Books By the book
Frates Seeligson Sr. is reading his way through history … from the beginning Frates Seeligson Sr. and his grandson, Tate. When John Alaniz defeated State Representative Frates Seeligson Sr. in 1960, he earned two nicknames. One was “Landslide Alaniz,” for the razor-thin 92-vote margin of victory. The other was “the Giant Killer,” a reference to…
Food & Drink Shrimp tales
These shrimp are not organic, but future generations of shrimp will be if they qualify for certification under the guidelines of the USDA National Organic Program, which is expected to release standards for organic aquaculture this fall. USDA still mulling organic guidelines for aquaculture In Forrest Gump, Bubba says there are shrimp kabobs, shrimp creole,…
Screens New reviews
Oooh, it’s scary in the real world! Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, and David Schwimmer give voice to the voiceless, and neurotic, zoo escapees in Madagascar. ‘Madagascar’ offers up a hypochondriac giraffe and sly penguins Madagascar Dir. Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath; writ. Mark Burton, Billy Frolick; feat. (voices) Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David…
News feature Long overdue
a{ text-decoration: none; } a:link:hover, a:visited:hover { text-decoration: underline; } After two years, SA hires a library director Dallas City Hall beckoned Ramiro Salazar with an opportunity, but he chose a career path in public administration. The former director of the Dallas Public Library system for 11 years, Salazar was introduced two weeks ago at…
Food & Drink The bar tab
TKO makes round two on Travis Remember the old Navy Club at 123 E. Travis Street, on the west bank of the San Antonio River? One could pay a fee to join the club, and if you brought your own booze you could stay out a few hours later than the 2 a.m. curfew imposed…
News A novel idea
a{ text-decoration: none; } a:link:hover, a:visited:hover { text-decoration: underline; } Library looks at new district to help alleviate funding woes English author and politician Augustine Birrell once said of libraries, “They are not made; they grow.” If this is the case, San Antonio’s public libraries are experiencing a growth slump. According to John Nicholas, chairperson…
Food & Drink All you can eat
News and notes from the San Antonio food scene Invite your dirt doctor to compost tea The annual Festival of Flowers garden show takes place Saturday, May 28, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Alzafar Shrine, 901 North Loop 1604 West. Author and organic expert Howard Garrett, also known as the Dirt Doctor, is…
News Communication breakdown
HB 3179: telecomm reform or a sweetheart deal for SBC? House Bill 3179 must have nine lives: The infamous telecommunications reform bill that has been hotly debated on TV and in newspapers died on the Texas House floor twice, only to return as pieces of vaguely related Senate bills 408 and 1748. If it passes,…
Music feature Long-haired redneck
David Allan Coe isn’t yet ready to take his job and shove it David Allan Coe: the biker community’s favorite country singer A few weeks ago, city officials in Portland, Maine canceled a David Allan Coe concert scheduled for June 16 because they feared that the show would attract so many feuding members of rival…
News Exploring caves, not C.A.V.E
Web Exclusive Dropping through a two-foot hole with hydrogeologist George Veni Big mistake. Last week’s diatribe about City Council’s refusal to televise Citizens to Be Heard was a bit overzealous, as one kindly City Hall insider pointed out. The group of Timberwood Park residents who attended a meeting two weeks ago and petitioned the City…
Music All ears
Hip-hop’s supervillains and British Invasion Clockwise from top left: MF Doom, Immortal Technique, Goldie Lookin’ Chain, and Run the Road compilation. Ads are finally hitting theaters for the new Fantastic Four flick, and it’s looking pretty silly. Bad for superhero fans, but good for a certain weirdo rapper: MF Doom, the MC with a tendency…
Books Moving target
A&M Press releases show that one Mexican-American political gain often means another challenge Many languages, one state In The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836-1981, historian Carlos Kevin Blanton heads into the contested territory of educators, politicians, and cultural activists. His well-documented study traces bilingual education in Texas from the state’s origins as…
Music CD Spotlight
Pounding the pavement For all the unit shifting accomplished by Nirvana and Green Day, no band defined the sensibility of ’90s alt-rock more forcefully than Pavement. Smart, sarcastic, and filled with withering disdain for any hint of self-serious, rock-star careerism (Stone Temple Pilots and Smashing Pumpkins infamously took it on the chin in “Range Life”),…
Books Down and out of his mind
James Crumley’s hard-living PI is back on the case … and the coke Chances are they exist in the real world, but good luck finding a sober private eye in crime fiction. From Philip Marlowe to Hoke Moseley the detectives and dicks of this genre like their booze, and for good reason. A right madness…
Music Current Choice
Anti-crunk artist arrives at Austin It’s still somewhat perplexing that anti-crunk artist/producer Guillermo Scott Herren, aka Prefuse 73, was reared on the same booty shaking, skating-rink bounce music as more famous Atlanta cats such as Lil’ Jon and Jermaine Dupri. More of an underground darling for backpack-toting emo heads (think a Latino DJ Shadow), Herren…
Books Adventuring gone awry
Rick Bass imagines a feckless narrator caught in Santa Anna’s infamous diezmo Henry David Thoreau once said, “Exaggerated history is poetry and truth referred to a new standard. He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to litter truth.” Texas-born essayist and novelist Rick Bass loosely based his new book, The Diezmo, on the ill-fated Texan…
Music Sound and the Fury
A week on the scene Call it a comeback Three years ago, Andrew Neufeld, singer for Winnipeg, Canada hardcore band Figure Four decided he wanted to start a side project that would allow him to play guitar. With the help of fellow Figure Four member Jeremy Hiebert and a couple of close friends, he formed…
Books Not a navel-gazer in sight
A team of skillful interviewers extracts wisdom from Texas writers I have a confession to make: Although I call San Antonio home, I’m not a native Texan. Until I moved here as part of a reverse Chicano migration southward (my mother’s familia comes from the Valley) a little less than nine years ago, I had…
Feature issue: Words
The Texas* Books Issue *(mostly) Initializing… /*********************************************** * Fading Ticker Tape Script- © Dynamic Drive (www.dynamicdrive.com) * This notice must stay intact for use * Visit http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ for full source code ***********************************************/ //default speed is 4.5 seconds, Change that as desired var speed=10500 var news=new Array() news`0`=” San Antonian Carlos the Carpenter lounges with a…
Screen test Your 15 minutes of fame have been canceled
Heartbreak and triumph at the lingerie-model tryouts for ‘Alamo Heights S.A.’ TV pilot It was 5 in the afternoon and I was on Highway 281, stuck in peak-hour traffic, cursing myself for not having fixed the air conditioning in my car. The humidity had crept back into San Antonio and even though all the windows…
Summer readingThe (mostly) Texas Books Issue
a{ text-decoration: none; } a:link:hover, a:visited:hover { text-decoration: underline; } San Antonian Carlos the Carpenter lounges with a good read in preparation for the dog days of summer, when a book and a swimming hole are the best cure for our oppressive South Texas heat. Inside this issue, some of our picks for Texas’ best…
Screens Man in motion
Joey Diaz dashes, in thong and work boots, for ‘The Longest Yard’ The old wise-cracking stud is now the mentor: Burt Reynolds, center, coaches Chris Rock and Adam Sandler in a remake of 1974’s The Longest Yard. Although comedian Joey “Coco” Diaz’ true love is stand-up, he doesn’t mind squeezing in a film or television…
Local Election Coverage SA Elections ’05
a{ text-decoration: none; } a:link:hover, a:visited:hover { text-decoration: underline; } Candidates, issues & politics: Read ongoing coverage of the council and mayoral races 5/12/05 Winners and losers Castro and Hardberger in runoff Political playoffs head into second round 5/5/05 The placid candidate Mayoral candidates: Julián Castro Populist or policy wonk? Who is Julián Castro really?…
Screens It’s the mummy!
Or is it just your mummy? A book on gothic film says ‘both’ Is it not a little gothic that the University of Texas Press has published a guide to the gothic in film written by a professor from Sheffield, England? A “sense of repetition and recurrences” is a key element of the genre, writes…
Screens Armchair Cinephile
Sith and that — intergalactic ambivalence and multi-dimensional dissatisfaction So. It has arrived and we have seen it. The last Star Wars, like everything Lucas has produced since Ewoks, leaves Generation Jedi with mixed feelings. (Yes, it’s the best of this trilogy. No, that isn’t saying a lot.) For anyone out there sharing my ambivalence…
News Briefs
Yes and no to CAFTA, CPS proposed coal plant hearing begins, PGA deal in doubt, City suspends SEIU members Lamar says yes, labor says no to CAFTA Labor and elected leaders packed the Communication Workers of America Local 6143 Wednesday morning to rally opposition to the controversial Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is modeled…
Screens Special screenings
Hasta El Viento Tiene Miedo, Leave Her to Heaven, The Intruder, and Symphonic KLRN Mexican Movies at the Instituto Hasta El Viento Tiene Miedo / Until the Wind is Afraid Dir. Carlos E. Taboada (1966) In traditional gothic horror, a ghost intent on revenge interrupts the tranquility of a girls’ boarding school in Hasta El…
News Speed reads
Early voting, propaganda from your government, and where’s the vision Get thee to the polls: Early voting begins Tuesday, May 31 for the City Council Districts 6 and 7 and mayoral runoffs. If you’re a political Rip Van Winkle, wake up, because Lila Cockrell is no longer mayor. However, outgoing District 7 Councilman Julián Castro…
Screens That’s a wrap
The low-down on this week’s premieres – ‘Madagascar, The Longest Yard, Eros, Winter Solstice When a group of animals leave their comfy, if confining, home at the New York City Zoo, things get a little hairy in the new DreamWorks animated film Madagascar. With the voices of Ben Stiller (Meet the Fockers) as Alex the…
Books Good looks
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Feature Scratching a niche
Indie, progressive presses target audiences looking for the stories behind the headlines If you check out prominent displays at major bookstore chains or peruse best-sellers’ lists, you will spot Thomas Friedman or Jon Stewart placed on an endcap or hovering in The New York Times’ Top 20. Yet, as the corporate publishing world has become…
Food & Drink What’s in a word?
Small farmers say USDA has stolen the word ‘organic’ Jacque Gates runs a small organic farm on the outskirts of Lockhart. She grows squash, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers that she sells in the River Valley Farmer’s Market down the road in Bastrop. A self-proclaimed “fanatic” when it comes to the rigors of organic farming,…
Books Well-read reads
a{ text-decoration: none; } a:link:hover, a:visited:hover { text-decoration: underline; } Authors from around the world comment on what they are reading “I am rereading Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. I am fascinated by the way Mann interlinks all sorts of levels of meaning – science, myth, philosophical debate, X-rays, and medicine – into what was…
Feature Scratching a niche
Indie, progressive presses target audiences looking for the stories behind the headlines Haymarket Press offers titles that are international in scope. (Photos by Julie Barnett) If you check out prominent displays at major bookstore chains or peruse best-sellers’ lists, you will spot Thomas Friedman or Jon Stewart placed on an endcap or hovering in The…
