Phases and Stages
Robbie Fulks13 Hillbilly Giants (Bloodshot)Robbie FulksCouples in Trouble (Boondoggle) Robbie Fulks has been selling 13 Hillbilly Giants at his shows for a while now, and it’s only recently that Bloodshot put their stamp on it. Culling obscure tunes from the catalogs of Dave Rich, Jimmy Arnold, Dean Shepard, and the like, it’s a baker’s dozen…
Naked City
Like other cities in northern Hays County, Buda is like a gangling adolescent struggling to control runaway growth. So when the mayor appointed Gary Bradley — the developer most often blamed for promoting runaway growth — to Buda’s new master plan committee last week, many townsfolk rolled their eyes and snickered. Even Bradley admits to…
Short Cuts
On the road with Rock Opera, how to get your tix for Waking Life, and Robert Benton talks about writing.
Still Hungry
When we first considered the issue of hunger in Austin in the spring of 2000, “compassionate conservative” Gov. George W. Bush was running for president on a platform that touted the tax and budget cuts in his home state. Austin was riding the crest of a high tech wave, awash in prosperity and Smart Growth.…
Bandits
Bandits 2001, PG-13, 123 min. Directed by Barry Levinson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, Troy Garity, January Jones, Rocky Larochelle, Jaye K. Danford. There’s much to like about Bandits, Barry Levinson’s new film about a romantic triangle that blossoms among a pair of gentlemen bank robbers…
Phases and Stages
Sam Phillips Fan Dance (Nonesuch) It’s been much too long since we’ve had any new music from Sam Phillips. Her last studio recording was the sadly overlooked Omnipop, released in 1996. Fan Dance is an engaging return, albeit a decidedly understated one. Once again, Phillips works with husband and producer T-Bone Burnett, and together they’ve…
Naked City
The lineup for the upcoming mayoral election is now set; filing deadline was Tuesday, Oct. 9. For the award for “Best Aspiring Austin Mayoral Candidate in a Leadership Role,” the nominees are: Jennifer Gale, perennial candidate, homeless cross-dresser Leslie Cochran, perennial candidate, homeless cross-dresser, self-proclaimed victim of Austin police oppression David “Breadman– Blakely, perennial candidate,…
TV Eye
Entertainment television struggles to address the events of 9 / 11.
Cook Globally, Grow Locally
The Green Corn Project is a small, innovative nonprofit founded by Austin gardeners Dayna Conner, Shannon Kemp, Jim Walker, and Steve Barney in 1998. The goal of the organization is to build organic food gardens for low-income families, disabled, or elderly citizens in Austin. All the staff members and project managers are volunteers and their…
The Monkey’s Mask
The Monkey’s Mask 2000, NR, 91 min. Directed by Samantha Lang, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Susie Porter, Kelly McGillis, Marton Csokas, Abbie Cornish. Cherchez la femme: That’s rule No. 1 in detective fiction, n’est-ce pas? So even Down Under, the lesbian private eye Jill Fitzpatrick (Porter) ought to know how to find…
Phases and Stages
FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio by Richard Neer Villard Books, 350pp. $24.95 It’s no revelation that if you get in your car, drive for several hours, your choices for rock radio will most likely be numbingly bland and uniform as you drive from one region to the next. It wasn’t always this…
Austin @ Large: Austin at Large
Political commentary on the prospects of single-member districts
Exhibitionism
Zachary Scott Theatre Center’s Little Shop of Horrors is a terrific staging of an endearingly weird musical.
Eat, Drink, Watch Movies
When we began planning the Eat, Drink, Watch Movies Film Festival as one of the events to celebrate the Chronicle’s 20th anniversary, we were caught up in what a cool idea it was and how much fun it would be. We knew from the beginning we wanted it to be a benefit for the Capitol…
Raped Twice?
Virginia Glore asked the APD for a rape test — instead they’re prosecuting her for DWI.
Capitol Chronicle
Apparently, the candidates for statewide office have better things to do than answer tough questions from the Texas NAACP.
Unchained Melody
“I guess I started with this high idea — ‘Yeah, social criticism!'” says Austinite Alexander Parsons about his first novel Leaving Disneyland. “And then I realized more and more that the story was about a guy and that I should stick with that.”
Food-o-File
Food editor Virginia B. Wood on the first pressing of olive oil in Texas
Raped Twice?: A Chronology
A timeline of the events in the Glore case
The Hightower Lowdown
Greedheads capitalize on terror; MBNA offers to “decrease” Jim’s debt; and high-end garage sales.
Sentimental Education
Every good New Yorker writer attracts a cencle of devotees. Some believe belles lettres flickered out when E.B. White died; others collect all the Julian Barnes articles. Sometime in the mid-Nineties, Adam Gopnick’s “Letter From Paris” started doing that to me. Gopnick is our semi-official national Francophile. He achieved that position by being The New…
The Real Greezy
Greezy Wheels, back from the dead (the Seventies).
Questions Unanswered: Incident No. 2181834
APD says its investigation of the Glore case was thorough; internal records indicate otherwise.
Readings
The Northern Lights: The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Borealis by Lucy Jago Knopf, 320 pp., $24 Who would have expected a page-turner about a 19th-century Norwegian physicist? Lucy Jago’s Northern Lights opens with 31-year-old Kristen Birkeland caught halfway up a mountain during a fierce Arctic storm. It’s…
Soap Creek Reunion
5:30pm Denim 6pm Uranium Savages 7pm Steam Heat 7:30pm Greezy Wheels 8:15pm Alvin Crow, Marcia Ball, Bobby Earl Smith 9:15pm Shawn Sahm, Augie Meyers, S.A. Groovers 10:15pm Paul Ray & the Cobras 11:15pm Jesse Taylor, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and special guests
Unloading Frate
With Travis County Commissioners essentially blaming city officials for sending mixed signals — or no signals at all — on a controversial road bond proposition, the Commissioners Court voted Tuesday to remove the potential liability from the Nov. 6 ballot. (Fortunately, ballots hadn’t yet been printed and are expected to go to press by the…
For Your Consideration …
COMPETITION SCREENINGS AFTER THE FLOODW/D: Robert Saitzyk; with Simon Andrews, Ola Metwally, Joseph Chase. (81 min., 35mm) A moody, relentless head trip, After the Flood chronicles the unlikely relationship between an American gun dealer and a young El Salvadoran woman. Knee deep in drugs, despair, and existential mewings, writer/director Saitzyk’s urban grit infiltrates so deeply,…
Readings
The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples by Tim Flannery Atlantic Monthly Press, 404 pp., $27.50 The Eternal Frontier is a kind of nonfiction mystery book, examining the fossil record and geology for clues as to how native flora and fauna first evolved on the landmass we call home, and…
Groover’s Paradise
Those were the days …
Nuclear Stalemate
Negotiations between the South Texas (Nuclear) Project and its union workers threaten to meltdown.
For Your Consideration …
AUSTIN FILMMAKERS SHOWCASE THE DUOW: Ryan Wickerham/D: Tony Hewett; with Wickerham, Bill Wise, Marie Black, Tommy “Tiny” Lister Jr. (88 min., video) The Duo, aka the Terrific Two — or, more intimately, Best Man and Buddy Boy — are a crime fighting team battling shopping-mall evil in this mock-documentary about a couple of maybe-gay and…
Readings
Biggie and the Quincy Ghost by Nancy Bell Minotaur Books, 200 pp., $22.95 I was going to begin this review with a slightly dismissive but by no means sales-dropping remark that “this would be a great book for my mother.” Nancy Bell has carved a nice niche for herself with the Hill Countrified detective novels…
Marcia Ball’s Cheers
Searching for an appropriate way to sum up the essence of the Soap Creek Saloon, Marcia Ball likens it to the fictional Boston bar where everybody knows your name. “Soap Creek was kind of like my Cheers,” says the longtime Austin pianist, singer, and bandleader. “I knew I could go there and I’d know the…
It Grows on You
At a hearing next week (LBJ library, Oct. 16), the Texas Dept. of Insurance will attempt to establish a compromise between insurance companies and homeowner policyholders over the much-debated coverage of mold-damage claims. Like most compromises, the TDI’s current proposal to cap mold-damage claims in standard homeowner policies at $5,000 (with the option to purchase…
For Your Consideration …
MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS DING-A-LING-LESSW/D: Onur Tukel; with Kirk Wilson, Robert Longstreet. (81 min., 35mm) A comedy that begs to be clasped to the collective bosom and fondled forthwith, Ding-a-Ling-LESS tells the woeful tale of a 28-year-old man with a noticeable absence of manhood. His quest to surgically enhance his nonexistent genitalia and the confounding results thereof…
Postscripts
Why does it matter if The Corrections author Jonathan Franzen has suffered from depression?
India Ink
Making posters for Soap Creek
Second Helpings: Farm Stands & Farmer’s Markets
Food editor Virginia B. Wood surveys Austin’s farmer’s markets.
Thinner Reads, Fewer Reporters
As the economy gets tight, newspapers around the state feel the pain.
For Your Consideration …
ADVANCE (NON-COMPETITION) SCREENINGS BIG BAD LOVEW: James Howard and Arliss Howard/D: Arliss Howard; with Arliss Howard, Debra Winger, Paul Le Mat, Rosanna Arquette, Angie Dickinson. (USA, 111 min.) Actor Arliss Howard roots his directorial debut in the rich Southern fiction of Larry Brown (Howard’s brother, James, helped adapt Brown’s stories for the screen). Howard plays…
Page Two
The war on Afghanistan isn’t just wrong, it’s stupid, and it’s not going to work, either.
Dancing About Architecture
The Austin music scene benefits the Red Cross.
Blanton: The Sequel: The Sequel
The preliminary design for UT’s new Blanton Museum of Art facility has been unveiled, and as expected, the white-shoe Boston firm of Kallmann McKinnell & Wood has come up with a building that hews to the dicta of UT’s Campus Master Plan, even when it doesn’t make much sense.
Naked City
Former City Council Member Eric Mitchell filed to run for mayor last Friday, declining public comment and announcing he would hold a press conference Tuesday to kick off his campaign. On Tuesday, a campaign aide announced that Mitchell’s press conference is postponed until next Tuesday, Oct. 16. A mayoral debate sponsored by the Martin Junior…
2001 Austin Film Festival Schedule
Single admission tickets are $7 and available at the box office. Festival passes (good for all admissions except the Oct. 14 Waking Life benefit) cost $42.50 and are available at the conference registration area at the Omni Hotel or through Star Tickets.Thursday, 10/11 Paramount The Business of Strangers* (7pm) Places in the Heart* (9pm) Arbor…
Coach’s Corner
Coach reflects on the UT-Oklahoma game.
Make Up Your Minds!
Our resident Marshmallow Peep relates the news and hearsay in and around the Live Music Capital…
Articulations
Ailing actor Douglas Taylor is on the mend, actors Babs George and Lowell Bartholomee get the recognition they deserve (from the Payne Awards), and choreographer Deborah Hay wants you to spend the weekend with her.
Naked City
An eco-conscious Elgin resident answers his mayor’s demand to “show me the money.”
Holding Pattern
In the wake of the terrorist attacks, the Austin Film Festival pulls local filmmaker Tom LeGros’ feature from the lineup.
Day Trips
J. David Bamberger has taken a slice of the Hill Country and restored it to pristine beauty.
We’re Pro-Ramones and We Vote!
This year’s list of nominees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with the Chronicle music staff’s official eight picks numbered in order of preference: AC/DC (4) Black Sabbath Jackson Browne The Chantels The Dells The 5 Royales (7) Isaac Hayes (8) Brenda Lee Lynyrd Skynyrd (3) Gram Parsons (2) Tom Petty & the…
Exhibitionism
Part vaudeville comedy, part poem, part search for philosophical meaning, part fairy tale, Michael Arthur’s The Star Play produced at MOMFest by the New York-based 2texans theatre company, makes a wish for love and finds it in the most unlikely places.
Naked City
A reader sheds additional light on an altercation between Critical Mass cyclists and a road-enraged driver.
For 2001, a Kubrick Odyssey
In this biographical film documentary, legendary film director Stanley Kubrick is exposed by his brother-in-law and frequent collaborator Jan Harlan for the artist and family man he was.
Mr. Smarty Pants
The phlogiston what sets your brain a’burnin’.
Phases and Stages
The StrokesIs This It (RCA) Yes, it is. This is it. Raves are fluttering around this NYC quintet like a ticker-tape parade, and with good reason. Finding fault with Is This It, the Strokes’ 36-minute transistor radio meltdown, is like deconstructing the Ramones; it’s not what went into the haircuts as what bops out from…
Exhibitionism
In Pro Arts Collective’s admirable production of Having Our Say, the intimacy of the performing space and warmth of the show’s two actresses make the experiences of the centenarian Delany sisters — and the history they have lived — come alive in a remarkably personal way.
Naked City
The Chronicle gives cheers and jeers to breaking news coverage of the war.
The Big Thrill
Heart of Film Distinguished Screenwriting Award recipient Lawrence Kasdan talks shop.
After a Fashion
Oooh, the fall fashion doin’s are doin’, what with the Austin appearance of national fashionista Leon Hall, Club DeVille’s Fall Fashion Extravaganza, and The Austin Chronicle’s own upcoming Drag Ball. Whooo!
Phases and Stages
TravisThe Invisible Band (Epic) Dear Travis, it pains me to write this letter, truly. I’m not breaking up with you, but we’ve definitely got some issues to work through. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I expected too much. Your American breakthrough, The Man Who, bore all the characteristics of what makes an album magic: meaty songs,…
Phases and Stages
Blondie(Capitol/Chrysalis)BlondiePlastic Letters (Capitol/Chrysalis)BlondieParallel Lines (Capitol/Chrysalis)BlondieEat to the Beat (Capitol/Chrysalis)BlondieAuto American (Capitol/Chrysalis)BlondieThe Hunter (Capitol/Chrysalis) When Blondie burst onto the scene in 1976, New Wave was almost exclusively a New York phenomenon, leeched from its punk roots in England and stripped of politics. That freedom from meaning gave great weight to zero-concept bands like the Ramones and…
Naked City
Someone stole important artifacts from the Texas Archeology Research Laboratory. So why didn’t UT tell anyone?
CinemaTexas Award Winners
Gecko Awards (International)1. “Fishtank,” dir. Richard Billingham (UK) 2. “SHARONY!” dir. Jennet Thomas (UK) 3. “Confessions of a Sociopath,” dir. Joe Gibbons (U.S.) 4. “Inventario de Natal (A Christmas Inventory)” (Portugal)No-Budget Award”Spit,” dir. Jeremy Drummond (Canada)Cinematography”Pigeon,” dir. Sebastian del Castillo (U.S.)Editing”Transmitting Baba,” dir. Miso Suchy (Slovakia)Screenplay”La breche de Roland (Roland’s Pass),” dir. Jean-Marie Larrieu (France)Barbara…
About AIDS
AIDS Walk Austin 2001
Phases and Stages
QuasiThe Sword of God (Touch & Go) Imagine arsenic in a candy shell, or Walrus-era Beatles with a bleak world-view. Add in pumping keyboards, half-step melody lines sung with over-reaching harmonies, and you start to get some idea what the new Quasi album is all about. If you’re thinking this sounds a lot like the…
Phases and Stages
Ryan AdamsGold (Lost Highway) The artwork beats a drum for Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A., but the four sides inside gush like The River. Ryan Adams’ sophomore, post-Whiskeytown solo effort doesn’t pack the Steinbeckian rock & roll wallop of the Boss’ 2-LP epic, but the earnest, young-man blues mined on Gold are nearly as disarming.…
Naked City
Since Sunday’s U.S./British assault on Afghanistan, almost daily anti-war demonstrations have taken place around town. Monday afternoon, protestors held a press conference at the downtown Federal Building, where representatives of Austin Against War, Public Citizen, and Peace Action sharply criticized Congressman Lloyd Doggett for his early support for the Bush administration’s military policy. Some activists…
Virtual Web Sites
Enjoying illicit pleasures like crack rock via the Internet
To Your Health
I have been having a lot of stomach problems, with alternating diarrhea and constipation, but all the tests my doctor did fail to show any problems. He said I probably have “irritable bowel syndrome.” What helps that?
Soul Survivors
Soul Survivors 2001, PG-13, 85 min. Directed by Steve Carpenter, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Luke Wilson, Melissa Sagemiller, Angela Featherstone, Eliza Dushku, Wes Bentley, Casey Affleck. If you’re like me, you probably caught the trailer for Soul Survivors almost a year ago when it first (and only) popped up in theatre preview…
