Saturday marks the opening of Wheelchair Epidemic, a group show featuring exclusive black and white photos taken at Antone’s, 80s Austin punk scene photos by documentary photog Bill Daniel, and various music-inspired drawings, paintings and mixed media collages....

SXSW has announced the schedule of events for this year’s official showcases -- start here! Also, check out Greg Hewgill's site for (unofficial) Torrents featuring the various artists playing SXSW 2008 (as well as past years)....

On Thursday night, the Austin Film Festival will make you wonder what you would do for a joy ride as they bring us Blood Car, one of the surprise hits of the 2007 fest. Based in the not-so-distant future, where gas prices are over $30 a gallon and everyone's new mode of transportation involves Rollerblades, vegan kindergarten teacher Archie discovers that the future of the combustion engine may not lie in fields of green, but in pools of blood....

Usually, street closures around the Capitol hail the arrival of one of Austin's many street festivals, where you can listen to a wishy-washy blues-rocker do his best to channel Stevie Ray Vaughn while you eat a turkey leg amongst a sea of fanny-packed families and homemade jewelry vendors. But once a year it means it's Texas Book Festival time. As literary events go in this town, it is the big one. For two days......

On Thursday night, City Council preliminarily approved the first phase of a plan to create a ‘second downtown’ in the area around the Domain. The North Burnet/Gateway Master Plan aims to transform 2,330 acres north of US 183 into a pedestrian and public transportation friendly mixed-use neighborhood. The plan envisions a redesigned Burnet Road as a ‘multi-use transit boulevard carrying Austin, bicycle and future transit service throughout the area.’ It will encourage the addition of......

On Thursday, a scholar named Randolph Lewis, of the University of Oklahoma, comes to the Harry Ransom Center to speak. Resolved: The recent explosion of documentary film has not helped the genre at all, instead causing it to conform to televisual norms, and pushing its filmmakers to use less "literary imagination" in their creative processes. We guess that means that in order to get on board with this argument, you kind of have to believe......

*The views expressed in The Laurie Show are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole.* -ed. note I have returned, music lover! Yes, my on-air escapades on KUT 90.5 FM have been scattered about, but I'm actually working my regular shift tonight, 11 p.m. to 3 in the morning, when the peeps are still stumbling out of the cantinas. And once again, my inspiration for tonight's chaos comes from......

The following is a letter written by Le and Thomas Popov, owners of South Congress boutique FactoryPeople. As life-long independent music lovers and long-time Austinites (at least one of has lived here since 1989), we have come to love mid-March when the SXSW Music Festival brings Austin to life. After the events of this year's fest, it’s unlikely we’ll ever feel the same affection for SXSW. On Thursday, March 15th, an inspector of the City......

In his latest release, Alternadad, Neal Pollack chronicles his experiences as a father and family-man in the early 21st-century. Pollack proves in his fourth bound collection of pages that it is indeed an exciting time to be alive and parenting. Please be sure to read Austinist's exquisite review of Alternadad, an instant American classic. Having said that, we think it's important to let you know that Neal Pollack is coming to Austin. We won't tell......

Because most performance companies create their budgets on a fall-to-spring season, September and October generally see hordes of productions by our local theatre-makers chompin’ at the bit after a summer of relative tranquility. With the B. Iden Payne nominations and Austinist’s own Best Theatre in Austin picks officially announced, it’s time to leave 05/06 behind us, and head charging off into new theatrical waters. (Or something.) This week’s Austinist Pick of the Week is......

Calendar it, folks: through 2007, over 100 local artists are being showcased at Austin City Hall’s new exhibition, The People’s Gallery. Organized by the Hall’s Cultural Arts Division, it offers a fine sampling of homegrown, creative talent. The talent is nicely varied, too. Examples of the work include a cast bronze bicycle-powered Icarus (he’s right in the lobby), and, upstairs, a sculpture featuring strands of yarn looking as delicious as spaghetti. These pieces, two......

*Photo of last year's Heydays taken from UT's College of Fine Arts' website* What are you doing On Thursday? What about this weekend? No seriously, what is going on in your little world? Could you manage to squeeze a little culture in there somewhere? The Creative Research Laboratory of the Department of Art and Art History at UT is hosting Heydays(again) on Thursday, December 8th and again on December 10th. The December 8th date,......

On Thursday, June 9th, The Odd Bird Collective will be hosting an opening featuring the art work of Laura White and Steph Gordon. Music will be provided by Acadia, Norey, Elefantos, Some People. We've yet to be exposed to any of these bands, but for $5, it might be worth checking out. Gallery Lombardi (910 West Third St) Show starts at 7:30pm If you know anything about these bands, please let us (and everyone......

A 24-hour all-night nap has expelled my usual post-SXSW gloom, so we are able to see the events of the past week in full perspective. Every time we started grumbling about these foreigners invading our town, we caught ourselves, because we remembered that's one of the reasons we moved to Austin in the first place. We don't want to seem provincial now, do we? So then why do we still feel sour today? It's......