Dr Spaceman

Wow, I almost posted this to my HOA's blog....that wouldn't have been good...damn HOA president authorship permission.

He's a good character. I like that everyone except for Tracy Jordan pronounces the 'ce' in spaceman to sound like 'che', as one does in Italian. Thank goodness for credentials, otherwise how would we know to trust a doctor.

Since we architects work with a lot of consultants on a project, and often have to coordinate the ensemble of them and their systems, I think that that comedic concept would be fantastic applied to a consultant or consulting engineer. The comedy: this consultant has been hired to give their qualified(?) expertise on a very specific area of interest (acoustics, water fountains, adobe), but occasionally says things that seem very off. Things that make you think they don't know what the hell they're talking about. And you'd just build more comedic layers from there.

I also thought the other day that there's a small trend in television comedies that play off of common stereotypes regarding certain institutions and have an ensemble of silly people that play off of that: Community (i.e. community college), Parks and Recreation and of course The Office. So in the spirit of that trend, and in honor of the silliness I've been through lately, I offer this idea for stealing (come and get it all you TV producers):

The Board: Life and Times of Zilker Condominiums

More to come....

The Joy of Running

The joy of running is the day after you ran, when you get to just relax a little because you ran the day before, right?? Sure your legs are sore, but at least you don't have to run again or feel bad for not running.

That's Mary's bad attitude speaking. I don't know how I'll ever get myself in shape for a half marathon in November. Shear embarrassment would be one way that's more likely than others; you see, my b-friend has been telling people that I'm running a half marathon in November and now people are asking me how it's going. What am I supposed to say....'Well, let me tell you about the joy of running...'

Right now I don't quite say that I'm going to run the darn thing. I just say that I'm following a spreadsheet that, if I do what each cells says over 12 weeks, is supposed to hypothetically prepare me to run a half marathon.

Having one week of my worksheet almost completely done, the thing I clearly enjoy the most so far is the day after. I basically get to either rest, swim or do yoga on my 'off' days for stretching and cross training. Thus I've finally balanced my favorite varieties of exercise with the only one that tends to bring me results...and it only took me 29 years to figure it out. :)

It's true that when I was walking ladybird the other day, on on of my 'rest' days, I was just completely elated. There was a spring in my step. Also, a warm feeling came over me when I saw all the regulars, the other morning walkers in the neighborhood. The guy who always wears a snow cap and radio headphones with the little antenna sticking out. His buddy who's always really sweaty and lost a lot of weight over the last year. Ivan the Corgi who can walk without a leash, but makes his owner stop to sniff e v e r y t h i n g. Dead pigeon on our driveway, that didn't even bring me down.

Such is the joy of running.

Back to the 'Y'

I recently got myself a membership to the YMCA and, thinking I had forgotten my strokes, promptly signed myself up for adult swim classes. It's true that my brain had forgotten the details of the different strokes: kick from the hip (not the knee), alternate the arms and legs so you always have momentum from one or the other, make sure to breath with every stroke. Luckily I'm a muscle memory kind of person, so it was a bit like riding a bike. The hard part was finally getting myself back into the pool.

The unfortunate thing about this YMCA is that they seem to still be putting as much chlorine in the pool as they did back in 1986 at the YMCA in downtown Hazleton, PA.

I thought of that YMCA today as I was scrubbing myself silly trying to get rid of the chlorine smell. It was probably a beginners swim class that I was remembering and I would have been about six years old. My mom was washing and dressing us after class when we discovered that the bottle of electric green, Prell shampoo had leaked all over our bag. It had also leaked on the edge of the clean underwear that I was supposed to put on. I was six or seven at the time and was not wanting to be a baby or 'not normal' and go without my underwear.

By the end of the day the Prell shampoo residue left on those underwear gave me a rash all along the inside of my left left thigh. I remember the rash being vividly red and very painful. Not a pleasant thing to think about in a public shower where the warm wet air and puddle seems like a perfect breeding ground for a skin affliction.

It was that thought that I was thinking when both me and the woman directly across from me in the showers happened to throw open our shower curtains at the same time, fully naked and briskly trying to dry ourselves off, avoid eye contact and get the hell out of there.

In my last two weeks of showering at the 'Y' I've noticed some personality strategies people use for the locker room. There are the 'talkers' who seem to have the attitude that 'we're just two naked people gettin dressed together, might as well get to know eachother' and their opposite, the 'non talkers'. Similar to subway riders in NYC, 'Non talkers' prefer to avert their eyes and mostly pretend not to see the other naked people changing around them. The thought process for the 'non talkers', or at least this 'non talker', is that maybe if I pretend I can't see them and they pretend they can't see me then it's like there's nobody else there.....

That is until some lady throws her shower curtain open and you're stuck staring at her flip flops, which happen to be obnoxiously polk-a-doted just like your own shower flip flops. I wonder if she got them at the same CVS?

No matter. I'll never know and it really is better off that way.

Live Hot Veg

We've belonged to a CSA for several months now. We were on a waiting list for two months prior to the momentous weekend that we became full partners in the farm. You pay in advance for the what the harvest will bare--allowing the farmer to have a guaranteed market and we to have real, I mean very real, veggies.

So, every other Saturday I (or we, or Dubs) go to an old hippy's house a few blocks away, load one waxed box of fresh veggies and a half dozen fresh eggs into our burlap sacks and wander back home schlepping our fresh, locally grown, organic veggies.

It's really a joy to be a member, despite the washing one must do. The dirt is a little inevitable and since I know that it was in good hands I don't mind eating a little of it every once and awhile, when I just can't rinse those greens one more time.

Well, today's box was exceptionally interesting. There was a lot of variety, but mostly it was all very beautiful. As I unpacked it, I thought to myself that this was the first time I've ever held vegetables in my hands and felt that they had such a strong similarity to animals, or to the properties of living creatures anyway; growing on their own, unedited for supermarkets and each very different.

I photographed them to preserve the thought and share how strange and interesting they were. I especially like the spiraling lettuce, the blood-red looking scallions and the purple hue peeking through the cauliflower. When walking through whole foods, central market or HEB you can't really escape how exactly perfect and similar all of the produce tends to be and is grown to be. Our veggie boxes are always a meditation on difference and variety. I am very greatful for the CSA culture that has developed as of late, without it the options for getting local produce of this variety would be more limited.

In a way the CSA is a new thing -- invented to bring organic, local produce to people over the last 15-20 years. Small farms, which had been slowly driven out of business over the years, can find some lifeline in this type of business--though it's amazing and sad that they need to be reinvented in this way, having had no protection over the years. For a really interesting film on a small farm that survived to become one of the first CSA farms and is run by an eccentric, talented and lifelong farmer, please check out The Real Dirt on Farmer John

Joey R

This one goes out to a good friend. I found out tonight that Joey, an old and dear friend of mine from high school, passed away either Monday night or Tuesday morning -- I don't know. The obituary says Tuesday, but judging from the facebook postings it would have had to have been very early on Tuesday because people already knew at like 8:30 am.

My mom called and told me. After going through a few seconds of denial I ran to the computer. Facebook would show it right? Because didn't he just post something recently? He must have. Upon reading the postings you just knew instantly. Though having read all the postings, still I've got no clue what happened other than he 'died unexpectedly.'

We haven't been in touch in a long time, which is so weird to me and I always regret this about people I was close with in NEPA. There was just something about that place that's still in my head in a mostly negative way. Like a lot of small towns, it for sure wasn't gay friendly nor was it very ethnically diverse or sensitive. For anybody who didn't excel in a practical or accepted way or fit into some kind of life 'type' you just frequently felt on the outside. Left to kind of just create your little world and wait around until you can fly the coop off to a place where you have the opportunity and means to just live more freely and be happy and, for many, explore creative pursuits. Sure, no situation is this entirely perfect or free but small towns are typically limited by their own limited scope--lack of museums, lack of nationally know anything, lack of even architecture offices for someone interested in building design. They have poorer resolution on google earth (that one I've always thought is a little poetic). This is not a criticism, just facts. But ultimately when I go there I still have a strong nostalgia mostly because many people that I love came from there and ultimately I've got a real soft spot that is about the size of Luzerne County.

Well, Joe was so fun. He had a wonderfully sarcastic sense of humor, a love for Rupaul and Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs. We probably went to Perkins over a thousand times over the years. We sat in the smoking section, which wasn't really separated at all from the rest of the restaurant except for being two feet higher than the main seating area, and talked about random shit for hours on end and smoked t o n s of cigarettes. Joe helped me setup my first ever e-mail account of my very own which was ophelia666@geocities.com (a little satanic, yeah I know). We'd also just drive around for hours on end..many, many times. There was always a healthy amount of boy drama in his life but not much acceptance of it from his parents. When I was really tense and angry after my father died he gave me pills one night to chill me the f&*$ out.

I hope I get to find out what happened soon, though I'm sure I will find out eventually. He had a lot to offer and whenever I see him again I hope we can pick right back up talking about clothes or books or art. Now I have to go look for Kleenex...damn

The Mammoth

I'm finally going to finish an art project I started a long time ago. I started it back in 2007. It's titled The Mammoth and it's a sewn depiction of a mammoth taken from a LIDAR survey.
LIDAR is amazing. It's technology that allows you to scan an object using a laser and generate a 3D model of what you scanned. We used this technology on an architecture project that I worked on. We scanned very complicated geometry in order to locate the exact location of Mammoth Bones. It was for our design of the Waco Mammoth Site Dig Shelter which is now under construction in Waco, TX.

We used a plan view of the LIDAR created topography model to locate the walls of the shelter and a suspended catwalk for visitor's to view the bones. Several mammoths died at this site, possibly all at once in some type of catastrophic event. It allowed us to know precisely where the visible bones of one mammoth were in relationship to one another.

I need to finish this by the 22nd so that I can show it in an event for Chris Riley (running for city council seat 1) at the US Art Authority. If you're in Austin and want to check it out here's the info. I am just happy that I am finally finishing and presenting this piece!!

Under the Bombs

I biked myself down to the Alamo South to take advantage of my Austin Film Society membership today. The movie was free for AFS members. I'm telling you, if you like film, there's just no better deal in town. Look it up and get yourself a membership.

This movie is a combination of documentary footage and narrative scenes, all shot during the 2006 war with Israel. Most of the movie making was done during a ceasefire, at great risk to the cast and crew. Their set is the recently bombed out countryside of Lebanon. It's hard to know how much of what goes on in the background of scenes is staged and how much is happenstance. It made me think of the Rossellini film Germania, Anno Zero, shot on the devestated streets of post war Germany. It's got a very Neorealist feel and ending.

In the trailer below they show the first few moments of the film, which are breathtaking. Lebanon is a very pretty country, a lot of hills and valleys. The first shot sits on a pictorial view of a hillside peppered with residential looking buildings. It's like a landscape painting until little explosions start happening all across your view and you realize it's war footage.



I enjoyed this film. There were moments when the woman's search for her son (that's the main storyline) gets a little tedious, but never for too long. It gets broken up by the antics of her improbable partner, a shady taxi driver from the south. The movie is actually lightly informative about Lebanon which was enjoyable. Some of the characters we are introduced to are Christians and you get a feel for the social dynamics at play in the country among its different religious groups. Seek it out if you can & thanks for reading.

Chasing Flies

My dog, Ladybird, is sitting beside me snapping at the fly that keeps flying around our kitchen table (where I sit typing this). I plan to make an animated movie about her (!). After spending so much time together it seems time she be immortalized for nothing more special then her everyday quirks: chasing flies, daintily sniffing flowers, sleeping in our laundry, etc. We'll see how it goes. Encouragement is encouraged.

It's weird. I've seen just a few of the m a n y films at sxsx but it turns out some of them were winners:

SXSW/Chicken & Egg Emergent Woman Award: Made in China
Documentary Feature Grand Jury Award: 45365
Narrative Feature Grand Jury Award: Made in China
Reel Shorts Winner: Thompson

So, I did stick to my plan and moved on to music this afternoon. I saw a bunch of good bands for free:

- Pete and the Pirates Their sound is not unlike Vampire Weekend but I guess more British; they seem really young in the same way too. They were my favorite of the afternoon--really good live.
- FOUND They were my second favorite band of the afternoon, I'm judging only on live performance here. Experimental pop is the title they give themselves. Compared to Pete and the Pirates and Casiokids, these guys have a bit more evolved, mature sound, though more erratic/dissonant and not as smooth though very danceable.
- Casiokids The room definitely swelled when they came on stage. There was a lot of keyboard all afternoon and so too with them. Pretty sounding, pop, dance music. Very fun to dance to.

- Anni Rossi She has a very unique presence. She's a small girl and was performing on a suitcase that had a microphone inside it. For percussion she stomps her feet on the suitcase as she plucks away, sort of violently, on her violin.

- The Proclaimers Yes. The same Proclaimers that would walk 500 miles.
- The Phenomenal Handclap Band They had a ton of people on stage. I counted 8 (from the list of band members on their website I think we only saw 10% of the band). Two girls were singing accompanying vocals and playing tambourine in high-waisted, tight, seventies jeans. Again, there was some fun keyboard (I think they actually had two on stage). The lead singer also had a seventies thing really going on with a handle bar mustache, clear aviator glasses, red suede cowboy boots. White pants pearl snap buttons and long wavy blond hair
- Golden Filter Not sure what to say about these guys. There were a lot of effects on the main vocals. They weren't that great, though they played last and were the presumable headliner. It seems like I hear a lot of hard and loud electronic/intelligent dance music but these guys have a softer sound going on which is a nice way to do it.

Reel Shorts

I'm thumbing this into my phone as I await entrance into Reel Shorts 1 at the alamo south (please forgive the poor typing and no editing). I had a little trouble last night getting into You're Going To Miss Me, but i'm undeterred. I feel like the luckiest girl to have the time to do this so i try not to sweat the little things (though all the people who work for sx and have been very blatantly letting people jump the line....that's lame).

I plan to hop off the movie train and see some music at peckerheads this afternoon. The day show will feature Golden Filter, Pete and the Pirates, Casiokids, FOUND, The Phenomenal Handclap Band and some others. I've heard some good things about Golden Filter so decided to go to this day show over the one featuring M. Ward. There's another band i hope to see called Beach House (I think that name is very full of pleasant universal memory).

I heard a very interesting thing the other day about the daughter of Eugene O'neil. I couldn't remember the details but my friend Josh and I googled it out. What I had remembered was that she had left a very famous man to marry Charlie Chaplin. I couldn't remember who the 'famous man' was.

The famous man was J.D Salinger. The age difference between the woman and Chaplin was approximately 35 years. Thanks for reading!

Los Paranoicos

I'm just going to title this post for my favorite movie that I've seen thus far: Los Paranoicos

It's kind of hard to describe what's so nice about it, minimalist and subtle as it is, but as the movie progressed I found myself moved from interested to really captivated. The acting is great from the lead male. It's basically a portrait of his character Luciano Guana a struggling, 30-something, coarse-feeling writer who appears somewhat socially isolated and wrapped up in his own neuroses. The supporting characters play into the story pretty significantly, though it remained a portrait mostly about him. The most significant of these is an old friend, a successful former classmate of Luciano's. Luciano comes to find out that the old classmate, who has since moved to Barcelona, has based his successful TV show there on Luciano and his neuroses. The main character of the TV show is named Luciano Guana.



I don't want to spoil much more except to say that there's a tension watching the film as you see Luciano's inability to speak up for himself. The tension gets released during the movie at times in the form of rage and at times through somewhat intense and raw dance sequences. Also, the soundtrack is great and should be sought out on its own.

My Buddy Josh is making a short film involving unexpressed feelings and dance. I can't wait to see it. He and I actually got up really early this morning to get in line for another film called Made in China. A roaring comedy about a naive guy with a dedication to making his great business idea happen in China with the help of their cheap manufacturing.

Yesterday I saw another movie worth mentioning called 45365. The title is the name of the zip code where this documentary feature takes place. The film makers spent 9 months filming the environment and people of their hometown. The result is open ended and sort of like having a web cam setup on the town and certain people. The filmmakers are conspicuously absent from their own film which leads one to think that perhaps they're trying to be objective or portray objectiveness.



The filmmakers were there to speak afterwards and it was hard to discern their agenda in making the film other than to be observers. The film was enjoyable to watch though stuff like this, stuff that implies the achievement of objectivism or pure observation about/on a topic, always has very basic problems. The obvious part is just that it's impossible to be objective; what you turn your camera on to film, what you decide to edit and who even allows you to follow them and thus be in the film are all realities that preclude it from being as all encompassing as the title and description would lead you to believe. If three siblings of a different heritage attempted to make the same film about the same town with the same method it would probably paint a very different picture of the culture and people that live there. It's inevitable and, you know, no big deal but I was suprised (but I guess ultimately glad since it didn't look like good answers would have come out of it) that the discussion didn't go there. Anyway go see it--whatever issues the sociologist in me has, it was a pretty and decent film.

SXSW Weekend 01

I showed up at the Thomas Prometric testing center on Saturday to take my MEP exam only to realize that I was a week too early?! It's next Saturday. Defeated as I was at not having another one over with, I decided to sit myself in a matinee movie for the rest of the afternoon. That's when I ran into the SXSW Juggernaut.

The Alamo South, just a dreamy bike-ride-away from my humble abode, happens to have dedicated three of their screens (during various time slots) to the SXSW festival. So when I showed up ready to sit through whatever old movies they had playing, I was delighted to feast upon their fresh, in some cases premiere, faire. So I went ahead and made the impulse purchase of a 70$ film pass for the weekend. Call me crazy, but the Alamo is sooo close and, well, I just caught the fever and it seemed like a great deal given I've got Mondays and Wednesdays free these days.

So at 2:30 yesterday I saw Luckey. It's a doc about a guy who creates large scale climbable sculptures for kids. He suffers an accident at his house that breaks his spinal cord and leaves him a quadriplegic. His son, who's an architect, ends up teaming up with him to keep his business going, enabling the father to continue to keep doing what he loves. This father has done climber sculptures (designing and also building) for many of the most well know children's museums in the US -- he's basically the best of his kind for what he does. There's a lot of amazing stuff in this story: the dynamics between the son, father and father's wife who is closer in age to the son (it seems), when one person in a relationship ends up as care giver to another, the relationship of two designers that have no choice but to rely on each other to accomplish the project (which is difficult and complex)...the list goes on. Anyway, it's a very real story and very fair to all parties. For people who enjoy seeing ideas come to life, these guys both design and build their sculptures so you actually see a lot of how it comes together in the field and how the crazy geometries and forms are conceived. It was very enjoyable for me.

I managed to snag a great parking spot at 9:30 pm downtown and thought the night was going my way. I shared a few drinks with some friends at Casino El Camino and then tried to catch the midnight (11:00pm actually) Texas Shorts showing at the Alamo Ritz...but I didn't get in. :(

So I then hopped back in my car, fighting traffic to get out of downtown (note to self all sxsw trips should be on bicycle), and headed back to the Alamo South, hoping to make it in time to be towards the front of the film pass line for Pontypool. Mission accomplished and with a decent seat (flying solo in these movies helps). Then came the movie. Oh my Science! It's great. Suspenseful! I can't say too much or I'll be a spoiler. There are zombies. There's a curious epidemic that must be figured out which will appeal to the sci-fi and sleuth types. There are great characters and very good acting, including a once-popular radio host who's been relocated to the small hamlet of Pontypool. I highly recommend it.

Well, I'm half way through the weekend as I write this and am happy to say that the features, docs and shorts I've gotten to enjoy have been thoroughly diverse in taste and subject, which I think is good. More on my day-two later, but on a separate note, two people in line behind me this morning mentioned that I might enjoy the book World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War or WWZ which is actually the next book on our book club's list...I'm enjoying the zombie coincidences.

Slow Money

The slow food movement has always appealed to me. The revolutionary aspect of it not so much, but the slow part--yes, yes, finally!! Weird as this may sound, when I first looked into the philosophy it was like I had found some kind of explanation for the way I like to live my life. More on that in some later post, but lets just say that my personality is the slow variety. In the sense that I like to wait to see how things unfold. I like to take the time to cook and experiment with cooking even if that means eating at 10:00pm. I think of any project I start, especially the creative ones, as ongoing and in some cases lifelong. I like to go out of my way. The reciprocal of all this being, of course, that I mostly don't like to be rushed or rush things...as often as that is practically possible.

Anyway, I was delighted to hear about a guy called Woody Dasch and a concept called slow money. NPR started the segment with the story of a young dairy farmer in upstate New York who wasn't able to get a loan from his cooperative for expanding his organic dairy product line. He's got no collateral save for the cows. His solution is to ask the people who buy his milk at the NYC farmers market to make loans to him as investors. $1000 for a 6% return. He needs $700,000. It's an example of investing in something local, something that will take time to mature but benefits more than just an investor by building something real in a real community. What puts this in perspective more than anything, of course, is how very, very ungrounded our financial meltdown has been--made famous by complex financial instruments with nothing beneath them but bad, bad mortgages.

For me, micro lending programs done by community groups in many third world countries sprang to mind. I'd love to hear people's ideas and thoughts on slow money. Thanks for reading.

Do the Stanky Legg

I feel I should start with an apology for how skimpy my posts have been as of late. Roger reminded me today that a week is like a century in the blogosphere. The only reason for this is that I seem to be filling my days quite full.

This has led some to say that unemployment suits me. I guess I have to say that I can't disagree. Similar to how 'high school didn't suit me but college did', I think I can now say that 'a nine-to-five archi job didn't suit me but working for myself does'. So what have I been doing with my time? Hmmm, well:

1. This video explains a little (though it's stanky not skanky):



Some first graders, whose class I visit a few times a week to help with the three R's, showed my teacher friend and me this dance a week ago during Fun Friday. They are really refreshing to be around -- keeping me on the pulse of what's cool on YouTube and aware of how much we know at such a young age. Oh and also, this dance is awesome but very catchy, be careful. So stanky legg = lazy leg? Any thoughts from y'all?

2. On Friday afternoon I ran around for The Blanton Museum, distributing fliers for their new show Birth of the Cool

I haven't seen it yet so I can't comment on it, but it certainly looks fantastic and I've run into a few people who've raved about it.

3. Catering for a friend's short film. I went out and bought myself a crock pot for the occasion. I had never used one before but realize they can be a great friend to me. Lunch was thus pulled pork from a slow roasted Boston Butt. I drove to freaking Buda to find an affordable 6 lb cut of meat. If anybody knows of an affordable butcher south of the river I'd love to know it.

4. I attended a production assistant workshop (for on movie sets). Unfortunately until film incentives are passed in TX there will be very few feature films shot here, and thus very little paid work. Since the states on both sides of Texas (NM & LA) have passed very lucrative incentives for studios, work has dried up here. One word on the street statistic I heard recently was that there are 25 films slated for LA this year and 1 or 2 for TX.

If you want to help that cause you can write to your TX senator and representative and let them know that you want the legislation passed. The Governor is actually behind the two bills being drawn up at the moment. Eventually the house and senate will vote on it and then we'll know more. The big issue seems to be funding, of course -- i.e. where will the money come from to fund incentives? What gets cut so that incentives can be offered and so more movie business dollars come to Austin....errrr I mean TX.

5. As I type this one in the 5. slot I realize I should have put it higher but there's no point in renumbering, just know this one is good and thanks to Mrs. Mosty for sharing the treasure that is Depression Cooking with Clara



It's hard to believe she's in her nineties right? Watching these made me incredibly nostalgic for my childhood and all the older ladies who used to watch us (me, my sister, my cousins & friends) and cook for us in and around Hazleton, PA. She really channels them for me. Please enjoy and thanks for reading!

My Forester Fairy Tale

The first time somebody admired my car I was getting out of it at Vulcan Video. This guy said 'nice car' and I looked around, mildly surprised to find a late twenties dude with beard and tight jeans starring at my forester. 'It's soooooo boxy' he said borderline lustily. That was the first time I had any inkling that there were Forester admirers and lovers out there. I've definitely really liked the car since the moment I got it secondhand. It always seemed to be able to hold whatever crazy things I was lugging to TX from PA (skis, bikes, chest of drawers, etc.)

When I moved into the house on Nickerson St. in Austin back in '05, my housemate Laura, knowledgeable on all things lesbian, informed me that her and Mandi (our other housie) thought I might be a Lesbian because I didn't have a boyfriend and drove a Subaru Forester. It's almost ridiculous how many references there are to the Forester-Lesbian connection:

1. Subaru Gay Ad Campaign
2. Top Lesbian Cars
3. The term Lesbaru

Mine is a white, 1998 model. I'm pretty sure Foresters entered the US market in 1998, so I'm inclined to think mine is first generation. I'm pretty proud of the car to be totally honest. I decided about a year ago, after making some expensive repairs (not that this is common, because it's not), that this car and I were partners for the length of its life. So I'm trying to rehab it. In the spirit of not leading a disposable life, coupled with my recent unemployment (thus extra time and less money) and my unfairly beating it up for about 6-7 years, I really want to restore it to its former glory.

Step one was going to the dealership to get some glacier white Subaru paint to patch a few chips. It was at the Subaru dealership in Austin that I met a fantastic oracle or Subaruness. I was waiting at the counter for a quote on new mud flaps and a dog guard for the back seat when the guy behind me asked me if I had a forester. I turned around to see a tall, thin, late twenties male in tight jeans (Deja vu?). He asked which one was mine. We couldn't see it from where we were standing so I just told him it was a white '98.

'Wow that's the best color', he said.
'Really, wow?', I said.
'You know', he said lowering his voice and eyeing the dealership parts guy, 'There are websites where you can get parts really cheap. Like have you been to subaruforester.org? They've got great prices.'
'No I haven't. Oh my god that's awesome!', I said.
'And I saw a dog guard on craigslist for a 2000 model but I bet it'll fit. Do you ever look on there?'
'Well not for car parts...but I guess I should though.', I said.

It went on like that for awhile. Eventually I paid for my paint, we exchanged e-mail addresses and he told me to go take a look at his forester; he had just finished recovering his seats with a leather kit he got online for $55. A few days later he e-mailed me a bunch of links and said to stay in touch. It was very much a car fairy tale for me and I feel emboldened to do a bunch of special things to my ride.

Examined Life

I was almost going to make this whole post about eggplant water -- yes, eggplant water. Luckily, before I had a chance to peck out how shocking I found my weeping eggplant this afternoon, I ran into a really inspiring film called Examined Life.

I got myself an Austin Film Society membership recently and the movie tonight was my first event (just 4$ for members!!). Firstly I was shocked that the theater was so packed for such a seemingly obscure movie and on a Wednesday night. The only seats left were in the very first row of the whole theater. I was pleased to see up close how large Cornell West's gap is. We are gap-toothed friends.

So it was nice to see that Austinites love their philosophy. Maybe I am in the right city after all. For me it was a bit shocking to see how young some of the philosophers were: Zizek, Judith Butler, Michael Hardt. She seemed to have a pretty simple premise: asking certain philosophers to speak for a time about ethics and meaning as they pertain to the areas of philosophy these people generally concern themselves. They were all pretty ripe to talk and had no problems addressing the camera -- in fact they were for the most part really charismatic and totally captivating.

Zizek was perhaps a scene stealer. His filming was done at a dump. Heavy machinery is shoveling mounds of garbage behind him (very close to him actually) and it's all very loud. Part of the time he has to shout to be heard. Coupled with his orange vest, beard and real intensity, it would be easy to mistake him for a worker there. What I took away was part of what he had to say about ecology. That we are equipped with rational facts about the environment that should cause us to realize we've got a huge (but slowly building) catastrophe on our hands; yet, because in our daily lives we still see trees and birds and relatively clean air we do nothing drastic to solve this looming problem. I think in part he thinks its because its not in our nature to do so. That maybe we play a part in the reality of what ecology is and has always been -- a series of catastrophic events. He also says ecology is the new opium for the masses. And then my brain was happily overwhelmed. I think we was trying to find a way for us to not feel as sorry for how the natural environment is turning out. This didn't make me feel ok. Oh well, I still can't stop myself from wanting to hear more from him.

Another favorite was a conversation with Kwame Anthony Appiah that took place in an airport as he was changing planes. One question was what it means to be cosmopolitan (which is a general challenge for the ever globalizing world). A cosmopolitan is a 'citizen of the world'. Citizens of the world can embrace and appreciate difference without requiring it to conform to something other than what it is.

Also, for anybody who has ever had creative blockage for fear of making something that wasn't perfect or good, Cornell West has a great little spiel about romanticism and dissonance.

I hope you enjoyed this in lieu of my thoughts on eggplant water. Please try to see this movie if you can. It will come out on DVD at some point and there is supposed to be a book that can be purchased to accompany the DVD that will have the rest of the many, many hours of footage with all eight. I don't know more details about where else it will show in Austin though it is supposedly going to get a pretty wide release across the US. The director is Astra Taylor. On a side note, as I was just googling to find a good link for Astra, I discovered that in 2008 she married Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel? Crazy. Though I don't know either party I feel compelled to say 'it's a small world'.

Sentences that start with 'After the storm...'

I got me some beadzzzzz!!!

I had so much fun catching them. My non chest bearing strategy was a big smile, shaking my hands crazily in the air and jumping up and down--which, happily for me, got me a lot of beads. It helps that there's not as much competition as you'd find in a place like New Orleans--but, whatever.

The coolest and best looking revelers I ran into were clearly Spencer and Kate (see the Jack Russels to the right). Anybody who's in Galveston next weekend can attend the Barkus and Meoux parade there and see them along with the rest of the animal participants, which sometimes includes goldfish and alpacas I was told.

I was lucky enough to get to stay at my cousin's restored home (circa 1890, survivor of the 1900 hurricane) on Mechanic Street. According to local lore, it once covered the head of the famous pirate/privateer Jean Lafitte. Thomas Paine was also a privateer I seem to remember. So if privateer is a nice way of saying pirate, I guess Thomas Paine was a bit of a swarthy badboy. Didn't he sign the Declaration of Independance?

Anyway, it was really sweet to spend the weekend there. They definitely have a lot of stress to exhale in this part of Texas. There was a lot Ike evidence in Galveston. Most people on Galveston island, my cousin included, were just finishing rebuilding from the 8'-0" or more of ocean water that had flooded the island in early September. On Sunday we took the ferry over to the Bolivar penninsula and took a look at what was left of the houses there. Galveston felt very recoverable, despite the prospects for future hurricanes. Bolivar though felt more like a wasteland; the backwash of the hurricane, unfamiliar to what it had been before.

Random, dirty items pop forward in the landscape while driving down the center of the penninsula; it's a lot of miscellaneous household stuff: garden hoses, parts of a vacuum cleaner--the list is endless. The trees or shrubs that are standing are mostly gray, possibly/probably dead from being submerged in salt water. A lot things that ended up on the ground (i.e. cars, bathtubs, coolers, etc.) and parts of buildings were heavily mired in thick, clayish mud. Houses were often teetering and twisting over or not there at all, with only wood piers left behind. Some of the houses that were built with concrete piers appeared to have faired better.

According to my cousin, local code requires that houses on the penninsula be built with concrete piers--I hope that anyone who rebuilds here would do this and that building officials get tough about enforcing it. Apparently some homes on Galveston island are being allowed to rebuild with slab on grade foundations--these are areas that undoubtedly will experience flooding at some point in the forseeable future. It makes no sense to me that this would be allowed, especially considering that they appear to be able to enforce strict rules on historic home renovations down to the type of material a window is made out of.


Of course, there were many cars that were ruined. Piles of cars had been collected near the ferry terminal where we arrived. Only a few, that were perhaps more difficult to move, were still left along the road or wherever they fell.

Unlike the aftermath of an earthquake where buildings appear to have gone through a grinder and end up in crushed piles; the hurricane washes things away or strands them and above all drowns them. Things are sometimes intact but often ruined, unusable. Above all so much is missing--some of it in the piles of debris and then so much of it just completely gone or maybe there but unrecognizable.

There is much reason to celebrate this mardis gras probably as there was the mardi gras in New Orleans following Katrina. It helps to understand why celebrations are important and why certain places or people, need to celebrate more often or better or in a way that's different from other places that don't expeience the same kind of loss? Who knows.

This film is a beautiful little meditation on great storms, loss and celebration:

Those Dang Yogurt Shops

The first time I experienced one of those pay-by-the-pound, self serve yogurt shops, my boyfriend immediately noticed that he was one of only two guys in the whole place. It was true and has been true every time that I've gone back. It's a chick magnet (dude repellant?). If somebody starts a 'what soccer moms like' website they can put these yogurt shops right after volvo station wagons.

You might wonder, as I did, why these yogurt shops are so amazingly popular. I distinctly remember having a conversation with a Californian about them maybe a year ago, before Austin had any. Well, I don't have an answer to their popularity other than the quirky Asian toppings & sauces (mochi, red beans, condensed milk, lychee, pomegranate sauce), modern & hip interiors and the gap in time between now and the last frozen yogurt phase (think TCBY, 1981).

I wanted to go there today because my head was swimmy after chaperoning a first grade field trip to the Texas State History Museum. It's a sweet place but seemed to be more about churning up the image of Texas through animatronics than recording much real, complicated history--perfect for a first grade class, however. The majority of their exhibits were pretty kid-proof which was good because the minute we got in there it was mild pandemonium. Kids bouncing from exhibit to exhibit, totally overstimulated and excited from the moment they got on the bus.

The highlight was a film we watched in the museum's multimedia special effects theater. They give you a quick ride through Texas history making sure to include events that allow them to shake the seats, blow air on the back of your neck and spray a slight mist or fake smoke depending upon the event. What events of Texas history did they select for the film you might ask? They seemed kind of random but I'm not a Texan so maybe I just don't get it: Cowboys blowing up a rattlesnake den with dynamite, Attack of the killer locusts (or other bug, it was unclear) somewhere in Texas and then one that made more sense, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.

Ummm, somebody needs to tell them it might not be a good idea to simulate historical hurricanes anymore in the gulf coast region. When you combine the shaking seats, loud sounds and strobing images of waves crashing on huge screens right at you, it's a bit too good of a simulation and can be slightly scary. I did only see one kid crying, but I certainly wouldn't want to be there if a group of tourists from Louisiana happens to stumble in there.

I'm trying to fill my days with volunteer activities, a modest search for a restaurant job (also freelance archi work), studying for my final ARE exams and going out to all the fun things going on around Austin. As an aside, I had gotten really excited recently about a perp cook & dishwasher position at a catering place after a good conversation with the chef, but they ultimately found somebody else, C'est la vie. No matter. I will keep searching for the elusive good match. I'm pretty giddy to be cooking in a kitchen and watching all these food shows has got me even more amped. So I'll just have to keep you all posted.

This things I am excited about doing soon:
1. Pecha Kucha night
2. Phillip Glass Book of Longing
3. AFS screening Examined Life

Gosh I'm Hooked on Top Chef

While I feed my addiction by re-watching all the seasons, my wine of choice for the evening is: House Wine by The Magnificent Wine Co. It's a blend of a bunch of different grapes (6), mostly Cabernet Sauvignon. A little snooping on Wikipedia reveals that though it's grown all over the world, it's a young grape. A cross of a Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. Resistant to many things that might destroy it, it is known as the great colonizer for its tendency to become really popular/dominant wherever it goes.

I've finally finished the book for our book club: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It's published by MTV books which made me feel silly. What are they doing publishing anything? But then I thought about Napoleon Dynamite and changed my mind a little. It's for sure a page turner. I think its best audience may be a younger crowd 16-21, but I like that it really stuck with its format and worked it like the rent was due. (That's my new favorite expression, I'm sure you heard it before. I heard it on Top Chef)

I'm hoping to read this other book for another book club: Orlando, A Biography by Virginia Woolf. If you would have asked me a year ago if I could ever see myself being in two book clubs at the same time I probably would have said "only if I loose my job or something".

Zsa Zsa Gabor's birthday

Zsa Zsa turned 90 today. It's Bob Marley's Birthday today too. He died in 1981 when I was 1 year old, Zsa Zsa was 62 years old and he was 36 years old.

He died of cancer. It seems to be generally believed that it started in his big toe. Incidentally, my mom's awesome, large-for-his-breed sheltie named Snickers also has cancer and it started in his toe. That's my great grandmother in the picture. She died when she was 101 in 2008. She was diabetic for half of her life which some people think is amazing.

These are the things I am thinking about today. From what I've gathered, Bob Marley's toe went untreated and he eventually died from a tumor in his brain. Snickers has started radiation treatment on his foot.

There is definitely a sense of disbelief when someone tells you that an enflamed bump on a toe is actually a dangerous cancer. Another dog we know had an enflamed bump for several months and it turned out to be a porcupine quill; the swelling was so great they couldn't find the quill in his skin and the veterinarian had initially diagnosed that dog as having cancer.

Not sure what the weekend holds just yet other than drinks at Shangri-la. Apparently Domy is having a reception on Saturday night. Since I've never been there before, and it may give me happy nostalgia for Houston, I think I'll check it out. 7-9. For more info on the opening: Domy

Last night I was able to hang out with three friends at Vino Vino. We had a really great, cheap wine from the Loire Valley of France named You are so Nice. From the Vino Vino's description this wine is very earth friendly: biodynamic, organic, hand harvested -- wow.