Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2009 > February > 04
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Kevin Costner, Jeff Bridges in Austin
Self-effacing to the end, Kevin Costner answered questions, poised and awkward, from aspiring actors at the University of Texas’ Brockett Theatre earlier this afternoon. He showed clips from his movies, including the required “Dances with Wolves,” and politely responded to queries such as “how do you handle stage fright?”
Costner is in town to play Antone’s with his band Modern West on Thursday. At UT, he didn’t address the legal problems faced by his close friend, Longhorns baseball coach Augie Garrido. (Costner played for Cal State Fullerton; Garrido coached there, and Costner appeared in Richard Linklater’s documentary about Garrido “Inning by Inning.”)
Earlier in the week, actor Jeff Bridges was spotted around town, including Eddie V’s Edgewater Grill downtown. As the weather warms and South by Southwest festival approaches, expect more notables dropping by our town.
Photo of Costner with UT department of theater and dance chairman Bob Schmidt by Ben Aqua
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Your A-List, Best Newcomer to Austin’s Music Scene
The raw rockers, the Steps, gained entry into the Austin City Limits Festival — not once, but twice — the second time by winning the fest’s battle of the local bands contest. They do well at contests, drumming up 42 percent of the vote in a hotly contended A-List rally.
SXSW-headed songwriter Ben Mallott and his band came in second with 31 percent of the tally. Indie rockers Built by Snow took third with 18 percent.
After that, the vote drops off precipitously. T-Bird and the Breaks lead a parade receiving under 2 percent: Bellville Outfit, Harlem, Foot Patrol, Dana Falconberry, Goldcure, Joanna Barbera and Gospel Truth.
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Your A-List, Best Computer Store
Still, readers voted in the A-List poll for best computer store. And the winner should not shock anyone who realizes that Apple has been cultivating university students here for almost three decades. The Mac Alliance on Old Koenig Lane won a thwacking 64 percent of the tally.
Mr. Notebook rallied to second place with 11 percent, while Discount Electronics cashed in third with 8 percent. Another Apple helper, Happy Mac, came in fourth with 5 percent, just ahead of PC Guru. Last year’s winner, Logic Approach, failed to top 3 percent; leaving just scraps for PC Doctors, Computer Doctor, Computer Geeks and Computer Solutions.
Wonder why the two Apple stores didn’t rate?
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Biz & High Tech, Your A-List
Your A-List, Best Vietnamese Cuisine
Now, good Vietnamese food is fairly available all over Austin. Kim Phung, with two eateries on the north side, won the A-List vote for best Vietnamese cuisine with 16 percent of the vote. The next nine vote-getters bunched up together between 7 and 11 percent. In descending order, they were Hai Ky, Sunflower, Pho Hoang, Triumph Cafe, 888, Tam Cafe and Deli, Mekong River, Saigon Kitchen and Pho Van.
Wrapping up the list with less than 4 percent were Pho Saigon, Tan Mi, Le Soleil, Thanh Nhi and Rosie Pho’s.
Photo courtesy of Veggie Delight blog.Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Food, Your A-List
Leadership Austin Engage Breakfast: Cracking Austin’s Glamour Scene 4
You already have my opening remarks for the Engage Breakfast held by Leadership Austin at Chez Zee yesterday. The group, which trains Austin’s next round of community leaders in business and nonprofits, is so well organized, my thoughts were solidified and published online — posted in three parts as “Cracking Austin’s Glamour Scene” (follow the “Style” category link below — well in advance and employed for my print column yesterday.
Jeanne Guy, Lulu Flores, Megan Spencer
So instead, I’ll focus on three subjects that came up in the discussion and will be explored for future columns.
Paul Jaquez, Anish Michael
First, economist Jon Hockenyos took my idea of the glamour scene and added the concept of a “glamour class,” which he defined as people who move to Austin without needing a job here. They either come with settled means or they can work long-distance. So you don’t attract this class with a semiconductor plant or a construction job because they are here, instead, because they could live anywhere, but prefer Austin’s physical, social and cultural attractions. (He reminded everyone that the Texas Hill Country was listed as the No. 1 destination listed in the New York Times travel story earlier this year.)
Maria Adame, Edward Kargo, Liz Craft
Asking a familiar, but always important question, theater producer Jason Neulander asked if all the new downtown density and development would price artists out of Austin. This is a claim that Hockenyos and I had heard for years, but when I ask artists fed up with the cost of living here, where they are headed, they usually say “New York” or “San Francisco” or someplace with double, triple or quadruple our cost of living. I threw out the unquantified supposition that Austin hangs happily onto the lowest rung of “destination cities” for America’s young and restless. You could probably name 12-15 other places people say they like to move to — cost of living is higher in all of them. Must explore.
Bill Noble, Jane Garrison
One last question, asked by moderator Jim Walker, choked me up. In documenting Austin’s new cafe society — clustered around movies, fine dining, arts, nightlife, music and fashion — am I finding this to be a “white” scene, leaving out the city’s minorities? I can truthfully respond that I expected that, but instead I’ve been deeply gratified to find it not the case. Granted, those on the lowest end of the economic spectrum cannot usually participate in the glamour scene, but the there is gorgeously heterogeneous when it comes to race, age and sexuality.
I credit a younger generation, which doesn’t appear to classify people the way my generation did. And I am so beholden to them.
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