Zach Scott is getting national attention for its run of Porgy and Bess at the newly remodeled Austin Music Hall. The show runs two weekends only, and wraps up this Sunday. // Jaston Williams had great success with his autobiographical, one-man show, I'm Not Lying—and now he's back with more. This weekend only, Cowboy Noises further explores Williams' fascinating life with humor and, we expect, unflinching honesty. // We're mighty fond of local playwright Max Langert, and his current play, You're Happier Than You Think: Recalibrating Your Emotional Scale, at Frontera Short Fringe sounds like a charmer. Saturday @6:15pm, and Sunday @noon....

Photo by hamron on flickr Austin City Council is pretty much ready to sign a contract setting up red-light cameras at 15 intersections (to start with). Big Brother - er, APD - is watching your energy usage. And Austin Energy is cool with that! Southeast Austin standoff this morning ends with cop shooting the suspect. Round Rock police on the lookout for a suspected stalker. Local company under Neil Bush (Dubya's bro) is being investigated......

Image from Arthouse Stealth Fighter Piñata BashSunday, November 11Arthouse (700 Congress Ave)3pm[info]We thought Houston artist Bill Davenport was joking earlier this fall when he mentioned that his giant B2-bomber-shaped piñata would be bashed at the end of the Arthouse Texas Prize exhibit. But he wasn’t. On Sunday, folks can take a swing at the 24-foot-wide art piece, titled Stealth Fighter Piñata. An organist will also be there to provide some appropriate piñata bashing tunes. Once......

BookWoman has relocated and been in dire financial straits in the past, but soon when they take their sign down, it might stay down. Photo by tpacific on stock.xchngBookWoman, Texas's only femenist bookstore, is in trouble and in it fifty-large deep. If the store is unable to raise $50,000 by mid-December, they will likely close their doors for good. Austin will lose another independent business to that nebulous mantra of "progress and growth." The road......

COLOUR REVOLT What’s the Deal: There’s a small college town in Mississippi where Colour Revolt is waiting like a swollen, porous sponge for someone to wring them out over the parched mouths of indie rock fans and critics alike. Right now, there is only the self-titled 6-song EP re-released in October of ‘06, but they’re currently in the final stages of recording their debut full-length. The EP, which caught ears at Spin and Stereogum......

The Austin Music Foundation presents the third installment of its ever popular She Rocks Calendar Series this month. Created by Ricardo Acevedo and In The RA Studios, the calendar first debuted in 2006, and has since seen notable local female rockers such as Amber Dickerson of Full Stride, Margaret Myrick of Blackholicus, Cella Blue of White Ghost Shivers, and Stella Maxwell of Cruiserweight grace its pages. The first edition’s proceeds were collected for New Orleans......

An ominous black piñata shaped like a B-2 bomber greets visitors walking through the doors at Arthouse in downtown Austin. Around the corner stands a John Deere tractor made entirely of clay; a string of Japanese fireworks dangle from the ceiling. Five of the state’s most under-recognized artists are featured in the new Arthouse Texas Prize exhibit, which marries unexpected beauty with mind-bending artistic statements. The exhibit was designed to celebrate the broad spectrum of......

The start of the fall season on network television used to be a bigger deal before cable's summer original fare became so juicy and good. We admit we still get a little excited when we read about original ideas heading our way on the big networks. The crop of new shows starting this fall seems like more of the same (sadly), but there are some that don't follow type and deserve recommendation. Pushing Daisies, ABC,......

The Out of Bounds Improv Festival and Miniature Golf Tournament ended on Monday after six days of blithe musings from some of the finest improv and sketch-comedy troupes in the country. In its sixth year, Out of Bounds reached new heights of comedic exuberance over the past week—and, more importantly, surely introduced a new universe of humor to an unimaginable quantity of newcomers. But for some, Out of Bounds was more than a once-a-year......

Quick, get me the Pentagon. American superiority is waning in the human longevity department. Can't we just bomb somebody over this? A lengthy but entertaining goodbye to Factory Records founder Tony Wilson, recently deceased. Informative readers' Q&A with Floyd Norris, chief financial guru at the New York Times, on the current state of the U.S. economy (not suggested for feel-good reading). Instead of simply fading away into the annals of big hair rock, Van......

City Manager Toby Futrell announced a couple days ago that she will be retiring in May 2008. Ms. Futrell has served as city manager since 2001. She had been expected to retire sometime next year, since the city council recently approved a pretty sweet retirement package for her. Futrell has worked for the city since 1976; her current annual salary is $240,600, and the retirement package ensures her $167,000 per year. During her service......

Transplanted Tigers and Katrina escapees hosted a "berle" this past weekend in preparation for Jazzfest. Included in the celebrations were 200+ pounds of crawfish and several rounds of ultimate frisbee. In case you were wondering, Austinist did not suck the heads of any mudbugs.......

East Austin's Saltillo Lofts will host its first annual "Sidewalk Celebration" this Sunday, kicking things off with the official opening of the New East Arts Gallery. New East is the latest venture by DiverseArts, a local nonprofit producer of multidisciplinary art and culture projects such as East End Fourth Fridays and the former Downtown Arts Magazine. Their inaugural exhibit, entitled "Fresh Black Paint," features works by New Orleans artist/musician Terrence Moline, who relocated, post-Katrina,......

Like everyone in the world but the U.S. has recognized for a while, global warming causes the new Katrina-caliber hurricanes. Today, disconsolate producers at Dateline find that their war on predators has missed the Taliban of pedophiles. Not saving any money? Don't worry, nobody else is either. Al Franken is maybe/probably running for Senate in Minnesota. Not to be gross, but: Harry Potter. Naked.......

That's right: it's time to heat up your winter nights again, with the 14th season of FronteraFest. The Short Fringe, the Long Fringe, or Mi Casa es su Teatro -- FronteraFest is five weeks of alternative, offbeat, new, and just plain off-the-wall fringe theatre presented by Hyde Park Theatre and Austin Script Works. For complete FronteraFest 2007 information, including times and locations for the Short Fringe, the Long Fringe and Mi Casa es su......

Coldtowne Conservatory's Tami Nelson and Chris Trew are Hurricane Katrina transplants who also happen to be pretty damn funny improv artists with a sold out FronteraFest 2007 show - one a.m. Austinist got up close and personal with these two cut-ups, and this is what we found out: Tell me about the background and history of Coldtowne Conservatory. Tami Nelson: So, Tami Nelson and Chris Trew are in Coldtowne and one a.m. is the......

We learn this afternoon from trustworthy sources that NBC has ordered a full season's worth of episodes of Friday Night Lights. This means more shooting in our area, more jobs for local actors, and it's a great vote of confidence by the network for a show filmed outside of Hollywood. Tomorrow night it's Homecoming in Dillon, and all hell breaks loose. Street now knows that his girlfriend is gettin' it on with his best......

Texas librarians, not all of whom are old ladies with monocles and cardigans, want you to know that not all Texas librarians are old ladies with monocles and cardigans. Another of their goals is to raise money for the TLA Disaster Relief Fund, which is trying to get Katrina- and Rita-affected libraries back up to speed. Thus was born the Men of Texas Libraries Calendar: 18 months of bookish beefcake, guaranteed to gaze down......

WEDNESDAY [18] party • Cut Club with The Young Professionals (Prince Klassen, KidIndie) at The Mohawk dance • Requiem at Intel Shell (8pm, $20-$30) film • Bad Education at Arbor (1:10pm & 6:50pm) ® film • Live Flesh at Arbor (4:10pm & 9:30pm) ® film • Norman Mailer: Beyond the Law at Alamo Downtown (7pm) ® film • The Films of Joseph Cornell at The Space (8pm, Free) film • Back to the Future......

Let's look back at a week in which no site in the -ist network adopted anyone from Africa... -Austinist reveled in the dumb antics of some U.T. law students and posted some great audio from former New Orleans natives who've decided to stay in Austin. But the best news for Austinist? They were voted Best Local Entertainment Web Site by the local Austin alt-weekly. Congrats, Austinist. -DCist gloried in being told their musical tastes made......

Theatre fans aren’t hurtin’ for stuff to do this week. So let the good times roll, people. Let ‘em roll theatre-style. Put your hands together for our Austinist Pick of the Week, Free Night of Theatre! Not just one, but like a bazillion completely free shows in Austin, and across the nation. (That’s right, jetsetter – even if you’re out of town, it’s no worries, because the metro area you’re closest to is probably......

All images in this post by special guest contributor Megan Griffiths This is the second post highlighting the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The first is here, but we'll ask again: if you know of good local resources to help Katrina and Rita evacuees, or if you know of any artists who were forced from their homes and into Austin, please let us know. In this installment, we highlight the work of Megan......

All images in this post by special guest contributor Brandon Edwards More than a year later, the official ceremonies and memorials for the anniversaries of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have come and gone. The best, in concept, had to be the cattle drive to commemorate Rita, which had the added bonus of drawing attention to the devestation of the Southwest Louisiana's cattle industry (an ongoing catastrophe, as the saltwater that cows and trees drank......

Austin wants to build an Asian American Resource Center. Funding for it will be covered by Proposition 4 (if it passes in November). Former Longhorn Chris Simms had to have his spleen removed after his football game last night. Speaking of football, the Superdome in New Orleans is opening for the first time post-Katrina. "(Y)ou know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is one-seventh as important as Iraq": Bill Clinton made a......

Starting today, Cinematexas #11 will present a cavalcade of international, narrative and experimental short films at venues all over Austin. Thematically, this year's festival is incredibly diverse, with subjects ranging from "provocative experiments with vintage 'skin flicks' to sobering documentaries on the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina." Screenings are taking place all over town, at unique venues like the east side's historic Victory Grille, so we recommend checking the schedule to see......

Mayors Wynn and Cowman (of Leander a.k.a. Baghdad) tasked (Texan for "asked") a broad group of community and business leaders and organizations in February to examine the need for an independent voice for public transportation in the region. For the last seven months, the group has been working on the alliance's development, and voila, the Alliance for Public Transportation is formed. It shall promote public transportation that improves our quality of life, economic development,......

I can't believe that one week from today, it will all be over - and I'll be waking up and getting ready to fly home to Nashville. But I guess I should just focus on getting through the next four days... and it's going to be hard, because something tells me I'm going to distracted to the point of being completely useless this week at work. Anyway, here's your Monday morning dose of ACL......

It appears that city council members are choosing to pursue a bike safety study rather than moving forward with an law requiring cyclists to wear a helmet. The five redrawn congressional districts are now open and ready for political mayhem with multiple candidates running for office in each district. Democratic goobernatorial candidate Chris Bell thinks that Rick Perry is catering to "polluters who write big campaign checks." In other completely unrelated news, a campaign......

THURSDAY [24] music • Brother Will (Brothers & Sisters) and Friends, Lomita, and Sean Ohno (The Arm) at Beauty Bar (10pm, Free, Drink tickets to first 150 guests) ® music • Fiction, Gulf of Mexico, Bello Ragazzo at 912 Red River (10pm) ® party/fashion • DJ Ian Orth aka Learning Secrets spins at Bettysport's cocktail party celebrating the new silhouettes and colors of the Stella Mccartney fall/winter collection for Adidas at Bettysport (5-8pm, Free)......

We'll never smoke look at broccoli the same again- especially if it means that the truck is carrying our next stash. We're getting mixed messages from those astronomers. On Monday, Pluto wasn't a planet, now we have three more to add to our solar system. Tomorrow, the Sun will be cold or something. Apparently water had nothing to do with the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. We don't want to make it a spectacle,......