Weekend Roundup

Embrace the cold weather for our top 5 event picks this weekend

Photo by Michael Graupmann
Photo credit: Rachel Stuckey

It was actually cold this week! We got to wear heavy coats and everything. It’s good timing, too, because this weekend’s most promising events are outdoors. Bundle up for our top event picks for this pre-holiday weekend.

ACL Live presents Louis C.K.

If his standup is anything like his FX series, Louie, which just wrapped a hell of a third season, expect some pitch black tragicomedy. C.K. revels in finding the dark underlying layers of life’s most quotidian dramas, from fatherhood to being single to growing old. His Thursday performance is sold out, but there are still tickets left for Friday’s show at ACL Live at the Moody Theater.

Experimental Response Cinema at Tiny Park Gallery

The ERC are a self-described “Austin-based collective of avant-garde film and video artists, devoted to bringing local, national and international experimental films to Austin screens.” Their first show dedicated to local moving image artists is this Friday, December 14 at Tiny Park Gallery at 8 p.m. One exhibit at the show, called Interstate (part one) details in short segments the following of a traveling circus encampment along a Texas highway. And there’s other weird-looking stuff. But it’s cool-weird, not crazy-weird.

Armadillo Christmas Bazaar

Tchotchkes, googas, trinkets. Art by painters, sculptors and illustrators. All here, all everywhere. But it’s exotic because it’s a bazaar! There’s also live music and food and drinks and other kinds of distracting nonsense. Celebrating its 37th year, the Armadillo Bazaar at the Palmer Events Center, open now through December 24, can make for a one-stop shopping trip for your holiday gift list.

Austin Remixed

A collaboration between KUT and Austin Music Map, along with partner Waterloo Records, this music project collected sound clips of the city’s natural sounds recorded by citizens and handed them over to local artists like Dana Faclonberry to make new songs. Seven artists will each be performing an original song at the performance on Sunday, December 16 at the ND. It's free and open to all ages and starts at 7:30 p.m. You can also hear all the clips made available to them on Austin Remixed’s SoundCloud.

Trail of Lights

It’s back! After budget constraints from the city left the event un-sponsored for two years, a fleet of angel investors, including Runtex Carrozza Foundation, Forefront Austin and HEB, have resurrected the light show in Zilker Park. The lights will be on this Sunday through December 23 and feature holiday singing and dancing each night. Local food trailers will be serving food and drinks, and by the looks of their performance schedule, plenty of other things to see besides millions of blinking LED lights.

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Keeping The Lights On?

ERCOT meteorologist predicts higher chance of extreme cold this winter

Photo courtesy of KVUE

ERCOT says it has improved its reliability, but other Texans aren't sure it's enough.

The lead meteorologist for the state’s power grid operator, ERCOT, is predicting both a warmer winter and a higher chance of extreme cold.

During a Tuesday board meeting, Chris Coleman said current climate patterns are very similar to those in 2021 when a winter storm knocked out power for millions of Texans for several days.

“Now, that doesn’t mean we’re going to have [Winter Storm] Uri, but it does again say that we’re in a pattern that supports something like a Uri this winter,” said Coleman, ERCOT's supervisor of operational forecasting.

Coleman compared his winter forecast to a tornado watch: The conditions are there, but the storm may or may not happen.

ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas told KVUE on November 25 that he doesn’t expect calls for conservation or rolling blackouts.

“We're ready for those kinds of conditions at ERCOT,” said Vegas.

During Tuesday’s board meeting, Vegas touted nearly 3,000 weatherization inspections since 2021 and more than 10,000 megawatts of new generation added to the grid since March, mostly solar and battery storage. ERCOT estimates 1 megawatt can power 250 homes on average during peak winter demand.

However, Texas energy consultant Doug Lewin questions that math.

“[We are] better off than we were in February 2021 but not out of the woods,” said Lewin, who authors the Texas Energy and Power Hour newsletter and hosts the Energy Capital podcast. “We don’t have a system that’s resilient enough to deal with a Winter Storm Uri.”

Lewin points to two main reasons: a natural gas supply system he says is not adequately winterized, along with inefficient homes and buildings that push demand beyond supply.

“We have to bring that demand down and do that by increasing the programs we have for energy efficiency to replace inefficient heat with much more efficient forms of heat, like heat pumps.”

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

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