Empire Control Room & Garage
Volume 22, Number 29
news
The 'Mold Queen' Fights Back
Melinda Ballard beat the insurance companies in court. Now she's carrying her fight to the politicians and the public.
BY JORDAN SMITH
Supreme Court Ponders Banks' Death Row Case
The U.S. Supreme Court grants a last-minute stay to Delma Banks, Jr.
BY JORDAN SMITH
In Austin, Safety Comes at a (Too) High Price
The city's inflated budgets may have left Austin ped / bike projects empty-handed.
BY LAURI APPLE
War Drums: Rumblings on the Home Front
As an Iraq war becomes inevitable, local responses range from the stupid to the sublime.
Naked City
Headlines
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
Austin @ Large: Austin at Large
Austin's $100 limit on campaign donations survives another court test -- does that mean it works?
BY MIKE CLARK-MADISON
The Hightower Report
Being an arms pimp backfires on the U.S.; and to see our nation's future, look at Texas' miserable present.
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
His Whole Life
How Lake Austin Spa and Resort chef Terry Conlan rose to the top without losing his perspective and priorities
BY BARBARA CHISHOLM
Food-o-File
With great SPAM™ comes big changes, great and not great, in this week's "Food-o-File."
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
Second Helpings: Smoothies
Summer's coming, y'all: time to get smoooooooth.
music
One More Time
Wrapping up SXSW 03 with a sampling of Saturday night showcases.
AMA Encore
A last look at the 2002-03 Austin Music Awards
TCB
BY CHRISTOPHER GRAY
screens
Sending Off SXSW 2003
Film reviews, and more!
The Hit Parade
Documentarian Jamie Meltzer pokes under the rock of the music industry in Off the Charts: The Song/Poem Story.
BY MICHAEL MAY
Off the Shelf
Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky's Horns and Halos isn't so much about Bush, but rather the book about the Bush that Bush didn't want you to know.
BY SHAWN BADGLEY
Short Cuts
Sending off SXSW 2003
BY MARC SAVLOV
TV Eye
Local filmmaker Heather Courtney's award-winning doc, Los Trabajadores, hits the small screen.
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Screens Reviews
The Long Riders (1980)
By combining elements of classic Westerns with a modern narrative, Hill and his capable cast render a thrilling look at characters often misinterpreted by Hollywood.
Film Reviews
arts & culture
Turning the Lens on Us
Austin is hosting the 40th national conference of the Society for Photographic Education, which aims to consider how the United States has been represented by photographers in the past and where photographers need to focus their attention in the future.
BY ERINA DUGANNE
Authentic Sound
When pianist Paul Badura-Skoda plays classical music of centuries past, he strips away the centuries of romantic interpretation and provides us with the beauty and lively spirit of the music as it was originally heard.
BY JERRY YOUNG
Piece of Work
In his large charcoal drawing Rock n' Roll, Drugs and Sex, artist Randy Twaddle reverses a familiar phrase and places it on a curling banner floating through a dark and grimy background, making it an example of verbal recycling in an otherwise wasted landscape.
BY MOLLY BETH BRENNER
Articulations
The stars come out at the Paramount when the Texas Medal of the Arts Awards are given, and the Bastrop Opera House shoots for a national title in the American Association of Community Theatres competition.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Arts Reviews
The Scarlet Letter
The Vortex Repertory Company's retelling of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter feels like it's coming from a fitful, troubled sleep, a hazy dreamscape in which director Michelle Fowler and her cast create a society of suffocating morality and the cruel reprisals that await any who violate its rigid rules of conduct.
Celebrity Crush '03
In the best Hollywood tradition, the good folks at Refraction Arts Project have created a sequel to 2002's Celebrity Crush, and the new series of sketches and films about obsessions with and fixations on various celebrities, old and new, has as much to recommend it as the old.
Hush: An Interview With America
In Hush: An Interview With America, the students of the UT Department of Theatre and Dance handle the complexities of James Still's play with steady hands, which may please viewers who enjoy supporting the development of young artists, but the play's inconsistencies may leave other visitors to this theatrical lab disappointed.
columns
Page Two
Let us hope the war in Iraq is quick, the death toll is low, and that all dire predictions prove unfounded; let's also hope that we haven't destroyed our own country ideologically in order to save it.
BY LOUIS BLACK
Postmarks
Our readers talk back.
Beyond Limits Otherwise Prescribed
George W. Bush refuses to put our money where his mouth is in matters of domestic defense, even though all the experts testify that America is as vulnerable to major terrorist attacks today as it was on 9 / 11.
BY MICHAEL VENTURA
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
After a Fashion
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
Day Trips
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
To Your Health
BY JAMES HEFFLEY, PH.D.
About AIDS
BY SANDY BARTLETT
Feedback
Letters to the editor, published daily
