Food-O-File
It’s unclear whether the organizers of the recent International Vegetarian conference chose Austin because of our educated population or our reputation for lively night life, but whatever their reason, they did me a big favor. Several participants just happened to be authors I wanted to interview because of my admiration for their work, and the…
South Congress Avenue at Monroe Station
Central city neighborhood station and avenue uplift (Urban Design Associates) This South Congress station is proposed at Monroe Street to serve the Texas State School for the Deaf, Fulmore Junior High, and the Travis Heights neighborhood. Transfers to Capital Metro’s crosstown and neighborhood feeder lines will be available at Monroe Station. The light rail line…
Articulations
It doesn’t take much to make me a sentimental slob — say, the final performance of a show I’m in or an old-fashioned holiday. Catch me between the two — as you are this week — and I ooze sap. So, if sob-sister stuff makes your skin crawl, you’d best move on to “Life in…
Thoroughly Modern Mollie
Oh, this is good. Really authentic. Mmmm. We don’t have a restaurant that comes close to this in Berkeley,” pronounces my lunch companion Mollie Katzen, having taken her first bites of the enchiladas Morelianas and Michoacan we’ve ordered to share. Lunch hour at Las Manitas on a chilly Tuesday is predictably noisy and crowded, but…
University Station and the Drag project
Central city station with pedestrian enhancements (Urban Design Associates) This proposed Green Line station would lie between West 23rd and 24th streets on the east side of Guadalupe. The Drag’s vital pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use nature was born out of its immediate proximity to the Hyde Park streetcar line running on Guadalupe at the beginning of this…
Chronicle Art Reviews Exhibitionism
JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK: BLEAK AND BLACK AND FUNNY AS HELL The Acting Studio, through December Running Time: 2 hrs, 30 min Some of my fondest memories involve my Italian dad, a case of stout, and a tape of Tommy Makem & the Clancy Brothers. I have to admit that most of the lyrics have…
The Vegetarian Meet
photograph by John Anderson Avowed herbivores and vegetable-loving meat eaters converged on Austin November 15-18 for the International Conference on Vegetarian Diets, organized by Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust, a Massachusetts-based food research organization, in association with Vegetarian Times magazine. While the conference was intended to target “lay” vegetarians (the stated purpose of the event…
Building a Neighborhood
compiled by Audrey Duff Proposed Passenger Rail Network in Austin Metropolitan Area circa 2020s Photo courtesy of Capital Metro and ATS Here’s a hot New Urbanist theory for those promoting light rail. Through transit-oriented development around its stations, light rail could regenerate or even create the life of a neighborhood, community, city, or region. There…
O Solo Me-O
The set of Freshman Year Sucks is dark and sparse; a bare black floor furnished only with a straight-backed chair and a small, rather monastic bed. There isn’t much to look at before Rob Nash takes the stage. When he steps out, however, the room is suddenly alive, full of voices and characters. In a…
Dancing About Architecture
“I don’t know if you’d call it a reunion, but they were all there,” says Susan Antone, of last Friday’s on-stage appearance of Doyle Bramhall II, Tommy Shannon, Chris Layton, and Charlie Sexton — the artists formerly known as the Arc Angels. What about it wouldn’t you call a reunion, though? The four played together…
Sat Sample Questions
From the College Board’s Test Preparation Materials. The answers can be found at the end of this article. FLAGRANT : DISCRETION :: (A) emphatic : delivery (B) furtive : discovery (C) renowned : celebrity (D) depraved : purity (E) vengeful : retribution NOMAD : ITINERANT :: (A) judge : influenced (B) performer : public (C)…
Choice Cuts: a Neal Barrett Primer
The Neal Barrett canon spans 35 years, forty-something novels, and numerous short stories and comic scripts. Many are out-of-print. What follows is an abbreviated primer introducing his key novels of the last 10 years. The out-of-print titles (*) can be hard to find and expensive. Pink Vodka Blues (1992, St. Martin’s Press) A good place…
The Spiritual Vanguard
photograph by Jana Birchum Suddenly, we are there, slicing our boat into silent green pools, unwelcome by the looks of it. Wildlife scatters a quarter mile upstream at our approach, led by a Great Blue Heron who flies away like some fantastic prehistoric doom. Dried cypress leaves and floating tree limbs part at the bow…
Testing, Testing…
On a brisk and breezy Sunday afternoon, a group of Austin-area high school students are assembled in a windowless room inside the offices of The Princeton Review in Dobie Mall for another whirlwind session of boning up for the SAT, or Scholastic Aptitude Test. Their teacher is an energetic college student named Meaghan, who is…
Bad Eye Blues
by Neal Barrett, Jr. Bad Eye Blues, (Kensington, $22 hard) Neal Barrett, Jr.’s latest mystery-crime romp, finds Wiley Moss reprising his memorable star turn from Skinny Annie Blues. Waking up on an interstate bus among rank strangers would be a grim experience at best. For the endearingly hapless Moss, it is a downright gruesome awakening…
Hand-to-Mouthville
photograph by Jason Stout On the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend Mandy Mercier collapsed. “I was on my way to Kerrville to play with Ray Wylie Hubbard and suddenly found myself unable to move,” recalls the local keyboardist/singer-songwriter. Rushed to Brackenridge Hospital, Mercier was found to have a blood count that was half that of…
East 5th Street at Chicon Station and the Plaza Saltillo Project
Community-focused redevelopment zone (Carter Design Associates and Cotera, Kolar & Negrete Architects) Historically, two major rail lines passed through East Austin and converged at Chicon Street — serving the heavy industry developed there since the turn of the century. Today this wide swath is still industrially zoned, despite its long disuse as rail yards, and…
In Person
Dana Singer at Book People If you mention the word artist, most people will immediately form the image of a shabbily dressed free spirit who is more concerned with some illusive quest for truth than for substantial food or reasonable shelter. Artists are expected to be lost in their art, lost on some vision quest…
The Hotlines
Artists’ Legal & Accounting Assistance (ALAA) P.O. Box 2577, Austin, TX 78768 Contact: Michelle Polgar 476-4458 website: http://www.realtime.net/ALAA Austin Music Liaison Office 201 E. Second Street, Austin, TX 78701 Contact: Gavin Lance Garcia 404-4368 Austin Federation of Musicians (local 433) P.O. Box 161480, Austin, TX 78716 Contact: Ginger Shults 440-1414 Hearts for the Arts Central…
Seaholm Depot at Town Lake
Major regional station and gateway to Austin (Jana McCann Architect) According to the ATS portfolio, the Seaholm Power Plant site and adjacent city-owned properties are ripe to become a “Union Station” for Austin — much like those in Dallas, St. Louis, and Washington. McCann’s design shows Seaholm as a multi-use facility operating as train station/visitor’s…
Postscripts
On Saturday, Dec. 6, 7:30pm at FringeWare (2716 Guadalupe) Shannon Wheeler, creator of Too Much Coffee Man, will be signing the new release from Mojo Press of Wake Up and Smell the Coffee: The Early Work of Shannon Wheeler. He’s moving to Berkeley on December 12, so the event is also a farewell party for…
Live Shots
Vallejo at La Zona Rosa, November 21 photograph by John Carrico ANI DIFRANCO Texas Union Ballroom, November 14 In the somewhat apologetic liner notes to Ani DiFranco’s Living in Clip, this year’s cluttered, all-too-live two-CD collection, the DIY diva gets off a line that’s either a real statement or real cop-out: “We play music for…
Star-crossed Planners
With competing plans for Austin’s growth crowding desks all over town, sometimes it can be hard to keep track of where all the designs intersect. This is true, apparently, even if you are two of Austin’s biggest urban-planning agencies — the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACVB) and Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority. When the managers…
Polio Vaccine Experience May Offer Lessons for HIV Research
Last week, we observed that a group of deeply dedicated physicians are offering themselves for use in a live-HIV vaccine trial, as they view a vaccine as the world’s only real hope in controlling the AIDS epidemic. The more conservative scientific establishment, however, says “not yet.” One researcher, Dr. Richard Marlink, executive director of the…
Also Playing
Friday: Today is the Day, Turmoil, Voodoo Lounge; Mandy Mercier, Waterloo Ice House Sixth; Saturday: David Garza, Electric Lounge Sunday: Two Hoots & a Holler, Saxon Pub Monday: Alvin Crow, Babes Tuesday: Trio du Caf�, Flipnotics Wednesday: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Johnny Gimble, Freddy Powers, La Zona Rosa Thursday: Brown Wh�rnet, Nada Brahma, Um Ting…
Needs More Color
Peter Noel of The Village Voice photograph by Hiroyuki Ito It was written in the bathroom stalls [at work] that I was a black activist plant,” recalls journalist Peter Noel. Noel, who is African-American, wasn’t writing for some Southern, conservative daily. He wasn’t at some vaunted defender of the status quo like Time or Newsweek.…
Fairy Tales Can Come True
I’ve always been fond of fairy tales. Not so much the ones about sleeping princesses or wicked stepsisters, but the ones about the magical world of work ethics. I mean, life’s a chore; why should fairy tales be any different? Consider the pigs: Put a little effort into building a strong house and you won’t…
Roadkill
Aerosmith Frank Erwin Center Thursday, December 4 It’s most certainly the scowl, but one expects Joe Perry to be surly — mean as a snake. He’s not. He’s just a regular joe from Boston. Guess looks are deceiving, right? Yes, and especially in the case of Aerosmith, who, going on three decades now, have been…
Minorities in the Mainstream
Arnold Garcia of the Austin American Statesman photograph by Jana Birchum Alternative weeklies and progressive publications are hardly alone in their problems with minority recruiting. Mainstream dailies may be doing a better job of recruiting, but most editors and newsroom managers still complain that their staffs have yet to reach a level of diversity that…
Benefits
FRI 28 Jimi Hendrix B-Day Party to benefit the Capital Area Food Bank, at Electric Lounge, 302 Bowie, 8:30pm. Cost is two cans of non-perishable food. 282-2111, ext. 114. FRI 5 Silent Auction to benefit the Southwest Key Program’s Aging in Place, at Las Manitas Ave. Cafe, 211 Congress, 5-9pm. Cost is $10. 462-2181. Dykes…
Road Shows
NOVEMBER FRI 28 Pansy Division, Tsunami, Emo’s FRI 28 Today Is the Day, Voodoo Lounge FRI 28 The Itals, Andrew Bees, Flamingo Cantina SAT 29 Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Antone’s SUN 30 Pantera, Anthrax, Coal Chamber, Pumpjack, Austin Music Hall DECEMBER MON 1 Stereolab, High Llamas, Liberty Lunch MON 1 Geraldine Fibbers, Emo’s MON 1 Sonny…
Turkey TV
Beavis and Butt-head did America and are done with their series. Good-bye. Beavis! Good-bye Butt-head! It was fun while it lasted! Thanksgiving had always seemed like a gratuitous holiday to me, and unnecessarily time-consuming given the impending season. I have lately come to regard it as perhaps the most catholic holiday we have, short of…
Coach’s Corner
Hail to a new hobby. A pursuit more in line with a more gentle lifestyle. Cooking. That’s right, sportsfans, not fly fishing or skydiving, or even darts. Cooking. I have a little blue apron. I’m excited about new cookbooks. I read them before bed. I talk to people about the correct components of a nice…
Good Fences?
Brian Baurele photograph by JOhn Anderson It’s been a good year, plenty of rain, so rancher Brian Baurele isn’t sure if his herd is going to remember the “come and get it” signal. He hasn’t had to feed the cows from baled hay in months. “Ooooweee,” he calls over the tops of the cedar and…
All Wrapped Up
Titanic What’s a family to do in between all the holiday meals and the wrapping and unwrapping of presents? Why, go to the movies, of course. Time off from school, time off from work — the movies provide the perfect opportunity for shared activity, even if the only tangible thing shared is a tub of…
Day Trips
photograph by Gerald E. McLeod The Waco Suspension Bridge over the Brazos River is indicative of the life span of many historic bridges in Texas. The heavy wooden decking has traversed time from the thundering hooves of longhorn cattle moving up the Chisholm Trail to the soft patter of designer footwear of modern joggers. Completed…
Downtown Bound
The warehouse at lower right is on one of the city lots slated for residential development. photograph by Jana Birchum You folks out in the MUD Belt may think Kirk Watson is — to use the mayor’s favorite self-deferential bon mot — “an annexation maniac who must be stopped,” but now that the deed’s been…
Scanlines
D: Richard Attenborough (1985) with Michael Douglas, Terence Mann, Audrey Landers, Alyson Reed, Nicole Fosse, Janet Jones Sometimes the hits of Broadway should stay right where they are — onstage. In making what used to be a time-honored tradition of stage-to-screen leaps, A Chorus Line trips and falls on its face in a woefully misguided…
Page Two
There is a quiet this week, an eager anticipation of time off that has everyone concentrating on getting their work done, on getting the issue out. Walking through the office you can hear the hum but it is steady and focused and not as abrupt, explosive, stuttering, and chaotic as usual. Driving to work through…
Naked City
It wasn’t a good week for Texas Democrats. First, resident curmudgeon Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock told reporters he favors school vouchers. Then, Bullock, longtime mentor to gubernatorial candidate Garry Mauro and the godfather of one of Mauro’s kids, announced that he will support incumbent Gov. George W. Bush instead of Mauro. Bullock’s endorsement may have…
Shortcuts
by Marjorie Baumgarten Dead Reckonings (a song with two choruses): Part One — A Farewell Toast to Samuel Fuller. “Film is like a battleground. Love. Hate. Action. Violence. Death. In one word… emotion.” That’s film director Sam Fuller defining his approach to cinema during a cameo appearance in Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou. Fuller, who…
Public Notice
Dyke the Halls Don you now your gay apparel for the Dykes for Choice rock show benefit for Texas Abortion and Reproduction Rights Action League (TARAL)’s Rosie Jimenez Fund, Fri, Dec 5, 9pm at the Electric Lounge. Stealin’ Dirt, 10″ Maria, and Handful will play. The Rosie fund helps low-income women pay for safe, legal…
Airport Boulevard Station and Mueller Airport Redevelopment Project
Central city station with new urban village (Team One of the Community Vision Project workshop) The new Austin International Airport at Bergstrom opens in 1999, leaving over 700 acres of disused land at the old Robert Mueller Municipal Airport site in central Austin to be redeveloped. Roughly 200 acres will be dedicated to state use.…
The Man Who Taught Austin to Play
He may not be remembered as one of this city’s most influential leaders, and he himself would say that’s as it should be; that as a city employee, he made the little decisions, not the big ones. Despite this humility, the works he accomplished in his career are as intrinsic to Austin’s identity as its…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
According to some Chinese folk medicine, snake semen liquor is good for a person with a weak body. By 2000, forest-based recreation is expected to pump $100 billion into the U.S. economy, compared to $3.5 billion from timber sales. One of actress Elizabeth Hurley’s favorite desserts is “spotted dick” — a mixture of beef suet,…
Brushy Creek Road Station in Cedar Park
Town center station with new development along main street (Carter Design Associates) This station would be on Capital Metro’s Red Line, between the planned northeastern extension of Cypress Creek Road and US183. Single-family subdivisions have recently been built to the north of Brushy Creek Road, but much of the area south of the tracks is…
A Double Shot of Wry
photograph by Kenny Braun Neal Barrett, Jr. lives and works in a purple house. A very purple house. And he writes books that stray outside the boundaries and send reviewers deep into their thesauruses in search of new synonyms for “offbeat” and “bizarre.” If you gave him a box of Crayolas, odds are good he…
