. Like some omnicompetent Buckaroo Banzai of Japanese pop culture, Takeshi “Beat” Kitano services his teeming domestic fan base with a constant output of self-written and -directed films, TV and radio…
In Person
Molly, Liz, and Jim at Borders “Write like you’ve had two martinis, better still, have two martinis,” Liz Carpenter said, sharing the best advice she’d received at the beginning of her writing career, “and those were some of the happiest days of my life.” Amidst beer, barbecue, and books, a packed crowd at Borders listened…
Tied to the Tracks
photograph by Robert Bryce On a recent Monday afternoon, Longhorn Railway owner Don Cheatham drove past his rail yard near McNeil Road in Northwest Austin and noticed that Union Pacific Railroad had just delivered 47 hopper cars. That was the good news. The bad news was that Cheatham had expected to get those cars –…
Godzilla
Godzilla 1998, PG-13, 139 min. D: Roland Emmerich; with Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria. Another summer, another giant lizard. Whoops, what am I saying?! This is Godzilla’s made-in-America debut, and nothing to sniff at lest I incur the wrath of those two diminutive maidens from Godzilla vs. the Thing. As a longtime…
Postscripts
Book columnists are human, too. We just want to be understood. And hey, can’t we all just get along? I’ve recently found myself thinking about the first of those notions. Just how perceptibly are readers influenced by a book review? Will a negative review keep them from buying a book? Will a positive one goad…
Just Say No
illustration by Doug Potter It was 1979 revisited in council chambers last week, as councilmembers dusted off the tenets of the long since abandoned Austin Tomorrow Plan, the 20-year-old vision statement that called for — among other things — the direction of new development to a desired development zone and away from environmentally sensitive areas,…
I Think I Do
I Think I Do 1997, NR, 90 min. Directed by Brian Sloan, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Alexis Arquette, Christian Maelen, Maddie Corman, Guillermo Diaz, Marianne Hagan, Jamie Harrold, Lauren Vélez, Tuc Watkins. According to the late Southern writer Carson McCullers, the world is essentially divided into two types of people: the lover…
About AIDS
Communication by computer continues to amaze us, and sometimes in unexpected ways. Research (and this writer’s personal experience) have demonstrated for some time that people feel permission to be more candid when the computer is the medium, and the journal Science recently disclosed a study with serious implications for public health and HIV prevention. The…
Naked City
Michelle Kay, one of the local daily’s most experienced political reporters, has jumped ship. Kay will soon be directing press affairs for Republican Attorney General candidate John Cornyn. Kay’s departure from the daily was not a surprise, according to some staffers at the paper, who say that she had been on leave from the Statesman…
Shooting Fish
Shooting Fish 1997, R, 103 min. Directed by Stefan Schwartz, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Dan Futterman, Stuart Townsend, Kate Beckinsale, Nickolas Grace, Claire Cox, Ralph Ineson, Dominic Mafham, Peter Capaldi. This frothy, pop confection from the U.K. could be construed as echoing the upbeat, changing moods abroad these days, what with the…
