From Austin Chronicle's BEST OF AUSTIN 1999

CRITIC'S PICKS (selected by me)

Best Local Film Trend

Silent Films With Live Musical Accompaniment

Austinites were lucky enough to see more than half a dozen scored "silents" this year. The Alamo Drafthouse gave us Guy Forsyth and friends doing Buster Keaton's The General, ST 37's retro-futurist take on Metropolis, and Nosferatu paired with the unclassifiable stylings of Brown Wh–rnet. Additionally, the Gypsies provided suitably eerie backup for Todd Browning's Unknown, the Golden Arm Trio roused the rabble with Battleship Potemkin, and Graham Reynolds did a stark solo piano accompaniment for Lillian Gish's The Wind. Factor in the privilege of hearing Gillian Armstrong conducting the restored score of Wings with a full orchestra at the Paramount, and you have Austin's most promising new film tradition.

Alamo Drafthouse, 409 Colorado, 867-1839; Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress, 472-5470

Alamo, http://www.drafthouse.com; Paramount,

http://www.Austin360.com/paramnt/

Best Single Silent Film Revival

Thief of Baghdad with Kamran Hooshmand & the 1001 Nights Orchestra

It's hard to pick one standout from such an impressive field of performances, but this show deserves special praise. The sublime score was performed by 10 musicians playing over 25 different instruments. Kamran Hooshmand's unerring selection and arrangement of Middle Eastern songs displayed a perfect understanding of how silent film music has traditionally been used to express mood, situation, and personality. Even minor characters like the Indian Prince, the Mongol Prince, and the Persian Prince had his own theme song, appropriate to each region of origin. Bravo to all for this transcendent evening's entertainment.

Alamo Drafthouse, 409 Colorado, 867-1839

Best Pickled Sausage & Eggs

Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon

You can see them glimmer invitingly in an enormous brine jar as soon as you walk into this homey little honky-tonk. The sausage is a dollar per segment and the eggs are 50¢ apiece. Each are served with a generous handful of saltines. Between these budget entrees, the free country music, and the $1.25 cans of Schlitz, an evening at Ginny's is the thriftiest way to treat your squeeze to a night on the town that we bet he or she will never forget.

5434 Burnet, 458-1813

Best Bail Bonds

AAA Bail Bonds, R Zamora Inc.

For once, dialing the first number you see in the Yellow Pages is your best bet. Zamora's Triple A has been singled out for praise by many in the local community. "They do it the right way," says one. All praise their honest, trustworthy way of conducting business -- which is certainly the first thing you look for in a bail bond company.

1609 Nueces, 473-8208

Best Combination Car Repair Shop/Taxidermy Museum

Chotes' Service Company

It's fortunate that students in West Campus, so many of whom are away from home for the first time, have such a trustworthy and efficient car repair place within easy walking distance. It's also fortunate that those students, so many of whom are experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs for the first time, have a chance to see this amazing menagerie of stuffed hunting trophies, some of which seem to date from an earlier evolutionary epoch. Is that thing over the counter a badger? A beaver? A wolverine?

500 W. Martin Luther King, 478-3226

Best Bones About It

Bone Appetit Bakery

Did your dog have a breakthrough with her therapist this morning? Then why not take her to Austin's finest pets-only eatery for some freshly baked longhorn-shaped or Texas-shaped biscuits (available in beef, chicken, peanut butter, and apple-cinnamon flavor)? Maybe she'd prefer a personalized bone dipped in carob and sprinkled with nuts, with your own special message inscribed in frosting. Why say it with flowers when you can say it with beef ears (smoked or natural flavor)? Or try our personal favorite, the "Fetch & Feast": a dog pizza pie served in an inverted flying disc.

Crossroads Shopping Center, 8820 Burnet, 454-2222

http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/Vineyard/2834/bone.html

Finest Array of 40 oz. Malt Liquors

Grande Food Mart

This West Campus wonder has it all: Mickey's, Mickey's "Ice," Hurricane, Red Dog, Olde English 800, Big Bear, Colt 45, Miller High Life, Schlitz Malt Liquor Red Bull, Carta Blanca, Schlitz Malt Liquor BLUE Bull, King Cobra, Country Club, Crazy Horse, Magnum. All of them neck-deep in chests of ice and conveniently located near the checkout counter for impulse buying. Just remember to get a paper bag, or it'll slip right out of your hand.

2706 Rio Grande, 495-9764

Best Club-Closing Event

"Kiss-Offs Kristalnacht" at The Bates Motel

During the final set on the final night of this club's existence, the Kiss-Offs had some severe problems with their planned pyrotechnic display. (Vocalist Travis Higdon ended up in the hospital with second-degree burns.) Meanwhile, a self-appointed demolition crew began deconstructing the place. Naturally, the show ended abruptly, and the cops waded in to restore order and make a few arrests. Why does The Man always have to bring us down??? Who the hell's idea was it to cover the walls of a seedy punk club with tantalizingly fragile mirrors, anyway?

317 E. Sixth (RIP) 

READER'S PICKS (selected by our readers)

Jukebox

Casino El Camino

An unerringly slick assortment of the newest and latest, as well as the most eclectic and least hidebound collection of "oldies" in town: MC5! George Jones! X-Ray Spex! Roland Kirk! Motley Crue! Small Faces! Cab Calloway! Love! Shangri-Las! Repo Man! Eric Dolphy! Mott the Hoople! Temptations! Adverts! KISS! Big Joe Turner! Pere Ubu! Clovers! Flamin' Groovies! Eno! AC/DC! Captain Beefheart! Etta James! New York Dolls! Sonny Boy Williams! The Nuggets comp! Roger Miller! Robert Mitchum's Calypso! Psychedelic Furs! Mot–rhead! Planet of the Apes soundtrack! Who the hell needs live music anyway?

517 E. Sixth, 469-9330

Computer Store

Comp USA

The past year has not been kind to Dallas-based CompUSA. Stiff online competition and falling prices have forced "America's Largest Computer Superstore" to close its local Highland location and lay off several hundred employees. But the newly streamlined CompUSA has a much more efficient customer service setup and a burgeoning Web presence. And their gargantuan sales volume still means that they can offer highly competitive rates on all major brands of both hardware and software.

9503 Research, Ste. 300, 502-6800

http://www.compusa.com/

Internet Provider

Illuminati Online

Ten years ago, Illuminati was just a piddling little bulletin board system. Now it's one of the most popular ISPs in Central Texas. Their deep roots in the community are appreciated, their packages and rates are still attractive, and their equipment is top-of-the-line. But their best feature is their customer service -- phone calls to their help line are usually answered by the second ring whether you're calling at four in the afternoon or four in the morning.

2800 S. I-35, Ste. 220, 462-0999

http://www.illuminati.com/

Online Guide to Austin

austin360

Austin360 is a one-stop portal for all your local news, information, and entertainment needs. They have it all -- detailed maps and driving directions, exhaustive restaurant/movie/music listings, up-to-the-minute weather reports, interviews and chat, travel and recreation tips, terrific local and national sports coverage, searchable databases of employment opportunities and classified ads, and great technology and real estate sections. New features are being added all the time -- even the complete contents of the day's Austin American-Statesman.

912-2500

http://www.austin360.com

Other Club

Carousel Lounge

Jay Clark, everyone's favorite one-man band, retired from his regular Carousel gig last summer, and this Austin mainstay has fallen from the dizzying heights of hipness it represented in previous years. But it remains what it has always been -- a secret little hideaway of hip, a clean and ill-lighted place that attracts people of all ages, classes, tastes, and persuasions. The carnivalesque atmosphere is aided immeasurably by the fact that the Carousel is set up for set-ups and BYOB.

1110 E. 52nd, 452-6790

Public Access TV Show

Reel Deal, ACAC cable 16

This show may be little more than a crass attempt on the part of the hosts to grab whatever free goods and services they can squeeze out of the Hollywood's bloated PR departments. But it also happens to be the most hilarious show on access. Host Korey Coleman and friends mix promotional clips and no-nonsense reviews with goofily irreverent skits and digressions that are often more entertaining than the Hollywood flicks they make reference to. Wednesdays at 10pm.

1143 Northwestern, 478-8600

http://www.thereeldeal.com

http://www.eden.com/~actv/new.website/

Western/Tack

Callahan's

The name may conjure up images of a cozy little backwoods trading post, but don't let it fool you. Callahan's is a hypermodern superstore, a Western Wal-Mart for all of your feed, seed, tack, farmware, houseware, and hardware needs. It also has a great clothing and boot department, one that'll please urban cowboys as well as seasoned ranch hands. And the staff is so friendly and helpful that you may start to feel like you're actually in a cozy little backwoods trading post after all.

501 Bastrop Hwy., 385-3452; 200 S. Bell, 335-8585