From the desk of…

  • SXSW 2014 What I Learned


    Between panels at interactive and waiting in line for movies on 6th Street, SXSW provided lots of opportunities to learn, not all of them positive.

  • Austin Center for Photography Closed for business


    After five years, the Austin Center for Photography is closing up shop.

  • SXSW is over. Long live SXSW.


    Austin’s biggest party is over, and real life begins again. This was my best SXSW experience yet, a well-rounded affair of movies, music, food and celebrities. What else is there?

  • FOUND Photographs of the Rolling Stones


    Rare photographs of the Rolling Stones are on view in Austin – snapshots showing a relaxed and casual group of young men enjoying the early stages of superstardom. The 23 small-format photos, taken during the band’s 1965 American tour, depict all of the original Stones – Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and founding member and road manager Ian Stewart – taking in the motel environs of Savannah, Ga., and Clearwater, Fla.

  • Don’t worry teachers You’re not alone!


    The demands on teachers’ time are legion, but a burgeoning online movement is here to help.

  • Larry Fink: Photographer And a Real Character


    Larry Fink’s work speaks for itself, but last Friday night the famed photographer was more than happy to do the talking. As the latest Icon of Photography in the Austin Center for Photography ongoing lecture series, Fink delighted the crowd with stories that spanned a half century and ideas that show he is as scrappy as ever.

  • Neutral Milk Hotel A retro-scenester adventure


    Last week, I did something I rarely do anymore: went out to see live music. In fact, I did something even more rare: I saw music two nights in a row. What am I, twenty? (Try double that.) What got this old(ish) man out of the house? A band that hasn’t toured or released new music since the second Clinton administration.

  • Kerlin BBQ A First Look


    At this point, hearing about a new barbecue trailer doing good work in Austin is no longer a surprise. La Barbecue and John Mueller were my forays into this genre, but after being blown away by Micklethwait and his Craft Meats, I’m willing to try a new one any time. Kerlin BBQ was next on my list.

  • In Defense of Long Lines . . . sort of


    A recently post by Chase Hoffberger at the Austin Chronicle’s Daily has me thinking a lot about long lines. We live in a city of lines in a culture of lines. We wait in line while people up north wait on line, but regardless of the idiom, we wait. We wait for those things we deem worthy of waiting for from food to phones and anything in between.

  • The Wildwood Chronicles Colin Meloy & Carson Ellis


    With their newest novel, Wildwood Imperium, recently released, Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis welcomed a large crowd of excited kids – and not a few bearded hipsters – to BookPeople Wednesday night for a reading and remembrance of things past.