AUSTIN
In a Daze
Two years ago, Austin honored the twentieth anniversary of Richard Linklater’s stream-of-consciousness, feature-length debut movie Slacker. Now, attention has turned to the twentieth anniversary of Dazed and Confused, the coming-of-age quote-a-long that will be celebrated with a reunion screening on Wednesday before it is inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame the next day. “Dazed definitely captures a very particular mood that I think resonates with anybody who ever spent listless teenage years riding around looking for something to do and trying to figure out who they are,” Wiley Wiggins, who played Mitch Kramer, the “gangly, twitchy” underclassman who befriends the upperclassmen, said in an email. The cult film put Matthew McConaughey on the map, with his character Wooderson, who spoke one of the movie’s most memorable lines: “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man; I get older, they stay the same age.” McConaughey is one of the only major cast members not confirmed to attend the screening. Neither is Ben Affleck—who just won the Best Picture Academy Award for Argo—butMcConaughey lives in town and has made surprise appearances at lesser events.
The Marchesa Hall & Theater, March 6 at 7 and 9:30 p.m., Austin Studios, March 7 at 6 p.m., austinfilm.org
GRAND PRAIRIE
Singing to Win
Kelly Clarkson, the American Idol breakout star, is caught in a very public game of he-said she-said with Clive Davis, the record executive who clashed with her over creative control of her third album, My December. In Davis’s new autobiography, The Soundtrack of My Life, he wrote that they were arguing even before that, over songs on her previous album, including the hit “Since U Been Gone.” He contended that Clarkson said she hated the songs and wanted them off her album, and that she “burst into hysterical sobbing.” Clarkson responded last week on her WhoSay account, saying that she only wanted “more guitars” and a “bigger sound” on “Since U Been Gone,” and that the only time she cried was when Davis belittled her songwriting skills. “This was devastating coming from a man who I, as a young girl, considered a musical hero and was so honored to work with,” she wrote. Perhaps this drama will translate into a dynamic performance on Friday in Grand Prairie, when Clarkson hosts her first concert in Texas since moving to Tennessee.
Verizon Theatre, March 1, 8 p.m., kellyclarkson.com
SAN ANTONIO
The Art of Collecting
It is convenient to go online and choose from a variety of affordable and collector-grade art, but unless you know exactly what you are doing, what is shipped to your door might not live up to expectations. Skip the potential aggravation and additional charges of returning or exchanging your purchase at the seventeenth annual McNay Print Fair, where thirteen American dealers will display and sell thousands of prints, drawings, watercolors and photographs ranging from $50 to $50,000. Quality and quantity do not take anything away from each other in this showroom, making it a great environment for both the amateur collector, who benefits from being able to compare pieces to countless others, and the savvy collector, who can do a lot of damage in one weekend.
McNay Art Museum, March 2 at 10 a.m. and March 3 at 12 p.m., mcnayart.org
NECHES
Fast Food
In 2005, the Seventy-ninth Texas Legislature named the chuckwagon the official state vehicle. The designation may have been more fitting in the late 1800s, when Charles Goodnight, the Texas rancher portrayed as Call in Lonesome Dove, invented the vehicle used to store cowboys’ bedrolls, guns and food on cattle drives by converting an Army surplus Studebaker wagon. These days, the chuckwagon is more ornamental and symbolic of the state’s ranching roots, but at the 1836 Chuckwagon Race, these vessels are front and center during a living-history weekend, complete with actual races, Dutch oven classes and a bull whip demonstration.
Diamond B Ranch, March 1-3, 8 a.m., 1836chuckwagonrace.com
AUSTIN
Learn to Earn
The state of America’s education system has many dismayed over the nation’s future, but Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has poured a lot of his fortune into this problem, which he will address at SXSWedu, a day after speaking at the grand opening of the Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex at the University of Texas at Austin.
Austin Convention Center, March 4-7, sxswedu.com
DALLAS
Flower Power
It is increasingly difficult to find time to stop and smell the roses, but the beauty and fragrance of flowers is Mother Nature’s natural stress reliever, and there will be a bounty of them awesomely arranged at the Dallas Arboretum’s annual Dallas Blooms festival.
Dallas Arboretum, March 2-April 7, dallasarboretum.org
