Cover Story
Girls Gone Geek
Weird Girls is an Austin-based website and YouTube channel dedicated to all things geeky, but from a female perspective
Estate Sale Roundup: May 29-31
Get your loot while the sun shines – we’re estate sailin’.
Expanding the Realm
Black Star Co-op moves its beers into bars
Continental Love Songs by Liv Mueller
Thursdays in the Gallery she marries punk/country/schmaltz
Michael Pollan Preaches It
Author is a fantastic evangelist for better ways of dealing with food
City’s SXSW Survey Finds Little Worth Noting
General questions by ACE staff lead to general answers
The AggreGAYtor: May 29
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
Meat Loaf Gets ‘Stage Fright’
Occasional local can’t save this midnight mess
Art Review: ‘Blog Reblog’
Randomly paired photos yield serendipitous imagery
Instacart Invades Austin
Online delivery service could change the way we shop for groceries
The AggreGAYtor: May 28
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
It’s Patrick and Paxton
Dewhurst hammered once again; Hogan beats Kinky
Abbott Intern Compares Davis to Hitler
#AltWendyDavisBookTitle hashtag backfires
No Rush to Rename Auditorium Shores
Council delays name change to “Vic Mathias Shores”
aGLIFF/Polari Announces Dates and More
aGLIFF returns for its 27th year, with free activities all summer long
New York, New York
My first trip to the land of fire escapes
Still Time to Vote!
Hit the bricks for today’s primary runoffs
The AggreGAYtor: May 27
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
The History Book on the Shelf Is Always Repeating Itself
‘Mad Men’ hits reset with midseason finale “Waterloo”
DVD Watch: ’24 Exposures’
Joe Swanberg on filmmaker obsessions tops this week’s releases
The AggreGAYtor: May 26
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
Rise of the Valkyrie
Kate Leth talks women in comics and fake geek girl phobia
Big Hearts for Big Cats
Lion rescue doc screens tonight at Stateside benefit
Powerslam Like a Woman
Inspire Pro Wrestling hosts NWA Women’s Champ bout tonight
Paggi House Closed; Garrido’s Sold
Two popular eateries close for good this weekend
DVDanger Extra: ‘Frequencies’
English VOD curio is the oddball that fits in
DVDanger: Zoe Bell on ‘Raze’
Tarantino’s favorite tough lady talks underground fighting
A Heavy ‘Heart’
HBO adaptation makes the case for rage
Johnette Napolitano, No Holds Barred
Author, DIY adopter, tattooist, ghost buster, you name it
‘Chef’ Film Opens Today in Austin
In-depth research with consulting chefs adds realism to movie
“And I told her …”
Joshua Ferris brings his working writer’s style to Austin
Stephen Marley Q&A
Reggae scion on hip-hop, Bob, and a new branch on the family tree
Behind the Scenes With ‘The Fault In Our Stars’
Watch John Green and Josh Boone share set stories at Forever Fest sneak
Run-Off Running Out of Steam
Final day of early voting in primaries
Where the Girls Go/ATX: Three-Day Weekend Edition
Your guide to finding the grrrls and bois of ATX all weekend long
Kickstart Your Weekend: The Austin Toy Museum
Celebrate your collecting obsession with Austin’s newest museum
The AggreGAYtor: May 23
What happened today in gay? Here’s your QILTBAG recap of queer news.
The Luv Doc: Whipping It Out
Dear Luv Doc, In the throes of passion with copulation imminent, when is the perfect time to bring out, unwrap, and don the prophylactic to enhance the romance? – Mofo Copulation imminent. There’s a sticky wicket. There are countless instances when copulation seems imminent but is in fact, not at all imminent. Awk. In the…
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Diverting but rarely riveting, this latest offering from the Marvel Universe kicks the can down the road some more.
Blended
America’s favorite screen couple, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, mosey through another rom-com.
Belle
Inspired by a 1779 painting of two real-life cousins – one black, one white – Belle gives a fictionalized account of their lives.
Chef
Jon Favreau and a bunch of ready collaborators find the heart in this story about a chef who rediscovers what’s important when he turns to a food truck.
Good Mexico City Food Has a Home on the Eastside
There’s still room for improvement, but so far we’re enchanted with Licha’s Cantina
Austin Sketch Fest
Skewering reality for the fifth year in a row – now with Skinny Bitch Jesus Meeting and more!
Brewskee! Tears, Cheers, and Beers
Skee-ball calls foul over patent rights
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America by Douglas Gayeton Harper Design, 272 pp., $35 Douglas Gayeton took his daughter to Devil’s Gulch in Marin County, Calif. Looking forward to introducing her to spawning salmon – the yearly event he joyously witnessed as a child – Gayeton was in for a disheartening…
Chaotic Platters
Nothing Guilty of Everything (Relapse) For an act this high on volume, Guilty of Everything betrays more interest in soothing than smashing. The Philly fourpiece’s debut wraps crystalline melodies in a palliative blanket of fuzz and shoegazing psychedelia, but make no mistake: This ain’t any dream-pop/black metal mélange called metalgaze. It’s the real deal –…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Canning, Pickling and Freezing With Irma Harding: Recipes to Preserve Food, Family and the American Way by Marilyn McCray Octane Press, 256 pp., $22.95 When Irma Harding, the beloved trademark character of International Harvester’s home appliances, was introduced in 1948, ours was a country building itself up post-war, when victory gardens fed families and home…
First Street Studio
New Eastside performance venue debuts with Chaddick Dance Theater’s ‘Turned Inside Out’
Owens Faces More Charges
Grand jury adds more charges in Red River crash
Food, Foodies, Foodways
The Nourished Kitchen: Farm-to-Table Recipes for the Traditional Foods Lifestyle by Jennifer McGruther Ten Speed Press, 320 pp., $27.99 A food educator and advocate for sustainable agriculture, Jennifer McGruther founded the ever popular food blog Nourished Kitchen before embarking upon her latest endeavor. Based on the research of Weston A. Price, McGruther’s The Nourished Kitchen…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
My Usual Table: A Life in Restaurants by Colman Andrews Ecco Press, 336 pp., $25.99 For anyone who loves a good restaurant – eating in them, reading about them, and discussing them endlessly – Colman Andrews is your kind of guy, whether you recognize his name or not. Andrews is one of those people who…
Texas Platters
Old 97’s Most Messed Up (ATO) Rhett Miller exhales prior to jumping into the raison d’etre for Most Messed Up, opener “Longer Than You’ve Been Alive.” In that breath, one can almost hear his Dallas fab four’s double decade of recording. Then he leaps into the song’s tumbling verses, underlined by, “We’ve been doing this…
The Good Eye: V Is for Vulnerability
There ain’t nothin’ hurly or burly about these ladies
More Poor Planning
Construction was still halted this week on the Waller Creek Tunnel intake facility in Waterloo Park, after the city admitted last week that the building design is too tall for the Capitol view corridor it sits in. Council voted Thursday to approve up to $1.8 million for outside legal counsel to work on the problem.…
Controlled Chaos
Chaos in Tejas contracts to ‘A Weekend in Austin’
Controlled Chaos
Beth Israel (Thu., May 29, Red 7) Experimental garage band led by Zack Claxton and Ramsey Eddins, who dourly sing absurdist lyrics over coarse guitar textures. Their new debut appears on Parquet Courts’ Dull Tools label. Breakout (Sun., June 1, Cheer Up Charlie’s) Young Austinites making instant anthems by mixing modern hardcore with Oi! vox.…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
The Homesick Texan’s Family Table: Lone Star Cooking From My Kitchen to Yours by Lisa Fain Ten Speed Press, 288 pp., $29.99 Food blogger Lisa Fain, a Texas native who moved to New York in the mid-Nineties, started her blog (www.homesicktexan.com) in 2005 as a way to share recipes and stories from her Texas upbringing.…
The Right Hails Hall
Regent refuses to go quietly
Food, Foodies, Foodways
The Hip Girl’s Guide to the Kitchen: A Hit-the-Ground-Running Approach to Stocking Up and Cooking Delicious, Nutritious, and Affordable Meals by Kate Payne Harper Design, 352 pp., $19.99 Anyone interested in both food and literature has our attention, so naturally, we’re a fan of Kate Payne: writer first, DIY maven next. In an interview from…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Man Made Meals: The Essential Cookbook for Guys by Steven Raichlen Workman Publishing, 640 pp., $22.95 It’s because Steven Raichlen is the savant who wrote The Barbecue! Bible and hosts PBS’ Primal Grill and has already won five James Beard Awards for his cookbooks: That’s why you can roll your eyes, if necessary, at the…
Texas Platters
Ghetto Ghouls (Monofonus Press) Ghetto Ghouls barbaric garage-scuzz crystallizes on snare-spiked opener “Peepshow,” whose vaulting rhythms, dental-drill guitar tone, and garbled shouts stuff the singer into a straitjacket. A Beerland house band, the Ghouls recreate their Lone Star-spilling live show with this self-recorded 12-song bow, released on vinyl by Austin’s great underground media publisher, Monofonus…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
The Smithsonian Institution has a collection of over 20,000 skulls. In order to bring luck and money to one’s renovation project on an apartment in China, the owner and the contractor will light a huge string of red fireworks shaped in a figure eight on the raw concrete floor. Nirvana’s first album, Bleach, was recorded…
Controlled Chaos
Pseudogod Wed., May 28, Red 7 For an inaugural desecration of American soil, Russia’s Pseudogod woke the demons from its debut long-player, 2012’s Deathwomb Catechesis, a hellish wrath of graveyard growls, firing squad blastbeats, and riffing both brutal and atmospheric. Before boarding a long flight to the U.S., guitarist D. Nekros fielded questions via email…
Chaotic Platters
Pinkish Black Razed to the Ground (Century Media) “Ashtray Eyes” begins with a long, menacing, headcase synth loop, the kind of thing that makes your brain dribble through your nose. Daron Beck mumbles some evil incantations, there’s a big blast of distorted bass, and suddenly Pinkish Black has made one of the more resonant metal…
Texas Platters
The Frank Mustard Project Jelly Butter EP Comprising local pranksters playing pseudonymously – including main collaborators “Frank Mustard” (Jeff Rowe) and “Ed Mayo” (bassist Eric Carter), plus keyboardist “Richard Ranch” (Justin Sherman) and ex-Alejandro Escovedo drummer Hector Munoz (“El MexiCan Droid”) – the FMP follow up a three-year-old EP, Future Music, and considerable touring. This…
Collective Strength
The 2014 class of the Austin Arts Hall of Fame
Point Austin: Fixing What Ain’t Broke
Does city want fair hiring, or to break the union?
Food, Foodies, Foodways
French Wine: An Illustrated Miscellany by Bernard Pivot Flammarion, 256 pp., $34.95 If the title grabbed you, then you are probably one of the coterie of French wine aficionados. Well, this book is guaranteed to bring long hours of reading enjoyment. This isn’t the type of book that picks your wines for you and tells…
Chaotic Platters
Floor Oblation (Season of Mist) Despite going great guns with Torche’s “thunder pop,” Miami doom merchant Steve Brooks reunited his previous sludge trawlers Floor for a tour that included Fun Fun Fun Fest 2010 and now culminates in Oblation. Good call, man. The Florida trio’s first studio album in a decade and third LP overall…
Texas Platters
Megabig Living in the Underground (Permanent Youth) Living in the Underground, this Austin power trio’s first full-length, finds joy in songs built on guitar hooks and the energy spew of the eternally caffeinated. Singer/guitarist Danny Listrom doesn’t screw around, gushing sinuous leads, crunchy chords, and melodious singing with neither muss nor fuss. Drummer Danny Blanchard,…
Day Trips
New Orleans traditions begin at the historic Columns Hotel
Then There’s This: Highway 45 Revisited
Except for the mayor, Council reaffirms opposition to ‘aquifer toll road’
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Brassicas: Cooking the World’s Healthiest Vegetables: Kale, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts and More by Laura B. Russell Ten Speed Press, 176 pp., $23 It was not that long ago that brassicas – better known as cruciferous vegetables – were the pariahs of the kitchen. Then one day, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts went from the…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Delicious!: A Novel by Ruth Reichl Random House, 400 pp., $27 Ruth Reichl is one of the most successful food writers of her generation, with a résumé that includes positions as both restaurant critic and food editor of the Los Angeles Times, restaurant critic of The New York Times, and editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. During…
Texas Platters
So Long, Problems Ashes in the Rearview “We don’t draw, but worst of all, we don’t try,” announces So Long, Problems in opening their debut LP, a declaration of opting out of the band hustle even as the local quintet finally seems ready for a bigger spotlight. “Draw” surges with a Mott the Hoople, Memphis-horned…
Soccer Watch
It was a down and up week for the Austin Aztex. On Wednesday they were knocked out of the U.S. Open Cup by underdog NTX Rayados, in a penalty kick shootout after a wild 4-4 tie through regulation and overtime. But on Saturday they stayed unbeaten in league play, beating Midland-Odessa 2-1 in their first…
Headlines
› After plenty of heavy lifting last week – rideshare wrangling, Onion Creek buyout plan, SH 45 opposition – this week’s City Council agenda (May 22) looks a bit lighter, although Spansion and Flextronics will be asking for Enterprise Zone status to earn state sales tax incentives. › After a donnybrook at last Thursday’s Council…
Controlled Chaos
Destruction Unit Sun., June 1, Red 7 This Arizona collective finds its form in sheer, visceral force. Three feedback-sodden guitars, a concussive rhythm section, and the odd overdriven synth bleat bore through unguarded defense mechanisms in a triumph of psych-noise bluster. “The sound that immediacy creates is what we sound like,” asserts guitarist JS Aurelius.…
Controlled Chaos
Deskonocidos (Fri., May 30, Red 7) One-off reunion for crucial Austin act throwing hardcore Spanish shouts over tone-heavy post-punk. Sin Motivo (Fri., May 30, Red 7) Assembly of Denton/Fort Worth punks delivering turbulent, hardcore epics under a muscular vocal roar. Tercer Mundo (Sat., May 31, Hotel Vegas/ Sun., June 1, Cheer Up Charlie’s) Rabid hardcore…
Texas Platters
An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story (Blue Corn) Award-winning documentary An Unreal Dream focuses on the unjust conviction of Williamson County’s Michael Morton for the murder of his wife. The soundtrack, including songs not in the film but inspired by it, comes from guitarists Rich Brotherton and Chuck Pinnell. Their haunting instrumental work combined…
Gay Place: Which Splash?
Let Austin booty fill you with joy this week
Quote of the Week
“Zero.” – Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and rival Sen. Dan Patrick on how many billions they’d spend to address climate change, during a debate Tuesday.
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Lodge Cast Iron Nation: Great American Cooking from Coast to Coast by the Lodge Company Oxmoor House, 288 pp., $24.95 I am of two minds about this cookbook, a collection of cast-iron-centric recipes featuring the best of regional American cookery and, as this is a product of the Lodge corporation, a celebration of all things…
Chaotic Platters
Protomartyr Under Color of Official Right (Hardly Art) In the dark rut between technological triumphalism and a working class on the ropes, the time is ripe for Protomartyr’s axiomatic post-punk. Encrypted menace, lonely tremolo, and herky-jerk rhythms abound on the Detroit quartet’s second album. Joe Casey’s vocals recall the dour, embittered bellow of Mark E.…
Texas Platters
Collin Herring Some Knives Austin continues to hide some astonishingly talented singer-songwriters. Count Collin Herring among them, although Some Knives, his fifth disc and first in almost five years, might change that. Herring’s songs move between alt.country, power pop, and psychedelia with unusual ease. Produced by Matt Pence of Centro-matic, it’s a roller coaster of…
Playback: Fun Fun Fun Fest: Hell Bent for Leather
Some heads are gonna roll at Fun Fun Fun Fest 2014
Chaotic Platters
Kelley Stoltz Double Exposure (Third Man) Kelley Stoltz, Michigander with a heart full of British singsong, delivers pure pop nostalgia on Double Exposure. Cool keys peek out through the distortion on the LP’s longest track, the nine-minute “Inside My Head,” a dark trench dividing the disc in two. “Marcy” and “Kim Chee Taco Man” recall…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Yucatán: Recipes From a Culinary Expedition by David Sterling University of Texas Press, 576 pp., $60 David Sterling is the owner/chef-instructor of the renowned Los Dos cooking school in Mérida, Mexico, run from within his restored colonial home. It’s a total immersion experience, with tours of markets, street vendors, restaurants, food producers, etc. He has…
Texas Platters
Chase Gassaway Certain Circles Could Chase Gassaway be the next Bob Schneider? For his second solo effort, the local pens 10 pop ditties pointing that way. Eclectic motifs abound, and despite getting overly pensive on occasion, his message of hope and inspiration plays bright and buoyant. The banjo, horns, and positivity of “Turn This Thing…
The Hightower Report
School lunches vs. fat-cat dinners
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Homegrown Pork by Sue Weaver Storey Publishing, 256 pp., $18.95 The desire for better-tasting, healthier food has led many a suburbanite to put in a vegetable garden and even to build a chicken coop if zoning allows it. However much it seems like the next logical step, I doubt a suburb exists that will allow…
Texas Platters
BettySoo When We’re Gone Five long years since the release of 2009’s Heat Sin Water Skin, BettySoo returns with an emotionally wracked and poignant collection for her fourth LP. The time between has steeled her vision, unlocking tiny transformational moments in her songs that capture the encompassing swell of depression, heartbreak, and torrents of everyday…
The Plantation at Comal Bluff
Sneed House ruins tell a story beneath and behind modern Austin
Climate Change: City Targets Zero Emissions
City aims for carbon neutrality by 2050
Controlled Chaos
Wedged between Argentina and the Pacific Ocean, Chile has grown to a nation of over 17 million. Like any predominantly Catholic country, it lends itself to death metal. Two acts from Rancagua, south of the country’s capital, rip Red 7’s stage Wednesday in support of Russian headliners Pseudogod. Morbid threesome Wrathprayer offers its 2012 exultation…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Okra by Virginia Willis U. of North Carolina Press, 120 pp., $18 This slender volume is the eighth installment in the Savor the South series of cookbooks put out by UNC Press. Each book is about a single Southern food or beverage, and previous books have focused on buttermilk, bourbon, tomatoes, biscuits, peaches, and pecans.…
Oops!
In a May 16 story about the Pleasant Storage Room (“Riding the Wave of Rum Punch”), we erroneously listed Péché on Jason Schnurr’s CV. The Chronicle regrets the error. Last week’s review of Laura Long’s debut novel Out of Peel Tree contained a few biographical miscalculations. While we said she “came to Austin as a…
Council: Vested Interests
Council agenda considers grandfathering, incentives, and parking
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Thailand: The Cookbook by Jean-Pierre Gabriel Phaidon Press, 528 pp., $49.95 Jean-Pierre Gabriel is a Belgian photographer, sociologist, and food historian who became intrigued with Thai food and culture. He spent three years traveling throughout all of the regions of the country, with the full support of the Agriculture Department of the Royal Thai Government.…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
A is for Absinthe: A Spirited Book of ABCs by Lara Nixon Illustrated by Casey Barber Self-published (available for purchase at www.aisforabsinthe.com), 38 pp., $18.95 Walk into any bar in Austin and you’re likely to see them. Ditto for most any liquor store in town. And don’t even get me started on the major distribution…
Exhibitionism
The title may sound heavy, but this is a black comedy, given an artful and playful new staging by Paper Chairs
Project Connect: Three Rail Plans Mulled for CCAG
Advisory Group looks at three options, plus costs
When Dallas and Fort Worth Were the Music Capitals of Texas
Before Austin became the ‘live music capital,’ they were rocking & rolling in DFW
Chaotic Platters
Parquet Courts Sunbathing Animal (What’s Your Rupture/Mom + Pop) Even heard through the inflated expectations wrought by 2013 jolt Light Up Gold, Parquet Courts’ sophomore follow-up rates an unqualified success. Building on its penchant for whimsical wordplay, the NYC art-punk quartet taps the fresh-cut immediacy of Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell to richen their urban…
Texas Platters
Hank Erwin Million Miles Alt.country has a long tradition of singers with quirky voices. Hank Erwin, the alter ego of Brett Nuelsen, fits in among those to a degree. At times his baritone drops deep, at others he’s deeply off key. That effect ruins most of Million Miles, but Erwin’s roots-rock heart seems in the…
Food-O-File
Trailers on the move, and the Austin food community loses a friend
Exhibitionism
Chorus Austin’s showcase of new choral work by Texas composers proved there is plenty of homegrown talent to celebrate
ACC Adjunct Faculty Sees Progress
Plan would create hybrid lecturer / support staff posts
Players’ Guide
Space cowboys in Marfa, ‘Angry Henry,’ and how you can help Greenlight local developers
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Charcutería: The Soul of Spain by Jeffrey Weiss Agate Surrey, 464 pp., $39.95 Author Jeffrey Weiss is a professional chef who won the prestigious ICEX scholarship, enabling him to live in Spain while studying the food culture and the regional cuisines, and cook in the kitchens with some of the best chefs of the Iberian…
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Texas Hill Country Cuisine: Flavors From the Cabernet Grill Texas Wine Country Restaurant by Ross Burtwell and Julia Celeste Rosenfeld Creative Noggin Press, 196 pp., $34.95 A few years back, I had a freelance assignment to write about the Cabernet Grill’s unique Hill Country cuisine, paired with the state’s only 100% Texas wine list. I…
Exhibitionism
This lighthearted exhbition by Matthew John Winters has a perspective as refreshing as the candy in its title
Judge Yeakel: Hyatt Lawsuit Can Proceed
Judge okays wrongful termination lawsuit against TWDB
Food, Foodies, Foodways
Cookbooks and cultural conversation starters top our summer reading list
Chaotic Platters
Beth Israel Dental Denial (Dull Tools) Soft, synthetic ballad “Dead Bodies” comes off like a smudgy photocopy of flat-toned Liz Phair guitar pop. Austin duo Beth Israel thus stays consistently, defiantly lo-fi on second album Dental Denial, the kind of rickety songwriting born out of aesthetic desires. These songs sound as if they’ve been left…
Texas Platters
Tom Harvey The Big Idea Some might remember Tom Harvey from the Windows, whose debut won Best EP in the Chronicle’s reader poll of 1985. The Big Idea, his solo debut, finds him in overly sincere singer-songwriter mode, which wears thin quickly. Harvey possesses strong guitar-picking ability and certainly knows how to compose a song,…
