The Bounty of Erin
13614 Highway 71 West, 263-2147 Daily, 5-11pm photograph by John Anderson With its dark wooden beams, flowery wallpaper, aged china, and gentle waitstaff, the Emerald Restaurant, tucked into a stone cottage on a hilltop along Route 71, gives sanctuary from both the radiant heat of the pavement outside and the heat of our own indigenous…
Fall Film Previews
[ September | October | November ] AYN RAND: A SENSE OF LIFE D: Michael Paxton. Nominated for an Academy Award, this documentary recounts the life of writer Ayn Rand and the history of her philosophy of objectivism. (Sept. 18) THE BEST MAN D: Pupi Avati; with Diego Abantantuono, Ines Sastre. An arranged marriage is…
Food-O-File
The tantalizing aroma emanating from various locations around town is the seductive perfume of New Mexico green Sandia chiles roasting in traditional butane fire drums. Experience this aromatic fall ritual at Central Market (4001 N. Lamar, 206-1000) this weekend and at all local Chuy’s locations (1728 Barton Springs Rd., 474-4452; 10520 N. Lamar, 836-3218; 11680…
Scanlines
(“Scanlines” wishes to thank Encore Movies & Music, I Luv Video, Vulcan Video, and Waterloo Video for their help in providing videos, laser discs, and DVDs.) The Disney Dream Factory, 1933-1938 (1985) Beauty and the Beast (1991) The Brave LittleToaster (1987) Veggie Tales: Bob & Larry’s Favorite Stories (1998) Lumiere, Mrs. Potts, and Cogsworth: Animating…
Changos
3023 Guadalupe, 480-TACO Daily, 11am-10pm Taquerias come in all sizes and styles. Changos, the new spot occupying the former Wrapidos location on the Drag, is small, busy, and hip � a taqueria of the designer variety brought to you by the folks who run Manuel’s on Congress. Once beyond Changos’ sterile white exterior, visitors can…
Like Being Killed
I met Ellen Miller at a Barnes & Noble in Brooklyn this past April. She came to my reading there with the novelist Jonathan Baumbach, a kind and funny man under whom I studied when I was doing my MFA in the early Eighties. Ellen was a much more recent proteg�e. Jonathan thought I should…
Dancing About Architecture
Wham! Bam! A 6-1 vote and it was over, just like that. After four separate week-long delays preceded by interminable months of bureaucratic meanderings, the fate of the Austin Music Network finally came up for vote at the Austin City Council meeting last Thursday, and in a publicly broadcast farce that made many viewers want…
Short Cuts
The CinemaTexas International Short Film, Video, and New Media Festival kicks off this Wednesday, September 16, with an outdoor Super-8 screening co-sponsored by the Cinemaker Co-op. It’s begins at 7:30pm in Wooldridge Park (Guadalupe & Ninth) and includes some past Co-op hits, projections by Luke Savisky, and samples of the group’s experimental “Golden Arm Project”…
Steven Fromholz
“Sometimes, I get in a hurry and think I’m running out of time, but that’s silly. … In age, Walker and Murphey are my peers, roughly, but I’ve still got to catch up and qualify, I guess.” – Steven Fromholz It shouldn’t be too surprising to hear Steven Fromholz say something like that these days.…
Better Curling Through Chemistry
photograph by Mary Sledd Another day, another drug scandal. Pardon me while I yawn. Bring back the interviews with Dennis Rodman’s hairdresser. Or better still, how about another groundbreaking story on if � or when � Michael Jordan will retire from the National Basketball Association. Drug scandals in sports are occurring so often that they…
Articulations
An ill wind seems to blow whenever Austin Theatre for Youth gets close to staging Treasure Island. For two years, the company has been trying to produce a stage adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson tale, to no avail. This spring, ATY postponed a scheduled May production, citing a desire to find “a more suitably-sized…
Lyle Lovett
What kind of guy is Lyle Lovett, really? Well, what you see and hear is truly what you get with Lovett � and then some. The halting, spoken-word delivery he uses onstage and in song reflects his need to express himself precisely as well as his underlying perfectionism. The fastidious detail in his musical arrangements…
Hancock’s Century
Legendary golfers like Harvey Penick (left) and Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan (putting), have graced the greens at historic Hancock Golf Course. All photographs courtsey of Austin Hostory Center, Austin Public Library, #PICA 19306, # PICB 06814, # PICA 12194 If you can hit a three iron through the eye of a needle, you can…
Exhibitionism
Altamont Warehouse, through September 26 Running Time: 1 hr, 40 min Wrapped in noise, smoke, smarts, and oh-so-much attitude, Salvage Vanguard Theater’s Altamont Now is, unfortunately, an experience as empty as the numbed hipsters it portrays. At the 1969 Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, Calif., the Stones hired a group of Hell’s Angels as bouncers,…
Step Inside the Credits
Disc One “Bears” (Steven Fromholz) “Lungs” (Townes Van Zandt) “Step Inside This House” (Guy Clark) “Memphis Midnight/Memphis Morning” (Eric Taylor) “I’ve Had Enough” (Vince Bell/Craig Calvert) “Teach Me About Love” (Walter Hyatt) “Sleepingwalking” (Willis Alan Ramsey) “Ballad of the Snow Leopard and the Tanqueray Cowboy” (David Rodriguez) “More Pretty Girls Than One” (traditional) “West Texas…
Public Notice
It was the coldest winter we had ever been through. Positively Dickensian. Alone, stuck in a crappy job, renting a room in the lesbian hell house, and mobile only by the grace of a creaky, dilapidated moped, it hit. Pneumonia sucks even when all other conditions are conducive to healing. But in this particularly pathetic…
Tubes of Art
Come with me to San Antonio. We’re going to hear the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s senior curator of film and media arts, John G. Hanhardt, lecture on the emergence and development of video art from 1963 to the present. Trust me, you’ll be entertained. As a curator formerly with the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis…
Texas Platters
Junior Brown Long Walk Back (Curb) While taken as a whole Long Walk Back is somewhat unsatisfying, there are some mighty special moments sprinkled throughout to make Junior Brown’s latest a worthwhile listen. Brown’s audience is comprised of those country music fans who appreciate his decidedly retro songs with a humorous edge and guitar players…
In Person
Ron Rozelle at Book People “He opened the door and looked at me a moment before speaking. ‘I can’t find Alene,’ he said. I told him, again, about her trip and that we were staying with him. He clinched his lips into his familiar half smile. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to bed now,’ I…
Street Wise
photograph by Michelle Dapra This may be tasteless talk about a dying woman, but to mince words hardly seems appropriate to Dorothy Turner’s legacy. Yet Rosewood Avenue too has a legacy, and it’s been nearly lost in the fog these last few weeks, though a handful of genuine Eastsiders � most quite old, and given…
Postscripts
Certainly there are worse fates. If we must havefates,it’s actually a very lucky one to be able to watchthe latest books arrive at your office, for free, readwhat you want to of them and tell people what you think about them. But once the fall rolls around, the books pile into little mountains of text…
What Do Neighborhoods Want?
The Balcones Civic Association has been neighborhood planning since long before it was cool. The group formed in 1972 and created its first master plan for the area the same year, with the help of the friendly policy wonks at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. On the BCA’s watch, the neighborhood � bounded by…
About AIDS
Even though HIV, the AIDS virus, was discovered 15 years ago, the world waits desperately for a vaccine. In part, blame the germ: Viruses, unlike bacteria, are tiny and difficult to work with, and HIV is especially unstable. But it is also true that overall our scientific establishment has never made the kind of resources…
Rebel With Many Causes
The righteous indignation with which Harrington responds to criticism might be a by-product of his time in the seminary, where he studied to be a priest for eight years before his true calling revealed itself. As he tells it, the revelation prompted him to sit up in bed one Saturday morning and declare, “You’re going…
Coach’s Corner
Eenie, meeny, miney, mo, so many choices, which way to go? Too many days at 100 degrees has turned my noggin to mushy peas. Now comes September, I remember a year, leaves were a burning, a nip in the air. The schedule says football now starts at UT, the next day the Cowboys, the Bears…
Defending the ADA – and Winning
Last month, the Texas Civil Rights Project celebrated a significant legal victory over Cinemark Theatres with an El Paso judge’s ruling that the stadium-style theatres, dubbed “wheelchair ghettoes” by TCRP legal director Jim Harrington, werein violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The complaint (filed on behalf of eight El Paso residents and two disability…
Day Trips
Joe and Barbara Day invite visitors to their home west of Wimberley for a view from Lookout Mountain, nature tours, and gourmet meals. photograph by Gerald E. McLeod Lookout Mountain offers such an expansive view of the Blanco River Valley west of Wimberley and the surrounding Hill Country that it was just too beautiful for…
Short Event Calendar
Wed., Sept. 16 Wooldridge Square Park (8th & Guadalupe) 8-11pm: Kickoff Super-8 Screening with the Austin Cinemaker Co-op Thurs., Sept. 17 Texas Union Theatre Competition screenings 3pm: Program 1 5pm: Program 2 7pm: Program 3 9pm: Program 4 11pm: Program 5 Alamo Drafthouse 5pm: German video art 7pm: Hal Hartley shorts 10pm: Mexperimental (1/Surveying the…
Page Two
So far, we have received not a single letter about the redesign. We got one phone call, a voice mail from “Bill,” telling us to put the paper back the way it used to be laid out. We’re taking the silence as a chorus of approval, and we agree with you. The staff loves the…
Hate Crimes and Punishment
The case has also rekindled a familiar debate in Texas over whether homosexuals should be included in the statute. State Senator Rodney Ellis of Houston, who proposed the 1993 hate crimes bill, has been at the forefront of this battle. The original bill aimed to penalize those who commit offenses against a person because of…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Elephants can’t run but they can walk fast. Holly Campbell, a University of Arizona student, is trying to map the fly’s brain to find out how they manage to see so well � and why they’re so hard to swat. If successful, her research could lead to better vision systems for robots, which could be…
Naked City
A Sierra Club report released Wednesday, “The Dark Side of the American Dream,” ranks Austin high on its list of 20 U.S. cities where suburban sprawl poses the greatest threat to the environment and quality of life. The report, based on information from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Federal Highway Administration, examined factors including…
The Long and Short of It
Hollywood is relentless in its efforts to lure movie-goers to its summer mega-buck movies built on high-tech wizardry and a heavy dash of schmaltz. After buying into the hype � not to mention spending way too much money on popcorn and Twizzlers � it’s startling to see that drama, humor, beauty, erotica, pain, pathos, and…
Coming This Fall
What I Watched on TV over the last three weeks isn’t going to surprise any regular reader of “TV Eye.” I bet I watched at least 30 of the 43 Joan Crawford films on TCM. I watched oodles of memorials on Diana, Princess of Wales and I actually watched about 18 hours of the nearly…
