Cover Story
Why Does Everyone Hate CodeNEXT?
Can a polarized Austin reach consensus on land use by next spring?
Mayor Weighs in on Delayed Policy
Still believes in momentum for Agent in Change
“A Celebration of Writing, and Reading”
Louis Black’s notes on the first Chronicle Short Story Contest
Prom: It’s Gone to the Dogs
From adoptees to royalty, these senior dogs impressed at puppy prom
Anastasia’s One of a Kind
Local femcee gets sexy in new video
ATX Television Festival: Battlestar Galactica Reunion
Austin welcomes cast get-together with heartfelt “So say we y’all”
Decoding the Sound on Sound Leak
Medieval music convergence reveals lineup tease in video
Quin Galavis Track Premiere
Dark songwriter lets a little light in
The Q&A Hole: Why Are So Many People Unhappy With President Trump?
Can’t American citizens cut that orange shitgibbon a little slack?
Council: Not According to Code
Parks, plumbing, and miscellaneous
ATX Television Festival: Younger
Team Josh? Team Charles? What about Team Both?
ATX Television Festival: Sweet/Vicious
Sparky female vigilante show deserves a second life
ATX Television Festival: Northern Exposure
Cicely forever!
Sigur Rós Strips Down to Spellbinding
First of two nights finds Icelanders in a live trio format
The Equality March Hopes to Unify and Empower
Texas queers march on the Capitol Sunday to Demand Equal Rights
ATX Television Festival: The Presidents of the State of TV
Network heads on how to make a breakout show
ATX Television Festival: Playing House
Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham find the comedy in cancer
Council on Cargill: Not Today
Dais rejects Houston nominee for Bond Election Advisory Task Force
Five Good Things to Do in Austin This Weekend
On what’s already the second weekend of June, yes
Big Dipper’s Ode to Bubbly Water
The queer rapper releases his first new song in almost a year
Megan Leavey
A soldier and her PTSD dog
Last Men in Aleppo
Picking up the pieces of the Syrian Civil War
The Mummy
Tom Cruise does the monster mash
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie
An animated adaptation of the beloved book series
Churchill
An intimate look at a leader’s state of mind
It Comes at Night
A lean, mean descent into primitive tribalism
AISD’s Billion Dollar Bond
Plans include investments in 41 items, including five new schools
Su-Yee Lin’s “An Interlude: Pig River”
Third Place winner in the 2017 Austin Chronicle Short Story Contest
Recently Deceased Labor Relations Officer Replaced
City’s first LRO Larry Watts returns to fill position
Eric Shattuck’s “The Shape of Human Hearts”
The First Place winner in the 2017 Austin Chronicle Short Story Contest
Split Screen and Nineties Indie Film
AFS celebrates John Pierson’s seminal IFC show
Legal Battle With Dell Medical School Continues
Attorney Fred Lewis claims school withheld public information
Trey Edward Shults’ It Comes at Night
Texas director purges his demons with latest film
Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company’s Glacier
As an elegy to the ice, this dance aestheticized doom but left us plenty of edge
Austin Parks: We’re No. 46!
But dogs are happier than average!
Dear Glutton: How to Step Up Your Picnic
Going beyond the typical bag of chips and cooler of beers
“Beth Consetta Rubel: Higher Learning: Educational Toys”
Rubel’s solo show is cutting when it comes to Bill Cosby and Rachel Dolezal, but it also explores the complexities of race
A Land Use Lexicon
Hybrid Land Development Code: The proposed CodeNEXT is a combination of transect (form-based) and non-transect (use-based) zones. Together they provide different degrees and methods of control. In addition, much of the city is slated to remain under the existing use-based code. Use-Based Code (Non-Transect Zones): The most familiar type of zoning, also known as Euclidean…
ATX Television Festival 2017
Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley comes home
Day Trips: Collin Street Bakery, Corsicana
Fruitcake factory fills sales room with the warm smell of something in the oven
Permitting Pains
How will the new code affect the way you renovate your house?
ATX TV Fest Quick Picks
Not sure what to do at ATX? We’ve got you covered.
Soccer Watch
There are World Cup Qualifiers worldwide, Thursday through Tuesday, June 8-13… The U.S.A. has a tough double: hosting Trinidad & Tobago in Denver at 7pm, Thu., June 8, and then at Mexico on Sun., June 11 at 7:30pm (both on Fox Sports). Realistically, a win and a loss would probably be enough to keep the…
¿No Habla Land Use?
One thing about CodeNEXT: It’s definitely in English
Texas Platters
Bruce Robison hasn’t released a solo album in almost a decade, but not for lack of productivity. In that time, the local songwriter who authored top country hits “Travelin’ Solider” (Dixie Chicks), “Angry All the Time” (Tim McGraw & Faith Hill), and “Wrapped” (George Strait), delivered two excellent duet LPs with wife Kelly Willis and…
Council: Park It Here
Slouching toward a summer break
CodeNEXT Calendar
City Council is tentatively scheduled to approve CodeNEXT in the spring of 2018. Yesterday, June 7, was the deadline for public comment, feedback, and recommendations on the draft code text. Here’s the top-level plan for the next 12 months – though there’s a lot of skepticism about this timeline (see stories). July 7, 2017: Deadline…
Texas Platters
Prolific Austin producer Eliot Lipp scales up the melody, rays, and artistic passive-aggressiveness on Skywave, a short, summery project suffering from meandering tendencies. “Sun Comes Out” rings bright, an Eighties-leaning industrial-lite track with subtle funk percussion and retrofuturistic keys, but poolside jam “Tides” washes up undercooked. Revisiting his 2016 album Come to Life, there’s a…
Campaign 2018: Can Anyone Beat Lamar Smith?
Candidates line up to challenge longtime congressman
A CodeNEXT Questionnaire
What is CodeNEXT? CodeNEXT is the city’s effort to rewrite Austin’s land development code (LDC), begun in 2013, which dictates “what, where, and how much can be built” within city limits. The code operates as city law. CodeNEXT – a hybrid LDC – is intended to enact Imagine Austin, the city’s comprehensive plan documenting long-term…
Texas Platters
Thirteen tracks of garage rock can get old fast, but Leather Girls work all the angles. On the Austin quartet’s self-titled debut, the band’s mastery of skuzz guitar powers everything in its wake with an unprecedented vigor. “Sweet Lenore” and “LRS” both evoke contemporaries Thee Oh Sees and Ty Segall, and honeyed paean “Dear Deborah”…
Rideshare Wars Round 2: Fare Thee Well
First TNC drops in response to Uber and Lyft’s returns
Dripping Springs Keeps Growing, But Can the Dining Scene Keep Up?
Austin real estate pushes restaurateurs beyond city limits
Texas Platters
Flaunting a propulsive sonic mystery, Suspirians stake a sweet spot between Great Britain’s post-punk and neo-psychedelic scenes of the Eighties. On sophomore uptick Ti Bon Ange, a vodun term for one-half of the soul, point track “Fortune Spider” lays down the local threesome’s overarching aesthetic: Bassist Stephanie Demopulos and ST 37 drummer Lisa Cameron’s determinedly…
Lege Lines: Greg Abbott Brings the Lege Back for More Fun
It promises to be a very special session
MC Sertified Arrives at a Crossroads
South Austin rapper doesn’t want to leave his hometown, but he may have to
Texas Platters
Cerebral, cleverly crafted, Forget to Remember to Forget is told from the point of view of male/female narrators who can’t turn off their brains to the tiny terrors of everyday life. Repeatedly mesmeric, the local quintet’s guitar-driven warmth recalls Nineties slowcore icons Bedhead in mellowed aesthetic, and the Feelies and Yo La Tengo’s enduring indie…
The Hightower Report: Who Is Mick Mulvaney … and Why Is He So Awful?
Because he works for Trump, that’s why
Lege Lines: Ignoring the Dawnna Dukes Problem
County Democratic Party Chair Vincent Harding doesn’t want to talk about the beleaguered rep
The Luv Doc: A Long F%#king Way From Smith
The Luv Doc has a confession to make
Texas Platters
Acid rockers the Cuckoos look young enough to have had grandparents dropping acid and flashing peace signs in the Sixties. That said, fortunately, the Austin quartet’s debut EP doesn’t sound like they raided grandma’s record collection and never moved beyond it. Frontman Kenneth Frost boasts a gothic baritone as evocative of the Reagan years as…
Playback: “Hastily Prepared” Ordinances Head to City Council
Revised drafts of Agent of Change and OMV permitting head to Council, but again, live music interests raise alarms
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to the Urban Institute, nonprofit organizations account for about 10% of U.S. wages and salaries and about 5.5% of Gross Domestic Product. When Anglo-Saxons conquered Britain in the fifth century, they transformed not only their society, but their language. Remnants of their rule remains with the suffix of ‐ham (as in Birmingham), which meant…
Texas Platters
Derailed in order to relocate its studio, local psych quintet Obscured by Echoes picks up its sci-fi tale where it left off on 2015’s Avidonia Pt. 1: The Escape. The narrative resumes on Avidonia II: The Arrival, but the band’s sound has evolved in the layoff. The trunk of the Austin fivesome’s tree has become…
Headlines
City Council Countdown: With three regular meetings until the July hiatus, City Council meets today, June 8, with an eye on the clock, the budget, and CodeNEXT (subject of work sessions each Tue.-Wed. this month; see “Why Does Everybody Hate CodeNEXT?” June 9). Among the subjects today are park use, the search for a city…
CodeNEXT: Learn to Love It
Trying to make sense of a deeply flawed first draft
Gay Place
2017: glass-half-full version
Quote of the Week: Greg Abbott
Texas’ governor is a spiteful little man
The 25th Annual Austin Chronicle Short Story Contest
The lowdown on the 2017 submissions, judges, 10 finalists, and the prize-winning stories
Point Austin: What’s That Smell?
Our Austin-bashing governor knows how to spread manure
Emily West’s “Why Eulagene?”
Second Place winner in the 2017 Austin Chronicle Short Story Contest
Austin Wages Legal Battle Against SB 4 in Court
Austin filing argues SB 4 violates U.S. Constitution
