Ben Reed & Bill Cope Read Christmas Fiction, Live!Friday, November 30thCafe Mundi (1704 East 5th St.)Free, 8pm - onwardAustinist’s own Benjamin Reed’s doing a Christmas Story reading with Bill Cope! Using real words! This Friday evening! Remember back when words actually meant something? Back when they meant “on paper, in printed form, to be read aloud to people who like hearing stories told by the authors who write them”? Back when books were things......

ACL Previews Interview: Ghostland Observatory Previews: The Broken West, Big Sam’s Funky Nation & Rose Hill Drive Previews: Billy Joe Shaver and Fionn Regan Previews: Brandon Rhyder and Ocote Soul Sounds Interview: The Broken West Previews: Sylvia St. James, Jeffrey Steele, and Amy Cook Interview: Bloc Party ACL Fest Updates: Google Mashup, Contests, Eco-Chic Previews: Augustana, Amos Lee Interview: Peter, Bjorn, and John ACL Band Clash, Round 3: Wilco Vs My Morning Jacket Travis......

THURSDAY [3] film • Austin Film Festival screens "The Ballad of A.J Weberman" at Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (7:30pm Free/$4 Members/General) art • West End Gallery Night at Participating Galleries (Until 8pm) art • Blanton Museum of Art Public Tour: An Introduction to Prints at Blanton Museum of Art, MLK at Congress (7-8pm) books • Book Release Party: Collecting the Imagination: The First Fifty Years of the Ransom Center at The Harry Ransom Center (7:00pm)......

Alt.Country, power pop, loud rockabilly, and love songs. If you enjoy any or all of the things we've just mentioned, make it a priority to head to Stubb's tonight. For almost 15 years, Dallas-based The Old 97's have been playing a mixture of the music they love. The band started on Bloodshot Records as a loud, rough-hewn alt.country bar band, then slowly evolved their sound into something catchy and polished enough that the love......

Those who grew up with NPR as auxiliary parent will doubtless recognize the names Maria Hinojosa and Ray Suarez, the honored guests at Spark: KLRU's Engaging Speaker Series this Wednesday. (So, do their pictures match your mental conception of how they'd look? 'Cuz the first time we saw a pic of Terry Gross, we flipped out.) Hinojosa, the anchor of NPR's Latino USA, is also most recently the author of a memoir of Mexican-American......

- Rolling Stones tickets are on sale tomorrow at 10am via Ticketmaster. Prices are $75 for students, $95 for general admission, and a whopping $350 for bleacher seating near the stage. Expect at least an additional $10-20/ticket in service charges. - ACL Fest acts continue to drop like flies: Feist and Kasey Chambers have both left the bill. They join a parade that also includes Editors, Damien Rice, Alexi Murdoch, Fields, and Goldfrapp. To......

FRIDAY [21] [music] Sons of Hercules and The Bad Rackets at Woody's South (link) [music] Those Peabodys, Grand Champeen, Birds of Avalon (ex-Cherry Valence), Man Eaters of Tsavo at Emo's (link) [music] The Radiators at The Parish (link) [music] Blue October w/ People In Planes and Bril at Stubb's (link) [music] The Shells CD Release at End of an Ear (Free, 6pm) (link) [lecture] The Texas Observer presents David Sirota, author of Hostile Takeover: How......

February 28th (usually) marks the end of the shortest month of the year, the month with a holiday devoted to love, the month where women's magazines dedicate chunks of print to relationship issues and how to overcome loneliness. Feb. 28th also marked the day Rhett Miller's latest solo effort, The Believer, came out. Woo Hoo! We love the Old 97's and, by extension, their leading man, Mr. Miller. The Old 97's are from Dallas and......

SXSW.com released an updated lineup for this year's SXSW Music Festival earlier today, and it's one hell of a list. The SXSW committee hastens to note that "This is a partial list of performers confirmed to appear at the 2006 SXSW Music Festival. This list is current as of 1/13/06. All of this information is subject to change." International acts include: Masahiro Nitta, DMBQ, Ellegarden, Tsu Shi Ma Mi Re, PE'Z, The Emeralds (Japan)......

M O N D A Y [ 1 4 ] music · Dios (Malos), Pilotdrift and Steeltrain at Stubb's music · The Lemurs and Tarantula A.D. at the Parish Room film · Spiderhouse Cafe screens "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price" (RSVP, Free, 10pm) (Thanks, Kate!) shopping · Austin Museum of Art's Tax-Free Day music · Piebald, Hot Rod Circuit, Hit the Light and Valient Thorr at Emo's music · Nic Armstrong and the......

M O N D A Y [ 1 7 ] music · Elizabeth McQueen (of Asleep At the Wheel) and Jason Roberts begin their new Monday night residency at Threadgills - they're sharing a band and splitting the night. (8pm-10pm) music · Ethan Azarian at Waterloo Records (5pm) music · The Sad Accordions with Just Guns at Emo's music · The Drafthouse Downtown screens "Rock & Roll Invaders: The AM Radio DJs" - a documentary......

Because no one knows how to party quite like fired-up drunken liberals, you might want to consider checking out tonight's ACLU bash on the Eastside before you head out downtown. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas is throwing a fundraising party at The Old School on East 11th, from 6-10pm. "Messin' with Texas 2005" will include performances by Ant Man Bee and Bombasta, as well as indoor video installations and plenty of alcohol.......