To commemorate the day on which the pilgrims invented persistence of vision, Hollywood is releasing a whole bunch of movies in the middle of the week. There's a little something for everyone, from horror-thriller to arthouse-biopic to barfbag-melodrama. The Mist After the titular mist engulfs a small Northeastern town, a group of folks trapped in a local supermarket must work together to survive a monster attack. But when the poo hits the fan, the line... more ›

Image from Scion's websiteSo you’re all set for an afternoon with the family and/or friends, tons of food on the horizon, be it Turkey or Tofurkey. Still, you need to scratch that live music itch before heading home. Well, fear not oh lovely residents of Austin, the city has a solid night of gigs on the 21st in store for the common layperson. If you’re not already planning on hitting up the Benko and The... more ›

Glassy-eyed college student:Make me a sandwich robot. Equally glassy-eyed friend:Wait, do you mean "make me a sandwich, robot" or do you mean "make me a sandwich robot"? Like, are you calling me a robot or are you saying you want a robot that specializes in making sandwiches? Girl in the ladies bathroom at Gingerman pub: So I was sleeping with Steve the other night and after we were done I told him that the... more ›

Image from Benko’s MySpace Benko, The Boxing Lesson, & The Story OfWednesday, November 21Stubbs (801 Red River)9 p.m. | $8[info] | [Benko MySpace] | [The Boxing Lesson MySpace] | [The Story Of MySpace]Thanksgiving is just around the corner but before you get stuffed and sleepy, get your long weekend started right on Wednesday evening. There is a mouth watering set of shows on the Austin schedule for the 21st. Extended details to follow in our... more ›

Photo by StuSeeger on flickr#13 Texas (9-2) vs. Texas A&M (6-5) Time: 2:30 pm, Friday, Nov. 23 Location: College Station, Texas; Kyle Field TV: ABC Radio: KVET (98.1 FM, 1300 AM) Maybe it is true that good things come to those who wait. After back-to-back losses to open conference play, the Texas Longhorns have waited -- through nail-biting finishes and devastating injuries -- and now stand on the verge of what is most definitely a... more ›

Before we pass out the foam fingers, let's discuss what went into this #1 ranking: pollen scores (airborne grass/tree/weed pollen and mold spores), the number of allergy medications used per patient, and the number of allergy specialists per patient all went into cementing our position as tops in Fall allergies. Last year, Austin ranked 12th on this list. more ›

Image from AmericanApparel.netAustin will move three steps closer to becoming Southern California a real city a place where you can try on those high-waisted hot shorts and shiny tights before buying them with the opening of three new American Apparel locations (two real stores in Austin and an outlet in Round Rock). The first location will be on the Drag at 2316 Guadalupe, which is good news, because there are few things as vital to... more ›

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative. Police Chief: "Missing Student Ignored Due to Race." A drunken man broke into a central London park and attempted to have sex with a fence: Daniel French, 24, made "sexual motions" towards metal railings in Leicester Square Gardens... more ›

Photo by clickykbd on flickr Two state pension fends haven't yet divested from Iran, even though Perry asked them to. Kelso takes on Hyde Park Baptist Church's treatment of the Austin Area Interreligious Ministries Thanksgiving service. Mother of weekend murder victim is still missing. Drivers of both vehicles involved in Burnet County wreck this morning died at the scene. UK organization working with Texas law enforcement officers to set up Trace.com, which keeps records of... more ›

Photo by Broken Piggy Bank on flickrThe Texas Youth Commission was in court Monday defending itself against advocacy groups claiming the TYC has overused pepper spray on its inmates. Texas Appleseed and Advocacy, Inc. say the TYC has doubled its use of pepper spray even after a settlement with the TYC back in September forced them to cut back. TYC has not commented on the case but Jim George, an Austin attorney who chairs the... more ›

Paris Is Burning DVD Cover Scion Independent Film Series Presents Paris Is BurningWednesday, November 28thAlamo Drafthouse South Lamar (1120 S. Lamar)Free, 9:30PM, RSVP Required[info]The musical stylings of "strike a pose, there's nothing to it", "you better work" and "I'm too sexy" entered our lexicon at a time when we were still sporting a perm and a retainer, so understanding that these pop radio songs were simply a corporatization of an entire underground subculture was far... more ›

*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors Every city goes through its own little evolution. Not always pretty, not always clean, but always in the process of becoming. Our little oasis is no different. There is a change upon us, and it is high time we grabbed the wheel and started to do some stunt steerin’. You know, to... more ›

Let's admit something to each other right now--we love seeing heads explode. Don't fight it... it's a perfectly natural, healthy feeling. Probably an inherited vestige of our violent, primal past when bloody cranium blow-outs were necessary to ensure our collective survival. Or something. Anyhoo, this past weekend, audiences attending screenings of No Country For Old Men at the Alamo Ritz got a satisfying dose of messy 'splosions as the crew from Dorkbot Austin demonstrated... more ›

Senator Barack Obama delivered a rousing speech to thousands of die-hard supporters this past Saturday at the Backyard, touching on just about every hot issue at the core of next year's election debates. Pledging to shut down Guantanamo, restore habeas corpus, and renew the hunt for Al Qaeda, Obama stressed the need for a stronger international agenda and quoted Kennedy's famous inaugural address—"Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear... more ›

Image from MySpace Buttercup Mohawk ResidencyTuesday, November 20, 27 and December 4, 11, 18The Mohawk (912 Red River)$2, 9pm[info] For the next five Tuesdays, San Antonio band Buttercup will be The Mohawk’s guest-in-residence, and as always, the quartet will find a way to make these intimate performances unique. Grackle Mundys in San Antonio found the band performing each Monday, arguably everyone’s least favorite day, and augmenting the pain of a new workweek with themed performances... more ›

5th Annual Big Reds and BubblesTuesday, November 27Driskill Hotel (604 Brazos St.)6:30-9pm; $75 general admission, $60 for members[info] | [tickets]With Thanksgiving a mere two days away and the holiday season right around the corner, this time of year brings fine wine to all foodie minds. Wine lovers traditionally splurge in December on fancy bottles for both holiday toasts and New Year's Eve celebrations. To welcome this time of year and the wines that complement... more ›

The death toll from the cyclone that hit Bangladesh is over 3,000 now; the UN says a million people have been left homeless. We're (*cough*) so surprised: Austin named the fall allergy capital of the nation. Alberto Gonzales didn't have an easy time speaking at the University of Florida last night. After child workers were found at one of their factories in India, Gap is determined to improve working conditions there. US Military calls... more ›

Photo by hamron on flickr 48 cats rescued from deplorable conditions in Rescuties' founder's home earlier this month; a judge is allowing her to keep 3 of them and recommended psychological counseling. Capitol One will not be buying Austin-based business NetSpend for $700 million as was planned, but will buy a minority share of the company. Work starts on making Cesar Chavez fully 2-way. Starting this week and going through January 1, APD will be... more ›

Photo of Frantz Fanon courtesy of AFS website AFS Essentials: Black Is, Black Ain’t and Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White MaskTuesday, November 20thAlamo Drafthouse South Lamar (1120 S. Lamar)$4 / Free to AFS Members, 7PM[info] | [tickets]Most of the time it is easier to just blend in with everything around you, to not be different, to avoid rocking the proverbial boat, perhaps to the detriment of your true identity and eventually your soul. In the... more ›

Promotional still from Alamo website Music Mondays: My Name Is Albert AylerMonday, November 19Alamo Drafthouse Downtown (320 E 6th Street)(9:45pm, $2)[info] | [tickets]Though not as well known as Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane, Albert Ayler is seen by many as one of the most important figures of the free jazz movement. Over the course of 16 studio albums and countless live releases, Ayler's passionate, aggressive saxophone playing pushed jazz back toward its improvisational heyday--an idea... more ›

Image from www.gordonramsay.comWe ran across this post on Craigslist, and have to admit we love the idea of surly superchef Gordon Ramsay kicking ass in some of our not-so-favorite Austin restaurants. According to the (highly excited and haphazardly capitalized) post: FOx TV’s KITCHEN NIGHTMARES IS CASTING in Austin ! Acclaimed Chef , Culinary Expert & Award Winning Restaurateur GORDON RAMSAY IS LOOKING TO HELP RESUSCITATE & FIX YOUR RESTAURANT ISSUES! IF YOUR RESTAURANT IS HAVING... more ›

Image from MySpace Love as Laughter at Emo’s (inside)Monday, November 19Emos (603 Red River St)Doors at 8:00, Show at 10:00[info] Today, Emo’s inside stage will be graced by Sam Jayne and his band Love as Laughter, his artistic outlet for a little under ten years after his former, very influential group Lync disbanded. Payne is best known for his work within the K Records, Olympia, WA scene, where he staked his claim for strange indie... more ›

Photo by Felicia Graham courtesy of MySpaceTIL WE'RE BLUE OR DESTROY What’s the Deal: One thing that Austin has plenty of is indie bands. There are multitudes of poppy, lo-fi folky or staggering, swaggering rock groups swelling with intrigue and buzzing around the local scene destined to either shoot straight and swift to national cult favorites standing or be just another weekend bar band. However, Til We’re Blue Or Destroy are one of the groups... more ›

Photo by cogdogblog on flickrNetroots Nation, an annual convention of progressive political bloggers, has chosen Austin as the location for its 2008 meeting. Formerly known as Yearly Kos, Netroots Nation is expected to draw more than 2,500 participants for the July 17-20 event. At their 2006 meeting, about 2,100 bloggers and reporters attended, along with several Democratic presidential candidates. "There are many reasons that we chose Austin," organizers said in their announcement. "I was most... more ›

Photo by Lorrie McClanahan on flickrWarning to today's travelers: if you are flying to DFW today, or stopping there on your way somewhere else, get ready to wait. A software issue this morning blocked communications to the East and West Towers at DFW for about twenty minutes. To deal with that, air traffic controllers increased the space between flights. As a result, your wait to fly out from or land at DFW could be long;... more ›

(Okay, what I’m about to tell you may not be true. So don’t hold me to it. And anyway, the point of its telling isn’t veracity, but rather the very real fact that it was [justly or un] canonized by bar employees, show goers, and the rest of the whiskey-breath'd throngs of Sixth Street and Red River, circa three or four years ago.) more ›

You wouldn’t necessarily think the squeaky-clean world of power-pop and dirty, dirty metal have a great deal in common, but they do share a few similarities other than loud guitars. Writers and fans of metal often rate metal in terms of its “heaviness,” as if how sludgy, powerful, hard, or just “metal” an artist is works as a sure-fire way to judge their output. Even when picking and choosing between different types of metal, the... more ›

Photo courtesy Progress Coffee, 500 Street San Marcos ProjectThe time's flown by so fast that it's almost hard to imagine, but eastside cafe Progress Coffee turns three today. It took over a year to transform what used to be a derelict warehouse into the beloved coffeehouse, which today anchors one of Austin's fastest growing creative communities. Nearby businesses now run the gamut from moped retrofitters and photography studios to film production companies and "digital media... more ›

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. LAist continues to cover the... more ›

Wait a minute; monkeys actually DO steal stuff in real life, not just in movies? Desertion rate in the Army is 80% higher than it was in 2003 when we invaded Iraq. Austin concert promoter C3 Presents encountering political obstacles in bringing music festival to Philadelphia. The first completely legal mp3 blog, RCRD LBL, went up Thursday. That girl who was asked by Southwest Airlines personnel to show less skin before boarding is now... more ›