End of Silence

The city holiday festivities kick into high gear this week. I missed the Chuy’s parade on Saturday: too many out-of-town guests to get everyone motivated. Maybe next year.

The annual KUT Holiday Sing-along with John Aielli and Capitol Tree Lighting is this coming Saturday at 6pm at the Capitol. Businesses up and down Congress Avenue are typically open with some special activites, follow the link for more info.

The Zilker Tree Lighting is this Sunday, Dec. 3rd, also at 6pm. The Trail of Lights will open the following Sunday, December 10th at 7pm and remain open until December 23rd. It’s open 7-10pm nightly.

Several of the city’s libraries are hosting holiday festivities, you can get a complete list here.

Lastly, if you’re planning on doing your holiday shopping at The Cadeau, you’d better get over there. They’re closing after 54 years. No raised rents or large corporations involved, owner Jeanette Nassour is closing both the location on North Lamar and location on The Drag in the wake of her husband and business partner’s death in August of this year. Another symbol of the Austin that existed when I moved here in 1989 slips away into the mists of time. They did quite well over the years, gradually expanding into neighboring storefronts as those around them vacated the space. I’m assuming it’ll be chopped up into multiple stores? Any word on what’s replacing it?

Photo by Patita Pirata

The 10th annual Empty Bowl Project benefiting the Capital Area Food Bank is this Sunday, November 19th from 11am to 3pm at Clayways, 5442 Burnet Road.

We’ve attended the last two years and had a great time sampling the food, music and people. For those that are unfamiliar, local potters create and donate a bowl for the project, you come in on Sunday and pick one out for a $15 donation per bowl and you get to fill it up with your choice of soup from several Austin area restaurants like Wink, Zoot, Eastside Cafe and Hoover’s to name a few. There’s also a silent auction with local celebrity designed and signed bowls. It’s a great way to kick off the holiday season.

Since one of our old posts about the soon-to-be-opened Ikea store in Round Rock was the most visited page last month, I thought I’d update you rabid Ikea maniacs with the news that the aforementioned location finally opens this month on Wednesday, November 15th.

The Ikea website mentions that people can start lining up Monday morning, November 13th for the opening. I’m wondering why the hell you’d want to camp our for two days for an Ikea opening? Do they give away an entire room of furniture or something? Somebody enlighten me.

Most of you probably already know John Hodgman as PC from the Get a Mac ad campaign for Apple. He’s also a contributor to This American Life and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

He’ll be at BookPeople tonight at 7pm, plugging the paperback release of his book, Areas of My Expertise. BoingBoing had a post earlier this month on the book tour and other Hodgmania. He’s supposed to be very funny. Go check it out!

I’ve seen this a few different places, but you’ve only got two hours left before the onslaught of the undead.

From Natasha:

Join other zombies as we terrorize downtown in our search for delicious brains! We will meet Friday, October 27th at 7:30pm at City Hall to organize our zombie invasion. The mob will last for about an hour. The route we will take will take us from 1) City Hall to 2) 4th & Colorado to 3) 5th & Congress and finally to 4) 6th & Brazos. The group will take various methods to get to each point so it seems that zombies are coming from all directions.

What to Wear: If you show up still living be prepared to be eaten and turned into the undead. There are really two ways to go here, freshly killed or decomposing corpse. A freshly killed zombie will look normal except for some obvious flesh wounds. A decomposing zombie will have been around longer and therefore be in a much worse condition. Be creative!

I’ll look for photos on Flickr tomorrow, but if anyone sees any or attends, please link them in the comments.

Update (2006.10.31): Here’s a flickr set from the zombie flashmob.