Empire Control Room & Garage
Sandy Carson
news
Season’s Closings
Ike's Lessons
Galveston's land-use decisions exposed by storm's wrath
BY TOM CURTIS
Urban Planning: A Roundup
How Austin is working toward getting better by design
BY KATHERINE GREGOR
No Relief for Rodney Reed
The piecemeal appeals process isn't doing the death row inmate any favors
BY JORDAN SMITH
Reefer Madness
Are Kids Really Kicking the Habit?
BY JORDAN SMITH
Warm Fuzzies Follow AISD Linux Flap
All is well after a teacher's misunderstanding about open-source software sparked much unexpected ire
BY JUSTIN WARD
BFI Dustup: 'Council Has Done Nothing Helpful'
Landfill controversy becomes mired in confusion
BY RICHARD WHITTAKER
Everything Under the Sun(set)
The Sunset Advisory Commission looks toward the 81st legislative session
BY RICHARD WHITTAKER
Rick Perry Gets a Life
Perry drives anti-abortion license plate proposal
BY JORDAN SMITH
Finding a Way Back Home
Who's looking out for Austin's returning veterans?
BY RICHARD WHITTAKER
Point Austin: A Few More Shoes
An Iraqi journalist waves goodbye to the Bush era
BY MICHAEL KING
City Hall Hustle: Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Gale's farewell hymn closes the council year
BY WELLS DUNBAR
Naked City
News briefs from Austin, the region, and beyond
Headlines
The Hightower Report
How to Bankrupt a Media Company and Survive; and Diminishing the Stench in Congress
BY JIM HIGHTOWER
food
Beyond Black-Eyed Peas
Eating lucky for New Year's
BY MICK VANN
Liquid Assets
Spend money on the gifts instead of the wine this holiday season
BY WES MARSHALL
Food-o-File
It's been a difficult year for the Austin food community
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
Event Menu
Your local foodie events for Dec. 28-31
BY VIRGINIA B. WOOD
music
Open House
Peeping into the windows of locals
BY AUDRA SCHROEDER
Off the Record
The politics of Austin music in 2008: Barack Obama boogies back to Texas, a Man From Plains, and the Live Music Task Force
BY AUSTIN POWELL
DVDs
The Flaming Lips
Christmas on Mars
Johnny Cash
The Johnny Cash Christmas Specials: 1976-1979
The Black Keys
Live at the Crystal Ballroom
Patti Smith
Dream of Life
Eugene Hütz
The Pied Piper of Hützovina
Tangerine Dream
Live at Coventry Cathedral 1975
Planet B-Boy: Breakdancing Has Evolved
Planet B-Boy: Breakdancing Has Evolved
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan
Rhythm Devils
Concert Experience
Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in Europe
Play Your Own Thing: A Story of Jazz in Europe
Rush
Snakes & Arrows Live
Metallica
Aural Amphetamine: Metallica and the Dawn of Thrash
The Who
At Kilburn: 1977
Sex Pistols
There'll Always Be an England: Live From Brixton Academy
screens
Auld Lang Syne at the Cinema
How Hollywood has created a holiday of unreasonable expectations and why we should probably stop buying in (but never will)
BY JOSH ROSENBLATT
Writing 'The Reader'
Scripter David Hare on Germany's long reckoning with its past
BY KEVIN KELLY
Film News
Watchdog group Texans for Public Justice has a bone to pick with the guv and his new film incentives proposal
BY JOE O'CONNELL
TV Eye
'TV Eye' looks back at the year on TV, from Tina Fey to the Iraqi shoe-thrower
BY BELINDA ACOSTA
Film Reviews
Bedtime Stories
Adam Sandler has finally found his audience: 3-year-olds. Maybe he should stop making movies already and just rent himself out for kids’ parties.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
F. Scott Fitzgerald's slender, unsentimental curio has been stretched by David Fincher into a nearly three-hour-long motion picture about a man (played by Brad Pitt) who ages in reverse.
Doubt
Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams star in the film version of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play.
Frost/Nixon
Ron Howard presents us with Richard M. Nixon – the Christmas gift that keeps on giving.
Marley & Me
Sweet and wise and often laugh-out-loud funny (just like Grogan's book), Marley & Me, starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston, isn't just for dog people.
The Reader
Stephen Daldry, working from a superior script by David Hare, has crafted a film about guilt, love, and history which stars Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, and newcomer David Kross.
Valkyrie
Tom Cruise seems somewhat out of place as a German officer in this thriller about the attempt on Adolf Hitler's life in July 1944.
arts & culture
Celebrate This City
Dave Sullivan provides new direction for First Night Austin
BY ROBERT FAIRES
Matt Bearden
The Austin comedian on his influences, why he's not in L.A., and Red River hipsters
BY STEVE BIRMINGHAM
Austin Symphony Orchestra
ASO's biggest challenge of 2008? Keeping a straight face with the Flying Karamazovs.
BY ROBERT FAIRES
The Last Five Years
The new year is prime time to discover this musical anatomy of one couple's relationship
BY HANNAH KENAH
Arts Reviews
The Santaland Diaries
There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays
A concert that showed how far the Capital City Men's Chorus has come in 20 years
Austin Americana: The Neal Douglass Photography Collection
The Austin Statesman's first photographer shot news, but 70 years on, he made history
columns
Page Two: Workingman's Blues
The real history of labor and union organizing is ignored and largely unknown
BY LOUIS BLACK
After a Fashion
You know Stephen has an opinion about those new holiday decorations on Congress Avenue
BY STEPHEN MACMILLAN MOSER
Gay Place
Visions of drag queens karaoke-ing in my head
BY ASH BELL AND KATE X MESSER
Day Trips
Texas boasts many splendid caverns available for spelunking year-round
BY GERALD E. MCLEOD
Playing Through
Fixed-gear bikes are all the rage with Austin's hipsterati
BY THOMAS HACKETT
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
THC for Alzheimer's, England for kilts, and more
BY MR. SMARTY PANTS
The Common Law
I Ordered a Holiday Present, and It Never Showed Up
BY LUKE ELLIS
Luv Doc Recommends: Hayes Carll and the Band of Heathens
Antone's, Sunday, December 28, 2008
BY THE LUV DOC
Feedback
Letters to the editor, published daily
