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Belladonna of Sadness

This transgressive animated film from 1973 Japan has been recently restored. Blending gorgeous, watercolor-infused Japanese landscapes with Western influences like Art Nouveau and Expressionism, the film tells the sexually outré and hallucinogenic story of two lovers in a feudal village.

by Josh Kupecki

Cab Drivers Look Toward the Future

Two days before the May 7 election, Nega Taddesse was predicting victory: “The outcome’s going to be positive for us. This is a good grassroots movement. It’s become a public issue rather than Uber against the taxi drivers.” The longtime cabbie, who immigrated to Austin from Ethiopia by way of Canada, had spent the weeks…

by Chase Hoffberger

The Road to Prop 1

2014 March: With the anticipated advent of app-based ride-hailing companies beginning operations in Austin, City Manager Marc Ott releases a memorandum addressing possible TNC regulations. May: City Council directs city manager to convene a stakeholder working group to develop a potential pilot program to allow TNCs to operate legally in Austin. June: Lyft and then…

by Chronicle Staff

Hornography

A few years ago, on NBA TV’s Open Court, Hall of Fame forward and current TNT analyst Charles Barkley told a hilarious, anecdotal story about a conversation with former All-Star Larry Johnson. After Johnson and Barkley – both undersized – had been robbed of their athleticism, by injury (Johnson’s back) and age (Barkley), Chuck says…

by Kahron Spearman

Headlines

City Council meets today (May 12) facing mostly a zoning agenda, and a couple of hackle-raising matters: more funding for the Waterloo Tunnel Project, a contested towing contract, and Downtown concrete pouring. See “Council: Meet Your Waterloo,” May 13. The dust has not yet settled on Saturday’s Prop 1 election, with Uber and Lyft exiting…

by Chronicle Staff

Soccer Watch

It’s “Championship Sunday” across all the NBC networks on May 15, as they show all 10 of the English Premier League season finales simultaneously at 9am. It’s a pity for them that few of those games have much significance beyond bragging rights, as most of the races at both the top and bottom of the…

by Nick Barbaro

Quote of the Week

“dear ATX uber + lyft drivers I’m really and deeply sry for how your income is being interrupted rn bc that’s hell and I’m sry your capitalist overlords are scum to whom you are but political pawns.” – Jamie Saunders of the Revolutionary Alliance of Trans People Against Capitalism

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Dropped Dec. 13, 2013, Beyoncé launched a salvo of imitators releasing albums without notice while the world sleeps. By comparison, a cryptic HBO teaser for the Texan’s sixth solo LP, Lemonade, telegraphed its intent like a billboard. An hourlong film followed last month. How then did the singer maintain the element of surprise? By effortlessly…

by Abby Johnston

Texas Platters

Little known outside of Central Texas, Kent Finlay had a major impact on Texas music. He discovered/mentored more than a few national breakouts, most famously George Strait and Todd Snider. Finlay, who passed away at the age of 77 last March, also ran songwriting incubator Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos. His daughter, promotions maven…

by Jim Caligiuri

Council: Meet Your Waterloo

With any luck, by the time you read this (May 12), we will have solved all Austin’s transportation nightmares by staying home from work. “Don’t Rush Austin” took place Wed­nesday (after the Chronicle deadline for this story), but I’ll presume the rush-hour streets were vast fields of emptiness – even City Council’s Wednesday budget work…

by Michael King

Texas Platters

Backstory to the Relatives’ Goodbye World echoes the compelling music they’ve created. Dallas’ gospel funkateers were recording a follow-up to 2013’s aptly titled The Electric Word when Gean West, the band’s founder and lead vocalist since 1970, fell into a coma. Twelve days later he awoke, saying the Lord had commanded him to “get back…

by Jim Caligiuri

Texas Platters

Consider Evan Charles a musician’s musician amongst the eclectic Austin scene. Helping populate a plethora of local acts including day-trippers the Daze, basement grinders the Sweet Nuthin, and R&B jammers the Happen-Ins, the singer here immerses himself in folk and Americana as if he and his new backing trio Altamesa were born to it. The…

by Alejandra Ramirez

Texas Platters

Power in any trio doesn’t come from a Doc Marten stomping the gas, but rather the ability to let up on said pedal in order to amplify the contrasts between sound and space. The Blind Pets stake their home genre on opener “Team,” a grunge-loving garage pogo equal parts Seattle and Long Beach, then backup…

by Raoul Hernandez

Gay Place

Space on TV solely for LGBTQIA ladies has been scant since that mediocre Showtime series

by Sarah Marloff

Texas Platters

Debut solo record of the Zoltars’ Jared Leibowich, Welcome Late Bloomers is a quietly apocalyptic trek filled with a dreamy Sixties sound and pockets of layered, plucky guitar riffs exploring youth. “Early June” watches kids chase their shadows amidst a crumbling world, while “They Say You Can’t Go There” cautions a young, dirty hippie against…

by Libby Webster

Texas Platters

I’m rubber, you’re glue, no one cares, ’cause Empty Markets are Stainless Steel, here to murder you. That’s what the blaring, vehement punk on this Austin trio’s debut sounds like, anyway. On the opening title track’s hollered refrain, Drew Schmitz likens himself to a flash of metal, a knife lodged in flesh. That adrenaline rush…

by Libby Webster

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

Prince beat Michael Jackson and Jimmy Fallon in pingpong. Donkey is a very expensive meat and highly sought after for its tenderness and sweetness in China. The modern king of hearts is the only king without a mustache. Back in 1776 he had one, but he lost it in the 19th century. Each king represents…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

Texas Platters

Putting a fever dream into record form, the frenzied, garage-punk self-titled debut from Nameless Frames burns. “Exploitation” grapples with an unnamed enemy, echoed by both “Control” and “Garbage Can,” which employ paranoia and dark, fantastical imagery to explore a post-civilized society. “Too Late to Lose” sounds a lot like the way Austin feels right now,…

by Libby Webster

Filling the Gap

With Uber and Lyft picking up their ball and going home in protest of Prop 1’s failure, Austinites who used to rely on the juggernaut TNCs are now figuring out how to get around the city. Following their loss, Lyft texted drivers that “Austin’s new rules prevent Lyft pickups/drop-offs within city limits.” In an email…

by Mac McCann

West Austin Studio Tour 2016

The spring sibling to Big Medium’s East Austin Studio Tour turns 5 this year with more than 300 artists, exhibitions, and happenings spread across the sunset side of I-35 May 14 & 15 and 21 & 22, 11am-6pm each day. As with EAST, the best guide to all the West Austin Studio Tour has to…

by Robert Faires

Lege Considers Protecting TNCs From Voter Tyranny

If you lose in court, you appeal to a higher court. If you’re a corporation in Texas, and you lose a battle with a city, you go whine to the Legislature. That’s what happened in 2015, when the city of Denton outlawed the practice of fracking within city limits, and the petrochemical industry simply got…

by Richard Whittaker

Related Events

A talk by Tiffany Cousins, the participatory GIS specialist who created the 2016 maps, and Jennifer Chenoweth. Sat., May 14, noon, Beverly S. Sheffield Education Center. A panel discussion on art projects about Barton Springs with Laura Dunn, Karen Kocher, and Will Van Overbeek, followed by a 1:15pm screening of Laura Dunn’s The Unforeseen, a…

by Chronicle Staff

City Council Picks Up the Pieces

On Monday, May 9, Uber and Lyft announced that Prop 1’s defeat had “forced” them to leave Austin. However, no one at City Hall agrees with that take – “They chose to leave precipitously, with hardly any notice,” emphasized Council Member Ann Kitchen. “We didn’t ask them to leave and we’d like them to stay.”…

by Amy Kamp

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