Texas Monthly Reporter
(Page 4 of 4)
BEHIND THE BOOKSHELF
This spring brings an unusually large number of new books and announcements of future literary projects from Texas writers. Out of Bill and Sally Wittlif's Encino Press in Austin (of 70 books published, 40 awards for design and excellence in publishing) comes The Slave Narratives of Texas ($7.95) edited by Ronnie Tyler and Larry Murphey. Also from Encino, Bud Shrake's new novel, Peter Arbiter ($7.95). Shrake also has completed "Royo County," a screen play for David Susskind, and is awaiting the filming this spring of his excellent novel of Dallas and the Kennedy assassination, Strange Peaches. Producers will be Bob Chartoff and Irwin Winkler....Longtime Capitol reporters Sam Kinch, Sr., and Stuart Long's Allan Shivers: Pied Piper of Texas Politics ($6.95) debuts March 2....Another book on a more contemporary Texas politician, John B. Connally, Portrait of Power ($9.50) by Ann Fears Crawford and Jack Keever is selling well....Ronnie Dugger, publisher of that fine bimonthly, The Texas Observer, has finished a mammoth work on The University of Texas and the state of American universities, Our Invaded Universities ($14.95), due April 2....Gary Cartwright, contributing editor to Texas Monthly, has almost finished his new novel, Thin Ice, for Fawcett. Due out this fall....John Graves (Goodby To A River) has his long-awaited Hard Scrabble ready for early May....Visiting professor at Princeton this year and next, Larry L. King's (also a Texas Monthly contributing editor) newest collection of articles and essays, The Old Man and Lesser Mortals ($8.95) is selling very well across the country....Texas contributing editor to Rolling Stone Magazine, Chet Flippo, is working on a non-fiction volume on Texas country-rock music and performers. It's tentatively called: Strangers By Birth....Also working on a book on the musician-writers themselves is ex-Iconoclast editor Jay Milner. Title-to-be is Honky Tonk Poets....Jesus B. Ochoa, Jr., of El Paso has published his first volume of poetry: A Soft Tongue Shall Break Darkness ($3.95)....Also from El Paso comes Elroy Bode's third collection of essays, Alone in the World Looking ($8).
CHEERS AND OLES
Happy eighth birthday on March 18 to The Iconoclast, Dallas' weekly newspaper that, through the years, has not only survived but endured. It has weathered occupation by radical gay libs, too-numerous-to-mention name changes, denial of press passes by city officials and, recently, a brush with Bill Lemmer, a 24-year-old ex-F.B.I. informer and cover subject for Harper's magazine (Dec. '72) who wanted a job.
Doug Baker, Jr., publisher, and Sean Mitchell, editor, are optimistic about the next eight years despite money problems and staff shortages. "We seem always to be a week away from bankruptcy, but always make it," said Baker. Let's hope so.
PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
The Fourth Annual U.S.A. Film Festival (not to be confused with last year's defunct U.S. Film Festival) begins at the Bob Hope Theatre on the S.M.U. campus March 25-31. This year's honored director is Joseph L. Mankiewicz who will be on hand to see seven of his finest films presented.
He chose A Letter to Three Wives (1949), No Way Out (1950), All About Eve (1950), Five Fingers (1952), Julius Caesar (1953), Suddenly Last Summer (1960), and Sleuth (1972) to represent his career at the festival.
Director of the week's film orgy Dr. Bill Jones has invited several of Mankiewicz's favorite stars to attend including James Mason, Sidney Poitier, Bette Davis, and Michael Caine.
Again, three critics and one film consultant (Hollis Alpert, Judith Crist, Arthur Knight, and Barbara Bryant) will bring four films of their choice to be seen and critiqued.
If your eyes and rear can take it, twenty five dollars will get you in everyday, 9:30-5 p.m., or you can blind yourself each night from 6 p.m.-12 midnight for $30.
HOW NOW GROUND COW
Prepare the asbestos coating for the tongue, for the Third Annual Chili Cook-off held by the Houston Pod of the Chili Appreciation Society on March 30. If you happen by the Cullen Green adjoining the Whitehall Hotel after 10 a.m., you can try several varieties of the nefarious potion: Jo Ann Horton's Mouth of Hell Chili; crayfish chili by Richard Joseph of the Gumbo King Restaurant, Cedar Rat Dingle Chili, or champion Rabbit Chili by the redoubtable Chill Lee and his Chilly Lillies of Study Butte (a suburb of Terlingua).
There is entertainment, a dance at the Whitehall the previous night, (one dollar, please), and handicraft displays. All daytime activities are free; money collected from the dance and the auctioned winner's pot will be donated to the Burnett Bayland Orphan's Home in Houston.
SCHOOLBOARD TURNS RIGHT
From our Houston observer, Wendy Haskell Meyer, comes this report on a new member of Houston’s school board: "Houston not only has a new mayor but four new school board members who are already seeking changes within the school administration reflecting their more conservative philosophy.
"When newly elected Mrs. Hazel Bracken recently stated her views on the role of women—namely, that women should be subordinate to men—local feminists, who have already been complaining that the Houston School District is top-heavy with men administrators (there is only one woman principal in the city's 55 secondary schools and there are no women area superintendents), took issue with her.
"Although Mrs. Bracken said she would 'feel more comfortable' with men as top administrators, she said she would not let her personal outlook interfere in such cases. But just in case, four women's rights activists, Gertrude Bamstone, Kay Whyburn, Peggy Hall, and Helen Copitka, have volunteered their services as a standing committee to advise the Houston School Board on sex discrimination.
"In a letter to board president Rev. D. Leon Everett II, these women promised to 'assist Mrs. Bracken and other board members to resist personal bias in their decision, where matters of sex discrimination arise.'"
HUMORIST HUNKERS DOWN
Texas' best known humorist, John Henry Faulk, and family move this month from Austin to Madisonville to escape what Faulk predicts will be an economic Armegeddon. "I think this country's going to have a depression that will make the last one seem like Ned in the first reader. I'm moving to the country and become self-sufficient," said the red haired, freckled Faulk. One milk cow, a few hogs, and chickens will be joining the Faulk family on their new seven-acre homestead on the south edge of Madisonville going towards Navasota.
WHILE YOU'RE UP GET ME A PLANTATION
Over 160 San Antonians will board America’s last overnight passenger river boat, the Delta Queen, on March 4 in New Orleans for a leisurely cruise up the Mississippi to Natchez and back to the Crescent City. The junket is sponsored by and a benefit for the Southwest Craft Center of San Antonio. Dr. and Mrs. Herchell Childers, Mr. and Mrs. Bev Coiner, and several artists rom the Center, including Carolyn Shelton and Margaret Pace, are among the passengers who also will see two days of the French Quarter before shufflin' off to the levee. All aboard will hopefully return on the eighth.
JUST A COUNTRY LAWYER
Austin attorney Peggy Underwood is taking advantage of the capital city's growing reputation as a mecca for country-western singers and writers who have found a home away from Nashville, Bakersfield, and Los Angeles. Many C. and W. artists feel that they are merely pawns in the inhuman business end of the music game: paying money for services not rendered; losing publishing and copyrights; and having contracts cancelled illegally.
Her efforts for the pickers and singers are similar to those of other attorneys around the country who represent the often-tangled legal and business interests of professional athletes.
Singers Billy Joe Shaver, Jerry Jeff Walker, Billy Swan, and George M. Jones all have albums coming out late this spring, so business ain't bad for Ms. Underwood.
BARESKINS RUN FOR SHEEPSKIN
The obligation is to amuse yourself, said S. J. Perelman, and I believe him. So do lots of college students, who for one reason or another, have picked "streaking" as chief amusement this season. No more silliness such as stuffing Volkswagons, swallowing fish, or panty raids.
Streaking is defined as running from one point on campus to another at a high rate of speed without any clothes on. It is usually a night event. There are no winners as such; losers are those who are caught and booked.
Time reported recently that the fad has caught on in Los Angeles among suburban housewives, who liven up an evening by stripping down and racing about the neighborhood to pre-arranged streaking centers. Makes sense to me.
My Library
