Cover Story
Bravo/Brava
Paul Soileau trips the light (and the dark) fantastic in his multimedia performance pieces
Tim Miller Preaches to the Choir
Review of The Lay of the Land at the Vortex Theater
Texas Union Faculty: We Didn’t Know
Member says board was not told about Cactus Cafe closure proposal
This Week’s Waste of Time
A free online game lets the lasers fly.
Lucky Shot
Lucky Shot 1999, NR, 86 min. Directed by Maciej Dutkiewicz, Starring Agnieszka Krukówna, Maciej Stuhr. Action comedy.
Friggin’ Genius
SXSW Film announces feature film lineup
White’s Money
Democratic Houston ex-mayor leads gubernatorial fund raising
Three Things
One’s not like the others
Wanted: Chief Sustainability Officer
City starts hiring
Master Bungle
The Residents are still weird
CNU 2010 Kickoff Tonight
The new mixed-use market
Fashion Freakout: Three’s the Charm
Fashion Freakout 3, Mohawk, Friday, February 5
State of the City Address
As delivered by Mayor Lee Leffingwell today
Restart Your Engines…
RuPaul’s Drag Race begins its second season.
Cactus Showdown at ACES
UT president Bill Powers to discuss university budget cuts today
The Carillon: Update
New American Grill Menu Soars
Toros Host Showdown at Cedar Park
Tickets as low as $5 for streaking Toros
He Called Me Baby
The genesis of One Eskimo’s “Kandi”
Last Day to Register to Vote
Deadline for March primaries is today
Texas Trails & Active Transportation Conference
In Austin, Feb. 3-6
Cash in on Pecan Street Project
A how-to talk
UT Axing Cactus Cafe, Informal Classes
Union board “phasing out” two campus institutions in August
Hustlers: London or Bust
Texas Rollergirls kick off fundraising drive with silent auction
Banked-Track Update
Lonestar Rollergirls say ‘Hi 2010, bye Convention Center’
Get ’Sploded Now
All the gaming fun and only half the price!
Ghost Riding
Wizard World confirms first Austin guests
The Lineup
Recommended music for the week of Jan. 29-Feb. 4
Texas Stars Have Some Deals for ya This Weekend
Host Abbotsford Heat Friday and Saturday
Endorse-o-Rama 2010
Travis Co. Dem clubs backing White, Gilbert, favor Earle for lite guv
Redefining Marriage
New study suggests that homosexuals are less monogamous but more honest.
Your Queer Schedule
Christeene and the Femme Mafia take over your weekend
OTR – 33rpm
Rod Kennedy, Wolfgang Gartner, and Charlie Sexton
AfterMath Afterglow
Well hello there, best teen band in America
Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell/Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Ass on Your Way Out
President follows through on his SOTU pledge to repeal DADT
Joy Behar Opens a Can of Worms on ‘The View’
The Women of The View discuss the differences between straight and gay attitudes toward monogamy.
Texas Platters
Splattering open the second half of Matador’s thrillingly dank Casual Victim Pile, Love Collector’s boy/girl bar grind goes Beatles butcher cover on My Baby Goes Waaah! for Minnesota’s Big Action Records. A hot mess of DIY petroleum and punk waaah, the fiery four throw baby, bathwater, and beer at the titular A-side, while fitting a…
Heritage Trees: Size Does Matter
Heritage tree ordinance would protect Austin’s oldest, biggest trees
Everyday Magic
Lee Barber returns to that place you go to find a song
After a Fashion
Our Style Avatar doles out the sweet love
‘People Celebrate a Celebration of Da’ Bootay’
A Q&A with Christeene
Keller Keeps Her Robes, for Now
Special judge says Keller’s conduct in execution case doesn’t warrant removal
The Hightower Report
Nader’s Novel Idea; and Reining in the Gods of the Fed
TV Eye
A new PBS show examines technology’s effect on work, pleasure, and the very idea of what it means to be human
‘We Ain’t Here to Make Everyone in This World Like Everybody Else’
A Q&A with Rebecca Havemeyer
County Permits TXI Aggregate Mine
Controversial sand and gravel mining project wins approval
Headlong Dance Theater
This Philadelphia troupe’s mix of theatre and movement creates something tasty
Beer Flights
Shiner Fröst and Real Ale’s Phoenixx ESB are seasonals worth your money
Make ‘Em Laugh (And, Yes, Even Learn)
The Alamo Drafthouse inaugurates a new film appreciation series with Ninotchka
Council Preview: In the Mix
This week’s council agenda
Fusebox Festival
The 2010 lineup promises a Fusebox as wild, novel, and thrilling as ever
Event Menu
If Andiamo’s pre-Valentine’s dinner isn’t up your alley, consider entering Boomerang’s Fastest to Eat a Pie contest
In Play
Beauty and the beasts: why Bayonetta wins and Army of Two’s blood-soaked bromance is passé
AISD Ponders a Budget Fix
Like just about every other governmental agency, the Austin Independent School District is facing a bleak budget cycle. Now Superintendent Meria Carstarphen has implemented an administrative hiring freeze and is asking the board of trustees to consider the extraordinary step of declaring financial exigency, allowing her to make major structural reforms to stanch the budget…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Raccoons, the Beatles, biblical weapons, and more
Food-o-File
Locations, ownership, and staff of local restaurants get shaken up
Manufacturing Fizz
What makes L’Étoile a light, bubbly Champagne of operas
MetroRail Watch
Capital Metro sets yet another goal for the launch of MetroRail
In Print
The rub of love of history is that you always know how it ends, and it ends particularly badly in these three royal biographies
Restaurant Review
Great barbecue and fresh seafood cooked in a light style will have us going back to explore more facets of Ho Ho’s mega menu
Imagining Austin
Austinites begin a new comprehensive plan for the city’s future
The AE Generation Plan’s Latest Monkey Wrench
Spooky, scary: Will rumors of deregulation derail Austin Energy’s plan?
Texas Platters
Jon Dee Graham & the Fighting Cocks It’s Not as Bad as It Looks (Freedom) Jon Dee Graham is a man of contradictions. One minute he’s happy-go-lucky, the next he’s in a rage, then deeply introspective. One thing for certain, his songs always sound like the truth, even when he may be lying through his…
Restaurant Review
East Side Show Room may become a victim of its own popularity
Soccer Watch
Aztex players signed, season tickets on sale, and more
Generation Plan: The Good, the Bad, and the Holy
Reasons for (cautious) optimism toward passage of AE’s plan
Texas Platters
Bear Claw’s four-song vinyl one-sider for local multimedia imprint Monofonus Press displays a long-forgotten axiom: that music, as a package, can be a piece of art, to be enjoyed as such. The songs were culled from a recent cassette-only release by local singer-guitarist Nigel Rainey, who even has the perfect name for his kind of…
Restaurant Review
Beets Living Foods Cafe beats the odds and offers a first-rate raw-food experience
Point Austin: Revenge of the Cyborgs
Speech may be free, but justice costs real money
Ruling: ‘A Raging Flashflood of Corporate Money’
It has been called the worst court decision since Chief Justice Roger B. Taney told Dred Scott that African-Americans could not be U.S. citizens and the most intellectually dishonest since the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals said checks aren’t money. On Jan. 21, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission…
Texas Platters
Danny Barnes Pizza Box (ATO) “I don’t do dope; I don’t drink wine. I likes to play … It’s cheaper that way,” croons Bad Livers banjo master Danny Barnes on the title track of his solo debut for Dave Matthews’ label, ATO. “Basically it’s all elemental: Us Southern boys are sentimental.” So much so that…
Gay Place
More Rebecca Havemeyer than you can Soileau
City Hall Hustle: Anyone for Unemployment?
Once again the growth conundrum: If we don’t Hanger together, we’ll all hang separately
Texas Platters
Kirk Van Praag Town Crier “Bury me in East Texas caliche,” growls Kirk Van Praag to open Town Crier, apropos of the local songwriter’s hardened and cracked sediment of a voice. Follow-up to The Wrest, his 2004 2-CD debut, Town Crier cuts deeps under the point of Van Praag’s harrowing outlook, a weary Texas realism…
Day Trips
The Flying Saucer Pie Co. in Houston keeps patrons’ tummies satisfied with 15 different varieties of pies
Headlines
• City Council decides on the Hanger Orthopedic Group incentives deal today (Thursday, Jan. 28), hears a presentation on Austin Energy’s generation plans, and more. See “City Hall Hustle” and “The AE Generation Plan’s Latest Monkey Wrench.” And good news for council junkies: Venerable community radio KAZI 88.7FM will begin airing council meetings from start…
Legion
God loses faith in humanity and sends a legion of angels to start the apocalypse.
Texas Platters
Spot Nae Plumb Nor Square (No Auditions) Spot/Albert In the Bag!! (No Auditions) Chances are that Spot produced one of your favorite records. As the house engineer for SST Records, the longtime local helmed seminal works by Black Flag, the Meat Puppets, and Hüsker Dü, not to mention the Misfits, the Big Boys, and Ed…
Arts Review
Palindrome Theatre’s debut squeezes all the meaning it can from Beckett’s bleakness
Res Publica
Citizens’ calendar, Jan. 28-Feb. 4
Tooth Fairy
Due to a misdeed, a tough hockey player, played by Dwayne Johnson, must serve as a tooth fairy for a week, tutu and all.
Texas Platters
Snowbyrd Diosdado (Saustex Media) On its own, Diosdado is a powerful testament to the fusing of eclectic genres that makes Snowbyrd’s sound so slippery to describe. Given that it also stands in tribute to a lost member of their flock, it soars jubilantly. Named for the group’s late drummer Manuel Diosdado Castillo, San Antonio’s young,…
Arts Review
The chamber concert’s piratical theme was cheeky, but the music was tremendous
Naked City
News briefs from Austin, the region, and beyond
Edge of Darkness
This thriller marks a middling comeback for Mad Mel Gibson
Texas Platters
Ernest Gonzales Been Meaning to Tell You (FoF Music) San Antonio’s Ernest Gonzales is the latest in a long line of electronic artists empowered by Pro Tools, constructing microinstrumentals with detailed precision. Following his collaboration with former Alamo City mixmaster-turned-Austinite DJ Jester the Filipino Fist on 2008’s Get Busy, the artist formerly known as Theory…
Arts Review
This Creative Research Lab exhibition is a peak of no small aesthetic excitement
Children’s Zone: Can Harlem Come to Austin?
Travis County groups are competing to become part of a grand experiment
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet
A lovely, enthralling examination of the Paris Opera Ballet from Frederick Wiseman.
Texas Platters
The Texas Sapphires As He Wanders … (Ike) Why the Texas Sapphires aren’t plowing over the current crop of country bands is a mystery, but As He Wanders … slices through the genre. The trucking pace of “Nashville Moon” illuminates the locals’ steady course into two-step territory with “190,” Rebecca Cannon’s bid to be considered…
Off the Record
Rod Kennedy’s 80th birthday
Fundraising Battle in Precinct 4
City Hall influence showing up in county commissioner’s race
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
An unsatisfying film/experiment/prank that combines the forces of Werner Herzog and David Lynch.
Texas Platters
David Israel Say Goodbye to Sorry (Natrix Natrix) The first 12-inch vinyl from homespun retro-label Natrix Natrix, David Israel’s debut full-length shades his 2006 EP, These Are the Clothes We’ll Wear When We’re Old, but wraps his deadpan gravel drawl in fleshier arrangements. Israel remains as playfully and ponderously perplexing as ever, an amalgam of…
Letters at 3AM: Behold The Maslin
The Maslin is not a person but, rather, a function of virtually every book-review staff in the Western world
State Gives Almaguer Deadline for Tire Cleanup
Tire shop owner must comply with state law, says TCEQ
Luv Doc Recommends: Hope for Haiti Benefit
That breathtaking pinkish sunrise is not a good sign. Yes, it’s pretty – the kind of daybreak that appears in all your better Southwestern tourist brochures – but it also can be the harbinger of an ugly day for allergy sufferers. Cedar pollen is a sure sign that Adam and Eve really screwed the pooch…
