Richie Deegan: an artist’s perspective of Austin
I came to learn about Richie Deegan through my search for artists who have experienced and depicted Austin over the past decade or more. His evocative work highlights the many … Continue reading
How Austin Became Weird: The Story of a Slogan
Everyday, thousands of Austinites roam our city’s sidewalk-less streets, creep along its concrete highways, and ramble through the corridors of its universities and start-ups with one question burning in their … Continue reading
Never the Same Again: A Story of SXSW 2010
The year is 2010, a time when Austin isn’t completely overrun with condos, cranes, and “hipsters” just yet, even during the infamous SXSW music festival. My favorite shows are lovingly … 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
Bloomin’ Cedar Blues
If there is one thing that worries Austin more than losing its cool, it’s the endless allergens that haunt the city’s air. Local singer Joy Luther has been dealing with Austin’s … Continue reading
Sweaty Gnarled Clumps of Limbs and Torsos
Your walk should be a brief sojourn: Red River to Congress. Ten minutes, tops. But throngs of revelers block your route like a blood clot. Faces and bodies blur into … Continue reading
Spent A Year There One Knite
Anyone who’s met me has heard me say it; I was born 40 years too late. Film, music, literature, you name it; it seems whatever I am interested in hit … Continue reading
Welcome to Mediocre, Texas
Only the mediocre are always at their best, someone said, which could be why Austin is so damn proud of itself. Welcome to Mediocre, Texas, the home of the Texas Longhorns, … Continue reading
Memorial Wall
“It started out as something smaller, a Day of the Dead thing,” Henry Gonzalez explains, standing before the Memorial Wall at the South Austin Popular Culture Center on Lamar, “but … Continue reading
A Conversation With Thor
About halfway through Thor Harris’s A Post Apocalyptic Tale of Friendship (2010), a mutilated and deformed figure hauls a shark-filled aquarium through a desert populated by wilted flora and equally … Continue reading
The Ends of Austins
For some Austin ended when the Armadillo became Threadgill’s South. For others, when S X S W started (or when wristbands began to cost three digits). Or when the warehouse … Continue reading
I Grew Up in a South Texas Town
I grew up in a South Texas town, a caliche pit of farm equipment yards and suburbs searching for urbs… no core, no history. South Texas stretches across some of the … Continue reading
Downtown Real Estate and the Music Scene
Imagine two performances from the original cosmic cowboy and outlaw country musician, Willie Nelson. The first takes place in an austere concert hall that holds about 400 hundred people. Nelson … Continue reading
The End of Austin 