Austin in Available Light
British historian Derek Sayer, author of an important new book on Prague, spent the past year in Austin. At the end of his time here, TEOA asked him for his … Continue reading
Shared Services at UT
Austin would not be the city it is without the University of Texas: it is one of the economic, social, and cultural hubs of the city. It employs tens of … Continue reading
Dead Horses
This is a story about Austin’s changing environment and a terrible episode of how a flood displaced an entire urban neighborhood, but it’s also a story about horses, and so … Continue reading
Slacker Geography, 25 Years Later
Filmed for a reputed $23,000 in summer 1989, Slacker is a film that had the odds stacked against it. Writer-director Richard Linklater had exhausted family members from which to borrow … Continue reading
Downstream
Without belonging to a particular incident, place, or act, these images are traces of another city where water drips slowly through the cracks, draining away the undesired and disposable. Until … Continue reading
Pole Position: Walking Formula One in East Austin
Two local designers have superimposed the new Formula 1 track on East Austin in this creative exploration of the “overlapping conditions of rapid development and stagnant urbanism” in a city divided by … Continue reading
R.I.P. “WEIRD”
TEOA is always attuned to the great Austin lament about weirdness drying up as quickly as our increasingly parched lakes. Native Austinite Riley Triggs adds his voice to the chorus of those worried … Continue reading
The End of Manor Downs
On the way back from Manor Downs, on Route 290, down 35, and then to the Statesman building just across the river, I used to think of my lead, the … Continue reading
The Austin Disaster
Use of the term “disaster” varies widely across Austin residents – ranging from calls for volunteers to aid those effected by flash flooding to Tweets of woe over traffic congestion … Continue reading
Shorts from Yoke-Sum Wong
I’ve seen the neighborhood changed rapidly in eight months. At least six giant houses have come up, empty lots ripped up, earth moved, trees chain-sawed, streets punched and smashed while … Continue reading
Photos by Adrian Mesko
TEOA is very pleased to present a selection of Austin photos from Adrian Mesko, a talented young photographer based in New York City. These photos emerged from his Fall 2013 visit … Continue reading
Grackles and Old Cars
Grackles are sleek birds that wear the expression of rapacious fishes. Many years of cohabitation with humans has not loosened the danger on which they seem to insist. Perhaps it … Continue reading
La Cuesta: Worlding a Sidewalk
Costa Rica-born filmmaker Álvaro Torres and Guatemalan “researcher-militant” Daniel Perera are two Austin residents with a brilliant idea: “what would happen if we stood with our cameras on an ordinary stretch of … Continue reading
The Right to the Enchanted City?
It is said that Austin’s “violet crown” comes from the purple glow of the horizon emanating from the western hills at sunset. Its first known reference came from an 1894 … Continue reading
Community Preservation and the “Value” of a Bad Guy
How does a community preserve a threatened treasure? In 2010, Austin citizens and University of Texas students joined forces in a popular uprising that saved the Cactus Cafe, the much-loved … Continue reading
North Lamar Bus and other Austin poems
Local writer Monty Jones has shared four new poems with TEOA, including one that that sums up the Austin mindset quite nicely: “When I moved here, people told me I was … Continue reading
Austin/Life
‘Room 4.202, Garrison Hall, 12am’ flows like blue wispy clouds against a bright morning sun, across the crumpled post-it note that throbs proudly, full of opportunity and hope, in the … Continue reading
From KLEEN Wash to Launderette: Signposts of Gentrification or…?
At the corner of Robert T. Martinez, Jr. and Holly Streets, on the wall of KLEEN Wash laundromat, Our Lady of Guadalupe graces her visitors with a loving gaze and … Continue reading
Austin’s Plaza Saltillo: Place, Practice, and Growth
TEOA enjoys bringing together well-known writers, academics, grad students, and undergrads under one roof. Here UT undergrad Emily Mixon shares a “reflection on the dichotomies between intended and real function … Continue reading
The End of Austin 