A Revolutionary Letter to Employers (continued)
by Michael Ventura Well, dear Employer – I’m not through with you yet. Don’t believe The Wall Street Journal. Don’t believe TV. Above all, don’t believe your own eyes. They tell you that wage-earners are on the run; that unions are a thing of the past; and that the “free market” is free to make…
On Virtual Exhibit
I Photograph to Remember (1992) CD-ROM for Mac & Windows Truths and Fictions (1995) CD-ROM for Mac The Voyager Company Distinguishing itself amidst the glut of shoot ’em-up games and “edutainment” pabulum which dominate today’s software marketplace, The Voyager Company has taken the high road in CD-ROM publishing. Their intelligent, content-rich catalog includes works by…
Articulations
Given the openness of our own society, it is easy to forget there are lands where being an artist is a dangerous calling. Nigeria is one, as is painfully clear from the recent execution of playwright Ken Sara-wiwa by the government. For years, South Africa was also a place in which artists were routinely imprisoned…
Conceding to Concessions
by Greg Beets Airport food has long been the butt of many a bad joke, the kind you’d expect to hear at a comedy club called Chuckle’s — and no wonder. Even the most remedial traveler can tell you that airport concessions tend to hawk food of a mediocre pedigree at prices that could make…
Scanlines
Re-Animator D: Stuart Gordon; with Jeffery Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale. Laserdisc Elite Entertainment Those folks over at Elite really are a horror fan’s best friend, having released deluxe discs of classics like Night of the Living Dead and Horror Hotel, among others. Now, they’ve blessed us with this “10th Anniversary” edition of…
Earthen Works at the Austin Museum of Art Revolution in Clay
by Rebecca Levy The minute I saw the invitation, I was hooked. Revolution in Clay, selections from the Marer Collection of contemporary ceramics, called out like an old friend I hadn’t heard from in a long time. In fact, I associate the clay medium with my best friend in college, a potter who stopped making…
food-o-file
by Virginia B. Wood By far the most interesting tidbit in the mail this week is the announcement of a contest to sell a local restaurant. Purple Plum owner Mary Heckler has chosen to give up her cozy, lunch-only restaurant and catering business through a contest that she is promoting both in the media and…
Shortcuts
Entertaining fears of a multimedia man’s world? The soon-to-be Austin-based company Girl Games will certainly assuage them. Designing both entertainment and educational software for a female market, ages 7-17, the interactive CD-ROM company states as their mission “a hope to transform the way women and girls embrace the technology of today and tomorrow.” President Laura…
Arts Recommended: 57th Annual Art Faculty Exhibit: Huntington Art Gallery
The first thing that greets you upon entering the UT Faculty Exhibit is David L. Demming’s welded steel junkyard dog, “Bully-Bully,” a sculpture of rebar, plumbing joints, nuts, bolts, washers, and pieces of oxyacetylene tanks welded with a muscular Terminator canine-solidity that would be downright menacing if its face weren’t so cartoonishly comical. The exhibit…
Just off the Runway
Cantwell Burgers 5310 Airport Blvd., 459-9609 M-Sat, 8am-8pm; closed Sunday Airport Haven Hamburgers Airport at 6801 Guadalupe, 459-6859 M-Sat, 10:30am-10pm; closed Sunday Holiday House #4 5325 Airport Blvd., 452-3136 Daily 11am-9pm Despite such pleasant aberrations as Quality Seafood and Tamale House #3, Airport is really a boulevard of hamburger wishes and chicken-fried dreams. You can’t…
Thanks, I Think…
by Jen Scoville I inherited the holiday gene from my mother. No matter how bohemian my lifestyle (which ebbs and flows yearly in direct proportion to my paycheck), the trait surfaces whenever the numbered square on the calendar has something extraneous printed on it, whenever there’s a seasonal color combination, whenever candles are lit in…
Dance Visionary Charles Santos Heads to NYC Life Cycles
by Marene Gustin One o’clock on a November afternoon. Workers are hanging Christmas decorations on the downtown streets. The air is warm, even for a Texas fall — the temperature is pushing 80 degrees — and the cappuccino in front of Charles Santos is warmer still. But the man himself is cool. He sits calm…
Dancing About Architecture
Smooth Jazz. The name alone is enough to make you shiver. It sounds like something on a CD you get from sending a 100 cigarette bucks to Joe Camel. But no, it’s actually the latest entry into the strangely progressive world of Austin radio. Last Thursday night, Luci Baines Johnson started off an evening at…
Day Trips
Doris McClendon runs the Continental Zydeco Ballroom, one of hundreds of neighborhood hangouts in Houston with live music, cold beer, and a dance floor. As blacks left the tenant farms for the cities they took with them the music that had been born in churches, front porches, and social clubs around rural Texas. They invented…
Art of the State
Compiled by Robert Faires and Julie Weaver. The following is a monthly supplement to the arts section, featuring events and exhibitions from across Texas. Art: ARTPACE FOUNDATION FOR CONTEMPORARY ART will present Texas Abstract: New Painting in the Nineties, featuring 32 paintings by 12 Texas artists. Through Dec 22. 445 N. Main Ave., San Antonio.…
Punky Tonk Blues
by Tim Stegall See, I was originally country,” Wayne Hancock twangs in his rubbery North Texas drawl. “But about the mid-Seventies, I started getting very pissed off at country music, and stopped listening to ’em totally. If country music played the music that I play — and Big Sandy plays, and some of these other…
Bonus Tracks
STEAMROLLER (Redwood) If you ever need to borrow a Soulhat record, Steamroller’s the source — clearly they’ve got several to spare. But to their credit, Steamroller’s songwriting shows a surprisingly mature knack for lazy grooves and jangly guitar dynamics. And although the pacing and phrasing may scream Soulhat, it’s the band’s reliance on spare arrangements…
Long Live the King’s Brother
by Jeremy Reed That’s All Right, Mama: The Unauthorized Life of Elvis’ Twin by Gerald Duff Baskerville, $21 hard There has been a legend told, over and over. A story of twins, one good and one bad, separated at birth. The good twin is left to live a life of obscurity, while the bad twin,…
Liveshots
THE LAZY COWGIRLS Emo’s, November 9 To anyone who wasn’t there, this gush of words is gonna seem the biggest hype this side of the last 15 years’ worth of British music press. To which the only sane and sober reply is: Fuck you. You weren’t there. You’ll never know the power of the Lazy…
Wayne Hancock
Thunderstorms and Neon Signs (Dejadisc) Some say that to be called a real gangsta rapper you’ve got to kill somebody. Well, being a true country artist in Austin takes almost as much investment. For Wayne “the Train” Hancock, that’s just fine. The way he throws himself into the role, it’s probably better that he’s a…
In Person: Jonathan Kozol
Few writers can put a human face on poverty and suffering like Jonathan Kozol. And few speakers are able to evoke tears of pathos, compassion, and yes, shame, as Kozol did on October 28 during his keynote address to some 3,200 principals, teachers, and school counselors in the Austin Convention Center. The author of such…
Recommended
Liberty Lunch, Wednesday 29 Uncle Tupelo was a band whose musical sensibilities were perfectly in sync with Austin’s. Perhaps that’s why the band recorded here, and in the aftermath of its break-up, why one of the Tupe splinters, Jeff Tweedy’s Wilco, has already played in town four times. This is the first time locals will…
The Rugburns
Electric Lounge, November 14 Even with obvious pacing problems — big start, big finish, nary a laugh inbetween — the Rugburns are still a healthy running gag for alternative rock, a genre much in need of more folks that can rhyme “Rick Dees” and “jet skis” as convincingly. But for an hour-plus at the Electric…
Postscripts
* FRI, NOV 24: Patricia Bauer Slate presents the re-release of The Sweetish Hill Bakery Cookbook at BookPeople, 2pm. Slate will have samples of her famous cookies and pastries to taste while you get 20 years of Sweetish Hill’s best recipes… Miss Slate’s earlier appearance? Hie thee to Barnes & Noble, for another signing/sampling, 7-9pm.…
Country-Soul Comes Full Circle
by Greg Beets Ted Roddy is a venerable Austin music scene figure whose gumbo of American musical styles is evolving into something as reliable as your job once was. Whether he’s leading the Talltops (as in “Teddy & the Talltops”), crooning cocktail standards with the Naughty Ones, or channeling the King twice a year as…
Texas Records
URBAN ROOTS Gentle Flowers (Urban Roots) Urban Roots have gamely persisted for over three years and, frankly, occupied the taxi squad of Austin’s hunkered-down but remarkably good reggae scene. There’s a long way to go before they punch through with a distinctive sound, but the passions and thoughts are aroused. Following a cluster of light…
Looking for a Few Good Men and Women to be Volunteers
There are many ways in which you can provide the vital service to people living with HIV/AIDS in the process of living with dignity. We are looking for volunteers who have some time to dedicate on a regular basis. Buddy/Helpers: As a Buddy/Helper Volunteer you will have the opportunity to provide companionship and socialization opportunities,…
Like a Rose
by Robert Bryce It would be hard to imagine a better job for a political animal. You don’t have to run for re-election. Your salary of $155,000 is far more than you would make as an elected official at the city or state level. You head an agency with 1,700 employees and a $400 million…
The LCRA and the City
Times change. Ten years ago, the city and the LCRA were in a blood feud over water quality in the Colorado River. The city was dumping raw sewage into the river and the river authority was threatening to give the city a good spanking at the Texas Water Commission. Now the two are in the…
Benefits
SAT 25 A FABULOUS FUNDRAISER W/MUSIC & POETRY TO BENEFIT THE LESBIAN AVENGERS, AT ELECTRIC “LADY” LOUNGE, 302 BOWIE, 8PM. 476-FUSE. A Bike Sale to benefit Bikes not Bombs, at Wheatsville Co-Op, 3101 Guadalupe, 10am-4pm. THU 30 A Holiday Museum Market to benefit Texas Memorial Museum, at Texas Memorial Museum, 2400 Trinity, 4-9pm. 471-1604. SAT…
The ARA Steps Up
by Alex de Marban Councilmember Brigid Shea coined it the “week from hell.” Ninety-nine items and millions of dollars on the agenda. Phones to answer, meetings to attend, aspirin to pop. A whirlwind of energy culminating last Thursday in… one very orderly council meeting, executed with swift and surprising grace. Weighing heaviest on the hefty…
True story: The
father of my early teenage friend, Bob Rudnick, ran the valet at the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach. Ed Sullivan was doing his show, Mr. Rudnick said, from the hotel that night. Some band called the Beatles, said a not-too-hip dad, was on the bill. Did we want to go?? “Duh!” had not been invented…
Deep Six
The Best and Worst in Austin and National Media 1) Network promos disguised as news, Part 1. On November 16, KXAN’s 10pm newscast “investigated” the veracity of the popular NBC series ER, a program that just happens to air on the very same station only one hour earlier. Said the tease for this ridiculous report,…
Page Two
by Louis Black One can only sympathize with the current predicament of University of Texas at Austin President Robert Berdahl, who is, by all accounts, a good president and a fine person. In what is an entirely symbolic battle, he is caught between a rock and a hard place — several rocks and several hard…
Progressive Populist
by Hugh Forrest Year by year, big corporations gain a tighter grip on life in America. Tax breaks and so-called fair trade agreements allow them to shift thousands of jobs to low-paid, Third World workers. Employment opportunities not shipped abroad are given to temporary workers, thus allowing the same companies to avoid costly benefit programs.…
Public Notice
Diligent activists or hearty party mamas? Those wacky Lesbian Avengers are back and while some question their tactics of having a damn good time while making social commentary, some realize that half of the Avengers’ work is accomplished by just getting you out there. Part perf art, part political action, part welcome wagon to the…
Off the Desk:
Former City Councilmember Louise Epstein’s father, Jeremiah Epstein, is taking his daughter’s former employer to court on December 4 for negligence in building and maintaining the veloway. The elder Epstein crashed his bike at the bottom of a hill on the city-funded bike path next to Circle C in November of 1992, but did not…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows…
Lucille Ball hated birds. The first birth control clinic in the nation was opened by Margaret Sanger in Brownsville, Brooklyn on Oct. 16, 1916. It printed advertisements in English, Italian, and Yiddish. In today’s money, a first-class ticket on the Titanic would have cost $65,000. To promote electricity and the light bulb, Thomas Edison organized…
A Brave New World
by Daryl Slusher After I’d been up for about half an hour last Sunday morning, I began to fear that I had passed on to some other world. It was an Austin parallel universe where the front page of the Sunday Austin American-Statesman featured: A ground-breaking interview with the Bishop of Jayapura on human rights…
Pledged
Okay, Suzy, You asked for it. We have a cherry dining table that has a protective polyurethane coating on it. Sometimes the coating gets a bit scratched and we polish with Pledge, as advised by the store. The scratches disappear, but a film is left that won’t go into the wood (obviously) and if you…
Studio of (Un)truth
by Laxman Gani If there’s a second revolution that has followed hot on the heels of the personal computer, it is the ability to digitize (translate into binary digits) sounds and images. Already it has revolutionized the publishing, audio recording, and broadcasting industries. Now, it’s transforming the world of the fine arts. An accomplished Mexican…
