Incident reports from police departments can be boring, staid affairs. Not so with those from
University of Texas at Austin.
This week's highlights include a budding horticulturist with a marijuana growing habit, a non-alcoholic student with catlike reflexes and a man who enjoys singing in trees.
Via
TM Daily Post.
posted by Leezie
on Jan 28, 2012 -
22 comments
If we have, at the back of our minds, a stereotype of the censor or the censor type, it is probably of some nondescript male bureaucrat who comes to work punctually at 8:30 in the morning, locks his office door behind him, and spends the day going through piles of books, underlining dirty passages in red ink and stamping pass or fail on the cover, or else pouring over strips of film with scissors at the ready, ready to snip out images of breasts and bums, who, when the clock at last strikes 5:00, emerges into the daylight, catches the bus home to some anonymous suburb and spends the evening watching reruns of sitcoms on television before donning his pajamas and falling into a dreamless sleep. Or if we're thinking not of full time censors, people who dedicate their professional lives to the business of censoring, but of part time censors, people who like to do a bit of censoring on the side, then we might imagine that retired teachers, clergymen and moral busybodies in general would be attracted to the craft. But the records of the South African system don't quite fit the stereotype.
- J. M. Coetzee, Nobel laureate author,
speaks at his alma mater University of Texas Austin about his experiences with censorship in his native South Africa during apartheid. Coetzee mentions
this essay he wrote about his time at UT Austin and a book he wrote on censorship,
here's the preface to it.
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 11, 2011 -
12 comments
Slacker is a unique film written and directed by Richard Linklater that follows the life of various characters in a Austin, Texas. Mind-numbingly boring or oddly captivating, Slacker provided an inspiration to other independent movies of the era and helped established the image of slacker as we see it today. Quoting
Ebert, "We don't get a story, but we do get a feeling. "
A Salon retrospective.
posted by mikepaco
on Feb 8, 2010 -
86 comments
Ride the City maps the best or safest urban bicycle route from point A to B. Presently featuring multi-lingual maps from New York, Chicago, Austin, Louisville, San Diego, and Seattle.
Their blog posts updates about new cities added to the grid, or other topics relating to urban bicycling.
posted by netbros
on Oct 29, 2009 -
16 comments
From 1988-1994 game designer
Richard Garriott ran one of the most elaborate, interactive '
haunted houses in the world from his own
house, a sprawling mansion custom built in part to house the event. After 1994 there was a break for Garriott's new house to be built (with more customization just for haunt use). Many had lost hope, but now 15 years later
it's back.
posted by djduckie
on Oct 8, 2009 -
17 comments
Giant Concrete Caterpillar. Driving on I35 south out of Dallas to Austin, you pass through Italy, Texas, and on the side of the road is
Bruco, the Texas Italian Caterpillar, and the home of the
Monolithic Dome Institute, makers of fine
homes,
restaurants, and
churches. These
domes are
green
and
disaster resistant. (See
previous thread). They also can be
visually interesting. These domes are
concrete as opposed to
R. Buckminster Fuller's
Geodesic domes, such as
Epcot Center or the incredibly interesting
Eden Project.
posted by dios
on Oct 10, 2006 -
19 comments
The moral terrain of the desert. Mary Austin describes a desert "where the borders of conscience break down... where the boundary of soul and sense is as faint as a train in a sand-storm... [where] the senses are obsessed by the coil of a huge and senseless monotony” -- is that the desert of photographer
Richard Misrach?
Joan Didion describes a "country so ominous and terrible that to live in it is to live with antimatter, [where] it is difficult to believe that 'the good' is a knowable quantity... [T]here is some sinister hysteria in the air out here tonight” -- is that the desert of photographer
Bill Lesch? Possibly the most depressing are these
suburban deserts.
posted by salvia
on Sep 10, 2006 -
7 comments
Art teacher in hot water over topless photos - Meet
Tamara, a 29 year old art teacher at Austin High School (
notable alumni) in Austin, TX. She's in danger of losing her job with the Austin independent School District over inappropriate photos posted to her
Flickr account (may be NSFW). "I'm an artist and I'm going to participate in the arts," Hoover said. "If that's not something they want me to do then I want to be told that. I don't feel as if I was doing anything that was beyond expectations."
posted by nitsuj
on Jun 17, 2006 -
88 comments
A
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing? Walgreens, a nationwide drugstore chain, has been unsuccessful in obtaining city approval for a new store in a south Austin neighborhood. Now, they're trying a new approach:
“Along with plan revisions and numerous neighborhood meetings, they made public in February their intention to build a permanent home for a nearby icon, Maria Corbalan's Taco Xpress.”
—Austin American Statesman, 6-13-04
...and they've hired a political consultant, reportedly with green leanings and a history lobbying the city of Austin, to drum up support for this cause (specifically the Maria's Tacos portion of their strategy). Insidious? Benign? Is this a new trend?
posted by Ethereal Bligh
on Jun 13, 2004 -
35 comments
What? The sky isn't falling! It's just an acorn! John Kelso, Austin's foremost professional Texan, writes today about the Austin-California grudge match. (In Austin, it's
de rigeur to blame the Cal-dot-commers-cum-Texans for the city's growing pains. It's also a tad accurate.) He also gripes about a silly SF gate
Flash site where you can
turn the lights out on Austin. The guy's a crank -- and he can't write a column without mentioning Bubbas, chili, or vegetarians -- but this is a perfect example of Texas' head-in-the-sand attitude towards a possible energy crisis. And the rest of the country's, maybe.
posted by mudbug
on Jul 27, 2001 -
23 comments
