From: Michael Barnes e-mail me

Most unsettling for a critic accustomed to unbounded creativity from Austin artists were the performances that precisely mimicked those from the MGM musical. In particular, Dirk Lumbard's Cowardly Lion seemed to please the audience only when he replicated Bert Lahr's ineradicable delivery. It might be too much to ask for a fresh take on that role — Lahr improvised much of the business that remains in the script — but Lauren Worsham managed to banish the memory of Judy Garland from her performance of Dorothy. To a lesser extent, other actors made the parts their own.

In San Antonio and Austin, I moved from my assigned seat farther away from the stage. Partly, that was due to the typical Broadway Texas over-amplification, but also because many of the special effects — flying, costume and set changes — were less than magical close up.

But mostly, I moved because I was surrounded by chatty children and their parents. This was a show for the kids, no doubt, but just because one's 4-year-old jabbers through the first act, is no reason for the adults to follow suit. I retreated to emptier sections to the rear of the theater just to hear myself think. . . .

Brunch at the South Congress Cafe has turned into quite the scene. One attraction: classy drinks, such as crimson bloody Mary concoctions served in a sorbet glass, served as spicy as any I have ever experienced. Also: urbane renditions of eggs Benedict and other brunchy fare. The crowd ranges from South Austin post-hippies to dressed-down fashionistas who look like they stepped from the pages of Vogue. (The magazine's current issue features street fashions snapped along this mostly unlikely stretch of glamour in the universe.) Scoping the mixed, jovial crowd Sunday, my companions had but one word: Metrosexual. . . .

One thing to adore about the new Austin downtown — isn't it great living in a city? — are the hotel and restaurant bars that proffer a glimpse of street life, but at a short distance and with all the creature comforts. Among my favorites: The overly popular overlook at the Intercontinental Stephen F. Austin Hotel (also downstairs at the Roaring Fork) the art-deco-inspired loitering area at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, the Brown Bar (off-hours), the mod cocktail lounge in Thistle Cafe on Sixth, the sofa section of the 1920s Club, the forward decks at Star Bar, Opal Divine's and Z Tejas.

None of my regular spots on West Fourth Street make this particular list, since all are screened, to some extent, from street views. And while decks on West Sixth Street can be lively — and the street action is second to none on certain nights — they usually lack the cozy amenities that adults require.

Power drinks, anyone?

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From: Jeff Salamon e-mail me

So half a cheer to The New Republic, which earlier this year hired a television critic, Lee Siegel, who suffers only from the slight handicap of not seeming to like anything that's actually on television. (His attempted evisceration of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was notable for its utter lack of feel for the idiom; it never seems to have occurred to Siegel that a lot of the time we're supposed to think that Larry David is a self-absorbed jerk.)

More encouragingly, The New Republic recently hired David Hajdu to write about popular music. Hajdu is a genuinely distinguished critic and pop music historian, having written well-received books on Billy Strayhorn and Bob Dylan. It's difficult to imagine that he's going to be all that interested in writing about hip-hop or techno or emo in anything but the most alarmed or clinical terms (if at all), but it wouldn't be fair to judge him in advance, so I'll just say I'll be happy to be pleasantly surprised and leave it at that.

That said, Hajdu's most recent column, on Elvis Costello's latest album, "North," is a bit of a headscratcher. It's full of sharp, knowing opinions about Costello's work; his middling judgment on "North" itself seems particularly judicious and expert. But the piece is also studded with oddly off the mark (if not wall) comments that undermine Hajdu's authority.

To wit:

1) He writes that "Many of us of the post-war generation (Hajdu seems to be in his late 40s or early 50s). . . . Are quick to embrace the latest young group of rough-hewn bad boys (Pantera, Turbonegro) and to exalt them for their puerility and their crudity." Pantera? Turbonegro? Fifty-year-olds are listening to Pantera and Turbonegro? Aren't Pantera and Turbonegro precisely the sort of thing 50-year-olds ask their kids to turn down?

2) Inaptly comparing Costello to Spike Jones, Hajdu writes that Costello has recently asked "to be taken seriously, much to the puzzlement of fans who had always mistaken him for a musically gifted novelty act." As a Costello listener for more than a quarter of a century, I don't recognize any of my fellow fans in this description — and Hajdu offers no evidence. Sure, Costello's name was a bit of a jape, but Costello's rep, for a long time, was that of an angry young man. He could be clever (to an excess) and even funny. But novelty act? Not by a mile.

3) Turbonegro?!?

4) Elsewhere, Hajdu claims that Costello's audience resented him for leaving rock behind for "musical styles associated with the past or with older people, such as country, classical music, Tin Pan Alley, folk-rock, and the rest." This is an odd thing to say about a group of fans who are as open-minded as a pop audience gets, having followed Costello from the elevated pub rock of his debut to the hyper-charged new wave of "This Year's Model" to the faux-Stax homage of "Get Happy" to the baroque pop of "Imperial Bedroom" to the, yes, folk-rock and country stylings of "King of America" — with stops along the way for reggae, piano ballads and the occasional nod to jazz.

If, as Hajdu contends, people didn't cotton to Costello's 1981 country tribute "Almost Blue," it's not because they're deaf to country — I've never heard anyone badmouth Costello-penned country songs such as "Motel Matches," "Stranger in the House" or "Different Finger" — but because an album of Costello doing competent covers of country standards never seemed all that compelling.

As for Tin Pan Alley, when "Imperial Bedroom," one of Costello's best-loved albums, came out, critics and fans clamored to label him a modern day Cole Porter. Costello's fans don't mind if his music gets a bit posh; they just want some melody to go with the sophistication. I wish that today's Costello would write a song half as buoyant as "I've Got You Under My Skin" or a shade as moving as "Willow Weep For Me"; Costello had more in common with Cole Porter when he was slinging a guitar and pleasing an audience than he does now that he sits at the piano and records for a German classical label.

If Costello's fans have shown little interest in his artier projects, it's not because they resent him for abandoning rock — his protean nature is one of his selling points — but because those albums, like most of his latter-day "rock" projects (the indifferently produced "Mighty Like a Rose," "Brutal Youth," "Kojak Variety" and "All This Useless Beauty"), have lacked the melodicism and force of expression that drew us to him in the first place.

All of which, is, I think, pretty obvious to anyone who's spent any time following Costello's career. Had Hajdu, a reasonably discerning guy, written this piece for, say, Mojo, he likely would have been pushed to think his argument through a few more times. Which just goes to show that political magazines don't just need writers who know about pop culture — they need editors who know about pop culture, too.

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From: Omar Gallaga e-mail me

But I do know what scares me.

The top of the Frost Bank tower scares me.

I didn't pay much attention to the construction of this latter day Tower of Babel because a) I do not bank at Frost and b) tall buildings you can't spit from the top of do not interest me.

But then, suddenly and without warning (except for months of construction, which I did not pay attention to, see last graf) the tower had risen, its metallic gleam viewable from as far away as MoPac, a huge landmark that glares at me every day on my way to work.

The thing is scary. Not the bottom part, the one presumably filled with happy people, whom I envision throwing money at each other in blatant McDuck fashion, nearly losing their gold-rimmed monocles amid piles of doubloons.

No, I'm talking about that H.R. Giger nightmare up top, the one that looks like it's about to burst forth with oozing facesuckers and crab-legged lizard men. Someone pointed that out last weekend that the upper fourth of the building looked like an alien structure and since then, I haven't been able to get that image out of my head. When I see the tower now, I always feel like somebody's watching me.

The scales on my neck sweat. The hair on my shoelaces stands on end. The windshield fogs up from hyperventilated Frost Fear. That tower is freaky, man.

Who told the architect he could create a beacon for Alpha Centauri slitherers? Did Frost Bank sit down with him and say, "Frankly, Mr. Giger, we're tired of making money from interest and and balloon payments. Could you design something that can just frighten money out of people? We can hire people to comb the streets, picking up their dropped change." Where on that roof (is it a roof?) can the mothership land, and will her beast heart be satiated with human blood, or will we also have to give her Bevo?

Nightmares, people.

I think I'm going to have to leave Austin.

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