Inhabiting Darkness (Habitar La Oscuridad): The photography of Marco Antonio Cruz shines a light on compassion

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By Kimberly Conner To experience Inhabiting Darkness (Habitar La Oscuridad) is to understand that whether we navigate the world with sight, or without it, we are united by a shared humanity. This collection of stunning black and white images offers a rare insight into what it means to live with visual impairment. Curated based on …

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From Politics to Poodles: A Look into Molly Ivins’ Personal Library

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Written by Wittliff archivist, Karen Sigler, This article was originally published in the Society of Southwestern Archivist and now resides in Texas State Universities digital archives. If the world were given your personal library, what would it tell them about you? What if you were known for your political observations and didn’t mind being blunt …

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9/11: A Reflective Pause

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Photographer Eric O’Connell photographed the chaos and atrocities of September 11, 2001 and survived. Speaking with him recently about the upcoming twentieth anniversary, he said “it brings him reflective pause on what happened to him personally” and added, “that all the struggles we (the nation) are going through today spun from that day.” The Wittliff …

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Looking into the face of the Grey Ghost

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In 1994, sculptor Cindy Debold met the Grey Ghost. Her first impression of the legendary blues pianist born Roosevelt Williams was that he was rather frail and shy. He was 90 at the time. The Grey Ghost arrived at Debold’s Austin studio with music historian and record producer Tary Owens to sit for a plaster …

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Who was Mr. Bojangles?

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Polka Dot Slim. Pork Chops. Babe Stovall. Re-Pete. They are the nicknames of African American street performers who worked the New Orleans’ French Quarter in the early and mid-1960s. One of them is likely Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles.” The true identity has remained mysterious. Was it really about an old man Walker met in …

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Jerry Jeff Walker memorial was like a deep dive into his archives

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Tales of a pilfered puppy in Nashville, campfire songs in Ohio, sangria wine in Coconut Grove. Jerry Jeff Walker was remembered with affection and honored in song at an outdoor memorial tribute concert for 1,000 fans and friends in Luckenbach on Saturday. The sold-out event vividly brought to life and fleshed out stories which dwell …

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Original ‘Mr. Bojangles’ lyrics on display at The Wittliff

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The earliest known surviving set of Jerry Jeff Walker’s handwritten lyrics for “Mr. Bojangles” exist because a plucky young guitar repairman in New Jersey asked Walker to write them down so he could learn the song. Walker wasn’t yet a star in 1968. But he did have an amazing folk song on the radio in the …

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“Hollywood Mad Dogs” now available in The Wittliff’s Literary Series

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Before his death in 2009, legendary Texas author Edwin “Bud” Shrake completed a final novel, Hollywood Mad Dogs. This rollicking tale is based on his real-life adventures as a Hollywood screenwriter in the 1970s, where he penned films starring Dennis Hopper, Steve McQueen, and vampire bats. Shrake met McQueen in 1979, when the actor hired …

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Jerry Jeff Walker: The First Demo

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The recording was unearthed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in January 2018, more than a half century after it was made. The audio captured on the portable reel-to-reel tape machine – a German-made UHER 4000 Report-L popular in the early 1960s – is still clear and crisp. “I’m gonna do the whole thing,” announces Jerry Jeff …

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Developing characters at the Austin Film Festival

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Editor’s Note: For the past several years, the Austin Film Festival has been busy digitizing their recordings of the festival panels, which they’ve maintained since the first year in 1994. That’s over 25 years’ worth of conversations from the best in the business, including Shane Black, writer for Lethal Weapon and writer-director for the Predator …

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