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Exhibitionism

Tango and samba fit quite well in Austin Shakespeare’s production of this romance, but the actors can’t quite find the beat

by Robert Faires

‘Austin Chronicle’ Adult Spelling Bee Wrap-up

Once again rain threatened the evening’s festivities at the Austin Chronicle Adult Spelling Bee held last Thursday at Threadgill’s World HQ. Despite the weather and the prez being in town, there were 130 registrants, each one helping to raise more than $400 for the city’s libraries. The first spelling test eliminated more than half, leaving…

by Danielle White

Exhibitionism

Half & Half Productions’ debut about a young black man’s journey of self-discovery was hampered by its mall storefront location

by Matthew Irwin

Soccer Watch

The Austin Aztex season has just started – I’m not sure their roster’s even fully set yet – but already they’re under some pressure, contending in two different competitions at once, and likely facing two games a week for as long as they can keep up their early success. The Premier Development League season got…

by Nick Barbaro

Texas Platters

Patty Griffin American Kid (New West) When loss fuels an album, it can play like an open wound. Tender, reflective, and poignant, Patty Griffin’s seventh LP, American Kid, honors her late father Lawrence Griffin, a World War II veteran and high school teacher. The ultimate labor of love, its folk blues offers a deeply moving…

by Abby Johnston

Oops!

The caption for the Pecan Street Pike Powers Lab rendering in last week’s News story on the Mueller development (“Mapping Out Mueller”) incorrectly stated that the lab would open at the end of the year. The lab will be opening in June. The Chronicle regrets the error. In last week’s Food story about the Culinary…

by Chronicle Staff

Texas Platters

Mrs. Glass (Hoss Pie) On the back of this eponymous disc, Mrs. Glass sits in a fine suit tipping back a tumbler of whiskey. A lit cigarette stuck in his guitar’s headstock helps identify him to patrons of the White Horse and Blackheart, where the young bluesman holds court regularly. As proved by opener “Tut…

by Kevin Curtin

Mr. Smarty Pants Knows

Angie Dickinson planned to be a writer, inspired by her publisher father. While a student, she worked as a secretary at Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank (now Bob Hope Airport) and in a parts factory. A timing error of half a millisecond in either direction is enough to cause a pitcher to miss the strike…

by Mr. Smarty Pants

Think Pink

Pastry Queen and the Pink Pig proprietor Rebecca Rather keeps giving us reasons to drive to Fredericksburg

by Wes Marshall

Texas Platters

Meat Puppets Rat Farm (Megaforce) The Meat Puppets are now older than the dirt they kick up. With their eponymous debut three decades aged, the threesome’s 14th studio trek reconfirms their unbelievable comeback. After last decade’s drug drama by bassist Cris Kirkwood, older brother Curt continues penning some of the strongest, sweetest, and compellingly twisted…

by Jim Caligiuri

Texas Platters

Iron & Wine Ghost on Ghost (Nonesuch) Iron & Wine achieves a rare feat with Ghost on Ghost: an adult contemporary album without cliche or compromise. It’s Sam Beam’s Graceland, except instead of South Africa, he’s moved to North Carolina. The transition has been years in the making. Since the bedroom folk of 2002 debut…

by Austin Powell

Texas Platters

Jason Boland & the Stragglers Dark & Dirty Mile (Proud Souls) Jason Boland’s come a long way since his Red Dirt-kicking, Pearl Snaps days. 2008’s Comal County Blue proved the Okie native and decadelong Austinite worthy of the top tier of emerging Texas songwriters, its poignant tunes crafted through their songwriter’s blistered heartbreak and alcoholism…

by Doug Freeman

The Luv Doc: Real People vs. Smart Phones

LuvDoc, Whenever my girlfriend goes anywhere with me in my car she spends the whole time checking her email and Facebook on her iPhone. I haven’t said anything to her about it yet – well, maybe I have teased her a few times – but I think it’s rude. Should I say something to her…

by The Luv Doc

7 & 7 Is

Cunto! Finally, a Good Band From Austin A 7-inch single should be epic. Moby Dick condensed to haiku, Apocalypse Now as a six-second video. The Vine of vinyl. Austin punk-grass quintet Cunto! delivers a Paul Bunyan-like boot heel clack on its four-song debut, Chronicle newsman Kevin Curtin’s rolling mandolin crystallizing right up front on acoustic…

by Raoul Hernandez

Quote of the Week

“A stay is not a matter of right, even if irreparable injury would otherwise result.” – Fifth Circuit opinion denying a stay of execution for Jeffrey Williams, who was slated to die May 15

by Chronicle Staff

Headlines

› City Council doesn’t meet this week but will return to the dais with a full agenda on May 23, when it’s scheduled to consider what has turned into a long-running debate over a new governance structure at Austin Energy. › For the first time in 24 years, Austin ISD voters have rejected a district…

by Chronicle Staff

Pieta

South Korea’s Kim Ki-duk makes his most commercial film yet, but it’s still full of queasy-making moments.

by Marjorie Baumgarten

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