Page Two
Chronicle endorsement meetings have become more a task than a pleasure. Candidates that are leading in their races all tend to say the same thing, the Chronicle’s attitude on most things being well known. There is very rarely a candidate, for instance, who doesn’t claim to be an environmentalist, a word that has lost most…
Eastsiders Decry BFI
Stop. Rewind. Play. There they were again. Angry Eastside residents pointing the finger at the narrow environmentalist agenda, crying racism, and blaming the endangered salamander for stealing their thunder. It seemed like an instant replay of the explosive meeting two weeks ago which had morphed into an Eric Mitchell campaign convention in council chambers. At…
Truth or Consequences, N.M.
Truth or Consequences, N.M. 1997, R, 107 min. Directed by Kiefer Sutherland, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Vincent Gallo, Mykelti Williamson, Kevin Pollak, Kim Dickens, Rod Steiger, Martin Sheen. When Nelson Algren wrote books and screenplays about doomed petty hoods and white-trash dreamers, he was forced by technological limitations of the…
Articulations
David Deming, who has dutifully carried the administrative flag for the UT College of Fine Arts for the past nine months following the departure of Dean Jon Whitmore, is at long last being relieved of his position as interim dean. That’s because a permanent replacement for Whitmore has been selected, and that replacement is… David…
Public Notice
American Red Cross volunteers from across the state are converging on Central Texas to heal the hurt from this past week’s devestating tornado storm disaster. Members of Red Cross’ national network of volunteers are standing at the ready to assist as soon as the needs of the area are assessed by their Rapid Response Team.…
Austin City Council Election Endorsements
Saturday, May 31 is Election Day in the city council run-offs, Places 5 and 6. There’s a list of polling places and lots of other election information on the city’s Web page, http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/election/ — for yet more, check out the Chronicle’s Web Elections Board at /election/. Place 5: Bill Spelman. Spelman is recognized as a…
Trial and Error
Trial and Error 1997, PG-13, 98 min. Directed by Jonathan Lynn, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Michael Richards, Jeff Daniels, Charlize Theron, Rip Torn, Austin Pendleton. There’s a very fine line between formulaic comedies and bizarre torture devices that render viewers insensate with ennui while precious brain cells die yawning by the thousands.…
Exhibitionism
The Velveeta Room & the Paramount Theatre, Thursday & Friday, May 22 & 23 Improv is the perfect sport for a person who is a mass media sponge with an agile mind. Full of strange and unusual suggestions from an audience, an improv scene can last 10 seconds or three hours and traverse diverse lands,…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
The 1956 movie Forbidden Planet is based upon Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The term “trap set,” drums common to most jazz combos and rock bands, is a contraction of “The Contraption,” which was used in the early 1900s. The Egyptians believed the nose to be the path to the soul. From the late 1910s until about…
News Fit to Censor
Articles on Shell Oil and the Environmental Protection Agency published by The Texas Observer made project Censored’s top overlooked news stories of 1996. This year’s version of the annual yearbook of Project Censored, Censored 1997: The News That Didn’t Make the News, is now available, and the Austin-based Texas Observer has two stories listed among…
Sprung
Sprung 1997, R, 105 min. Directed by Rusty Cundieff, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Rusty Cundieff, Paula Kai Parker, Tisha Campbell, Joe Terry. The title refers to being in love, a state that’s pure anathema to any man who aspires to well and truly be “The Mack.” At least that’s what self-styled ladies’…
Yo! MTV Laughs!
There is a certain quality that’s a hot commodity in the comedy world right now, a quality more easily described than named. Over the years it’s been called “hip” or “cool,” but neither of these terms adequately sums up the combination of ironic detachment, laser-sharp wit, and cultural relevance currently in demand. For lack of…
Room With a Vista
photograph by John Anderson Brio Vista 9400 Arboretum Blvd., 342-2642 Open daily: 11am-3pm, lunch; 3pm-5pm, appetizers; 5-10pm, Sun-Thu; 5-11pm, Fri-Sat, dinner Like its sister restaurant Z-Tejas, Brio, one of West Sixth Street’s successful food ventures, has multiplied, providing Austin residents parallel cuisine in a Northwest location in the burgeoning Arboretum complex. The new Brio, aptly…
Naked City
Thomas “Hollywood” Henderson’s proposed rezoning for a bank on property he owns near 18th Street and Airport Boulevard finally passed muster with city council last week. The neighbors signed off on the deal, too. Now all Henderson has to do is find a bank that wants to set up shop there… Maple Run, the neighborhood-to-be…
Recommended
edited by Christopher Gray OLD 97’S, GRIEVOUS ANGELS Stubb’s, Friday 30 Forget all this `alt’ stuff. Go see Pavement or hit a computer keyboard if that’s what you’re into. The Old 97’s are not `alt.country’; They’re country as a livestock auction — just ask Don Walser or Waylon Jennings, who both found the Dallas quartet…
Food-O-File
If Jeffrey’s executive chef David Garrido is not the busiest man in Austin, it would be hard to say just who is! Since October, Garrido has hosted two successful charity events (Food for Thought benefiting Communities in Schools and Taste of the Nation for hunger relief), launched a new line of hot sauces, available at…
Shaking the Money Tree
Manuel Zuniga photograph by Alan Pogue On Wednesday, May 21, around noon, Bill Spelman and Manuel Zuniga were working the room where a political forum was about to get underway with members of the East Sixth Street Community Association. If the two Place 5 city council runoff candidates wanted to be somewhere else — anywhere…
AISD Notebook
Earlier this year, AISD administrators laid an egg when they made an “administrative” decision that would have allowed no AISD secondary school student to receive a six weeks’ grade in any course of less than 50. The rationale was that although a grade of 50 is most certainly still failing, it provides the student some…
Texas Tortes
by Arthur Meyer (UT Press, $17.95 hard) Texas Tuxedos to Tacos by Betsy Nozick & Tricia Henry (Eakin Press, $21.95 hard) An important consideration in the purchase of any cookbook is the author’s credibility. What do they know about their subject and how did they acquire that knowledge, how likely is it that their recipes…
BloodSport
illustration by Doug Potter At 10:30am last Thursday, just before Eric Mitchell launched his surprise attack, members of the media gathered in council chambers to hear his take on the brewing controversies surrounding the Place 6 race. “Despite the fact that citizens have come forward with information about my opponent that strikes at the heart…
The Style Files
Julie Driscoll blooms in The End of Innocence The problem with being a fashion pariah is that anti-style is tough work. One must develop an utter disregard for the conventions as dictated by designers and perpetrated by models and fashion magazines and still look cool. And, as any female with more than two packages of…
True Women Cookbook
by Janice Woods Windle (Bright Books, $22.95 paper) Now that you’ve read the book and seen the television mini-series based on Windle’s best-selling novel True Women (Ballantine, $8.95, paper) it’s possible to own the cookbook that started the whole thing. Author Janice Woods Windle began collecting family recipes to create a wedding gift for her…
Splitting the Difference
Considering that Manuel Zuniga had a definite edge over all four of his Place 5 opponents on May 3 in both name-identification (as a repeat candidate) and money, it’s plausible to suggest that Gus Pe�a, Karen Hadden, Bill Spelman, and Bobbie Enriquez all split the anti-Manny vote. Certainly, this is what Spelman’s camp is hoping,…
In Person
Fans of true crime, Texas history, and adventurous tales well-told will welcome the arrival of a new book called Texas Ranger Tales by Mike Cox (Republic of Texas, $16.95 paper). Tales covers roughly 100 years of ranger history, beginning with a strange saga regarding the corpse of Samuel Walker, grandfather of the Colt revolver, the…
Dancing About Architecture
I attended a meeting of the Austin Aqua Festival (that’s Aquafest to you and me) last week, and “exciting” was the word for it. By that, I mean nearly everyone who spoke for the Fest proclaimed how “exciting” it was to have not one but two sock-hop cover bands on their opening night, and that…
TV Time is Money
According to the candidates’ campaign and expenditure reports, Mitchell has raised almost twice the amount of money as Lewis since the end of the general election — $64,533 for Mitchell, compared to Lewis’ $36,487. But while 20% of Mitchell’s contributions came from political action commitees (PACs) such as the Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA)…
Postscripts
Half Price Books has published the 1997 edition of Say Goodnight to Illiteracy, a book of bedtime stories intended to raise money for literacy programs. This third volume of the collection, which retails at Half Price locations for $2.98, highlights the 25th anniversary of the Dallas-based chain with 25 stories, selected from over 1,000 entries…
Different Dimensions
Like a steaming bowl of gumbo, Drums and Tuba’s music is made from a myriad of interesting ingredients. And just as the hearty soup is a symbol of Southern Louisiana’s cultural m�lange, Drums and Tuba’s musical parts interact with each other to create flavors and textures not found independently. Since it’s difficult to describe the…
TV Eye
Forget Madonna for a minute- the real, ever-fascinating Eva Peron is profiled on A&E’s Biography June 5. There used to be four writers that gathered every Wednesday night, watched FOX’s Beverly Hills 90210, then hung around for HBO’s Dream On and The Larry Sanders Show. (Larry Sanders, by the way, is the best show on…
Slam, Bam, Thank You, Ma’am
The Austin Slam Team: Clockwise are Wammo, Susan B. A. Somers-Willet, Phil West nad Genevieve Van Cleve This may shock the culturati, but mention “the Slam” outside its circle of participants and you’re likely to draw a question mark: What’s a Slam? That’s easy. It’s a group of poets competing, usually for cash, with three-minute…
Where’s the Fire?
illustration by Nathan Jensen Where’s a better way to cause a panic in Austin than yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre: Try yelling “Fire Marshal!” in a crowded live music club, instead. Or so that seemed to be the case at this year’s South by Southwest. Perusing articles in various local and national media about…
George Jetson, Meet Dilbert
On May 23, Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert comics, was in Austin, and Bowie, Maryland — only minutes apart. His two cats were with him, as he greeted crowds at bookstores (Borders in Maryland and Barnes & Noble in Austin) in both cities. Like other readings, he answered questions, made jokes, and called on…
About AIDS
A small group of prostitutes in Africa each turn several tricks a day, never using condoms, but they have not become infected. John from Houston had receptive anal intercourse for several years with his HIV+ lover, no condoms. The lover has died of AIDS, but John shows no evidence of HIV. Two dozen people in…
Live Shots
Asleep at the Wheel’s Ray Benson at the Broken Spoke, May 23 photograph by Jana Birchum ZZ TOP, GEORGE THOROGOOD Frank Erwin Center, May 15 Under pressure? Damn right. ZZ Top, lumbering through most of this decade as ZZzzz Top, had over 10,000 stomping, screaming Texans to satisfy at the Frank Erwin Center. Lone Star…
The Game Report
You’ve seen it on television. You’ve read it in the zines. And, of course, you’ve browsed it on the Internet. Microsoft’s trademark slogan, “Where do you want to go today?” is as unyielding as an everlasting Gobstopper. Like sailor’s lice on a submarine, it has infested the marketplace, and aside from abstinence, there is no…
hearth and soul
Phony OV6-0307. I still remember my phone number from when I was a little kid, five years old or less. The number was drilled into my brain because the phone was a lifeline for little lost kids. And I was such a ditzy kid, with such a poor sense of direction I got confused even…
Roadkill
Charlie Hunter Quartet Antone’s Thursday, June 5 Natty Dreadlock is white. He is 29 years old, and lives in Berkeley, where he also grew up. His hair is short. He does not sing, rather he plays an eight-string guitar that is both bass and guitar. He once took lessons from Joe Satriani. When he was…
Scanlines
CD-ROM, Mac & Windows Disney Interactive Crulella De Vil gets hers in Disney’s animated film, but in the CD-ROM version, she’s at the mercy of the player. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to like this CD-ROM. My3 3/4-year-old son/ace multimedia consultant, Dashiell, navigates the interface like a proverbial bird dog on…
Benefits
FRI 30 Treasures of Texas Auction & Dinner to benefit Preservation Texas and the Downtown Alliance, at the Driskill Hotel, 6-10pm. 469-1766. SUN 1 Fun Run/Walk of the Southwest Texas State University Physical Therapy Program to benefit the Texas Physical Therapy Association and other non-profit organizations, at Central Market, 8am. 472-3254. Jubal-ation Tribute to benefit…
Road Shows
MAY FRI 30 Pavement, Royal Trux, Bis, Liberty Lunch FRI 30 Old 97’s, Grievous Angels, Stubb’s FRI 30 Trans Am, Golden, Emo’s FRI 30 Borrowers, Saxon Pub SAT 31 Offspring, L7, A.F.I., Austin Music Hall SAT 31 Brave Combo, Liberty Lunch SAT 31 REO Speedealer, Craw, Emo’s SAT 31 The Shepherd Band, Flamingo Cantina SAT…
Short Cuts
A Little Film Night is scheduled for this Sunday, at which time the distinguished Super-8mm film champion Toni Treadway will present a workshop and screening of excerpts of 8mm film works from the last six decades. Treadway is the co-founder of the International Center (IC8) for 8mm Film, co-author with Bob Brodsky of the production…
Coach’s Corner
I’ve spent so much time lately listening to strangers on the television screen that they’ve become part of my extended family: a passel of friendly, helpful, nicely dressed and, occasionally, articulate aunts and uncles. My new family — sportscasters from ESPN, TNT, The Deuce, and NBC. I can’t wait until Thanksgiving, so I can go…
No Sex, No Moms
Dr. Joe McIlhaney believes that abstinence education is the best way to prevent the proliferation of welfare mothers. When President Clinton scrawled his signature on the Welfare Reform Act on August 22, 1996, most Americans understood that the law was meant to sharply curtail entitlements of public assistance to the poor. But fewer knew that…
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
The Lost World: Jurassic Park 1997, PG-13, 129 min. Directed by Steven Spielberg, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, Richard Attenborough, Vince Vaughn, Vanessa Lee Chester, Peter Stormare. The phrase “long-awaited” kind of falls short of the mark when discussing Spielberg’s $70 million-plus follow-up to the…
day trips
The state of Texas now has an official state dinosaur. Add that to the list of other official state symbols such as the state flower (bluebonnet), tree (pecan), food (chili), sport (rodeo), and a dozen or so other things that the state legislature has chosen to represent Texas. The 75th Texas Legislature chose the Brachiosaur…
Save It for Me: Abstinence Education in America
The definition of “abstinence education” was developed by political and religious conservatives, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, and first introduced by U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-NC) and U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA). As quoted from the block grant application, the guidelines contain eight points: Abstinence education is an educational or motivational program which: has as…
Le Samourai
Fedoras and trench coats. Film noir in cool blues and greens. Melville’s 1967 film is the real deal.
DRUMS & TUBA
Box Fetish (T.E.C. Tones) Every December, dozens of tubists from throughout the Houston area descend on the Transco Tower’s waterwall, serenading Galleria Christmas shoppers and passersby from Westheimer to the Ship Channel with “Joy to the World,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and the like. The effect is stunning — like having a Panzer division…
Safe Sex is No Sex
As a fertility specialist, Dr. Joe McIlhaney used to mend the sterility that preyed upon women longing for children. But as time went on, his attention shifted from curing infertility to trying to prevent it. In December 1995, he walked away from his “dream” obstetrics/gynecology practice to run his Medical Institute for Sexual Health (MISH)…
Kissed
Kissed 1996, NR, 78 min. Directed by Lynne Stopkewich, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Molly Parker, Peter Outerbridge, Jay Brazeau, Natasha Morley. When first we meet Kissed’s young Sandra Lomax, it’s clear that she already has an overwhelming attraction toward dead things. We watch as the gawky pre-teen (Morley) engages in ritualistic burials…
