What do you get when you recycle 80,000 pounds of aluminum cans, or approximately 2.7 million cans? Well, evidently $5,000 dollars and a national award for the City Recycling Challenge. Mayor Will Wynn accepted the Cans for Cash prize on behalf of the City of Austin at the recent U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting taking place last week....

The allegorical narrative of Moses bringing down the Ten Commandments represents a massive backwards step for humankind, culturally and intellectually...Modern monotheism’s overlooked Pandora’s Box....

Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye & Youssou N’Dour at the Maison des Esclaves AFS Presents Return to GoréeTuesday, November 6thAlamo Drafthouse South Lamar (1120 S. Lamar)$4 / Free for AFS members, 7pm[info]The place where my fathers died, return to the land of Gorée, the place where my mothers cried, return to the land of Gorée. – Harmony Harmoneers We'll admit it: our jazz knowledge consists of a couple of Miles Davis and John Coltrane albums mixed with......

Stockholm's Shout Out Louds released their sophomore album Our Ill Wills in September. The band channels sounds familiar to all fans of 80's college rock, throwing together a contrast of bright, melodic indie-pop music and sad, direct lyrical imagery. This juxtaposition of the upfront drums and chime-filled guitar lines with tales of lost love and sadness isn't miles away from the poppier material of The Smiths and The Cure, and makes for hugely enjoyable......

Swedish pirates turn the tables on Big Media! Arrr! Iranian Prez Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia University today. Myanmar: Buddhist monks stage largest anti-government demonstrations in 20 years. $100 laptop to hit market in North America this fall. The White House switches its strategy on having peace talks with "evil" countries. The Governator is calling for a boycott of firms who do business with Iran. Study: Less sleep = more dreams......

Today is the day! Fantastic Fest--North America's coolest, fastest growing genre film festival--officially kicks off this afternoon at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. With around 100 feature films, shorts and special events, Fantastic Fest is a horror / sci-fi / fantasy / action film lover's dream come true. As of yesterday, badges are all sold out. But don't despair, badgeless film lovers--you can still buy individual tickets to certain screenings. We got an early look......

Once the camera crews, exuberant (and nostalgia seeking) fans, and Illuminati-crying conspiracy theorists had retreated to their respective rocks last week, former President Clinton decided to do some shopping at BookPeople. In town to raise money for Hillary's campaign at the home of long time Clinton family friend Roy Spence of GSD&M, Bill made a stop at BookPeople where he signed over a thousand copies of his new book, Giving: How Each of Us Can......

In 2005, Bloc Party released their debut album Silent Alarm, a glorious highlight of the postpunk revival that the New York Times described as "angsty and urgent, with jagged guitars and sexy dance-punk drums." Unlike many of their British rock contemporaries, the band have aggressively toured America in the interim, stopping in Austin for both SXSW and ACL Fest in 2005 and 2007 and at Stubb's in 2006. This approach may help explain why......

With unseasonable weather descending upon much of North America, schools getting ready to reconvene, and sports seasons getting exciting, it's a busy time of year for us here in the Ist-A-Verse. Luckily, even with all the things we have to do, we still managed to get together to let you know what we've all been up to. After cooling down from a hot weekend of many badass Sunset Junction Street Fair photo dispatches, LAist asked......

We recently had the opportunity to talk to the men behind the upcoming Out of Bounds Fest (and miniature golf tournament!), Jeremy Lamb and Shannon McCormick. The fest, which kicks off next Wednesday and runs for a week, is in its sixth year, and is quickly becoming one of the biggest, must-do comedy events in Austin. Can you give me a little bit of background on the festival and when it started? Jeremy Lamb: Sure.......

Alexis Jones’ powerful voice paces The Jones Family Singers’ uplifting message and equally inspirational music. However, it is Dr. Fred A. Jones, a pastor as well as band manager, who binds this gospel act together. The Jones Family Singers, as the name would imply, consists of Dr. Jones’ daughters, sons, grandson, and even a son-in-law. The band’s resume includes an appearance on BET as well as tours all over North America. The Jones Family Singers......

Having just recovered from the chocolate bunny/Peeps induced haze that characterizes the beginning of the Easter season in los Estados Unidos (the United States to the gringos), we found Claudia Llosa's first feature film depicting the religious festivities of the indigenous Peruvian town “Manayaycuna” to be much more shocking than our cotton-tailed-capitalistic-glut could ever hope to be. We are introduced to Madeinusa (pronounced “Mah-daya-noosa” and played luminously by Magaly Solier), the charming daughter of Cayo......

Costa Rica SA | Costa Rica, Inc. (Costa Rica) Hideout Theater, 11 AM The film explores with satirical black humor some absurd aspects of the Dominican Republic - Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA); such as the inclusion of war weapons as objects of commerce for Costa Rica, a country without an army, or the incorporation of Central American undersea resources as part of the United States’ definition of territory. Costa Rica, Inc. was......

As we mentioned Monday, a new development is launching near Webberville 15 minutes east of Austin that could put our city on the worldwide film, television and music production map at long last. A designer's sketch of Villa Muse Studios, the production zone that forms the core of Villa Muse and constitutes Phase One of the Villa Muse project. It’s called Villa Muse, a sort of self-sufficient creative-industry village that’ll consist of some of the......

The 2007 KLRU Spark Series returns tomorrow night, focusing its attention on global warming. Two leading figures on climate issues, Dr. Tim Flannery (The Weather Makers) and Elizabeth Kolbert ("The Climate of Man"), will discuss the causes and impacts of global warming. Enter below for your chance to score a pair of tickets to tomorrow's lecture series: Congrats, Cari! [KLRU Spark Series] KLRU Spark Series 07 with Tim Flannery, Elizabeth Kolbert Tuesday, March 20th......

Jagshemash! Borat is a hit. It's getting rave reviews, grossing millions, and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. In Shanghai, Borat would be observing Inane Learnings of Penis Photos for Make Benefit Glorious Flat World of......

This weekend the Austin Lyric Opera presents their production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly to open their twentieth season. This early twentieth-century opera is still quite popular; it has been one of the most-performed operas in North America for the past twenty years. Set in 1904, the Italian opera tells the story of a young Japanese girl who falls in love with (and marries) an American sailor in Japan. They make beautiful music together, she......

The Second Annual Fantastic Fest is over, and though we’re happy to finally catch up on our sleep, we can’t wait to go back next year. Eight full days of the best new horror, sci-fi, Asian, thriller and genre films screened at the coolest theatre in North America – what more could we ask for? (Okay, maybe free beer, but still.) In addition to the big-name Austin premieres (including Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning,......

Median household yearly income in Austin: $48,267 [link] Equivalent purchasing power, adjusted for cost of living here: $53,275 [link] Money Magazine's average: $43,961 [link] National average yearly salary of an "Associate Store Team Leader" at Austin-based Whole Foods: $73,061 [link] Amount Texas collected in sales tax revenue in June of 2006: $1.49 billion [link] Percentage increase from last year: 15.6 [link] Cost of new Lakeline Station project -- including up to 3,000 homes and......

*This post comes from Austinist Special World Cup Correspondent Ben Gardner, Co-Host of KOOP’s SoccerMad, who is in Germany for this year’s Cup.* Three weeks in to the tournament and there are many storylines. The favorites are succeeding, while the Asian and African countries were sent packing, not to mention North America, which saw three of its four representatives finish bottom of their groups. From these three continents, only Mexico and Ghana made the cut,......

TUESDAY [27] [film] Superman Returns at Alamo South Lamar (10pm) (link) [books] Jude Theriot presents The 100 Greatest Cajun Recipes at Borders at 10225 Research Ave. (7.30pm) (link) [books] Paul Schneider presents Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America at BookPeople (7pm) (link) [books] Alexandra Leclere presents Seeing the Dead, Talking With Spirits: Shamanic Healing Through Contact With the Spirit World at BookWoman (7pm) (link) [music] Human Television at Stubb's......

Tired of “reality” reruns and box-office bombs? BookPeople offers an eclectic selection of alternatives. Thursday, June 22: Austin memoirist Spike Gillespie reads from her latest, Pissed Off: On Women and Anger. Publisher’s Weekly describes Pissed Off as an engaging and honest account that “transcends self-pity . . . as Gillespie progresses to talking about the nature of forgiveness and her increasingly calmer approach to life.” 7:00 p.m. (details) Friday, June 23: Amy Simmons of Amy’s......

If talking about "actionscript", "event handlers" and "external xml" turns you on, we've got some sexy, sexy news. Flashforward, North America's premiere Flash developer conference, is coming to Austin this September. The three-day conference will cover all things Flash and will include a film festival, developer workshops, and a whole grip of guest speakers, including one of our favorite web designers ever, Hillman Curtis. Early registration is open, and you can save yourself some......

Danish indie rock band Figurines have garnered quite a bit of press in the past few months since their second full-length, Skeleton, came out. Often compared to the likes of Modest Mouse and Built to Spill — lead singer Christian Hjelm could pass for Coco Rosie's brother, if you ask us — the foursome are currently touring North America with Tapes 'n Tapes (whom we interviewed yesterday) . Check out their video for "I......

Londonist prepares a Happy Birthday bath for Buddah this week and then things get all cliched. A madman goes on a rampage while axe-wiedling and London's mayor warns an American diplomat to avoid the kitchen if the heat bothers him so much. LAist has finally come around to purchasing tickets for Clipper Train. Hyper local dating sites are spamming L.A. neighborhoods and the fascinating Dame Darcy talks with LAist about art, the city and earthquakes.......

The Sporting News has released its annual list of Best Sports Cities in North America, and you will be pleased to know that Austin cracked the Top 50. TSN ranked Austin 47th in its list of 388 cities. However, if you look at the list closely, you will see that Austin ranks 4th among cities that do not have a big-league professional sports teams, trailing only Raleigh-Durham & Chapel Hill, home to the Cameron......

At the end of every April, poised at the cusp of Spring and with thermostats slowly creeping towards that inexorable century mark, something extraordinary takes place in the midst of the vast California desert: tens of thousands of hardcore music devotees traverse vast distances - be it by train, plane, automobile, or bicycles, even - to arrive at an annual indie music celebration unlike any other in North America. They call it Coachella.......