Cover Story
Snakes on a Plate
Reconsidering the reptile
Williams Receives Last-Minute Stay of Execution
Tyler native originally set to die Thursday evening
Summer Fun: 10 Uses for an Inflatable Pool
The kiddie pool makes a comeback
Chicago Remixes Chicago
Founding keyboardist Robert Lamm’s gym kismet
Taco Journalism Launches Taco Tour
No taco will be left undiscovered
DVDanger: If There Be Thorns
Dear Lifetime, we need to talk
Culinary Ladies of the Eighties: Valerie & Stephanie Schuster
Upper Crust Bakery is a sister act
New Graphic Novel The Divine from Asaf & Tomer Hanuka
Note: Never fuck with spooky child-soldiers in Southeast Asia
Weird City Hip-Hop Festival Re-Ups
ATX’s early fall classic serves up a sophomore swang and bang
Summer Fun: You Think This Is Hot?
Summer Fun is back for seconds after a pause for floods and gay marriage
Eating With Strangers
Meal sharing in Austin makes any home a restaurant
AC Wine: Sparkling Rosés
Cooling bubbles for warm summer nights
Play 3v3 against Landon Donovan, Brian Ching, Stuart Holden
U.S. national team stars play for Aztex
Mark Duplass Is a Creep
Found footage gets arty on Netflix
SXSW Gaming Changes Dates and Location
The Expo moves back to the Convention Center
Death on the Job
Construction worker falls to his death on the Eastside
Let’s Get Hitched!
Free Austin wedding event exercises new rights
Eastside Eateries Cure Summertime Blues
Tuesdays just got better
Holiday Inn’s Hair-Raising Bee Extraction
Hotel to welcome rooftop apiary and garden soon
Listen to the Mockingbird!
Before her new book’s out, hear Harper Lee’s first read aloud
Protextor Reps “Austin”
Single premiere by Weird City Hip-Hop Festival organizer
News Roundup: Tragedies and Textbooks
Another officer-involved shooting; Waco shootout update
One in a Crowd Triple Play
Three local projects need your crowdfunding help
Food-o-File: Weekend Lagniappe
A little extra Austin food news
Green Pastures Sold to Development Group
Renovation, boutique hotel planned
Strawberry Letter 22 …
Our 2001 review of Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information
Austin Film Society Announces Grant Jury
Meet the team that will fund the next wave of Texas film
KMFA Premieres Icons of Broadway
Classical station’s new show salutes musical theatre legends
Perry’s Trump Conundrum
Ex-governor gets moment in the sun, courtesy of the Donald
Celebrate Bastille Day Austin Style
Boots, baguettes, and Jello Biafra
First Look: Juliet Ristorante
High design and easy sipping on Barton Springs Road
Christopher Lee, Spies, and Werewolf Sex
The strange tale of Howling II
The Luv Doc: Getting Your Groove On
Dear Luv Doc, I’m recently single after 10 years of being monogamous. How shall I go about getting my groove on? – BackintheGame Ten years? Sweet Jesus, that is a long stretch to go grooveless. What have you been doing all that time? Have you been in cryo-sleep? Solitary confinement? Is your name Rip Van…
The Tribe
Using only sign language and no subtitles, this Ukrainian drama tells a story about young, deaf criminals
The Gallows
Another found-footage horror film that’s best left unfound
Minions
The Minions have moved from background work to starring in their own animated movie
Self/less
The film starts off as promising sci-fi, but turns into a disappointing shoot-’em-up
Cartel Land
Vigilante groups on both sides of the border fight the Mexican cartels in this harrowing doc
Infinitely Polar Bear
Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana star in this intimate family drama
Baahubali: The Beginning
This first part of a planned two-part epic is showing in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi
Papanasam
Tamil thriller
Amy
Doc about the life of Amy Winehouse is revelatory, amusing, and deeply devastating
Headlines
Austin Music Hall will be demolished and replaced with a 28-story office building, to be completed by 2017. The venue has struggled for years, with a botched 2007 renovation and new rival venues like ACL Live at the Moody Theater making it hard to attract both bands and audiences. Add a federal investigation to the…
Playback: Doug Sahm for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!
The Austin Music Hall gets slated for teardown, the Roost closes while looking for a cash infusion, Backyard owner Tim O’Connor gets back in the concert game, and a Kickstarter campaign to get Doug Sahm into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Austin Symphony July Fourth Concert & Fireworks
With more than the usual musical suspects, the ASO managed to make its 39th July Fourth concert a rousing success
Public Notice: PUD Doesn’t Get ZAPped
Zoning Commission works through Council hiatus
Texas Platters
Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic Circuit of the Americas, July 4 Outlaw: Celebrating the Music of Waylon Jennings ACL Live at the Moody Theater, July 6 In 1973, Willie Nelson held his first Fourth of July Picnic and Waylon Jennings released Honky Tonk Heroes, an album of mostly Billy Joe Shaver covers that gave…
Day Trips: Hill Country Peaches
Sample the fresh produce of farmers’ roadside stands
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Although they start on opposite sides, a flounder’s eyes migrate over time, to both wind up on one side of its face. The original Confederate flag featured 13 stars in a circle in the upper left corner on a blue background, with three big horizontal stripes of red, white, and red. After the battle of…
Texas Platters
Live, Leon Bridges’ voice hasn’t broken. Ft. Worth’s 25-year-old soul sensation registers m-a-n, of course, recalling no less than Sam Cooke in high-waisted pants and croon, but the cracks and pops in his otherwise porcelain delivery befit a late-Fifties 78 rather than the digital tabula rasa of the 21st century. On disc, major label bow…
Soccer Watch
The USA Won the World Cup! Sunday’s 5-2 demolition of defending champion Japan capped a magical tournament for the U.S. women – they truly did get better in every outing in their seven-game run to the title. Carli Lloyd’s hat trick within 16 minutes won her the Golden Ball award as best player, Hope Solo…
Texas Platters
Soul music quickly weeds out the poseurs. The pressure of James Brown’s and Sam Cooke’s perfection (or perception of it) lurks over every generation. Then there’s the self-imposed pressure of labeling yourself “dynamite Texas soul.” Dynamic Austin septet Roxy Roca withstands some of the pressures of bygone icons on Ain’t Nothing Fancy simply by forgoing…
Books on Wheels
In Austin, bookmobiles aren’t just a thing of the past; they’re the literary wave of the future
Texas Platters
The showtime honky-tonk of Them Duqaines reliably moves boots across dance floors from Burnet Road’s Little Longhorn Saloon Downtown to the White Horse. Throughout ostentatiously titled sophomore LP Star Spangled Rodeo, the local quintet’s musical attributes thus result in a sonic spark so hot it’ll brand your ass with a big, deep “TD.” Stoking the…
La Lotería Returns
Beloved mural to be restored
“Neighborhood Bound: Austin’s Mobile Libraries” & Unbound: Sin Fronteras
In the fall of 1951, around the time that I Love Lucy premiered on television, the first bookmobile service in Travis County was launched. The American Association of University Women donated $7,000 to the city of Austin for a book bus, which started a three-decade run for the Austin Public Library’s bookmobile fleet. Rising fuel…
Texas Platters
On his second solo effort, The Missing Pages, Lee Barber confirms he’s not like everybody else. As with the New Orleans native’s acclaimed 2009 bow Thief and Rescue, he painted the cover art, which all by itself will stop you in your tracks. Everything in its wake qualifies as singer-songwriter stuff, but it’s just as…
Equal Treatment for Victims
APD detective spearheads effort to train officers about same-sex domestic violence
Prelog’s European Kitchen
Dazzling technique and missed potential
Death Watch: Mental Illness Claims Fail; Death Awaits
After a 2005 murder, Clifton Williams is set to be executed
Help Desk
Surviving Austin’s rising cost of living with some help from the “sharing economy”
AC Date Night: Three Little Pigs & East End Wines
Wine ’em and swine ’em in East Austin
Three Deaths Before Dawn
Two unrelated shootings leave three dead
Strawberry Letter 23
Cult soulman/guitarist Shuggie Otis returns from decades of mystery
Food-o-File
To the victor belongs the cheese
Committee Punts on 64 Rainey Street
City Council will likely take up the Rainey Street project debate in early August
Gone Girl
Amy charts Amy Winehouse’s tragic path
New Name, Same Game
S-Comm’s end hasn’t lessened the fear of deportation for Travis County’s immigrants
School’s Out, but AISD Pay Raise Talk Goes On
Debate over salary increase details carries on at AISD
Hideout Theatre’s Happily Ever After
Happily Ever After shows how to put on a Disney-inspired musical: improv edition
AIRC Changes Leadership
Long the public face of the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition, Alejandro Caceres recently left his post as executive director. But his exit is mired in mystery, with hints of infighting between Caceres and the AIRC board over the coalition’s vision. Caceres had worked for AIRC since 2010 – starting as a volunteer before ascending to…
Lege Session Dealt Blow to AISD Budget
AISD grapples with impact of this session’s bills on its financial future
Bad Education
The Tribe offers up a spellbinding look inside a Ukrainian school for the deaf
Cost of Justice
Will voters want to pay for a new courthouse?
The Hightower Report
The Donald Show
Planetarium Group Still Vies for Permanent Spot
Texas Museum of Science and Technology considers Cedar Park home temporary
Gay Place: He’s BAAAAAACK!
They all come back, y’all, and this is one we’re happy to see. SRDub, aka Stanley Roy.
Paxton Mired in Legal, Ethical Charges
Facing a trio of challenges, AG Paxton goes on the offensive
Quote of the Week
“These justices are guilty of bad behavior. Our founding fathers, fearful of the return of tyranny, included steps to impeach justices.” – Rep. Cecil Bell, R-Magnolia, calling for the removal of SCOTUS justices who ruled in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage.
When the Rain Stops Falling
Strong writing and a robust cast make Different Stages’ production stay with you
Point Austin: The Machinery of Death
Supreme Court quibbles about drugs and avoids the larger ethical issue
“There’s A Summer Place Where We Can Go”
The Davis Gallery show has a surprising depth and variety, but some of it distracts from the show’s laid-back vibe
