W. 37th St. Christmas Lights

Study Break at “Canción del Cuerpo”

Graduation weekend, for a few of my friends, was a great way to kick off December. But since I don’t graduate until May 2010, I have to get back to reality—which consumes of test. With all of the studying I decided to take one last study break before I really concentrate on the books.  I attended the Dance Repertory Theatre’s Fall Showing of Canción del Cuerpo (Song of the Body). The show was from December 4-5, 2009 at the B. Iden Payne Theatre in the F. Loren Winship Drama Building  on the UT campus.

Lyn Wilshire

The student dance company has award winning dancers and choreographers. The artistic director Lyn C. Wiltshire , performed all around the world. Wiltshire performed with dance troupes such as The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre  and The Dance Theatre of Harlem . 

Co-Artistic Director, Yacov Sharir studied in Paris, Jersalem, and the United  States. Sharir also choreographed for Hartford Ballet , the Kibbutz Dance  Company of Israel, and other places around Texas and received a few awards for his various works.

Yacov Sharir

Canción del Cuerpo had six acts that were choreographed by associate professors and students from campus. Each act was only half way complete. They will show the last part of the acts in March for the Spring Showcase.

Dancers from Columbia helped choreograph some of the performances. In the spring, five student dancers will travel to Columbia to finish each dance.

Click on the YouTube clip to see interviews with audience members and photos from the show.  

Study Break at Shakespeare’s Pub

A little snow to kick off finals isn’t that bad! 

6th St.

Unfortunately Austin didn’t receive any snow. All of the meteorologists said there was a 60 percent chance it was going to snow on Friday, but Austin received about five flurries.  All the snow was either in the hill country or Houston. After being disappointed with the meteorologists’, my girlfriends and I decided to just go to 6^th Street before Hell Week …I mean Finals Week, begins.

Inside the Pub

I was having fun!

Some Friends

 The last few days have been very cold, but it didn’t stop us from celebrating  Hunter Lawrence’s 46 yard kick Saturday night against Nebraska. It’s was freezing outside, but all of UT (who didn’t go to Dallas) were on 6^th Street.

 My girlfriends and I went to  Shakespeare’s Pub on 6^th Street and between San Jacinto and Trinity. The club was completely packed. Even to get in the bar, there was a 10 minute wait. Once we finally got inside, the atmosphere was pretty exciting. In the back room, there was a romantic setting aligning the stage. Candles were lit, lights draped from the ceiling, and a huge Christmas tree was in the corner. The DJ played great music. Everything was the latest music in Hip-Hop and R&B—which is hard to find in Central Texas.

 I have been there before, but it I’ve never stayed longer than 20 minutes. But on Saturday, we stayed the entire night. It was a nice late night study break especially after the big win against Nebraska.

Night Owls on New Year’s

The time has come for us to go our separate ways. May everyone have a great holiday break and come back refreshed and rejuvenated, ready for another (maybe your last?) semester of school. If you happen to be sticking around Austin, however, I am sure you will be looking for something amazing to do for New Year’s Eve. I’ve never stayed in the city for the holidays, so I can’t vouch for anything, but hopefully one of these options can provide some fun for you.

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears are playing their second annual New Year’s show at Stubb’s (8th and Red River). Tickets are $32, but include a barbecue buffet and champagne toast. Doors open at 9 pm. buy tickets here

Robert Earl Keen, Randy Rogers Band, Wade Bowen and Band of Heathens are playing Austin Music Hall  (2nd and Nueces). Tickets are $50 for general admission or $75 for two balcony seats. Doors open at 7 pm. buy tickets here

Joe Ely is playing Antone’s (W. 5th). Tickets are $30 and doors open at 9 pm. buy tickets here

First Night Austin happens throughout the downtown area, specifically Auditorium Shores. This will be the 5th year the city of Austin celebrates the New Year with this even that provides  “Austinites and Central Texas with a free, inter-generationally programmed, family-friendly, alcohol-free, public celebration, showcasing the unique culture of Austin through expressive, creative traditions of performing and visual arts.” The events begin at 4 pm and the website has a schedule of the full day. Within the free event, one can also buy tickets to the “Long First Night,” a banquet at the Long Center. Regular tickets are $15 until Dec. 18th when they go up to $20 and give you access to the cash bar, food and entertainment. VIP tickets include access to the Long Center and all entertainment, as well as access to open bars, complimentary buffets and chefs stations, and a private VIP party.  They are $95 until the 18th, when they go up to $110. buy tickets here

Alamo Drafthouse Ritz New Year’s Bash is a showing of the classic 1960′s film The Apartment with a classy five course meal consisting of a club sandwich, sweet and sour lobster with Maitake dumpling, chicken noodle soup, braised lamb shank, and strawberry chocolate fruitcake. Tickets are pricey at $75 each, but that includes your meal. The show begins at 7 pm. buy tickets here

Happy holidays! It’s been a pleasure writing for you.

Concerts to Reminisce By

While I’m sure that most of the students reading this blog have locked themselves in libraries and late night coffee shops and have no plans for going out until finals are over, I found a few events worth mentioning. Maybe you could treat yourself to these concerts that bring back the good ol’ days of middle school/high school, perhaps a time when finals were less stressful, or maybe even non-existent…

Bowling for Soup and the Riddlin’ Kids are playing at Emo’s Thursday Dec 3 at 10 pm. You may remember these Texas bands from your  local “alternative” radio station in the early 2000′s. Bowling for Soup had such hits as “Girl All the Bad Guys Want” and “1985″ and were even nominated for a Grammy in 2003. They’ll be promoting their newest album, “Sorry for Partyin’” this Thursday night. Come out and see them with fellow alt-pop band Riddlin’ Kids at one of their first gigs since they got back together. No joke, I heard from a friend of a friend that one of the Riddlin’ Kids band members actually works at a Chuy’s in Austin. Here’s to hoping this concert can help get them back on their feet. Tickets are $12 and doors open at 9pm at Emo’s on 6th and Red River. buy tickets

311 is playing with State Radio Tuesday Dec 8 at Austin Music Hall. I guess technically these guys are still going strong, but you have to admit their better stuff came around in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Doors open at 7pm, the show starts at 8 and tickets cost $39 (seriously?) buy tickets

Sister Hazel is playing at La Zona Rosa Dec 9 at 9 pm. Think back to the mid-to-late ’90s and imagine a world where “All For You” and “Your Winter” topped the chart. Does this bring a smile to your face? Then you really need to put the books down and head to this show. They’re touring to promote their latest album “Release.” Tickets are $10 and only available the night of the show at the door.

Sister Hazel– “All For You”

Our final selection is a bit of stretch. The mid-to-late ’90s also brought about the rise of ska, and who better personifies ska-punk than Sublime. Not to get your hopes up, because, no Brad Nowell is not back from the dead, but Badfish, a band that exclusively covers Sublime songs will be playing at Emo’s at the end of January. Doors open at 9, show starts at 10 and tickets are $15. buy tickets

Badfish covering Sublime, covering the Grateful Dead

Good luck with finals everyone! Hope this list could help you procrastinate a little bit and reminisce about when school was much much easier.

Last Week of Classes is Dreadful

Austin is lacking personality this week. What is everyone doing? Studying! All professors conveniently assign final papers, projects, tests, quizzes, you name it this week. And FedEx Office on Medical Arts isn’t open after 11pm to support us… Bill Bowman? Do you have an answer for this?

Since none of my busy friends were able to come out with me for one school-related reason or another, I decided they needed a place to vent – my digital camera! Mostly my prompt was “so what kinds of assignments do you have due this week?” Some are drama queens, some are nerds, and some will make you feel happy you are not in their shoes. Most feigned happiness for the camera. I think all of us can agree… the last week of the semester brings out the stressed-out demon in us all.

FroYo

At 10:45pm tonight (Sunday) I still hadn’t eaten dinner, and skipping meals doesn’t cut it for me. So as I was driving down MLK looking for an open restaurant, I noticed the heavenly TCBY had a big neon sign that read Drive-Thru OPEN. Heaven forbid I go through the drive-thru, though, because a driver can never eat ice cream while driving. So, I went inside to friendly faces despite the fact they were cleaning up and closing shop.

By the way, for those of you who have always wondered… TCBY stands for “The Country’s Best Yogurt.”

Freshman and sophomore year, TCBY was at least a bi-weekly event. However, since all these other frozen yogurt places have popped up, my loyalty has significantly waned. The first of these new yogurt joints in Austin? To my knowledge it was YogoBerry on South Congress which has now closed. The next of its kind: Yogurt Planet at The Triangle. About 16 flavors of soft-serve ice cream including the plain flavor that Pinkberry made so popular, and many, many toppings. And after “Planet” came Yogurt Spot on Guadalupe, then Swirll on the drag, and many more places are opening soon. One on 24th on top of Starbucks called JuicyTart!

Check out this map and let me know which froyo places I missed!

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Night Owls Embark on Studying for Finals

As a college student, the first couple weeks of December are consumed with finals, projects, and papers. Every year I end up camping out at a coffee shop, because I know I won’t get anything done in my apartment. I mean,  there’s a TV there, and lots of things on my DVR list that need to be watched…so I’m easily distracted. Here’s a map of ten Austin area coffee shops/restaurants that stay open 24 hours or late into the night to give our Night Owls a place to plunge full force into preparing for the end of the semester.

 

 

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Great holiday recipes = great late night snacks

Everyone knows the best part of Thanksgiving is the leftovers.  Well, it’s Saturday and I’m still living off of mine!

I’d like to share a couple family recipes that always raise a few eyebrows.  The first two are my two all-time favorite holiday dishes – cranberry soup and rhubarb pie.  The third is the Northern version of stuffing.  The main difference is the bread — people from the South make cornbread stuffing and people from the North make stuffing with actual torn pieces of bread.  I prefer cornbread, but both are delicious.  Here they are:

Jolynne’s Cold Cranberry Soup

(From The Madd Apple Café – a pretty soup for brunch, lunch or dinner.)

Makes about 2 quarts

• 3 cups fresh cranberries, low bush
• 2 cups water
• 1 to 2 whole cloves
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1 cup sour cream
• ¾ cup dry red wine
• ¾ to 1 cup fresh orange juice
• fresh mint sprigs*

Simmer cranberries, water and cloves in large saucepan 10 minutes. Drain cranberries, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid.  Discard cloves.  Puree cranberries in blender.  Press through fine strainer into heavy large saucepan.  Mix in reserved cooking liquid.

Combine sugar and flour in medium bowl.  Stir in sour cream, wine and orange juice.  Mix into cranberries.  Slowly bring to boil, stirring constantly.  Reduce heat and simmer 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Cool.  Refrigerate until well chilled.  (Can be prepared 1 day ahead.)  Garnish each serving with mint sprig*.

*optional

Jolynne’s Rhubarb Pie

• 4 cups ( 1lb ) rhubarb in 1” slices
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 Tablespoons flour
• dash salt
• zest of ½ orange, minced

Combine sugar, flour and salt.  Toss rhubarb and orange peel with sugar mixture, mixing well.  Let macerate several hours if rhubarb is very tart.  Use a 2–crust 9” pie shell; cut decorative slits in the top.  Bake at 400 for 45-50 min., until juices have thickened and start bubbling out of the slits in the pie.

Note: I cut the rhubarb and freeze it; then toss it into the pie shell frozen and allow an extra 10 minutes baking time.

Macerate – to make soft by soaking or steeping in a liquid

Tim’s bread (and onion) stuffing

• 8-10 cups sliced onions
• 4 cups sliced celery (about 1 head)
• ¼ cup butter or olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sage
• 1 teaspoon rosemary
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 large loaf of crusty Italian bread or San Francisco Sourdough, torn into 2” chunks
• 3-4 cups poultry stock
• Diced giblets (cooked in giblet broth)

Black Friday Mayhem

Black Friday, a shopaholic’s favorite holiday! It’s certainly one of my favorite days, besides my birthday and Christmas.

 The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day in America. I spent Thanksgiving in San Antonio with family. It was great to be home. San Antonio has a lot of great shopping centers—North Star Mall, The Forum, The Shops at La Cantera, etc. The Tanger Outlet in San Marcos, which is only about 45 minutes north, also has great places to shop.

Coupons arrived at my house a few days before the extravaganza of Black Friday. I was super excited to see all of my 30%-50% coupons be put to great use for the day. Most discounts for chain stores were highly publicized in the Thanksgiving newspaper edition.

Online or at the mall, a shopper is bound to catch a great deal. But it’s nice to catch a few sales for the majority of Christmas gifts. I’m not a die-hard shopper who camps outside of the mall the night before; I’m more of a person who gets up at a reasonable time and shops. But I did go to sleep very early. We still had guests in our house, but I made sure I was going to get a good nights rests.

Shoppers at North Star Malll

My grandmother, “Mema,” and I were at the mall for about four hours. Time flew by, and the crowd had semi-died down by the time we arrived at North Star Mall. As we ate our lunch, Burbank High School Band, played a few hits for the shoppers. Watch the video below to see the band perform. The audio is off at the beginning but the band’s music toward the end, plays perfectly.