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Is it possible to be all coupled up and just too freakin' adorable? We reckon the celebrated authors will provide plenty of evidence either way this night at BookPeople.

This local comedian is smooth. He's laid back. He just wants everybody to be comfortable. Bonus: You'll be laughing in comfort, on a Tuesday night in Austin.

The 27th annual theatrical smorgasbord of local productions (comedy! drama! dance! improv! performance art! multimedia! diverse shenanigans!) opens this decade with its slate of five 25-minute-long Short Fringe shows each night at Hyde Park Theatre (Jan. 14-Feb. 15), with the usually sold-out Best of the Week show each Saturday night. Coming up:Dueling Playwrights: Battle in the Grocery Aisle by Marianne Serene & James E. Burnside; Posse Power by Jomo and The Possum Posse; Please Help Me! Confessions Of A Self-Improvement Junkie by Tom Booker; St. Stephen's Pier by Heath Allyn; and The #2 Sacrifice by Sandy Maranto; Thu., Jan. 16, 8pm.99 Facts About an Immigrant by Leng Wong; A Series of Open Letters to My Teenage Son by Max Langert; Honey, I'm Home! by Jolyne Garza; I Sleep/ I Live/ I Wake by Ryley Valenti; and Three Tragedies in 25 minutes or Less by Shakespeare (with modifications by Beth Burroughs); Fri., Jan. 17, 8pm.14 Si! by PoetKen Jones; Catawampus by Cliff Miller; I Am Not The Person You Have Made Me Out to Be by Marianne Serene; Liftoff by Ben Polega; and Maid/Man by Rich Rubin; Tue., Jan. 21, 8pm.A Bird, a Dog, and a Wave by Kayur Patel; A Dance Piece by Dmo Acheka, Danielle Bogle, Maira Montes, and Philip Weaver; Dueling Playwrights: On Porn by Marianne Serene & James E. Burnside; I Knew Him Well by Trace Turner; Lightning Girl by Rita Anderson; and The Misplays by Aaron Rubin, Adrian Gwarzalez, Derek Cornelius, and Spencer Bloom; Wed., Jan. 22, 8pm.Science Fails: The Human Side of Science by Nichole Bennett; Flashmandments by CB Goodman; Flawed by Sandy Maranto; How To Say You’re Afraid of Commitment in 140 Characters Or Less by Valerie Nies; and Who Sits Next to Wilma by Janna Garza; Thu., Jan. 23, 8pm.Note: FronteraFest is a unique collaboration between two of Austin’s most venerable arts organizations – that aforementioned Hyde Park Theatre (an award-winning professional company in central Austin) and ScriptWorks (a playwright development and service organization with members in Texas and across the nation).

Jerónimo Reyes-Retana's newest work is an interactive 24-track sound installation that's responsive to the process of data transmission among local internet servers. The installation utilizes an array of digital modules of data-collection that react to the activity of local Wi-Fi networks, materializing data traveling in the form of electric charges, radio waves, and light pulses imperceptible to human senses.

The Brazilian artist Lucas Simões "thinks of his new works as drawings, even though they carry no graphite and have some dimensionality. He draws with an industrial laser, cutting angular or curved shapes into blackened steel plates, essentially turning them into elaborate paperclips that pinch, pull, and compress his trademark stacks of tracing paper." It's like … a little metal shibari for sheets of pulp? Ingenious, to be sure, and visually intriguing.

The 2020 Texas Biennial Open Call is open to artists currently living and/or working in Texas, to Texas natives/expats working anywhere in the world, and to artists who have produced significant work in Texas over the last three years. Applications accepted online through Feb. 7. See website for details, yes.

The complex relationship between contemporary art and anthropology shapes the subject of "The Sorcerer’s Burden: Contemporary Art and the Anthropological Turn," an 11-artist exhibition representing a wide range of media – including painting, sculpture, photography, video, and performance. And here's our own Robert Faires with a full review of the show.

Artist Nathan Mabry, whose sculptures in the Contemporary Austin's current "Sorcerer's Burden" exhibition combine cultural iconography of non-Western origins with Western Minimalist art, speaks with Harvard Art Museums' anthropologist David Odo.