Fun Fun Fun Fest: know before you go

by Elizabeth Seward on

As if the name weren’t indicative enough, Austin‘s annual Fun Fun Fun Fest has quickly become one of the city’s prided yearly music festivals. Each year, it seems, the festival draws more and bigger name acts. The festival is becoming so much fun, in fact, that its location moves this year to Auditorium Shores instead of the measurably smaller and less aesthetically pleasing Waterloo Park. And, no one can resist the joke, we’re all hoping the change will make this year’s festival even more Fun Fun Fun. But let’s spare ourselves the redundant F’s and refer to the festival with the abbreviation FFF. With acts like Slayer, Lykke Li, Spoon, Passion Pit, Public Enemy, and Murder City Devils, this year’s FFF will be raking in travelers from across the globe, pulling them into Austin’s city limits. Whether you’re traveling to FFF from your home in Austin or from your home much farther away, here’s some ‘Know Before You Go’ type information that will help you have a smooth-sailing (and fun!) FFF experience.About Fun Fun Fun Festival

Before you go to a festival, it’s good to know a little bit of the festival’s background story. So here are some fun facts. FFF started only five years ago in 2006. The very first festival pulled in acts like Spoon, The Black Angels, and Peaches and I suspect the ability to reel big names into the first festival helped the festival to be successful in the following years. FFF focuses on the genres of: Indie Rock, Punk Rock/Hardcore, and Hip Hop/DJ. The festival divides its music guests onto three stages, each of which roughly represents one of the above genres. And then, for laughter’s sake, there’s a fourth stage which features comedy which will be featuring Henry Rollins and Reggie Watts this year among others. The festival takes place November 4th-6th this year at Auditorium Shores in Austin, Texas.

Fun Fun Fun 2011 Artists

If you’re looking for an excuse to partake in these fun-tivities, here are some artists from said genres that will be rocking the stages this weekend:

Indie Rock
Spoon, Passion Pit, Lykke Li, Blonde Redhead, M83, Girls, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Okkervil River, Ra Ra Riot, Mates of State, The Joy Formidable.

Punk Rock/Hardcore
Slayer, The Damned, Danzig Legacy, Hot Snakes, Murder City Devils, Black Lips, Boris, Kid Dynamite, Cave In, Cannibal Corpse.

Hip Hop/DJ
Public Enemy, Odd Future, Major Lazer, Neon Indian, Four Tet, Spank Rock, Wugazi, Flying Lotus, Purity Ring.

Tickets
Tickets for FFF are still available. You can buy single day passes for $55 per day or a 3 day pass for $135 on the Fun Fun Fun Festival website.

What’s OK To Bring

  • Empty non-glass water bottle
  • Backpack
  • Hat
  • Sun Block
  • Lighter/Cigarettes
  • Cell Phone
  • Small Beach Towel
  • Strollers
  • Fanny Packs
  • Non-professional digital, film, and disposable cameras

What’s NOT OK To Bring

  • Instruments
  • Knives/Weapons
  • Chains/Chain Wallets
  • Blankets
  • Camelpacks
  • Outside food or beverages
  • Tents
  • Flags
  • Chairs
  • Video Cameras
  • Bota Bags
  • Audio Recording Devices
  • Professional Cameras
  • Pets
  • Stuffed Animals
  • Drugs/Drug Paraphernalia

Transportation

Parking near FFF will not be easy. For this reason, the FFF crew is strongly encouraging attendees to rely on a bike, taxi, bus, train, pedicab, carpooling system, pair of legs, or shuttle to get to the festival.

Most importantly? Have some fun.

Halloween on 6th Street in Austin: the sounds and lights

by Elizabeth Seward on


If New Orleans’ Bourbon Street has a little sister, it is, at least sometimes, 6th Street in Austin. Both streets are main attractions, teeming with boisterous activity. Both streets are usually embraced by tourists and, perhaps just as usually, eschewed by locals. And both streets are worth walking, no matter who you are or where you are from, on certain days of the year, namely, costumed days. Austinites can’t shine a light to New Orleans on Mardi Gras, but Halloween? Just maybe. From what I have seen, the people in the batty city of Austin take Halloween seriously. After receiving an underwhelming reaction to my Westboro Baptist Church Member (I do not condone their actions, I find their actions frightening and despicable, and thereby suitable for Halloween) Halloween costume last year on Austin’s 6th Street, I decided to give the 6th Street walk a go again last night–I was a dead Olympic swimmer this time.

One of the immediate connections I made to Bourbon Street when I first walked the obligatory walk down Austin’s 6th Street last Halloween was that both streets are party streets. Bars and clubs line each of these streets, nearly all of these bars and clubs exist with their doors open, with their internal music becoming externally audible. The rhythms and melodies escaping from these doors come together in the air over 6th Street, forming the sonic equivalent of a strobe light. And the beams from actual strobe lights fly freely from the windows and doors, creating an army of strobe lights–an army that conjures up images of a Potter vs. Voldemort wand dueling in my mind.

%Gallery-138100%But the sounds on 6th Street aren’t limited to the continual onslaught of music, nor are the lights on 6th Street limited to the bouncing beams of strobe light. If you can transport yourself enough to imagine the sounds of 6th Street on Halloween night, here they are for the imagining:

  • The music, yes, the music, we discussed this already. Thumping beats, the kind you feel in your chest as they plummet out of their respective speakers. Hanging hooks, the kind you can’t kick out of your mind’s jukebox, no matter how hard you try. The mixing of several of these, resulting in a collective off-beat, inharmonious soundtrack for your night. For Halloween, the addition of ‘spooky’ music comes rolling into play. Filtered vocal tracks cushioned with the sounds of rushing wind, children screaming, and maniacal laughter.
  • The chatter. There are people holding sober conversations, and, on average, these conversations are muted by the drunken conversations, which oftentimes involve a steadfast sense of conviction in the speaker’s tone. There are cops giving stern warnings, as well as directions. There are bouncers and club managers shouting the nightly special out to each passerby, “100 shots for ONE DOLLAR! Ladies drink free!”. For Halloween, the chatter evolves. It’s not just personal anymore; much of the chatter is in character. A J.K. Rowling Dementor is flapping his gigantic, black wings. A flock of sheep ‘baaa’ as they nose through the crowd. The Founding Fathers speak with accents that match their pristine-looking white wigs. The dog trapped in the skeleton costume whines more than he might on a costume-free evening. A saxophonist plays as he walks slowly through the crowd.
  • The vehicles. Much of 6th Street is closed for Halloween (and other big events, like SXSW) to motor vehicles. But you hear them anyway, coming from barricades’ boundaries. The honking, squealing of breaks, blasting of Slayer. Inside the quarantined area designated for stumbling zombies and the like, pedicabs are limitless and racing through the crowd. Many of the pedicabs employ their own sound systems and on a night like Halloween night, that means mostly one thing: more blasting, scary music. Bicyclists’ tires swoosh through puddles of spilled beer (during this kind of Texas drought, you can count on the street puddles being from just about anything other than rain). A helicopter circles overhead, its lights drawing chins toward the horizon and eyes toward the Austin sky, which looks as though it’s been tie-dyed with navy and rust orange.

Keep your mind fixed on this recreation of 6th street and focus on the kinds of lights to be seen on a night like Halloween in a town like Austin.

  • The strobe lights, we know about them. They are dancing incongruously, bolting from paved street to brick wall to starry sky to dusty window glass and bouncing off the glass to begin the chaotic circle of light again.
  • The club lights aren’t all strobe lights, though. One club is black-light-lit, another is dressed up in red lights. Bands or DJs are playing on every stage on a night like Halloween night, and just about every bar or club on 6th Street has a stage. In fact, I can’t think of any that don’t. Each performer has their own approach to lighting–a film playing on a screen behind the band, a rainbow colored expanse of lights illuminating the DJ.
  • The bicyclists and pedicabs fly by with their red and white lights blinking out of sync as they pedal.
  • The cops have flashlights, and sometimes they are on. But on a night like Halloween, it’s tough to tell the Halloween Cops from the Everyday Cops. But even the non-official flashlights emanate an apparent, even if fleeting, white light.
  • Food trucks are scattered throughout the street and their tiny work areas are thankfully alight; their signs are blinking.
  • The Halloween costuming on 6th Street represents an Austin attraction in and of itself. A man stands stationary in the middle of the street while juggling glow sticks; plenty of other people are simply wearing glow sticks. A robot’s lights twinkle throughout, no doubt indicating computation. An aviation duo appears. The man is dressed as an air traffic control tower and the woman is dressed as a flight attendant adorned with bright runway lights. I quickly scan the immediate crowd, but I see no plane.

These are sounds to be heard, these are lights to be seen. Austin’s 6th Street might very well be Bourbon Street’s little sister sometimes, but sometimes it is something else entirely, not even of the same blood. There’s a fine line between the Spooky City and the Weird City, but the distinction can be made, especially on a night like Halloween.

Austin food trucks and DIY food culture

by Elizabeth Seward on

“My friend and I are thinking about starting a food truck back home in Columbus”, said my hometown friend, Joey, between bites of fish and chips from Bits & Druthers food truck on East 6th Street in Austin. I had taken him to this particular food truck cluster, dubbed East Side Drive In, selfishly. Ever since first trying the TLT (vegan BLT) from The Vegan Yacht, a food truck neighbor of Bits & Druthers, I’m always searching for an excuse to take friends to the East 6th Street cluster; just east of I-35. But excuses aren’t difficult to find. This particular food truck nesting spot houses not only The Vegan Yacht and Bits & Druthers, but a few others, too. There’s The Local Yolk, which specializes in eggs, especially egg sandwiches. There’s Pueblo Viejo, which just happens to have some of my favorite tacos in town. Pig Vicious is there too satiating all pig-related cravings. Mati dishes up Greek favorites and Love Balls serves Japanese street food. The roster seems to always be changing over at East Side Drive In, though, which is why it’s one of my favorite spots to frequent, especially with folks from out of town.

%Gallery-136561%The Austin food truck scene is something that immediately grabbed my attention and appealed to me when I moved to Austin just over a year ago. I mean, there is even a Trailer Food Festival each year in Austin called Gypsy Picnic. There’s certainly a DIY food culture here in Austin and it expands beyond food trucks.

Take, for example, Joel Haro, the founder of Love Puppies Brownies in Austin. Haro says his brownie company was “accidental”. He “accidentally” got into New York’s CIA and after returning to Texas and opening and closing a catering company, calls kept coming in for his chocolaty morsels… so he “accidentally” started Love Puppies Brownies. But I’m not sure all of this was accidental. His talent, of course, plays a huge role in his success. With flavors that employ dark chocolate chips and pecans, peanut butter, mocha, and even ground peppers, Haro knows what he’s doing. Another factor, I’d guess, is the notoriously supportive community in Austin for indie food. How else could a one man brownie show gain and sustain popularity so quickly?

When I spoke with Haro about the Austin community, he agreed that support for DIY food is widespread in the city. He cites Go Local, Keep Austin Weird, and Go Texan campaigns as breeding grounds for local business support. “Austinites are open and adventurous which is reflected in their culinary tastes”, says Haro. He hopes to eventually see his decadent treats sold nationwide and with Austin as a launching pad, that very well may happen sooner than later.

Haley Callaway is another Austin-bred non-food truck but indie food success. She’s a busy college student who manages to head up HayleyCakes and Cookies–a bakery she runs out of her own kitchen by herself. I’ve never seen hand-decorated desserts compare to hers in their artfulness, especially her sugar cookies. With passion, talent, and, I’m guessing, a lot of caffeine, she has managed to launch her company while working between classes, studying business. The Austin community has warmly embraced her and when I spoke to Hayley about her increasing success, she noted that she had only slept 45 minutes the night before. It takes hard work, indeed, but it also takes a community that’s interested in straight-out-of-the-kitchen-at-home or straight-out-of-the-food-truck food. And Austin is that community.

So then the question now arises… what is it about Austin? Why are indie bakers and restauranteurs here doing so well? Maybe it’s a combination of the nice weather and affordable living. Maybe it’s an interest in new business that has been effectively fostered in this city more so than others. Perhaps we can study Austin and learn a thing or two about supporting the self-motivated and, in turn, broadening our culinary options everywhere.

Austin City Limits 2011

by Elizabeth Seward on


“We should make sure we go to at least one music festival a year for the rest of our lives”, I said to my fiance as TV on The Radio took the stage in front of me during Austin City Limits 2011. The sky in Texas is one of Texas’ best qualities. It seems to canopy the entire sphere of Earth sometimes, looking elastic and bright enough to make you squint. At sunset, pastel colors are strewn from the edges of the horizon, all collapsing in the straight-ahead center sky like cotton candy melting. One of the best parts about Austin City Limits is the opportunity to get lost in that sky all day long and all night long, and the gazing is weekend long. In fact, Zilker Park‘s sky is top notch for the city of Austin. Green trees are roped around the ring of the green park, which is green no matter the drought. From most directions, you’ll see just that: green. But from one direction, you’ll see the ever-expanding Austin skyline, dressed up in colorful shades at night, coming to life with those myriad shades just as the sky is doing the same. It’s an ethereal world there in Zilker Park during Austin City Limits and I’m happy to say I was there for it all this year.
%Gallery-135004%What makes the Austin City Limits experience so very ethereal moved beyond the velvety sky. I mean, it is that. But it is that combined with other elements, other equally powerful elements, which make ACL such a cool experience.

So, you have the sky. But you also have the music.

ACL draws in bona fide headlining acts each year. And for every well-known headlining act that appears as part of an ACL bill, there are several just as good, if not better, lesser-known acts that pour life onto the smaller stages. ACL 2011’s mainstream mascots were: Stevie Wonder, Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Coldplay, and My Morning Jacket. The artists on the roster thereafter were “smaller”, but, particularly in the world of music, smaller is oftentimes for the better. Outside of the huge acts, the ACL stages this year saw the likes of: Manu Chao La Ventura, Fleet Foxes, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Nas & Damien “Jr Gong” Marley, Cee Lo, Bright Eyes, Social Distortion, Empire of The Sun, Cut Copy, Ray LaMontagne, Santigold, Pretty Lights, TV on The Radio, Skrillex, Iron & Wine, Death From Above 1979, Broken Social Scene, Chromeo, Cold War Kids, Elbow, Gillian Welch, Delta Spirit, The Walkmen, Gomez, The Antlers, and, would you believe me if I said SO MANY MORE. Indeed, the large pool of artists each year at ACL and just another one of the main attractions to the festival. Not only are there always big names on the list, but there are also always so many names that any festival-goer will likely have a difficult time choosing which artists to see and which artists to forfeit seeing. Pair that luminous sky with the from-stage vibrations of your favorite music–it looks perfect, it sounds perfect.

Another undeniable draw to ACL was, and probably always will be, the people. Just like every other music festival I have been to, people tend to let their guards down when attending a music festival. And more than let their guards down, many people unleash their inner hippie, their inner lover. Utopia, most of us would agree, probably couldn’t work out practically on a long term scale. But it can sure work out for a weekend. It’s a wonderful reminder of the goodness in humanity to be hanging around outside for several consecutive days with well-wishers occupying themselves with hula-hooping, face-painting, hair-braiding, and groove-dancing.

Austin City Limits 2011 stood out in other ways still. The food was and is all locally sourced and, despite the long lines during regular ‘feeding’ times, still worth the wait. And, as I found out, if you hang around toward the end of the festival, food vendors will start giving you grub for dirt cheap or free. The art vendors have a decent sprawl in the park next to the food stands and there seems to always be good art for the viewing or purchasing around in this area. ACL also excels in the areas of free water, a multitude of portable toilets, numerous bike racks, nearly immediate trash pick-up and recycling, as well as various public transportation options.

All in all, it was a good year back at the fest–my second consecutive year attending. And my oh my, I sure do hope I achieve that one-festival-a-year goal for the rest of my years.

Organic spas: essential for genuine pampering

by Elizabeth Seward on


Sometimes it is difficult to tell where and how organic spas fit into the whole of the organic conversation. Generally speaking, it makes a lot of sense to many of us to seek out organic food, even if we don’t always shop sensibly. Food is, after all, going directly into our bodies and the fewer chemicals that are in the mix, the better, so goes the organic logic. Discussions start to get fuzzier when you’re talking about things like, for instance, organic wood used in a new desk you are considering purchasing. In conversations like these, we usually start talking ethics and air quality, for example, which are marginally less tangible than the quality of food we ingest–at least for some. But somewhere on this scale of What Can I Afford To Purchase Organic falls the topic of organic spas. And this topic is especially relevant for travelers since many people make allowances for spa treatments only for special occasions–like vacations. After a trip to an organic spa in Austin, Texas, I started thinking through the benefits of organic skin care and the importance of seeking out organic spas.Samantha Brooks, the owner of Blossom Spa Boutique in Austin, peeled back a layer of thought for me when I walked into her spa earlier this year for a facial. It should have been obvious to me long ago with all of the oatmeal/honey/yogurt/egg concoctions my mother whipped up and lathered on my face growing up–skin care started organic. Clay, olive oil, coconut oil, Shea butter, sea salt, seaweed… our chemical-infused skin products these days broadcast their natural ingredients, or derivatives of natural ingredients, for a reason: they make sense to us on an embedded level. They are what many of our mothers used at home, and their mothers, and most definitely all of the mothers branching back on family trees from there. And so the first selling point for organic skin care at spas is the most obvious point: they are natural treatments. Anytime I treat my skin (or hair, or nails) with something that comes directly from the earth, I feel better about it than if I don’t–if for no other reason than the fact that I’m using “products” made entirely by Mother Nature.

So how did all of the chemicals get thrown into the mix here? When I pick up most skin, hair, or nail care product bottles I come across, I can barely pronounce most of the ingredients listed, let alone tell you what they are, where they come from, and what benefit they bring to my body. Nor can I usually tell you offhand what damage they may be bringing to my body. After being inspired by Samantha, though, I wanted to at least learn the basics. And after learning some of the basics, I wanted to share them with you. So here are some scummy, ugly facts buried within the beauty industry’s products.

The Dirt

Most skin or hair products will have Methyl, Propyl, Butyl, and/or Ethyl Paraben listed as ingredients. These ingredients are inexpensive and they prohibit microbial growth, so they are appealing to many skin care companies. But these ingredients are actually known toxins that cause undesirable skin reactions in many who use them. I’m no beautician, but my gut tells me that a product probably hasn’t done any fundamental good for my skin if my skin is flaring up after using it. When dealing with chemicals, the “no pain, no gain” motto really shouldn’t apply.

Propylene Glycol, a humectant, is something you will regularly find in beauty products. We (consumers) like it, theoretically, because it keeps things “moist”. Moisturizing conditioners, for example, might include this ingredient. Unfortunately, it is also used as an industrial anti-freeze. They de-ice planes with this stuff. On top of skin allergies and reactions, research has suggested that this ingredient can cause liver abnormalities and kidney damage.

Sodium Lauryl Sulfate helps beauty products to foam. This seems great while you are shaving or scrubbing away with your body wash, but this ingredient might also cause urinary tract, bladder, and kidney infections. Additionally, genital disorders, eye irritations, hair loss, skin rashes, scalp scurf similar to dandruff, and allergic reactions have been traced back to the use of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.

A nice-smelling product doesn’t indicate a nice product. Labels (if you even see them at the spa) oftentimes list the simple ingredient ‘fragrance’. Fragrance, in fact, can be any combination of around 200 toxic and synthetic ingredients. You’ll smell nice after using products with ‘fragrance’, but you also might have headaches, dizziness, vomiting, coughing, skin irritation, and rashes. At least one of those side effects’ smell is going to counteract any amount of ‘Rose’ fragrance.

Triethlanolamine (DEA) adjusts the pH balance in beauty products. But it also has been linked to kidney, liver, and other organ damage. Anemia, nerve damage to the brain and spinal cord, and kidney degeneration have also been linked to this ingredient.

The Solution

If you are surprised at this list as it stands, you will be even more surprised when you start doing some research on your own. These toxic chemical ingredients are just a few of the nasty components making up our supposedly beautifying products. At the very best, we might notice a change in our appearance for the ‘better’, but at what cost? Even the most vain among us should be able to see the weight of general health over the facade of general health (marketed as youthfulness). And at that rare very best, in my experience, these chemical-laden products still don’t compare with the real deal; the stuff our ancestors were using long before the chemical “revolution”.

I bathed in highly mineral mud, laid out in the sun to let it dry, and rinsed it off in the warm waters of the Caribbean two years ago when I visited the island of St. Maarten/St. Martin. The mud found on the small island of Tintamarre, just off the coast of SXM, has been used for centuries for mud-bathing. If you’re interested in obtaining a real glow that will last you a few days, try something like this before turning a blind eye to the chemicals in beauty products. I will never forget how I felt that evening–like my skin was made of silk.

And here’s some good news: you don’t have to tromp around Caribbean islands for natural skincare treatments like this. You can whip up natural treatments from the grocery store or from the land around you (if a good rubdown with grains of sand doesn’t exfoliate you, I don’t know what will). And when the time comes for some pampering, you can choose an organic spa. Spas that use organic and natural products exclusively are becoming increasingly popular and therefore more available for traveling, vacationing, needing-to-relax consumers. Once you know the facts behind these common chemical ingredients, you’ll find it is a little more difficult to relax at the spa if you can’t be sure the ingredients in the products being used aren’t causing you more harm than good, externally or internally.

When you want to be pampered, allow yourself that–particularly for you exhausted travelers who look forward to spa treatments as a part of your prized vacation. But I encourage you to go a step further, like I did, and do your research. For a thoroughly pleasant mind and body experience at, say, your resort’s in-house spa, you’re going to want to be as scrupulous as possible about the products your therapist uses. And you know what? You have a right to be.