Cover Story
31 Nights
Darcie Stevens braves 31 nights in a row out in the Live Music Capital of the World. Too bad she didn’t live to see it.
Who’s Joining the ACLU?
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s 2004 master list, 1,620 charities are participating in the national Combined Federal Campaign – from 1 Way Out of Pornography, to Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families. In addition, local CFCs, such as the one for Central Texas, can include additional charities on…
Readings
This novel is not so densely felt or immediate as Arthur Phillips’ first, the excellent Prague, but the reader is urged to persevere
Phases & Stages
Tal FarlowThe Complete Verve Tal Farlow Sessions (Mosaic) These recordings should establish Tal Farlow’s standing as one of the best jazz guitarists of all time. Farlow (1921-1998) wasn’t consistently active as a performer throughout much of his adult life. In fact, his reputation is founded mainly on his recorded and live work from the Fifties,…
DVD Watch
SlackerCriterion Collection, $39.95 “I may live badly, but at least I don’t have to work to do it.” – Charles Gunning, as Hitchhiker Awaiting “True Call” in Slacker It’s been 14 years in the making, but the film that planted Austin on the topography of the national consciousness has finally arrived on DVD in an…
Endorsements
First, a central principle we can all agree on: Austin public schools need our support. The proposed facilities-and-infrastructure bond package – at $519.5 million – is nothing to sneeze at, and yet the accumulated need is actually larger than that figure. We support the bond package in general, and urge citizens to consider seriously all…
Page Two
SXSW Presents – a new series on KLRU that features beginning, independent documentaries – is the latest development in the vibrant Austin film scene
Phases & Stages
Moanin’ at Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin’ WolfBy James Segrest and Mark Hoffman Pantheon, 397 pp., $26.95 “When I was a kid, I saw a horse in a field with an erection, and I went, ‘Holy shit!’ That’s how I feel when I hear Howlin’ Wolf – and when I met him it…
Cool, ‘Clean’ Air Up North
Dispatches from the Toronto International Film Festival: No. 1
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
After a Fashion
A babe on each arm and a case of forbidden Grey Goose: just another fabulous night in the life of Your Style Avatar!
The Traffic Report
Rail rolls forward, but toll roads encounter slowing
Ju-on: The Grudge
Fear of what’s lurking just out of sight is at the heart of this Japanese horror film.
Naked City
Anemic early voting in the $520 million bond election
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Spongebob Squarepants, sloppy signifying, and stunning cell-block statistics
Reading the Road (and Rail) Map
Capital Metro’s proposed “commuter rail urban service” – the “Red Line” from Leander to the Convention Center – “is a first step toward a long-term transit system for Central Texas,” says former Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, leading the pro-rail election effort. Future steps include “regional” commuter rail service (on the Union Pacific/MoPac and abandoned MoKan…
Paparazzi
A vicious revenge fantasy produced by Mel Gibson, the Passionate filmmaker who last partnered with that turn-the-other-cheek fellow.
Naked City
Another orgy of abstinence in health-textbook hearings
About AIDS
Citizens of the US hold some interesting – and potentially useful – beliefs about HIV/AIDS, especially about the global epidemic. This is the conclusion of a recent national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. A majority of Americans (56%) believe in greater funding to stop the world epidemic, while only 9% say we spend too…
Is There a Doctor in the House?
Below the budget storm clouds, plans form for UTMB campus at Mueller
The Cookout
Don’t get burned on these leftover stereotypes.
Naked City
A Chronicle open records request stirs up legal hysteria
Soccer Watch
Leagues around the world took a break last week to make way for the national teams: two full slates of World Cup qualifiers, on Saturday and then Wednesday. The U.S. men (who are playing in Panama as we go to press), beat El Salvador 2-0 in a particularly ill-tempered affair in Columbus, Ohio. Next up:…
Nader Loses Ballot Fight, Uses F-Word
Nader loses in federal court but vows appeal for Texas ballot
What the #$*! Do We Know!?
Quantum physics, intent and possibility, science and fantasy … goofy cult or educational primer?
Naked City
Drug czar John Walters bemoans the scourge of Canadian marijuana
To Your Health
Is there any therapy to help deal with precocious puberty?
Naked City
Anti-war activist – and National Guardsman – goes AWOL rather than to Iraq
Criminal
Solid but uninventive American remake of a sly Argentinean movie about a couple of con men who should have left well enough alone.
Naked City
A pivotal hearing in the sandwich chain’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding
The Common Law
Specific terms in the lease
Naked City
Civil rights charges fly as Waller Co. once again tries to restrict students
Cellular
Feels like a B-picture, but a smart, finely tuned one that wouldn’t have been out of place in Roger Corman’s mid-Seventies stable.
Attention to Sound
John Cage’s approach to music has shaped how Michelle Schumann listens to and plays it
Day Trips
Lehm Berg Winery continues a centuries-old winemaking tradition
Naked City
Legislator says his fetal-personhood bill shouldn’t punish pregnant women
My Mother Likes Women
In this mildly daffy Spanish import, a woman’s grown daughters react to the news that their mother has taken a woman lover 20 years younger than she.
Talking Through ‘That Day’
Two plays – Omnium Gatherum and The Guys – try to express what happened on September 11
Discovery and Rediscovery
Mediterranean and European influences make for an inspired contemporary Italian menu at TinTinNio
The Home Stretch
Texans should have a visceral sense of what’s at stake in Bush vs. Kerry
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
You don’t have to be a Metallica fan to enjoy this candid documentary that in essence is a complex chronicle of people just trying to get along.
See You at the Fair
In his new show ‘Funicular,’ painter Joseph Phillips renders images of cable cars and Ferris wheels that cut across the canvas with geometric force
Mini-Review
Noodle-ism is ideal for a mixed group of carnivores, vegetarians, and vegans. And even though the food is fast, it never feels like fast food.
Austin @ Large: Money and Power
Where Austin’s city budget is concerned, the two really do go together
Where in the world is Deborah Hay?
Austin choreographer Deborah Hay, truly a global citizen, is in the midst of a major travel binge
Mini-Review
With the objective of bringing a fun, fresh alternative to the standard fast-food places in the area, this new eatery has devised a menu that incorporates multiethnic fast foods
The Hightower Report
Fake Texans sue ‘True Blue’ ones; and Ashcroft cracks down on legal, peaceful dissent
Culture Flash!
UT Opera scores a wealth of green while ALO is in the black, and Salvage Vanguard Labor Party wins a vote of financial confidence
Food-o-File
Make room for some foodie news
The Avatar’s Avatar
How game designer and Women’s Game Conference Chair Sheri Graner Ray plans to save the industry from stagnation
Exhibitionism
“Photography’s Turning Point: The Journal ‘Camera Work'”Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, through Oct. 17 Looking back, seeing the turning points, the places where things change, where radical shifts occur and new perspectives emerge, is often easy. Preserving the past is important, not just for its obvious intrinsic value but so we can understand the present,…
Phases & Stages
MastodonLeviathan (Relapse) “Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself,” wrote Herman Melville in Moby Dick 155 years ago. “Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity.” When Clutch’s Neil Fallon bellows “white whale, holy grail” amidst the perfect shitstorm of opener “Blood and Thunder,” there she blows,…
SXSW on KLRU
‘Okie Noodling’ kicks off festival showcase series
TCB
Lubbock or leave it, with Buddy Holly, the Flatlanders, and some dude who says he’s James Dean’s bastard son
Exhibitionism
Hans Frank’s ‘Ham’ offers a political drama in which a seemingly good man experiences a dangerous pressure from all sides
Phases & Stages
Dizzee RascalShowtime (XL) It’s a great time to be an epileptic, especially if you’re in the UK, where you can bask (uh, twitch) in the stuttery morass of South London’s grime scene. Merging spastic beats and computerized blunders into a sonic stew, scene gunfighters So Solid Crew and 2003 Mercury Award winner Dizzee Rascal have…
Short Cuts
Addressing Jerm Pollet, Owen Egerton, and John Erler’s ‘Sinus’ problems; plus, ‘Shaun of the Dead’ and ‘Tron’ Suit Guy
Terror Hysteria Burdens Local Charities
Local nonprofits balk at federal giving campaign’s new rules
Readings
Art Spiegelman’s response to September 11 is an invigorating obstacle course for the eyes and a workout for the reader’s mind
Phases & Stages
Wiley Treddin’ on Thin Ice (XL) Picture a cockney penguin briskly waddling toward the edge of a glacier. Cold water invites the negotiation of his dive as the Wiley fellow breaks into an icy slide. “Eski beats” in tow, you can hear the little scoundrel babbling under his breath: “It’s not garage.” Neither is it…
TV Eye
Projecting a landslide victory for the WB’s latest effort
