Cover Story
Making the Grade
Artificial intelligence has changed the classroom for English teachers. When ChatGPT use became commonplace, Sarah Walker, who has taught the subject in Austin ISD for the last 14 years, had her students go back to paper and pencil. “What a lot of teachers in English have done this past year is move back to really…
News
City Council Weighs Proposal for 2,600-Acre Development
Austin’s City Council approved an agreement last week to create a massive mixed-use development of more than 2,600 acres – over twice the size of Austin’s Downtown – just east of the city limits. The development will be built on a piece of land sitting beside the Colorado River, between U.S. 183 and State Highway…
UT Community Raises Concerns About Department Consolidations
Áine McGehee Marley, a third-year Ph.D. student in UT’s African and African Diaspora Studies department, said another student informed her that the university had officially confirmed the consolidation of several race, ethnic, and gender studies departments before she or her department had received any notification. “It’s definitely a choice to send something out like that…
Austinites Elect Montserrat Garibay to Represent Central Austin
The road to finding the Democrat who will represent House District 49 and Central Austin, for lack of a Republican candidate, was a crowded one. Back in March, Austinites cast their votes for their pick amidst a packed field with several promising, competitive opponents. Kathie Tovo and Montserrat Garibay emerged from that crowd as quite…
The Week’s Biggest News in Brief: May 21-27
Paxton Wins Runoff: In a heated race to represent the Republican Party in November’s election for U.S. senator, Attorney General Ken Paxton handily defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn by around 380,000 more votes. This marks the end of an era for Cornyn, having served as one of the state’s two U.S. senators since 2002. Paxton’s…
Music
Music Notes
Exploded Drawing Friday 29, dadaLab Los Angeles artist Lealani headlines the first 2026 edition of Butcher Bear and Soundfounder’s long-running, electronic music-focused event. Locals Blank Hellscape, Égaux Sells, and Locuust bolster the lineup. As always, admission is five dollars. Voices of Austin Album Release Sunday 31, Sagebrush David Dalton of Continental Drift and los Desechos…
Quiet Light’s Broken Heart Shimmers
Gillian Welch, Tirzah, Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, a dash of Bladee – the deft hands of Quiet Light’s Riya Mahesh juggle these seemingly disparate influences with poise on Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2. Marking her debut for tastemaking NYC label True Panther, the release signals her rapidly rising star in the white-hot world of experimental pop. …
Soupmakesitbetter Gives His Love of Music Back to the People
Soupmakesitbetter has always had a heart for the human, reflecting contemporary issues in his art. His latest fast-paced, seven-track album, Back to the People, is all about honoring life’s hard-yet-universal experiences of growth, motivation, and struggle. Jumping between motivational hip-hop tracks and melodic, piano-layered rap anthems, Soup reflects on his journey to self-confidence (“Soup 4…
Ultra Introduces Sophia Nance’s New Genre-Expansive Project
Twinkles of hyperpop glitter and shimmering, soulful synth swish over R&B backbeats on Ultra, ULTRAvioletcoraline’s 15-minute introductory EP. Sophia Nance, synth player and violinist of neo soul art-rockers lluvii, follows up on her 2024 jazzy bedroom pop solo project, Modern Sophia, with a cohesive dispatch of pastel-hued daydreams that flow between genre influences. Where lluvii’s…
Arts + Culture
The Seesaw of Working Motherhood
Erma Bombeck lives. Not literally, of course. The housewife humorist with the No. 1 syndicated column of the 1970s and Eighties died in 1996, but she left an immortal legacy and tradition. Bombeck’s honest views of motherhood and wifedom, heavily tempered with zany zingers, led to generations of copycat creations. Every paper had their own…
Process, Performance, and Artistic Patronage on Display at DORF
A microscope, a greenhouse, a fishbowl – there are plenty of apt analogies for DORF Gallery’s upcoming artist residency under glass fostering outside-the-tank creativity this summer. The artist-run contemporary gallery won Best New Experimental Art Gallery from the Chronicle when it opened in 2018 and has maintained a steadfast dedication to innovative programming. This summer’s…
Screens
Tuner Review: All the Right Notes at the Right Time
High art meets low lifes in Tuner, a gritty but charming crime drama set in the unlikely world of piano tuners. Unlikely, that is, unless you grew up on old school heist flicks where some guy would be leaning, sweating, with a stethoscope up against a bank vault, turning the dial and hoping to hear…
Backrooms Review: The King in Yellow Wallpaper
A story can begin with a single photo. Take the instigating image behind liminal horror Backrooms, a discovered photo of an empty furniture store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, depicting a windowless space with nonsensical architectural flourishes, every surface covered in that sickly pale yellow that screams post-Reagan strip mall blandness. That image has haunted the internet…
Columns
The Luv Doc: Undone
Dear Luv Doc, Me and my boyfriend got into a fight at my best friend’s party last Saturday. We had both been drinking for a while so that couldn’t have helped things. What started it was that I was sitting talking with some friends in the living room and it started feeling really hot and…
Day Trips: Cypress Bend Park, Louisiana
Cypress Bend Park outside of Many, La., sits on a bluff overlooking the Toledo Bend Reservoir. The campsites and cabins stairstep up the hillside giving most overnight guests a view of the lake through the trees. The campground is in a stand of towering pine trees. The tops of the trees sway in the breeze…
Feedback: May 29, 2026
Demand Accountability Dear Editor, Last week, the UT System Regents met after the academic year ended, when many students and faculty were already out of town. Between no same-day sign-ups for testimony, timed remarks limited to the “chairmen’s discretion,” requiring pre-approval of speaking topics, and a phone line for speaker registration and questions that was…
Qmmunity: Look Twice
There’s a lot to be said for looking twice. An example to exemplify what I’m exampling: Last week, Instagram recommended a post to me praising Austin’s queer Fourth Street bars. I was interested if only because any and all writing about LGBTQ Austin intrigues me, but closer appraisal – a second look! – shocked me. Rather than…
Opinion: You Cannot Surveil a City Into Safety
As a mom in South Austin, I think about safety every day. Like many parents across this city, I watched in horror after the recent string of shootings involving teenagers across Austin. The fear is real. Parents are exhausted from raising children in an environment shaped by violence, instability, and constant anxiety. But what disturbed…
Mr. and Mrs. Happy Clouds
You’ve seen the iconic logo: a big fluffy cartoon cloud with smiling red eyes. The storefront on Guadalupe, nestled right into “the strip” just off the University of Texas campus, doesn’t even have the name of the shop on the front, just the eponymous anthropomorphic cloud himself against a bright blue background. This shop is…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Rick Dees was fired as a disc jockey at WMPS for merely mentioning his record “Disco Duck” on-air. Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, mysteriously vanished in 1913. Some suspect he committed suicide due to debt and deteriorating health. David Niven lost his wife on May 19, 1946, when she accidentally fell down a…
World Cup Break Kicks Off Uncertain Austin FC Future
You’d be hard-pressed to sum up the current state of Austin FC any better than striker Brandon Vázquez did following the club’s latest demoralizing loss – a 3-0 beatdown away versus St. Louis City over the weekend. “We’re in a shitty moment, and that’s the reality.” Considering the reality includes a 14th-place position (out of…
Fun + Games
Free Will Astrology
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Among the Dogon of Mali, Sigui so is a secret language. It’s used in a sacred ritual when people gather to retell their beginnings and patch up strains in tribal harmony. I’m borrowing “Sigui so” here as a symbol for a way of talking that I hope you will specialize in…
