Labor Appreciation Short Film Showcase + Building the American Dream
Monday 1, AFS Cinema
Look, nobody’s saying you shouldn’t fire up the grill and find a pool to hurl yourself into this Labor Day. But if you want to get historical about it, the day is an outgrowth of the American labor movement, so after you’re done grilling and swimming, you might also take this opportunity to honor workers with this doubleheader at AFS Cinema: first a free, six-film short film showcase, then a screening of Austin filmmaker Chelsea Hernandez’s 2019 documentary Building the American Dream, which puts a personal face on the underpaid, unprotected, largely immigrant laborers making Texas’ construction boom possible. – Kimberley Jones
Free Day of Yoga
Monday 1, Various locations
If you’re physically stiff and fiscally stingy, then, hoo-boy, are you reading about the right event. Since 1998, this celebration of body and mind engagement has invited beginners and namaste-listers to stand like a tree for free. There will be about 70 in-person classes in and around Austin to keep your flexors flexing and your dogs downward. Online courses are also available for those looking to keep their farts at home (no judgment). Whatever way you want to do it, your joints and wallet will thank you. – James Renovitch
Anguish
Monday 1, Hyperreal Film Club
This September at Hyperreal focuses on Hispanic filmmaking with a Hispanic Heritage Month series co-presented by Cine Las Americas. Among their selections is this Eighties Spanish scare by Bigas Luna and featuring Zelda Rubinstein, whom readers will know as the medium in Poltergeist. Set in a movie theatre, this meta-on-meta-on-meta tale of the macabre has characters squirming in their seats, grabbing guns, and begging for help from the people on the big screen. – James Scott
Someday All the Adults Will Die!
Tuesday 2, Alienated Majesty Books
From Big Boys mosh pits to Butthole Surfers portraits, Pat Blashill has captured some of the most indelible images of Texas punk’s golden era. The native Austinite published many of them in the 2020 photobook Texas Is the Reason: The Mavericks of Lone Star Punk, but his fresh oral history, Someday All the Adults Will Die!: The Birth of Texas Punk, offers insights from the artists and fans behind the photos. Key voices from the book reminisce on the movement at this local launch, which doubles as a homecoming for Blashill, who left home in the Eighties to become a well-published music journalist in New York. – Carys Anderson
Barking Book Buddies: Read to Hank
Tuesday 2, John Gillum Branch Library
Learning to read can be a little ruff! But there’s no bones about the power of a pooch, which is why Barking Book Buddies brings trained therapy dogs to the library for kiddos of all reading levels to test their skills on. As a friend of the late Chrondog Hank, I can’t think of a better way to level up your literacy know-how than reading to a pup who shares his name. That’s just paw-some. – James Scott
Swingers
Tuesday 2, Hyperreal Film Club
How do you get over a bad breakup? If you’re struggling stand-up Mike (a pre-Marvel Jon Favreau), you spend too much time with your troublemaking buddy, Trent (Vince Vaughn, voluble and charming), barhopping across L.A. and living your best Rat Pack fantasy. Directed with deceptive panache by Doug Liman, Favreau’s script hides an incisive look at how we find ourselves stuck in the past, and how nostalgia can be a warm blanket and a trap, depending on how much you refuse to grow. And remember: No matter how low you feel, you’re so money, baby. – Richard Whittaker
Tamara Yajia in Conversation With Stephanie Hunt
Tuesday 2, BookPeople
Tamara Yajia may have been a failed child star, but her memoir, Cry for Me, Argentina, is having its moment in the spotlight. The comedy writer’s irreverent, stream-of-consciousness retelling of her childhood split between Argentina and Los Angeles is deeply funny and full of charismatic empathy. For fans of I’m Glad My Mom Died and Samantha Irby, this delightful new release has received praise from a litany of comedians and quirky filmmakers and … Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers? One could say Yajia is your favorite funny person’s favorite funny person. Read more in our interview with Yajia online. – Caroline Drew
Reading the Rainbow Book Club: The Price of Salt
Wednesday 3, Twin Oaks Branch Library
Lovers of Todd Haynes’ sapphic and Christmas-y classic Carol will be shocked to learn how different it is from its Patricia Highsmith source material. For one, there’s a great deal more in Highsmith’s original text about Therese (pronounced the French way) and her theatrical set production career, which gets swapped in the adaptation for the more cinematic pursuit of photography. There’s also more to-do about Carol and Therese being followed by a private investigator, who gets little screen time in the film but is a pivotal plot point in the novel. Both pieces, however, are incredible time capsules of sapphic romance – the dangers and delights together with real Fifties-ass food orders. (Mint jelly on lamb? God, I’m glad I live now.) – James Scott
Citizenship Classes
Wednesdays through October 8, Windsor Park Branch Library
This series of classes is part of New York Historical Society’s Citizenship Project initiative, and while NY and TX can feel like two different countries, they are, in fact, both part of these United States. That’s one of the many things you’ll learn in this class that focuses on reading, writing, and vocabulary that will help you answer citizenship questions as well as interview prep. The irony that we have to rely on the “coastal elites” to teach us the basics of being a good citizen is not lost on us. Register online in advance. – James Renovitch
Big Trouble at the Tiny Minotaur
Wednesday 3, Tiny Minotaur Tavern
Tabletop roleplaying games combine with drag like peanut butter and chocolate, or like literally anything and chocolate. They’re just two great tastes that taste great together! But what about when the local fantasy tavern adds in an audience participation element? Tiny Minotaur tries a new recipe for a classic drag show concept where YOU, dear audience member, can get in on the campaign played by performers Sir Beau Elliot, Embry Officially, Jack Rabid, and dungeon mistress Petty Cakes. You’ll be invited to roll a mega 20-sided die; name the non-player characters; vote on the paths our adventurers take; and score prizes for answering trivia. – James Scott
Seinfeld Trivia
Wednesday 3, Pinthouse Brewing (Ben White)
Running from 1989 to 1998, the show about nothing revolutionized the sitcom and made a billionaire out of its namesake. What better show to center a trivia game around than one that celebrated the trivial? Costumes are welcome, and since the Nineties are back, it shouldn’t be trouble to whip up an Elaine, Kramer, George, or Jerry getup. Bring a charged phone for the virtual trivia platform and up to six pals for the free game. – Kat McNevins
The Vourdalak
Wednesday 3, Hyperreal Film Club
For want of a horse, the ambassador was lost. Beset by brigands and stripped of his mount, effete French diplomat Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfe (Kacey Mottet Klein) seeks shelter in the home of the Gorchas, a strange and secretive family whose patriarch is missing, presumed a vampire. Taken from Tolstoy’s 1839 novel The Family of the Vourdalak and previously adapted by Mario Bava as a segment of his lurid horror anthology Black Sabbath, the dark folktale becomes a Gothic drama that blends mirth, melancholy, and captivating puppeteering when grandpa comes home less of a man than he left, and d’Urfe is revealed to be more – or maybe even less – than the preening sop that he appears. – Richard Whittaker
Touch of Evil
Thursday 4, Violet Crown Cinema
Did the Coen bros. spend their whole career trying to remake Orson Welles’ febrile and treacherous cross-border noir? Well, No Country for Old Men owes as much to this crime epic’s amoral view of the universe as it does to Cormac McCarthy’s book, and M. Emmet Walsh was basically channeling Welles as the crooked detective in Blood Simple. But could anyone blame them? From the nerve-shredding opening, with its countdown to a time bomb explosion that blows the whole fetid affair apart, Touch of Evil was crafted by Welles at the top of his wicked game as star, writer, and director. Initially butchered by Universal-International for its 1958 release, Welles’ vision has been restored in all its challenging, enthralling, greasy, sweaty brilliance. – Richard Whittaker
City of Austin Fair Chance Hiring Job and Resource Fair
Thursday 4, Permitting and Development Center
Good news for job-seekers whose past has prevented them from scoring a sweet new role: The fair is in town! No, I’m not saying become a carny. This here’s the city of Austin’s fair chance hiring fair, where folks with criminal histories get an equal opportunity for employment “based on their skills, experience, and qualifications.” Everyone deserves the chance to get gainful employment no matter their past, so swing on by to see what paths open up. – James Scott
Want to see all of our listings broken down by day? Go to austinchronicle.com/calendar and see what’s happening now or in the coming week.
This article appears in August 29 • 2025.
