Before chronicling the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference for Texas Monthly, New York illustrator Steve Brodner had never been to Austin—but that actually worked to his advantage. “The idea was to capture the scene as someone who just happened upon it,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to get
By Josh Daniel
For her history of Texas fashion (see “The Way We Wore”), senior editor Anne Dingus began with—who else?—Sam Houston. “He’s always a good place to start,” she says, “and he distinguished himself by being sartorially flamboyant.” Then, drawing on library research and her personal archive of vintage postcards, ads,
By Josh Daniel
A Wylie computer programmer flies high.
By Josh Daniel
In 1988, when James H. Evans was in his mid-thirties, he left behind a successful photography studio in Austin and moved to remote Marathon, where he took a job as a cook at the Gage Hotel and shot pictures on the side. “Everyone thought I was nuts,” he says. “I
By Josh Daniel
IF FILLING OUT YOUR TAX forms this month wasn’t complicated enough for you, Richardson’s 7th Level has a new computer game that may be right up your alley. In G-Nome, you can pilot a lumbering craft that looks like one of the Imperial walkers from The Empire Strikes Back. But
By Josh Daniel
Last January, when senior editor Gary Cartwright flew to the Hawaiian island of Maui to see Kris Kristofferson, it wasn’t just to interview a movie star and hit songwriter—it was also to visit an old acquaintance (see “A Star Is Reborn”). The two met in 1984 through author Bud
By Josh Daniel
A Fort Worth filmmaker makes history on the Internet.
By Josh Daniel
In 1989, after reading Texas Monthly’s annual Bum Steer Awards, Fort Worth resident Kevin Neal thought something was missing—namely, Fort Worth. Anxious to see his hometown razzed, the journalist started clipping stories from various periodicals, saving them “in a junk drawer,” and sending them to the Texas Monthly office; every
By Josh Daniel
Facing the obstacles of an inner-city Beaumont neighborhood, a committed, innovative principal and her demanding staff expect the best and accept no excuses.
By Josh Daniel
Freedom fighter.
By Josh Daniel
IF MULTIMEDIA were a competitive sport, Archimedia Interactive would have a shot at the gold. The Dallas company recently released 1996 U.S. Olympic Team ($29.95), the official CD-ROM of the summer games, which can be purchased in stores or on the World Wide Web (www.olympiccdrom.com). The disc features extensive profiles
By Josh Daniel
The surprising sound of the Internet.
By Josh Daniel
In 1980 I was doing defense contract work overseas for the government, but I was getting kind of tired of it, so I decided to move back to Austin and begin acting again. To pay the bills I did temp work and drove a cab for Roy’s Taxi, but then
By Josh Daniel
SMALL TIME HITS the big time in The Incredible Shrinking Character (Cyberdreams), a new CD-ROM written by Austin mystery novelist Jesse Sublett and designed by Go Go Studios of Austin. In this spoof of fifties B-movies, you play a private eye who’s been hired to find a girl kidnapped by
By Josh Daniel
Here’s a World Wide Web page to die for. The Texas State Cemetery in Austin goes online (www.cemetery.statetx.us) late this month, thanks to the General Services Commission. You can scan a list of the more than two thousand luminaries buried there, from father of Texas Stephen F.
By Josh Daniel
Austin singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin is at Cedar Creek studios this month completing a new album, to be released by Columbia Records as early as this summer. Some songs will be produced by John Leventhal, who did Colvin’s Steady On, and others by Malcolm Burn, who has worked with the Neville
By Josh Daniel
The Internet gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “getting wired for Mardi Gras”—there are several helpful sites covering New Orleans’ bacchanalian Carnival, which ends with Fat Tuesday on February 20. One of the most festive and informative is the city’s official page (http://www.neosoft.com/citylink/ mardigr/default.html), which offers traditional music
By Josh Daniel
Paving the way for girls in cyberspace.
By Josh Daniel
If you can’t get enough of creepy character actor Christopher Walken, boot up The Darkening, one of this year’s CD-ROM releases from Austin’s Origin Systems. Walken, like John Hurt and Amanda Pays, plays one of the fifty characters who meet up with the game’s hero, an amnesiac who roams the
By Josh Daniel