keillor, meryl streep, and lindsey lohan? wow, what a cultural mash-up!

It's a great city filled with folks who don't take themselves too seriously, know good food when they taste it and are deeply interested in having good, rich lives.

If it had trees and was close to an ocean it'd be heaven.

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I've been in Austin for nearly five years. Most of the old timers (here before I35 had the upper deck built 35 years ago) harken to the days when it was less populated but have become very accepting of newcomers. Don't visit unless you want to get a hankerin' to make it your home!

The culture of early 90's San Francisco frozen in time? I don't those of us down in this neck of the woods mind that characterization too much. San Francisco turned into a bunch of assholes after that. :)

...that my comments regarding San Francisco were meant tongue-in-cheek. I've lived there, too, and it ain't so bad. :) Also, if you're looking for trees in Austin, you should head on down to Barton Creek Greenbelt. As for an ocean...well, we can't help you there, but give it a century or so, and the ocean will come to us.

We have trees! Beautiful pecans and live oaks and not-live oaks. Trees everywhere!

I liked this article; it really captured a sense of the wonderful city I love so much.

In Austin we call it "South by So What".

Maybe clarity is not always desirable, but I had trouble figuring out the point of this article. It seemed to be about Austin, with the "Prairie Home Companion" movie as the backdrop, but was probably intended to be the other way around.

Whatever it was about, it made me keep the movie in mind for future viewing. I met Garrison Keillor a couple of times, and have been to shortened versions of his show. He's the real deal, able to bring acting skills out of the most ordinary people, the same person in private as in public. He has done much to keep middle America from the grasp of the cultural/political straight-jacketeers of corporate America. That is probably what brought Robert Altman's attention.

Austin's great too, a good energy town. That it gave us Bush is not Austin's fault. Anyplace has the same vulnerability.

He's at the SXSW festival, went to the "Prarie Home" premiere, and gave us a report. What's not clear to you? Are you confused by every story that's not headlined: Impeach Bush!

I have to say, I'm a proud Salon reader, gladly circumnavigating the pesky ads to read the content. I've thought about subscribing, but honestly? The people who write in that are identified as Premium members always seem a little, well, thick.

FYI, there's no such thing as "North Congress." There's just Congress Avenue north of the river and South Congress on the other side. And I can't imagine why that previous poster thought there were no trees here. The city is lousy with trees. Go for a stroll through the Hyde Park neighborhood, especially when the pecan trees are producing. On good years, the pecans dropping sound like rain falling. And the Allandale neighborhood's live oak's are gorgeous. And only the curmudgeons call it "South by So What." I can introduce you to plenty of locals who spend the other 11 months of the year counting the minutes until March rolls around.

I grew up in Austin and O'Hehir's description of the Paramount Theater is right on. Growing up I saw "Rent," "Stomp," Carol Channing in "Hello Dolly," and many other wonderful productions grace the stage of the Paramount. My family would always go around the corner after the shows and eat chocolate cake and watch horse-drawn carriages clop down the streets of downtown Austin. Lovingly preserved indeed.

I was at the Paramount for the showing, being here for my first sxsw festival. Garrison Keillor was not there. The comments made about the film were from the person (I don't remember his name) who wrote the story with Keillor. John C. Reilly had a connection with Austin because he has filmed movies in the area before and made a favorable impression.

There was no point, no narrative to this article. It was like a rambling cell-phone conversation...Andrew obviously was sent there to write something and had a deadline, so we get this piece. He's simply thinking aloud for most of it. "I guess my college Stephanie will want to review it..." Well, tell Stephanie. Or do you two only speak via the pages of Salon? The author muses about the number of trees. Now there's a key element to any story. Sheesh. All we need to know now is whether Andrew leaves his tp over or under. Then it would be 'above the fold' news for Salon.

Next time, Andrew, get a tattoo or ignore your children. Salon loves publishing crap like that and calling it meaningful.

a cute-ish girl, but one whose charms are completely overwhelmed by self-concious, preening self-regard? If you do, nickname her "Austin."

I don't know about that. I have lived in a number of cities, including San Francisco, NYC and Los Angeles, and found that the civic smugness on display in those places is far, far worse than what you see in Austin. Sure, there are a few unpleasant cred-obsessed hipsters around who prattle on and on about how Austin was so much cooler when, but you can find those everywhere (just swap out the city for Oakland, Berkeley, Brooklyn, Portland...) and they're more concerned with aggrandizing themselves than the place they live in.

You'll find some preening self-regard in any area with a reputation of any kind. My father lives in teeny Hondo, TX, and the Hondoans preen much more than my neighbors in Austin do. The Austinites I know are too busy actually doing stuff to preen -- unless simply liking the place you live counts as preening.

This...

..and the sunburned panhandlers working the highway and boulevard intersections have reverted to cutoffs and tank tops (if they ever wore anything else). I don't know whether these people are castaways of the Bush economy or a permanent feature of the landscape, but you can see more white people begging here in a single afternoon in south Austin than you can see in New York in a month.

...is just annoying as hell.

The homeless, wherever they may be, are NOT local color. They are an ongoing human catastrophe. Mentioning them this way in an aimless ramble about a film festival is ludicrous.