Cover Story
Westward Ho!
In-progress or proposed developments for near-western Hill Country rise overnight like so many toxic mushrooms
The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath 1940, NR, 128 min. Directed by John Ford, Starring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin. John Ford translated the John Steinbeck Depression-era classic novel into an equally classic movie. The displaced Joad family from Oklahoma speaks for all Americans.
“The Key to Defining Dwarfs” and “Joseph Kilian”
“The Key to Defining Dwarfs” and “Joseph Kilian” NR, 96 min. Directed by Martin Sulik, Pavel Jurácek, Jan Schmidt. “The Key to Defining Dwarfs” (2003, 58 min.) is Martin Sulik’s film essay based on diaries kept by director Jurácek during the 1960s, when he began making films and had his life overturned by the Russian…
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath 1963, NR, 99 min. Directed by Mario Bava, Salvatore Billitteri, Starring Michèle Mercier, Lidia Alfonsi, Boris Karloff. A trio of horror stories narrated by and starring Boris Karloff.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939, NR, 129 min. Directed by Frank Capra, Starring James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains. Stewart stars as a young idealist who finds nothing but corruption in the U.S. Senate, and Arthur is the hard-boiled gal whose heart cracks wide open – along with ours.
Summer Reading
The Wisdom of Crowdsby James Surowiecki Doubleday, 320 pp., $24.95 Crowds get bad press. Whenever the stock market plunges, business journalists pull out their dusty copies of Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and bone up on tulipmania. For Freud, civilization itself is a long repentance for the patricidal crimes committed by…
Yummer Reading
Shakespeare’s Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cookby Francine Segan Random House, 263 pp., $35 Admittedly, the idea of re-creating food from the Elizabethan era was less than appealing. The notion of duplicating Elizabethan-era food from England is downright frightening. England is a country that has never enjoyed a reputation as a culinary destination, and…
Sheet Music
Hank Williams: The BiographyBy Colin Escott with George Merritt & William MacEwen Back Bay Books, 400 pp., $15.95 (paper) When Colin Escott’s biography of Hank Williams was originally published in 1994, it was hailed as definitive. There had been attempts to write this story over the years, but this one finally got it right. In…
Racing for Elinor Mire
Austin running maven to get a little help from her friends
Crew Stories
Second Assistant Camera Courtney Harrell
Second Helpings: A Little Italy, Part I
Buca di Beppo 3612 Tudor Blvd., 342-8462 Monday-Thursday, 5-10pm; Friday, 5-11pm; Saturday, noon-11pm; Sunday, noon-9pm This national chain started serving pizzas and pastas out of a Minneapolis basement more than 10 years ago and now has over 100 locations across the country. Buca di Beppo serves “immigrant Southern Italian” cuisine and offers the gamut of…
Summer Reading
Katherineby Anya Seton Chicago Review Press, 512 pp., $14.95 (paper) When first published 50 years ago, Katherine established Anya Seton as one of the premiere historical novelists of the time. Her lengthy and detailed research reveals itself in the fabric of her golden writing, textured like jacquard so that it appears completely different when viewed…
Yummer Reading
The Provence Cookbookby Patricia Wells HarperCollins, 338 pp., $29.95 Patricia Wells has a pretty nice life. She’s the food critic for the International Herald Tribune, which allows her to eat in some of Europe’s finest restaurants. Because she’s the author of nine books about France (two of which I take with me every time I…
Sheet Music
Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues By Elijah Wald Amistad, 342 pp., $24.95 How much of what we now think of Robert Johnson and the Mississippi Delta blues scene that produced him is based on historical fact as opposed to romanticized hindsight and projection? Longtime blues aficionado Elijah Wald tackles…
Sun Rises (Finally) for AE
The utility’s $5 / watt solar rebate program is – this time for sure – ready to go
In Print
‘Fabulous!: A Loving, Luscious, Lighthearted Look at Film From the Gay Perspective’ and more
TCB
Texas history, Handsome Joel, and ‘Choice Cuts’ from Tee Double.
Summer Reading
The Snakepit Bookby Ben Snakepit (Gorsky, $12, paper)”It was my New Year’s resolution for 2001 to never miss another day of drawing, and three years later I’m still rocking out on it,” writes Austinite Ben “Snakepit” White in the introduction to this empathic, generous, and all-around good time of a journal-cum-comic-strip-collection. “It’s neat … to…
Yummer Reading
Fig Heaven: 70 Recipes for the World’s Most Luscious Fruitby Marie Simmons Morrow, 176 pp., $19.95 Right in the middle of my back yard sits the largest fig tree I have ever seen anywhere. Every summer for the past four years, I have allowed the birds to have the fruit from the top of the…
Sheet Music
Ray Charles: Man and MusicBy Michael Lydon Routledge, 452 pp., $22.96 (paper) Thanks to immortal No. 1 hits, a lifetime of television and touring, 13 Grammys, and a definitive version of “America,” everybody knows Ray Charles Robinson, aka “Genius.” Arguably the definitive Charles biography, Man and Music begins with the cultural backdrop of its subject’s…
SBC, CWA Reach Agreement
The union wins major gains from the phone giant after a four-day walkout
Short Cuts
Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money
Coming Soon To a Concert Hall Near You
What’s ahead for the Austin Symphony Orchestra & Ballet Austin in 2004-2005
Page Two
Hey, it’s his shower
Yummer Reading
Spirit of the Earth: Cooking From Latin Americaby Beverly Cox with photographsby Martin Jacobs Stewart Tabori & Chang, 240 pp., $40 The native foodstuffs of the Americas radically changed eating habits the world over. The Americas gave the world corn, tomatoes, squash, beans, potatoes, and chocolate, to name a few. Most of these ingredients are…
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Showtime at the ApolloBy Ted Fox Mill Road, 328 pp., $18.95 (paper) The decades have not been kind to James Brown’s 1962 breakthrough, Live at the Apollo. At 31 minutes, there’s not enough star time for a full head of steam, and despite its analog groove, the album grates with Brown’s early bark rather than…
ACLU Blasts Drug Task Forces
Yet more charges of impropriety against Texas’ much-maligned supernarcs
TV Eye
The media all but ignore the death of a Chicana titan. What’s sadder is that it’s unsurprising.
Art Seen
Three Austin artists – Sean Perry, Warren Cullar, and Jay McMahan – have had their artwork recognized on a national level
After a Fashion
Stephen cruises South First and ‘Shouts’ it out!
Yummer Reading
Potsticker Chronicles: America’s Favorite Chinese Recipesby Stuart Chang Berman John Wiley & Sons, 274 pp., $27.50 I have about 35 Chinese cookbooks in my collection and have looked through hundreds more in my time, and not one single cookbook of all of those that I’ve looked through has ever had a recipe for garlic sauce…
Sheet Music
Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record CollectingBy Brett Milano St. Martin’s Griffin, 230 pp., $13.95 (paper) Exploring the idiosyncrasies that make record collectors their own brand of eccentric, Boston-based music journalist Brett Milano picks the fevered brains of a handful of renowned diggers. Whether discussing prewar 78s with Robert Crumb, proto-punk staples with Peter Buck and…
Killer-D Lawsuit Still Alive
Both Rep. Lon Burnam and the Department of Public Safety win in appellate court
DVD Watch
With Abel Ferrara’s first real budget came name talent and new blood
Playwright Update
Playwrights Dan Dietz and Colin Denby Swanson are among the 18 semi-finalists for the 2004-5 P73 Playwriting Fellowship , and Dietz�s Tilt Angel has been selected for full production at New Jersey Repertory Theater next season
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Amos, Andy, admitted atheism, and Amnesty’s accounting
Yummer Reading
Sephardic Israeli Cuisine: A Mediterranean Mosaicby Sheilah Kaufman Hippocrene Books, 261 pp., $24.95 Kaufman begins this book with the observation that Israel lacks a single cuisine, but rather, it is an amalgam of influences from all of the diverse geographies and cultures of its people. She illustrates the culinary influences of the Sephardic Jews (Greece,…
Sheet Music
Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and SocietyBy Daniel Barenboim and Edward W. Said Vintage Books, 186 pp., $13 (paper) Can music solve the world’s problems? According to this collection of conversations between Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said, not only can music bring about peace, it can teach us how to be human…
Carole’s Lips to God’s Ear
The comptroller backs down on threat to de-religion-ize the Unitarians
Arts Bullets
Relive your prom with Coda Theater Project; see Jaxon’s artwork in a museum (of sorts); the Blanton receives $100,000 for its first show in its new building; and travel is in the cards for two AMOA leaders
Day Trips
Pratt’s Book Store has a great selection you might not expect from a small-town bookstore
Yummer Reading
Remembrance of Things Paris: Sixty Years of Writing From ‘Gourmet’edited by Ruth Reichl Modern Library, 344 pp., $24.95 There is no city on Earth that can inspire more culinary literature than Paris, and Gourmet magazine has embraced that inspiration since the magazine’s inception in 1941. What a dreadful year to be striking out with a…
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Shostakovich and StalinBy Solomon Volkov Knopf, 313 pp., $30 Like Barry Bonds’ home-run record, Solomon Volkov’s works on Shostakovich seem destined to have an asterisk affixed to them. Controversy has roared unabated since the publication of Volkov’s Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich in 1979. Some scholars consider the book one of the biggest frauds…
Mitigation Goes Nowhere
Both developers and enviros shoot down staff’s new ideas for aquifer development
Raising Helen
Ugg boots, ugh movie. Cuddle-bunny story stars Kate Hudson.
Exhibitionism
To get into The Underpants, as it were, director Don Toner has deployed a reliable ensemble of able actors, who deliver a friendly poke in the ribs about matters a little farther south
Soccer Watch
Farewell to the Champions League; long live Euro 2004
Yummer Reading
Cookbooks, memoirs, anthologies, and more
Sheet Music
The Improbable Rise of Redneck RockBy Jan Reid University of Texas Press, 379 pp., $29.95 The Armadillo World Headquarters still casts a long, long shadow over Austin. It’s been closed for nearly 25 years, but the ramshackle former National Guard armory’s legacy stretches from KGSR and Austin City Limits to those ubiquitous, borderline-xenophobic 78704 bumper…
Soechting Rallies the Troops
State Dem chair says Texas is winnable – if Texans fight back
The Day After Tomorrow
A new Ice Age cometh
Exhibitionism
Friendship was the theme of the Budjanova Chamber Orchestra’s A Night in Vienna, which was dedicated to the memory of Danielle Martin, the late UT professor whose life touched many of those at the concert
The Common Law
There are so many lawyers, how do I know which one to hire?
Food-o-File
V.B.W. keeps an eye on the comings, goings, and goings-on
Sheet Music
Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales From Childhood By A.J. Albany Tin House/Bloomsbury, 163 pp., $14.95 (paper) Although just a footnote in jazz history, Joe Albany was a brilliant bebop pianist who played and/or recorded with titans Charlie Parker and Lester Young, among many others. Like all too many of his generation, he…
City sues over Owens Photos
Suit filed to stop release of crime-scene pictures in police-shooting case
Soul Plane
Everything is lewd and crude at this mile-high club.
Summer Reading
Self-explanatory
To Your Health
What nutrients can be taken to minimize radiation damage to healthy tissue?
When Doves Cry
Purple fingerprints on our past and present
Pardoned by Satan
If Texas can’t kill the insane, where will the madness end?
A Slipping-Down Life
Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce star in this adaptation of an Anne Tyler story that was filmed in Austin several summers ago.
Summer Reading
Julie Speed: Paintings, Constructions, Works on Paperby Julie Speed University of Texas Press, 194 pp., $45 When once asked why the title subject of her painting The Two-Tailed Monkey possessed the extraneous appendage, Austin-based Julie Speed coyly responded, “He wanted to have another tail there.” The artist’s reply answered a variety of questions about her…
About AIDS
Two weeks ago, the Bush administration opened the door a crack to allowing some poor countries to make or import generic anti-HIV drugs. Finally! It isn’t what’s needed – a much-expedited FDA stamp of approval is still required – but it’s a start. The administration’s prior arguments about questionable quality and safety were bogus –…
Sheet Music
The Spring rock & roll books round-up, from the cancerous and blind to the philosophical and fascist
Travis Co. Manifest Destiny
Some of the central organizational players in the land and water wars of western Travis Co.
Austin @ Large: (Jennifer) Gale Force
The vote in the AISD board elections suggests too many Austinites are just not paying attention
La Vie Promise
Isabelle Huppert stars in this French road movie about a selfish streetwalker, her unwanted teenage daughter, and the escaped convict who befriends them both.
Summer Reading
The Z Radiantby Jessica Reisman Five Star, 210 pp., $25.95 Developing and exploring completely alien worlds has been a mainstay of science fiction literature since Camille Flammarion’s Lumen was published in 1887. With her first novel, The Z Radiant, Austinite Jessica Reisman continues the tradition. Accessible only via a wormhole, Nentesh is located in an…
Letters at 3AM
Justice sidestepped: Lane McCotter, the Bush administration’s overseer for rebuilding Iraq’s prison system, previously resigned from his job as Utah’s top corrections officer because he was under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for reports of abuse
Sheet Music
Never the Same Again: A Rock ‘N’ Roll GothicBy Jesse Sublett Boaz Publishing Co., 280 pp., $24 On Aug. 16, 1976, aspiring Austin rock musician Jesse Sublett came home the morning after his first big gig and found Dianne Roberts, his 22-year-old girlfriend, strangled to death in their bed. For the next 25 years, the…
Montana Blues
Great-grandmother Marie died of a broken heart in Billings, Mont.
The Hightower Report
Spider-Man gets kicked out of baseball; Bush and Rummy deny responsibility for torture
Summer Reading
The Texas Post Office Murals: Art for the Peopleby Philip Parisi Texas A&M University Press, 192 pp., $45 Indians, settlers, cowboys, oil field roughnecks, slaves, and migrant workers silently stare down at the bustling lobbies of 61 post offices around Texas. Most of the customers who come to the counter to buy stamps don’t pay…
Yummer Reading
Cookbooks, memoirs, anthologies, and more
Sheet Music
Howling at the Moon: The Odyssey of a Monstrous Music Mogul in an Age of ExcessBy Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz Broadway Books, 304 pp., $24.95 You want sex, drugs, and rock & roll? Behind-the-scenes stories of Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, and … uh, Meat Loaf? International intrigue,…
Enviros Give Dell a (Barely) Passing Grade
Hopeful signs – but continuing challenges – for electronic recycling effort
Come Out and Play
Has Austin – or anywhere else – ever seen anything like Cinemania weekend?
Summer Reading
Transmissionby Hari Kunzru Dutton, 277 pp., $24.95 Kunzru’s debut novel, The Impressionist, took its stylistic cues from Evelyn Waugh. It was all feline style and retractable claws, a babu’s ironic revenge for a 150-year history of condescension sheathed in the very code and tenor of that condescension’s voice. I was entranced by the cool savagery…
Yummer Reading
Eating My Words: An Appetite for Lifeby Mimi Sheraton Morrow, 240 pp., $23.95 When it was announced that former New York Times restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton would appear on a panel at the recent Saveur Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival, I made haste to get myself invited, too. The panel was set to…
Sheet Music
Broken MusicBy Sting The Dial Press, 337 pp., $26 How do you have tantric sex? Will the Police ever reunite? These should be the first two questions that spring to mind when picking up the new memoir by pop icon Sting. Sadly, Broken Music doesn’t solve either mystery or offer much beyond the childhood experiences…
City Bets the Farm on Robinson Ranch
Austin prepares to enable a new city on a huge chunk of Williamson County
Sebadoh
An interview with Lou Barlow
Summer Reading
Mighty Loveby Howard Chaykin DC Comics, 96 pp., $24.95 The whole secret identity thing is hell on a caped crusader’s romantic life; just ask Clark Kent how snarky it made dating Lois. Now, writer-artist Howard Chaykin has some fun with sex and the single superhero, through a cop and lawyer who loathe each other by…
Yummer Reading
The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eatingby Fergus Henderson Ecco, 224 pp., $19.95 First published in 1999 in Britain as Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking, this little gem became an instant food-lovers’ classic and was almost impossible to find on either side of the pond. Now republished in the U.S., it…
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Perfect Sound Forever: The Story of PavementBy Rob Jovanovic Justin, Charles & Co., 216 pp., $19.99 (paper) “According to the National Word Association of America, ‘pavement’ is one of the 20 most pleasant sounding words in the English language,” cites Rob Jovanovich in this biography of one of the Nineties’ most important bands. Fortunately for…
An Underground Effort to Recall APA’s Sheffield
Anonymous cops accuse the union head of falling down on the job
‘Foxy Brown’
An interview with Antonio Fargas
Summer Reading
It’s a Bird …by Steven T. Seagle and Teddy Kristiansen Vertigo, 128 pp., $24.95 You might not think it would be a job for Superman to help the guy who pens his stories, but in Steven Seagle’s semi-autobiographical tale, it’s the Man of Steel to the rescue of a comic-book scribe in distress. He’s offered…
Yummer Reading
Movie Menus: Recipes for Perfect Meals with Your Favorite Filmsby Francine Segan Villard, 221 pp., $16.95 Francine Segan is either a frustrated actress who loves to cook or a frustrated cook who loves to act. She just can’t separate food and drama. In a more pedestrian effort than her swanky Shakespeare’s Kitchen (see right), this…
Sheet Music
Morphing the Blues: The White Stripes and the Strange Relevance of DetroitBy Martin Roach Chrome Dreams, 178 pp., $15.95 (paper) We love the White Stripes. That air of nonchalance, the simple drumbeats, the old-timey blues riffs. But Martin Roach idolizes Jack White to such an extent that our ardor for the Stripes is quickly waning.…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
‘The Warriors’ Reunion
An interview with Michael Beck
Luv Doc Recommends: Jesse Sublett in-store with the Class of ’78
If you have been extra obsequious this week in hopes of getting the boss to let you off early on Friday, good call. That should put you on the streets with only a few hundred thousand other purposefully obsequious, smug worker-bee types who managed to cadge a few extra hours off the man. Better than…
