End of Silence

The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a documentary featuring one of Austin’s most well-known underground (do those go together?) eccentric artists, Daniel Johnston, hits limited release today. Of course, if it’s limited, it’s not playing here yet. I’m sure Dobie or Alamo will get it at some point later this spring or summer.

I mentioned the film last year when it appeared as part of SXSW. Some are comparing the film to Crumb, one of my all-time favorite documentaries. Kenneth Turan reviewed it this morning on NPR and was underwhelmed. He faulted the film’s length and its tendency to overdo its reverence for Johnston. I do like Johnston’s stuff, but I have to agree with Turan that it’s hard to justify the level of praise that’s heaped on him. MTV, predictably, takes the Kurt Cobain angle on the story.

One could argue that Johnston’s sort of the embodiment of Austin, a little weird and unstable, lots of creativity, well-regarded, but not completely mainstream. Of course, all of that could describe Roky Erickson as well. Are they both a product of a screwed up Texas mental health system? Is it just that Austin is the only place in this state where people like Roky and Daniel feel comfortable? I don’t hear about artists like this from Phoenix.

Following on my StoryCorps post, KUT reported this morning that the first half of the slots for the Austin booth filled up in nine minutes yesterday, which is apparently the fastest any of the booths has been booked. I was a dumbass and forgot to do it. If you forgot too, another set of slots will open up on April 7th at 10am. You’d better be fast though.

The mothership has added a feed for all of the Metroblogging cities. Now you can fire up your favorite newsreader (I’m partial to Bloglines, myself.) and easily check out what’s new across the 44 city worldwide network. Pretty cool.

Marc Katz 2003:

You can’t just want to sit on the dais to satisfy your ego. It takes a lot of strength, and it will take a lot out of you. You need to mean business. But now is the perfect time for me to do this and be of service, as a leader, to the city I love. My methodology, my way of doing business, is exactly what Austin needs right now.

Or not.

Marc Katz 2006:

As any colleagues in the business can tell you, keeping a restaurant as successful as ours for 27 years is hard, but we have done it. The problem was with my poor financial dealings.

The Austin School Board met last night to determine the fate of Becker Elementary. The result? A tie. The board voted on one of several plans last night. The tie vote was on the plan to close Becker and keep Oak Springs open. I’m not sure how they decided on which plan to vote for in the end. I’d check the meeting minutes, but they appear to be about three months behind on posting them.

The tie vote gives the Becker parents and the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association more time to plead their case to keep Becker open. According to the Statesman, there’ll be another vote, but it’s not clear when that will occur. Apparently, turning Becker into an in-district charter school has also been suggested.

We currently live in the neighborhood of an underperforming, overcrowded AISD elementary school and have spent the last few years trying out charter schools as an alternative with mixed results. We were in the process of examining several schools in AISD as transfer options, including Becker, when the announcement of the possible closings removed it from our short list of candidates for next year. My wife was very impressed with the principal. We think we’ve settled on a viable alternative, but it shouldn’t be this hard. We should be able to just send our kid to the local school and not have to worry about whether or not that school is substandard. How can we expect people to move into the center of the city if we’re not going to offer them an attractive option for educating their kids?

My parents sent me to private schools for elementary, middle and high school in Dallas and my wife is used to a much higher standard coming from Virginia public schools around the Washington DC area. Not paying any attention to all the school finance reform talk in the legislature? Well, maybe you should. This isn’t just an issue for those who currently have kids either. All you UT students who think Austin is a great place to live and might consider settling here? I’m you in 10 years. If you get started now, maybe it won’t suck so bad when your kid is ready to attend school.

Here’s a roundup of articles from the Chronicle, including the cover story from February:

• Family Flight cover story from 02.03.06 Chronicle
• Overenrolled and underenrolled – a survey of the enrollments in AISD schools which accompaied the cover story
• Chronicle pieces on the future of Porter Middle School and a look at why it was killed with another bit on AISD attendance zones.

Here’s an earlier posting from M.J.L Kellogg on the school shuffle.