Cover Story
Get Your Line Dance Country Fried
For many Americans, the term “line dance” calls to mind uncles in 10-gallons turning their Tecovas to “Boot Scootin’ Boogie,” or even an awkward scuffle around the high school gym when P.E. class gets rained out. Kicking those tired tropes outta the dance hall is Country Fried Dance, which has been queering the communal dance…
News
With Prop Q’s Defeat, an Era of Austerity Begins
“I don’t think the voters appreciate how deep the cuts are going to have to be,” Austin City Council Member Mike Siegel told the Chronicle last week as Prop Q, the ballot measure to increase property taxes to fund a variety of city services, went down in flames. Siegel was talking about the cuts that…
The Week’s Biggest News in Brief
Shutdown Circles the Drain: On Monday, the U.S. Senate passed a funding bill that would end the government shutdown, now the longest in history. Despite Democratic senators’ insistence they would not pass the bill without the restoration of federal health care subsidies for lower-income Americans that are set to expire at the end of year,…
Food Plan Persists Amid Financial Fluctuation
On the eastern edge of Travis County, staff load a van labeled “Fresh for Less” with ripe produce from the field behind them and drive into town, prepared to distribute seasonal selections to food-insecure communities at a reduced cost. This service is provided by Farmshare Austin, a nonprofit and certified organic farm that feeds about…
AISD Looks Toward Final Decisions on Closures and Turnaround Plans
Public comment was full at the Austin ISD Board of Trustees meeting two days after the district announced that they’re not closing Palm, Maplewood, and Bryker Woods elementaries next school year, and will delay the school boundary changes to the following school year. “We feel relief for our students and staff,” Adam Sparks, a parent…
Music
Election Results Reviewed
November is a liminal month made even more anticlimactic in the autumn-resistant heat of Texas. It’s a time of anticipation that, in 2024, when Little Mazarn recorded Election Results, bore far more anxious uncertainty than holiday festiveness. “Christmas and Halloween duking it hard/ With the pumpkins and the angels out in the yard,” Lindsey Verrill…
Music Notes
Lexa Gates Saturday 15, the Scoot Inn Lexa Gates weaves laid-back R&B vibes and live, jazzy instrumentation into her raps. The Queens native – recognizable by her signature winged eyeliner – is set to release her major-label debut I Am sometime this fall. Free Bloo & the Freak Saturday 15, Valhalla At Empire in May,…
The Sick Myth of America Isn’t Funny Anymore
Two major moves followed the release of Big Bill’s expansive 2024 LP Strawberry Seed: singer Eric Braden from Austin to Philly, and Donald Trump from Mar-a-Lago back into the White House. The former and his still-local bandmates, bassist Alan Lauer, drummer Jeffrey Olson, and guitarist Alex Riegelman, wrote and recorded that album’s follow-up in a…
Otis Wilkins’ Debut Is a Perfect Development for Taylor Wilkins
In Taylor Wilkins’ first full-length album under his Otis Wilkins moniker, the known Austin rocker officially strays from his “Destroyer” persona and sings of being emotionally undone. Though Power of Stuff holds some whiny punk lyricism and undeniably catchy guitar riffs that are reminiscent of Otis the Destroyer’s rock, the Austinite also leans into a…
Arts + Culture
Forklift Danceworks Makes Utility Maintenance a Moving Spectacle
On a cool November evening, a lone man wearing a hi-vis vest walked calmly through a dark field at Hornsby Bend. His movements were purposeful, methodical as he went about his work, marking the ground with spray paint. A spotlight on him cast a long shadow as a shuffling jazz tune played softly. He was…
Finding the Glass Man Standing
You’re early to Glass Man Standing – to borrow a phrase I keep seeing innovating creators use to clue in their fledgling internet audiences. The Glassmith’s toddling game show is still learning to walk. But, with the mutant grace of a poly-limbed creature bong whose many-eyed visage I was introduced to at their live taping…
Travis Baldree Serves Up Cozy Fantasy & Connection
Author Travis Baldree’s coming back to Texas, and he’s bringing the latest installment of his bestselling cozy fantasy series with him. After enchanting crowds with 2022 debut novel Legends & Lattes and its 2023 sequel, Bookshops & Bonedust, the former Texan/current PNW-er became synonymous with this specific fantasy subgenre – the poster child for creating…
Screens
Angel’s Egg Review: A Lost Anime Still Hides Its Meaning
What happens to a symbol if you strip it of its inherent meaning? That’s the biggest question to spin out of Angel’s Egg, the “lost” anime from writer/director Mamoru Oshii. The 1985 feature – a bust at the time, never released internationally, and now granted a director-approved 4K restoration – is quietly loaded with Biblical…
The Running Man Review: Glen Powell’s Victory Lap
It’s no coincidence that two of this year’s angriest and most nakedly political movies are adapted from the Bachman books – stories published by Stephen King under a nom de plume because they were seen as off-brand for the author. Both deal with our prurient interest in game shows as a form of endurance torture…
The Carpenter’s Son Review: The Passion of the Teenage Christ
Conventional wisdom says that there are Old Testament Christians and New Testament Christians, but this oversimplification leaves out the third and most entertaining segment of the faithful: the Apocrypha fans. The Bible is not a singular text, but an anthology that has been re-edited over the millennia, with whole books excised. Labeled the Apocrypha, they…
Peter Hujar’s Day Review: Being Alive
In his first feature since 2023’s electric pas de trois Passages, Ira Sachs enlists Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall in a most curious experiment that somehow avoids coming off like a gimmick. A slim two-hander, Peter Hujar’s Day dramatizes a 1974 conversation between the writer Linda Rosenkrantz and her friend, acclaimed photographer Peter Hujar, conducted…
Columns
Happy Birthday Column
Hello readers! This is my annual birthday column, which I write just in case anyone has birthday compliments for me burning a hole in their pockets. Usually I have a whole gimmick like trans movie recs, but this week I actually also wrote the cover feature so my gift to myself is keeping the column…
Austin FC Offseason Preview: Who Stays, Who Goes?
It’s always an inexact science, evaluating whether a sports team overachieved or underachieved relative to the talent on its roster. But a sixth-place finish in the Western Conference standings, a return to the MLS Cup Playoffs, and a quick Round 1 ouster to a true title contender feels about right for what Austin FC could…
Day Trips: Horseshoe Bay Lighthouse, Horseshoe Bay
Horseshoe Bay Lighthouse stands at the end of a peninsula stretching into the eastern end of Lake LBJ outside of Marble Falls. The square rock tower looks like a misshapen rocket more than a classic lighthouse. It’s considered a “faux” lighthouse because it never had an official navigation function, although the red light on top…
Feedback: November 14, 2025
In the Zone Dear Editor, Media coverage of the defeat of Prop Q, the city’s tax rate election, has suggested that it reflects a “rightward shift” in Austin politics or a “harsh disapproval” of the City Council’s ability to manage its finances. But if you review precinct-by-precinct results, the most striking shifts occurred in the…
Finding the Glass Man Standing
You’re early to Glass Man Standing – to borrow a phrase I keep seeing innovating creators use to clue in their fledgling internet audiences. The Glassmith’s toddling game show is still learning to walk. But, with the mutant grace of a poly-limbed creature bong whose many-eyed visage I was introduced to at their live taping…
The Luv Doc: Let Bleeding Martyrs Bleed
Luv Doc, I work at a small, contract-based marketing company here in Austin. In total we have around 80 employees and in my department there are nine people. I like our manager and get along with my co-workers, except for one particular employee we call Mrs. Martyr. She is always the first one at work…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
They don’t have stop signs in Paris, France. The Japanese word for “fig” is “ichijiku,” which means “no flower fruit.” That’s because the flower blooms inside the fruit. Attempted presidential assassin John Hinckley was housed at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital – the same psychiatric facility that housed Richard Lawrence (who tried to kill Andrew Jackson) and…
Fun + Games
Free Will Astrology
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Your dreams speak in images, not ideas. They bypass your rational defenses and tell the truth slantwise because the truth straight-on may be too bright to bear. The source of dreams, your unconscious, is fluent in a language that your waking mind may not be entirely adept in understanding: symbol, metaphor,…
Austin FC
Austin FC Offseason Preview: Who Stays, Who Goes?
It’s always an inexact science, evaluating whether a sports team overachieved or underachieved relative to the talent on its roster. But a sixth-place finish in the Western Conference standings, a return to the MLS Cup Playoffs, and a quick Round 1 ouster to a true title contender feels about right for what Austin FC could…
