Cover Story
The Baker Center Becomes a Model for Preservation – and a Life Raft for Austin’s Creative Class
If you’re looking for Karrie League, odds are that she’ll be on a couch somewhere in the hallways of the Baker Center. “I work in the hallways because then people can sit and chat with me,” she said. She’s there because, along with her husband, Tim, she owns this onetime Austin ISD campus in the…
News
The Week’s Biggest News in Brief
Bracing for Cold Weather: As subfreezing temperatures are expected to roll in across the state this weekend, Texas grid officials say the state is prepared to meet the heightened electricity demand, according to Jan. 20 reporting by The Texas Newsroom. The upcoming winter weather comes nearly five years after February 2021’s deadly Winter Storm Uri,…
Austin’s Evolving Native American Cultural Center
As a child growing up in Fort Worth, Lindy Vasquez-Gordineer’s family rarely spoke of their Indigenous heritage. “We were supposed to be hidden about it. It was easier to claim Mexican … because people made fun in school,” she remembered. But once a year, her father would take her to the local powwow in the…
New Year, New Execution
Texas prison officials will attempt to execute their first death row inmate of 2026 next week. Charles Thompson, who was convicted of killing his former girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, and her companion, Darren Cain, in April of 1998, is scheduled to die on Jan. 28. An attorney representing Thompson has not replied to questions from…
St. Edward’s Speaks for the Trees
It’s a windy day at St. Edward’s University, and although it’s only 53 degrees with freezing temperatures on the way, the sun is shining and spirits are high. About 50 people gather around a plot of untilled earth across from the school’s baseball field. A man in a narrow-brimmed, straw cowboy hat clears his throat…
Austinites Demand That City and APD Refuse Collaboration With ICE
At 2 o’clock on Tuesday, Jan. 20, about 200 protesters gathered in front of Austin City Hall to demand that the Austin Police Department stop collaborating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities. (Hands Off Central TX’s protest monitor team officially counted 700+ total participants at the protest.) An hour later, several Austin advocacy groups, including…
Music
Music Notes
Truncate Friday 23, the Loading Dock Los Angeles-based techno artist Truncate headlines this show that’ll run late into the night, with support from techno-inclined locals such as Natch Nadjafi and RAMGON. Shxwnfresh Saturday 24, 13th Floor Originally from Baton Rouge, Shxwnfresh has made Austin his home for several years. 2025 extended play 9481.W showcases his…
Arts + Culture
Feeding the Feral With the wolf you feed
The beast that haunts every fairy tale; the monster of familiar idioms; the shorthand for innate wildness: wolves. With the wolf you feed, associate artistic director Chris Fontanes brings playwright Darcy Parker Bruce’s occasionally uneven riff on those ferocious creatures to the VORTEX, breaking out the bells and whistles to create a world for wild…
Ink and Celluloid in the Press Room
There’s nowhere like a letterpress printworks. The air is rich with the perfume of oil and ink, and the walls resonate with the gentle clunk and whir of the machinery. They’re also a place of history, and Travis Smith, managing partner of the Press Room, is keeping those traditions alive through the Press Room. For…
Film Preservationists Share a Space and a Goal
There are two dominant philosophies in film preservation. Some follow French curator Henri Langlois, who believed that every frame has value. Others hew closer to British archivist Ernest Lindgren, who rejected Langlois’ romantic approach for a more scientific, curated approach. Texas Archive of the Moving Image Managing Director Elizabeth Hansen jokes that her organization is…
The Coffee Ambassador
For most people, their first experience of the Baker Center isn’t visiting one of the many offices inside or attending an event in the cafetorium. It’s grabbing a cup of coffee at Terrible Love, the little cafe in the center’s grounds. That location has made owner Brian Knowles sort of the unofficial envoy/greeter/tour guide for…
BookWoman Celebrates 50 Years of Feminist Lit Legacy
In the early Seventies, a lesbian-led feminist storm was brewing in Downtown Austin. At the center of those winds of change was a fledgling bookstore, brimming with bright ideas and sharp minds looking for community. That burgeoning store was BookWoman, now marking its 50 years as a queer, feminist pillar of Austin. “Every year there’s…
In a Building Dedicated to Preservation, the League of Women Voters Is Preserving Democracy
These are perilous times for democracy, and perilous times for advocates for democracy – starting with covering the rent. Being wholly volunteer, the League of Women Voters Austin Area doesn’t have staffing costs, but maintaining office space has been one of its greatest financial burdens. For almost three decades, they were lucky, with kind landlords…
A New Home Expands the Sound of Possibility for Austin Classical Guitar
In the age of constant education budget cuts, music classes are often the first to be canceled. For over three decades, Austin Classical Guitar has been turning that tide, and now it’s entered a new era as one of the biggest tenants of the Baker Center. Austin Classical Guitar Executive Director Matthew Hinsley called it…
Good Friend Studio Wants to Redefine the Photo Studio Experience
It started, as is so common, when a business gets too big for the garage it started in. In 2022, photographers Cass Klepac and Rick Cortez had outgrown their home photo studio and were looking for a rental space, but nothing was clicking. They didn’t want another white box space in a strip mall or…
Saving Austin’s Architectural History, One Plank at a Time
If you ever visited the Austin Chronicle office, you touched the big painted metal doors in front of the reception desk. Well, that is until the former offices of the Elgin-Butler Brick Co. were torn down to make way for the expansion of I-35. If you’re wondering where those doors went, they’re not rusting in…
Screens
Return to Silent Hill Review: Sequel Speedruns the Superior Original
How often does a filmmaker get to make a sequel to a 20-year-old film? In 2006, Christophe Gans directed Silent Hill, an adaptation of the smash hit survival horror game from Japanese publisher Konami. Now he returns to grimy supernatural terror with stand-alone sequel Return to Silent Hill. For the first film, Gans understood what…
H Is for Hawk Review: Birds of a Feather
You don’t have to wait long to get to a hawk – the opening credits kick off with marvelous close-ups on feathers and taut muscles – but it takes a while to meet Mabel, the goshawk at the center of Helen Macdonald’s 2014 memoir, adapted here by director Philippa Lowthorpe and Emma Donoghue (Room). Claire…
In Cold Light Review: On the Run From Family
If your vision of Canada is all moose, maple syrup, and ice hockey, Alberta is the place that may disabuse you of that notion. It’s basically the Texas Panhandle. It’s Southern Oklahoma. It’s cattle and oil and cowboy hats and junkies and dealers and petty crimes and rodeos. It’s where Ava (Maika Monroe, Longlegs, It…
Mercy Review: Guilty of Being Stupid
At a time when AI is being rammed into every aspect of our lives, we deserve a film that will deal with the real ethical and legal quandaries raised by letting LLMs into the courtroom. Instead, what we get is Mercy, a film so dull, doltish, and off-putting that it can only be described as…
Food
Koko’s Returns Bigger and Bolder
As a self-described “basic bitch,” I’m very much in my element when enjoying a cold beer and excellent fries on a sunny patio. But I have very strong opinions about what makes a basket of spuds shine. Size matters. Careful salt balance matters. Structural integrity for sauce absolutely matters. Koko’s Bavarian checked those boxes, which…
Columns
The Luv Doc: Maid of Honor
Dear Luv Doc, Me and my best friend are both turning 30 this year. We have known each other since seventh grade. We went to college together at TCU and we both ended up in Austin, though I got here a few years later than she did. When I was in Ft. Worth, we always…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Springtails (jumping bugs) used to be considered insects, but are now classified as hexapods. A 1975 Automotive Engineering study reported by NASA found that up to 18 tons of air per mile is displaced by a semi pulling a trailer at highway speed. According to writer/director/actor Kevin Smith, at one point Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) and Ralph…
A Man, a Can, and a THC Tonic Brand
I can be a little suspicious of THC seltzers; ask anyone. Something about most THC drinks tends to give me a headache or a weird sickly feeling. But when I made an impromptu stop at Radio South for their bluegrass night, a can on the counter caught my eye. A vibrant coral color featuring a…
Feedback: January 23, 2026
High-pocrisy Dear Editor, In his latest salvo against “wokeness,” a 74-page attorney general’s opinion carefully timed for MLK Day (or was it meant for Confederate Heroes Day?), [Ken] Paxton says private companies run afoul of the law if they don’t explicitly disclose to investors the potential impacts on profits of any DEI efforts. On page…
Qmmunity: Answer the Call for Queerportunities
Ring, ring: Pick up the phone! There’s a bunch of deadlines approaching for queer-portunities (queer opportunities) happening in the Austin area! Do YOU have a business, a creative project, or organization/event that’s trans-led or -friendly? Gender Unbound’s Trans Austin Pink Pages are seeking submissions for their upcoming phone-book-style second publication. Fill out the application –…
Day Trips: Denman Estate Park, San Antonio
The Pavilion of Gwangju’s reflection shimmers on the waters of a small pond in San Antonio’s Denman Estate Park. The colorful structure is a replica of traditional Korean pavilions with a roof that curves upward like birds’ wings. Hand-built in Gwangju, South Korea, it was reassembled in San Antonio by Korean craftsmen and artists in…
Fun + Games
Free Will Astrology
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You are a spy from the future. Thank you for your service! I love to see your boldness as you smuggle innovative ideas into a present that may or may not be ready for them. Your feelings of alienation are sometimes uncomfortable, but they are crucial to the treasure you offer…
