All who wander ...

It’s a strange thing—documenting life. When there’s not much going on (or just enough) it’s easy to stop and think, and write, and share. Likewise, when life takes you by storm, there’s barely time to be scared, thoughtful or reflective. Not to worry though, because as heavy and incessant as life’s storm has been, I’ve managed to find time to dance in the rain and swim in the flood. I’m sitting now in the Austin airport, and I’ve caught an unexpected break. My flight, which I—by all standards (and clocks)—would have been late for, is delayed. Ironic that the impending thunderstorm, of the most literal kind, is the shelter in which I finally find time to reflect. Life never ceases to amaze me.

I’ll take you back. Far back before the cease flood, to where I last visited with you friends. Back to where life’s recent adventures began.

For starters, got a cat. Cat’s name is Jack. Jack the cat.



Isn’t he handsome? If Jack were to sing, I believe he would croon like Frank Sinatra in melodic serenades. Even at 5 years young, he is such a man, and so aloof. Maybe a Nat King Cole type. Maybe a Rat Pack/Jersey Boy personality. I am positive that Jack’s reincarnated character could be found in a high-rollers lounge surrounded by beautiful, elegant women sitting in a cloud of smoke from his ghastly-overpriced imported cigar.



Seeing as I believe that my previous life transpired as a tambourine-shakin, hip-swingin background singer for Chuck, Ray, Otis or Aretha … I think Jack and I will get on just dandy. We make a swell pair. Just walkin hand in hand to a barbecue stand, walkin my baby back home.


Fecal Face Show
A good while back, the cool kids from SF blew in and set up a killer show here in our Texas town. Naturally, we checked out the opening of the Fecal Face show at Okay Mountain. Great turnout. Great artwork. Great live music by Tim Kerr’s band, If Bricks had Wings. Good times.

I met John Trippe (mastermind behind the SF entity that is fecal face dot com) and his adorable fiancé, Jessica. The eastside evening culminated as it often does at the Scoot Inn for more good music and even more carousing. Trippe covered the opening here on his final day of Austin chronicling. Austin celebretard, Fancy pants Armstrong, rode a double-decker bike, and we even made a little cameo. Check it.














Not My First Rodeo
Once a year something strange, consuming and wonderful falls upon the otherwise unrivaled port city of Houston. The Reliant Center fills with Texans of another sort. The saddle-carrying, chaps-wearing, livestock-wrangling, Marlboro man sort. From the cook-off kick-off to the extreme bulls finals, the nation's fourth largest city bows to the festival of FFA and funnel cakes. As I do every year at this time, I put on my cowgirl duds for a little two-steppin, whisky-drinkin and BBQ-eatin at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.










SXSW 2008
And then there was South By Southwest. Translation: Two weeks of extreme partiness for those Austinites, hipsters, industry folk, and wayfaring travelers who are so inclined. I could go on forever about this year’s south by shenanigans, so I’ll just give you a glimpse.









Caught Austin’s own Black Before Red outside of B.D. Riley’s. Super nice guys.





Stopped in to catch Herman Dune—and the puppet makes three—in a furniture shop downtown where my adorably well-intended friend (who shall remain nameless) inadvertently overturned her Ziegenbach all over a $3500.00 orange contemporary deco couch.



Hoots and Hellmouth are a group of dudes from my home state of Pennsylvania with lots of energy and lots of hair. Great performance. Though I don’t often use the word “jig,” I find it applicable in describing this show as a gig you can jig to.



[personal disclaimer: the use of jig in this context is intended to refer to the carefree roll-your-trousers-up, clap and stomp, grab your partner do-si-do action, which is in no way related to alternate lame uses of the word such as ‘getting jiggy wit it,’ of which you will never—mark my words—ever read on my little green piece of the world wide interweb.]

Saw Sea wolf Saturday night. Short set after a long day, but great tunes.



Other highlights include a great little show by Tift Merritt in the cozy courtyard of SoCo’s San Jose Hotel, an eastside late-night Blender party, some great shows and lots of scotch on the top of a downtown parking garage, Pink Nasty and other great groups at the the PureVolume Ranch, Talib Kweli at Auditorium Shores, and so many other great moments. Can’t wait for South by to come by next year.


I Love Lucy
I fed some of my anthropological obsessions and curiosities of humanity at the Houston Museum of Natural Science’s Lucy Exhibition.



This was a pretty big deal, seeing as how the exhibit holds bragging rights as the first-ever display of the 3.2 million year old hominid that holds our greatest key to humanity’s history. She was discovered (or uncovered) back in 1974 by two fossil finders on their way to an end-of-ethiopian-day party. These must have been some pretty hip dudes, because their track of choice at the evening’s shindig was Lucy in the Sky of Diamonds, hence the name given to our little ancestral lady.

Exhibit visitors got schooled in Ethiopian history, toolmaking traditions, continental drift, Rastafarianism, theories of evolution, and several other components of what we’ll call archaelogistics.



I had somewhat of a personal revelation when I saw the full-scale rendition of Lucy Lu. You see, when I was a little tyke, I found it odd that my second toe was the slightest bit longer that my big toe. In fact, I was so puzzled by this, and the fact that my sister’s toes were of normal length progression, that I conceived my own childhood conspiracy theory that I must have been adopted. As it turns out, Lucy shares the same second-toe syndrome. This tells me one of two things: Either Lucy is my estranged biological sister, or I’m a damn good tree-climber.

My mom’s fiancé, Mark, happens to be rather educated in the area of dentistry, that being his livelihood and all, and he validated the similarities of the supposed pre- and post-evolved jaw structures and placement of the teeth (those of which were uncovered). He also managed to get in some of the expected dentist-like comments about the seemingly healthy state of Lucy’s preserved teeth versus that of today’s patients—the culprit being the constant intake of sugars in modern man’s diet. Needless to say we didn’t stop for any gelato or coke floats on the way home.

Lucy will be on display until April 27. If you can make it to Houston, I suggest checkin her out before the protesting financially-influential conservatives who reject scientific theory ship her back to Ethipoia, and the back of their minds. No cameras were allowed in the exhibit, so the images above can be credited "Courtesy of the Houston Museum of Natural Science" ... ethical and plagiaristic legalities covered? Check.


Tycho at the Mohawk


If you’re a faithful canyon compadre, you may recall a long-ago post from a Tycho show at Progress Coffee during the ’06 East Austin Studio Tour, shortly after I moved to Austin. Since then, I’ve been keeping up with the mastermind who is Scott Hansen, and he’s been up to some pretty neat stuff … definitely worth your while to stop by his iso50 blog.



He’s kind of a techie freak, but he’s a genius, and he’s been quite a jet setter lately. I recommend checkin out his trip to Tokyo. He’s got some serious skills behind the lens, and is absurdly inept at capturing moments and character. Also, as we experienced at the Mohawk, he’s pretty damn good at creating funky, feel-good music.


Etcetera
In the midst of all this, there’s been some hill country travel, hammocking, birthday and engagement celebrations, karaoke, bike rides, and lazy days in the sunshine. You know how it goes, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.


















I just returned from a glorious visit to Northern California’s Bay City and wine country. Came back just in time to catch Feist at Stubbs Tuesday night. Much more to share, so stay tuned, and keep on keepin on.

A Tale of Two Cinemas

Mixed Media collaboration
Designed by Maseman, Lindsay, and myself

I have a confession for you, my little green comrades. I know that this admission of weakness may shock you to your core, but it’s time to come clean. I have a personal problem – a dilemma really: Decision-making. It’s not my strong suit. Some situations prove less a challenge than others. Por ejemplo, movie selection is one particular area of verdict distress. To go, or not to go? Will it disappoint? Is the sadness that my pick is sure to evoke worth the insight it may provide?

When it comes to foodie follies, there are certain key ‘order me!’ signs of selection that are sure to satisfy – artichoke hearts, sun dried tomatoes, tequila-lime sauce, tequila in general. Similarly, the ‘see me’ triggers for decisions of cinematic nature are ‘indie’ ‘foreign’ and ‘controversial.’ Usually, unfortunately, this translates to ‘depressed’ ‘emotionally exhausting’ and a prelude to the sheer embarrassment of ducking out of a theater sobbing and sinking into a general hopelessness about our lives, futures and decisions. I credit my mother's lack of interest in initiating our once-beloved ‘movie dates’ with my faulty history of picture selection.

I’ve been seeking shelter from the bustle of life’s traumas in The Alamo Drafthouse – an Austin gem. This local cinematic haven provides Austin’s drifters with an array of indie films and a constant calendar of unique attractions, such as ‘Mike's Sick & Twisted Animation' series and a plethora of docu- and mock-u-mentaries from the recent and distant past. The psychedelic previewing sessions and extensive menu of booze and gourmet grub offer moviegoers a unique treat.


Pan's Labyrinth

I was coerced into seeing this film by misleading reviews which compared the it to a childhood tale of mishaps and discovery, likening Pan’s looking-glass view to Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. To my dismay, I found Pan’s Labyrinth to be a gruesome tale of devotion-gone-wrong. The ‘labyrinth’ in this fear-flick resembles those creepy maze gardens like the one in The Shining more so than that of The Secret Garden, and there was no tea-party. The proverbial ‘rabbit hole’ is a treacherous trail in Ofelia’s quest for the Underworld. The fact that critics referred to this film as ‘an adult fairy-tale’ frightened me. In fact, the film itself frightened me, and if you have not been to hell’s purgatory or lived under the brutal wrath of Franco’s regime, it will frighten you too.

A film I will recommend, however, is Babel. An intriguing tri-hybrid of Syriana, Lost In Translation, and Crash, this film is a heart-wrenching depiction of the vast differences in today’s cultural mores, values, fears, expectations and stereotypes. These are characters with whom every breathing soul can find a level of relation, creating emotionally overwhelming scenes and story lines. The self-destruction of these characters is brought on by their own [our own] ignorance. It is both honest and heartbreaking.



The always sexy Gael Garcia Bernal (Amores Perros, Science of Sleep, Bad Education) plays Santiago – a party-crazed free-spirited, troublemaker who breeds the connection between upper class white society and that of the immigrant Mexican, between which we see an unfortunate lack of compassion and understanding.

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu does an exceptional job of illustrating the destructive political views of immigration and the heartbreak these ensue. His previous flicks have carried strong familial themes, particularly that of a father and son, and his third feature flick is no different. The age-old biblical tale in the book of Genesis foretells a story of man’s self-fulfilling efforts destructed by cultural and linguistic rifts. Iñárritu brings viewers this tale of similar concepts with an eerie reality of our times.

Here, my friends, I present the official SXSW 2007 line-up. If you haven’t already been exposed to this information, you must have been hanging out with the sun-scared grub worms under the rocks in our yard.

Get with the program, and get ready for some good times to come.

Shelter from the [Ice] Storm

Here in the Lone Star State, we pride ourselves on being of a tough cowboy variety. We hunt, shoot, fish, ranch, ride, rope, and rodeo. We drown our food in butter and our sorrows in whiskey, but when we see a little ‘wintry mix’ come our way, we carry on like a bunch of suburban mothers in the eve of Y2K.



Although I only work a short while north of where I stay, it was not required that I report to the office for three consecutive days, for fear of the treacherous commute. My humble employer believed it was in both of our interests to work from home until the ice melted, so that’s what I was doing… working. Working on transcribing interviews and organizing the magazine, yes – but also working on catching up on my much-needed rest, working on laundry, working on getting through several books, and working on getting my creative juices flowing. (All of which are beneficial for both my personal wellbeing, and that of the company.)



McSweeney's
Much of my ice-induced literary focus was directed toward a publication called McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Averaging at 300 pages per issue, these hardcover journal collections take readers through captivating fictional scenarios. Amazingly fantastic things happen in McSweeney’s whimsical world. A man marries a tree, pointless wars are fought and lost, a love relation of imperfect proportions develops and thrives, entire secular histories are created and destructed, and young girls come to defy masculine authority.


Issue 20

As if this weren’t enough, the independent Bay Area-based editor has placed a full-color illustration of brilliance on every fourth page – each by amazing artists, and each enhancing the reader’s experience. The Quarterly Concern is a refreshing twist on literary publication, and it’s sure to bring you more colorful surprises than LeVar Burton’s PBS theatrics.

Retreat
Speaking of colorful surprises, several may currently be found hanging on the white walls of Austin’s Women & Their Work Gallery. For nearly 30 years, Women & Their Work has functioned as a statewide non-profit organization celebrating the beauty and strength of contemporary art and feminism.



Until February 17, the gallery will host Retreat, which features the amazing work of Theresa Marchetta. To create her large-scale masterpieces, Marchetta pours pigmented acrylic and wax to capture colorful abstract interpretations of the faraway and the familiar. Unbelievable stuff, really.

No American Talent
The guys over at Okay Mountain kicked off their No American Talent series this month with Argentinean artist, Benito Laren. No American Talent – a spoof on Arthouse’s New American Talent - is a three-part series of exhibitions showcasing work from artists in countries other than the 50 great states. Most of Laren’s work looked like it was made in the technological period of the early Windows 'Paint' program, and it shared the radical neon simplicity of the ‘80s peg toy, Lite-Brite.



It was Laren himself who captivated my attention for the majority of the evening. I wasn’t sure if he was wearing a toupee, a full-on wig, or if he was aware of exactly how much 'it' looked like a gray, matted Himalayan. He was poised, quirky, and full of energy – active, excited eyes behind over sized, tinted transitions lenses. (Tony LaRussa take note: inside/outside single-lens convenience will never be fashionably appropriate.) Laren was an effusive character as well - delighted to speak with any audience, whether they responded or even understood.



Riding on my friend Aldo’s fluency en Espanol, I managed to stick around for the better part of a conversation. Laren was sharing a collection of personal photos, which seemed to share little relevance to one another in terms of characters, symbolism, or even time period. I would like to believe that he was sharing some great wisdom of chemistry and war, love and expression, but I kept hearing the word thong. Every time he would point at a picture of a woman, he would say thong, and laugh. There were quite a few women in his picture collection, and as it turns out, Benito did a stint in undergarment advertising some years ago. The pixilated thongs in Laren’s pieces – a blatantly recurring theme – bore striking similarity to those oddly shaped Tetris blocks in Atari backgrounds. Lite-Brite, like I said.

SXSW 2007
Finally, some long-awaited leakage from SXSW. We’re about a month into the new year, and still no official word about the line-up. Well, the SXSW folks have played hide the salami with the anticipated news for too long. Yesterday, the Austinist posted 340 performers in an unofficial band list. It’s not a complete list by any means, but it’s enough to get your blood pumping.