Cover Story
Back 2 Cool Reunion
We return to the Griffin School, 11 years later to see what the new school year will bring
UT Grad Seeks Crowdfunding for Foodie Fantasy
Former banking attorney wants to manufacture retro kitchen gadget
Blurred Lines
Robin Thicke & John Beckwith aren’t the only acts sharing song titles
Davis Delays Announcement
Father’s ill health extends governor speculation
The ABGB Makes It Better
Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co. opens for business Aug. 30
Reelin’ in the Years
Steely Dan follows up the Armadillo with Bass Concert Hall
LoneStarCon 3: The George R. R. Martin Interview
‘Game of Thrones’ creator discusses how he writes and why
The AggreGAYtor: August 29
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
This Means War
Hear from the star and co-directors of I Declare War
LoneStarCon 3: Countdown Commencing
Before this Worldcon in San Antonio, a look at the last one
Rules For New Abortion Regs Ready to Go
DSHS Council takes public testimony during afternoon hearing
The Hightower Legacy
Donna Hightower knew a singer when she saw one
Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington With This New Graphic Novel
John Lewis pens civil rights history in new graphic novel
Thai, How Are You?
Landmark Daniel Johnston mural gets a touch-up
Austin Film Society Announces 2013 Grants
$116,000 awarded to Texas filmmakers
Beetnik Foods Celebrates First Anniversary with Chef Throwdown
Chef David Perkins challenges Chef Kyle McKinney of Barley Swine
The AggreGAYtor: August 28
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
Can Keller Conviction Stand Without Physical Evidence?
Hearing in Austin ritual abuse case questions evidence of sexual abuse
The Hickman Sisters’ Songs of Joy
Lili and Io follow into the family business
News Ticker: August 27
All the news that’s fit to blog
The AggreGAYtor: August 27
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
Eat. Drink. Empower. a Rousing Success
Austin’s lady chefs raised money for a good cause
Tim League: Roasted at the Out Of Bounds Comedy Festival
Gonna grill the man like so much über-geeky brisket this Thursday
Court Considering Whether Pitonyak Deserves New Trial
Gruesome slaying in West Campus revisited by federal jurists
DVD Watch: ‘To Be or Not to Be’
Lubitsch’s 1952 film casts Jack Benny as a Nazi?
UPDATED: Austin Aquarium Gets the Fisheye
Owners’ checkered past raises red flags; city says no animals on site
News Ticker: August 26
All the news that’s fit to blog
Austin Kleon Keynoting SXSWi 2014
Local author to give Interactive Conference opening remarks
Do My Thing: Ty Segall
Prolific garage rocker wrestles with his ‘Sleeper’ hold
DVDanger: ‘Alyce Kills’/’A Virgin Among the Living Dead’
Women on the edge of a supernatural breakdown
Rocky, Rambo and Rhinestones With Sly Stallone
Drafthouse chasing chickens for the Italian Stallion next month
School House Pub Opens Today
Long-awaited new neighborhood bar opens on Manor restaurant row
Trans-Pecos Festival of Music + Love
Marfa’s desert spiritualism roughs it at El Cosmico
The Devil, You Say!
Accidental Russian tourist stars in Churchwood video
Kickstart Your Weekend: ‘Blade Roller’
Aliens, saxophones, and rollerblades unite
Farmers Market Report: August 24-25, 2013
Melons. soft-shell crabs, popcorn, and fermented pasilla salsa
Finally, You’re Next Is Now
The two-year wait for the revolutionary thriller is over
Cooking Tent Demos
Following the festival’s success at our new home at Fiesta Gardens, we are happy to announce the Cooking Tent is back in the same location as last year, closer to all the action. As always, students and chef instructors from our sponsoring partner, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, will prepare the salsas in…
‘Peace, Love, and Chiles, Baby!’
Leaving a place at the table for our friend Jill Welcome one and all to the 23rd annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival! We’ve completely settled into our new home at Fiesta Gardens on the shady banks overlooking Lady Bird Lake, and we’re throwing the year’s hottest party in honor of our departed friend, Jill…
Quote of the Week
“Jeff, thanks for your support” – Attorney General Greg Abbott, responding to Denton attorney Jeff Rutledge’s tweet calling Sen. Wendy Davis a “Retard Barbie.”
Contest & Festival Facts
Admission The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival requests that you pay an admission fee in the form of three nonperishable food items to be donated to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas. A collection site will be set up at the entrance to Fiesta Gardens. Contest At the heart of The Austin Chronicle Hot…
New in Print
The Hot Sauce Cookbook by Robb Walsh Ten Speed Press, 144 pp., $16.99 I’ll now confess my former ignorance. Despite my unabashed love for fiery foods all these years, I’ve been spelling and pronouncing “habanero” the wrong way. Maybe you have been, too. As it turns out, the famously hot chile’s name should be spelled…
Playback
Austin Music People wants to meet up
Then There’s This: Even More Reason to Buy Local
City may restore funding that was cut to indie business group
Texas Platters
Kingdom of Suicide Lovers Distant Waves (Super Secret Records) Applying dystopian narratives to an equally bleak post-punk pallet, Kingdom of Suicide Lovers crafted a riveting, tonally dark debut. Self-released by the local trio on CD last year (revisit “Texas Platters,” Sept. 21), Distant Waves maintained enough presence to merit a new vinyl pressing on ATX…
Scott Willis Wants to Be the Tito of Tequila
Sipping tequila with the spirited founder of 512
Day Trips
How the chicken-fried steak was invented in Lamesa, Texas
Civics 101
Thursday 22 PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS TRAINING Annual training sessions to educate the public about the city’s development process. Environmental review walkthrough: 10am. Tree planting techniques: 1:30pm. Development Assistance Center nuts and bolts: 3pm. One Texas Center, 505 Barton Springs Rd., 512/974-2698. Free. www.austintexas.gov. WATERSHED ORDINANCE The Lower Colorado River Authority is currently reviewing the…
Texas Platters
Sam Baker Say Grace Sam Baker’s fourth LP won’t surprise anyone familiar with his music, except that the local songwriter continues to extract extraordinarily evocative ballads from the minutia of ordinary life. Keeping production sparse but polished, Baker’s hard-hewn and halting voice carries the emotions of tragedy and grace as both witness and participant (recall…
Food-O-File
Dai Due sets up shop on Manor Rd., and thumbs up for A-OK Chinese
Gay Place: Big Top
See you at the Circus – in your red tutu, we hope
Headlines
› Amid all the budget talks, City Council meets today (Aug. 22) to address a slew of agenda items, including taking public comments on the budget, hammering out the selection process for applicants looking to get in on free Google Fiber services next year, and defining ridesharing as a mode of transportation that should not…
Texas Platters
David Garza Human Tattoo (Cosmica) No accident Elliott Smith’s family trusted David Garza to host a bicoastal tribute to the late pop mystic. Austin’s musical polymath shares Smith’s lyrical intimacy offset by a restless, amniotic instrumentalism. Lo-fi intent meets surround sound execution, beginning with Garza’s overall statement of purpose in opener “Creation,” wherein self-reflection turns…
Food Events
Sushi 101 Dinner & Demo Sushi chef Triet Huynh presents a hands-on sushi preparation class followed by a multicourse dinner. Reserve by phone. Fri., Aug. 23, 6:30pm. Finn & Porter, 500 E. Fourth, 512/493-4900. $70. › ‘Bacon Nation’ Cooking Class Recipe developer Marie Rama, co-author of Bacon Nation, teaches recipes from the book. Reserve by…
Soccer Watch
The Texas Longhorns open their regular season Friday night, hosting the Georgia Bulldogs at 7pm at Myers Stadium, off Red River at Manor Road. Tickets are $7, or buy a $40 “Orange Card” good for every home game, if you order by noon Friday, at www.texassports.com or 512/232-3865. All of the Horns’ home games will…
The Luv Doc: An Unhappy Spirit
Luv Doc, My mother-in-law is a hippy-dippy type and whenever she visits she claims that she feels the presence of an unhappy spirit in our guest bedroom. Who does that? Even if I believed in ghosts (which I don’t), what am I supposed to do with that information? Am I supposed to call Ghostbusters or…
Texas Platters
Sara Hickman Shine (Kirtland) Shine echoes Sara Hickman’s Two Kinds of Laughter (1998), where guitar freak Adrian Belew’s off-kilter sensibilities lent her songs a tantalizing edge. Here, she lends the reins to L.A. soundtracker Jim Jacobsen (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction), who performs almost all the music. Much like Belew, Jacobsen provides eclectic soundscapes and a…
Much Heat, Some Light at Forum on APD Shooting
APD Chief Art Acevedo comes under sharp questioning at town hall forum
Paranoia
This techno-thriller starring Liam Hemsworth, Harrison Ford, and Gary Oldman arrives inert.
Texas Platters
Court Yard Hounds Amelita (Columbia) The Dixie Chicks’ amicable but indefinite hiatus hasn’t ruled out the occasional reunion, but despite the not-so-bad blood, competition lurks. Two months after frontwoman Natalie Maines released her brooding solo debut, sisters Emily Robison and Martie Maguire counter with saccharine sophomore effort Amelita. As their side project begins to feel…
Sharpening More Than Just Pencils
Sometimes ‘Back to School’ means way more than Trapper Keepers and book bags
Peaceful Streets Summit: Avoiding Vertical Video Syndrome
Police watcher summit spills lots of rhetorical blood but little in the way of achievable action
Jobs
Ashton Kutcher plays Apple visionary Steve Jobs in this unrevealing biopic.
Texas Platters
Charlie Faye You Were Fine, You Weren’t Even Lonely (Wine & Nut) “It’s worth reminding you again of the scribblers of those melancholy tunes,” croons Charlie Faye gently on “Conspiracy of the Sad Song,” capturing slow heartbreak as it unravels across the Austin-based troubadour’s third disc. Written and recorded as her five-year relationship with local…
Studio Visits: Isabella Bur
Talk of doughnuts, divorce, and departures in a borrowed studio space
City Budget: Open Season on ‘Vacancies’
Council has little thirst for raising property taxes
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones 2013, PG-13, 130 min. D: Harald Zwart; with Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers. Within our modern world lives another world, one of demons and demon hunters, as well as werewolves and vampires. After her mother disappears, Clary Fray (Collins) discovers she is from a long…
Better Than OK ‘Computer’
Andrew Bujalski’s ‘Computer Chess’ is an unlikely winner
‘Om Shanti – Once Upon a Time in Bollywood’
The cinematic musicals of India dance their way onto the stage in Austin
Council: Google Fiber, Music, Monuments, and More
CMs take on high speed Internet, but don’t expect a quick meeting
You’re Next
What begins on a familiar slasher/home-invasion note quickly escalates into a hellishly suspenseful, take-zero-prisoners affair.
Salsa Town
Meet Austin’s civic leaders in mouth burn
Another Dimension
UT3D program launches this fall
Fusion Confusion at La Mancha Tex-Mex Tavern
But the quest for a great plate of food is no impossible dream
City Deflates Tube Business After Blowup
Code Compliance shuts down Eastside Tubes’ walkway
The World’s End
Twelve pints in 12 pubs – what could go wrong for the Shaun of the Dead gang?
Eat the Heat
Yep, that’s right – a hot sauce festival in August. And not just any old hot sauce fest: The Austin Chronicle’s long-running annual exercise in sinus-clearing masochism is the largest hot sauce festival in the world. The 23rd annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival takes place Sunday, Aug. 25, 11am-5:30pm, at Fiesta Gardens. Admission is free with…
Dropbox Like It’s Hot
The data storage giant is opening its second U.S. office in town later this year
Improv-Educated
Out of Bounds Comedy Festival makes more room for Austin’s increasingly savvy audiences
Windmill State of Mind
A Q&A with the authors of a new book on the story behind Texas wind power
Ain’t Them Bodies Saints
A hardscrabble, heartbreaking, love-and-death affair is gorgeously captured in David Lowery’s Texas feature.
Reservoir Dogs
Churchwood’s Beefheart blues
Back to ‘School of Rock’
Get schooled on the film by Mike White, Jack Black, and Richard Linklater in time for its 10th anniversary
Who’s OOB 2013
Without the monetary muscle of a Moontower or a Fun Fun Fun Fest, the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival hasn’t been able to book the big names among national laughmakers, but the festival has always hosted quality talent, whether familiar (Kids in the Hall’s Kevin McDonald, 30 Rock’s Scott Adsit and John Lutz) or not…
Special Prosecutor Named to Probe Perry’s PIU Motives
Attorney Michael McCrum has worked both sides of the legal arena in white-collar crime cases
Computer Chess
Andrew Bujalski’s Austin-made film is a boldly original, black-and-white portrait of computer culture in the early Eighties.
Letters at 3AM: Just Since April
Secret surveillance efforts fly in the face of our Constitution
The Egg & I
How an experimental treatment for major depression introduced me to the medical magnet and the return of ‘energetic’ medicine
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Due to the budget constraints, the American cast and crew (including George Lucas) of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope all flew coach to England. When Carrie Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds, complained to Lucas that it was insulting for her daughter to fly coach; Fisher interjected: “Mother, I want to fly coach. Will you…
The Renegade Regent
House committee investigates claims that Wallace Hall abused his office
In a World …
Lake Bell wrote, directed, and stars in this ambitious comedy about about a female voiceover artist trying to make it in Hollywood.
Celebrity Judges
This year’s distinguished panel of judges includes: Randy Clemens: Clemens is a graduate of the California School of Culinary Arts and has written for Gourmet, Saveur, Wine Enthusiast, Los Angeles magazine, and Beer Advocate. He is the author of the bestselling The Sriracha Cookbook, the brand-new The Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook, and The Craft of Stone Brewing Co., all from Ten…
Exhibitionism
Tutto Theatre’s stage adaptation of Douglass Stott Parker’s poetry is less a play than a cool presentation of poems
Wal-Mart Clan Buys Tex-Mex Site
Hard to believe that the shuttered Nuevo Leon restaurant – once a popular spot for Democratic campaign fundraisers and kickoffs – is now owned by an entity tied to a company Austinites have battled for more than a decade: Wal-Mart. An investment group called WPC LLC – an arm of Walton Enterprises, the holding company…
Madras Cafe
Political spy thriller from India.
Texas Platters
A magnificent seven Texas Platters
Exhibitionism
The Motherfucker With the Hat Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd, 512/479-7529 www.capitalt.org Through Aug. 31 Running time: 2 hr. I’ve known people like Ralph D in The Motherfucker With the Hat, currently being produced by Capital T Theatre. Mostly young people and Objectivists, but ex-addicts are capable of that same solipsistic benevolence – a…
The Hightower Report
Militarizing America’s police forces
Texas Platters
Hickoids Hairy Chafin’ Ape Suit (Saustex) Nearly a quarter century in the making, the Hickoids’ first full-length since 1989’s Waltz a Crossdress Texas jumps the temporal gap with the pickled temerity of a low-rent stuntman. During their booze-fueled initial run (1985-1992), no one could’ve imagined this renegade cowpunk outfit surviving with well-oiled purpose into 2013,…
Exhibitionism
Texas Choral Consort’s performance proved how strikingly different Brahms’ Requiem is and how compassionate
Point Austin: Finding the Right Ratio
Budget debate considers best approach to police staffing
CONQUERING THE SAUCE
Non-Native Exposed to Heated Tradition
