Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2012 > January
January 2012
Very Smart Gals at Four Seasons Residences
“Very Smart Gals” is a very smart blog from SueAnn Wade-Crouse. It covers books, artists, charities and music, along with family reflections from Wade-Crouse’s intentional life. Like the best blogs, it blends its author’s personality with potentially useful information.
Lily Ta and Dean Lofton
It was an honor to be among the very few male guests at the Very Smart Gals party at the Four Seasons Residences on Sunday. Among the the dozens of women were influencers like Lulu Flores, Deborah Tucker, Sarah Bird, Susan Longley, Lynn Meredith and Dean Lofton. Others were drawn from the communities of law, charity, education, arts, media, business, movies and music.
Lynn Meredith, Christy Pipkin and SueAnn Wade-Crouse
The centerpiece of the evening was a presentation by Christy Pipkin, who, with husband Turk Pipkin, has turned out three breakthrough documentaries — “Nobelity,” “One Peace at a Time” and “Building Hope.” She explained crisply and pointedly the couple’s collaborative work in Kenya, now expanding beyond the Mahiga Hope High School to other secondary schools.
Betsy Gerdeman and Yolette Garces
Over sumptuous desserts, I made mental notes of five or six possible column subjects. Maybe smartness is catching.
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Dell Children’s Gala at Austin Convention Center
Fabulous. Just fabulous. The gala for the Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas defines force and class for large-scale Austin benefits.
Many of the winning elements in this year’s party built on last year’s successes. This time, light artist Bart Kresa created three enfolding walls of projections that dazzled the eyes and made the vast banquet hall more intimate. Magically, the three walls also served as six video screens — and in a large hall, there can’t be too many.
David and Fawn Bull
Dell Children’s produces some of the sharpest charity videos in town — bright, professional, compelling. The medical center also uses personal testimony in an efficient and effective manner. The story of Kathryn Scarborough Bechtol and Hub Bechtol’s scare over their son’s traumatic accident, for instance, won’t soon be forgotten.
Of course, florist David Kurio and event planner Victoria Hentrich’s decor and staging set the scene, suggesting luxury without going over the top. (You don’t want anything that seriously undermines a charity’s net take.) The silent auction was handled by University of Texas Cowboys and Lassoes armed with iPads.
Bobbi and Mort Topfer
The live auction — in some ways the heart of any such gala — produced many tens of thousands of dollars for Dell Children’s, but went on too long. No fault of the auctioneer, just too many packages and too vast a crowd for a quick “paddles up.”
A nice touch: One waiter was assigned to each table, which made for a fluid interaction between guests and the evening’s many amusements. Even co-chairs Eric and Kay Moreland did a superb job navigating this ship of charitable state.
Brett and Debra Hurt
Table No. 4 packed a punch: Mort and Bobbi Topfer, Tom and Lynn Meredith, Brett and Debra Hurt, as a well as a couple whose name I didn’t catch. I spent most of the evening talking parties, politics, projects and more with Lynn and Bobbi.
All hail Armando Zambrano, the mastermind behind this masterpiece.
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Indian Republic Day at Givens Recreation Center
I didn’t even know there was a Republic Day. The holiday recognizes the adoption of the Indian constitution 62 years ago. The Indian American Coalition of Texas saluted the birth of the world’s largest democracy on Saturday.
Veena Gangidi, Sumana Sen Mandala and Shahin Alvi
The Republic Day party was held at the Givens Recreation Center on far East 12th Street. Booths surrounded a seated area that faced the raised stage in this combination gym and performance area. For two hours during the five-hour affair, traditional music and dances alternated with speeches, proclamations and games.
Komal Bose and Koonal Bose
Needless to say, various elected and appointed officials spoke. I would, too, if I were running for anything. Austin’s Indian American population is growing rapidly. The community’s culture, history and variety are increasingly vital to everyone.
Sumina Bhatti, Sameer Shah and Sonia Kotecha
Sadly, I could not stay for dinner. I’m still making baby steps learning how to cook Indian cuisine. Pushpesh Pant’s massive cookbook is my current guide. Which brings to mind a pertinent question: What’s your favorite Indian restaurant in Austin? My fall-back is the Clay Pit.
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‘Wicked’ + Sam Harris + social scrapes
My little camera got me into two minor social scrapes this weekend. At the ‘Wicked’ cast party — tremendous troupe, plump production values from this touring show at Bass Concert Hall — karaoke wafted from Rusty’s gay bar on East Seventh Street. So I waited by the door to document the arriving cast, crew and guests for this column.
First in front of the lens was Don Amendolia, who looked suitably wizardly even after playing the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Then three pleasant but socially otherwise engaged young women posed for the column. Quick happy snaps.
After that, an energetic group of four approached the door. I separated them out. One actor wanted to check his look before I took his picture. Fine. Not in a hurry.
Don Amendolia and Shannon Boggus
So far, pretty normal for your social columnist. When I asked for the spelling of their names, however, one actor countered by demanding my credentials. How could he be sure that I wouldn’t misuse his image? After all, some of the cast had been stalked, he said.
Courtney Iventosch, Laran Snyder and Lindsay Wood
I was stumped. Out of business cards, I didn’t even think about the employee card in my wallet. The doorman, laughing at my social dilemma, intervened: “Yeah, that’s Michael Barnes with the newspaper.”
Zach Hensler and David Nathan Perlow
Just an actor being an actor. No hard feelings.
The next night, I headed to the YMCA on Ed Bluestein Boulevard for a kick-off event to Black History Month. When I arrived at the center, the place was swarming with young people playing and exercising. Normal. But where was the kick-off? Then I spied two men in suits, who kindly directed me to the reception.
It was not until later that I realized they were dressed almost identically, as were the other men in dark suits and smart ties outside the door of the gathering. I was asked to sign in, then overheard that I would be patted down for security reasons. What was going on?
The actual situation finally dawned on me when one of the suited men took me aside and said I could not use my camera or record anything at the event. My reporting would not be welcome at this Nation of Islam meeting.
Again, no hard feelings. Gotta read those digital invitations more closely. Everyone was exceedingly courteous, but what’s a reporter without reporting?
Headed from there to the Shoal Crossing Events Center, where Sterling Affairs Catering and Event Planning has teamed up with Austin Cabaret Theatre to present musical acts in the barn-like former dinner theater and clothing store.
In this case, when I use the term “barn-like,” it’s not a put-down, but rather a description of the building’s shape. Despite the high ceilings, it fits neatly the big cabaret talents that Stuart Moulton books.
Paul Beutel and Willa Kaye Warren
Sam Harris, veteran of “Star Search” on TV, “The Life” on Broadway and much more in a long career, appeared with Austin Cabaret Theatre years ago. His act has grown immensely. Still in ideal condition are his high, tensile voice and bright stage presence. What has matured is his patter, which reflects his full life on and off the stage, including an enduring friendship with Liza Minnelli.
I was there to check out the new space. I stayed because Harris is a cabaret sensation. And Austin audiences loves him.
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Epic Reception at Delta Millworks
The Hill Country Conservancy just might have the coolest group for its young leaders. Epic organizes regular hikes, bikes, camp outs, fly fishing, hikes and other healthy outings. All this to support the nonprofit that helps preserve the Hill County, in part by purchasing conservation rights from ranchers, which allows families to continue as stewards of the land, but nixes future heavy development. (Why wasn’t this around 30 or 40 years ago?)
Grace Hsieh and Casey Martinez
Even a little Austin happy hour for Epic turns magical. A couple hundred people showed up at Delta Millworks, a huge, old woodworking facility on East Fifth Street and Springdale Road. This space matched the outdoorsy attire of the Epic group on a chilly evening. (Thank goodness nobody smokes at such events. The place could become a tinderbox.)
Lindsay Hoffman and Andy Smith
Popping up unexpectedly were surreal wooden sculptures by Aldo Valdés Böhm, who keeps a workshop in the building. One was a odd duck the artist said had been hiding in his garage for years.
Maria Alonso, Angela James and Lorie Solis
Credit: Flashbax Twenty Three Photography
The crowd clearly didn’t want to leave, and so mingled, sipped and nibbled well past the usual happy hour. One of the cleverest scheduling tools for the leaders: A business card with the monthly Epic events listed on the back in a clear, compact format. To top the evening off, salt-of-the-earth Conservancy director George Cofer invited me to go camping or hiking with the group.
Hiking at one of the conserved ranches at least!
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Ronald Reagan Dinner for Travis County Republican Party at AT&T Center
Social columnists love politicians. Especially shy social columnists, like me. Politicians can turn a conversation on a dime. And they like questions. Even from the press. They can’t help it.
John and Ruby Alaniz
The Ronald Reagan Dinner for the Travis County Republican Party took place at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center. Smaller than the Johnson-Bentsen-Richards Dinner for the Travis County Democratic Party at the Four Seasons Hotel the previous week, it blended a range of ages, dress and customs.
Andy Barclay, Megan Hamilton and Will Hamilton
The honoree was Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, but, as with the Democratic event, I didn’t stick around for the speeches. My part is the people. And the lobby of center’s banquet hall was full of fascinating folks who talked about travel, art, jobs, policy and legal mediation, but mostly politics.
Greg Ackerman and Mike Dominguez
Several candidates for office approached me, not just with open handshakes and big smiles, but ready to talk on just about any subject. A few were shaken by the uncertainty about redistricting — back in the hands of a San Antonio panel of judges — but none were shaken enough to express anything but confidence in their eventual electoral triumphs. That’s another thing to like about politicians: They breathe optimism.
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Rattle Inn Preview Party
Live music is back — big time — on West Sixth Street. Monday, the Rattle Inn opened with a grand party that included a set by Asleep at the Wheel, co-owner Ray Benson’s act and pretty much the house band. Media and local celebrities rubbed elbows, as all three of the club’s spaces filled to the delight of Benson and his partners, Kevin Williamson and Matt Luckie.
Kevin Williamson and Ava Late
Luckie and Williamson are old nightlife hands, having opened their share of bars, clubs and restaurants in multiple entertainment districts. They were still putting finishing touches on the Texas-themed joint — comic murals, stuffed game, rattlesnake-skin-like banquettes, envisioned by designer Joel Mozersky — when the first guests arrived.
Michelle Valles and Jennifer Ransom Rice
Three distinct spaces allow customers a range of experiences. The heart of the place is a high-ceilinged ballroom with stage and enough floor space for a bit of dancing. The side bar feels more like a club house, filtered through an ironic sensibility about the Old West. Then there’s the immense rooftop deck, giving out to expansive views of the downtown skyline.
Eddie Safady and Olga Campos
Roof decks are in — I can think of at least 11 downtown — and this is among the most impressive, though it might get hot up there facing south and west during summer afternoons. Roof decks are for nights.
We ran into dozens of social regulars, but spent most of the time catching up with our dear friend Sean Massey, whose stepmother, collector and artist, Pat Brown, passed away from cancer early Monday. Her memorial will be delayed until the spring, so friends can converge on Austin from around the world.
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Profile: Gigi Edwards Bryant
Austin businesswoman Gigi Edwards Bryant visited her brother, Charles Henry Rector, every day the week before he was executed in 1999.
“He told me more and more about his life,” Bryant remembers. “He believed society had no place for him, and he encouraged me to never give up.”
Austin native Bryant never did.
“I hope and pray that ‘our’ children — and they are our children — have a system built around them that measures their possibilities of success, rather than being defined by their failures,” says Bryant, who serves as chairwoman of the Texas Department of Family Protective Services Advisory Council, appointed successively to such positions by Govs. George W. Bush and Rick Perry. “It could be the difference in giving up, like my brother, or digging in and not letting go, like I had to do.”
On Feb. 11, Bryant, 54, will be honored at the Hyatt Regency Austin during CASAblanca, the annual gala for Court Appointed Special Advocates, which provides advocacy services for thousands of vulnerable children.
Bryant, head of GMSA Management Services, a consulting firm, and her husband, Sam Bryant, who founded Bryant Wealth Investment Group, are known for sharing their time and treasure generously, but selectively.
“I narrowed it down to education, foster youth and drug and alcohol rehabilitation,” Bryant says. “Those are things that affected my life and affect our society from birth to the ends of life.”
Bryant’s mother, the late Lola Mae Fowler, was locked up in the Austin State Hospital after she killed an intruder. There, she underwent shock treatments and suffered from mental illness for the rest of her life. Bryant and her three siblings were shuttled directly into “the system.”
“People treat kids differently when they find out you don’t have your parents,” she says. “It is as if you did something to make this happen, no matter your age. First they are sad, then they ask: ‘What did you do?’ I spent time explaining why I had no parents, until I decided it did not need explanation.”
After growing up, her older sister and younger sister wrote second life chapters in California and West Texas. Despite attempts by Bryant to keep in touch, they chose to part completely with their pasts. Given the inherent disjuncture of foster-care system, it’s no wonder.
“I’d find my stuff at the door and I knew we were going somewhere else,” Bryant says. “Once, I was on the track team and we had a track meet that weekend, and I remember begging and pleading with the lady to take me back so that I could run. I remember crying all night telling the new house that they needed me. I never knew what happened at the meet, but I can guess. All I could think about is how much they must have hated me that Saturday. I know no one explained that it was not my choice.”
Her brother ran away from the Waco State Home — subject of Sherry Matthews’ compelling book, “We Were Not Orphans” — into a life of petty crime. He was first accused of murder at age 17, imprisoned, then released. In 1982, he was convicted of capital murder and was executed in 1999. Bryant visited Rector in prison every Christmas and sometimes in the summer.
So how did Bryant escape her brother’s fate?
“My faith from my Big Mama, my grandmother’s mother,” she says. “And I knew love from my mother before entering the system. When we were younger, we used to go stay with Big Mama, mostly after school. She would hug us. She would kiss us. She would cook, pray with us, sing to us. She was the one who told me: ‘God loves you. Don’t ever be afraid to tell him what’s wrong.’
She also avoided one potential trap faced by so many foster children: No doctor ever prescribed Bryant behavorial medications.
“I just believe that God protected me,” she says. “He still does.”
Despite the teen pregnancy, Bryant studied computer science and then business at Austin Community College and St. Edward’s University. While in college, she worked full-time at the offices at the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and the Texas Legislative Council. Meanwhile, she raised a family and volunteered at schools and in the community.
“I guess I never got enough,” jokes Bryant, who earned an MBA in global leadership at University of Texas-Dallas. She met Sam Bryant in 1993 while he was working for Applied Materials and she was organizing charity events and fundraisers.
“He was known as ‘Mr. Applied’ and was very nice,” she says. Their blended family includes her three adult children and his two adult offspring. All are thriving in college or careers.
Her most famous son is Marcus Wilkins, recruited for the Longhorns by Mack Brown and a veteran of the NFL. Gigi Bryant is blessed with five grandchildren.
Yet she constantly asks the question: Why not me? How did I get through the system and come out with this life? Bryant passes on this conclusion to anyone touched by foster care: “How you define yourself — through actions — has to be more important to you, so you can move past what should have been.”
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Hitting the high spots on an Austin Saturday
What an evening. It started at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza next to Highland Mall. I arrived expecting the Firefighters Ball. No sign of it. The desk clerk informed me that male strippers were performing in one ballroom. Not the right event. Turned out that the actual Firefighters Ball, which raises money for scholarships, returns to the same hotel on Feb. 8.
Sandy Abel and Steve Redman
So I slowly headed down to West Sixth Street to cover the opening of an exhibition at Lytle Pressley Contemporary. Lytle Pressley surged ahead of the curve a few years ago, selling high-end, high-design furniture. His new shop — next to his old shop — includes less expensive pieces, say $1,200 for a sleek desk, although one can purchase another desk for three times that price.
Gina Brezini Michele Golden
Pressley has segregated the fine art — always a part of his mix — to a large, long, separate gallery. Folks pressed into this space to view the luscious — almost voluptuous — mixed-media wall art of Bulgarian ex-pat Gina Brezini. I spent some time with Brezini, now based in New York City. She gathers photos, leaves and other objects and drenches them with a shiny resin for a highly polished finish. First-nighters I talked to also really liked her deep, radiant colors.
William Grieder and Hana Bakkar
It was time for another function and Facebook Events came to the rescue. It pointed me to a benefit for Colin’s Hope, the group that promotes water safety in memory of the late Colin Holst. The Best Day Ever Bash combined many of the elements of any Austin benefit, including live music, silent auction and a slew of people just enjoying themselves.
Will Reedy and Rachel Villanueva
It took place at Empire Automotive Warehouse, the open-air venue next to Sidebar on East Seventh Street. It’s not quite La Zona Rosa, but you get the idea. Love the adaptive reuse of any urban general utility space.
Michelle Marshall and Minh Tran
Talked with some of the supporters, several of whom were young parents whose concerns were clear: That everyone learn to swim and inculcate the lessons of water safety. Jan. 28, Olympians Brendan Hansen, Kathleen Hersey and Garrett Weber-Gale are hosting Colin’s Hope Got2Swim Clinic is for kids ages 7 and up at Nitro Swimming (Bee Cave).
Mark and Amy Brady
Time for another event. Earlier in the day, former State Rep. Diana Maldonado invited me to her birthday salute at Maria Maria. Several other legislators planned to attend. I arrived at the Carlos Santana-themed restaurant and bar just before 9 p.m.
The place was overrun. It felt like a California crowd, with a lively mix of patrons, many in their twenties and thirties. As I explored, it turns out Maria Maria is much larger than I had remembered, including three distinct rooms and two crush bars. Glad to see that business is booming.
But no Maldonado. I waited a while. Then realized I could wish her the best later. We see each other periodically. And so I headed home.
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Miró Quartet and Anton Nel at Bates Recital Hall
The first thing we noticed on the printed program was a number: “Two hundred thirty-fourth event of the Butler School of Music 2011-2012 season.” And it’s only January. How many Austin performance venues claim that kind of productivity?
Gary Cooper and Richard Hartgrove
Next we noted the page dedicated to the Butler Society, named after Sarah and Ernest Butler , the school’s chief benefactors. The giving level starts at $1 million. And there are six givers in that category, including (but counting as just two) Jeff and Gail Kodosky and Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long. Again, how many …
Paula and Paul Angerstein
The nearly full Bates Recital Hall offered another clue as to the success of the Butler School. Here, guests ranging from their twenties to their eighties cheered and cheered and cheered the Miró Quartet and Anton Nel as they performed Samuel Barber, Antonín Dvorák, Edward Elgar and a rousing encore from Robert Schumann.
Joanne and Jack Crosby
It turned out a long chamber concert at more than two hours, but worth every minute of it. The audience could not be torn away from the intricately woven themes and variations. Special attention was paid to newish Miró violinist William Fedkenheuer and guest pianist Nel, whose legions of admirers were well represented in the house.
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Nancy Price Bowman and Charles Gentry
Austin lost two socially minded volunteers this week.
Nancy Price Bowman led the Junior League, sat on the Austin Parks Foundation board, and helped out with Wild Basin Natural Preserve and We Care. I got to know her as president of the Austin History Center Association, where she always welcomed me with a broad smile. I hope the association salutes her during its upcoming Angelina Eberly Luncheon.
Charles Gentry spread good will across many organizations. He also helped a coterie of friends with his sometimes shy, sometimes gregarious personality. He was among the first to move downtown when the tall towers rose and could be spotted at numberless social affairs in the central city. A memorial gathering will take place on the pool deck of the 360 Condominiums at 4 p.m. on Jan. 22.
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Viral nostalgia on Austin videos
Two bets you can take to the bank: Austinites can’t resist nostalgia. And they will be repeating the same phrases 30 years from now.
Two (almost) viral videos make the point neatly.
In “Do You Remember Austin (Back in the Good Old Days)?” images of pre-21st-century Austin from the listless postwar years through the subsequent Armadillo World Headquarters era flash by as Carlos Machiste chants songwriter Gregg Ronald Geil’s heartfelt list of people, places and trends gone by.
Precisely the same list could have been compiled almost 30 years ago.
Old eateries like Nighthawk and Taco Flats pop up. So do standard Austin retreats such as Hippie Hollow, Palmer Auditorium, Dry Creek Saloon and the Pier. Stores like Rylander’s, Minimax and Joske’s make appearances.
Also prominently featured are local media personalities like Neal Spelce, Cactus Pryor and Ellie Rucker.
One detail jumped out: The obsession with driving distances to buy Coors beer before it was widely distributed. Had forgotten about that.
Another jolt: That one of Aqua Fest’s ethnic nights was devoted to Czechs. Anybody else remember when Czech was the fourth most spoken language in Texas?
“Those old times here were special here, I’m telling you all” goes the refrain.
Hit count so far: More than 33,000.
“(Expletive) Austinites Say” from Possumbox Productions is simple, direct, following the formula of previous similar videos.
Mostly shaggy young men — is there any other kind in Austin? — string together the same syllables we’ve heard a million times.
Same phrases have to do with music: “What do you play?” … “What are you doing for South By?” … “Yeah, I feel like I’m gonna quit my band.”
Others loop back to our grand social correctness: “You did get that dog at the shelter, right?” … “I’m not like religious, but I’m spiritual.” … “This city needs more bike lanes.”
Tech and media figure in: “This is, like, my third start-up, so all I need is some angel funding.” … “I was an extra on ‘Friday Night Lights.” “Me, too!’”
Local pronunciations of Guadalupe, Manor and Manchaca receive emphatic endorsements.
Perhaps the most effective character worries about the drought in a raspy voice.
One scene that struck particularly close to home was set at the American-Statesman’s bat-watching area near the Ann Richards Congress Avenue Bridge.
How many times have you said this: “I don’t know — there’s usually a lot more bats.”
And yes, with very few exceptions, these phrases were spoken with regularity three decades previous.
Hit count so far: More than 172,000.
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Tom Meredith on Waller Creek
Where others see puddles of slime, patches of asphalt pocked with industrial residue, and broken, errant stones from forgotten civic projects, Tom Meredith envisions open spaces landscaped with indigenous plants, artfully placed towers for residents and visitors, renovated historic structures, a thriving entertainment district and the vital intersection of health, eduction and state government along the banks of lower Waller Creek.
Nine semi-finalists will be announced on Jan. 30, culled from 31 top design firms from around the world. The design competition and determination of construction costs should cost $1.5 million, Meredith says, by the time it is completed in October.
Based on preliminary estimates, Meredith guesses it will cost $60 million to $75 million to execute the eventual creekside plan, that on top of the $146.5 million the city and county are spending on the flood-averting tunnel that makes it all possible.
I recently walked part of Waller Creek with Tom Meredith and his wife Lynn Meredith (pictured). We picked our way around various obstacles, pointing out wildlife and trying to imagine what might come next. The former Dell Inc. executive and his equally engaged partner devote themselves to countless worthy causes. Lynn Meredith, for example, is a major force behind plans to build the next Austin Children’s Museum at the Mueller Development.
Clearly, the Conservancy represents something crucial for the couple, perhaps because it affects almost everything that is definitional about downtown Austin.
“I have always been attracted to the great outdoors,” Tom Meredith says. “I quickly realized Waller Creek could be a catalyst for downtown renewal, especially considering that the tunnel will remove (about) 28 acres from the floodplain; was in a state of atrophy and we need to restore and protect it; represents a mechanism that can re-connect east and west and north and south Austin; and could be a magnet that draws people from far and wide.”
Inspired by efforts in other cities, such as those that rescued Central Park and created the hugely popular High Line Park in New York City, Meredith is not the type to stand by idly.
“Being a bystander just did not seem very appealing,” he says. “Waller Creek is a lot safer than I had imagined. I now walk it fairly regularly. While it evidences aspects of a tough life for some in our community, it is poignant and profound and beautiful in part.”
The loyal Out & About reader might have already guessed that I’ve explored Waller Creek pretty much from its headwaters above 45st Street to the Colorado River, where a sandy triangle of sediment has formed an island since my first strolls there in the early 1980s. I had always wondered why 1970s-era stonework along the lower creek — decorative bridges, walkways, embankments — seemed partially wrecked and abandoned by the public.
“They were built with the understanding that a 100-year floodplain meant that the next flood would come in 100 years,” Tom Meredith says. “It came in 1981.”
A few weeks after our chatty walk, a group of 50 or so sat around dinner tables at the Meredith penthouse atop the Four Seasons Residences. They met the jurors tasked with narrowing the field of design firms to nine. Besides the Merediths, Ted and Melba Whatley and Melanie and Ben Barnes, present were Teresa and Joe Long, Julie Blakeslee and John Spong, Mickey and Jeanne Klein, Sue Edwards and David Bodenman, Rudy Green and Joyce Christian, Suzanne Booth, Eddie Safady, Ted Siff, Chris Mattsson and Charlie Betts.
Tom Meredith introduced Donald Stastny, founder and CEO of StastnyBrun Architects, Inc., who is heading up the competition. “It’s rare that you have a chance to change the face of a city forever,” Stastny said. “If we are successful, this will be the heart of the city.”
Juror and real estate expert John H Alschuler, Jr. knows how to use open space to incentivize development. “You have a diamond encrusted in coal,” Alschuler said. Of the design firms that applied: “You have attracted the best talent in the world”
“This is a momentous occasion,” said juror Carlos Jimenez, who is particularly interested in culture and the memory of a place. On Waller Creek: “It has been buried and cauterized by the violence of develpment.”
At our table, juror Marsha Maytum talked about adaptive use and universval design that might attract all Austin residents and out-of towners: “This has been like an archeological dig,” she said about the process so far. “You have to be the champions of this project.”
Juror Darrel Morrison emphasized introducing the right kind of plants, while distinguished landscape architect Richard Haag said: “We are joined together in a great adventure for the health, wellness and love of Austin.”
University of Texas professor Allan W. Shearer, an alternate juror and stalwart project supporter, predicted a beautiful, elegant solution, embracing the concept: “Tell me your landscape and I’ll tell you who you are.”
Still, the most powerful moment of the evening was reserved for urban planner Jennifer Mannhard, a Portland resident who grew up off MoPac (Loop 1) in North Austin.
“Thus was a place I was not allowed to go as a kid,” she said, choking up and cutting short her planned speech. “I cant wait to see what it becomes.”
Correction: A previous version of this post had an incorrect first name for John Spong. David Bodenman and Julie Blakeslee’s last name were misspelled.
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Johnson-Bentsen-Richards Dinner for Ben Barnes at Four Seasons Hotel
Imagine meeting U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, the rehabilitating Arizona Congresswoman, and former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi during one short Austin weekend. Both interacted with your correspondent in a warm, relaxed and personable manner.
Nancy Pelosi and Donna Howard
Pelosi served as keynote speaker at the Johnson-Bentsen-Richards Dinner for the Travis County Democratic Party at the Four Seasons Hotel on Sunday. The benefit was meticulously organized and rigidly hierarchical. Big donors squeezed into the VVIP lounge upstairs; mid-level types crowded into the larger reception room downstairs; while others were left to wander the lobbies leading to the banquet room. (At least one judge was turned, gently, away from the middle room.)
Osita and Rae Nwosu
The dinner lionized former Texas Lieutenant Gov. Ben Barnes, now an enormously influential consultant. Barnes doesn’t lend his name to just any group — Boys & Girls Clubs of the Austin Area is a rare exception — but he bore his laurels with dignity on Sunday. He introduced me to Madame Speaker as if sparking up a casual acquaintance on the street.
Ben Barnes and Ben Sargent
Of course, the place was packed with Dems. I spoke at length with Dr. Jay Stein, formerly of Baylor College of Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center and University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Naturally, he spoke in calculated cadences about the campaign to bring a medical school to town, so I encouraged him to write up some of his thoughts for our Insight section.
For a brief time, I regretted making a previous engagement to share gumbo and bread pudding with our friends Christine Perrault Moline and Terrence Moline, recently returned from Belize and Guatemala, at the same time as the Dem dinner. Yet as soon as Kip and I arrived at their home near McCallum High School, we entered conversational and gustatory paradise.
Non, je ne regrette rien.
Marathon Kids, AMOA-Arthouse, Marc Winkelman, George T. Elliman
The theme for this weekend’s parties: Photographs.
Kay Morris and Joy Authur
It began at the VIP Pre-Party for Marathon Kids at the InterContinental Stephen F. Austin Hotel. After snagging likenessess of party chairwomen Mary Herr Tally and Maria Groten, as well as Marathon Kids founder Kay Morris and the group’s national development director, Joy Authur, I tried a third duo, only to find that this handsome pair looked somewhat askew as captured by my little Canon PowerShot lens.
Mary Herr Tally and Maria Groten
Obvious resolution: I didn’t publish them. The next challenge was to catch the stars of the subsequent concert at the Paramount Theatre: Lyle Lovett and Shawn Colvin. Love ‘em both. I stationed myself near the door of the Stephen F.’s ballroom while Authur fed me updates as to their progress toward the crowd.
Shawn Colvin and Lyle Lovett
Celebrity shots on the run are tough to make. Colvin looked dismayed when I asked for a picture to put in the newspaper, but after brushing aside some stray locks, she braved the camera. Lovett couldn’t help teasing me that I was shooting for the Statesman with such a tiny camera. “Such is the state of journalism,” I shot back in good humor.
Leslie Wingo and Darrell Windham
My next stop: the Jones Center, downtown home for the newly merged and temporarily named AMOA-Arthouse. (Branding to come, everyone assured me.) The place looked spectacular, and the staff wisely kept the food and drink away from the marquee exhibitions. The first of the expected hundreds of art lovers filtered in.
Facundo Argañaraz and Nicole Crescenzi
The art proved a bit thin and the wall texts a bit thick, so after a quick tour of the upstairs and downstairs galleries, I concentrated on the people. Folks were quick to pick up conversations, but I found the blinding white of the galleries tough on the happy snaps (with the simple Canon, dark backgrounds usually work best).
Julia Clark and Tatiana Artis
Along the way, I met a convivial couple from San Francisco, Facundo Argañaraz and Nicole Crescenzi, who kindly tapped the spellings of their names into my iPhone. Turns out Argañaraz is Basque, and he produced some of the most intriguing work on the walls.
Everyone seemed to agree that the merger of Arthouse and Austin Museum of Art is a good idea, for now, but what will come of it? Reports from the Jones Center and Laguna Gloria sound promising, at least in terms of audience interest.
Alex and Eli Winkelman
From there, I headed to the Highball, where publisher and philanthropist Marc Winkelman celebrated his 55th birthday, while colleague Paul Hoffman marked his 45th. (See: A neat 100 between them.)
Marty Hancock, Khotso Khabele and Kari Arfstrom
Besides the fabulous Winkelman family, the place was packed with Austin biggies, including every elected Democrat from San Antonio to Waco. Backers of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barak Obama, the Winkelmans’ political and social reach is broad and deep. (Didn’t get a chance to find out what they think of the trial ballon of a Clinton vice-presidential bid.)
Bill Spelman and Rick Cofer
Off in one banquette, overseen by Jeanne and Mickey Klein, were a quiet yet familiar couple. Turns out it was Rep. Gabby Giffords and astronaut husband Mark Kelly. Kelly gently turned down my request for a photo and almost immediately, Giffords reached out and took my hand, not to shake it, but to make contact. I was touched.
Policy, of course, came up in several conversations, including one with prosecutor Rick Cofer and Austin City Council Member Bill Spelman. I always appreciate what smart people say away from the microphone and, no, I won’t put any of it on the record.
Daniel Mahoney and Bennett Ford
The next night, we celebrated the 50th birthday of Tribeza publisher George T. Elliman. The party was the first non-fundraiser I’d attended at the prismatic home of Dr. John Hogg and David Garza. The West Lake Hills modern with the complementary baroque art and Tiffany views looks better every time I visit.
Betsy Clemons and Chris Knapp
A feast was laid out by 34th Street Cafe and Catering’s owner Eddie Bernal. He talked to me on the side about the process of changing La Sombra, one of his eateries, into an Italian restaurant. “People have been asking me to do Italian for years,” Bernal says. “I finally put the right team together.”
Lisa Jasper and Lauren Smith Ford
Top socials and representatives from media, fashion and the arts toasted Elliman, who grew up in the River Oaks area of Houston, then attended school in the Northeast. I spoke with his mother and with some childhood friends, which turned up stories that, while perfectly chaste, will remain unpublished.
Back to photographs. I took a few, but I was there to have fun at this private party. As the casual affair — some were dressed to the 1962 nines — lasted longer and got louder (in some corners) Mary Pat Mueller took photographs, candid and posed, that she posted later that night on Facebook.
Kindly, she published ones of your columnist that were fairly flattering. (I’m better behind the camera.) Still, it’s a healthy reminder to always do the same for my Canon subjects.
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Rodeo Austin President’s Luncheon at Driskill Hotel
Rodeo Austin turns 75 this year. We eagerly anticipate the receipt of Liz Carmack’s history of the sport in our city. We thoroughly enjoyed Carmack’s “Historic Hotels of Texas: A Traveler’s Guide” as well as an extended conversation we shared during the rodeo gala at Palmer Events Center a couple of years back.
Grace Crews (Miss Rodeo Texas Teen 2011), Fred Weber (2012 Rodeo Austin President) and Malinda Crews (Grace’s mom)
While we are waiting for a copy, let’s thank Rodeo Austin and its president, Fred Weber, for a winter luncheon at the Driskill Hotel. Attending were the men of the rodeo’s executive committee, as well as political office holders and the media. Former KVET radio jock and robustly good guy Bob Cole guided the affair from the dais, while unflagging Kevin Fowler announced the marquee acts in a year that will showcase at least 100 Texas artists.
Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton and Kevin Fowler
While I’m personally attracted to rodeo as a sport, a diversion, a big party and a key cultural legacy of my state, the leadership of Rodeo Austin tends to emphasize its charitable role in passing out scholarships (see previous posts on that subject) and its economic impact in numbers and superlatives that are hard to keep straight from year to year (fifth largest rodeo? fifth largest indoor rodeo? fifth fastest-growing rodeo? etc.).
The rodeo is the rodeo. Let’s just enjoy that. I do.
Photos courtesy of Rodeo Austin
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Profile: Esther Chung
A former railroad laborer who worked his way down to Central Texas during the 1800s, Joe Lung and his family served three kinds of food to Austinites. At Joe Lung’s Cafe downtown, the prime menu item was the 25-cent steak dinner, beloved by legislators on a budget.
Nearby, Lung’s Chinese Kitchen offered many Austinites their first tastes of Asian cuisine. The Lung family’s Cocina del Sur, located in what was then North Austin, added to the city’s wealth of Mexican food.
The stories keep on coming, especially as the city’s Asian American populace grows and transforms.
Seoul, South Korea-born Chung, 36, employs census data, city directories, architectural drawings, clippings files, biographical files, videos, oral history recordings and more than a million photographs in the center’s collection to help Asian Americans recover their cultural and familial legacies.
“We need people to start digging up these stories from the past and bring them to life — all the contributions, all nuances about our community,” Chung says. “People don’t realize how varied we are and how much there is to know.”
Growing up in Vancouver, B.C., then Houston, where her father was a pastor, then college professor of biblical studies, Chung’s young life was split between worlds.
“I was an outlier,” says Chung, whose dove gray sweater matched the winter sky outside the South Austin coffee shop where we met. “I did my own thing. When I was younger, I was heavily involved in the church. And school was just school. I almost had a dual life. Americanized life at school; Korean American life at church and home.”
At Southern Methodist University, she doubled up with religious studies and sociology. Her brother also pursued sociology.
“We’re interested in people, based on my father and mother’s work at the church,” Chung says. “And it seems like it would helpful to society if we understood it better. I always intended to go into a people-helping profession.”
After earning her master’s degree in social work at the University of Texas, Chung, who lives in South Austin with her Apple salesman husband, Stephen Martin, won one of the liaison positions at the history center.
“Prior to this job, I hadn’t seen the community out and about,” she says. “As soon as I got the job, I starting noticing Asian people more. I wanted to understand my community better and connect to it.” Then there’s the preservation part.
“Asian families aren’t taught to preserve their history, or even know it,” she says. “It’s intriguing to me. That others would care about our history and that we would be asked to share our history.”
The Chinese were the first Asians to arrive in Austin. The 1875 census counts only 20, most of them bachelors working at laundries, later at groceries or restaurants.
“There’s a mention of a Malay man suspected of killing somebody,” she says. “Probably not even Malay.”
Chung’s job at the center is confined to countries of the Indian subcontinent and farther East. This leaves out Austin’s extended Lebanese and Syrian clans, for instance, because they are considered Middle Eastern, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.
For many decades, the number of Asian immigrants were kept low by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1886. Yet, by the 1930s, UT attracted students from Japan, China and India.
The Immigration Act of 1965 ended the worst of the racist quotas, and, by the 1970s, Asians arrived here in larger numbers. Successive tech booms and, as always, UT made Austin a stronger immigrant magnet.
In the past 20 years, individual Asian Americans made the news more frequently, including Austin City Council Member Jennifer Kim, Austin assistant city manager Roger Chan, community organizer Amy Wong Mok, UT scientist George Sudarshan and businessman CD Tam, for instance.
Chinese Americans were among the first to found formal associations. “Groups started as soon as there was one energized person,” Chung says.
Interestingly, the area’s Korean American social groups trace their origins to war brides who lived in Killeen, Chung says. The most recent Korean American Community Gala, which included salutes to Korean War veterans at the Renaissance Austin Hotel, was held on the same day that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il died.
“We are so removed from the country now,” Chung says. “It’s hard to say what will happen now. No one really knows. Koreans in Korea are very hopeful about communications and possible peace. It’s hard for Korean Americans to understand the nuances.”
As early as the 1980s, Vietnamese Americans began to cluster in North Austin, especially along North Lamar Boulevard. But now, Chung says, Asian Americans are spreading out to Northwest Austin, Round Rock and Pflugerville, seeking value on homes and competitive schools.
She notices that Indian and Chinese descendants are more likely to integrate, whereas Vietnamese Americans, who arrived in a traumatic rush after the war during the 1970s, stick closer together.
Recently, she encounters more Burmese, including ethnic Karens, and Bhutanese. “I met one man from Mongolia,” she says. “He said there are three of them here. Him and his wife, and a woman in Bastrop.”
One huge resource for Chung is the new Center for Asian American Studies at UT.
“This is an emerging field,” she says. “Ours is among the few universities to have one, because Texas has so many Asians, and our history has been long and broad, but not carefully studied.”
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Viuda Bistro appeals to deaf and hearing in Buda
BUDA — Casual customers might not even notice. Instead, diners at Viuda Bistro might focus on the ingenious food, the warm social glow or the funky decor, seemingly at odds with the complicated cuisine.
The curious diner, peeking into the kitchen, might also catch chef Kurt Ramborger and sous chef Jacquelyn Doudt mid-discussion, fingers flying through American Sign Language.
They — as well as other employees and a subset of the regular crowd — are deaf or hard of hearing.
“The deaf community has always been very supportive of us,” Rutowski says of the bistro that opened, at first monthly, now four days a week, last year. “They came in flocks at the beginning and it (has) kind of worn off a bit. But we continue to have a good number of loyal customers.”
Still, the Wisconsin-born teacher and businessman doesn’t mind when people don’t notice the discreet ASL.
“Personally, I try to eliminate the perception of deafness,” Rutowski, 43, states with customary tact. “As Kurt says, you don’t need ears to cook. I try to be transparent, because I don’t want people to either come (or) not come because of our deafness. We want them to come because they enjoy the ambience, service and food — nothing else.”
“Viuda” is Spanish for widow. The Carrington Hotel, located in the 1880s along the railroad tracks in the Hays County town of “Du Pre,” was staffed by widows. Thus, according to local lore, when forced to change its name because another Texas town had already claimed “Du Pre,” “Buda” was borrowed from a corruption of “viuda.”
Next up: The distinctive location of Viuda Bistro inside a folksy Mexican restaurant. For three decades, Helen’s Casa Alde was among the only eateries in droopy downtown Buda. It served mostly breakfast and lunch, overseen today as in the past by 88-year-old Helen Alcala. Her son, Buda native Rene Alcala, met Rutowski through fitness classes.
“We became Facebook friends and that’s how I found out that Paul was running a catering company,” co-manager Rene Alcala, 54, says. “I was very impressed with the energy he put into his business.”
So Rutowski, Alcala and Ramborger hatched a phased plan to re-introduce a certain cuisine to a community that, for awhile, had supported chef Paul Petersen’s excellent Little Texas Bistro.
“Deaf people tend to move around the country because of limited job opportunities, or to be where the deaf schools are,” he says. “Some would like to stay where their families are, but it’s hard.”
Rutowski’s gregarious mother mainstreamed her son until he, by chance, encountered students from a deaf school.
“I was 11 and had no idea there was such a thing,” he says. “I said: ‘Hey mom, what’s that?’ ‘Oh, no, no, no that’s not for you, because you’re too special.’”
Rutowski grew up oral, speaking to everyone in the family and at school, where he was popular.
“When you are young, it’s easy to get along with everybody,” he says. “But at junior high, they develop groups or cliques and I couldn’t really find a group I could fit in. I was a very good athlete, but the school had no support services, just a very pure hearing environment. So I twisted my mother’s arm.”
His first job was teaching at Texas School for the Deaf, one of the best such schools in the country, in a city that maintains a reasonable comfort level with deafness.
“I don’t feel deaf here in Austin,” he says. “In Wisconsin I did. They don’t have the type of exposure we enjoy here.”
How did this charismatic businessman end up selling baked orange cake, bakon jalapoppers and yammy yak with herb-roasted sweet potatoes and sauteed spinach-cranberries to fascinated urbanites, suburbanites and exurbanites?
While well-composed Rutowski operates as the brains of the business, fun-loving Ramborger could be considered its heart.
Los Angeles-born Ramborger, 40, who goes by the sobriquet “the Irish chef” and emails in a thick dialect, has cooked up and down the West Coast, hosting celebrities, such as Bill Gates.
Long after college, Ramborger ran into Rutowski while serving as a chef on a deaf movie production in Austin. They launched Arouse Your Palate Catering.
The first event that they tested at Casa Alde was a wine and cheese tasting. Then they launched the bistro concept on the first Thursdays of the month — including a memorable outdoor wild boar roast — which led to regular hours Thursdays through Sundays.
“I think the city of Buda has been very accepting of us,” Alcala says. “Kurt has become a fixture on Main Street.”
Ohio-born Doudt — educated at Gallaudet and Le Cordon Bleu (Austin) — was working as a line cook when Rutowski and Ramborger asked her to join the effort. Working in the kitchen, she isn’t afforded the opportunity to interact with deaf and hearing customers as often.
“My vision is to establish a base at the restaurant to show hearing people — customers, employers, owners, managers and chefs — that it is very possible to work with deaf people in front of house and back of house,” Doudt, 23, says. “I am hoping Viuda Bistro will set an example to all restaurants.”
Although they are grateful to the City of Buda for business assistance, the managers feel the inability to obtain a wine-and-beer license has hampered any further growth there.
“I’m hoping to stick around for the long term,” says Rutowski. “I would love to expand Viuda into the Austin scene one day. But we need to first become self-sustainable with the Buda location. It takes time and patience.”
12 medium jalapeños
10 oz. whipped cream cheese
6 oz. Cheddar cheese
1 Tbsp. finely minced red or purple onion
1 1/2 tsp. granulated garlic
1 tsp. lemon juice
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 egg
1 egg white
1 cup Italian bread crumbs
12 thick slices of hardwood-smoked bacon
Frying oil
Slice the jalapeños in half, lengthwise. Remove the innards and seeds. Put aside. In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, cheddar cheese, granulated garlic, onion and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well. Spoon the mixture into the jalapeño halves. In a shallow bowl, beat the egg and egg white. Dip the filled peppers into the egg, then coat with bread crumbs. Bake at 250 degrees until bread crumbs turn brown (10 to 15 minutes). Set aside to cool. Wrap with bacon and insert toothpick. Deep fry for a minute or two at 350 degrees.
— Jacquelyn Doudt, sous chef at Viuda Bistro
12 Valencia oranges
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup sweet cream butter at room temperature
1 cup baker’s sugar
2 medium eggs
3/4 tsp. Mexican vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. orange oil
3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut oranges in half and remove the flesh, wash the rinds, then pat dry. (You can use orange flesh for something else.) Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and sea salt. Set aside. Whip butter and sugar until fluffy, five to eight minutes. Add eggs, one by one. Then add vanilla extract and orange oil to blend. Alternate blending portions of buttermilk mix and flour mix. Foil the bottom of orange rind and fill 3/4 full with cake batter. Bake for 45 minutes. Add your own icing or whipped cream.
— Kurt Ramborger, chef at Viuda Bistro
For the sweet potatoes:
2 lbs. sweet potatoes cut into 1/4 inch dices
3 Tbsp. dried basil
2 Tbsp. dried oregano
1 Tbsp. garlic powder
1 Tbsp. onion powder
2 tsp. sea salt
2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 cup olive pomace oil, or olive oil and canola oil blended
For the spinach-cranberry mix:
4 cups fresh spinach
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2 Tbsp. sweet cream butter, or 2 oz. clarified butter
2 tsp. freshly grated or minced garlic
1 Tbsp. basil oil, or extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 lb. sirloin or T-bone yak steak (available at www.Texasyaks.com)
Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees. Mix the sweet potatoes with other ingredients and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, or until soft. Season the yak with sea salt and black pepper. Heat an iron skillet for 10 minutes, then cook yak on high heat until medium rare to maximize flavor, searing three to four minutes on each side. Then cook further in oven for six to eight minutes. Once yak is in the oven, heat butter and basil oil in a large pan until bubbling. Add garlic, salt and pepper for another minute. Add cranberries and cook two more minutes before adding spinach. Toss. Pull yak out of oven and plate. Heap herbed-roasted sweet potatoes on one half and sauteed spinach-cranberries on the other half.
— Kurt Ramborger, chef at Viuda Bistro
Photos by Ashley Landis
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GivingCity Issue Launch at PeopleFund
When Monica Maldonado Williams needed a designer for GivingCity Austin, she thought of DJ Stout. Williams had admired his work at Texas Monthly and had heard great things about Pentagram, his current outfit. She called Stout, hoping he might spare an intern to help turn the digital magazine from the Austin Community Foundation about local giving into tight little magazine.
Jennifer Wijangco and Monica Maldonado Williams
Stout said: “Sure, I’ll do it.” After hanging up the phone, Williams fell out of her seat. She didn’t expect Stout himself to volunteer. Tuesday, the trim, modern mag was launched in the Whole Planet Foundation shared offices at the PeopleFund building in East Austin. It contains stories on the Bastrop wildfire aftermath, helping returning soldiers and a short profile of super-volunteer Mary Margaret Farabee, among other topics.
Laura Gonzalez, Ashlyn Zamora and Alicia Rascon
True to the nature of the giving business, the launch benefited yet another charity, this time Latinitas, a group dedicated to empowering young Latinas through media and technology. I talked at some length with founders Laura Donnelly Gonzalez and Alicia Rascon, as well as their young protégé, Ashlyn Zamora, who aims for a career in entertainment and media. What a great group!
Don Vanderslice and Allen Rogers
GivingCity underestimated the popularity of the event, which packed the offices on the second floor of the new PeopleFund building. I met several dozen smart, committed folks before heading out for some chilly air.
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Rick Johnson, 1954-2012
Our dear friend Rick Johnson didn’t want a fuss. No funeral. No elaborate tributes.
Creative, funny, kind and frighteningly well-organized, Rick leaves behind his partner, Cliff Redd, former director of the Long Center, now with the University of Texas, as well as family and friends.
This is not an obituary, so I won’t list Rick’s achievements. Yet they include brilliance as a designer, cook and inveterate flipper of houses. Among his most astonishing accomplishments was, with Cliff, reclaiming their gorgeous Galveston home after Hurricane Ike.
I’ll always think of Rick on the back terrace of that house, holding court, gently sifting through his thoughts and unearthing shards of lasting wisdom.
Good night, dear friend.
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Nona Niland Zero to 60 Party at the W Austin
Dr. Nona Niland has affected so many lives, it is no wonder so many showed up for her surprise 60th birthday party at the W Austin.
The co-founder of Pharmaco, the Austin drug-testing company, is always at the forefront of worthy causes, including the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, Long Center, People’s Community Clinic, Center For Public Policy Priorities and the Niland Foundation.
Nona Niland and Arthur Andersson
The party was arranged by her companion, David Braun, who was gracious enough to invite Niland’s college boyfriend. Braun enjoyed the help of several socially alert friends, who made sure she was kept in the dark about the assembled masses.
Sylvia Acevedo and Janet Osimo
I arrived very early to find one wall of the W Austin’s bar adorned with images of Niland as if rendered by Andy Warhol. Another wall showed photographs of her, confirming that she has been striking and poised since childhood.
Ely Garcia and Alyssa Carper
As folks filtered in for the 6:15 p.m. “reveal,” one couldn’t help noticing how broadly the guest list reflected the community, or at least the engaged part of it. That list included state Rep. Elliott Naishtat, George T. Elliman, Dan Bullock, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Arthur Andersson, Dr. John Hogg, Lisa Jasper, Quincy Adams Erickson, Stephen Nagle, Sylvia Acevedo, Nina and Frank Seely, Ken Lambrecht and Bill McLellan.
All the best, Nona.
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Twelfth Night, Russian Christmas and Will Klemm
Twelfth Night was a pagan festival adapted by the Christian church to celebrate the Epiphany and, in the West, the visitation of the Magi. Though discouraged after the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, some Christians retained the feast day’s carnival atmosphere inherited from the Roman Saturnalia.
In this pagan tradition of social misrule, University of Texas English professor and Shakespeare scholar Bob Twombly and his wife, Sheila Twombly, threw a Twelfth Night party in their small Harris Park area home. When they moved a few blocks away to a big-boned 1934 house on Bellevue Place — it had belonged to the distinguished Cavness family — the party moved with them.
Sheila and Bob Twombly mock New Gingrich as newt phases
It attracted mostly UT faculty who relished the chance to dress up in elaborate costumes and tweak social and political conventions. That was at least 40 years ago (although Bob Twombly told me the party dates back 44 years).
Thomas Moe and Cass Grange
It continues under the aegis of the next generation, which includes son Thomas Twombly, president of Lucien, Stirling & Gray Advisory Group and a prominent St. Stephen’s Episcopal School alum, and his wife, Dana Twombly, a real estate agent with Turnquist Properties. They purchased the big house from his parents in 2002 and, at the insistence of neighbors, preserved the party tradition.
Paul Andries, Thomas Twombly and Kelly Twombly
The costuming and commentary have not flagged — Bob and Sheila Twombly came as different phases of an amphibious newt in mockery of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. The Saturnalian aspect has, however, evolved with the character of the next generation and their friends. One IBM employee, for instance, begged me not to photograph her as a French maid accompanied by a man portraying accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Wise.
Duncan Hopson and Aek Sommai Jekaram
Lovely to see such a tradition honored, nonetheless, just up the hill from the onetime site of Eeyore’s Birthday Party, started in 1963 by another UT English professor, Lloyd W. Birdwell, Jr.
While the Twelfth Night Party turned 40 (or more), the Russian Christmas Party hit its 10th anniversary, just blocks away in Hemphill Park at the home of the Austin Wine Guy Rob Moshein and website designer Bob Atchison. (Their Russian Easter Party is now 18 years old. Keep those traditions alive!)
Alex Andrawes and Graham Schmidt
For those who have not seen their collection of Russian Imperial art and memorabilia — inside the stucco house that once belonged to the Rather family — it’s an endless wonder. They serve traditional Russian food and the guests are always captivating.
Eileen Gill and Kevin Pruitt
Two in particular raised new conversational themes: Retired UT Press director Joanna Hitchcock and San Francisco visitor Albert Bartridge, who seemed to know everyone important in the city by the bay, but also some European royalty, which fit the party theme nicely.
Joanna Hitchcock and Albert Bartridge
Even earlier in the evening, I dropped by the Wally Workman Gallery to check in on Will Klemm’s opening. Klemm is the popular landscapist who refused to march in lockstep with his peers. He always injects a bit of mystery into his idealized views.
Catherine Mears and Will Klemm
He and his guests were in high spirits. We talked of his house over in the Guadalupe neighborhood down the way from architect Emily Little and also the French Legation (which is more important? I vote for Little).
Kathy Pong and Eve Norris
Also ran into the bewitching Sara Fox and her kits, Kate, Nick and Molly Fox.
Kate, Sara, Nick and Molly Fox
Never too early to expose the pups to good art.
Correction: In an earlier version of this story, the name Cavness was misspelled.
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Watching the world go by at Jeffrey’s bar
In 1975, on one of their first dates, Linda Ball and Forrest Preece fell head over heels for Jeffrey’s ingenious little restaurant, which only intensified their romance.
“We were awestruck,” Ball says. “It was completely out of the way for Austin at that time.”
“I thought it was awfully romantic,” says native Austinite Preece, who can remember when fine dining here meant either steak or shrimp, with a choice of separate veggies.
The somewhat casual, somewhat upscale place that novelist Sarah Bird called West Austin’s Holy of Holies in “How Perfect Is That?” first hooked the retired software engineer and the retired advertising firm owner with little chalkboard menus hand-delivered to each table.
Yet they came back for the people, those working for classy owners Ron and Peggy Weiss (pictured with McGuire), along with namesake partner Jeffrey Weinberger, and the parade of Austinites and out-of-towners who treated the place — at first, just one room — as a rare thrill or as their regular haunt.
In honor of the changing guard, Ball and Preece agreed to meet me at Jeffrey’s bar, not just to recall old times, but also to watch the sports-jacket-and-skirt crowd ebbing and flowing on an early Friday evening.
“We happen to know that Westwood Country Club is closed tonight,” Ball says, referring to the private Tarrytown retreat. “So all those members are either at 34th Street Cafe or here. It’s always been a sort of meeting room or clubhouse for West Austin.”
Every few minutes, a party would stop at the table to greet the couple, as much a part of the scene as longtime Jeffrey’s waiter Johnny Guffey, who, Ball discovered 25 years ago at a reunion, attended Sherman High School at the same time she did.
The dimly lit room seemed soaked in memories. There was the time a young man dropped to his knees and proposed to his girlfriend at the table across from Ball and Preece.
“We sent over glasses of champagne,” Ball says. “But I don’t think they drank them.”
The couple exercised the habit of picking up the tab for other customers, like the grandmotherly woman who, on ill advice, had walked from Embassy Suites on South Congress Avenue — more than two miles away — with two young men. The regulars urged a cab ride back.
Ball and Preece developed tastes for certain dishes — dessert caviar, foie gras — from the parade of famous chefs who worked the kitchens. (We sampled ardent globes of fried oysters with meticulously prepared cocktails.)
Sometimes, they would drop by just for a late-night appetizer. One bartender referred to the regulars as “Tigger and Pooh,” while another customer dubbed Preece the “Dominick Dunne of Austin.”
Sometimes they would retire to dine in the private Napoleon Room to the back, later augmented by the detached Josephine events cottage to the north.
The attention to detail never flagged, even as Austin’s food scene caught up with Jeffrey’s complexity and high standards. Once, a bartender ran across the street to retrieve some bitters so that Ball’s customary Manhattans would taste just right.
Ball and Preece trust McGuire, whose Lamberts, Perla’s and Elizebeth Street Cafe wow local diners, to rekindle the magic of Jeffrey’s.
Ball: “I think it will continue to be a go-to place.”
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More about Austin in the weeks to come
Readers reasonably assume that the holiday season jams my calendar with jamborees. Not true. Many Austinites leave town. Others stick close to families. Themed holiday parties are not easy to bring off gracefully, so your social columnist tiptoes around them carefully.
So what’s on the agenda for January and February, if all goes as planned?
The second installment in the Ancestral Austin series, taking a long look at the Koock-Faulk-Kuykendall clan which has included familiar figures like humorist and civil rights champion John Henry Faulk, cookbooker and restaurant founder Mary Faulk Koock, performer and diva Karen Kuykendall and land rights advocate Marshall Kuykendall.
We take the Neighborhood Walk concept into the suburbs and exurbs with a tour of Wimberley’s town square.
We take a closer look at the Texas White House at the LBJ Ranch, now that the entire ground floor is open to the public. (It’s quite a sight!)
We hang out at Viuda, an American bistro in downtown Buda with a lively connection to the Central Texas deaf community.
We look back at the supervisors and their families who lived in the now-hidden Zilker Park cottage near Barton Springs.
We walk Waller Creek with philanthropist Tom Meredith, as he explains a developing vision for the banks of the downtown creek.
We hear about the heady days at Jeffrey’s bar when the restaurant was in its prime with Forrest Preece and Linda Ball.
Well, that’s a start to 2012.
Photo of John Henry Faulk courtesy of the Briscoe Center for American History
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A new route for Austin billboards?
One mission of this social column is to help make what is good about Austin better.
Billboards, which disrupt those beauties, are like a social poke in the eye for visitors and locals.
One man, in a single stroke, could rid Austin of more than half its billboards. Billy Reagan is the president of Reagan National Advertising, the city’s dominant pole sign firm. Luckily, Reagan is an ardent Austinite.
“It’s a great city; it’s beautiful,” says Reagan, who loves the outdoors. “By and large, the mindset in Austin is one that … they put a really high priority on quality of life here.”
Cool. So I asked him, point blank, at his vibrantly painted building on Burleson Road, to do Austin a favor by tearing down all those billboards.
“We want to help shape Austin’s future and be a part of it,” says Reagan, whose company owns between 450 and 500 signs in the area. He wants to protect the city’s scenic vistas, he says, but also keep his business at locations “where they are an appropriate use.”
So nothing can be done about this plague of billboards? Hmmm.
My route to Burleson Road went through the sunny offices of Austin City Council Member Mike Martinez. In 2008, riding a wave of anti-billboard sentiment, Martiniz tried to decrease their numbers within the city’s limits and its extraterritorial jurisdiction.
“I don’t think anyone should be exposed to an inordinate amount of billboards,” Martinez says.
Seeking a consensus, Martinez had noticed how many pole signs were clustered in East Austin neighborhoods that were no longer major routes out of town. The city had grown up around them.
Yet since Reagan — as well as Lamar Advertising Company and others — retained “holding rights” on old signs and are forbidden to replace them, the companies leave them up, even if they are not producing revenue.
So Martinez proposed, first, documenting the extant billboards. These can now be monitored by citizens on the City of Austin’s new website, which links the reader to the location and status of each sign.
Martinez also tried to broker a deal that would allow outdoor advertisers to replace two old signs with a new one in a location with higher traffic. That would bring down the raw numbers.
That did not appeal to Scenic Austin, a group that opposes billboards and takes a “no new billboards” stance. The sign companies also resisted what they considered punitive buffer zones.
“It didn’t eliminate a single billboard,” Martinez says of the 2008 effort. In fact, some old billboards still sit behind tall trees or buildings, out of view, but are retained by sign companies as future bargaining chips.
“The ad industry fights us tooth and nail,” Martinez says. “They will go all the way to the legislature for relief.”
He recalled something Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell had told him: “There are those who have been burned by billboards and there are those that will be.”
I next met with architect and Scenic Austin stalwart Girard Kinney along with fellow visual-pollution fighter Kate Meehan at Royal Blue Grocery on Congress Avenue. On a wet December day, they handed me a stack of papers documenting years of billboard limitation proposals.
“Any time a billboard company proposes a 2-for-1, 3-for-1 or even 4-for-1 swap, a large percentage of those are not performing anyway,” Kinney says, an assertion that Reagan denies. “The ones that come down will come down anyway.”
He says that natural attrition, as properties have changed hands, has lowered the numbers of billboards within Austin city limits from 1,300 to less than 700 since a 1980s-era ordinance that forbid new signs. Yet various amendments have allowed advertisers to wiggle out of the ultimate goal of elimination.
Kinney attests to Reagan’s personal charm and to the effectiveness of some outdoor advertising.
“The city has been beaten so many times that the legal department is reluctant to stick their necks out,” Kinney says. He says the city’s business leadership should get more involved: “Billboards lower the value of all property.”
Back to Burleson Road.
In our relaxed chat, Reagan listed, as expected, the benefits of billboards: They generate jobs directly; help small, local businesses and nonprofits spread the word; give artists periodic creative outlets; generate taxes and serve other civic functions, such as pointing drivers to alerts for missing relatives.
Reagan also favors reasonable regulation, including some elements in Martinez’s original plan.
My simple counterpoint: Billboards block views of Austin and lower the appeal of the city.
So why not emulate European, Asian and some American cities by moving advertising to discreet, contextualized images locked into the careful design of new or old developments, like the classic building-side murals that are cherished almost universally?
“I’d love to be able to take my sign and incorporate it into development,” Reagan says. “It’s not possible now because of regulation.”
What if Reagan could add new, architectural ads? Could he see a day when pole signs go away for more modern alternatives?
Reagan: “I would be very supportive of that.”
You’re welcome.
Photo by Deborah Cannon
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Marfa Weekend Wrap-Up
Our New Year’s weekend in Marfa was so packed with incident, it took Griffin School teacher Lawrence Morgan and I two hours to relate the tales to my partner, Kip Keller, upon our return to Austin on Monday night.
Start with a broken radiator in Johnson City, a heroic dash to Marble Falls with a friend of a friend from Drippings Springs to pick up a replacement van, almost running out of gas between Fort Stockton and Alpine on a cold desert night, being locked out of our Paisano Hotel room at 2 a.m., a wayward woodpecker, and, as always, adjusting to the ephemeral hours of West Texas businesses.
Also in our five-rowed “church van” were Seattle software pros Justin Harrison and James Reggio, as well as cheerful Sicola Martin tech Ian Carrico. Together, we also hiked in Davis Mountains State Park, stopped by the rattlesnake museum in Fort Davis, braved the chilly winds at McDonald’s Observatory and took in the ironic Prada Marfa installation, made poignant by passing through the slowly corroding desert town of Valentine first.
The highlight of Sunday night was a game of “Celebrity” matched against the mind-blowing telegraphic powers of writer-performer-coach Tomlinson, actor-director Shawn Sides, composer Graham Reynolds and their fleet-tongued team.
East Coast met West Coast and Third Coast in the Rock Hudson suite. The social roster included writer-performers Beth Broderick and Dennis Bailey, poncho-wearing celebrity lawyer Dick DeGuerin and his gracious wife Janie DeGuerin, Marfa patron saint Tim Crowley (the Houston lawyer, not the Austin banker), former State Sen. Joe Christie and ageless wife Tana Christie, as well as timeless Miss Texas 1956 Barbara Hill, the art dealer who sadly no longer opens her simple but exquisite Marfa house for New Year’s Eve, but hit the parties anyway.
For a Mecca of minimalist art set in a bare-bones landscape, Marfa delivers maximalist diversion. Always take a long a guide, however, since few obvious signs of social activity mark this retreat for Austinites longing for open skies, wide streets and the art that intrudes almost not at all on the West Texas scene.
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