Cover Story
Open House
Peeping into the windows of locals
Cap Metro Drops Ball as Ball Drops
Detours with no notice leaves New Year’s Eve revelers stranded
Yogurt Shop Murders: New DNA Test Results Reported to Defense
Attorneys for defendants Robert Springsteen and Michael Scott get results from latest round of DNA testing
The Gathering Forces
Pro- and anti-Craddick reps to hold rival meetings this long weekend
The Lineup
Recommended music for the week of January 1-7
2008 Was So Gay.
Top Ten Gay things in my 2008.
My Top Ten Gayest Events and People of 2008
What made my (Ash Bell’s) gay life tick in 2008
Top Ten Queer Sh*t
Andy’s Top Ten queer things, happenings, people, etc. etc.
Toppiest Tenniest
Here’s my (K8x) so gay Top Tens of 2009.
City Hall Hustle: Top 10 Hustle Moments
It was a banner year for politics – and for the Hustle.
Not-So-Silent First Night
The Girls Rock Camp says ladies first, ladies first; Foot Patrol does Prince
Cornyn Goes Coleman-Boosting
Texas Senator gets involved in Minnesota recount
Best in Bluegrass
Southside of the Tracks on the right side of 08
Tragedy for Herrero Family
Sister of state rep found dead in suspicious circumstances
IVAW Keeps Going
Latest news on the anti-war warriors
Karaoke Queen
In honor of Brian Raftery’s Don’t Stop Believin’ karaoke tome, K8X weighs in with her own karaoke lists.
Top 10 in Design 2008
2008 was a great year for design – see what made the list
Footnotes to 2008
Five further thoughts on the year in film
Speaker Race by the Numbers
If 12 challengers leave the members’ lobby on Jan. 13 and meet an incumbent departing his chambers at sine die …
Best Week of the Year
Glancing at this week’s sonic landscape, old and new
37th by Night
The famous Christmas illuminations burn on
Top 10 Soccer Stories of the Year
The Austin Aztex top the list
The New Craddick Ds?
Rep. Dunnam reveals list of 64 anti-Craddick Democrats, leaving questions about those that didn’t sign
AC Film Top Tens: Hearts on Fire
The Chron’s film critics preemptively go on the defensive
John Peel’s Top Ten
John Peel’s Top Ten X-mas
Day Trips
Texas boasts many splendid caverns available for spelunking year-round
TV Eye
‘TV Eye’ looks back at the year on TV, from Tina Fey to the Iraqi shoe-thrower
Food-o-File
It’s been a difficult year for the Austin food community
City Hall Hustle: Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Gale’s farewell hymn closes the council year
DVDs
The Flaming Lips Christmas on Mars (Warner Bros.) Christmas on Mars is for Flaming Lips disciples what Chinese Democracy was for Guns n’ Roses fans, though only half as long in the making. Luckily for Wayne Coyne and company, their fearlessly freaky followers are more indulgent. The lo-fi space odyssey, which casts the Okies alongside…
DVDs
Rush Snakes & Arrows Live (Zoë/Anthem) Beautifully Rotterdam-shot complement to the audio document earlier this year turns on judicious camera angles and editing, which allow you to actually watch one of the all-time great trios ply its craft (“Witch Hunt”). Old pug nose Neil Peart plods precise, Geddy Lee sings at lower latitudes, and an…
Liquid Assets
Spend money on the gifts instead of the wine this holiday season
Headlines
• Break out the argyle sweaters: It’s officially freezing out there. We still might not get snow for the holidays – for that you need to move to Houston or New Orleans. • In a surprising decision, UT System regents anointed Valley-born pediatric transplant surgeon Francisco Cigarroa the sole finalist (and therefore de facto selection)…
Beyond Black-Eyed Peas
Eating lucky for New Year’s
DVDs
Aural Amphetamine: Metallica and the Dawn of Thrash (Sexy Intellectual) In 1997, the unnamed director of Aural Amphetamine scored a brief interview with Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield in support of Metallica’s covers collection, Garage Inc., and must have spent the last decade trying to figure out what to do with it. This documentary attempts…
Arts Review
The Santaland Diaries Zach Theatre Whisenhunt Arena Stage, through Jan. 11 Running time: 2 hr, 5 min Sarcasm and depression are unavoidable bedfellows to joy and cheer during this strange time of the year. What is it about Christmas that brings out the psychotic in us? People spending money they don’t have on gifts no…
DVDs
Johnny Cash The Johnny Cash Christmas Specials: 1976-1979 (Shout! Factory) Much like Elvis, everything Johnny Cash ever accomplished will eventually be repackaged and made available in one form or other. This 4-DVD box set brings together the Man in Black’s first two Christmas television specials, which came out last year as single discs, with two…
DVDs
The Who At Kilburn: 1977 (Image Entertainment) “On 15 December, 1977, after a hiatus of over a year, the Who assembled in … Kilburn, North London, to record a concert for Jeff Stein’s documentary film, The Kids Are Alright. Shot before a select invited audience, it would turn out to be Keith Moon’s last but…
Arts Review
A concert that showed how far the Capital City Men’s Chorus has come in 20 years
Naked City
News briefs from Austin, the region, and beyond
DVDs
The Black Keys Live at the Crystal Ballroom (Nonesuch) With beat magician Danger Mouse at the controls, the Black Keys’ Attack & Release proved a transformative affair, pairing the Akron, Ohio, duo’s maximum Delta blues with eerily psychedelic overtones. Live in April at Portland, Ore.’s Crystal Ballroom, the Keys strip their fifth album down to…
DVDs
Sex Pistols There’ll Always Be an England: Live From Brixton Academy (Fremantle Media) Sex Pistols videographer by way of 1980’s The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle and 2000 documentary The Filth and the Fury, Julien Temple shot this 30th anniversary concert celebration of the group’s sole studio album Never Mind the Bollocks. The main feature,…
Arts Reviews
The Austin Statesman‘s first photographer shot news, but 70 years on, he made history
Season�s Closings
On Wednesday, Dec. 31, we will close at 3pm and remain closed until Monday, Jan. 5, 2009, when we will resume regular business hours. Be careful out there.
Ike’s Lessons
Galveston’s land-use decisions exposed by storm’s wrath
Off the Record
The politics of Austin music in 2008: Barack Obama boogies back to Texas, a Man From Plains, and the Live Music Task Force
Page Two: Workingman’s Blues
The real history of labor and union organizing is ignored and largely unknown
DVDs
Patti Smith Dream of Life (Palm Pictures) Dream of Life is a beautiful film. Not 8½ beautiful, but it could double as Patti Smith’s New Yawk version of Fellini. First-time filmmaker and former fashion photographer Steven Sebring got a decade-plus of amazing footage with the usually camera-shy poet/musician, which results in a collaborative dream sequence…
Urban Planning: A Roundup
How Austin is working toward getting better by design
Playing Through
Fixed-gear bikes are all the rage with Austin’s hipsterati
Valkyrie
Tom Cruise seems somewhat out of place as a German officer in this thriller about the attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life in July 1944.
Auld Lang Syne at the Cinema
How Hollywood has created a holiday of unreasonable expectations and why we should probably stop buying in (but never will)
The Hightower Report
How to Bankrupt a Media Company and Survive; and Diminishing the Stench in Congress
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
THC for Alzheimer’s, England for kilts, and more
Bedtime Stories
Adam Sandler has finally found his audience: 3-year-olds. Maybe he should stop making movies already and just rent himself out for kids’ parties.
DVDs
The Pied Piper of Hützovina (Arts Alliance America) Women have done some crazy-ass shit for love, but few have ever made a documentary about the object of their unrequited affections. In 2004, filmmaker Pavla Fleischer met Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hütz during a drunken night in Prague. The result of that brief encounter is this…
The Common Law
I Ordered a Holiday Present, and It Never Showed Up
No Relief for Rodney Reed
The piecemeal appeals process isn’t doing the death row inmate any favors
Frost/Nixon
Ron Howard presents us with Richard M. Nixon – the Christmas gift that keeps on giving.
Writing ‘The Reader’
Scripter David Hare on Germany’s long reckoning with its past
Celebrate This City
Dave Sullivan provides new direction for First Night Austin
Warm Fuzzies Follow AISD Linux Flap
All is well after a teacher’s misunderstanding about open-source software sparked much unexpected ire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s slender, unsentimental curio has been stretched by David Fincher into a nearly three-hour-long motion picture about a man (played by Brad Pitt) who ages in reverse.
DVDs
Tangerine Dream Live at Coventry Cathedral 1975 (Respect Recordings) Twenty-seven minutes long with chop-shop menus and no bonuses, Coventry Cathedral nevertheless turns up a semiprecious token in the collection plate. Three West German longhairs minutely adjusting knobs among candelabras at the altar of Britain’s savior makes for action-packed sequences when augmented acidic by postproduction visuals…
First Night 2009 Schedule
Location Key: One Congress Plaza, 111 Congress City Hall, 301 W. Second Esplanade, 200 block of West Cesar Chavez HBMG Theatre, under the First Street Bridge (south end) Longhorn Stage, South First at Riverside Auditorium Shores, 920 W. Riverside First Responder Stage, west end of Auditorium Shores, 920 W. Riverside Ongoing all day, 3pm-12mid Solomon…
BFI Dustup: ‘Council Has Done Nothing Helpful’
Landfill controversy becomes mired in confusion
Marley & Me
Sweet and wise and often laugh-out-loud funny (just like Grogan’s book), Marley & Me, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, isn’t just for dog people.
DVDs
Planet B-Boy: Breakdancing Has Evolved (Elephant Eye) The B-boys who used to breakdance to Kool Herc’s beats in the South Bronx probably never thought that one day their groove would evolve into a movement with an international Battle of the Year run by a German guy. Planet B-Boy documents the 2005 contest held in Braunschweig,…
Dancing Over Lights on Congress Avenue
In a packed rehearsal studio, Ellen Bartel fields dancers’ questions about her concept. “Are we spooky?” one asks. “Should we smile?” questions another. The choreographer explains that, despite black costuming, the mood she’s going for in her site-specific First Night work is one of peace. Levity. Clarity. Optimism. That said, with no fourth wall –…
Everything Under the Sun(set)
The Sunset Advisory Commission looks toward the 81st legislative session
Doubt
Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams star in the film version of John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play.
Film News
Watchdog group Texans for Public Justice has a bone to pick with the guv and his new film incentives proposal
Matt Bearden
The Austin comedian on his influences, why he’s not in L.A., and Red River hipsters
Rick Perry Gets a Life
Perry drives anti-abortion license plate proposal
The Reader
Stephen Daldry, working from a superior script by David Hare, has crafted a film about guilt, love, and history which stars Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, and newcomer David Kross.
Book Review
When karaoke history and personal vignette collide
DVDs
Wu-Tang Clan Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan (BET/Gee-Bee Productions) Once holding court as the rawest, tightest crew in hip-hop, Wu-Tang Clan has fizzled into a commercial outlet from MC and in-house producer RZA. The Abbot even admits it here before the Staten Island collective embarks on its 2006 reunion tour, announcing, “On this…
Austin Symphony Orchestra
ASO’s biggest challenge of 2008? Keeping a straight face with the Flying Karamazovs.
Finding a Way Back Home
Who’s looking out for Austin’s returning veterans?
After a Fashion
You know Stephen has an opinion about those new holiday decorations on Congress Avenue
DVDs
Rhythm Devils Concert Experience (Star City) Percussionist extraordinaire Mickey Hart describes the spontaneity of Rhythm Devils as “a big rhythmic entrainment,” when everything’s in sync and the spiritual essence of the music flows naturally. It’s always been about flow for Hart and fellow Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, who have played together for more than…
The Last Five Years
The new year is prime time to discover this musical anatomy of one couple’s relationship
Reefer Madness
Are Kids Really Kicking the Habit?
Gay Place
Visions of drag queens karaoke-ing in my head
DVDs
Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in Europe (EuroArts) Europeans have long held a fascination with jazz, lavishing American genre giants with a respect often denied them at home. This thoughtful documentary traces the development of European jazz from World War II, when American troops brought swing music to the Continent, through the…
Event Menu
Your local foodie events for Dec. 28-31
Point Austin: A Few More Shoes
An Iraqi journalist waves goodbye to the Bush era
Luv Doc Recommends: Hayes Carll and the Band of Heathens
In the immortal, drug-addled words of the Grateful Dead, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” Tough year. Ugly ending. Now, poised on the precipice of what will surely be the most rigorous, white-knuckled anal rogering of the American populace in decades, it’s difficult to look back on the Bush administration with anything but bitterness…
