Cover Story
Austin’s Best New Restaurant DipDipDip Tatsu-ya Reinvents Shabu-Shabu
Feel free to double dip
Eight Ways to Celebrate Chanukah in Austin
One for each night of the Festival of Lights
Top 10 Cups of Tea in Austin
We’re all about that tea life
Jack Allen’s Kitchen: Been Ten Good Years Now
A decade of this place already? Time, you’re so crazy.
Texas Book Festival
Oct. 30-Nov. 15, 2020 www.texasbookfestival.org In most years, this annual celebration of the written word would draw tens of thousands of book lovers to the Texas State Capitol for two days of readings, panel discussions, cooking demos, live music, and food vendors by some 300 authors. Owing to the pandemic, this year’s 25th anniversary festival…
Interview With Benjamin Markovits
The Christmas in Austin author talks about his former home
Queer Eye Is Casting in Austin (Supposedly)
Is this your chance to receive a “make-better” from the Fab Five?
Harvest Thieves Urge A Mercy Kill in New Single
Country-kicking locals tease long-awaited sophomore album
Local Band Goons Revisit Video Dating
Searching for a synth-pop love connection with “Take All My Money”
No Knives Out for Rian Johnson
Talking whodunnits, character actors, and $2 bills
Decoding Land Use and the DipDipDip Tatsu-ya Experience on The Austin Chronicle Show
Nothing to sweat here
Last Chance for This Round of Affordable Care Act Open Enrollment
Sign up now for one of the few things Trump hasn’t destroyed
COP25: Greta Thunberg Addresses the Climate Change Conference
VIDEO: Climate activist and badass teenager rises above, again
For One Week Only: Sway’s Seventh Anniversary Dinner Menu
This is a dining experience that’s worth, we daresay, Hollering about
En Brazos de un Asesino
A hit man and his target go on the run: Romance, of course, ensues.
Hell on the Border
The story of the first black deputy U.S. marshal
Skin
Brutal true-life tale of escaping life as a neo-Nazi
The Two Popes
Hopkins and Pryce are delicately charming in the true story of a modern schism
Playmobil: The Movie
Toys and film franchises, toys and film franchises …
Richard Jewell
Eastwood’s latest assault on the establishment mangles its own history
Jumanji: The Next Level
Back in the game for a fun if flimsier sequel
6 Underground
Michael Bay proves again that he’s no James Cameron
City Hall Ready for Liftoff on New Land Use Rules
It’s as easy as flood protection, affordability, parking, transition zones …
Texas Platters
A songwriter’s songwriter, Ben Ballinger resists being easily penned in. After returning to the Northwest for a couple of years, the troubadour resettled in Austin and his new EP indeed offers Something to Show for It. The six tracks showcase his ranging styles, opening with the bluesy, moaning “Mosey” into the joyous and rocking “Homestead,”…
How to Learn More About the Land Development Code Revision
Interactive maps, timelines, and the nitty-gritty of zoning code
Austin at Large: And Unto Us, a Code Is Born
A decade’s worth of groaning begets the promise of a new city
The Luv Doc: For Good Reasons
The decision not to have children is heroic
Transition Areas & Zones of the Land Development Code Revision
The debate over density and gentrification continues
Austin’s Best Food and Drink Events This Week
Dinner parties, farmers’ markets, beer, wine, and more for the week of December 12, 2019
Qmmunity: Don’t Hibernate This Cuffing Season
From football to The L Word, there’s lots to watch queerly this week
A Guide to Austin’s Land Development Code Lingo
Know your zones
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
A mochila was a special kind of leather bag carried by Pony Express riders. It is also the Spanish word for knapsack. Male weedy sea dragons carry the developing eggs of their young under their tails in a special brooding pouch for about 4-6 weeks. Adolf Hitler was hired as a police spy and instructed…
Quote of the Week
“This is huge. Other councils kept kicking the can down the road and kicking it down the road and we’re finally here. … I’m grateful that we have the momentum to change an antiquated code that has vestiges of institutional racism, and we’re fixing it.” – Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza, upon Wednesday’s first-reading vote…
Your Guide to Charitable Giving
How to donate to local nonprofits
Vegan Shop Rebel Cheese Is More Than Just Good Taste
Mueller’s artisan cheese spot offers food for a cause
Public Notice: Speed 2, Trust 0
AISD board, City Council give up on consensus-building
New Head at Austin Studios as the Facility Enters a New Era
Martin Jones leads the Austin Film Society-run facility into the next decade
AISD Equity Report Hits Home Hard
Was the School Changes process doomed from its inception from an equity perspective?
Faster Than Sound: A Month in Austin Rap
Three top-grade hip-hop albums emerged this fall. Let’s recap.
Headlines
Canceled Reservation: City Council backed off the proposed purchase of a second motel on Metro Center Drive to convert to transitional housing for the homeless, after ECHO Executive Director Matt Mollica said the airport overlay zoning restrictions might cause future complications. The site is still under consideration, but Council asked staff for further review before…
Street Corner Arts’ The Butcher of Baraboo
This hilarious production of Marisa Wegrzyn’s black comedy starts strong and just keeps getting funnier
Ground Floor Theatre and Deaf Austin Theatre’s Next to Normal
In this collaboration between the two companies, having signing actors and speaking actors perform side by side provides a uniquely engaging experience
A Beginner’s Guide to Shabu-Shabu-Style Dining
Know what’s what at DipDipDip Tatsu-ya
“Rehab El Sadek: Transient” at Prizer Arts & Letters
The artist’s newest exhibition takes a temporary stand in the place where you are
Texas Platters
A week before open-heart surgery, 35-year-old Texas troubadour Charley Crockett entered the studio to record a sketching of his hardscrabble life story. Best to get it down for posterity, just in case. Crockett not only survived, but produced another landmark in his ascendant career. Over aching pedal steel guitar, the title track retraces its author’s…
The Politics of Slasher Black Christmas
The Canadian classic was about more than gore
Texas Platters
Like a Gen X dramedy, the slackers of Telling Stories shamble into cycles of poor mental hygiene – nothing prescription pills couldn’t solve. On “I’m Stressed,” an overtaxed employee lost in the doldrums admits, “I keep my headphones on because I have nothing to say.” During the mild paranoia of “My Fragile Mind,” a reluctant…
End of an Era at Travis County as Gerald Daugherty Retires
County commissioner will depart at the end of 2020
Texas Platters
Third official full-length from prolific Iranian producer VVV, Entanglement sounds like an android’s fever dream: hallucinatory, mechanical, unnerving. His second of three releases this year, between the long-player Bleeding Through You for Dutch label BCLR Laboratories and EP Spreading Primose on Austin’s Holodeck Records, highlights the local sound whisperer’s aesthetic. Born Shawhin Izaddoost, he’s released…
Election Ticker: Travis County Races Heat Up
Noises from the March 2020 primary
The Resurrection of Kinky Friedman
From Houston to Echo Hill, the self-proclaimed Texas Jewboy sings a new tune
Texas Platters
The country of Into the Country – maybe avant-garde Austin trio Spray Paint’s fifth studio full-length – isn’t Neil Young’s country. More like a bullet train between unnamed Southeast Asian metropolises. The faster you rocket forward, the more it feels like you’re traveling back in time, back to the industrial age of Fritz Lang, Ridley…
ICE Draws Fire for “Sham” Detention Contracts
Local groups say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shouldn’t get away with sidestepping federal protocol
Clarksville’s Willis Littlefield Readies His Annual Christmas Lights
The longtime resident is ready to light up his home and hand out holiday sweets for the 22nd Christmas
Texas Platters
Newly settled into Austin from Virginia, Twain’s Mat Davidson offers up his second release for local imprint Keeled Scales. Adventure unfolds progressively more mellow than 2017’s notable Rare Feeling, signaled by the unfolding piano of opener “Inner Beauty.” Twain travels in his own time, winding through smart and earnest explorations both universally grand and intimately…
One in a Crowd: Car Wars
Get revved up for the new version of the tabletop classic
As State Attacks, Planned Parenthood Expands
Local clinic at Seventh and Chicon to undergo major renovation
Texas Platters
Thunder begins Kick Up Your Heels and not just any sonic shock wave, but “Levon’s New Drum Set.” Behind Cindy Cashdollar’s slide guitar and Shelley King’s all-star band’s strummy, roadhouse noir, the veteran Austin singer-songwriter’s ninth album rumbles alive as thick and real as the Band drummer’s heavenly bass drum beating lightning into plowshares overhead.…
Day Trips: Balanced Rock Trail
Hike leads to a window on the world
Council Dives Deep Into Racism at APD, Land Use
Busy week isn’t over yet, with development code hearing Saturday
