Cover Story
Visions Holy and Damned, Innocent and Experienced
The documentary ‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston’ – as well as this story – are just the latest attempts to make sense of his life and art
Amélie Feast
Amélie Feast 2001, R, 122 min. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Starring Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz. A film delicacy and a five-course meal. Sold-out.
The Hightower Report
Who Is to Be Detained?; and Constricting High School Education
‘The Gentle Order of Girls and Boys’
Dao Strom’s ‘Four Stories’: an excerpt
Nine Mardi Gras Indian Songs You Don’t Know (and One Everyone Knows)
“Jockamo,” Sugar Boy Crawford & the Cane Cutters “Handa Wanda Pt 1,” Wild Magnolias “Big Chief Got a Golden Crown,” Wild Tchoupitoulas “My Gang Don’t Bow Down,” Flaming Arrows “Yella Pocahontas,” Champion Jack Dupree “New Suit,” Wild Magnolias “My Indian Red,” Dr. John “Second Line Pt.1,” Bill Sinigal & the Skyliners “Big Chief,” Professor Longhair…
Election Notes
Endorsements and dollars accumulate as campaigns hit stretch
Readings
Women on Life, Love, Work, and Pulling It All Together in Your 30s
Mardi Gras Indian Tribes From New Orleans
Listed are more than 50 Mardi Gras Indian tribe names from in and around the New Orleans area. The oldest is Creole Wild West, founded in the 1800s. Some, like the Wild Squatoulas and Medallion Hunters, are no longer active. Others, such as Fi-Yi-Yi and Congo Nation, haven’t yet reached their peak. If you’re in…
RV
Robin Williams loads his family into a camper and goes on vacation.
Genius and Jive
Daniel Johnston’s story is now so well-known, at least to the greater creative community, that it seems almost generic to some. The rise and fall, the innocence trumped by experience, the gifted one who produces extraordinary work but strains himself too much in the process until he cracks. Johnston – singer-songwriter, cartoonist, artist – grew…
Page Two: Indecent Proposals
Indecent Proposals: If you oppose these propositions, you must be on the take
Phases & Stages
Pantera3 Vulgar Videos From Hell (Rhino) The first group Queen guitarist Brian May and his son both liked? Pantera. What began as another Metroplex metal band grew into one of the most influential and bestselling metal acts of the Nineties. Founded in 1981 by the Pantego, Texas-residing Abbott brothers – drummer Vinnie Paul and guitarist…
Mission: Impossible III
It’s all poppycock, of course, but done with great vim, vigor, and flair.
Hey, Hey, Woody Guthrie, I Made You a Film
The AFS Texas Documentary Tour: ‘Woody Guthrie: Ain’t Got No Home’
After a Fashion
Stephen disavows any career advice to K-Fed
Phases & Stages
Built to SpillYou in Reverse (Warner Bros.) Secret MachinesTen Silver Drops (Reprise) Spearing Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” 20 minutes Live (2000), Built to Spill staked its contemporary rock classicism as sure as the Bob Dylan and Van Morrison covers on last year’s Secret Machines EP, The Road Leads Where It’s Led. Zeppelin pulses equally…
Hoot
First-time producer Jimmy Buffett turns outs an eco-friendly coming-of-age movie based on Carl Hiassen’s Newberry Award-winning young-adult novel.
The Icon Down the Street
Remembering Louise Brooks, a little too late
To Your Health
Is there a concern that cooking-oil vapors could increase the chance of lung cancer?
Phases & Stages
The Flaming LipsAt War With the Mystics (Warner Bros.) Today, children, we’re going to learn about the Flaming Lips. They’re from Oklahoma City, and they’re really fun, like a puppet show. Now, you’ll like the very first track, “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song.” When Mr. Wayne asks about whether you’d use your powers for good…
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
The literal and figurative institutionalization of Austin music and art legend Daniel Johnston is analyzed from many angles in this perceptive film profile.
TCB
TCB enters the political arena with Neil Young’s new album, Trail of Dead behind the Iron Curtain, and a hipster pop quiz
Film News
Austin picks up a ‘Hitcher’; Linklater’s Cannes deux attitude; and the rest
The Common Law
Do I Qualify for Unemployment Benefits?
Phases & Stages
Prince3121 (Universal) Remember the “New Kids on the Blecch” episode of The Simpsons? Bart, Milhouse, Nelson, and Ralph emerged as a chart-topping boy band called Party Posse by running their normally frail voices through an elaborate enhancement machine designed by the Navy. Apparently, Prince has purchased just such a machine for Paisley Park Studios. Of…
One Last Thing …
A 16-year-old with terminal cancer just wants to have sex before dying in this sweet, if overly earnest feature.
Ethics, Libertarians, and Scalawags
Politicians with ethical troubles? Naaah.
DVD Watch
‘That film was taken away from me completely, and was totally destroyed in the cutting,’ Orson Welles lamented. ‘That was the real disaster of my life.’
Day Trips
Tour 18 in north Houston replicates many of the world’s most famous golf holes to a tee
Phases & Stages
The Essex GreenCannibal Sea (Merge) Camera ObscuraLet’s Get Out of This Country (Merge) Besides being epicenters of their nations’ fashion-forward music scenes, Glasgow and Brooklyn share forbidding industrial landscapes of factories, shipyards, and warehouses, decrepit places that foster dreams of blissful afternoons in pastoral meadows and long nights in a lover’s embrace. In other words,…
The Promise
This fantastical story from the Chinese director Chen Kaige mixes battles, magic, romance, and mistaken identities for a lovely but unsatisfying blend.
Check Your Scopes
“Clean Austin” says Liveable City report supports Prop. 1; Liveable City says ‘um … no it doesn’t.’
TV Eye
Sweeping and surfing
Soccer Watch
U.S. WC roster announced, and more
Phases & Stages
Jolie HollandSpringtime Can Kill You (Anti-) Jolie Holland’s rustic voice croons from a sleeper car on a long journey across the American plains. Envelopes of sunshine creep through the drawn blinds, coaxing the melancholic San Franciscan out of a nightlong fling with a bottle of moonshine and a beat-up acoustic guitar. Holland’s third album transcends…
L’Enfant
This Cannes Palme d’Or winner presents a maelstrom of grit, crime, poverty, and bureaucratic gridlock.
Money to Burn?
Social service providers worry about the potential effects of Prop. 1
Weed Watch
FDA says idea that marijuana has any medicinal value is hoax
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Where rock stars go to die
Phases & Stages
Lila DownsLa Cantina (Narada/EMI) With her superb fifth album, Lila Downs not only embraces her Mexican roots, she does so fiercely, lovingly. Rancheras, cumbias, and corridos are all played with a deeply felt sentimiento that ranges from joyous to heart wrenching, playful to grievous. All 15 tracks are impossible to dismiss, each a unique treasure…
Austin Interfaith Grills Candidates
Office seekers – most of them – learn to just say ‘yes’
Looking for Las Vegas
An Austin playwright discovers Sin City by going to Louisville
Oops!
In last week’s election endorsements, the last name of ACC board of trustees Place 9 candidate Ana Mejia-Dietche was misspelled as Deitche. Also, in News story “Protest Retaliation?” company IFCO was misidentified as IFCA. The Chronicle regrets the errors.
Putting a Lid on Leininger
House members push for limits on millionaire campaign donations
Election Tidbits
News and notes from the municipal election beat
Salvage Vanguard Theater
After 13 years of presenting theatre in other peoples’ space, Salvage Vanguard Theater has acquired its own home
The Raw Deal
A survival guide to the raw-foods movement
Election Donors
According to finance watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, 87 donors gave more than $100,000 apiece to candidates in the 2004 election cycle. Donor Name City Company Amount Bob & Doylene Perry Houston Perry Homes $4,640,000 Antonio R. Sanchez* Laredo Sanchez-O�Brien Oil & Gas $4,544,000 * Sanchez was repaying himself money he loaned his 2002…
Supremes Tackle Civility of Execution
Supreme Court takes up question of whether a death row inmate may use federal civil rights law to challenge a state’s manner of execution
‘Justice for All?’
With its juried art exhibition ‘Justice for All?:Artists Reflect on the Death Penalty,’ Texas Moratorium Network gives artists a voice in the capital punishment debate
The Raw Deal
Living Foods Bar at Whole Foods525 N. Lamar 476-1206 www.wholefoodsmarket.com I have to admit that I never gave more than a passing, disinterested glace at the Living Foods counter as I scurried over to the pizza pickup. It just didn’t look all that good to me. The display case reminded me of 1974, when “health…
Property Comes First
Tax plan progress?
Officer Suspended for Excessive Use of Force
Officer Christopher Gray gets 70-day suspension for excessive use of force and acts bringing discredit to APD for his role in September arrest
Arts Review
‘Triple Espresso’s premise, with a performing trio reuniting and resolving old conflicts, is just an excuse for three expert entertainers to strut their stuff
The Raw Deal
The Daily Juice1625 Barton Springs Rd. 480-9501 This place is the real thing. Not only do they sell a myriad of juiced-to-order fruit and vegetable juices, they also offer cleanses, shots (not the alcoholic kind, I mean shots of potent health substances like wheatgrass and echinacea), froths, and smoothies. It pains me when I see…
Immigrants Flex Muscle
Day Without an Immigrant work stoppage and boycott draws more than a million people into the streets nationally; thousands turn out locally
Don’t Put Their Back Yard in My Back Yard
Council approves affordable housing facility over neighbors’ objections
Arts Review
In Randy Wyatt’s ‘9x9x9,’ Coda Theater Project offers a kooky thought piece on life / death and the power of God, but a lack of clarity in presentation undercuts some of the fun
Raw References
If you are interested in looking into the raw-foods movement further, here are some books, cookbooks, and Web sites to check out: The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose (Regan Books) A very good beginners/transitional guide to the raw-foods lifestyle Living Cuisine: The Art and Spirit of Raw Foods by Renée Loux Underkoffler (Avery…
El Futuro de East Cesar Chavez
Affordable housing advocates critique plans for Saltillo District
Austin @ Large: Unclean Hands
Prop. 1 and Prop. 2 are not “open,” not “clean” – and definitely not progressive
Arts Review
Peat Duggins’ Art Palace show, ‘The Moment That Changed My Life Forever,’ contrasts the reactions of those in power and those immediately involved in the act of living
Food-o-File
Winners and losers on Food TV and more
Endorsements
Yes, it’s spring in Austin – and there’s an election in the air. We know our readers are asking themselves sagely, “Didn’t I just vote a couple of weeks ago?” Not exactly, since most of you skipped it – but the state specials and primaries and run-offs are over (at least until November), so try…
Beside the Point
The future is sunny, cab drivers are stormy, and water treatment’s horizon is cloudy
Culture Flash!
A day for free comic books, a call for new First Night Austin proposals, and a prize for fans of Sharon Bridgforth
My Gang Don’t Bow Down
Big Chief Kevin Goodman sew, sew, sews a new history here in Austin
Naked City
Headlines and Happenings from Austin and Beyond
Luv Doc Recommends: Whip In 20th Anniversary Party
At the very, very least, relaxing immigration will broaden and deepen the dating pool … so thumbs up, right? So thought the Wampanoag Nation until they found out that Pilgrims didn’t put out. Not only that, but Pilgrims were pretty much useless at anything except freestyle theology and moral condemnation. Either the Wampanoags were greatly…
