I am writing this week’s installment somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. I just wrapped up a week in Hawaii with my young, hot boyfriend Warren. The trip was everything and then some, with hikes into deep valleys to watch astounding waterfalls, a trek across a still steaming lava crater, a trip to watch 2000 degree liquid lava pour into the ocean in enormous clouds of brilliant orange steam, a day on a black sand beach watching the locals surf big scary waves with the sort of ease most of us can only associate with walking. We even broke down and went to a beach yesterday, our last full day on the Big Island. It is the sort of beach you conjure when you imagine paradise, the kind of place I had, until yesterday, only seen in the movies. We buried ourselves in wet sand up to our knees and built castles and moats along the water’s edge and jumped big blue and green waves and even, to be silly, took the requisite long romantic walk along the white sand....

Beaufort, an Academy Award nominated narrative, follows the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Southern Lebanon, 18 years after the occupation began. As opposed to rooting out terrorists and massively destructive (and non-existent) weapons, the Israelis had come to Lebanon in 1982 to secure their purported birthright—the land of their forefathers, or, the Abraham side of the coin—and did so by bombing the hell out of Beirut and anything else they could hit, forcing their mortal enemies, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, to retreat. Granted, Lebanon was not necessarily the land of Abraham, but since the PLO was camped out and had attempted to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to the UK, we suppose Israel figured that whatever place Palestinians chose to inhabit was fair game for bloodshed. Clearly, we are oversimplifying this and depending on which side of the strip you stand on, the view may be very different. ...

This is what SXSW free day parties are all about. Twelve bands, two venues, and short sets so that you can see as much as you can stomach. Forcefield and Terrorbird are having their blow-out at Emo’s and Emo’s Jr. on the first day of SXSW, kicking things off with quite a bang. ...

American Gangster PosterAmerican Gangster Do you really need a two-disc box set of Ridley Scott's American Gangster, which includes two different versions of last year's Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe movie, the ability to download yet a third, plus featurettes including one in which Scott is shown the ins and outs of heroin production by an NYPD officer (as if he didn't already know)? It depends on how much you like Scott, and if you do, it'll......

A New York judge rules that sending a MySpace "friend request" to a person who has a restraining order against you is illegal. Cold War conspiracy! Russia believes America's announced plan to shoot down one of its broken spy satellites is, in reality, a test its of its anti-missile defense system's capability. At any rate, it looks like the satellite is going to crash to Earth pretty soon, so keep your head on a......

Deer Tick, or John McCauley, has fast made name for himself with a series of self-released records as well as 2007’s War Elephant on Jana Hunter’s Feow! Records. McCauley was raised in Providence, Rhode Island where he decided on a career in music at an early age, recording and even touring by the time he was in high school. McCauley’s voice demands attention, his songwriting shines through, and his work falls somewhere between Bright Eyes and Wilco. And he turned 21 last year. We caught up with McCauley recently to understand what exactly makes Deer Tick tick....

“Don’t believe the hype,” Public Enemy warned us way back in 1988, and as on their eerily prescient “Cold Lampin’ With Flavor” which made the surprising case for Flava Flave’s longevity, they were right, of course. And hype, by definition, should always be suspect. From the moment Vampire Weekend, the quirky New York quartet began making the blog rounds and collecting the sort of adjectives that pointed their way toward them becoming The Next Big Thing, we, as a music community, needed to take a breath, sit down, and just relax. Losing our shit about inventive New York rock debuts are just going to result in another band like The Strokes, and we all know where that got us....

The story begins in New York in the year 2011. This is John McCain's recession-riddled America, where gas has edged above 8 dollars a gallon, the best-selling video game is Infidel Massacre: Los Angeles, and, with 10,000 troops still in Iraq, the war is still going strong....

J. M. Coetzee is probably the only Nobel Prize winner for Literature with a degree from UT. He spent several years in Austin in the 1960’s, playing intramural cricket, protesting the Vietnam War in the pages of the Daily Texan, and writing a dissertation on Sam Beckett’s novels. A few years later, he returned to South Africa, the country of his birth, and started writing one amazing book after another. (He hasn’t really stopped since then.) He’s visited Austin a few times since then, including a stint in 1995 as a visiting professor at UT....

Score one more for the acquisitions team at the Harry Ransom Center. Yesterday morning, the UT facility announced that it had purchased the papers of Tim O'Brien, American novelist and resident of Central Texas. O'Brien teaches at Texas State University in San Marcos....

Movie poster from Golden Compass official website** Ed note: our sincere apologies for not posting this on Friday, when you'd most likely be looking for new movies to watch. But cheer up! These are all still playing! The Golden Compass: At last, the adaptation of the wonderful, sublime, transcendent Philip Pullman books hits the screen. Nicole Kidman is the icy antiheroine, Daniel Craig is the father figure, and a child actress named Dakota (but not......

Fantastic Fest '08 Badges are on sale now! VIP badges sold out while the '07 festival was still running, but there are some new ticket options for '08 including "2nd Half" and "Daytime Only" badges. UT Professor Ellen Spiro and Talkshow Host Phil Donahue's doc "Body of War" has made the Oscar shortlist. Check out Chris Garcia's interview with Spiro here. The Belgian government has honored four Austin filmmakers for their documentary work. We......

Image from Arthur Miller Collection, Harry Ransom Center Rehearsing the American Dream: Arthur Miller’s TheatreSeptember 4 - December 30Harry Ransom Center (21st & Guadaloupe)free, hours vary[info]Sometimes we think we could spend a lifetime sorting through the treasure trove of historical documents and materials in the Harry Ransom Center. From the Gutenberg Bible to the Watergate papers, from the first-ever photograph to love poems written by Ernest Hemingway from the trenches of World War I, the......

SFist witnessed a new apartment building tszuj the skyline with spectacular, gaudy turquoise aplomb, the (informal) renaming of the Mission/SOMA neighborhood border, the return of the Maltese Falcon, the Mayor Gavin Newsom mea culpa-ing over his Hawaiian getaway during the oil spill, and double-decker buses hitting the streets of San Francisco. Oh, and some baseball player named Barry Bonds is a liar whose pants, it seems, are totally on fire. LAist continues to cover the......

As promised, here's the schedule of set times for this weekend's Fun Fun Fun Fest, sponsored in part by Austinist.com. Fun Fun Fun Fest: [official] [myspace] [tickets] Update: Download this as a pdf Saturday, November 3rd Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 12:30 PM 12:45 PM The Lemurs(12:50-1:20) Down To Nothing(12:40-1:10) 1:00 PM Djs Manny and Bigface(1-2) 1:15 PM Iron Age(1:10-1:40) 1:30 PM Zykos(1:25-1:55) 1:45 PM Viva Hate(1:45-2:15) 2:00 PM Brothers and Sisters(2-2:30) 2:15 PM......

Montreal based outfit Stars has managed to capture our heart every time we take in their pop melodies and poignant lyricism. Amy Millan and Torquil Compbell are true stars, countering each other perfectly with crisp vocal delivery, while crystal clear production on the band’s recordings complemented by immaculate instrumentation make for a mighty fine final product. The band has two releases to be proud of this year -- Stars released In Our Bedroom After The......

Yeah, we hate the term "movers and shakers" too. But the fact is that, in any industry, the big leagues run on star power. Nowhere is this more true than in the movie biz; accordingly, we saved the last post in our Austin Film Festival Panel Preview for appearances by the talented, charismatic, and/or sensational people appearing at this year's fest. Regardless of whether you've heard these names before, they've been around the block and......

The new head of EMI apparently gets it. Study: "War on Terror" is spawning legions of terrorists. Texas investor to help fund the International Space Station with the hope of saving millions of lives. Campaign by Blackwater to further embarrass our country continues to be a great success. Parisian vandals destroy valuable piece of art, trot away laughing, smoking cigarettes and looking absolutely fabulous. Article about students getting it on during class at a......

Today's New York Times has an interesting article on Austin gaming mogul Richard Garriott, the person behind the Ultima franchise. The eccentric millionaire is a self-described space junkie, but whereas other enthusiasts would be content to collect "normal" space-related objects — "astronaut autographs, mission patches, ... 'flown' goods" and the like — Garriott has the means to think outside the, err, box. To wit: a giant, Soviet-made aluminum replica of Sputnik, which he purchased......

Editors’ note: The opinions and ideas expressed in this opinion piece are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the outlook and belief of anyone else in the Ist network. I hadn't initially planned to attend The Flaming Lips show at La Zona Rosa this past Tuesday, opting to avoid possible run-ins with any "Furries", but a last-minute ticket to a Lips show is not something to turn one's nose up......

We entered the park around 1:10pm to the strains of a seriously thrashy number from Yo La Tengo. It was impressive to hear how determined YLT were to throw out some serious noise rock at such an early hour. Being a bit sunburned and rather low-energy, we listened rather than watched, grabbed a blissfully freezing cold beer, and headed over to grab a spot for The National. The National (1:30pm): What perfect music for......

O.J. Simpson is just weird. Bush to appoint new legal yes-man, er, we mean Attorney General. Greenspan says Iraq War was mostly just about gettin' our grubby hands on some of that cheap oil. The world's top 10 most polluted places, according to Scientific American. Get your iPhone unlocked for, like, $50. Our legs are really, really sore from ACL. Another effect of global warming: The unthawing of prehistoric mammoth dung, which stinks!......

The Brave One Jodie Foster's pool-table (or was it pinball machine?) scene in The Accused was burned into our early middle-school brains, so will that make it harder or easier to watch her get brutalized again in this new movie? At least her character is totally different - this time she's an upscale New Yorker who gets beaten by unknown assailants in Central Park (and the movie is directed by Neil Jordan, of The......

If braving the Texas heat and wading through crowds of festival-goers at ACL isn’t your thing or you just couldn’t afford it, but you still want to get out of the house and your dancin’ shoes are beggin’ for some wear and tear, feel free to visit Emo’s Friday night. ‘Free’ being the most important word there, because it is. The Clientele, Oakley Hall and Zykos are offering a varied night of art pop,......

The Mexican holiday of Diez y Seis is this weekend (September 16), and the City of Austin, along with the Consul General of Mexico and the Fiesta de Independencia Foundation, is holding the annual celebration at Waterloo Park. The holiday is a celebration of Mexico's independence from Spain. At this local celebration, Consul General Rosalba Ojeda will perform "El Grito", the yell that in some ways led to the War for Independence. Performances at this......

California's Cold War Kids have been the object of both adulation and derision since their inception in 2004. The band's songs traffic in third-person tales of downhearted and desperate characters, and their music frames the stories rather than overpowering them. After playing SXSW in March, Cold War Kids return to town for both a spot on the ACL Festival bill this Saturday and an aftershow at Stubb's on Sunday evening. Austinist traded emails with......

[This review courtesy of new Austinist contributor Anna Hanks! -Ed.] As much as we'd like to change a few things about our first time, we regret we’ll never be able to repeat the experience. We also can’t change history, so catching the currently playing, slick incarnation of the Rude Mechanicals' Get Your War On also wasn't our first time. (We reviewed the show last January as well.) Directed by Shawn Sides, Get Your War......

UPDATE: NME is also reporting that Muse will play at Stubb's on Sunday night, we'll have details as they emerge. A lot of this might be old news for ticket holders who have been scurrying around trying to figure out how they're going to be compensated for their White Stripes @ Stubb's tickets, but it's true: Muse's performance has been moved up, and they will now occupy the White Stripes' slot, while the rest......

Round Up! Round Up! Hey! Hey! Hey! Sorry, we got really excited there for a second, but there are just sooooo many great movies out right now that it makes our little heads want to explode. Do you like satirical gun fights? Gotcha covered. Re-vamped S’ghetti Westerns? Check. Tales of hate-mongering Neo-Nazi Brits? You know it! For lovers of brutal, bloody, balls-out storytelling, unto you we dedicate this week in film. 3:10 to Yuma We......

JOSH RITTER What’s The Deal: Josh Ritter graduated from college with a major in American History through Narrative Folk Music, which makes the title of this folk-pop singer/songwriter’s recently released album, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, fitting as well as boastful. He can boast all he wants with those hearty lyrics fat with imagery and the voluminous songwriting of this, his fifth album. Comparisons to Bob Dylan as well as John Lennon immediately come......