Lite + Brite: 27 Knockout Austin Events 11/21

Hello, what’s up, and welcome to the Lite + Brite newsletter.

Feast has come to famine. Maybe everyone’s trying to clear out some space in their belly for what’s to come? After a very busy couple of weeks we’re closing in on the holidays so things will slow down here for a bit. Next week will probably be REAL slow but this week we’ve still found a smattering of fun things for you to do before you start gearing up to have political debates with your uncle.

Dress up like Tom Hanks or some food. Roast your favorite teenage wizard or go to a wizard talk show. Celebrate tricksters, Native American traditions, + cryptids. Watch a Shakespeare history marathon, cavorting goats, veggietales drag, or boxing-themed burlesque. Ready to buy some stuff? Skip the big box stores and hit up local vendors at all these vendor markets. (They’re just a taste of what’s to come.)

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

WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO

Last weekend we went extremely hard on Austin Studio Tour. Object Solutions at dadaLab was an absurdist corporate fever dream. At Games Y’all at Highland Collective, we played a game where you have to try to avoid touching grass (the grass kept touching us!) and another game where a finger gun repeatedly shoots the word “bang” at the word “stress” (eventually, “stress” wins). We witnessed the official birth of the Govalle Cultural District at the Museum of Human Achievement. You can see more of our highlights here. After our weekend of citywide art exploration, Leila went to a book event at First Light, and Brian attended a UT women’s basketball game. We fit in a lot to tide us over through the upcoming Thanksgiving quiet.

On this week’s episode of No Humans Allowed (Brian’s radio show) he played lots of futuristic music from the year 1990, inspired by how technology used to feel fun and not enshittified. Listen to the show here and try to remember how naive that felt.

EVENTS WE’RE EYEING

Friday 11/21

Saturday 11/22

  • Slam Portal at Central Machine Works
    Interdimensional pro-wrestlers’ warped take on The Terminator
  • Strange + Extraordinary Fest at KMFA Studios
    Paranormal/crytpid-themed fest w/panels, vendors, + museum
  • Austin Powwow at the Travis County Expo Center
    Celebrate Native American traditions w/food, music, + dance
  • Night Cutss at the Electric Church
    DJs from Austin + abroad spinning EBM, industrial, + post-punk
  • Gala of the Gods at Elysium
    Celebrate tricksters w/live music, burlesque, vendors, + costumes
  • 10-Year Anniversary Party at the Thicket
    Food truck park party w/art vendors + live music
  • Blue Owl Luau at Blue Owl Brewery
    Hawaiian-themed “drinksplosion” w/vendors, DJ, + limbo contest
  • Cocoa + Cuddles with Baby Goats at Fitzhugh Brewing
    Goats in holiday attire cavort as you sip some hot cocoa
  • Big Deck Show at Propaganda HQ
    Check out local artists’ skateboard deck art
  • Story-oke at the Highball
    Sing a song + talk about it. Basically DIY VH1 Storytellers
  • The Front Market at Moody Amphitheater
    Giant assemblage of vendors, DJs, demos, live art, + art gallery
  • Women + Fair Trade Festival at First UU Church of Austin
    Artisan market, live music, doc screening, + spoken word
  • Spanksgiving at Sky Candy
    Tgiving-themed burlesque, drag, comedy, + veggietales parodies
  • Carpe Noctem at Pershing Hall
    “Cabaret [that] fuses theatre, dance, burlesque, + live song”
  • Caesar & Antony & Cleopatra at dadaLab
    This is basically Kill Bill 1+2 but for historical Shakespeare
  • Dora’s Gently Used Dreams Store at the Vortex
    “Immersive, one-woman performance” about dreams + resilience
  • (weekly thru 11/29) Goat Yoga at Jester King
    “We call out to the beasts of the land to come forth and JOIN US!”

Sunday 11/23

  • Books + Friends at the Far Out Lounge
    “A day filled with art, bookish activities, + indie authors”
  • The Front Market at Moody Amphitheater
    Giant assemblage of vendors, DJs, demos, live art, + art gallery
  • Women + Fair Trade Festival at First UU Church of Austin
    Artisan market, live music, doc screening, + spoken word
  • Carpe Noctem at Pershing Hall
    “Cabaret [that] fuses theatre, dance, burlesque, + live song”
  • Dora’s Gently Used Dreams Store at the Vortex
    “Immersive, one-woman performance” about dreams + resilience

Monday 11/24

  • Knockout at the Paramount
    Boxing-themed “gender-bending burlesque,” aerials, rock-inspired drag

Wednesday 11/26

  • Heavy Metal Potluck at Tiny Minotaur
    Costume-optional potluck soundtracked by metal classics
  • The Roast of Harry Potter at the Creek and the Cave
    Comics dress up as Harry Potter chars to roast him + “real magic show”
  • Tom Hanksgiving at Austin Beerworks
    Join in a Tom Hanks-themed costume contest for T.Hanksgiving

NHA259
Cyberdeck Setup Wizard

In yet another deep dive into the past’s visions of the future, we present a soundtrack of new beat, early techno + italo house from around the year 1990. It was a time we looked upon computerized advancement with marvel, envisioning a future where society could hardly keep pace with technology. Turns out we were right, just not how we thought. Press play and we’ll pretend some of this stuff just never happened.

Stream Cyberdeck Setup Wizard

Tracklist
Cabaret Voltaire – Keep on (I Got This Feeling)
Body Work – You Keep Me Comin’ on
ED209 – Metre (Acid 2 Xtasy)
Primero – Vamos a la Fiesta (Captain’ Edit)
Teknokrat’s – What Did She Say? (RFX Edit)
Mental Cube – So This Is Love
Barracuda – Party Time
Third Eye – Hyperreality
Program 2 – More Energy
Other People’s Money – Love Rush (MLiR Edit)
101 & Jade 4U – Hear Me Coming
Big Hard Excellent Fish – Imperfect List (pt 1)

No Humans Allowed is Brian Blackout’s award-winning, 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 200 episodes now streamable in the archives on topics like and Beach Simulations, Roomba dance parties, undersea adventures + Cyber Texas.

PATREON THANKS

A huge thank-you to our Patreon subscribers James Gray, Emily Heddleson, Andrew Creswell, Robert B., Roman Gonzalez, Nick Ivons, Molly Fonseca, Lilly Ettinger, Michael Sales, Zach, Gino Scaramuzza, Erica Speegle, Jarrett Holtz, Thomas Refferson, Bones Malones, Katie Green, Christina Jue, Colleen MB, Alexander Freed, Kristen Backor, and Timon A. 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 attending a dance party in a storage unit, marching in a Greek mythology-themed Halloween parade thrown by a bat crew and a rat crew, and watching a troupe of gigantic leftist puppets from New England. Follow Lite + Brite on Instagram to keep up with our adventures. We’re now on Bluesky too. Yay federation! And come chat with us and the rest of the L+B community on our Discord server (where we sometimes post stuff early too).

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, Concept Animals’ ATX Art for You for gallery openings + artist talks, ATX Theatre for plays, 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 are Leila + Brian. We make this newsletter. We do our own events, most often No Lights No Lycra, + also BYOT, a party where we share very good YouTubes (here’s a playlist from the last one). We go very hard seeing bands at SxSW (here are playlists of our favorites from 2025). 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.

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK, CHAMPIONS

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