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Fans of J. R. R. Tolkien needn't wait until the December 12 opening of the film of Lord of the Rings to take a journey to Middle Earth. Second Youth Family Repertory Theatre, an Austin arts company acclaimed for its intelligent, highly theatrical stage shows for family audiences, will ferry you there this weekend via its production of The Hobbit.

Picking up where Mystery Science Theater 3000 left off, Mr. Sinus Theater 3000 skewers the movies of our childhood to sold-out crowds at the Alamo Drafthouse.

For four years, playwright Lisa D'Amour and director Katie Pearl have forged an uncommon bond with audiences through the welcoming, intimate quality of their theatre work. They've also forged an uncommon bond with each other, a mutually fulfilling creative partnership that will continue for the rest of their lives.

Too-often regarded as dull compilations of dusty facts, biographies are rarely bestsellers, Amanda Eyre Ward writes. But Amanda Foreman's Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire reads like a racy novel, complete with enough rocky relationships, torrid trysts, and illegitimate childbirths to keep Jerry Springer in business for weeks.

With Quills, Philip Kaufman (Henry & June, The Unbearable Lightness of Being) has made another film about the startling fusion between literature and sex.

The Mexico of now, David Garza writes, is not held only within the borders of Mexico itself. It has spread northward, re-entered its old space, in a sense. For so many of the Mexicans, displaced but still infatuated with the idea of spirit and ghost, the nation itself is a ghost in the back of the head.

Through ADVision, Austin has become a hotspot for producing English-dubbed anime. Who knew?

The seven-year rise of Knolly Williams, the Master P of Christian hip-hop

"Sharon Bridgforth's works aren't meant to be read silently," Suzy Spencer writes. "Some folks would say that's like eating barbecue without the sauce. But if it's good barbecue, you can do without the sauce because it has plenty of flavor on its own."

Korey Coleman started The Reel Deal as a scam; he ended up with a show.

The Mother of all pop bands

Christine Fugate's new documentary The Girl Next Door follows Stacy Baker from her childhood in Tulsa to her rise as porn star Stacy Valentine.

Picks & Sleepers

Light rail, affordable housing, and reverse racism.

Top 10s: Year, Decade, Eternity

A father beams as her records his daughter's first season as a middle school football player.

The beefs this week: Chronicle reporter Robert Bryce on CNN, genetically engineered foods, Steamboat, John Aielli, Paul Minor, and more.

Wrong John, Wrong Reason

The Promise of Spring

Four for the Read

Process for Mapping School Boundary Lines Improved, Still Difficult

Postmarks Scandal!

Blind in Texas or: Ken Don't Know Dick

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