There will be no mention of brands, nor any links, in this brief wander through an Austin evening.
Mercury is about to turn backwards, in Pisces, as if that hasn’t been figured out already. Means I’ll be more distracted and yet, oddly peaceful, at the same time. Knowing why a problem exists doesn’t fix the problem, but it gives me valuable expertise in working around the problem.
I was contracted as entertainment for a downtown convention. Good pay, usual hourly rates, early evening (supper time to some folks) slot, and since there wasn’t a lot on the schedule, I’d agreed to this, some time in the distant past.
I put on a clean shirt, slid into a (passed the sniff test) clean pair of jeans, pulled on socks and boots, threw a laptop in bag, and wandered off towards downtown, hopefully, a little early.
Forgot to buy a lottery ticket, but then, luck’s funny, and I was guessing my number wasn’t coming up. Not in a lottery way.
As I turned the corner onto Sixth Street, my original destination was blocked. Way it goes, sometimes, I do believe. Looked like about half-dozen fire trucks, EMS, and a command center truck, not to mention a couple of cop cars, plus the street was barricaded. Faint aroma of smoke, like something burning, still lingered. No smoke, though, for which I was glad, in as much as I don’t care for the activity of the street, I do adore Sixth Street’s historic building facades.
I had half an hour to grab something to eat – I was starving – and get a couple of blocks up the hill to the hotel. Since my first choice was blocked, I settled on the next best solution, the first open Mexican restaurant. Had chips, two bowls of hot sauce, and the creme-de-la-creme, halfway through the first bowl of hot sauce, while waiting on fish tacos, I scooped a portion of a plastic wrapper out of the hot sauce. A lesser man would be offended. A less-adventuresome diner would be pitch a fit and demand free food, or walk out in a huff. Maybe a minute and a huff, to quote a certain movie star’s line.
Me? I was hungry, in a hurry, the waitress was a cute little Scorpio, with those alluring smoky Scorpio eyes, and I couldn’t be bothered because the bit of plastic proved that the salsa was fresh and hoime-made. Really fresh, like that afternoon.
Tacos were good. Maybe a liter or two of ice tea, and I was off, headed up the hill, thinking about the fire, worried that I didn’t have a tie on, and that the nice, clean shirt would be all sweaty by the time I got there.
I’d say something about the convention, but it’s all a blur.
Clocked out, collected a check and stepped out of the hotel the wrong way. I had a client who lived at that hotel, once, so a misstep like that seemed odd. But I don’t worry about minor details like an extra half-block.
I was pondering where I was going to stop for coffee, any of about three destinations presented themselves. Not like this is a problem, or, for that matter unusual, but I did run into a certain female (Taurus), and after a minute of conversation, stepped back onto the avenue to continue the discussion. Client/friend thing. We carried on for a while, friendly banter, and she allowed as how I looked “real good” in clean shirt and sport jacket.
Patrons showed up, and she had to jump back to work. I kept rolling towards home, and the coffee shop I stopped at? There was a lone person on the makeshift stage, strumming a guitar, and with beautiful voice, singing some sad lament. I ordered the evening’s single bit of fun, a shot of espresso, and I listened while she played.
Back on the street, the weather is almost perfect. I would call it perfect but I still had on jeans and that stupid starched shirt. Too warm for that kind of a monkey outfit for me.
I didn’t have an iPod with me, so I was lost in my own thoughts, but considering where I had been, a lyric kept running through my head, an old Bob Dylan tune, as I recall.
“There was music in the cafes at night/Revolution in the air.”
That’s Austin, at night, in March.
(click to visit)
The small brands & books
(But not related. At all.)
I’m wondering if there’s a good quote to emphasize this point, but it’s a simple message, “Do what you do, and do it well.”
I suppose, too, a corollary should include the points about always striving for improvement, learning new tricks, stay abreast of what’s up and so on.
The article, here, is about cheap-o TV sets.
I got into the smaller brands when I discovered a certain cola from Skeleteens, with a name like FOO kola cola. Good stuff.
Some place on the wild wooly web, there was an article that pointed out that the Dell monitors, while not nearly as nice-looking as the Apple counterpart, had the same internal bits – and like everything Dell, substantially less in price. I could very well have my facts wrong about that, but dig deep enough, and it’s easy to see that a little searching can uncover what really works best.
I popped open a bottle of Mexican Coke, Coca-Cola bottled in Mexico. I’ve got a few, I save them for special occasions or a little midnight inspiration. Bout as wild as I get these days.
Yeah, micro-brew cokes. Like the beer craze, only longer-lasting. And cheap TV sets.
“Hand-crafted in our laboratory in a South Austin trailer park, using only arcane secrets of the ancients.”
(click to visit)
Reminds me of another story, the bands turning down what, to them, must be tainted cash. One of those items that’s rarely covered by the headline news?
Reading lists:
Last winter? Fall, maybe? I picked up Anaya’s Alburquerque to reacquaint myself with his more recent work.
So when I moved over from Almanac of the Dead to Jemenz Spring, it was natural fit, Southwestern Lit, in as much as there is such a critter, and after about three pages, I remembered why I liked the whole series so well. (Sonny Baca Mystery series, goes through all four seasons.)
If I recall correctly, and I could be wrong, Anaya is a Scorpio. Not that it matters, but I do find a little bit of an edge in his work. Now, I’ve lived in New Mexico, finished high school there, did a little college, plus I spent a year in Albuquerque, working. So I’ve got a special sense of the place. And therefore? The material works rather well for me.
Flip it around, though, and look at the early maps of Texas, West Texas ended at the Rio Grande – and that included Eastern New Mexico. Best way to piss off a New Mexico native? Other than just being from Texas? Suggest what I just did, that, to me anyway, spiritually, the line between Eastern New Mexico and West Texas is not quite as clear as they would have us believe. But never mind that now.
So as an old desert rat, I can blend well with the Southwestern style. It fits me, although, I’ve grown accustomed to the lush wetlands I live in. But I can certainly see the beauty in place like Las Cruces, or even El Paso.
There’s one scene, and I thought it was in the novel Alburquerque, but I didn’t find it. Which doesn’t mean that it’s not a good book, either. But after just the first chapter of Jemenz Spring, I had to stop.
The taxonomy, the category for the novels and the series, could loosely be called murder-mystery. Or, in more high-blown language, Magical Realism. Or a new-age Metaphysical Mystery.
Ah, but what’s missing? The taxonomy doesn’t do justice to what’s covered. It’s none of those categories, not really. In the mythical Southwest, consensual reality and the world of myth, metaphor and magic, all blend together. Some suggest that the sky is a little closer, the barren landscape offers a thinner veil between the worlds.
Yeah, whatever.
Been there, done that.
However, the different realms are more easily accessible. That’s sort of the point.
The description of the magic of a sunrise, I mean, here the author was just describing a character waking up, fixing coffee, and feeding the dog, yet, all of that description brings back memories for me, and from there, I put the current book down, stretched, and looked for my older material from the author. I looked at the publication dates, and Zia Summer was next.
There’s one scene, buried in the series someplace, and I’ve got to reread it.
The question being, “What should I read next”