Cover Story
In a Thankless Year, 20 Austinites We’re Thankful for in 2020
We single out some locals who have given us hope
Black Star Co-Op Talks Collaboration During COVID and 10 Years of Brewing
The state of an Austin beer mainstay
New Vegan Pizza and Ice Cream Shop Open in North Austin
Big Nonna’s makes the ultimate cruelty-free comfort combo
Qmmunity’s 2020 Guide to Gifting Queerly and Locally
Gifting queer cheer after one helluva year
Some Mocktails Are Better Than Others
Three bright brands to inspire your best non-boozy drinking
Virtual Enrollment and New Funding Boost HAAM Sign-up Period, Which is Now
Roughly 500 member spots remain, so make an appointment today
AFS Cinema Joins Forces with Sundance Film Festival
Local arthouse becomes satellite venue for the Utah fest
Checking In: Akina Adderley Misses the Before-Times
“The hugs and real-time raucous laughter and ‘careless closeness’”
Eleven APD Officers Disciplined for Misconduct In Police-Brutality Protests
UPDATED: Seven more likely to face prosecution in May incidents
Checking In: Little Mazarn’s Lindsey Verrill Bought a Kayak with Her Stimulus Check
How to stay afloat when there is no Plan B
Home Slice Loves Selena, Jo’s Loves La Colombe, Nobody Doesn’t Love Churros, and Everybody’s Cooking Burgers
All the news that’s fit to get your taste buds quivering
Met Opera Encore: The Magic Flute
Met Opera Encore: The Magic Flute 2021, NR, 120 min. Directed by Julie Taymor. This delightful performance of the Met’s abridged, English-language version of Mozart’s enchanting fairy tale returns to cinemas this holiday season. In the first-ever Live in HD transmission, Tony Award–winning director Julie Taymor conjures a spellbinding staging, replete with a kaleidoscope of…
Checking In: Go Fever’s Acey Monaro Paints Houses Down Under
“So, so, so relieved about the outcome, can’t wait to get back now”
Teas for Drinking, Teas for Thinking
Sometimes even a java fiend needs a vacation from coffee
Belushi
More than laughs, more than addiction: a charming, tragic portrait of the Blues Brothers star
Zappa
Two hours with the original Mother of Invention isn’t enough
The Twentieth Century
Suitably bonkers Canadian surrealist comedy rewrites history
Nationtime
Searing documentary from the 1972 National Black Political Convention finally restored
The Croods: A New Age
Pointless prehistoric sequel hasn’t evolved at all
Stardust
Bowie before he became Ziggy in this less-than-glittering docudrama
Uncle Frank
Small town coming-out period drama is anchored by Paul Bettany at his best
Austin’s Best Food and Drink Events This Week
Dinner parties, farmers’ markets, beer, wine, and more for the week of November 26, 2020
Art Gets Its Seasonal Shopping Day: Artists Sunday
Imagine if all that money spent on Black Friday went to purchase art. It could happen: Artists Sunday is here!
Stage 4 Risk of COVID-19 Shapes Austin’s Holiday
No-virus November
Brian Gannon Kickstarts the Austin Film and TV Scene While It’s Down
Would there be an Austin film and TV industry right now if it weren’t for Brian Gannon? Probably, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near the strong condition that it is in, nine months into the coronavirus lockdown, if he hadn’t gone above and beyond to make sure productions are up and running safely. The guidance…
Free Will Astrology
Your weekly horoscope, November 27 – December 3
Information on Voting by Mail in Travis County
Answers to Your VBM Questions
Big Medium Makes the Austin Art Space Larger
One thing artists do is respond to the times. But what happens when the times threaten to keep artists from doing that? Locally, visual artists have long had Big Medium in their corner, providing exposure and support through a host of programs, the best known being the annual East and West Austin Studio Tours. At…
We Have an Issue: Giving Thanks
In this week’s issue, we celebrate 20 in 2020 working to make Austin a better, more equitable, more compassionate place
Headlines / Quote of the Week
Just Say No: Local health officials are telling Austinites that gathering indoors without masks with people living outside of your household is just about the highest-risk thing you can do this Thanksgiving (and for the foreseeable future). Read our COVID-19 update here. Let’s Talk: The city’s new, 24/7 COVID-19 Health and Wellness Support Line (888/855-7483)…
Survive2Thrive Foundation’s Courtney Santana Finds Housing for Survivors of Domestic Violence
Courtney Santana’s Survive2Thrive Foundation has worked to place survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault into semipermanent or permanent housing since 2013. However, when domestic violence shelters were forced to limit their capacity earlier this spring due to COVID-19 precautions – and as the crisis compounded existing forces that often enable domestic violence – Santana…
Qmmunity: Queer Thanks Springs Eternal
Plus, Frida Friday’s Black Friday mercado and Austin Library’s queer book club make the qmmunity shine bright
Public Notice: More to Be Thankful For
An overdue (if tentative) win in Southwest Austin
Dr. Mark Escott Has Been the Friendly Face of the City’s Response to COVID-19
Mark Escott has a résumé (a curriculum vitae, actually) that’s literally 16 pages long – you can see it for yourself at the city’s website. He’s an accomplished expert in emergency medicine; his “real” job is as the medical director for Austin-Travis County EMS (and also for Texas Department of Public Safety and the state’s…
Emmanuel Acho Hosts Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man for America’s Own Good
Emmanuel Acho wants to talk. “Consider this a safe space to educate yourself,” explains the former Longhorn linebacker and NFL player in his first episode of the viral series Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man. The series, which has garnered tens of millions of views, was created by Acho in the immediate aftermath of the…
Paramedic Amber Price Cares for Austin’s Most Vulnerable Populations
Driving around Downtown on March 18 was a surreal experience for Amber Price. The previous day, Mayor Steve Adler ordered most businesses in the city to close as a way of slowing the spread of COVID-19, and the streets were deserted – except for the people experiencing homelessness who had nowhere else to go. But…
AISD Food Service Has Been Feeding Local Kids, Pandemic Be Damned
Perhaps the most exemplary of “it takes a village” scenarios in 2020 has been fulfilling the need for school meals during the ongoing global pandemic. Breakfast and lunch are available during normal education calendars, but never before has the need to feed students been greater, with tens of thousands of families furloughed and laid off,…
Austin Music’s Adrian Quesada Won’t Be Stopped by a Pandemic
There are two shining exemplars of Texas excellence that remind me of Adrian Quesada. One is H-E-B. The regional grocery store chain is superior to national competitors but unwaveringly true to the Lone Star State. The other is the San Antonio Spurs. That basketball team remained the most consistently relevant force in the NBA for…
Dana DeBeauvoir Fought for Election Access in a Year of Barriers
“I’m working on it,” Dana DeBeauvoir told Wired magazine earlier this year. The veteran Travis County clerk was referring specifically to the heavy lifting necessary to accommodate 2020’s pandemic-generated explosion of mail-in ballots, but she might as well have been summarizing her entire career as an innovative and indefatigable laborer in the nuts and bolts…
Racial Disparities in Policing Persist, City Report Shows
Black, Latinx drivers overrepresented in APD traffic stops and searches
The Daily Texan Staff Balanced School, Journalism, and a Pandemic
Confession: When I was an undergrad at UT-Austin, I rarely read its student newspaper, The Daily Texan. It’s a misstep I still kick myself over every time I crack open a copy to find the latest dogged reporting or arts feature, and I realize I missed out on in this great journalistic window into the…
Austin Justice Coalition’s Chas Moore Keeps Fighting for Black and Brown Lives
If you hold a political rally and 10,000 people show up, you should have someone up front that they’ll listen to. That’s especially true when the rally is supporting Black lives and a substantial chunk of your crowd is white. That’s how it was on June 7, when the Austin Justice Coalition convened its Black…
An Excerpt From Omar Dykes: The Life & Times of a Poor and Almost Famous Bluesman
Hard truths about the music business by Kent “Omar” Dykes and spouse Issa Medrano as they revisit Glory Days (for Bruce Springsteen).
New Austin Music Worth Your Bandwidth This Week
What we’re listening to
Local Muralist Chris Rogers Sparks Conversation Around the Black Lives Matter Movement
Prolific local artist Chris Rogers speaks often about his progress and success in recovery and has related substance abuse disorders to the disease of racism: You can’t begin to heal until you acknowledge there is a problem. Rogers said that following George Floyd’s death in late May, something died in him as well: the fear…
Hilda Ramirez Speaks Out for Refugees Despite ICE Intimidation
While all Austinites have been avoiding the threat of an invisible virus, many have also been facing the visible and daily threats and horrors of detention and deportation. Hilda Ramirez knew what isolation was like for years before the coronavirus pandemic sent us all into hiding. A Guatemalan refugee seeking asylum in the U.S., Ramirez…
Day Trips: Caddo Mounds State Historic Site, Alto
Mystery mounds of the Caddo
Austin at Large: Make America Grateful Again
Even as white nationalism sticks around, kicking Trump to the curb is a Thanksgiving miracle
Black Queer Lives Matter ATX Represents for the Marginalized Among the Marginalized
Amid protests against police violence and racism earlier this summer, Ms. Amazing Head and Natalie Sanders came together to form Black Queer Lives Matter ATX in response to what they saw as a lack of Black queer and trans representation in the Black Lives Matter movement. Through its LGBTQ Solidarity March for Black Lives and…
Faster Than Sound: City of Austin Delays Venue Funding – Again
Live music venues have asked for dedicated COVID-19 relief since March, but the city says applications won’t open until next year.
Police Chief Brian Manley Fires APD Officer for Racist Texts
Offensive language, memes violated Austin Police policies
L’Oca d’Oro Owners Advocate for Change and Support in the Austin Food Community
They’ll probably say “pishposh” to any notion of accolade and redirect your attention to Good Work Austin. So we’ll do that, too. But first you should know that, during this year made so impossible for restaurants and their people, L’Oca d’Oro co-owners Adam Orman and Fiore Tedesco showed up for their internal community, and then…
Arts Listings
Virtual galleries, streaming improv, and more
Soccer Watch
Exciting first weekend in the Major League Soccer playoffs, as three of the five first-round games so far have gone to PK shootout, including FC Dallas’ upset at Portland Timbers, set up by Ricardo Pepi’s stoppage-time equalizer. Quarterfinals are Dec. 1-2, with the semis the next weekend and the MLS Cup final on Sunday, Dec.…
Chronicle Endorsements
December Run-Off Election
Local Philanthropist and Activist Mary Herr Tally Celebrates Women’s Suffrage
In a year that featured both the centenary of the passage of the 19th Amendment and the most consequential presidential election in decades, voting was at the forefront of Mary Herr Tally’s mind. The longtime local philanthropist and activist (not to mention yellow-dog Democrat) felt so passionately about the women who fought for their right…
The Luv Doc: Fortunately Pets Can’t Read
A little wallow in the unpleasantries of modern politics with the greatest patriotic advice columnist in modern history
County Drops Most Charges Against Protesters
104 of the 178 people arrested at the spring and summer protests will avoid court
New Organizations Step Up to Provide Free Local Food During the Pandemic
Hard times have a way of bringing out the best in people, and this year is a golden testament to that optimistic approach. Throughout the pandemic, there have been remarkable efforts to support Austin residents with free meals, no questions asked. Here, we’d like to reiterate our admiration for the groups that have quite literally…
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
According to Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel are bad at charades, but better at the game than Bob Dylan. Want to look sharp? Try Savile Row in London, where a hand-tailored (bespoke) men’s suit will set you back about $3,000-5,000. China used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the U.S. used in the entire…
Council Member Jimmy Flannigan Harassed by Opponent’s Biker Friends
Confrontation between D6 CM and Wind Therapy Freedom Riders CEO caught on tape
Hiram Garcia Livestreams a Summer of Black Lives Matter Protests
If you watched one of Hiram Gilberto Garcia’s livestreams of the local Black LIves Matter protests this summer, you probably heard him say some variant of, “Folks, I’m not the story. It’s not about me.” To be sure, Hiram – as he’s universally known – just covers the story. But after a summer of reports…
Austin Polish Film Festival Goes Hybrid for 2020
The extended festival takes a virtual look at Warsaw
Voter Information for December 15 Run-Off Election in Travis County
Early Voting Dec. 3-11 • Election Day Dec. 15
Kathy Mitchell Pushes for Criminal Justice Reform by Getting Serious About Being Compassionate
2020 is the year when the dam finally broke, releasing a flood of public sentiment demanding true justice, the pent-up energies of several decades of pressure on Austin’s inefficient and inequitable policing and court systems. Many advocates and activists have put their backs and shoulders into this work; amidst them has stood Kathy Mitchell, always…
Lucky Seven for Sci-Fi Film Fest Other Worlds
Interstellar picks for the festival’s seventh year
Save Austin Now Files Lawsuit Over Rejected Signatures
Invalid petition signatures kept SAN’s mission to reverse decriminalization of homelessness off the ballot
SoundSync Music Founder Nathalie Phan Finds “Time to Pivot”
Founder of the burgeoning SoundSync Music, Nathalie Phan worked to help Austin musicians find film, television, and commercial placement well before this year’s circumstances arose. In the homebound interim, SoundSync continues an ongoing Austin Music Foundation partnership through free online workshops and webinars, most recently a city of Austin Cultural Arts Division-sponsored workshop titled “Time…
Nix on the Flix, Farm to Market Shutters, Sazan Hires a Hammond, Taste of Texas Extended
All the news that’s fit to get your taste buds quivering
Toward the Skylin3s With Liam O’Donnell
How the alien invasion franchise took the fight into space
