Shiny Things

Pop Culture Remixing: Why it matters that we keep remaking familiar pop culture properties.

2012-01-17T12:09:00.001-06:00

At 11 p.m. on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, my husband and I walked into the Chaparral Ice rink in North Austin. Despite the warm day, I was carrying my winter coat, hat and gloves. We were going to the theater!

Less a traditional theatrical experience and more of a chance to see a comedic trainwreck, we had tickets for Aliens on Ice by The Old Murder House Theatre.

Yes, we’d paid to see the movie “Aliens” recreated at an ice rink by a cast just slightly beyond being able to stand up on their ice skates.

That Saturday night was do-it-yourself (DIY) theater at its finest. One theatrical set was comprised of hand drawn illustrations on cardboard that were attached to a pink ironing board. You could clearly see the duct tape holding things together.

Costuming wasn’t much fancier. The mostly male cast changed characters by adding or removing wigs in full view of the audience. One alien picked up his headpiece as he skated by. It had fallen off during a dramatic fight scene. This show was a very long way from Broadway.

Despite the ludicrously low production values of “Aliens on Ice” the audience was mostly eating it up, laughing along at the comedy.

That night at the ice rink, we’d happened to sit next to our friends Charles and Charlene Smith, who’d left the kids home and who were out on their date night. Charlie Smith, 31-- whom I know from my own lower-rent theatrical collective/charity project of Scare For a Cure—had actually worn out the VHS tape of “Aliens” when he was younger. Later, Smith owned up to having played “Aliens” on the playground, much the way some kids played “Cowboys and Indians.”

Before that ice show, I’d never seen the movie “Aliens.” Yet I laughed so hard during the production that I managed to send myself into coughing fits.

I wasn’t surprised to see the rest of the audience also enjoying itself. During the show they were immersed in pop culture, something that’s as comfortable as a pair of much-loved flannel pajamas for many Americans.

“Aliens on Ice” it isn’t alone in allowing people to immerse themselves in pop culture.

Over the last few years I’ve noticed an increasing number of creative projects based around the idea of “remixing” fictional properties created by a different author.

I’m defining “remixing” as someone taking a fictional universe created by one person, then creating another project based on that universe.

Thus “remixing” might include what happens when the works of Jane Austen are updated to become “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” or when people revisit characters first found in L. Frank Baum‘s “Wizard of Oz” books resulting in the musical “Wicked.”

In addition to “Aliens on Ice” the weekend before Thanksgiving gave us local productions including: “Cover to Cover” about creating new stories featuring Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and improvisational theater based on the British TV show “Doctor Who.”

I talked to several people involved in these creative projects. While everyone had a different backstory about coming to the material, the people behind these remixes often said that they were creating projects out of love for the original creative property. Yet, with so much remixing going on, I figured there had to be an underlying reason.

“It’s comfort and creativity in one package” Julie Gillis, 42, said during a phone interview about “Cover to Cover” the Nancy Drew based show where she was co-director.

It was the concept of comfort that caught me.

Our world is a scary place. Unemployment is high and our country has long been conducting multiple foreign wars. Many people are deeply worried about the future.

I think the same underlying economic uncertainty that’s generating Occupy protests across the country is, for other people, motivating them to seek solace in the intellectually familiar.

While Occupy protests took this uncertainly and directed it outwards, I suspect some people—without realizing it—are dealing with this political and economic anxiety by recreating and/or consuming comfortable pop culture properties.

I think this is an “Occupy Pop Culture” movement. It’s driven by the same uncertainty that has put comfort food like mac’n’cheese on the grown-up menu at many American restaurants.

Given the state of the world, who can’t use a little comforting right now?

Being There with Wilco

2011-12-04T18:56:00.021-06:00

Once upon a time (in the early 1990’s) a dude I was smitten with took me to see a band called Uncle Tupelo at Liberty Lunch in Austin, Texas. My date was always broke and had a radio show on the student station, so I know we must have gone because he was on the list!

At the end of the show, I remember my pal walking up to the stage and handing Jeff Tweedy what was (at least in Austin slacker circles) the early 90’s business card of the gently employed. That improvised business card was a torn off portion of his deposit slip-- the part with his phone number on it —for the next time the band was in town. They chatted for a bit while Tweedy was packing up his gear, and my date and I left.

The early 1990's was a time when alt-country was just starting to become a going concern. I may have hopped on the alt-country bandwagon a little more easily than some.

You can take the girl out of Pasadena, but it's hard to take the Pasadena out of the girl. Growing up just outside of Houston, I heard a lot of country music before I was old enough to drive. How chicken-fried was my upbringing? My orthodontist was across the street from Gilley’s, the bar made famous by the movie Urban Cowboy.

The aftermath:

After the Uncle Tupelo show that night, I was impressed enough went out and got Anodyne, the Uncle Tupelo album that the record store had in stock.

Once Tweedy and Jay Farrar of Uncle Tupelo went their different ways, I stuck with Tweedy.

Since that long ago night at Liberty Lunch, I’ve seen a lot of Wilco shows. If the PBS Overheard interview that Tweedy did with Evan Smith earlier this week is any indication, I might remember some of those shows better than Tweedy does!

I couldn’t help thinking about that long-ago night at Liberty Lunch when I saw Wilco tape an episode of the Austin City Limits television show earlier this week at the fancy new ACL Live venue, located not far from the much lamented ghost of Liberty Lunch. From where I was sitting in the mezzanine, it didn’t look like anyone was handing Tweedy torn off slips of paper!

At the ACL taping (scheduled to air on PBS in February) the band covered a lot of material from the early Wilco albums that I'd loved to death.

Since I tend to listen to things on repeat for months, when I’ve listened to something, I’ve really listened to something. Listening to songs that was obsessed with in graduate school brought me back to a very specific time and place.

It turned out that on Twitter at least, people started referring to the ACL taping as the “Wilco rarities” show.

I was lucky to also go to the sold-out public Wilco show the following night. I can’t believe I was lucky enough to hear “Heavy Metal Drummer” “Capitol City” and “Misunderstood” live two nights in a row!

Wilco, for me you are never Outtasite (Outta Mind).

Update (Tuesday, Dec 6) : As my very smart veterinarian pointed out, Tweedy was much more "present" for the PBS taping than he was for the show the public show the next night. (During the taping, Tweedy talked about how some songs hadn't made it to air, despite the fact that they'd played them during previous ACL tapings.) Maybe that was part of what made the taping magical for me.

Also, pictures!

The program for the ACL taping! Squee!

Waiting for Wilco at Austin City Limits

Jeff Tweedy and Evan Smith taping the PBS show "Overheard"

Sounds of the Budapest Subway....

2011-11-20T15:21:00.000-06:00

One of the things I loved most about Budapest was the sounds that the vintage subway made. It's the cutest subway in the world!
I have no idea why these sounds aren't offered as standard text tones on the iPhone!

Samurai Culture is in for Christmas

2011-11-20T12:33:00.006-06:00

A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to spend nearly the whole month of December in Japan. I fell in love with Japanese food--not just sushi--and realized just how little I really know about Japanese history and culture. (Sure, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, I'd taken a class on "Japanese Literature to 1600" but that was really just hitting the highlights!)

During that time in Japan in 2009, I was even lucky enough to spend most of a day exploring Himeji castle, which is located not terribly far from Kyoto.

Coming back to the US, it took a long time for me to reconcile my own impressions of Japan with the way that culture is portrayed in America.

Last week when I stopped by Target, I noticed that several toy designers were also influenced by Japan. And while I'm no more than a tourist in Japan, I was gobsmacked by this piece of colored plastic. Partly because as far as I can tell, it looks far more like a version of a back-lot Chinese castle than it does a feudal Japanese defensive structure.

Just a few toy displays over, I was completely dismayed by the aesthetic choices behind the Samauri outfit that Barbie's main dude Ken was wearing. Why had they put him in dreadful red satin, not in some nice cotton, linen or silk hakama or even in some decent robes?

I know that Mattel is trying to move merchandise and make a large profit, but couldn't they make more of an effort to get their textiles just a bit closer to the era they are representing?

Sigh. Maybe I should go find my copy of The Tale of Genji that I was totally immersed in during my Freshman year at UT. I need something to serve as a palate cleaner after walking through the toy section at the discount retailer.

Ken rocking a disco-samuari look.

Exploring Food as Culture

2011-10-19T14:12:00.002-05:00

Drinks at Haddingtons in Austin, Texas

My husband and I have a modern mixed marriage. My husband cares a great deal about food, while I do not.

Much to my surprise, I am one of those people who goes through the day forgetting to eat. I literally have an alarm on my phone reminding me to eat lunch, though sadly that usually doesn't work.

If I lived alone—or if my husband cared a lot less about food—I would have peanut butter sandwiches every night. If he didn’t cook, I would store sweaters in my vintage oven.

Since I do not live alone, I often end up in some of the city’s best dining rooms.

While I appreciate a good meal that someone else cooks, there is no way that I can write about food the way that most writing about food is done.

However, I spent a long time as a theater critic. I write about culture and society. For a while I’ve been toying with the idea of sharing what passes through my brain when I go out to eat.

This morning, I came across a passage in Sam Sifton’s account of his two years spent reviewing restaurants for The New York Times:

All criticism is argument. Mine has been from the start that restaurants are culture, and that there is no better perch from which to examine our shared values and beliefs, behavior and attitudes, than a seat in a restaurant dining room, observing life’s pageant in the presence of food and drink.

Inspired by Sifton, I am going to make more of an effort to write about the fancy restaurants that I often end up in. I will not be writing about the food—you can get better food writing from a Yelp review than you can get from me—but I will make the effort to cover the culture from a dining chair.

If you want a drink like the one in the picture, head to Haddingtons.
Their grub is way better than a peanut butter sandwich.

CMJ: Someday I am going to be inside you.

2011-10-17T16:02:00.020-05:00

After going to SXSW for the last 10,000 years, I've sometimes thought about going to the CMJ Music Marathon in NYC. Since I'm usually double-booked in October, my going to CMJ is more a fantasy than anything else.

Sure, it's partially because I love the City--because I'm an urban creature and NYC is the urban I love the best-- but that's not all.

I totally admit that I have a bad habit of living in the future. Most of what's on the radio is music that I associate with the past, not the life I'm living now. As such, I'd totally be pleased to see new things at CMJ, and revisit a few old favorites.

TRIAL RUNS: BANDS I HAVEN'T SEEN

If I were going to CMJ 2011, I'd totally want to check out: super-cute Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr and the Miniature Tigers (who both played ACL 2011, though I was busy elsewhere) Fresh Millions, Givers (whom my friends have been raving about), Metronomy, Wild Flag, Morning After Girls, The Wombats, Locksley and J Mascis (whom I'm kind of ashamed that I've never seen, even though I've loved Dinosaur Jr since the dawn of time.)

SECOND CHANCES: BANDS THAT HAVE GOOD PRESS BUT I MIGHT HAVE SEEN AN OFF SHOW

At CMJ I might check out bands who didn't blow me away the first time, but whom I have real hope that the intervening years might have taken to the next level: Titus Andronicus (sloppy and possibly drunk the first time I saw them at a late show on Saturday night at SXSW 2009--which I'd REALLY been looking forward to-- but they've gotten lots of buzz since then), Heloise & The Savoir Faire*, Robbers on High Street (I totally love one of their albums, but, again, they were sloppy and I suspect they were drunk the first time I saw them, years ago at a Fun Fun Fun Fest preshow at the Mohawk in 2008.)

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are nice, and I'd likely catch them again. Truthfully, I don't know how much effort I'd make to see them twice, though I enjoyed them at Fun Fun Fun Fest.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Fun Fun Fun Fest

Heloise & The Savoir Faire at a SXSW day party, 2008.

****MY BANDS NOT TO MISS AT CMJ 11!****:

Of course, there is no way I'd miss seeing the bands I love playing the festival: Twin Shadow, Cloud Nothings, Peelander Z, Shonen Knife, Willie Nile.

While I love singer/songwriter Willie Nile--as does my dad-- I've never seen him live. In this fantasy of me getting to CMJ this year, I suspect Nile would be the only act here that I'd be willing to stand in line in the cold to see. He might be great live, or he might be awful. But since I've driven across the USA with his CD on repeat, I'd really, really try to get in the door.

I'd try to catch We are Scientists again, and I'd try even harder to see Portugal. The Man another time. (They sound great, and their singer John is adorable!)

Depending on time and logistics, I might try and catch Duke Spirit, We Are Augustines, Chairlift, Neon Indian, Gang Gang Dance and Ziggy Marley.

John of Portugal. The Man. I think I'm in love.

Portugal. The Man at Waterloo Records, October 2011

Twin Shadow at the 2011 SXSW Austinist Day Party at the Mohawk.

Cloud Nothings at the 2011 Austinist Party

Cloud Nothings. Note the big 'X' on the underage singer.

Peelander Yellow from the band Peelander Z showing off his dental work while posing with a picture of himself after playing Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas in 2010.

Shonen Knife band member, during their show at Fun Fun Fun Fest 2009.

And when I was in NYC, I'd totally eat at John's Pizzeria on Bleeker, the new digs of the fancy Swedish resturant Aquavit, and maybe even old-school steakhouse Peter Luger, if, oddly I happened to be in a mood for meat when I was in the city.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

If you want to send me to CMJ--and you are willing to loan me your private plane so that I don't have to fly commercial--let me know. Because that's the only way I could fit this into my October schedule!

*Back in 2008, I saw Heloise & The Savoir Faire at a Bust Magazine SXSW crafty party where actor Elijah Wood was DJing from his ipod. That's a day that deserves a blog post of its own. Maybe someday it will have one...

The most ridiculous horoscope EVER.

2011-10-08T11:42:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know that they say that these are for entertainment purposes only, but it's kind of crazy when they promise you a "life-changing" day. This was mine for Thursday.

Aquarius: Daily Extended

Daily Extended for October 6, 2011

Overview

The excitement you feel today might be late in coming, but what it lacks in punctuality it will more than make up for in impact. In short, the universe has something planned for you today that will change your life. Expect a shocker late in the day, and prepare to change your upcoming plans and your schedule significantly. Let the news sink in slowly, and don't go blabbing it all over town. This is your information, and it should stay with you for a while.

Source:
http://shine.yahoo.com/astrology/aquarius/daily-overview/

Here's the Bumper for that Column that I wrote about Scare last year!

2011-09-20T17:54:00.000-05:00

It's September, which means it's totally time to start getting ready for the enormous haunted event SCARE FOR A CURE .

Today I ran across the cell phone bumper that a lot of people from Scare helped make. I wrote about that shoot and SCARE for a column in the Austin-American Statesman last year.

If you want to see the work that it took to do this make-up, check out the Flickr set.

Read Instead

2011-09-08T14:50:00.001-05:00

Read Instead
Originally uploaded by annainaustin

This is from a bookstore in Cambridge, Mass.

Books: The President is a Sick Man

2011-09-08T00:52:00.004-05:00

I really couldn't have picked a worse book to keep me company as I stayed up late with the ouchy results of some long-dreaded dental work. It wasn't that the book was bad, it's that the subject matter was totally wrong for someone with an aching mouth!

Yet despite my unhappy mouth, I had a hard time putting down my copy of "The President Is A Sick Man: Wherein the supposedly virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and vilifies the courageous newspaperman who dared expose the truth" by Matthew Algeo.

In 1893 President Grover Cleveland had a tumor removed from the top of his mouth. In secret. On a yacht. In 1.5 hours. BEFORE THE INVENTION OF ANTIBIOTICS. Or ex rays. Or, or, or..... I feel a bit faint just thinking about it.

I'm far, far too lazy to do a proper review of the book, but it's a well paced tale of a little-known saga from American history.

It's a story located at the nexus of American history, the history of medicine, and the history of journalism. Together it comes to a page-turning beach read for the serious-minded.

Maybe I should pass this book along to my dentist. The pictures of the casts made of the inside of Cleveland's post-surgical mouth (p. 185) were enough to give me the willies.

"The President Is A Sick Man: Wherein the supposedly virtuous Grover Cleveland Survives a Secret Surgery at Sea and vilifies the courageous newspaperman who dared expose the truth." Matthew Algeo, Chicago Review Press, 2011, 1st ed.

Someone Really "Sampled The Dog"

2011-09-02T13:30:00.006-05:00

One of the things I find very curious about music is how stratified it is. If you are 20 something you listen to one kind of music. If you are older, you listen to something else. Bands I'm super-excited about seeing mean nothing to some people I went to college with.
This makes no sense to me.

Yet the fact that I've been listening to music critically for a very long time means that sometimes I see connections no one else does.

Recently the blogosphere was agog with this new song from indie darlings James Blake & Bon Iver. This song incorporates barking. I don't know if this barking is from a dog or a wolf, but it's natural enough to confuse my dog.

My mind lept immediatly to Austin band Tinbuk 3's vintage tune "Sample The Dog." This song came out a year before wee wunderkind Blake was born.

There's the off chance that you might know Tinbuk 3 from their song
"The Future's So Bright, I've Gotta Wear Shades."

Other people write about Latvia!

2011-09-01T18:15:00.005-05:00

One of the curious things about regularly visiting a small country where you don't speak the language is that when you leave, it's like the country--except for your friends-- vanishes from your world. Good luck if you want to know anything about the elections, or the economy, or which politician is divorcing his wife.

But in the last couple of days, I've bumped across two interesting articles about Latvia and/or Latvians. Both of them are in English!

This is a New York Times story about bad boy tennis player Ernests Gulbis.

This is a first-person account in the Wall Street Journal of a trip to Latvia by Kathy Reichs, the writer of the TV show "Bones." Reichs is married to a Latvian.

Who knew?

Update: I also found a link to new book about the Estonian ambassador during the cold war.

Shopping in the Junior's Department....(aka...You can go home again!)

2011-08-29T15:50:00.004-05:00

When I was in Pasadena earlier this summer, I popped into the Pasadena Town Square Mall with my mother. It's the mall that was built near my parents house in the early 80's.

If you include the Foley's that was there before the rest of the mall was built, this is where I bought most of my clothing from elementary through high school. (To be honest, this is where my family bought most of my clothing... but I did get more of a say in it as I got older!)

Waiting for my mother to get her hair done at the mall this past June, I dropped in on the junior's department of the former Foley's (now Macy's) where I'd bought a bunch of things that I loved to death in junior high.

Crazily enough--due to the downturn in Pasadena's economy--the space looks exactly like it did when I was in junior high! Down to the holder on the wall where you put the random pins that you pull out of new clothing!

Thanks to the fact that I have a very short torso, some of the clothing in the junior's department actually fits me better than some "grown-up" clothing. So when I was there, I actually bought a couple of things.

Today I'm wearing one of the tank tops I bought there. In some ways, I'm sad that it doesn't look the same way on me as it might have when I was 13.

While I love the cut of this tank top, the scratchy fabric that it's made of helps explain why my junior high experience totally sucked.

Luckily my quality of life is a lot higher now that I'm not 13!

BOOKS: "One Day." Reading the book moments before the movie came out!

2011-08-19T17:55:00.011-05:00

On my way back to Austin from my summer adventures, I read the novel One Day by David Nicholls. I read it in pretty much one giant gulp.

While I had toyed with the idea of buying the book a number of times--at both the airport and at Target--I didn’t do it until a European dude recommended it to me. Later, when I told him I was reading it, he said that he hoped I loved it.

Which is a very unusual thing for a straight man to say, or, at least, it would be an odd thing for a straight American man to say.

In America, One Day would be termed “chick lit.” It’s in the pink ghetto of writing marketed to women, mostly because it deals with the emotional lives of people. In America, mass-market literature about feelings is pretty much the providence of women. I don’t generally see straight dudes reading books where the characters have feelings, but that could be because I live in the machismo-poisoned land of Texas.

If you've missed picking up the book, the premise is that Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley kind of hook up in 1988 at the end of their studies in Edinburgh. The book follows their friendship over the next 20 years, dropping in on both of them each July 15th, which happens to be St. Swithin’s Day. Sometimes there are big changes from year to year in each of their lives, sometimes there aren't.

I really enjoyed One Day, although, in some ways, it was strange reliving tidbits of the 80’s. (In 1988, as Dexter rags on “that Tracy Chapman tape” I knew exactly how annoying and overplayed it was at the time!)

With the movie of One Day hitting American theaters today, it’s unlikely that you’ll read the book the same way I did. It’s unlikely you will be able to, say, project yourself into Emma's shoes, as those have been already been cinematically filled by Anne Hathaway.

If you see the film before reading the book, then it’s unlikely that you will substitute your own half-grown partyboy pal as a placeholder for Dexter.

It’s also unlikely that you will have your own wish-fulfillment fantasy on an airplane while speeding through the book, complete with an era-appropriate soundtrack dredged from your personal version of 80’s. (For me, that would mean "Disenchanted" by The Church playing in your head while you are reading the book.)

Since I'm totally against spoilers, I can only say that I really enjoyed the book, until reading myself into the book came to a sudden halt.

With the movie coming out today, your mileage certainly might vary.

If you want other takes on the book, you can find them here, here, here and here.

PS:

It's too late for my complaining to mean anything to anyone else, but they totally should have cast mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig as Emma!

This is the song that was running through my head as I read the parts of One Day where Dexter is being a cokehead cad:

How do you know you were late to a book party? When the cover of the book you bought looks exactly like the poster for the film!

PPS: I forgot to mention it, but this is one of the few modern novels that is at all epistolary.

Reviews of the film have been HORRIBLE. Check out this one. Or Anne Hathaway defending her performance.

FILM: BELLFLOWER (2011) is a Bad Bromance

2011-08-17T21:57:00.008-05:00

The car from the film visiting Austin, Texas during SXSW 2011

Last week I saw the movie BELLFLOWER, which, based on the trailers and the general buzz about the film following Sundance, I had totally expected to love.

Instead I was disappointed by this pre-apocalyptic bromance of a film.

Since I’m totally against spoilers, I’ll just let you know that the film is about two angry dudes in their early 20’s who like to blow things up, and deal with their feelings by blowing things up.

I have no problems with dudes blowing things up. The @madspark is one of my real-life friends, and he blows things up on a regular basis, partly because he can think of cool ways to do just that.

Maybe it’s a good movie to see if you are an angry dude. But not if you are a woman.

My husband didn’t care for the film much either, and he likes DIY pyrotechnics an awful lot.

The MEDUSA, outside the Alamo Ritz, SXSW 2011

I Don't Want To Go To The Dentist

2011-08-16T10:27:00.003-05:00

When I was in high school, I had the most traumatic dental experience of anyone I know. Stop reading now if that sort of thing makes you uncomfortable.

When I was 15 years-old, I needed to have my impacted wisdom teeth removed. Since my mother was adamant that I shouldn't be "put to sleep" for this--as was the recommended procedure-- she found someone who was willing to take these teeth out under local anesthesia. This was a very bad thing for me.

When I got to the dentist’s office, they shot me full of Novocain—but then someone with a dental emergency came in. That person was taken care of before me.

When the dentist started working on me about an hour later, I still had the gas (Nitrous Oxide), but the Novocain was starting to wear off. I stood it as long as I could, but he didn’t notice the tears dripping out of my eyes. (To put this in perspective, you should know that I was still dancing then, and my pain threshold was a lot higher then than it is now.)

Since the teeth were impacted—meaning they were grown into the bone—it took a lot of physical work to get them out. The dentist broke a drill bit in my mouth, and I remember him swearing at it. But it felt like he was swearing at me.

I’d finally had enough, and I locked myself in the bathroom of the dental office and refused to come out. (In my defense, when I was 15 this felt like the sensible and logical thing to do.)

My father eventually talked me into coming out of the bathroom and letting the dentist finish (!) –reassuring me that they would give me more Novocain, and that it wouldn’t hurt anymore.

After a couple of weeks, one side of my mouth had healed fine from this, but the other side took months to stop being puffy.

Years later, via an X-ray, another dentist found that I still had that broken-off piece of drill bit in my jaw. It’s now “encapsulated” which means that the jawbone has grown around it. Apparently, having a piece of drill bit left in your jaw by a bad dentist is very unusual.

I heard later that the trauma-causing dentist both had a coke problem and shot himself a few years after my traumatic dental experience, but I can’t confirm either of those things.

So I hope that you can see why I don’t want to go the dentist today, even though I need to have a crown put on a cracked back tooth!

The Space Shuttle I Knew

2011-08-05T09:34:00.003-05:00

*If I hadn't been too lazy to drag my laptop to a Latvian coffee shop with a decent Internet connection, this would have been published on July 21st. But I was lazy.

When I was in elementary school, the space shuttle was doing piggy-back test flights. During one of these low-altitude test flights, the shuttle flew over my school in Deer Park, Texas, located not too far from the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake.

I was outside when the shuttle flew overhead. In the only incidence of mass hysteria I’ve ever been part of, all of the kids who were playing outside began to run after the shuttle. The teachers, with their longer, grown-up legs, sprinted to cut off the mass of children before they dispersed into the long grass of the field next door, explaining that we could never catch it. When they admonished us, they were panting from a combination of spring heat and exertion.

Not long afterward, I remember holding a shuttle radio antenna that my dad had made for NASA. (That’s the triangle piece on the very front of the shuttle, part of the black nosecone of the vehicle. It fit in the palm of my hand.)

The first time the space shuttle launched (in the early 80's), I was in my elementary school cafeteria. There was an entire school of children crowded around one television set, and, if you squinted at the tiny image all the way across the room, you could see the white shape move across the blue sky on the television screen. For those of us in the back who couldn’t really see the TV, the teachers announced when the shuttle had launched.

In high school in La Porte, Texas, I was in a current events class just after we found out that Challenger had exploded. The teacher had been at a BBQ at Commander Scobee’s house the week before. She was sobbing while trying to keep control of the class, before going home early that day.

But this July, I was standing on the sidewalk with my Latvian friend outside a radio station Riga, Latvia, when someone came by and told us that the space shuttle had just landed for the last time. It’s a radio station that I sometimes listen to on the Internet.

If you’d told me thirty years ago where I’d be standing when such a moment occurred, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Would you?

Stepping through a NYC winter

2011-07-02T16:23:00.001-05:00

Stepping through a NYC winter
Originally uploaded by annainaustin

I just found this photo while I was cleaning up my photo collection. It makes me happy.

A Video with Duke and Chuckie

2011-06-30T16:08:00.003-05:00

Last time they were here, my Latvian houseguests made a video about Duke and Charlie.

We lost Chuckie this past August (at the age of 10), and we lost Duke this week (he was 13). But since I never take video myself, I'm so glad my houseguests made this, so I can see both of them together and happy.

FOOD: New England Seafood

2011-06-16T00:10:00.019-05:00

I spent last week seeing the sights of New England with my family. Being that it's my family, it included a lot of stops for noshing. (And a few stops for shopping.)

Pictured on the left is a really awesome tie that I totally wish I'd bought at Building 19--(which is a New England cross between Goodwill, the dollar store and a scratch and dent joint--but the glory that is Building 19 deserves a blog post of its own!)

Here are a few of the places where we went last week on our quest to eat our way through New England:

Red's Eats

While I'm partial to the lobster roll joint on the bridge in Kennebunkport I realize that there are other places you can eat this delicacy.

Red's Eats is one of the other top places where you can get lobster on a bun, with nothing but mayo and butter to set it off. I love a lobster shack far more than a fancy lobster place!

It looked like Red's Eats might have been included in the book, "1000 Places To See Before You Die."

One of the things you may not know about my home life is that my sweetie is addicted to fried clams. And when I say addiction, I mean addiction. On one trip up north, we had to pay a visit to a real ER. The diagnoses: an overdose of fried clams. Honest.

As a result of this addiction, we often pilgrimage to what is often considered to be the best friend clam in the world: The Clam Box. (It's quality over volume these days for my sweetie.)

But of course, these weren't the only seafood places we ate. Here are some other seafood pic's after the jump:

Lobsters at Gilmore's Seafood, Bath Maine

I think my sweetie used to give the Pollock he caught to the cat.

FILM: Madness at the Movies

2011-06-14T12:39:00.004-05:00

Recently, I've watched both the French film Seraphine (2008) and the most recent cinematic version of Jane Eyre.

The representation of madness in these films couldn't be much different.

In Seraphine--based on the real life of primitive artist "Séraphine de Senlis"--we watch as the painter slowly goes madder and madder, and is later committed to the asylum where she dies. At no point is her madness is she attractive. She is a peasant who paints her way out of poverty, only to leave the world of sense and reality.

In the current Jane Eyre, the madwoman in the attic is crazily beautiful, passionately attached to her husband, vile to Jane, and beautiful in an eerie and otherworldly way. She's a heiress fallen on bad times.

What does the difference between these two versions of madness mean? Heck if I know.

Sometimes I just observe, without having an answer for everything.

Yankeeland: Tips for the Southerner

2011-06-11T08:58:00.004-05:00

For the last week, I've been in Yankeeland with my family.
I've hung out with my extended family in a grouping that's too complex to try and detail to anyone who doesn't already know them. Let's just say that ages range from 2.5 to over 70...and we like to book a nice early table for dinner.
This trip has included both the northern and southern branches of my family.
It's strange, because I forget how different things were to adjust to when I first started coming north many years ago.

So, as a primer, here are some of the things that I've been explaining to my southern family:

10 Tips for a Southerner Visiting the Northeast in the "Summer."

1. If you want a Southern milkshake, order a frappe.
2. People here actually eat baked beans...and they are actually served for breakfast in a few places.
3. It's June, but school is still in session.
4. The concept of "Summer" really gets rolling around July 4th.
5. Noon is the hottest part of the day. (In Texas, it's at 4 p.m.)
6. Chowder, Lobster and Revere are said without an "r" and with a short "a" at the end.
7. It's taken me nearly 20 years to get close to the right way to pronounce the towns North of Boston. I'm still iffy. Don't be surprised when people can't understand where you mean!
8. Dunkin' Donuts coffee is nearly a religion.
9. Just pretend agree with the locals when they tell you it's hot.
10. A "Water Fountain" is sometimes known as a "Bubbler."

A few more pictures, after the jump

Yankee Boy Scout badge.

Wonder what Paul Revere thought of this place when he rode by?

I'm in Yankeeland!

2011-06-09T10:31:00.001-05:00

Originally uploaded by annainaustin

I love this picture, taken just outside of Freeport Maine.

Hanging Out With Keith Richards...the Don Draper of Rock 'n' Roll

2011-05-06T02:30:00.021-05:00

While I was sick with post SXSW-crud, I spent a lot of the time in my cough-medicine haze sucking down the 547 pages of Keith Richards very readable autobiography, Life.

Nearly every publication on the planet reviewed the book when it came out last fall, so I won't bother giving you the reviews you can read nearly anywhere, like here and here.

Yet, despite the acres of print generated by the publication of the book, I don't know if anyone else read it the same way I did.

Personally I was amazed by reading Richards' account of growing up in post-war England, and realizing that, if he ever sat down with my dad, the two of them could have a great time talking about what it was like growing up right after the war. (With only six years difference between them, they're practically the same generation.) Between the rationed candy and the horse-drawn traffic that Richards remembers in post-war London, it's clear that he's from a bygone time. "London to me when I grew up was horse shit and coal smoke," Richards said (p. 33).

Also, Richards was an avid Boy Scout. Who knew?

I suspect some of that hands-on Boy Scout training came in useful later, when Richards made his first amps, hacking them from radio parts (p. 89), and later re-assembling his own amps when they fell apart. (I suspect if you ever need to hot -wire a car, Richards is your man.)

Yet from his descriptions of his involvement in the Boy Scouts to talking about his current life, I was even more amazed at what a totally male world that Keith Richards seems to live in. In the entire book, the only women he describes are his manager, his family members, his lovers and one singer he worked with in Jamaica.

What you get throughout the book are the various descriptions of the women who took care of Richards. Women who cooked for him, cleaned for him, and got him off. Some of the lovely and talented women in his life included: Ronnie Spector, Anita Pallenberg, Patti Hansen--and hordes of kind women who fed him and looked after him over his life. But, frustratingly, it's clear that Richards is from the Don Draper era of Rock 'n' Roll.

Reading the book, I kept waiting for Richards to talk about a female keyboard player he worked with, a brilliant songwriter he met, or, well, nearly anyone he worked who didn't have a penis. But that just isn't the case, except for a little work he's done with former love Ronnie Spector. His creative world is a world of men.

Richards clearly likes women just fine, but as he represented himself in his book, he just doesn't see them when they aren't taking care of him and/or when he doesn't want to sleep with them. And that makes me sad.

His longtime manager Jane Rose must be a bloody saint.

It's easy to forget that the modern world of Rock'n'Roll was born during the Mad Men era. The time when the fictional Don Draper ruled Madison Avenue was the same era when the Beatles put out their first album, and when the Rolling Stones were born. It was a world where women were often relegated to the sidelines.

Thanks Keith for reminding me about a not-quite-vanished era. For all of the hoopla about Richards being a folk hero, he's just an ordinary guy who is a product of the era he grew up in.

*Page citations are from the first edition, 10th printing, hardback edition of Life, by Keith Richards. (2010, Little Brown)

Thoughts on the Royal Wedding...

2011-04-29T19:06:00.003-05:00

Love is a very strange thing. Getting up insanely early this morning to watch the Royal Wedding in my PJ’s, I couldn’t help thinking about all the ways that we structure and regulate love in modern society, mostly because of the institution of marriage.

Most of the world agrees that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, that it can only be between two people, that it's nicest when it's accompanied by a big cake and a bigger white dress.

This is strange when we think about the ways that love is often fluid, changeable and crazily life-altering.

People don't fall in love for rational reasons, but they often enter into a legal contract because of it.

Yet, the institution of marriage has been described as “the only contract that you can’t get out of without the state’s permission.”

Yet, even given the bitter backstory with the groom’s own parents, I couldn’t help thinking that Kate has just married a job that she can never really leave.

In many ways, it’s the same thing as Bella becoming a vampire in the Twilight series. One ceremony with the magical prince, and you can never, never, never go back to your old life.

Poor Kate, I hope it works out for her.

Of course, I want to believe in the fairy tale for her. Yet, she might be wise to remember Sarah Ferguson. She was the center of the last royal wedding of this scope…and she wasn’t even invited to this ceremony.

Oh look, more pictures on the Internets!

2011-04-19T22:05:00.006-05:00

When I told my sweetie that someone else was using some of my pictures to illustrate an article on Latvia, he quipped that it must be the cousin of one of my friends there!

I guess anything is possible!
(Scroll down to the end of that article to see my pictures!)

Then again, here's a picture of the Latvian band Brainstorm playing SXSW, on their Wikipedia (Vikipēdijas) page.

And a picture of Latvian seafood illustrating another Latvian article ...

There's also my picture illustrating an article on hotels in Japan.

I Haven't Been to England Since Clinton was President.

2011-03-30T22:24:00.004-05:00

***A note to my regular readers: the following blog post is my entry in the Blog Away contest. With luck, I'll be blogging about the Royal Wedding firsthand, not from what I see on the telly:

I haven't been to England since Clinton was in office, and I realize that this is a very long time to avoid visiting a country where they nearly speak the same language. The upcoming Royal Wedding has made me realize that I might have missed a few things in England.

Then again, the England that I visited in the 1990’s needed changes. In 1992, I stayed in a London hostel so squalid that, when I locked the bathroom door to take an early morning shower, I found a line of livid strangers outside the bathroom door.

Reporter Sarah Lyall moved to England in the mid-1990's, and has illustrated the changes in English society in her book The Anglo Files. I’m curious to see these societal changes firsthand. I just never again want to be facing a long line of hostel strangers in my towel.

Sure, I’ve got several girlfriends who’ll be spending time in England this July. Alas, their trip falls during my annual pilgrimage to Latvia.


Faux-Brit tearoom during SXSW 2011.

If I’m blogging during the Royal Wedding, you can expect that I’ll blog, Tweet, and post pictures to my Flickr account. The adventure might be documented at www.anna-hanks.com .

If I go to the Royal Wedding, I hope to find something classier than this!

Still recovering from SXSW...but my pictures are busy on the Internet!

2011-03-26T12:12:00.008-05:00

Like a lot of people, I'm still recovering from SXSW, specifically the SXSW-crud.
Putzing around on the internet in my feverish state, I found some of my pictures were on a site called the Flickr Hive Mind.
Who knew?

It also turns out that one of my pictures (of a famous pig statue) is used to illustrate this gallery walk in Riga.

And illustrating an article on "Where to Eat Tourist Free" during SXSW.

I also found a link to a story I wrote in 1999 about the Estonian artist Juri Arrak, but it's behind a Baltic Times paywall. This reminds me that when I was writing the story, I took a gazillion pictures of Arrak posing with his dogs and his paintings in his studio. Maybe I should scan those pictures and put them on Flickr?

Latvia: The Land of 24 Hour Party People...that I met at SXSW.

2011-03-15T17:10:00.009-05:00

Riga graffiti.

It's strange the impact that South By Southwest can have on our lives, in ways that sometimes go far beyond the music.

View of Riga.

In 2006, I did a story for The Baltic Times about the Latvian singer-songwriter Goran Gora, who came for a SXSW showcase that year. He played at the now-defunct club Spiro's (on Red River) to a crowd that I could've comfortably fit into my living room. Since I'm a terrible interviewer, I asked if I could shadow Goran around the festival for the article. I inadvertently bonded with Gora's posse, something that's never happened with other sources.
Mix that accidental bonding with some quickly-expiring frequent flier miles, the offer of a place to crash, and the fact that I briefly worked in Estonia, and you have a hell of a road trip. Especially when it's a road trip I now seem to take on a very regular basis.

Stone face in Old Town Riga.

I freely admit that that this sort of road trip is unusual. When I confess I’ve visited Latvia the last three summers, I usually get a double-take like I’ve revealed I’d repeatedly been to Rumpelstiltskinland, Oompa-Loompastein or Unicornworld. I'd get fewer strange looks by claiming routine jaunts to the moon.

Since fairly few Americans get to that tiny Baltic country, I’m a bit unusual there. Combine my relative exotic-ness with the fact that many of my Latvian friends are the “make the party happen” folks in the region—and you have a recipe for a certain amount of craziness. And frankly, it’s a place with an absurd amount of craziness to spare. After all, the bars in Latvia aren’t even required to close, as long as they have the right license!

Riga graffiti.

Given the typically beautiful weather during the short Latvian summer (contrasted with the long and literally dark winter), summer means that many people in the Baltic States appear to be on a skin, beer and sunlight binge, steeping themselves in what they can’t get the rest of the year. Summer in Latvia is usually like March/October weather in Austin. Sure, there was a heat wave in Latvia this past summer (bars ran out of beer, stores ran out of fans); but this was accompanied by a siege mentality emphasizing this was highly unusual!

Just as we have our annual spring Bacchanalian rites/drunkfest and our fall music festival season here in the ATX, summer is festival season in Latvia.

This past summer, I was lucky enough to go to both the “punk” Fonofest which could easily be compared to Fun Fun Fun Fest and the more mainstream Positivus festival
which feels a lot like the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

The mellow green space of Fonofest.

My friend Toms Grevins was playing a DJ set at Fonofest, and asked me if I wanted to join him. He arranged for me to catch a ride with the band Astro’n’out (pronounced “Astronaut”). Traveling from Riga to the countryside in a bronze Ford minivan, we chatted in English while drinking some sort of unfiltered beer out of an unlabeled bottle. Astro’n’out took the stage not long after we arrived, with Mara’s huge and lovely voice filtering between the birch trees.
Astro’n’out was followed by the awesome ska band Voiceks Voiska whose set was more fun than the last show I saw by The Toasters!

Skyforger at Fonofest

Fonofest was headlined by an absurd Latvian heavy metal pagan act who dress exactly like the guys from the Capital One ads!
I’m told Skyforger plays electrified versions of historically accurate Latvian instruments while singing about Latvian history, but I’m in no position to personally validate that claim. I'm told they are kind of a big deal in metal in Europe.

Skyforger

Much the way Fun Fun Fun Fest has both a punk mainstage and smaller-draw electronica acts playing at the same time, Fonofest scheduled a dance-tent alternative to the heavy sounds on the mainstage.

Thus opposite the huge draw of Skyforger, my friend Toms was playing the DJ tent at Fonofest. I’ve known Grevins for several years, and, during that time, he’s grown increasingly famous in Latvia. (At the Baltic Beach Party in the tiny town of Liepaja, Latvia, in 2009, I was surprised when we were briefly chased by a gaggle of girls who were were literally running after us while we quickly pedaled away on our bikes!) However, this past summer I was more surprised by the reaction of people who just want to be around him.

Grevins at Fonofest.

Being around Grevins gives me an idea of what it's like to live with disruptive fame. Though I knew he was a public figure, I was really surprised the first time I saw strangers walking up to us to say hello. These days I'm less confused when people greet Grevins by name on the street, but he doesn't stop to chat. These are his fans. To give you an example of what we're talking about, when I was backstage at ACL, I nabbed Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips to call and say hello to Grevins, who's a huge fan of the band. That impulsive phone call made the Latvian tabloids.
With apologies to Wreckless Eric when I think of Grevins, I think of a shark in a goldfish bowl, with everyone looking in at the exhibit. Walking around the streets of Riga with him--and generating the odd flashmob caused by his presence--I totally understand how someone like Charlie Sheen could go batshit crazy. (Frankly, I was kind of wigged out by people who wanted to talk to me--or sit with me-- just because I had been hanging with Grevins.)

Grevins lost his voice not long before his Fonofest show, and --after helping him apply stage makeup with the Flashlight app on my phone--I ended up giving the introduction we'd written to the crowd. The tent where Grevins was playing was so packed that I ended up dancing backstage when I wasn’t taking pictures. Along with his petite DJ friend Agata Melnikova and another sweet-faced girl, later that night we ended up pretending to be security to drunken patrons who wanted to take pictures with Grevins while he was onstage! Even though the three of us looked like we were more of a menace to a shoe sale than a real security detail, I learned that a black hoodie and a scowl can go a long way in certain circumstances. Drunk people will believe anything!


People at Positivus painted these panels

Then came Positivus:

The weekend after Fonofest was Positivus, which has turned into the largest festival in the Baltics. With Muse headlining the seaside festival this summer, it turned into the Latvian event of the season. As numerous Latvian acquaintances explained, they hadn't originally planned on going to the festival. Yet when they learned everyone else was going, they had to go as well!

I didn't meet Muse, but I did peek into their dressing room at Positivus.

While Muse played ACL this past fall, many people in Latvia were far more excited about Muse playing Positivus than many Austinites were about the combined ACL lineup! The Muse show was much the same as they did at Austin City Limits festival a few months later.

The Gin Riots

One of my favorite acts at Positivus this past summer was the British act The Gin Riots, which Linda, one of the Positivus organizers, told me she'd seen at SXSW 2010.
If you get a chance, check out the toothsome Guy and his tight ~~pants~~, er tunes. They'll be back in Austin for SXSW 2011!

After the Gin Riots, I saw the Happy Mondays, a Manchester band maybe best known for their song "24 hour Party People." I even saw fans of the band holding up homemade banners with the song title on it.

At Positivus, I chose to see Grevins do a DJ set from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., meaning that I only got a few hours of sleep.

Positivus at 5 in the morning.

I thought this would be a terrible slot for Grevins' show to be in, but I was totally wrong. At 4:30 in the morning, I ended up perching on a side-stage speaker case, in order to stay out of the melee. Seeing everyone dancing and jumping onstage well into the breakfast hours was crazy, but, even crazier was the amount of determined fun still going on when I stumbled backstage to crash for a few hours in an temporarily unoccupied festival dressing room. While there were still quite a few people partying at 6:30 on a Saturday morning, I saw several who'd clearly passed out where they were partying, and were sleeping it off. Friday night really is the biggest party night in Latvia. Suddenly, I understood why fans of the Happy Mondays had been holding up signs reading "24 Hour Party People." It wasn't just because of the song, it seemed closer to a mantra.

Partygoers at Positivus.

To explain the party scene at Positivus, imagine if Zilker Park didn’t kick everyone out of the park overnight during ACL, if there was camping nearby, and that the population was used to the bars not closing. Positivus has an intensity of partying that you just don’t see in the States, even at Mardi Gras. “It’s like people out there are partying with a screw loose,” said one native English-speaker who was hanging out drinking backstage at Positivus.

Keeping the Positivus party going.

Given the economic woes of Latvia these days, I can’t say I blame them. (A friend who lives in the region quipped that the reason Positivus 2010 was so crowded was that none of these people had jobs to go to on Monday!) Yet after going to Positivus this past summer, ACL felt a lot like a Sunday school picnic.

One of the strangest things about Positivus this past summer was something that I’ve never seen at a music festival outside of Latvia. Everyone—absolutely everyone—seemed to be falling in love, or at least hooking up. I started feeling like I was at Spring Break at Daytona Beach or Padre Island.

I’d noticed the same thing when I’d gone to Latvia’s Baltic Beach Party in 2009…but I hadn’t seen that sort of thing at Positivus when I’d been there in 2008 or 2009. It was so obvious that even Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters commented on it during their set, when he talked about how sweet it was, that he’d noticed everyone there falling in love!

Meeting the Scissor Sisters:

In my own small way, I think I made the Positivus party happen for someone else. At Fonofest, I’d spent a lot of time with the DJ Melnikova, who is a big, big, big fan of the Scissor Sisters. When it came time for the Scissor Sisters press conference at Positivus, I asked the PR person if I could bring in a huge fan of the band to help me with my questions. Since journalists in the region tend to be very shy about asking questions—and it’s very easy for me to ask more questions during a press conference than anyone else—she let me bring in a guest!

The Scissor Sisters plus Agata Melnikova.

When the Scissor Sisters walked in, I’m pretty certain that Melnikova was the most excited person in the room. She was nearly jumping up and down before the band entered, and she was thrilled to ask the band a question about who designed their clothing. Afterwards, she posed for pictures with the band, got them to sign her CD, and took a picture of me and Ana Matronic. She was so thrilled to be there, other people ended up taking pictures of her! She even managed to plant a kiss on Shears' cheek when I wasn't looking!

The Scissor Sisters press conference at Positivus was the most fun I’ve ever had at a formal press event. Usually those things feel like someplace where no one really wants to be, because it’s a work event for everyone. Yet the Scissor Sisters seemed loose and happy. Shears described the Positivus crowd as “Young, sexy, fun” then told a great story about a time he was performing in Paris in a teeny-tiny outfit, and looked down to find his balls hanging out!

Agata Melnikova/Jake Shears.

Soon after that press conference, I witnessed a huge audience gathered to watch Goran Gora, the singer-songwriter whom I'd met at SXSW. There were lots of people dancing to his huge-in-the-Baltics song "A Dance Away." That's a long way from the tiny crowd at Spiro's where I first saw him.

Goran Gora.

That's fitting, because Gora's songs seem to have grown since I met him. Since I know he got married to Mara (from Astro 'n' out) perhaps I choose to see his songs as far happier than they once were. Also, he now has a band, which often makes a singer-songwriter sound less mournful.

Right after coming back to Austin, I spent most of September driving around with Goran's new CD in my car player, repeatedly playing "Silly Tunes" over and over while driving up and down Lamar. I might be the only person on the planet who hears that duet, and is reminded of the vocal interplay between Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. (You can hear the tune on Gora’s MySpace page, and judge for yourself.)

Goran Gora @ I Love You

Given that Goran mixed quite a few of the drinks I had in Latvia at his dayjob at the I Love You bar in Riga, I feel it's only fitting that I think of Goran every time I pull into the parking lot at Spider House, which has the closest vibe to ILY of any place in Austin. Even more fittingly, Spider House is where I've had my lunch order taken by Mike Wiebe, the singer from the Riverboat Gamblers.

Singers with large followings and dayjobs in places that serve strong drink. Some things are the same all over the world.

It's Time For SXSW again:

Given that SXSW is again upon us, and I have a whole schedule of new people to meet and new experiences to have, I'm a little afraid of what impact this SXSW might have on my life. After all, I'm booked to go to Latvia in July.

PS: If your band is approached by people who claim they are organizing a music festival in Latvia, please don't think that you're having a vision caused by an open bar. Such a thing really exists. I have it on good authority that least a few people from Positivus will be combing the alleys of SXSW 2011, trying to figure out what will play in Latvia.

Scroll down for more pictures of Latvia:

Riga summer dawn @ 4 a.m.


Green space in Riga.

Riga building decoration.

Keeping Riga public transit running with clean rails.

Retired Riga weathervane,

Art above a Riga street.

It's not 1971, but you do see these on the street. Sometimes.

Free poncho at an outdoor show!

These Youth Song Festival participants are more likely to be found on Latvian tourist postcards.

Update: For my Latvian friends who might have never seen Fun Fun Fun Fest here's a video:

Vintage Treasures From Deep Inside My Brain.

2011-03-06T16:09:00.002-06:00

As a few of you may have noticed, my proper web site has recently had a redesign. As part of this, I spent some time delving through my hard drive, looking for saved copies of a few things.

In doing so, I found some seriously vintage items I'd forgotten about. Some of it--like a journal from when I was 19--were kind of horrifying.

Luckily, I also found a few things from a pre-digital era that I thought I would share with you, including a poem or two that I actually still like, and what was a Medievalist meme that was passed around on paper in the mid 90's.

Yes, there was more stuff in there, but I'm sparing you most of it.

Who knows, there may be more vintage treasures to come!

Time to Return to the Well of Elvis Costello-ness.

2011-03-01T12:06:00.004-06:00

Just days after I moved to Austin, I walked into the now-defunct Sound Exchange on the drag. It was so long ago, that Daniel Johnston hadn't even painted what was to become the iconic frog on the side of the building! In what turned out to be a transformative moment because that's where I first heard Elvis Costello playing over the store's speakers.

Over the next few weeks, I snatched up used cassettes of most of his albums. Among the albums I either never got --or never really listened to--was Truth. Not surprising, since I was 18 at the time. Rob Sheffield has recently encouraged me to revisit this album.

I was a little surprised that I never saw what Sheffield saw in this album. But you know, I'm open to new things, or rediscovering old things from artists that I really, really like.

Here's a video of one of the songs from the album:

Apple Fixed My Three Year-Old Laptop For FREE!

2011-02-26T15:32:00.010-06:00

Brokeback MacBook

For the last couple of years, I've been living with a hairline crack on the right side of my 13-inch MacBook. This didn't surprise me, because my MacBook lives a hard life: it's been to more airports and countries than some laptops half its age. It's so full of pictures that tech support had to insert more memory to make it functional. In short, it works for a living, instead of lying around as a pampered and spoiled laptop.

In order to deal with this worsening problem--and being someone with a gift for sweeping issues under the rug--I had placed a cute tiger sticker over the crack when I was in Japan in 2009. If the defect got worse, I didn't want the plastic piece falling off and getting lost!

The broken corner, January 2011.

This past January, the sticker fell off. To no one's surprise, not long afterwards, the plastic corner piece finally fell off. It happened when I was staying in Boston. I spent at least a solid hour looking for the missing piece in my little niece's very tidy bedroom, even shaking her Hello Kitty sheets to see if I could find the missing piece! No luck, the tiny plastic triangle was gone forever.

The jagged edge was slightly uncomfortable on the inside of my wrist, as well as being hopelessly tacky. With SXSWi coming up, I didn't mind being the girl with the near-vintage laptop at the tech-toys festival...I minded being the girl with the visibly broken vintage laptop. There are limits!

When I ducked into the heated Apple store on NYC's Fifth Avenue on a cold day-- to see if I could buy a replacement for the top piece of plastic--I was told that this cracked corner was a known issue and that I should make a "Genius Bar" appointment. So when I got back to Austin, I did just that.

Visiting The Doctor

When I took my laptop in--and they told me it was really three years old--I expected to be laughed at. When the dude at the Genius Bar added that he's never seen a crack exactly like mine.... I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Yet, when he plugged my laptop into the system and looked at the history, it turned out that my laptop was covered! He even grabbed another brittle bit from next to the camera (a defective part I hadn't even noticed) and pulled it off! He told me that they'd be replacing all the plastic on the inside of the computer (including the keyboard and trackpad), that it would take 1-3 days and that I wouldn't have to pay anything.

Ta da! The corner is no longer broken!

When I picked up my repaired laptop, my sweetie noticed that the replaced pieces (i.e. basically all the plastic on the inside of the laptop) are slightly gray in tone compared to the brighter white of the original keyboard/trackpad etc.

I wish I'd known about this Apple repair earlier! I lived with an annoying crack/sticker for a long time, when I didn't need to.

When I picked up the repair, the girl who helped me said that she had the same model of MacBook, and that she'd had her own laptop's parts replaced twice!

Who knew?

Umm, actually Apple knew. And they didn't bother to let me know that my problem might be covered.

Sometimes I Think Too Much

For the last seven years, I've had a Volvo SUV that was one of the first models off the production line when they first rolled out their SUV's. Being among the first production models, it has had *a lot* of recalls, the most notable of them being a fuel pump. I don't have a problem with the recalls, as the truck has a gazillion miles on it, and I'm happy having Volvo wanting to replace parts for free. (There's nothing wrong with a free fuel pump for a vehicle with over 100,000 miles!) The dealer always washes the car as well, so I sort of like getting those Volvo recall notices in the mail!

Apple knows what I bought, and they certainly aren't shy about emailing with marketing information. But with an issue like this, I never heard a word.

Tweeting about this problem only brought offers from my Tweeps to fix it with duct tape, but no rumors about this being a problem that Apple might fix.

The broken corner is all better now!

So Apple, I'm really, really glad you fixed this problem. But would it have killed you to let me know that this might *be* a problem?

The original crack appeared when the laptop was but a mere 6 months old, and I didn't deal with it because I thought this product was out of warranty.

Earlier this week, my sweetie saw a girl at Southwestern University who had a laptop that looked just like mine, but with a delaminating corner. When he talked to her, she said she was thinking about getting a new laptop. He told her to make an appointment with the Genius Bar, to see about getting it fixed!

Because having a company stand behind what they sold you the first time is a lot better than spending money to replace a defective product.

Update:
My laptop was fixed under the Quality Program (E1), and it was a 13 inch MacBook produced in late 2007.

Valentine's Day=stolen poetry

2011-02-14T23:47:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, I used to write a lot of poetry. So when I came across this passage by Richard Siken, I had to share it with both of you.

I spent the afternoon with one of my girlfriends from high school, so I've been thinking about that period in my life today. This passage feels like the forbidden-ness of everything when you're in high school.

"You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for."
— Richard Siken

I hope your Valentine's Day was filled with the right kind of obsession.

I feel at home in New York...and sometimes I wonder why.

2011-02-13T17:50:00.006-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to flee a big snowstorm in Boston, and go spend some time in NYC.

When I was there I stayed with my cousin, her baby Hudson, and my Aunt Diane, whose flight had been delayed for a couple of days by the snowstorm.

Since the last time I visited, my cousin has moved to Brooklyn, a borough where I've never spent much time. Yet, it feels very much like home, as does the rest of NYC.

In a lot of ways, this makes little to no sense. After all, I only lived in NYC long enough to get mail there while I was doing a brief program at NYC in the early 90's. For years afterward, I was lucky enough to visit my former roommate Cora, and get to briefly drop into her NYC life. Hanging out with Cora and her modern dancer/Martha Graham School of Dance friends, I got a window into the city that I would have never gotten as a plain ole tourist.

But as for part where NYC feels like home, I can't really explain it, expect to wonder if maybe it has something to do with television and movies.

While I was in the city in early February, I stumbled across the filming of a remake of the 80's movie Arthur, starring Russel Brand. The filming had closed down the front entrance of the Strand book store, (close to Union Square.)

I couldn't help but wonder if all of the location filming that's been done in NYC has sunk into my brain, making me feel at home just because of all the images that I've absorbed from the screen over the years.

I spent some time contemplating this, until I came home to Austin. While sitting on the floor feeding my dog, I looked up at a favorite childhood toy that I had recently rescued from my mother's garage. It was a plastic copy of a toy brownstone, made as a Sesame Street tie-in during the 70's. It's kind of eerie how much the plastic toy looks like a real brownstone!

So does my strange at-homeness in NYC have something to do with mass media? Maybe.

Of course, NYC isn't the only place where I feel at home. Paris is the place that feels the most like home, even though I don't speak enough French to order food for myself. Both Tallinn, Estonia and Riga, Latvia feel like home in some ways, though I think it may be a combination of people and streetscape that's responsible.

Yet, some places don't feel like home, even though I've spent lots of time there.

I married a man who was born in Somerville--and I've spent what amounts to months (if not years) in greater Boston--but it doesn't feel homey at all.

Asheville, where my family has lived for the past two hundred plus years, (and where various local tourist attractions are part of my family history) doesn't especially feel like home either.

Who knows? Maybe it was watching so much Sesame Street in the 70's that's responsible for my comfort level in NYC.

Someone used one of my pictures! Again!

2011-02-09T16:26:00.002-06:00

Oh look, someone used one of my pictures in a blog post. It's the little things that matter.
But, let's be honest. Not many people other than me would be taking pictures of a 7-11 in Japan, then putting them on flickr.

My close encounter with winter:

2011-02-01T23:23:00.019-06:00

It’s snowing again in Boston. Again.

I know, I know. It’s kind of what’s expected right now, what with it being the darkest part of the year.

“January in the Northeast…would you expect anything less,” my friend Tracy quipped on Facebook, when I was complaining about how cold it's been.

Yet knowing something logically and processing it conceptually are two different things. This much snow and coldness has been hard for my brain, because it just runs counter to my entire view of the world.

For example, this past weekend I saw people out ice fishing…and my sister-in-law offered to take me walking across a frozen pond, just for the novelty of the experience. Um, I know ice fishing exists, but my brain is convinced that ponds are for swimming in, not for walking across. I am not Jesus.

Back when I was in graduate school, I remember having my thesis reader, Dr. Bob Jensen talking about how much he missed shoveling show. This past week, I shoveled snow for the very first time in my life. I’m beginning to think that Bob has some strange ideas.

On Saturday morning, I saw my brother-in-law Andrew chipping away at the giant ice dams on his roof, and cleaning some of the two foot of snow off of their roof. I had heard a rumor that icicles could actually get big enough that they’d really do some damage if they fell on you, but I’d certainly never seen such a thing!

In the last few days, I’ve also learned about something called a “snow farm.” Misleadingly, this isn’t where they grow snow. Rather it’s the place where old, sad unwanted snow is taken to die after it is scraped off the highways. I don’t know why they don’t call it a “snow morgue.”

I‘ve also recently learned that my extended-family member Mary refers to snow days with her three-children-under-the-age-of-six as “booze and tranquillizer darts kind of day.” I’ve already had a beer that the manufacturer named “cabin fever.”

Unfortunately, there is another TWO FEET of snow expected in Boson over the next couple of days. Today was supposed to be fine—with only a couple of inches—but it’s been so bad that some 300 flights have been cancelled out of Boston! The next couple of days are supposed to double the amount of snow of the ground in Boston. Frankly, seeing the weather reports, I can’t help but think of Lizzie Bordon, in Fall River, Mass., and wondering if she did her family in during a long New England winter. (Actually, Google tells me that those notorious murders happened in August.)

Mary also made a brilliant reference to “The Shining” …about the family who is snowed in for the winter in the creepy hotel.

Given the empirical evidence at hand—and all over the ground-- this means that for the preservation of my mental health, I’ve decided to flee greater Boston (and the certainty of being snowed in with my in-laws for days) for the charms of NYC and my cousin’s apartment in Brooklyn. Besides, it’s always good to have another adult to entertain a Brooklyn toddler, yes?

PS: Also, the guy next to me on the train is wearing old –school overshoes that he just zipped over his dress shoes. I never knew those existed outside the movies.

Snowpocalypse '11

2011-01-30T20:42:00.001-06:00

I've been lucky enough to be on the East Coast this past week for a close encounter with some VERY Winter weather.

I know I'm from Texas, but I assure you that things have been bad, even for people who are used to winter! My friend Chris even claims that last week was even the coldest it's been in Boston for the last 10 years.

How cold has it been? The front page of the Boston Globe from this past Monday should give you a clue.

My friends who were visiting Boston from ESTONIA were complaining about how cold it was this past Monday, when the high temp, was around 10 degrees Fahrenheit! Estonia is sort of between Russia and Finland, and it isn't exactly known for its warm, sunny climate.
This past Monday, the locals were complaing about the bitterly cold temps. The best line was from a conversation that I overheard on the "T" while crossing the Charles River: "It's like the arctic. There are ice floes out there."
There were plenty of Boston locals who could be spotted around town while wearing those crazy lumberjack hats (You know, the ones with the earflaps and the fur around the brim!)
On Monday, I bundled up in so many layers that when I left my friend Chris' place, I could barely move my arms. He didn't want to say that I looked like the "Michelin Lady" But I did!
It was so cold that even with my glove-inside-a-glove strategy, walking around Boston this past Monday, my fingers were still cold.
The UGG motorcycle boots that have been way too warm to wear in Austin have been just fine here. Especially with a pair of wool socks!
I saw a woman in Malden using a PICKAXE to break up a good-sized chunk of snow and ice on her front walk.
On Thursday, which was a "snow day" for many of the schools in Greater Boston, I saw kids using all sorts of homemade sleds, and improvising areas to slide on. My favorite was the kids who were using some sort of tray to slide down their snowy back steps.

Still not convinced?

Good luck finding a place to sit!

Nice day for a sail?

It's hard work being Holly in two feet of snow! Luckily, she loves to catch snowballs!

It's Cold in Boston.

2011-01-27T22:11:00.001-06:00

Originally uploaded by annainaustin

Just wanted to share this picture of snowy Boston with you. There's more to come on my close encounter with Snowpocalypse '11!

Look, it's a blog redesign!

2011-01-19T17:56:00.003-06:00

You might notice this blog's spiffy new design that was recently done by the ever-fabulous Paul Sicard, whom I had the foresight to marry in 2002. I've even changed the name to better reflect what this blog is; an outlet for the many shiny things that I'm attracted to in the pop culture landscape.

The image in the background is one I took in the artists lounge at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The whole thing was decorated with a "Hotel California" theme, since the Eagles were playing the festival.

You may have already seen this column I wrote for the Statesman on the festival.


Awesome spot at the "Hotel California" themed ACL artists lounge!

It's strange how much of my past is on the Internet.

2010-11-10T15:16:00.009-06:00

When I was looking for something else I'd done, I found my book review of 1997's "new" Anne Rice that I'd totally forgotten about writing. It's the bottom half of this two-part-er!

I actually kind of like the intro for the review of Servant of the Bones.

"The bigger they are, the louder the thump when they hit the remainder racks."

It seems I also once reviewed Violette's Embrace. Who knew? (Scroll down to the bottom of the review section.)

Also, I found a book review of Sins. Truthfully, I remember more about being at Barton Springs reading the book, than I do about the book itself!

There's even one of my articles being used as a reference for a wikipedia entry on "electronic games."

Update:

Oh, look one of my pictures is being used by the Latvian band Instrumenti for their Wikipedia entry!

Things you find when you Google yourself!

2010-11-05T01:14:00.013-05:00

I create things, then I forget all about them. Once I've published something--or posted a picture on flickr---I tend to forget about whatever it is. I've never really been all that curious about how people interact with what I create, once a window of about three days has passed.

I figure, if I spelled anyone's name wrong, or forgot anything important, it would turn up during that three days. (Three days is, not un-coincidentally, about the turnaround for a huffy letter-to-the-editor to arrive, citing exactly what someone is unhappy about. Trust me on this.)

Turns out that people continue to do things with my content, long after I've forgotten all about releasing it into the wild.

In order to write the previous post about Hello Kitty, I googled myself. Amazing what you find. I might have found more, but I got bored searching.

Here's a picture I put on flickr that someone used for an article. I'm not the best photographer in the world, so I'm always a little flattered that someone wants to use one of my pictures!

Paul and I got married. It must be true, it was in the UT alumni magazine. I must have sent it in, as this happened before Facebook, and not everyone knew!

Someone read an Austin-American Statesman column about zombies. And they liked it!

A possibly Latvian link to my Latvia/ACL column that was on Austinist (scroll down to the bottom.)

An article for a conservative news service, that got more conservative once I turned it in. (It has a 2008 date now, but I think I wrote it in 2001.)

Someone using my pic of one of the dudes from Passion Pit signing their setlist at Emo's as a background. From 2009?

An article about Latvia that uses my picture of fish. I think the article is in Latvian, but I don't speak the language, so it's hard to know for sure.

Let me know what else you find. Who knows what else is out there!

The editor of Cooks Source is an idiot...(aka my experience w/ having my "Hello Kitty" article republished.

2010-11-04T14:46:00.114-05:00

Hello Kitty Guitar! In Tokyo!

To put things in context for everyone, especially my friends outside the US....

The Internet's intellectual-property scandal of the day involves the magazine Cooks Source re-printing an article by Monica Gaudio, without the writer's approval. When she contacted them to see about being compensated and having an apology printed, she got a reply from the editor, telling her that everything on the Internet was public property.

**original post as follows**

All of the fuss about the editor of Cooks Source thinking that everything on the Internet is public property made me think about my experience with having my articles republished without my permission.

Back when the Internet was young (1999) I wrote an article on Hello Kitty for the Austin Chronicle that was republished all over the web, mostly by people innocently putting it on their personal fan websites, because they didn't understand that wasn't the right way to do it.

Since I was paid for the original article--and since most instances of it being republished w/out permission were with my name, an Austin Chronicle attribution, and sometimes a link back to the original article-- I didn't worry about it too much. I reasoned it was just Hello Kitty fans being excited about what I said.

Much of the reason I decided not to worry about it being reposted was that, most of the time when someone put it on their webpage, they appeared to be a high-school girl with a bigger "Hello Kitty" fixation than me. Their hearts seemed to be in the right place, even if their grasp of copyright law was shaky. Also, by the time I knew what had happened, that article was everywhere. Hello Kitty was out of the bag.

In order not to deal with the mess, I reasoned that, if the article appeared on what seemed to be a personal (and un-commercial) website, I left it alone. I figured that the high school girl who'd republished it had enough problems, without me making her feel bad. I never saw where anyone republished it on a commercial website, but I kept an eye on the Internet, just in case someone did.

Finding out that the article was so popular was kind of surprise, since it was when AskJeeves was the best search-engine technology in general use. (Google was just a baby!) It was before blogs, Twitter, etc. We barely had fire. Only a few people carried around huge, heavy laptops.

Nowadays, most civilized people no longer have things like "Angel Fire" pages or "webrings," and I was surprised that, today, I can't find a single instance where that "Hello Kitty" article is currently republished. However, there are still plenty of places linking to to that article, likely a result of it being reposted by lots of Hello Kitty fans.

This means that the editor of Cook's Source is an idiot. Or a high school girl with a circa 1999 "Angelfire" page.

Coda:

As a result of this crazy republishing and linking, that Hello Kitty article is everywhere. Everywhere! Which, ironically, makes me an "expert!"

Just look:

Here I am in a book about Hello Kitty, Seven going on seventeen: tween studies in the culture of girlhood. By Claudia Mitchell, Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

--And in this academic paper from Kathleen Neves:

Look at my archives!

2010-08-26T00:04:00.001-05:00

Today I found a few columns that didn't end up where they were intended to end up. Some of them have been trapped in my hard drive for years! I changed the post dates to indicate the years when they were originally written.

So check out my "older posts" if you want to know more about me!

I've labeled the older entries "WAYBACKPOST" to make it clear that you couldn't read them earlier!

Since my writing style has changed a bit over the last few years, I thought it was best not to just have them higgeldy-piggeldy (just posting them as I remembered and found them) and out-of-context.

Changes Brought On By A Trip of Japan, Trip to a Controversial Museum

2010-08-11T11:57:00.006-05:00

In light of the 65th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...

I’ve never been the sort of person who usually thinks about World War II. I don’t watch the History channel, I don’t read books about the war, and I’ve never taken an interest in visiting World War II battle sites, even when I lived close to those in Eastern Europe.

Yet when I realized earlier this winter that my first trip to Asia would place me in Tokyo on Pearl Harbor Day, I thought it would be informative to see what was happening that day in Japan.

Due to my western naiveté, I assumed that, in Japan, the Pacific War started on December 7, just as it did in the US. However, due to the international dateline, the war is generally regarded as having stared on Dec 8, the date when the Emperor of Japan issued a declaration of war against the US.

I also found out that, despite my best research, there really wasn’t much to see on Pearl Harbor Day in Japan. As the helpful concierge at the Sheraton where I was staying softly said (while physically drawing back from me), “No one wants to remember those times. They were terrible.” My new American expat acquaintances who live in Japan told me that most of the public discussion and commemoration of the Second World War comes in August, with the anniversary of the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Yet, on my way to discover that there was no story about Pearl Harbor Day in Japan, I ended up drastically changing the way that I think about that country.

On December 7, in search of a story—any story-- I went to Yaskuni Shrine of the war dead, and the associated Yushukan war museum, a museum which I had read was highly controversial. What I didn’t expect was that it would be personally distressing.

While walking thru the museum, I was surprised to find myself upset at seeing a Zero fighter prominently displayed in the museum’s foyer. As I walked through the exhibits at the museum, it was troubling for me to read about the Allied bombing raids bring described as “Attacks on the Japanese homeland.” Seeing the preserved Japanese kamikaze torpedo’s, preserved kamikaze planes and personal relics of the kamikaze crew (a.k.a. the “Special Attack Corps”) while reading about people who “tried to defend Japan with their own bodies” was possibly the most emotional I’ve ever been in a museum—and I’m not known for my light taste in travel entertainment.

Forcing myself to go back to the Yaskuni Shrine shrine on December 8, in search of a story, all I found a few WWII veterans posing at the shrine, a few Japanese servicemen, one lone protester, and a few more schoolchildren. If I hadn’t been there the day before, I wouldn’t have known it was anymore crowded than normal. Yet, being there gave me a lot to think about.

Weeks later, in another Tokyo museum, I saw hunks of molten metal that had fused when Americans bombed the city in the spring of 1945. I even read that American bomber crews could read their watches at 29,000 feet by the light of the flames from a burning Tokyo. Those images stuck with me, and have changed the way I view Japan.

Growing up in the 1970’s, I always associated the word “Japan” with the phrase “made in”—because that was the place where toys were produced. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate Japan as the place that brings us manga (comics), anime, and sushi. It’s also a place that provides the fun oddities of Japanese film that play Fantastic Fest, and the fun Japanese bands that play SXSW’s Japanese showcase. Before going to Japan, and thinking about the war, I always associated Japan with the culture of “kawaii” or “cute.”

Yet, going in search of a story that didn’t exist, I accidentally changed myself.

Riding the excellent Tokyo Metro across the vast, sprawling neon-lit city, I was struck by two thoughts. One thought was that the hyper-modern city of Tokyo likely wouldn’t exist without the devastation it experienced during the war. The second was the idea that flitted through my head every time I saw an elderly person whom I took to be Japanese. The idea that ran through my head again and again, as I popped up to offer them the use of my subway seat, was the thought that they must have suffered terribly during the war.

Part of this thinking could have been brought on my a film I watched years before going to Japan. Isao Takahata's animated film “Grave of the Fireflies” is based on the true story of an orphaned brother and sister who suffer greatly during the war, including the dramatic end of the film where the sister starves to death. It’s not exactly an animated film like the ones from Disney, yet the Studio Ghibli film is so well regarded in Japan that several live-action remakes have been made.

I wasn’t intending to have a quasi-scientific “control” for my first trip to Japan, I accidentally ended up with one. The very first day I arrived in Japan, my oldest childhood friend and I went to the Roppongi Hills observation deck in the Mori Tower, a new building in a nice area of Tokyo where you can see a panorama of the city. When I was there, all I could do was gaze in amazement at the lights. (Tokyo is so hyper-modern it makes Austin look like Fredericksburg, or maybe makes Manhattan look like Amarillo.)

Yet, going back to that same overlook with my husband at the end of my trip, all I could do was wonder how close was I –at the 53rd story, to the height where the low-flying American bombers had dropped the bombs on the city. I wondered how much of what I could see from the tower had been on fire during the bombing raids. (An estimated 16 square miles of Central Tokyo was consumed by fire following one Allied bombing raid in March of 1945.)

I’m very curious to see if my spending a few weeks in Japan—and doing a great deal of thinking about the devastation wrought by the Second World War-- will change the way I approach Japanese pop culture in the future.

Scare For A Cure at Eeyore's Birthday

2010-08-06T12:45:00.002-05:00

You may be aware that Austin’s annual hippie festival, Eeyore’s Birthday Party, was held in Pease Park this past April. You might know about the hordes of costumed revelers, some of whom attended the birthday party of a fictional donkey wearing mostly body paint and a smile. However, you may not know that the annual event put on by the “Friends of the Forest” is a fundraising opportunity for local non-profits.

In the last couple of years, I’ve become very aware of the fundraising aspect of Eeyore’s Birthday.

Back when I was a UT undergraduate, I’d walk to Eeyore’s from my dorm. I’d often spend all day in the drum circle, getting someone over 21 to buy me a beer, and coming home filthy, exhausted and very, very happy.

Yet, this year I went to Eeyore’s primarily to help sell sausage, even though I’ve been mostly vegetarian as long as I’ve been going to that party. The charity I’m heavily involved in, “Scare For A Cure” was selling sausages from “The Best Wurst” as a fundraising project.

Scare is led by Austin Police Department detective Jarrett Crippen. You might remember Crippen from when he won Season 2 of the Sci Fi Channel’s reality TV show “Who Wants To Be a Superhero?”
Scare’s primary fundraising event is putting on an elaborate haunted house each October, and then giving away the net proceeds to local cancer-related charities. Last year Scare donated $15,000 to the Breast Cancer Resource Centers of Texas, which provides services for women in Central Texas who’ve been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I’m very proud that Scare does a lot of good work benefiting people in need.

Since Scare gives away the money we make from our haunted house, we’re always broke when it’s time to start building next year’s attraction. That’s why we were out serving up sausages at Eeyore’s.

Since this vegetarian can’t stand to be around the smell of cooking meat, I took a different approach to helping with the event. While Crippen and crew were serving and selling sausages, I was chatting-up the people waiting in our sausage line. Dressed in an Eeyore- appropriate outfit accessorized with a tiara, giant fake pearls, and enough glitter to decorate a pre-school art project, I foisted off flyers for our new haunted adventure, “H1Z1: Zombie Wasteland.”

I promised potential Scare guests that, if they came to see our haunted house they’d get to kill lots of zombies. (Note to Scare script committee, please add more zombie kills!). I managed to sweet-talk a photographer from The Daily Texan into coming out this fall. I talked someone into volunteering to write Scare press releases, and signed up several others to our mailing list. I sold the hell out of the concept of “Scare For a Cure.”

Since the sausage line included people who didn’t care about haunted houses, I strongly encouraged those people to support us by upsizing their order and buying two sausages!

I stood there chatting up potential customers until I developed a mild sunburn and was losing my voice. I only stopped when we ran out of bread and shuttered the sausage sales.

Sadly, by the time we’d closed down the sausage stand, my friends who’d come to relax at Eeyore’s had already left the park. It made me quite sad that I’d missed going to the Eeyore’s drum circle with my friends. Since the only non-Scare friends I saw at Eeyore’s were the ones who’d stopped by to purchase sausage, I felt like I’d missed my usual party!
At the end of Eeyore’s, I ended up getting a ride home from Detective Crippen. On the brief ride home, Crippen divulged that he’d forgotten the movies he was expected to show that evening to the Scare costume crew. I quickly detoured him through “I Luv Video” and rented him the movies, as he didn’t have a store account!

Sometimes I’m surprised by how much my life has changed since I’ve been going to Eeyore’s. Instead of hiding my underage beer from Austin’s finest, I’m renting movies for an absent-minded detective.
I’m just glad that this vegetarian could help out at Eeyore’s and still stay upwind of the cooking meat!

Romance Readers Social....at the University Hills Library

2010-02-13T13:35:00.022-06:00

Bad timing and helping my friend Byron move at the last moment killed this post for Austinist...but if the people in it ever Google themselves, they might see this! Maybe....

Valentine's Day is a holiday fraught with peril, no matter your particular relationship status. If you're single, sometimes you spend time fretting about what might happen on Valentine's Day. If you are already in a relationship, there's the trauma of worrying if you've gotten the right gift for someone, if you've made the right restaurant reservation, or exactly how you're going to manage a smile if you wind up being gifted with ill-fitting lingerie!

The whole holiday is so stressful that sometimes it seems that you'd be better off throwing caution aside and jumping between the covers....of a good book. Especially a good romance!

Luckily, the University Hills branch of the Austin Public Library is presenting the Romance Reader's Social; on Saturday from 11-1. Located in Northeast Austin, near the intersection of 290/183, this free event is a chance for romance readers to swap books, have some yummy food, and maybe win prizes! There is even a "passionate reading contest" focusing on the vocal performance of "juicy scenes." We were even promised that the event would have lots of chocolates!

This year the event will have an Asian theme, and the room where it is held will be set up as a bistro, according to Frank Schmitzer, managing librarian of the University Hills branch.

"The two ladies who do it pour their heart and soul into it, " Schmitzer said. Those two ladies are: Michelle Beebower and Katrina Townsend. Schmitzer said that this event has been held for the last three or four years, and usually attracts between 75 and 100 guests.

On a practical note, the book-swap section of the event will feature books divided into romance genres, like Teen, Chick Lit, and other pertinent divisions. (Personally, we're hoping this genre breakdown might include time-travel romances, but we might just be swayed by multiple readings of the Outlander

With the real-life holiday often being filled with romantic disappointment, there's a good chance that if you come looking for romance at this social, that you'll find it. Even if it's with that perfect bad-boy who only exists between pages 13 and 342!

Chuckie and the Health Care Debate...

2010-01-30T22:25:00.002-06:00

The reality of our national health-care crisis was recently brought home to me in a sudden and dramatic fashion.

In mid-October, our sweet family member Charles (aka Chuckie to his friends) was struck with a sudden, severe and very life-threatening form of anemia, known as IMHA (Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia.) For some unknown reason, his body had developed an autoimmune condition, where he started destroying his own red-blood cells. Over a weekend, we went from household discussions of, “He feels warm, do you think he’s sick?” to a Sunday-morning possibility of emergency surgery. That weekend we also spent a lot of time climbing up a steep learning curve about how the immune system functions.

Among the factors in the treatment of his case is that Charles has no health insurance, save what a Visa card can provide. We were making treatment decisions with the consciousness that a price tag was looming somewhere in the future.

Thankfully, Charles’ treatment was far more effective than anyone suspected it would possibly be. Just a day after his internal medicine specialist started his treatment, he was up and around, and doing the kind of inappropriate sniffing that would get you kicked out of most respectable bars. We were elated when the nice veterinarian said our Chuckie was well enough to go home.

Yes, I realize that many people may think I’m being melodramatic about a dog’s illness. Yet Chuckie’s sudden disease brought home the reality -- the fear and the terror --in the possibility of losing a loving creature who is so close to your heart. Chuckie’s lack of insurance made me realize how horrible it would be if one were faced with a comparable situation for an uninsured human family member. In light of the emotional trauma of serious illness, the added financial concern is almost too much to stand.

I’m so glad that Chuckie had access to an impressive level of health care that has—cross your paws—allowed him to recover from what is an often fatal condition. It also clearly illustrates the need for many Americans to have a better health care plan than Chuckie. Sadly, some of them don’t have better health insurance than a dog.

It seems I'm going to Japan...

2009-11-30T00:15:00.000-06:00

Whenever I travel, I always keep a diary. In longhand, in a small journal. That's so dark ages. So I'm looking at trying one of these blog things for my travel documenting needs!

Observing Michael Jackson's death in Memphis (2009)

2009-08-25T22:50:00.003-05:00

Mourning Jackson on the streets of Boston, Mass.

It’s the week of Michael Jackson’s funeral, and I’m waiting for the last flight out of Memphis. Everywhere in the deserted airport you can hear CNN blaring about breaking developments in the Jackson case.

A woman beside me is wearing a Jackson memorial shirt featuring the likeness of a cherubic Jackson 5 –era Michael, engulfed by enormous angel wings. Nearby, I overhear a conversation about the price increases in Jackson vinyl albums.
Amazingly, Jackson is simultaneously both dead, and right back at the forefront of popular culture. It’s a trick not many people manage.

I find it both supremely ironic and tragic that I’m seeing all this in the Memphis airport. It’s a space where you just can’t avoid Elvis. In Memphis, it’s amazingly easy to forget “The King” died on a toilet, with an overly potent drug cocktail in his system, and long past the peak of his career.

I was eight when Elvis died. That night as I was going to bed, my mother came in and turned on the bedside radio so that I could drift to sleep listening to Elvis music and the updates about his death. She thought it was an important historical moment that I should experience.

Yet at the Memphis airport, it’s like Elvis never left.

Directly across from my gate is a sign advertising the Heartbreak Hotel (just five minutes from the airport!), with a slogan reading: “Let Elvis Rock You to Sleep.” The Memphis airport boasts an Elvis store and a Sun Records shop, along with a guitar/piano motif. In the deserted terminal, I picked up brochures for “The Elvis Cruise” and “Experience Graceland.” It’s often been said that Elvis has become a bigger act since he’s been dead than while he was alive. He’s certainly the most vital thing going on at the airport, even though he’s been dead some thirty-odd years. Given the scene back at my departure gate, I can’t help but wonder if Jackson will have that same sort of career trajectory as a dead man. I rather doubt it.

Having been of prime sleepover age during Jackson’s peak “Thriller” years, I was certainly aware of Jackson’s music, dancing and cultural pull. In his heyday, my girlfriends and I were always trying—and failing—to copy his dance steps.
Yet I’ve never owned a single Jackson record, and as I missed having MTV in the 80’s, his videos weren’t burned onto my brain. Still, I could easily pick a Jackson tune out of a lineup, and I’d stake actual cash money on my knowing all the words to the entire “Thriller” album. He’s as much a part of my pop culture past as my failed attempt at Farrah hair.

Staying up late watching the initial reports about Jackson’s death reminded me of the last time I had stayed up stayed up staring at a screen to follow news about Jackson. If you are of age, you might recall the 1984 incident where Jackson caught his hair caught on fire while filming a Pepsi commercial. I remember it vividly, partly because I was at a sleepover when the event happened. Totally concerned, we kept vigil for Jackson at a portable black-and-white television, monitoring the fuzzy broadcast for news about the injured singer. Yet, since that incident, he had faded further and further from my consciousness.

Then again, my consciousness isn’t exactly like everyone else’s. There are a lot of times in life where I feel like I’m missing out on the most popular bits of pop culture. My television viewing veers towards “Doctor Who” rather than “Dancing With the Stars.” I live in the countercultural bubble of Austin, Texas, where my friends wear homemade tie-die while doing their organic gardening. My first-ever camping trip this past May was to a local clothing-optional event. In the rest of the country, I stick out like a macramé shawl at a gala, but in Austin, I pass for normal.

Being from the Austin bubble, I was a little surprised to find myself captivated by the collective national moment of mourning brought on by Jackson’s death. I wasn’t so moved by the fact that he died, more by the fact that the pop culture world was knocked off its axis by his death.

The day Jackson died, I was in Boston. Walking around the fashionable shopping area of Newbury Street, every car seemed to be tuned to one of the now all-Jackson stations. People were holding homemade posterboard signs memorializing Jackson. At the hotel that night, I couldn’t force myself to turn off the television reports on his death.

It’s very strange that Jackson’s death made me notice him in a way that his life never did. The allegations of child abuse snuffed out whatever enthusiasm I ever had for his music. I didn’t even know about his comeback shows in London until a friend told me he’d bought tickets. I didn’t enter the lottery to attend his memorial. Despite my constant desire to be where the action is, I couldn’t justify taking a spot away from someone who wanted to be there to actually mourn.

Yet as much a part of my childhood that Jackson was, I doubt that opening Jackson’s Neverland Ranch to the public would result in the same public draw that Graceland still has.

Graceland is, at heart, the biggish house that a southern boy done good bought to please his mamma. For all it’s alleged bad-taste, it reflects the aesthetic vision of a self-made man who bought what he liked and what was fashionable at the time. (I personally think the jungle room at Graceland is sweet, not tacky.)

It’s an unfortunate development for Santa Barbara County, California, where Neverland Ranch is located, that Jackson’s legal and personal troubles far overshadow Jackson’s musical legacy for some of us. Otherwise, they might have another tourist-mecca on their hands, like Memphis has with Graceland.

Cronocrimenes at Fantastic Fest (2007)

2007-11-12T13:29:00.003-06:00

Tim League of the Alamo and Nacho Vigalondo during the Cronocrimenes Question and Answer session following one of the first screenings of the movie in the states (2007).

Growing up in the small working-class refinery town of Deer Park, Texas in the eighties, I tried very hard to escape the place without actually leaving.

Being hard-up for a time travel or teleportation device, I used the very best substitute I had: homemade cassette tapes of the 70’s punk and new wave bands that I loved—like the Ramones and Blondie. Closing my eyes with the stereo on, I could nearly always escape the depressing industrial area.

So, when I went to watch the world-premiere of the Spanish time travel movie Cronocrimenes aka Timecrimes on opening night of Austin’s science-fiction and horror movie festival Fantastic Fest, I was surprised and delighted to bump into an old friend. My pal: the song “Picture This” from Blondie’s 1978 multi-platinum selling “Parallel Lines” album, featured as an integral piece of sonic set dressing in the movie.

With the film’s poster reading “A trip back in time……from present to crime” it isn’t exactly a spoiler to reveal that a key character keeps going back in time, trying to fix what’s gone wrong at one particular moment.

When the character returns to that moment the song “Picture This” is playing.

Not familiar with the song? Not surprising. Even though it hit number 12 in the UK in ‘78, it wasn’t exactly a bit hit here. If my friends hadn’t fired up their ‘80’s record players, I’d never have heard it.

The idea that music has a transformative power isn’t exactly a new concept. Otherwise, why would I have been surrounded by so many people who surely remembered the 60’s when Bob Dylan played ACL?

For the premiere of the innovative Spanish-language/English subtitled “Cronocrimenes” writer/director/actor Nacho Vigalondo was in attendance answering questions. So I asked him about the use of the song.

It turns out the tune ended up in the film partly because the crew was playing the song a lot while they were making the movie. Thus when it came time to pick a song to clarify that the hero was back in the same place at the same time, the lyrics of the song seemed to fit the film.

“The lyrics for “Picture This” are so close to the movie” Vigalondo said quoting the lyrics: “Picture this - a sky full of thunder.” Indeed, a clap of thunder is a plot point in the film.

I suspect that if I’d grown up in big city surroundings, that I might not have held on so tightly to the music of another time and another place—trying by sheer will to get myself to New York’s mythical CBCB’s club in the 70’s.

All in all, the film’s surprising use of the song shows the influence of our friends, coworkers and neighbors on our lives, perhaps especially on what we’re listening to.

No matter how global our world and economy gets, sometimes it matters most what the people closest to us are listening to. If we love them, sometimes we’ll end up loving what they love as well.

(This column was slated for the Statesman in 2007 but didn't have space to run before the second time this film showed during Fantastic Fest. These pictures were taken with a borrowed point-and-shoot. I'm a slightly better photographer now.)

Why Austin Shouldn't move the Animal Shelter

2007-11-09T06:06:00.009-06:00

In April, a tragedy occurred in our backyard.

After years of stalking and chasing, one of our dogs finally caught our neighbor’s white cat, Emma, who had slipped though our fence.

The result-- 120 lb pup vs. fluffy lapful—meant that rushing Emma to the animal emergency clinic couldn’t save her.

It’s a given that in the natural world predators chase prey. Cats chase birds. Dogs chase cats. It’s the cycle of life, though that doesn’t make it any easier for the humans involved.
Emma’s untimely death got me thinking.

According to Town Lake Animal Center shelter director Dorinda Pulliam, on April 30, 2006, the day of Emma’s death, 26 cats were put to death at the shelter. That week (April 30- May 4) 96 cats were killed. Last fiscal year, 5396 cats were euthanized. Many of whom were doubtless sweet, fluff-balls like Emma. I fear our a new animal shelter isn’t going to improve those numbers.

Austinites recently passed a bond package to build a new animal shelter. The location: Levander Loop, in East Austin near Airport and 183, former site of the Texas School for the Deaf.

Moving the our animal shelter from its current central location is a poor choice. Of course, I may be biased because back in 1990 I adopted a kitten from the shelter, partly because I was able to easily find the facility by driving down Lamar.

Originally I was opposed to moving the shelter because I didn’t really understand where the new location would be. Now, after visiting the Levander Loop site, I’m even more opposed to the move. The awkwardly situated site won’t provide more patrons for the facility, certainly not casual drop-ins. This is key, because local animal rights advocates tell us that many Town Lake animals go to new homes in central and west Austin.

Unlike central Austin, the Levander loop location businesses don’t generate extra traffic to the area. While our economy needs purveyors of concrete pipes and vivid orange tractors, these businesses don’t draw casual traffic. You go there because you need a new backhoe, not to see what new colors are in stock. The only browse-worthy business I found nearby: Goodwill on Airport. Imported luxury vehicles weren’t cruising the streets.

In contrast, the current location is near the 6th and Lamar retail district. Currently, you can make a Saturday of looking for a dog at Town Lake Animal Center then picking up the mystery “The Dogs of Riga” at nearby Bookpeople, or grabbing Omar and the Howlers on CD at Waterloo Records. Common sense says that if you want to keep up shelter adoptions, keep the shelter in a part of town where people are accustomed to parting with their money.
Think of it this way: the Town Lake Animal Center is near the Whole Foods flagship at 5th and Lamar. The Levander Loop location is near the Whole Foods Receiving Annex: a regional distribution center featuring refrigerated trailers with the company logo pulled up to loading docks.

While a new animal facility is a great idea, we need to reconsider moving it. Can’t we find somewhere, anywhere else? Perhaps in the redevelopments at the old Mueller airport or Town Lake’s Seaholm Power facility? Downtown is the logical place for the shelter, because downtown is where the action is. “Downtown” is even the title of the locally produced PBS show about Austin. When City Council needed new digs, they moved just a few blocks away to a swanker space in a more prominent downtown location. Just announced: Magic Johnson is investing 50 million bucks in a Block 21 project near City Hall and the Town Lake site, not out by Levander Loop.

Though my neighbor is busy trawling Internet rescue groups for a new-to-her kitty, most people don’t go to that trouble. If a pet store becomes more convenient than our animal shelter, fewer animals may get adopted.

The lobby of the Emancipet world headquarters, currently located at the Levander Loop site, features the following hand-lettered in red on their cinderblock wall: “Helping to control the pet population and liberate pets from euthanasia.”

It would be a terrible, tragic irony if a new animal shelter built at this location increased Austin’s euthanasia rates due to decreased adoption demand.

I couldn’t save Emma, but perhaps we can save some of Austin’s other homeless animals by making sure that our new animal shelter is in a central and easily accessible location.

Last Night at the Alamo Grindhouse (aka Watching Vintage Prints with director Quentin Tarantino) (2007)

2007-08-25T12:05:00.005-05:00

Dressed in jeans and a black hoodie-- and clutching a beer-- film director Quentin Tarantino paced in the spotlight of the small stage of the Alamo Drafthouse theater in downtown Austin, Texas. He told the mostly male crowd that when he was in 6th grade, his mother had gotten him a subscription to Playboy. His first gift issue featured a pictorial on Casanova & Company (1977) a Tony Curtis/Casanova/ mistaken identity flick. Later re-titled Sex on the Run, it recently served as the kickoff film for Quentin Tarantino presents Last Night at the Alamo Grindhouse (May 10,11,13)—a three night mini -festival of grindhouse triple bills—showcasing Tarantino’s personal vintage 35mm prints of the low-budget gems that once played America’s drive- in’s.

The festival was inspired by the relocation of the downtown Austin, Texas Alamo Drafthouse, a quaintly tattered beer and food-serving movie venue. The downtown location was the first incarnation of what’s now a successful small chain of theaters known for eclectic programming. Sex on the Run was followed with Sex with a Smile (1976) an omnibus film of several short sex stories. The night ended with The Oldest Profession (1967) with seven directors contributing shorts on prostitution through the ages. (Tarantino’s sex comedy prints also screened at the 2007 Los Angeles Grindhouse Festival as Euro Sex Comedies Triple Feature.)

One distinctive aspect of the Alamo QT events is that there’s no velvet rope. The illusion: you’re watching movies in someone’s living room. Patrons are asked to refrain from seeking autographs or shoving screenplays into Tarantino’s face, but you can walk up and chat.

“It’s been really casual this time,” said Tim League (co-founder of the Alamo Drafthouse with wife Karrie). How casual? I don’t think I’ll ever forget inviting myself into a conversation with Tarantino and Shauna Leveille, 34, the voluptuous dark-haired South by Southwest Film Festival theater manager, just as Tarantino enthusiastically re-created a line from Sex with a Smile’s Dracula Fantasy, before breaking into his distinctive staccato laugh. The best part? Making brief eye contact with a celebrity, while wearing the official film geek/film festival uniform of rumpled dark clothing, tattered jeans, and battered Converse. It wasn’t a high-stress, red-carpet, dress-up event.

Tarantino began Friday night’s Redneck hicksploitation triple feature by recounting a memorable childhood film experience. In fifth grade, Tarantino saw Hot Summer in Barefoot County (1974) at a South Clinton, Tennessee drive-in (near Knoxville, TN). Tarantino then recreated the local television advertising spot that had, 30-odd years ago, convinced him and his pals to see the low-budget North Carolina tale of moonshine, true love and inept policing.

“It’s like putting together a menu.” Tarantino told me about choosing what films to show for the event. “In addition to his other abilities, I respect his skills as a film programmer,” said Lars Nilsen, 35, an Alamo film programmer. Nilsen added that anyone who programs films has certain obsessions. “It’s great seeing a major filmmaker’s obsessions,” Nilsen said.

Tickets for the event were $75 for three nights.

FANTASTIC FEST and Texas Chain Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

2006-10-15T13:48:00.001-05:00

Swag from the premiere of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING

I think that a version of this was published--in French-- in L'Ecran Fantastique in 2006, as I remember getting paid for it.

For the last thirty years, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise has featured the character "Leatherface," who has been one of the most enigmatic horror icons in genre films. He chainsaws, he chases, he apparently enjoys himself. Yet we never knew exactly why or how he developed his desire to sink his chainsaw into human flesh.

The new film Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning attempts to explain Leatherface’s origins. That doesn’t mean a wee Thomas Hewitt sitting in a therapists office discussing chainsaws and childhood trauma. Rather, this prequel to the events of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre focuses on the moment when the procurement and consumption of human flesh started to seem rational for the crazy, cannibalistic Hewitt family.

This gritty and darkly-shot film opens with Leatherface’s birth on the slaughterhouse floor. Abandoned by his mother, he’s taken in by the Hewitts. A brilliant and brief title sequence outlines Leatherface’s childhood.

The film then jumps to 1969, when the rural Texas slaughterhouse where Leatherface (Andrew Bryniarski) works is closing. Leatherface isn’t happy about losing his job, though it’s difficult to read his expression behind the black shroud covering his face.

Meanwhile the Hewitt’s hometown is threatening to become a ghost town without the money the slaughterhouse brings in.

In an effort to remain on the creepily decaying homestead where they have lived for generations, the family is forced to find, er, some very creative ways of keeping themselves fed. A diabolical plan emerges after Thomas’ uncle Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey) becomes sheriff…by plucking the badge off the still-warm body of the last sheriff.

Soon after the slaughterhouse closes, returning Vietnam Vet Eric Hill (Matthew Bomer), and his just-drafted little brother Dean (Taylor Handley ), and their girlfriends Chrissie (Jordana Brewster) and Bailey (Diora Baird) are on a last road trip before shipping out to Vietnam.

After stopping at a disturbing country store and BBQ stand—familiar from the 2003 remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre -- little brother Dean tells big brother Eric that he doesn’t intend to go to Vietnam. Dean begins burning his draft card shortly before the unlucky foursome crosses paths with Sheriff Hoyt. Those familiar with Sheriff Hoyt’s reaction to a half-burned blunt in the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake can guess what happens when the lunatic lawman gets his hands on a draft dodger.

“This character is a sexually perverted psychotic maniac. There is no over the top,” Ermey said about his portrayal of Hoyt, speaking at a Q&A session following the film’s September 2006 première at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.

Like the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning belongs to Ermey’s sadistic scenery-chewing sheriff. While the brunette Brewster does a good job as the plucky Chrissie, trying to survive the Hewitt’s house of horrors, Ermey dominates the film, followed closely by the chainsaw-wielding Bryniarski.

Bryniarski, a 6 foot 5 inch actor with a deep and rumbling voice claims he didn’t hold back while portaying the mutely iconic killer.

“I’ve always wanted someone to let me run and go crazy,” Bryniaski said during the premiere’s Q&A, praising Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning director Jonathan Liebesman (Darkness Falls 2003) for letting him go to extremes.

“Less would have been less in this movie.” Bryniaski said.

“Gore is good” might be the mantra for today’s horror. This Chainsaw prequel is a blood-drenched step forward in splatter-evolution. The graphic and violent film delivers dark and gruesome deaths, including the moment when Leatherface gets his macabe mask. The bloody brilliant makeup work of the K.N.B. SFX team is a key part of what makes the film work.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning aims for the raw survivalist horror of Wolf Creek and Hostel –where the emphasis is on what happens after victims are caught—rather than the “when is the death coming” suspense of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 original. The film’s protagonists spend much of their time onscreen having their tautly attractive flesh torn apart and begging for their lives.

During his Austin appearance, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning director Liebesman acknowledged wanting to take his favorite parts of Saw and Hostel in his effort to steal the crown of “almost pornographic gore.”

“We got an extremely hard R” said Libesman, saying that he was very proud of the rating. He explained he was forced to remove some flying human flesh and a final chainsaw penetration of an actress to avoid crossing the line into a box-office limiting X.

As Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is a prequel, the film is working from a disadvantage. You know the Hewitt family characters live to kill again. Yet the film does a great gory job within its prequel limitations.

Dick Cheney Needs A New Hunting Buddy For 2006

2006-08-26T14:15:00.004-05:00

In light of Washington's birthday (Feb 22), we should note that for generations American schoolchildren were force-fed the fable of George Washington fessing up to chopping down his father's cherry tree in a spurt of axe-testing enthusiasm.

Supposedly when poppa Washington sought the identity of the cherry- culling-culprit, his son came clean.

"I cannot tell a lie. It was I who chopped down the cherry tree, Washington reportedly said, copping to the cherry-cide. While likely untrue, the story was long trotted out as proof of Washington's willingness to stand behind his actions.

Today we have a vice president who took another approach to personal accountability. Vice President Dick Cheney,65, took his sweet time acknowledging he had felled not a cherry tree, but Austin attorney Harry Whittington, 78 while quail hunting in south Texas.

The story first focused on Whittington's actions. The New York Times reported on February 13 that Cheney shot Whittington when Whittington failed to announce his return to the group. The Saturday accident wasn't made public until Sunday, when ranch owner Katherine Armstrong called the Corpus Christ Caller-Times.

You'd think Cheney would have learned from both the cherry chopping chops of George Washington and the harrowing example of former President William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton's Thonggate demonstrated the painful consequences of not quickly owning up to your actions.

During the depth of Clinton’s disgrace, my father often said that the fuss over Clinton’s relations with Miss Thong Thang wouldn have been so severe had Clinton quickly admitted his misdeeds. I agree with him. Rather than publicly declaring “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” we would’ve been better off if Clinton had quickly apologized for his office shenanigans, pleaded forgiveness from his wife and kept Ken Starr out of his sex life.

It's the same with Cheney. After shooting Whittington, if only Cheney had called a Sunday morning press conference at the Corpus Christi hospital. He ought to have shown up with representatives of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and turned this incident into a tiresome gun safety message.

To really distract attention from the incident, Cheney might have conjured up, say, a million-dollar grant from the NRA to bring the message of hunting safety to schoolchildren, especially schoolchildren who live in areas where world leaders walk around with firearms.

From a fashion perspective, Cheney could have even appeared all last week in D.C. in the aesthetically painful blaze orange hunters wear to increase visibility. He could have gotten color maestro Isaac Mizrahi to design a blaze-orange line for Target, perhaps with over-the-top assistance from Project Runway winner Jay McCarroll. Then we could all go back to the real tragedies in society, like NBC Today Show hosts Matt Lauer and Al Roker covering the Olympic luge in spandex body suits

I suspect this sad hunting accident happened now for a reason. Cases of bird flu(H5N1) are daily creeping closer to the United States. Perhaps the quelling of quantities of quail by well-heeled duffers is the backbone our national bird flu defense? If so, my psychic powers tell me that someone in the hunting party uttered the words “bird flew” as Whittington was returning to the group. Maybe Cheney overreacted by peppering his pal with plenty of poultry pounding pellets?

I understand the desire for sport hunting and I even had a hunting license in high school. Yet anyone careless enough to shoot a fellow hunter should have their hunting license limited to falconry.

Cheney would like hunting with a bird of prey. It was originally reported that the accident resulted from poor communication between Cheney and Whittington, but there shouldn’t be communication gaps between Cheney and his hawk. They'd understand each other in an unspoken bond of kindred hearts.

On their website, falconry outfitter Northwoods Falconry in Rainier, Washington asks potential falconers this:

"Will you, and can you, commit part of your waking hours to a creature who at the very best of times will merely tolerate your presence, is as affectionate as a stone, and at the worst of times will cause you heartache and puncture wounds?"

If so, Cheney should bond with his bird of prey. Following Whittington's pellet-prompted heart attack, Cheney literally caused his friend heartache and puncture wounds.

Living with a build-your-own DVR (2006)

2006-08-25T16:35:00.003-05:00

Back in elementary school, I remember entertaining myself by mentally recounting the complete prime time schedule. Tuning out tedious teaching, I finally recalled exactly what aired opposite Fantasy Island.

Bored elementary kids certainly aren’t doing that today. With countless cable channels, it's impossible to remember what's on TV. Or watch it all.

Multiply that by TV scheduling that produces time-slot matchups like "Grey's Anatomy vs. CSI” and it’s clear catching your favorite shows requires effort, like programming the VCR. Alas, challenging VCR programming has spawned approximately 10,839,276.005 punchlines since the machines became popular in the 1980’s. Punchlines that generated laughs, because who hasn’t tried taping the Oscars, only to wind up with a basketball game? Or the other way around.

To insure seeing every single slam-dunk or soap-opera sizzler, many folks have switched to more user-friendly DVR's—digital video recorders, like the TiVo. The drawback: price, including the subscription service that makes most DVR’s functional. For example, TiVo’s web site sells a DVR capable of recording 80 hours of programming for 100 bucks. A one-year service agreement adds 15-plus bucks a month. For that many smackeroos, it would be cheaper to hire underemployed actors to recreate the episodes of Medium you missed.

Yet, if you're a cheapskate and/or the kind of person who finds fixing computers fun, you can build your own DVR, which doesn’t require a subscription. My husband built ours during Christmas 2005, using computer components lying around the house. I affectionately call it Frankenivo, after the monster Dr. Frankenstein cobbled together from spare parts, then cinematically brought to life with electricity.

What my geeky sweetie built was technically a MythTV. He did it by stripping down his old computer, installing the Linux operating system, putting it in a black box that fit in our entertainment center, then muttering incantations from several thick computer programming books.

At first, when we tried crazy things, like changing the channel, the balky computer would crash. Then “Frankenivo” would display a screen reading KnoppMyth, showing the cute Linux penguin “Tux” watching television, and subtly mocking me. Any time I saw that screen, I knew I wouldn't be watching a recorded episode of my favorite program, the E! "reality" show The Girls Next Door. You don't know how frustrating it is to have a new installment of the Playboy Mansion adventures of Hugh Hefner, 80 and his three live-in girlfriends (Holly 27, Bridget 33, and Kendra, 21), only to be stymied by modern technology.

After all, Hef is like Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island, magically fulfilling wishes. The girls just make a request, like a new red Porsche, and poof, one appears! Magic! Magic powered by hot and cold flowing money, and the Mansion’s 70 person staff.

In contrast, my sweetie prefers geeky science-fiction like Doctor Who and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Of course, there have been MythTV problems. Frankenivo overheated last year, completely cooking his motherboard. Sweetie claims it happened because of the extreme dust clogging the ventilation fans. I think the recorded episode about the girls' Playboy pictorial simply overheated the poor thing.

When Frankenivo is functional, sweetie is primarily interested in seeing if the fast forward and rewind buttons are programmed where I would expect to find them on the remote. MythTV can require configuring the remote control yourself. Dwell on this before undertaking the project.

You’d think with the effort going into TV watching at our house, we’ve got some flat-screen, high-definition, digitally-enhanced, thinner-than-Nicole-Richie television. Um, not unless you consider a vintage 27-inch color TV to be cutting edge.

I suppose I should be grateful we aren’t living in the early 20th century, when my sweetie would’ve doubtlessly been down in a basement laboratory, inventing the electric can opener—sending up puffs of smoke, Grandpa Munster style.

As our MythTV recordings clearly show, my husband is more sci-fi oriented than me. Yet, I wonder what preternatural power keeps three glamorous gals with aging Hef. Is a man with that much money really magical? Maybe.

The Girls Next Door website claims that inside the Playboy Mansion, “There’s a full-time staff of people in a control room taping and TiVo-ing better versions of old movies, documentaries, history programs, etc.”

I bet Hef’s gals never miss their shows.

For more info visit:

http://www.mythtv.org/

…Men are from the Hot Wheels aisle, women are from the Barbie aisle. (2005)

2005-08-25T13:00:00.002-05:00

Getting a Valentine's gift for your significant other can be as tricky as making a tactical error on The Apprentice. One mistake and you'll be painfully backpedaling for weeks. Thus the question lurks in the minds of men everywhere--what do women want for Valentine's?

As the big day creeps ever nearer, the holiday advertising becomes as inescapable as kudzu. Some advertising features sex, and some features romance. And it all seems to be aimed at men doing the purchasing. For Valentine's is about the myth of men pursuing, not the woman's art of being caught.

But why is it that men are the ones doing the buying? Shouldn't love be a two way street? Not a chance buddy, not a chance. And the toys we played with as children are partially responsible.

One painfully popular guide to male/female relationships is, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Perhaps a more accurate title might be, Men are from the Hot Wheels Aisle, Women are from the Barbie Aisle.

Let's start with a look at how boys are indoctrinated into the world of "Me Macho Tarzan, You Decorative Jane." The "boy aisle" at the local discount retailer is filled with rows of crushing, maiming, crashing, shooting and body-slamming things. With all of this relentless activity, is it any wonder that a sensitive man is as difficult to find as half-price Godiva?

Meanwhile, back in Barbieland, girls are indoctrinated into cleaning, cooking, grooming, and caring for others. With that in mind it's hard to consider the Easy Bake Oven and Snack Center as anything other than a tool of capitalistic sex-role indoctrination. Or, as Barbie might say during a political uprising, "Never mind the barricade, girlfriends; lets just make more cupcakes!"

Other things in the girls toy aisle are even more disturbing than Barbie. Like the tiny toy brooms and vacuums that are, as the brand-name tells us, "Just Like Mommy's."

The girl games are also troubling. There are classic pastimes like Mall Madness and Prom Date, where girls learn early that you are what you buy and whom you date. These board games may seem passé, but now technology is here to help. Girls now have electronic games to encourage gender-appropriate grooming and mating rituals. One example is the Magic 8 Ball Dateball. This pint-sized hot-pink key chain toy is meant "to answer questions of love and relationships that primarily interest the female," or at least that's what a PR folks at Mattel told me.

There is also the Ms. Magazine Teen Quiz, a handheld electronic device full of Q&A quizzes just like in Teen magazine! The device has 250 questions about guys, fashion, the real you and much more! Luckily, your game score tells you who you really are! Needless to say, no matter what the category: Star Gazer, Poised with Boys, Boynanza, Shy With Guys, Crush Conflicts, or A Flair for Hair, it is unlikely to tell you that you are a feminist. According to my wise and perfectly coiffed Aunt Diane, this is an indication that you've gone the wrong way, baby.

The closet thing to career planning on the Teen Quiz is the post-fashion-quiz advice, to "Call the Fashion mags you could be a fashion editor or model! You've got the look and the lowdown of what is hot and happin'." Perhaps it isn't fair to ruin it for them; my encyclopedic knowledge of early 1980's fashion nuisances hasn't yet yielded fame and fortune.

So what is the ultimate answer to this cultural divide between women and men, between former Barbie consumers and former Hot Wheels consumers? Well, on a long-term social scale, it isn't giving your prepubescent daughter adult sized cookie-sheets and pie pans (thanks dad!) And it definitely isn't buying into this church-and-state separation of the toys of boys and girls. Gender neutral toys are the answer, and we don't just mean Tinky-Winky and his much-maligned magic bag. It’s long past time for more soccer balls under the Christmas tree, and more boys in the kitchen doing the dishes.

Philosophy aside, chances are you haven't read this far if you weren't looking for a painless way out of the Valentine's shopping dilemma. The answer--as in applying blusher or automotive touch-up paint -- is blending. Try a little of the hot 'n' steamy along with the sappy sentiment. Tell her that you really like her, and that you bought lingerie in hot pink/ red/ black/ leopard print because it's her favorite color--not just that you thought she'd look hot in that teddy and you wish that she'd go put it on. Right. Now.

Or you could try writing a poem. There is usually some nice white space on the lingerie gift tag. If you feel like splurging, you can always commission a special poem from a graduate student in English Literature. They could use the work.

But if none of these options appeals to you, a shiny bauble is almost always appreciated. Especially if you are my significant other. Just don't buy me a vacuum cleaner unless you plan on using it naked.

Meet Mr. Duke (2005)

2005-08-25T12:30:00.002-05:00

Many men dream of going out with a supermodel. A long-legged, blond-haired, jaw-dropping, traffic-stopping, stare-inducing, beauty who won the genetic lottery.

I go out with a 120 lb. supermodel everyday, and frankly sometimes it's a little much. Cars slow down, people stare-- and it's not me they are checking out.

What kind of dog is that?? is something we hear almost every time we leave the house. The question implies that looks like that don't come from random dog sex, but from hundreds of years of expensive dog breeding.

Sometimes I think people ask that question not because of their curiosity about his canine heritage, but because they want us to stop so that they can admire him, hands on. Everyone wants to stroke his blond hair and run their hands along his long, lean back and graceful fawn-colored ears. It's the same desire for luxury that makes you stroke cashmere sweaters and caress Italian sports cars.

My dog is one of the most beautiful animals in the city of Austin, and his only pedigree is the 55 dollar bill of sale from the Humane Society of Williamson County. Three years after we got him, he's still on the flier for the shelter, and I know there aren't two dogs like him in the world.

What does he look like? My sweetie is shaped like a German Shepard, but twice the size. He looks like Rin Tin Tin. He looks like a Belgian Malinois, but only in the right light. He has the looks and size of an Anatolian Shepard, except the ears are all wrong. He might be part Akita..and some people even think he looks like a wolf.

Alas, like many of the truly beautiful, he could care less about the attention of the masses. People stop to pet him, and he walks off in mid stroke, They stop watering their lawns to admire him, and he marks their bushes. He could care less about his public. Adulation from the great unwashed means nothing to him.

I can't imagine if we had actually paid to have something this beautiful in our lives. I know that if, on purpose, we had purchased a, well, whatever he is, we would spend a lot of time explaining why we had made this highly impractical choice. His coat is better suited to a professional sled dog than to his real life role as a sofa based, bark-a-lounger. He sheds so much we wonder why he isn't going bald.

As benefits a dog of his many advantages, he gives a lot back to the community. Every time someone asks where we got him, we proudly answer
"He's a Humane Society of Williamson County rescue dog!" The usual response is a slack-jawed: "I didn't know that you could get dogs like that at a shelter!"

So, if you are considering adding a pet to the family in the near future, try the shelter route. You just might end up with a stunner like ours. True love might be blind, but outer beauty never hurts.

Don’t Fall in Love with a Dead Man (2004) ..a look at the movie "School of Rock"

2004-08-25T13:31:00.000-05:00

This actually appeared on the now-dead website BlueEar.com on June 28, 2004. Yes, the Internets existed back then.

They say you always remember your first love. And sometimes, you run into him in the most unlikely places. I just saw mine on DVD, in Richard Linklatter’s School of Rock. My first love was the Ramones, whose music is featured in the film.

I suspect that for me, like for a lot of other people, music, specifically the Ramones was important because it was a promise we weren’t alone in the world. Growing up in a small town outside of Houston in the mid 80’s, punk was over, the Sex Pistols had come and gone, and Phil Collins and Aerosmith were kings of the FM wasteland.

Yet for the incorrigible misfits of my tribe-- and a few music critics in mythical New York-- there was an alternative to radio dreck. In this land of misfit toys, Joey Ramone was our spiritual leader, and Rock ‘N’ Roll High School was our Citizen Kane.

Despite the Ramones macabre lyrics about electroshock therapy “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment” (I really want a shock treatment) and child abuse “Beat on the Brat” (Beat on the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the brat with a baseball bat, oh yeah…)- their songs were infectious—and subversive, even though we didn’t know the term. You don’t learn words like subversive in detention.

Hearing “Bonzo goes to Bitberg,”—about Ronald Regan’s controversial decision in to lay a wreath on the tomb of a German soldier (1985), made me realize someone else would understand my homemade Regan dart board. The Ramones was a promise that I could escape suburbia, republicans and the Christian right.

I saw the Ramones play in clubs in high school and college, but I only got close enough to touch my idol once. Last time I saw Joey, he was playing in a Christmas Concert in NYC with Ronnie Spector—ex wife of producer Phil Spector. (Phil Spector produced the Ramones album End of the Century, and, in an oft-repeated rumor, Spector allegedly pulled a gun on one Ramone during a session. One suspects that Ms. Spector and Mr. Ramone had much to discuss. )

Joey walked in during the opening band, all tall and gangly in an overcoat, yet no one in the room seemed to notice. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was like Elvis slipping in unannounced. When Joey stopped and stood behind my boyfriend and I, I swear that my heart skipped a few beats and I got a little lightheaded-- just as if I had been sniffing the glue the Ramones made famous on one of their first albums. I could have turned around and touched him, but I didn’t. I could have babbled something about how much he meant to me, but I didn’t. After all, if he wanted to be Joey Ramone in public, he would have dressed up as Joey Ramone before venturing into the lower east side. After all, half the other guys there were dressed as Joey Ramone, circa 1976--all converse and leather jackets and long hair. He soon disappeared with his valise and companion.

When Joey later appeared on stage, in Ramones drag with the trademark wig and round glasses, the bill included “Merry Christmas, (i Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)” and “Danny Says”—the closest things to love songs in the Ramones repertoire. Standing there, I kept closing my eyes, shuttling back and fourth in time between the past and the present, between Texas and New York City, from the place I wanted to escape from, to the place I had escaped to.

While I am sure that Richard Linklatter’s experience was different than mine, we should treasure this little love note from Linklatter to the Ramones. Sure, Linklatter might tell you that the movie is a valentine to the Gods of Rock—Hendrix, Plant, Pink Floyd. But I can see the truth. The movie is all about the punk ethos, getting by with three cords, an attitude and a plan. And that’s all about the Ramones.

So girls, be careful whom you give your heart to. Most of the good ones are taken. Elvis and Joey have gone to that great sound check in the sky. You can’t fall in love with a dead man, it’s a relationship that will always leave you unfilled. If he’s dead, chances are that he’ll never come stand behind you and do things to your breathing. That’s a thrill that every girl should experience.

***

Anna Hanks, Austin, Texas, USA

REVIEW: School of Rock, by Richard Linklater, 2003
School of Rock is the 2003 film featuring Jack Black as a failed heavy metal guitarist. To pay the rent, Black connives his way into substitute-teaching at a posh private school. Rather than teaching the kids math and history, he teaches them music—and the concept of sticking it to the man.

Behind the Scenes at a Holistic Veterinarian's (1998).

1998-12-15T13:51:00.034-06:00

This is a story I wrote for school back in 1998 that was never published.

I'm sharing it here because it emphasizes how much the world has changed; and because I haven't read much else on holistic veterinary medicine...

A short, fat, brown dog was panting heavily in the examining room of the animal clinic. Her owner was with her. Fine stainless steel needles punctured the dog's skin, yet the dog didn't try to remove them. She made no attempt to bite the slightly-built, brown-haired veterinarian in charge. She was as unconcerned as any dog could be in a veterinarian's office.

Dinga the corgi was being given an acupuncture treatment by one of Austin's few holistic veterinarians, Kathryn Van Winkle, DVM.

Holistic medicine is the umbrella term for a number of forms of medicine that focus on strengthening the body's own defenses, rather than on fighting specific diseases.

Acupuncture treatments, such as the 6 year-old Dinga was receiving, are only one type of alternative medicine that Van Winkle, 45, performs. She also treats patients using Chinese herbs, chiropractic care, and homeopathic medicine. She is a member of the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society, an American association founded in 1974 with approximately 1400 members.

Dinga's acupuncture treatments were administered according to the belief that there is a life force called the Qi (pronounced chee) that runs throughout the body. The tenets of acupuncture hold that the body's internal organs can be stimulated through manipulation of different points on the skin. The needles are just one way to stimulate these points. The needles can be left in anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes.

For the corgi Dinga, the needles were stimulating Dinga's Qi for about two minutes. Van Winkle was treating Dinga for complications she had with a sedative the previous week.

A decade ago, Van Winkle wouldn't have been performing this acupuncture treatment on a dog such as Dinga. While she has been a licensed veterinarian since her graduation from Texas A&M in 1978, Van Winkle has only been practicing holistic veterinary medicine for the last five years.

Van Winkle started her holistic medical career with the study of acupuncture. Two friends had strongly urged her to study the field. She doesn't credit any specific turning point in her decision to study holistic medicine. Her practice includes dogs, cats and horses. The small animals come to her clinic, but she makes barn calls for horses.

Van Winkle has gradually integrated the holistic medicine into her traditional veterinary practice. Van Winkle said that none of her clients from before she started working with holistic medicine have fled in terror. She said that she always gives patients the option of receiving either western or non-western medicine.

Apart from her training in acupuncture, Van Winkle is certified by the American Veterinary and Chiropractic Association. The association, founded in 1988, lists approximately 800 doctors in various stages of chiropractic training. Chiropractic care is a medical therapy promoting the idea that proper spinal alignment is the key to proper health.

Homeopathic medicine is also one of Van Winkle's specialties. Homeopathic medicines are plant extracts that been shaken and precisely diluted. Van Winkle said that because homeopathy is poorly understood by the general public, that she seldom uses the therapy in her practice.

While it may appear that Van Winkle practices every form of holistic medicine, she doesn't. Van Winkle doesn't practice aromatherapy nor does she work with South American rain forest herbs, or with magnets.

"Animals would probably eat them," Van Winkle said about the magnets.

While some contest the effectiveness of holistic medicine, it is interesting to note that many of Van Winkle's patients have come to see her because she was suggested by their primary care veterinarians. Usually Van Winkle is working with the primary veterinarian, not taking over the case. Acupuncture and the other types of holistic medicine are used in conjunction with the treatments the pets are already following.

Van Winkle caters to four-legged senior citizens suffering from the assorted discomforts of old age. She has a lot of elderly patients that she isn't trying to cure. She's only trying to relieve their symptoms.

"It's a quality of life issue," said Van Winkle about some of her older patients.

Many of Van Winkle's patients come for the treatment of arthritis. She claims a 60% success rate in the reduction of arthritic symptoms, depending on where the problems are located. She says she doesn't have much luck with pain located specifically in the knees and elbows.

Van Winkle's office, the Barton Creek Animal Clinic is located in a small strip mall next door to Westlake Hills High School.

Westlake Hills is one of Austin's most affluent suburbs. From the address, you might expect Van Winkle's clinic to be posh and trendy. It isn't. There are no double latte's in the waiting area. The clinic even appears a little run down in some of the less public areas. Visitors to the clinic's bathroom are asked not to open any drawers, as that is where the clinic stores undeveloped X-Ray film. The film is later developed in that same bathroom.

In the surgery theater, the operating table, when not in use, was pushed up against one wall, and propped up with two copies of the Southwestern Bell yellow pages.

Van Winkle's partner in the practice, a traditional veterinarian, had used the operating table just that morning. Dr. Steve Reynolds had amputated the tumorous left leg of Rusty, 12 year-old cat. Afterwards, the leg was left on the grooming platform (a raised bathtub) for examination by the two veterinarians. The veterinarians looked at the leg to make sure that they had removed the entire tumor. Their conclusion was that they had, and thus that the surgery had been successful. Two feet away, the orange and white Rusty received intravenous painkillers, and shook as his anesthesia wore off.

One of the problems that complicate Van Winkle's holistic animal practice is the misunderstanding about what holistic medicine can treat. Improper urination and defecation are two common problems misdirected to Van Winkle.

"A lot of people come to me with behavioral problems. Those kinds of problems are a training issue," said Van Winkle.

Conversely, some of the problems that people do not usually bring their pets in for might greatly benefit from holistic treatment. Van Winkle explains that what is seen as a behavioral issue might really be a physical problem. Take for example an "unfriendly" cat.

"A cat that doesn't want to be petted may have a spine that is out of alignment. That is painful to touch," said Van Winkle, making a familiar petting motion in the air.

The entire field of holistic animal health is a disputed one, but one that Dr. Van Winkle firmly believes in. She thinks that there needs to be more scientific testing of alternative medicines. When asked if there had been scientific studies about the benefits of holistic medicine, she had a quick answer.

"Not enough, there need to be more clinical trials," said Van Winkle.

Despite the controversy surrounding the field, Van Winkle appears to have carved out a niche for herself in Austin's veterinary community.

She even has one client who drives in from Lubbock.

Courtly Love vs. Courtney Love

1996-02-15T13:22:00.000-06:00

Back when I spent more time thinking about medieval literature-- and when Courtney Love was more of a going concern--I created this list that was popular with a few of the hipper medievalists.

Think of it as a medievalist's meme, mid 1990's. This means it was actually printed out on paper, then passed around.

Marie de France
Active in the second half of the 12th century

Wrote for an aristocratic audience.
It may have been her marriage that placed her in the right place to find her audience.
Husband out of the picture
Likely Imitated
Likely to have lived at court.

Courtney Love
Active in the second half of the 20th century

Writes for a distinctly un-aristocratic audience.
It was perhaps due to her marriage that she found any audience at all.
Husband definitely out of the picture
Imitated/ Imitation?
Likely to spend more time in court.

Working Out with Edward Albee.

1995-02-15T13:52:00.003-06:00

***a poem from the mid- 90's:

Working Out with Edward Albee.

It isn’t that I ever see him,

It’s just comforting knowing he’s there.

Weighting for the weights,

Trudging on the treadmill,

Running in place like the rest of us.

for chris, who really had been seeing Edward Albee at the gym.

transasia

1994-02-15T13:42:00.002-06:00

Hot sweet baklava afternoons
When your tongue curls curls curls in my ear
Like the designs on your grandmother's rug,
Your American motorbike exotic and strange
Teaching German to the Turkish boys,
Metaphysics to the women.

Last time I saw you,
Dirty fingernails and grease in your hair,
In the courtyard of our house,
Behind the walls,
With your bike spread apart
The chrome removed,
Stripped down and waiting.

(1994)