Lite + Brite: 26 Alchemistic Austin Events 12/15
Hello, what’s up, and welcome to the Lite + Brite newsletter.
It’s mid-December, which obviously means it’s Taylor Swift’s birthday. Brian told me I couldn’t list any more Taylor Swift parties in this newsletter, but he didn’t say anything about Taylor Swift drag shows, so I am exploiting that loophole.
Mid-December also means you need to get together holiday presents now if you celebrate Christmas, or it means you are already too late if you celebrate Hanukkah. This week you can craft presents, or make collages, or just buy hand-painted skateboards for your loved ones. At this point in the month, there at least 20 holiday markets still to come; you can find all of them listed on our website.
Finally, mid-December means various festive entertainments, including performances by trained dogs, site-specific dance, parodies of Hallmark Christmas movies, and of course the traditional Edward Scissorhands holiday musical. Scroll down for details on all this and more.
If you’re not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you want to be, click here. We do one newsletter a week, usually on Fridays, plus a bonus edition around the start of each month. If you enjoy this newsletter, please support us by contributing to our Patreon and by forwarding this email to your friends who enjoy things like listening to music and leaving the house sometimes.
Let’s do fun stuff!
—Leila + Brian
liteandbriteatx.com
OUR STUFF
Last night we held the final 2023 edition of our dance party in the dark, No Lights No Lycra. Thanks to everyone who’s stopped by over the year. We’ll be back to biweekly in 2024, and we’ll have a recording of last week up soon. In the meantime, listen to a live recording of our previous edition here or scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for a tracklisting.
Brian’s robot-themed radio show went deeper into icy cyborg sounds as the temperatures drop. Bring in those plants and listen to Frosty Cyborgs in the Kpiss archives or scroll down for more info + a tracklist. NHA broadcasts live every Wednesday at 6pm CT on kpiss.fm.
What is No Lights No Lycra?
Austin’s twice-monthly, judgment-free, substance-free, high-impact dance thing in the dark. It’s a DJ night that’s not at the club, a workout that’s not at the gym, a personal meditation that’s anything but silent. It’s produced by us, your kindly L+B overlords, and usually one or the other of us is on the hook for DJ duties. Read more about us in the Austin Chronicle. You can listen the kind of music we play over on Brian’s Mixcloud.
EVENTS WE’RE EYEING
Friday 12/15
- Futu’ritmo at Elysium
NYC’s best italo disco DJs descend upon Austin - The Eras Birthday Drag Show at Cheer Up Charlie’s
Celebrate T-Swift’s bday w/career-spanning drag performances - Create Culture at 820 Shelby Lane
Live “lazer visuals,” DJs, + a slushy machine. What more do ya need? - Coming on Christmas at ColdTowne
“The play that nobody asked for,” a parody of Hallmark Xmas movies - Illumaverse at dadaLab
Immersive, holiday-themed light installations - The Watchmaker’s Song at the Neill-Cochran House
Immersive reinterpretation of the Nutcracker in different styles of dance - The Mutt-cracker (Sweet!) at the Vortex
An all-dog not-at-all-ballet production of the holiday favorite - Holiday Markets at various Austin venues
Our guide w/a stupefying number of holiday vendor markets
Saturday 12/16
- The Nightmare Before Christmas Gothic Ball at Elysium
Celebrate the spookiest holiday film w/DJ, singalongs, + vendors - Hyde Park Storytelling at Batch
Storytellers ply their trade in a local craft beer spot - Ghost Tours at Pioneer Farms
A haunted hike through 19th century farm buildings - Fabric Collage Workshop at Austin Creative Reuse
Learn to get fancy with some fabric collages - Lavender County at Cheer Up Charlie’s
Country up front, disco in the back was the original mullet - OBJECT: The Story of Fetish at Tiger’s Den
I’m not totally certain what’s happening here but for sure it’s kinky - East Texas Witches’ Ball at the Courtyard by Marriott in Tyler
“Vendors, food, drinks, music, + more” (we’re pretty sure “more” = witches) - In the Alchemist’s Garden at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Get alchemic w/live choral performances amidst glowing baubles - Edward Normalhands at the Museum of Human Achievement
MoHA’s ridiculous + irreverent twist of Edward Scissorhands - The Precious Present – Listen at Austin Ventures Studio Theatre
Performers across a wide variety of styles + media united in creativity - Coming on Christmas at ColdTowne
“The play that nobody asked for,” a parody of Hallmark Xmas movies - Illumaverse at dadaLab
Immersive, holiday-themed light installations - The Watchmaker’s Song at the Neill-Cochran House
Immersive reinterpretation of the Nutcracker in different styles of dance - The Mutt-cracker (Sweet!) at the Vortex
An all-dog not-at-all-ballet production of the holiday favorite - Holiday Markets at various Austin venues
Our guide w/a stupefying number of holiday vendor markets - (weekly) Come @ Me at Fallout Theater
Improv comedians tackle the intricacies of online life / social media
Sunday 12/17
- Handmake Your Holidays at CRAFT
Instead of buying gifts, craft em w/your own hands at various stations - Cocoa and Cuddles at Suds Monkey
Goats in holiday attire cavort as you sip some hot cocoa - Collage & Connect at Austin Creative Reuse
Learn collage making + practice mindfulness at the same time - Edward Normalhands at the Museum of Human Achievement
MoHA’s ridiculous + irreverent twist of Edward Scissorhands - The Precious Present – Listen at Austin Ventures Studio Theatre
Performers across a wide variety of styles + media united in creativity - Illumaverse at dadaLab
Immersive, holiday-themed light installations - The Mutt-cracker (Sweet!) at the Vortex
An all-dog not-at-all-ballet production of the holiday favorite - Holiday Markets at various Austin venues
Our guide w/a stupefying number of holiday vendor markets
Tuesday 12/19
- Dog Races at Skinny’s
The latest in Austin’s long tradition of non-racing breed dog races
Wednesday 12/20
- The Mutt-cracker (Sweet!) at the Vortex
An all-dog not-at-all-ballet production of the holiday favorite
Thursday 12/21
- Deck the Walls at Almost Real Things
An art show where the canvases are all skateboards - Naughty List Only at Cheer Up Charlie’s
Get naughty w/holiday drag performers, vendors, tattoos, + photo booth - Queer Film Theory 101 at Barrel O’ Fun
Film “professors” cover the holiday seasonal films - The Mutt-cracker (Sweet!) at the Vortex
An all-dog not-at-all-ballet production of the holiday favorite
No Humans Allowed 174
Frosty Cyborgs
We’ve prepped even more chilly cyborg vibes on No Humans Allowed tonight. Press play for another wintry mix of italo + electro before seasonal festivities take everything else over.
Tracklist
Rüdiger Lorenz – Souithland (Antarctica)
DMX Krew – End of the Night
Solvent – My Radio
FPU – Time Safari
Radiators – I Am Sure
Gazebo – I Like Chopin
Future Bible Heroes – A Thousand Lovers in a Day
Fatamorgana – La Atlántida
Cashminus – De Vlasmarkt (Mr. Ho Remix)
Koto – Visitors
SSQ – Tonight (We’ll Make Love until We Die) (alternate version)
Marco Donada – Eins, Zwo, Italo
The Voice in Fashion – Give Me Your Love
No Humans Allowed is Brian Blackout’s award-winning, dodgy European news coverage receiving, weekly robots-themed radio show on internet station KPISS.fm. Machine vibes 4 machines. Songs for robots, androids, mandroids, cyborgs, AIs, cylons, skinjobs, roombas, wifi routers, smart devices, anything colored Bondi blue, and virtual assistants. Humans not required. Broadcasts live every Wednesday at 6pm CT on kpiss.fm, with over 150 episodes now streamable in the archives on topics like and Beach Simulations, Roomba dance parties, undersea adventures + Cyber Texas.
No Lights No Lycra ATX 158
w/Brian Blackout
Recorded live in the dark at West China Tea House on November 9, 2023.
Listen to No Lights No Lycra 158
Tracklist
Au Suisse – Control
David Joseph – Let’s Live It Up (Rayko Version)
Kate Bush – Watching You Without Me (Chris Woodward Edit)
Aeroplane – Let’s Get Slow
Charli XCX – Boom Clap (Aeroplane Remix)
Saint Pepsi – Better
Black Box – Strike It up
Dérivative – Put Your Hand in Mine (club mix)
Don Ray – Standing in the Rain
Anita Ward – Ring My Bell
Eddie Kendricks – Date with the Rain (PhDJ Edit)
The Clash – Train in Vain (Jimbo Slice Edit)
Scissor Sisters – Fire with Fire (Rory Phillips Remix)
K.W.S. – Please Don’t Go
Phil Collins – Sussudio
The Weather Girls – It’s Raining Men
Jacknife Lee, Budgie & Lol Tolhurst – Los Angeles ft. James Murphy (the Dare Remix)
Hot Hot Heat – Talk to Me, Dance With Me
Girl Ray – Murder on the Dancefloor
Discovery Zone – Dance II
Pixies – Debaser
Blue Hawaii – I Felt Love
The Jesus & Mary Chain – Head On
The La’s – There She Goes
Home – All at Once
PATREON THANKS
A huge thank-you to our Patreon subscribers Christina Jue, Colleen MB, Lilly Ettinger, Lena Long, Amalia Litsa, Jacob Rosenberg, Alexander Freed, Spencer, Kristen Backor, Timon A., Kate Murray, and Amy Wilde. We’re deeply grateful for your support, which allows us to do things like “pay our Mailchimp fee” and “spend hours researching Austin events when technically we should be working.”
If you’d like to support us on Patreon and get access to exclusive member-only benefits, you may do so here.
SOCIALS
Recent weeks found us partying with Art Island at the Coral Snake, admiring art lamps at Highland Collective, and experiencing immersive art at dadaLab’s Illumaverse. Follow Lite + Brite on Instagram to keep up with our adventures. And come chat with us and the rest of the L+B community on our Discord server!
ABOUT US
How do we choose which events to feature?
Honestly, it’s pretty random. We might include anything in Austin that we, personally, would conceivably want to go to, generally excluding normal concerts, comedy shows, and movie showtimes because there are many other good resources for finding those. (We especially recommend Showlist for live music, The Darker Side of Austin for goth and metal stuff, and the 60+ Weirdest Things in Austin for exactly what it sounds like). This list is by no means exhaustive; it’s just stuff that caught our eye this week. If you have an event that you want us to consider including, send it over.
Who are we?
We make this newsletter. We do our own events, most prominently No Lights No Lycra (every second and fourth Thursday of the month). We once got called “local Austin couple” by KXAN. We do some other stuff here and there. We love going out to creative events in Austin, and we want you to join us. Visit us at liteandbriteatx.com, and support us on Patreon if you like what we do.