Austin360 blogs > Out & About
First Night Audience for ‘Henry V’ at the Off Center
A veritable Who’s Who of Austin arts lovers bunched around the basically bare stage of the Off Center for the opening performance of “Henry V.” Critic, editor, actor, director and writer Robert Faires had distilled Shakespeare’s sprawling history into a solo. He played all the roles himself.
Filing into the raw, familiar space were Boyce Cabannis, Annette Carlozzi, Dan Bullock, Forrest Preece, Linda Ball, Shawn Sides, David Jewell, Elizabeth Cobbe and dozens of other leading lights. At the end, they surged to their feet in appreciation for the 90-minute drama.
I particularly liked the light, comic bits and the stirring battle scenes, including the contrasting voices of common soldiers. “Henry V” plays through July 25.
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Drinks with Adree and Jonathan Bober
I’ve learned more about art from Jonathan Bober than from the dozen or so art history classes I took as an undergraduate and graduate student — put together. He has patiently, methodically, even ecstatically explained hundreds of works in the Blanton Museum of Art collection.
Husband and wife are breathtakingly smart and wise. Kip and I joined them in their Old West Austin house, modest from the exterior, but renovated to suit their collections of art, books and other interests. We nibbled on grapes, cheese and white wine, catching up on UT news and news of the world in general. Fantastic.
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Kay Morris at Once Over
Kay Morris danced. When she could no longer dance, she ran. She took lessons from running guru Paul Carrozza. She kept a diary.
Thousands did. (Meaning Carrozzo had to mint thousands of tiny medals.) The program spread like wildfire. Tens of thousands of students — many of them in danger of obesity and diabetes — have signed up in multiple cities. Hispanics have taken to it even more intensely than Anglos.
Morris told me over French press coffee at Once Over on South First Street that the secrets were to let the kids recruit themselves, make it free and throw a party at the end of the process. The kids earn the T-shirts. Benefactors pay for everything. Lance Armstrong once led the victory lap on his bike.
At the end of the summer, the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living will release a study on the impact of Marathon Kids on self-perception. Morris didn’t tip her hand, but we’re betting it does good.
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Out & About iCal adds 7/2/09
We’ll play a lot of this holiday weekend by ear …
6 p.m. Drinks with Andree and Jonathan Bober at private residence
8 p.m. First night of Red Then’s “Henry V” at the Off Center
Friday, July 3
6 p.m. Drinks with Stanley Wilson at Perla’s
7 p.m. L Style G Style Release Party at Central Market
8 p.m. “Salado’s Got Talent” with Daniel Jens from 2008 “America’s Got Talent” at Salado Silver Spur Theater
Midnight Tribute to Michael Jackson at Red Fez
Saturday, July 4
6 p.m. East-West Game Day Event at Palm Park
7 p.m. Freedom Fest at Dell Diamond in Round Rock
10 p.m. “Sno Cone Inc.” DVD Launch Afterparty at J. Blacks
11 p.m. Hedkandi at Pangaea
Sunday, July 5
8:30 p.m. “The Music Man” at the Sheffield Hillside Theater
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Avant Le Weekend with Barbara Chisholm
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Clarke Straughan at Fair Bean
The minute we exchanged pleasantries, I knew Clarke Straughan was a story. We met at an international dinner last year at the Bullock Texas History Museum. Then we followed up with coffee at Fair Bean on South First Street this week.
Later, he ignored warnings from British officials — and his empty wallet — finding his way to Hong Kong to work for what was to become the colony’s biggest, best hotel. Among his first diplomatic assignments: Take care of the Beatles during their Hong Kong stay.
Straughan spent his youth wandering the world, when he wasn’t taking care of dignitaries in Japan, Hawaii and elsewhere. He just self-published his memoirs: “Romancing the Impossible: Traveling the World without Money” (Travel Treasure Publishing).
Among his final jobs before retiring: Director of International Protocol for the Texas governor’s office and — a nice fit for a former colonel — head of a veteran’s affairs office. He attended kings and queens, plutocrats and vagabonds.
Today he’s Texas friendly, unpretentious, yet dignified, with looks like a U.S. senator and a conversational style that’s respectful yet animated. He’s quite a guy.
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Austin Celebrity Roundup 7/1/09
Really didn’t intend this to be an all-sports Round-Up, but Austin’s other celebrities are pretty quiet today.
Among basketball star Kevin Durant’s summer assignments is a 20-page book report. The former Longhorns stand-out — now with the Oklahoma City Thunder — is back in school at UT this summer. Like Vince Young, he’s determined to complete his degree after leaving school early for the draft. He’s also getting in a little street ball with his former Longhorn teammates.
Lance Armstrong is not the only one in the family raising money for good causes. His mother, Linda Armstrong Kelly, is staging a charity golf tournament at the Gleneagles Country Club in his first hometown, Plano. She’s teaming with Steve and Lee Nagel and her husband, Ed Kelly, for the Aug. 31 event. The charity? The Lance Armstrong Foundation, naturally.
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Your A-List: Best Place to Smooch
Does one really need a special place to smooch? I hope not. PDA aside, smooching should be encouraged anywhere discretion allows.
The hands-down winner: towering Mount Bonnell with 32 percent of the vote. Placid Lady Bird Lake and a riotous UT football game were neck and neck at 11 to 12 percent. Barton Springs, Zilker Park, Zilker Botanical Gardens and the Capitol grounds bunched together around 7 to 8 percent.
Trailing at the end of the tally were the Pennybacker (Loop 360) Bridge, Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Eeyore’s Birthday Party.
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Your A-List: Best Cheap Lunch
Good economy or bad economy, Austinites demand a cheap lunch. Whole cultures have grown up around the city’s best — and cheapest — tacos, wrap, barbecue, hamburgers, sushi, or deli sandwiches.
The first took 26 percent of the vote; the second 23 percent.
Wrap economists Freedbirds and Japanese fast-fooders Zen virtually tied at 8 percent. Hut’s Hamburgers, Lulu B’s and Galaxy Cafe clustered between 4 and 6 percent. Taking 3 percent or less were Green Mesquite, Hai-Ky, Billy’s on Burnet, Enoteca Vespaio, Fire Bowl Cafe, Tam Deli, 620 Cafe, 10th Street Tacos, Tino’s, Arts Rib House, Iron Works, Buffet Palace, El Mason and Cafe Java.
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Party at Cover 3
Sometimes Out & About misses social news that’s as big as Dallas …
Adam Krueger, Amanda Krueger, Eddie Garcia
Such as the opening — last November! — of Cover 3, a sports bar and restaurant on West Anderson Lane …
Doug Young, Chip Brown
Not just any sports bar and restaurant. This one from Doug Young and Matt Dodson looks like an high-modern lounge and spreads out over more than one floor. …
Matt Dodson, Kathy Dodson
And talk about TVs. Last week, I teased Players on MLK Boulevard for their ancient big-screen television, horrible for sports. Cover 3 has gracefully installed top-quality HD flat-panel screens everywhere, even in unmentionable locations …
Emily Hummel, Dan Michaud
The food I tasted was savory and complex, a step above the usual pub grub …
Marah Reece, John Defee, Alison Carson
But the real find was the signature drink, the Cover 3 Press, or as the bartender called it “spa in glass.” Starts with muddled limes, adds herbal Hendrick’s gin and continues from there. The best cocktail I’ve had in ages …
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Web Site Story
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Austin’s Wes Hayden in ‘Bachelorette’ tizzy
On last night’s episode, Jillian visited Wes’ hometown — ours — and heard his self-named country band play at Hill’s Cafe. Then a booted contestant from Dallas, Jake, interrupts Wes and Jillian’s date at the Hyatt Regency, saying Wes already has a girlfriend named Laurel. Wes denies it. Laurel’s an ex, he says.
Got that?
Jillian, sharp as always, still graced Wes with a bloom. He’s in the Final Four. Now, we haven’t followed a single episode — all this was gleaned from seriese followers — but if Wes makes it to the last gasp, we’ll report in print.
Anyone know a Laurel? (See comment box for reader leads.)
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Live Chat: Avant Le Weekend with Barbara Chisholm
Just come back to this spot 3 p.m. Thursday and join the conversation. (No Apres Le Weekend this week.)
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Stonewall 2 in Fort Worth?
Yet Fort Worth police, along with their pals from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, arrested seven patrons of the Rainbow Lounge early Sunday during a code inspection. Associated Press and other reports say excessive force was used, and one patron was sent to intensive care for head injuries.
Two city council members have called for an investigation, as has the Human Rights Campaign.
“Brutality at the hands of law enforcement is never acceptable and these allegations demonstrate the need for a thorough and impartial investigation,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “We applaud the Fort Worth community for seeking answers to these very serious charges.”
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Update: Mother Egan’s
Further conversations with reporters and bloggers reveal that the transformation won’t come until May 2010. So you have a year to soak up all that trivia and Harp Ales.
Also, Brad Womack would like to clarify: His club group is not purchasing the building, but rather taking over the lease. There is a difference. The outcome will be the same.
BTW: Played NTN trivia with gallery owner Jeff Kirk and Kip at Aussie’s last night. The bar is a good spot for a game on a quiet night, but we have to avoid that hour-long sports installment. I think I ranked No. 3,564 in the nation. Coming soon: NTN at Freddie’s, which we can practically see from our front porch.
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Out & About Rewind unwinding
Don’t go out in the pouring rain and crackling thunder.
Take a few seconds, instead, to review who went out this weekend at the Out & About Rewind Gallery, back better than ever.Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Nightlife
Austin Celebrity Roundup 6/29/09
What happened to Dennis Quaid’s “The Horsemen”? It opened limited in this country back in March and has slowly spread around the world. Don’t know of anyone in Austin who has seen it. His “G.I. Joe” opens Aug. 7. Update: “Horsemen” comes out on DVD July 14.
As Lance Armstrong prepares for the Tour de France, rumors have gone rampant that Matt Damon will play him in the biopic. Wouldn’t an Austin shoot be a coup?
Andy Roddick has advanced to the Wimbledon quarterfinals by beating Tomas Berdych. I may start watching, Pimm’s Cup or no Pimm’s Cup.
Nicholas Rodriguez, once with Zach Theatre and University of Texas, later on Broadway, has landed a regular role on “One Life to Live.”
Sandra Bullock’s “The Proposal” — which scored her best first weekend — fell to “Transformers” at the box office over the weekend.
The “Friday Night Lights” gang is back in town. Watch up and down South Congress and West Second for sightings of the beloved cast.
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Miss Rodeo Austin Princess now Miss Rodeo Texas
The New Braunfels resident joins a growing royal family of statewide winners: 2007 Miss Rodeo Austin, Lauren Graham, won the title of Miss Rodeo Texas Teen in 2008.
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Capital City Front Runners at Rusty Spurs
“You’re the guy from the paper, right? How can we get more lesbians to join our group? …
James Skornicki, Rey Hernandez, Joseph Halverson
Not the sort of question one anticipates while waiting to cross over from Rusty Spurs to sibling bar, the Other Side, for an Equality Texas fundraiser …
Daniel Guerra, Michael Arbuckle
Yet Joseph Halverson and Michele Zambrano waste no time helping out their club, Capital City Front Runners …
Mitch Martinez, Michele Zambrano
The gay running team was meeting, mixing and two-stepping on the Spurs’ wide expanse of dance floor …
Jack Goodman, Ben Watts
It’s true: When a social club is almost all men, few women want to join. And Michele is the single lesbian in the group (single in both senses of the term, she urges me to write) …
Glenn Brown, Jim Caruth
I urged them to recruit a prominent lesbian, assuming others would follow in her healthy tracks. Also to exploit social media, like FaceBook. Or convince L Style G Style to profile Zambrano, the brave pioneering woman with the Front Runners … (I assume the club’s name is derived from the Patricia Nell Warren bestseller.)
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Stonewall 40 at the Other Side
Has it really been 40 years since the Stonewall riots? …
Dawn Rogers, Elsa Lopez
Let’s see, that means I came out 37 years ago, three years after the landmark civil-rights action …
Widow Modine Murphy, Bob Hemby, Sister Betty Bea Blessing
Sunday, Equality Texas held a little fundraiser and Stonewall salute at the Other Side …
Mark Erwin, Mary Morrison, Paul Scott
That’s the former Black & Tan club that’s the “quiet” sibling of Rusty Spurs …
Eiki Yoshikawa, Federico Garcia
A neat musical act called Croondaddy contributed silky standards …
Dana Woodrow, Christine King
Also appropriate that, given the critical role played by drag queens in the riots, that drag also figured prominently in Stonewall 40 …
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No need for conversation starters
Tasteless joke making the rounds of Austin parties last week: “Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died within hours of each other. By the Rule of Three, that makes Walter Cronkite safe for a few days.”
After all, everyone from age nine to age 90 was touched by Jackson’s 50 years on Earth. For roughly 20 years, his talent held sway over pop culture. For another 20 years, his notoriety fattened the tabloid press.
Everyone dispensed an opinion. More than a few shared a joke. For his make-overs, sleep-overs and bizarre behavior, Jackson was a compass-twirling joke magnet. Fawcett was harder to knock. Her signature vulnerability — which she mined for her brief crack at serious acting — was her shield. At least as weiled by her friends and fans, of which she retained many in Austin.
Who cared about Fawcett’s anticipated passing when the King of Pop died suddenly, shockingly just a few hours later? Likely those 9 million former boys who bought her poster and the 9 million or more former girls who desperately wanted to be her. More than a few people remembered the ubiquity of those Fawcett-inspired wings that sold malls worth of curling wands.
In comparison, McMahon’s exit barely registered. Perhaps that’s because his persona defined a sort of beery blandness. During his drinking days, you wouldn’t be surprised to find him at the end of a bar in Akron, Ohio. He radiated “regular guy,” whether as a pitchman or a comic second banana.
Cronkite’s expected passage — he’s in critical condition — should elicit an almost papal degree of respect. The man practically invented the position of television news anchor. For a generation, his Texas-twinged baritone could announce anything, from a moon landing to war in a distant land. How lucky was his alma mater to secure his talents for those University of Texas recruiting spots?
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ALl the guys in my class told me this movie was amazing but i think that is just beacuse they are all obsessed with megan fox.
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Whats the name of wes's band i have been looking cant find it and the bar he played at on the bachelorette in Austin we visit there sometimes and would like to try it we love country music
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