As we close out 2008, we're taking a moment to briefly revisit some of the articles that we published on Austinist this year. Whether poignant, sad, hilarious, or downright ludicrous, many of these stories probably affected your lives to some extent. Certainly, at the very least, they provided their own commentary on Austin's ongoing transformation.
Zilker area residents watched in horror as a naked man, seemingly mentally deranged or under the influence of a mind-altering drug, used his body to shatter a window at Barton Hills Market and subsequently proceeded to roll around in the nearby bushes while shouting "Butt Slide!"
The Dicksons came home from work one day in May to find all their furniture, clothes, collectibles, and even food in the pantry had been taken by Field Asset Services.
Developers weren't the only ones making pie from the pecan trees removed for the BartonPlace condos. Tom Suhler of SideSpin Productions has made a "videobituary" for one of the trees, which he named "Baum Verde."
A man shot at multiple vehicles at traffic lights in several towns near Dallas, and later walked up to a Garland restaurant and started shooting at customers inside. Luckily the shooter's aim is lacking; no one was hurt.
Austin drivers are the worst in Texas, according to a new report from Allstate Insurance Co. Their recent analysis found that Austinites, on average, enjoy about 7.4 years between collisions, and are over 35% likelier than other Americans to get in an accident.
"When I heard yesterday that Austin slam poet, Shannon Leigh, 20, died this past Monday, I felt sick. I didn’t know Shannon, but was consumed for a couple of reasons. For one, my son is nearly the same age, and the idea of parents outliving their children is commonly held to be the worst kind of pain. My heart broke for her parents. The other reason the news caught me is that, though it’s been years since I’ve been part of the community, there was a time when the Austin slam scene was a huge part of my life. In fact, it was the slam that got me performing in Austin. As far as I know, Wammo—he of Asylum Street Spankers fame—was the first to introduce the slam to Austin. Slamming, which started in Chicago in 1984, caught on fast here. It didn’t take long before there was a regular, wild, weekly gathering, one that for a long time found its home in the long gone, much missed Electric Lounge."
Carrie Crain, Dripping Springs resident and prospective screenwriter, put her soul up for bid on eBay, as a sort of preparation for the screenplay she was working on. The initial minimum bid was set at $1,000.
Photos from Summer Extrav-O-Ganza III on Lake Travis, presented by Green Potato Ventures, Austinist, Party Ends, Transmission Entertainment, and Super!Alright!, Cacophony Recorders, and Annie Ray Photography.
A new kind of shopping made its way into Austin and brought sustainability to a whole new level, touting themelves as the "ultimate skincare boutique."
"In March 1997 a doctor said to me, “Your jeans are going to fit a lot better once we get that out.” So tactful. The that to which he referred was a cyst-morphing-into-a-tumor that had wrapped itself around my left ovary. This was discovered at a post-abortion checkup. I paid cash for the abortion. The removal of both the tumor, which as it turned out had malignant cells in it, and the ovary (the two could not be disentangled) were covered by insurance. Luckily, I required no chemo or radiation. I don’t recall that my jeans fit any different when all was said and done."
In a NYTimes article about Senator Barack Obama's year-long cross-country tour, the Democratic presidential candidate confessed to being surprised by Austin and its music scene. "A place that I’ve come to love, which I did not expect until this campaign, is Texas," he goes on to say. "I ended up loving Texas!"
The UT School of Architecture announced that a group of UT students and faculty would be collaborating with their counterparts at the Chinese capital's Tsinghua University to design a system of urban green retreats, or "pocket parks," in central Beijing.
Fun Fest is confirmed that the Dead Milkmen, a legendary punk outfit known for their snotty, satirical lyrics and jangly, jagged punk rock guitar sound, would reunite to headline an evening during the Fun Fun Fun Festival.
APD civilian supervisor Nicholas Medina was charged with theft by a public servant for stealing $959.17 worth of Wal-Mart gift cards from APD’s Blue Santa fund.
For the second year in a row, Miss USA had a spectacular fall in front of millions of worldwide viewers during Monday's Miss Universe pageant. To her credit, this year's Miss USA winner, Houston native Crystle Stewart, quickly regained her composure after accidentally slipping on her evening gown.
It was announced that Willie Nelson and "very special guests" would perform the venue's final celebration concert on Sunday, October 26, after sixteen years of operating near the intersection of FM-2244 and Highway 71.
"I personally believe that racism is little more than lazy analysis, for which every human who has ever existed is guilty. Generalizations of any kind, whether drawn along lines of race, gender, sexual preference, eye color, juggling ability, or gastrointestinal fortitude, are simply the product of a lazy, bullshit short-cut."
A class action lawsuit was filed against Round Rock-based Dell, alleging that the company failed to pay appropriate overtime wages to their customer service employees.
Which well-meaning Austin theater producer, hoping to assist a publicist by compiling a list of local press contacts accompanied by devilishly sarcastic descriptions of said contacts, ended up accidentally BCC'ing her message to her entire press list? We wouldn't say.
Nine former Longhorns sports stars, including Vince Young and Kevin Durant, would have their jersey numbers retired during the upcoming season, according to the UT men's athletic department.
Former presidential candidates Howard Dean and Gen. Wesley Clark may have brought the most name recognition to this year's Netroots Nation in Austin, but it was Obama Girl who captured the gathering's heart.
In an unprecedented move being hailed by environmentalists and advocates of energy reform, the Texas Public Utility Committee voted 2 to 1 for preliminary approval of the largest investment in renewable energy in the history of the United States. With 35 states currently producing some sort of wind power, PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson boasted that this new initiative would have Texas, already the leader when it comes to most megawatts produced, generating more than the 14 next-highest states combined.
Austinist contributors Luke Quinton and Darcie Duttweiler both caught IMAX screenings of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, and what follows is a conversation about human nature, Oscar nominations, and shirtless Christan Bale.
The Enchanted Forest, home to some of Austin's most interesting creative events—think Art Outside, Sangre del Sol, and more—was denied its renewal request for a permit to serve as a public gathering space.
As the country’s most whispered recession rolled on, the city budget faced an estimated $25.3 million deficit in 2009. At this economically fragile hour, Austin’s nonprofit human services organizations worried that the city would cut their funding when their assistance is needed most.
The snarky jokes about political animals nearly write themselves, but the headline was true: Austin's City Hall was been designated a "certified wildlife habitat" by the National Wildlife Federation.
Statesman feature writer Patrick Beach's front page recap of Netroots Nation took on a decidedly sarcastic tone, poking fun at both the "name-dropping" guest speaker and the "marauding liberals" in attendance. The ill-conceived attempt at humor failed miserably, leading to paper editor Fred Zipp publishing a short note in a following issue admitting as such.
The Democratic Party hasn't been a strong contender in Williamson County since, well, the Gipper took office, but it nevertheless staged a valiant effort this election year.
Ex-Austinist Gary Osoba established the new world record for longest freestyle flight in an ultralight glider plane, soaring across the skies of Texas for some 615 miles in a small, engine-less aircraft.
United States Art Authority, the mixed-use space adjacent to Spiderhouse, announced that it was closing its doors, owing to "unforeseen issues" with the City of Austin.
In this clip, he discussed his new book (The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart), Texans buying more guns, and strange Austin lawn art: "My wife and I moved to Austin . . . we'd drive around and see neighbors with bowling ball art." Jon Stewart responded to Bishop at the end of the interview, "You live in a f*cked up neighborhood."
A group of investigators came to Austin to find and interview numerous people over a a particularly gruesome and heartbreaking murder in a south suburban Chicago Lane Bryant store, in which five women in the store were killed execution-style.
Gallery Lombardi's Erotica 2008 was more than a meditation on sexuality--it was a multidimensional sensory explosion that challenged our relationship to sex, the body, and creativity with fearless exploration of these themes in nearly every conceivable form.
Austin police were on the hunt for a transient man who allegedly hijacked a bus in the morning, forcing the driver to take him from 5th and San Jacinto to Southwest Austin. The homeless-looking man was described as "dirty" and wearing a backpack, and was believed to have fled into a nearby trailer park. It later turned out that the bus driver, a pregnant woman, had made the story up.
With gas at $4 per gallon and experts still fighting over whether the country was suffering from an economic downturn, a recession, or an extremely good opportunity for economic growth, Austin's Whole Foods Market, like many retailers, decided to get out in front of the game by offering "value tours" to shoppers who might suffer from the pricing concerns that helped the natural foods store gain its unofficial moniker: Whole Paycheck.
As well known for rants and raves as eclectic as the music he broadcasts at 90.5 megahertz, KUT's John Aielli has been waking up Austin for the last thirty years. As Austin's public radio station approaches its 50th birthday, Aielli shows no signs of slowing down.
Like a story from the pages of The Onion, over two dozen teenage cheerleaders managed to get themselves stuck in a dormitory elevator at UT Austin after trying to "see how many girls they could fit" inside.
After a string of local and national accidents involving construction cranes, Austin's City Council got together to decide if it should ask the city manager to study whether the city should regulate the safety of cranes.
Austin's Bat Festival stood to end if two local business didn't agree to sign a petition that supported the partial closing of Congress Avenue and the Ann Richards Bridge.
Austin has some of the filthiest restaurants in the nation, according to a study by the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
To no one's surprise, Austin topped the list of America's Hard-Drinking Cities in a new Forbes survey. Over 61% of Austinites reported having at least one drink in the last 30 days, while 20% of the population claimed to have had "five or more drinks on one occasion."
The Opera House Collective enjoyed a vibrant three years of providing local artists with gallery and performance space, as well as an inspiring outlet for handmade retail.
Cesar Chavez became a two-way street between Brazos and San Antonio Streets today for the first time since 1978, when the hybrid one-way/two-way configuration was introduced.
Several employees in the Austin office of Midway Games lost their jobs as the company canceled an "as-yet-unannounced project" in production at the local facility.
A San Antonio court ruled that Whitney Harper, a now college-age woman sued by the RIAA for using Kazaa to download music when she was 16, was indeed an "innocent infringer," dropping her penalty to $200 per infringement instead of the RIAA's desired $750, asked for in a request for summary judgment.
Cox Enterprises, a privately owned national media company, announced that it was getting rid of its local newspaper brands in North Carolina, Colorado and Texas. The Austin American-Statesman was among the nine newspapers to be sold.
In one week alone there were not one but two arrests at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport for attempts to pass through security with a weapon. Though Texans sure love their handguns, the Transportation Safety Administration wasn’t having it.
Mediabistro's AgencySpy broke news that an as-of-yet-unnamed creative director at Austin's own GSD&M was fired last Friday after pulling a not-so-bright stunt. It seems that this CD created a Gmail address in the name of the Executive Creative Director, and then went on to send out emails to other creative department employees about salary and other information pertinent to their department -- all under the ECD's name, mind you.
A Union Pacific train heading into downtown Austin derailed near the Amtrak station. According to the Statesman, one of the cars managed to completely dislodge from the tracks, striking a nearby apartment balcony at Third and Baylor street.
Austin police staged a four-hour-long standoff outside of an empty room at the downtown Doubletree after responding to a call about an alleged assault.
Austinist is a news and culture website about Austin, Texas. We publish Monday through Friday, and also maintain a guide to local arts and entertainment events that we call the Weekly IST List.
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