Smells Like Team Spirit
by Bill Crawford I’ve always liked partying more than sports. So when my wife asked me to be the assistant coach of my daughter’s soccer team, I agreed. I could see myself as a misshapen, wisecracking old-timer with a whistle around his neck. Pop Warner, Casey Stengel, or Tommy Lasorda. You know – lively chatter.…
Roadkill
“Every event has its own kind of power,” says Vic Chesnutt of the ideas pondered in “Gravity of the Situation,” the opening track on his newest LP, Is the Actor Happy? Unfortunately, the gravitational pull of some of Chesnutt’s past Austin performances has been less than auspicious in power. “Well, I was drunk and trying…
Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow
The directing debut of acclaimed kung fy choreographer Yuen also helped popularize the burgeoning “kung fu comedy” genre and it primary star, Jackie Chan.
Goodbye to Summer
by Robin Bradford Every year I can’t believe it. I haven’t seen it coming at all. Suddenly, spiral notebooks appear in the supermarket and traffic blooms with anxious children heading back to school. I can’t imagine that the delicious leisure of summer that we allow ourselves because of the heat can just vanish. “It’s still…
S-S-Somebody Spank Me
by Al Kaufman When the Asylum Street Spankers advertise themselves as playing “music the way God intended it,” they mean acoustically, without any demon electricity whatsoever. But much more can be read into their motto. They play music they enjoy, with people they enjoy. Their show is a throwback to the vaudeville days of yore,…
Moonlight and Valentino
Moonlight and Valentino 1995. Directed by David Anspaugh, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Elizabeth Perkins, Whoopi Goldberg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kathleen Turner, Jon Bon Jovi. Perhaps it’s only because both films are awkwardly titled and share in the presence of Whoopi Goldberg, but Moonlight and Valentino, more than once, brings to mind that other…
Dinner With Diego’s Daughter
An excited overflow crowd filled the downtown Jalisco location on a sultry Tuesday evening to chat and dine with Dr. Guadalupe Rivera Marin, daughter of famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Dr. Rivera Marin is the author of Frida’s Fiestas, Recipes and Reminiscences of Life with Frida Kahlo. The evening was billed as an opportunity to…
Divine Alignment
by Chris Gray Humans are cynical creatures, at least until something or somebody comes along to change their minds. We are cynical because we’re all frustrated romantics; we each have a little voice that whispers “I want to believe” whether we want it to or not. But faith is dead, so before we believe in…
Bandit Queen
Bandit Queen 1994, 119 min. Directed by Shekhar Kapur, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Seema Biswas, Nirmal Pandey, Manoj Bajpai, Rajesh Vivek, Raguvir Yadev, Saurabh Shukla. This Indian movie, in Hindi with subtitles, is a fascinating work for a number of reasons. The story is based in the true-life saga of the contemporary…
food-o-file
Zilker Botanical Gardens Saturday, September 30, 10am-5pm One of the most popular harbingers of fall has to be the aromatic melange of the Texas Herb Market on the beautiful grounds of the Zilker Botanical Gardens. Visitors can browse and shop at the booths set up by local herb farmers and artisans of herb-related products who’ll…
A Complex Question?
by Amy Smith The more people talk about the compact city concept, the more confusing it gets. What is a compact city, exactly? That’s a matter of opinion, it turns out. A philosophical debate on the subject is being played out in the pre-development stages of an upscale apartment project on state-owned land in the…
Sister My Sister
Sister My Sister 1995. Directed by Nancy Meckler, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Julie Walters, Joely Richardson, Jodhi May, Sophie Thursfield. While driving out of the parking lot after seeing Nancy Meckler’s provocatively disturbing debut film Sister My Sister, I noticed the bumper sticker on the car in front of me: Sisterhood Is…
Sunrise on South Congress
by Tom Philpott 1224 South Congress, 444-7770 Breakfast and Lunch daily, 7am-3pm Dinner: Wed-Sat 6-10:30pm Mid-priced neighborhood cafes lie at the heart of a city’s culinary life. San Fransisco and New York house some of the greatest fine-dining establishments in the world; yet without their magnificent array of ethnic eateries, diners, pizza joints, and sandwich…
AISD Notebook
by Roseana Auten It’s the seventh week of the school year, and the complaints keep coming about AISD’s new surplus system. Last April, the district implemented a method of “surplusing” teachers on campuses that supposedly don’t have high enough enrollments to support them. Apparently, it’s not working well for some teachers, and consequently, for many…
Unzipped
Fashion photographer Douglas Keeve turns his camera on designer Isaac Mizrahi for an intriguing and often funny look into the making of a seasonal fashion collection.
Post Scripts
POST SCRIPTS FRI, SEPT 29: Power publicist Terrie Williams, author of The Personal Touch: What You Really Need to Know to Succeed in Today�s Fast-Paced Business World, will be at the first ExecuPower speaker series luncheon at the Austin Convention Center. Registration is $55, and includes lunch and a booksigning. Call 472-7465 for info. SAT,…
Crazy for the Asylum Grounds
Back in its heyday as one of the largest employers in town, the Austin State Hospital’s lush grounds were the place to be for young couples on Sunday afternoons. More than 100 years later, the place is still hot, hot, hot. But most of the courting going on is between real estate investors and the…
Hardwick’s Deal
For Austinite Johnny Hardwick, getting in the “Just for Laughs” comedy festival paid off big: It led to a development deal with Brandon Tartikoff and New World Entertainment. According to Hardwick, the deal was really in the can before he ever left Austin. He was set to perform in a show called `New Faces.’ “Tartikoff…
Council Watch
There was no council meeting last week. That would seem to make it an excellent time to consider the issue of Ethics. As titles go, perhaps none is more inappropiate than that of the Ethics Review Commission – not for the members’ lack of ethical standing, but for the fact that the seven-person group has…
Weird Scenes Inside the Joke Mine
by Robert Faires Two hundred comics walk into a bar…. It sounds like the opening line to a joke (and it probably is one), but in Montreal every July, it actually happens. That’s when funny people from across the globe flood the Canadian city to attend the “Just for Laughs” Comedy Festival, a huge celebration…
It’s a First: Cunningham Responds
On September 11, University of Texas Ethno-musicology professor Steven Feld sent a letter of resignation to UT Chancellor William Cunningham. Calling Cunningham’s close ties to New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan “morally repugnant,” Feld wrote, “My work, for almost 20 years, has been committed to the causes of ecological and cultural integrity on the Melanesian island of New…
Mister Smarty Pants Knows
By his own admission, Hawaii Five-O’s Steve McGarrett is a Capricorn. An Australian zoo recently reversed its policy on allowing visitors to pick up koalas because every time they are held they become traumatized. Visitors can still pet them, however. Grace Kelly’s films are banned in Monaco. Some plants can achieve as much as 1,000…
Whether You Like It or Not…
by Alex de Marban During his three-minute ration of participatory democracy, gadfly and homeless person Kirk Becker recently offered the council what he thought was a harmless and logical solution to the mayor’s proposed anti-homeless ordinance. Why not use federal housing grants earmarked for Eric Mitchell’s pet project, the $9.6 million Rosewood Entertainment Center, to…
Scanlines
THE MASTERS: AN INTERACTIVE JOURNEY THROUGH ITS SIXTY-YEAR HISTORY Creative Multimedia CD-ROM, windows I’ve been stupendously underwhelmed by the CD-ROM craze. The Masters, An Interactive Journey Through Its Sixty-Year History, does nothing to change this opinion. This is, basically, an electronic encyclopedia of the Masters golf tournament. Once you get it loaded up, which is…
Naked City
DUELING ADS: The feud between Freeport-McMoRan and The Nation magazine bled into the pages of the Austin American-Statesman last week. In a full-page ad in the local daily on September 18, the SOS Legal Defense Fund reprinted a July 31 Nation piece skewering Freeport and its gold mine operations in Irian Jaya, Indonesia. The article,…
About AIDS
Don’t Worry, Get Tested! AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is the latter stage of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) infection. HIV is an infection that affects every community regardless of ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic standing, gender, age, or disability. Anyone can get HIV. The statistics are amazing. Consider the following: * 19.5 million people world-wide are…
Starfish
Stellar Sonic Solutions (Trance Syndicate) Somewhere in rock & roll heaven, an epic battle along the lines of God and Satan’s battle for Job’s soul is occurring. KISS, Motorhead, the Pixies, and H�sker D� are all grappling for the title of Starfish’s Biggest Influence, but the Trance trio’s sound is uniquely its own, as is…
Coach’s Corner
by Andy “Coach” Cotton “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again.” – Grantland Rice Thursday, 10:35pm, Nashville: Southwest Airline flight #242 is three hours late. The 12 UT students aboard are, by now, quite drunk. Two hours ago, when they first sang “Texas Fight” it was… well, not cute but at…
Day Trips
The Mason County Courthouse in Mason stands as a quiet testament to the settlers who carved a living out of the rugged Blue Mountain Range of the northern Hill Country. The courthouse, built in 1909, is at the intersection of US87 and TX29, and is the anchor of the business district. Beneath the quiet exterior…
Hearth and Soul
by Suzy Banks Sixteen Paws in the Season of Mud Dear Suzy, Cleo, Cheyenne, Shadow, and Niki have taken over the deck, the yard and, for that matter, my life. The winter season, i.e., rain, is upon us. Besides continuing to enlarge my deck and putting in a volleyball pit, what’s the best method to…
Une Femme Douce
Une Femme Douce Directed by Robert Bresson, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Dominique Sanda. Bresson’s 1969 film is reportedly one of his best. It must also be one of his most unusual since it was shot in color and stars a professional actress, the young Catherine Deneuve.
Film Reviews
NADJAD: Michael Almereyda; with Suzy Amis, Galaxy Craze, Martin Donovan, Peter Fonda, Jared Harris, Karl Geary, Elina Lowensohn, David Lynch. From the director of the bizarre cult hit Twister comes this genuinely affecting comedy-horror film that updates the Dracula lineage to present-day New York City. The movie follows the meanderings of the Count’s daughter, Nadja…
Bonus Tracks
PLOWMAN Sweet (Pinche Gringo) Since the alternative explosion of the early Nineties few things have been worse off than good old hard rock. Remember when you didn’t need three suitcases worth of emotional baggage to make rock music, when all you had to do was plug in, turn up, and wail? Plowman does, and Sweet…
Black Cat
Black Cat 1991, NR, 91 min. Directed by Stephen Shin, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jade Leung Zhang, Simon Yam Tat-Wah. Model-turned-actress Jade Leung Zhang stars in this unofficial Hong Kong re-make of Luc Besson’s arthouse smash La Femme Nikita, and while (surprise!) it lacks the subtlety of that movie, it is a…
Film: Showtimes
Film listings are updated Friday mornings. Showtimes listed below start Friday, September 29 and cover the week ending Thursday, October 5. *An asterisk (*) before a title means that no passes or special admission discounts (apart from matinee discounts) will be accepted for any screening. *Parentheses indicate weekend showtimes for Saturdays and Sundays only, unless…
Dancing About Architecture
by Ken Lieck Whither radio? Or should that be “withered” radio? In a town with an overall level of good local programming that’s head and shoulders over most of the rest of the country (even if sometimes it all still seems like it sucks), a surprising number of stations are making or considering the move…
Nadja
Nadja 1995. Directed by Michael Almereyda, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Suzy Amis, Galaxy Craze, Martin Donovan, Peter Fonda, Jared Harris, Karl Geary, Elina Lowensohn, David Lynch. From the director of the bizarre cult hit Twister comes this genuinely affecting comedy-horror film that updates the Dracula lineage to present-day New York City. The…
Mann Made
by Rebecca Levy I had to listen fast and hustle to take notes when I called Thomas Mann in New Orleans the other day. Mann is a jeweler, sculptor, and first-rate businessman whose Techno-Romantic exhibition 423D (combining art and technology) is currently featured at Clarksville Pottery near Central Market. He speaks with rapid-fire, unadulterated enthusiasm…
Music Recommended
Austin Outhouse & Blue Flamingo, Saturday 30 Over the years, the ebb and flow of Austin’s club scene has washed away as many famous live music venues as its washed ashore new ones. It’s the nature of the business and this city. Still, that doesn’t take the chill off the loss of both the Austin…
Seven
A serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi is hunted by two New York City detectives in this hellish take on Nineties film noir.
