Some of the city’s underexposed and underappreciated artists have come together for a special show opening Saturday at Gallery Lombardi. The offbeat Surprise Me includes a mixed bag of contemporary drawings, photos, sounds, videos, mixed media paintings and fiber art. Local artist Josh Rios helped organize the show and called on a few of friends to join him — Ryan Lauderdale, Rachel Cook and Corkey Sinks. Rios recently answered a few questions for Austinist about... more ›

We read in the paper this morning that Austin I.S.D. is hoping to team up with the city and the Long Center to house a performing arts center for students. The school district might be able to use the Topfer Theatre, part of the Long Center plan that had been on hold for lack of funding. Currently Austin ISD has to rent venues, such as Bass Concert Hall, for district events since the school district... more ›

Jona Bechtolt is no more a normal human being than a toaster is a Ferrari. His eye and ear-boggling work with his pet project YACHT testifies to the hamster on acid that is constantly running in the wheel full speed in his head. As part of the duo that is The Blow, he is at least partly responsible for last year's awesome Paper Television. We e-cornered him to share a bit about himself and... more ›

"The book is a riddle, it's our generation's bible, and you have to guess the title with one clue: After photoshop was used only to remove certain letters, what remained were the words FACT and CON..." more ›