Active weekends feel like longer weekends, don’t they? We thought it would be fun (and cheap) to get out and about and do some things we’ve been meaning to do for a while now. We kept busy enough that, driving home tonight, I found myself trying to remember what day we’d gone to Epoch for coffee. Turns out it the answer was “today.” Either we had a nice, full weekend or I’m just getting old. Or both. Probably both. Saturday morning, we hit up the poetically-name Lower Bull Creek Greenbelt Trail. It’s not far from our home, five, maybe ten minutes, but it feels like we’ve left the city entirely when we’re hiking by the waterfalls. It’s not a difficult hike like some of the other trails off of 360, but it’s quite beautiful and easily accessible. Well worth the visit if you want to see some nature without having to leave town. Looking down the waterfall from the header image. Saturday night, we checked out the Creekshow at Waller Creek. It was a lovely use off the space along Waller Creek, and judging by the attendance, it was wildly popular. I didn’t take any pictures, but I’m sure you can find some if you’re interested. It felt a little off to me, though. I work a block from Waller Creek and I spend a lot of time in that area. The creek splits the distance between the homeless shelter and the police station. During every other week, the vibe is very different. Austin has a large homeless population and the area around Waller Creek is a popular place for people who don’t have any place to live. None of this was in evidence during the Creekshow, which was very much by design. The Creekshow is sponsored by the Waller Creek Conservancy. Here’s how they describe their purpose. The mission of Creek Show is to surprise and delight the community while also creating awareness about the importance of Waller Creek’s transformation for Austin’s social, cultural, and ecological future. If this means “It’s time for Austin to get serious about helping the homeless,” then great. But it’s about spending moving to develop the area and kick out the people who already have nowhere to go, then I’m less excited about it. I hate to sound so negative; it was a neat show, but knowing what that area really looks like gave the event a weird vibe. Today was special. Today was checked out the new Austin Central Library. I’d heard it was amazing, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. It’s flat-out stunning. It has a huge atrium with an Escher-eque array of staircases which is every bit as vertigo-inducing as it sounds. There are two large event areas, a museum, a gift shop, computer catalogs everywhere, plenty of computers for people to use, include laptops that can be “checked out” for use in one of the many reading/working areas, small meeting rooms, porches, and even the top-floor garden. Check out some of the photos here. Oh, and there were books, too. A great lot of books, which is what you’d expect (although the fiction selection was curiously thin). But…the focus seemed to be on ways to put all manner of information in the hands of people who want it as opposed to being just about the books. I love books, and I prefer to do my reading on paper, but I’m not religious about it. The library seems to have been born of an effort to provide well-rounded information services to the community as opposed to just catering to bookworms like me. In fact, if I couldn’t afford a computer or an internet connection, and I lived next to a library like that, I think I’d get on just fine. Of course, this library is located in one of the most expensive areas to live in the entire city so the people who live nearby are the ones who least need those kind of services. Nonetheless, it’s an incredibly impressive building. I’m making a note here: Huge success! Before I go, though, I’d like to share this with you all. This weekend, we also added a third adult snail to our terrarium. Last month, we found a beautiful snail outside with the shiniest shell we’d ever seen. Looking more closely, we realized his shell was nearly transparent because he was so deprived of calcium and he’d had some breakage as well. We brought him and kept him in his own enclosure for a month while he recuperated and, yesterday, we introduced him to our other snails, Dazzle and McKenzie. Professor Dashiell Longfellow now has a home with us, and Nicole made this video to announce his arrival: And now I am truly tired. My legs are sore, and I think it’s more from the library stairs than the hike, and Nicole is asleep and I expect I will be too shortly.
Author: Ridley
Getting hygge with it
One wrinkle we’ve added to our home life of late is keeping the bedroom as peaceful and relaxing as possible. When I say “we,” I mean it was Nicole’s idea, but I’ve taken it up as well. Everything in its right place, bed made (and I am not a bed-maker by nature), candles, and just a general lack of clutter. I’m sore most of you are thinking something like “that’s how my bedroom always looks,” but please understand that this new to me, so bear with me on it. With the change of environment comes a change in habit. Rather than staying in the living room until we’re good and knackered, we’re adjourning to the bedroom a little earlier so we can wind down and relax. It’s all very comfortable and I find I’m sleeping better than I have in a good long time. The cats seem to like it, too. One or the other will usually be sleeping between our pillows and making my nose itchy. I would say “in a good way,” but we all know there’s no such thing as a good kind of itchy. My musical gear occupies one corner of the bedroom and the lack of clutter makes it a good deal more inviting and accessible to me. I’ll probably never be good, but I have a lot of fun with it and that’s more than enough to make it worthwhile. This week, i re-worked a section of a song I wrote in college, changing it from 13/8 to 3/4 (rhythm and I don’t get along), moving it down a half-step to make it work with another bit I wound up discarding, and discovering and ultimately feeling pretty good about where it landed. I’ve never used a digital audio workstation before, but hey, it’s not that hard to get a few basics down and start playing with it. Learning a new skill is wildly gratifying, even if it’s a skill that I’ll never use for anything other than playing around. This messing around with the musical toys has also interfered a little with my other “job” and writing in this space, thus proving the “Fun distractions are more appealing than work” theorem. One of the many, many proofs, as it turns out. Anyway, my larger point is that we (and again, by this I mean largely Nicole) have turned our little apartment into something that feels more like a resort, a little oasis of calm in what is an increasingly unquiet world. It sounds weird to make an effort to create calmness, but I’m awfully happy with the results. Now if I could just get Nicole to consult on our office space… -RK
The election analysis nobody asked for
So, yesterday was a very bad day for Republicans. The Gods of Ironic Justice smote the party of Trump in an unusually decisive fashion for an odd-year election. This is all very good news. Republicans lost a lot of ground in some key states (Virginia, I’m looking at you…with admiration), and Medicaid expansion won in Maine over the protests of their quite incredibly racist governor. The most obvious takeaway from this is that it’s very difficult to win when your party holds the White House and the President’s approval ratings are south of 40%. The President isn’t the party, but he’s the most visible symbol of what the party stands for. Despite what a few sad, misinformed souls have suggested, Ed Gillespie’s loss can’t be blamed on a failure to embrace the President. If anything, his determination to association himself with the White House likely cost him. I suspect that the Republican party has reached the same conclusion. Unless the President turns it around, he’ll be a millstone around the party’s neck this time next year. If he fails to improve his popularity, is there anything else they can do? Well, duh, of course they can. They can remove him. He’s done numerous things that would warrant removal if they were done by literally any other President. Leaving aside the still-to-be-concluded Mueller probe, he’s actively solicited donations from foreign governments even after he was told to stop, he sent Congress a note saying that he had no intention of abiding by the emollients clause because that kind of reporting would be inconvenient, he’s attempted to use the Justice Department to harass his political enemies…I could go on, but really, they only need one thing and he’s given them a bucketful. Why is he still around? He’s useful. While he’s in office holding the spotlight, there’s no limit to the kind of chicanery a Republican Congress can achieve. Voter suppression, rolling back civil rights protections for everyone but white men, knocking down the barriers between church and state, and tax cuts for the super-wealthy? You’d best believe it! This is very likely a once in a lifetime opportunity for this kind of mischief and removing the President would bring it to a halt. This does not mean I think the President will be impeached in the next six months. I think that the election results last night make it more likely. If Trump continues to embody the concept of “box office poison,” then Republican legislators will have to make the call. If he continues to damage the party and puts the seats of career politicians at risk, he’ll be gone by late spring. Principles are fine, but if a legislator has to choose between “enacting a wildly conservative agenda” and “keeping their job,” you know what they’re gonna choose. -RK
Evidence of Autumn
Edit: Here’s my Autumn 2017 playlist. Enjoy? What kind of a mood am I in? I just spent half an hour playing one note on one of my old synthesizers. Just slowly, slooowly messing with the filter settings and letting the LFO sweep as gently as it could. Cross-modulation, ring modulation, de-tuning the oscillators..all the good stuff. The old synths have all kinds of knobs and sliders you can use to evolve the tone in a very immediate, tactile way, so you can get a huge variety of sound, even playing just one note. It was an E. Nicole posted something on Facebook requesting Using gifs:. illustrate the meaningless void of existence. Explain death to a child. Caress the icy hand of nothing. Taste rot. Become agony. For some reason, I had a stack of ’em queued up. Here are a couple I’m particularly well-pleased with: OK, so the second one isn’t a .gif, but I stand by it nonetheless. I’ve be diving into the last couple of Talk Talk albums lately (and, curiously enough, so has my brother-in-law). If you’re anything like me, you remember Talk Talk largely as a new wave band that had a string of increasingly interesting hits (“Talk Talk,” “It’s My LIfe,” and “Life’s What You Make It”) and then kind of dropped off the radar. The story of their final album, Laughing Stock is interesting and way too long for me to recount, but if you’re up for it, you can read it at The Quietus. It’s a record I’d never listened to or thought much about until I saw it included on Fact magazine’s list of the top 30 post-rock albums. I was a little surprised to see a Talk Talk record at #4 on the list in the same company as Mogwai, Sigur Ros, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. So, I had to check it out. That’s not the Talk Talk I remembered. As usual, late to the party, but that’s ok. It’s not a race. I just finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. It’s a devastating book in that there is tremendous violence in it, but it’s all very calm on it’s surface. If I had to choose a single bucket for it, I’d probably go with science-fiction, of all things. It hits big themes, but the one I’m obviously fixating on right is the question of creating meaning or at least its appearance in a world that denies you any hope of achieving your creation. It’s a pretty heavy book. It’s easy to read, a difficult one to put down, and I strongly recommend it. All of this probably comes across as emo or depressing or something like that, but that’s not it at all. It’s the feeling that comes from looking at things through a microscope instead of a wide-angle lens. We have a single, small light on in the corner of the bedroom right now, plus several candles and the faint hint of spent pinon pine incense. Nicole’s asleep next to me and it’s all very quiet and calm and good. Tonight’s going to be the first properly chilly night of the year and I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to turn out the light, blow out the candles, and burrow under a big, fuzzy blanket, kiss my wife on the cheek, crack the window just a little, and enjoy the cool, dry night air. Goodnight, -RK
One trip around the sun
That was quick. A year ago today, I was a demi-centenarian newlywed. Nicole and I have now been married for a full three hundred and sixty five days, the vast majority of which have been awfully nice. I’m looking forward to the next several dozen transits, too. My life is better than I ever hoped it would be, let alone expected, and she’s biggest reason for that. To celebrate, we performed the ancient ritual of karaoke the night before our anniversary. At this point, I should point out that singing in public is a perfect storm of anxiety for me. The only college course I failed was public speaking. And as for my ability to carry a tune, the response to my best efforts is usually something like “Aw, at least you tried. Although, while we’re being honest, we’d really rather you didn’t try, or at least, not while we’re within earshot.” I’ve had several sincere attempts at singing mistaken for exaggerated jokes. With that out of the way, it was a hoot. There were only four people in our room at The HIghball, which made for a very comfortable atmosphere. I set a personal record by singing three times (did I mention this is something that makes me nervous?). Nicole can really sing, and even though I know this now, I still get giddy watching her do it. My takes on They Might Be Giants (“Particle Man”), REM (“It’s the End of the World as We Know It”), and Cameo (“Word Up”) were less successful, but a lot of fun. Everyone had a great time, and nothing got broken, except the glass I knocked over playing air guitar to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but it’s not a party until something gets broken. Usually by me. For our actual, honest-to-goodness, anniversary, we hit up Garbo’s for some lobster rolls because who doesn’t love a lobster roll? They catered our wedding and, as I suspect is typical at these events, the bride and groom didn’t really get to properly enjoy the food. We did today. Seriously. These are good. It’s late now and tomorrow’s a work day, so things have wound down now but in a comforting soft of way. Nicole’s streaming Marfa public radio on her tablet, and we’re just chilling by candlelight and looking forward to spending a lifetime together. -RK
Nigh-anniversary
Amidst all the chaos and horror of watching everything good your country has done over the last 50 years undone in a matter of months, we’re rapidly approaching the first anniversary of our wedding and honeymoon. Even one year after the fact, there’s enough good associated with those days to push aside the rest of the world and make me feel, if only for a short time, that everything right and good with the world makes it all worth it. We’re celebrating a little early on account of the fact that an opportunity too good to pass up landed in our lap. We’re at the Hotel Havana in San Antonio, which is owned and operated by the same good folks who gave us El Cosmico out in Marfa. The term “curated” is overused (and most often, misused) these days, but when you stay at a place like this, the term makes all the sense in the world. Every detail is just so, creating an environment that is more comforting and relaxing than any of the luxury accommodations I’ve visited. This probably isn’t the place for everyone, but it fits the two of us like some cliched object which fits very well indeed. There’s nothing gilded, no lacy linens, but it’s old and quiet and comfortable and it has, quite ridiculously, two bathrooms. Rather than trying to describe the whole room, I’ll just detail the main bathroom. There’s a toilet to the side in it’s one enclosure, a central area with a rug, a leather chair, and a stand-alone sink and mirror. In turquoise-tiled hutch behind there, there’s an open shower area (no walls at all) and a large bathtub. Ridiculous, right? But it works. Best shower I’ve ever had, and damned if I can properly explain why. Maybe this will explain it better It’s not the sort of place you visit to sleep overnight and then move on. It’s more of a retreat, a place to get away, than it is a hotel. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. It makes me think of that marvelous era when writers and other bohemian types lived at hotels for long periods of time. That romantic notion of life appeals mightily staying at a joint like this. It even has a proper desk? Not one of those glass-covered, overly busy monstrosities you get at “luxury” hotels. Speaking of “romantic,” this feels like a reprise of our honeymoon in the best possible sense. It’s hasn’t been an easy year in many other senses, but being with Nicole is the best thing that has ever happened to me (and this from someone whose life has been marked by more good fortune than I claim to deserve). She supports me through the bad stuff and, hell, she supports me through the good stuff which isn’t something that should be taken for granted. She makes everything in my life better and I hope like hell I can continue to do the same for her. So yeah, I’d marry the hell out of her again. I’ll shut up now and just share some more images of this lovely place. If you’re in central Texas and you’re looking to get away from everything without going into the middle of nowhere, you could do a lot worse than Hotel Havana. One of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in, too. Looking down from the bed area. Stairs. Oh so many stairs in this building. Living area. Cute fridge, pity about the name. -RK
When the drain on the battery exceeds the charge rate
I’m going through one of those spells where the weekends, the refueling times, aren’t long or restful enough to top off the tank, meaning that each week, I’m dipping a little deeper into the reserve to get through it all. Which is to say, I don’t have a great deal to report, at least, not a great deal that’s terribly interesting. I got my blood work back from the lab and I’m surprisingly healthy in most respects, but my B12 level is low and my vitamin D level is…I’m trying to remember the exact words on the report. “Alarmingly low,” I think, is what they were. Apparently, the best answer for this is to drink milk and eat a lot of fish. The more realistic response is to take supplements. I’m currently reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go which is both quite the page turner and absolutely nothing like I was expecting from the author of Remains of the Day. The trade paperback has one really annoying quirk, though. The typeface, which I’ve seen identified as Bembo Schoolbook, is unusually distracting. It’s thinner than what I’m accustomed to reading and it bothers me more than it should. It’s quite pretty; it’s just not great for reading. My fair burg finally got a Peruvian restaurant worth the name. If you’re not familiar with Peruvian food, at least the versions of it that have made their way this far north, you’ll be in for a treat. Imagine a delicious stir fry and then imagine serving it over hot french fries. That’s the lomo saltado, which is probably the most obviously accessible dish, but any culture that comes up with that level of genius is going to produce some fine food. The place is called Lima Criollo, and it’s inexpensive, the portions are generous, and it’s as casual as you’d like. That’s about it for now as we’re getting into wee-hour territory here and I’m pretty sure that staying up late isn’t going to do my energy levels any good. Good night, and take care. -RK
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, but mostly the latter
Is it just me, or have these last few weeks been the worst? I find myself listing the tragedies and obscene acts by politicians and celebrities just to keep myself from getting buried beneath the sheer awfulness. Hurricane Maria leaves thousands of Americans without food, water, power and/or shelter in Puerto Rico. The White House complained that helping these people was going to mess up “our” budget and told the people that they were lucky they hadn’t The funding for CHIP expired on 30 September. The US votesd against a UN resolution condemning executing people for apostasy, blasphemy, adultery, and same-sex relations. The birth control coverage mandate has been removed. The dreamer program (DACA) has been ended. 59 people were murdered by one gunman in Las Vegas, leading to a massive surge in gun sales. The justice department has filed opinions in court stating that businesses may fire employees for being gay. The justice department has also determined that Title VII does not apply to trans people. The House has banned abortions performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The President of the United States is spoiling for war against North Korea. The administration is actively trying to undermine the ACA, limiting the registration period and declining to advertising the enrollment dates. That’s a hell of a list, and I’m certain I haven’t remembered everything. That’s the point though; there are so many terrible things happening (or, more accurately, being done) so quickly that it is difficult to focus and fight on all of these fronts. It’s overwhelming to me, and I’m not even in the line of fire for most of these Most of these acts target minorities. I don’t see any way to look at this list and come to any other conclusion, and I started writing this before today’s little PR stunt. In case you missed it, the President sent Vice President Pence to Indianapolis for the express purpose of walking out of a football game during the national anthem. They spend a reported quarter million dollars to have the Vice President protest against men who protest against race-based police brutality. So, if it’s wearing you down, I just wanted to let you know that it’s getting to me to too. Honestly, I’d be worried about anyone who doesn’t feel the weight of the events of the last few weeks. No matter how tempting it is, I implore you not to tune out for the sake of self-care. Doing that is a privilege possessed by people who aren’t (currently) under threat. Stay alert, stay angry, and for fuck’s sake, register to vote.
Various and sundry
Today was a nice day off before we do a little travelling this weekend. That didn’t stop Nicole from treating me like today was a work day in that she prepared one hell of a dinner (and dessert) while I diddled around on my keyboards and watched impatiently as my fantasy baseball team limped over the finish line. It’s been raining all day, which is nice, because it’s still a novelty. Autumn comes late here, so we’re just now starting to transition in double-digit high temperatures and clouds that arrive more purposefully than they have in four months. I’ve been reading a book of short stories by Roberto Bolaño titled The Return. Bolaño was a Chilean poet and novelist who was completely off my radar until this book caught my eye. The cover blurbs were unusual. I didn’t expect to see Mark Danielewski’s name on the back cover, but that’s the sort of thing that will make me think “Hmm, this might be worth a look.” As it turns out, Bolaño’s a hell of a writer. His dialogue has all the messiness of real conversations, even if I’m not always certain what the story is about. The tone brings to mind China Mieville, although the styles couldn’t be more different. I’m enjoying what I’m reading and I’ll likely be checking out one or more of his novels. I’ve added a couple of new-ish bands to my rotation: The Horrors and No Devotion. I say “new-ish” because neither of them are truly new. The Horrors’ fifth album just came out, and No Devotion are largely what emerged from the wreckage of Lostpropphets. They both are toting what I’d call a very late-80s sounds, not quite Joy Division, but close enough to be mistaken for it if you squint just right. I can’t really think of any great movies I’ve seen lately, or even great television outside of “Rick and Morty” (I haven’t seen any of this season of “Bojack Horseman” yet, but I expect it’ll be strong). The hurricanes and the political mess have been sucking the air out of the room. All I have say about our President (at this time, at least) is that, if you want people to show respect for this country, maybe you should make it worth respecting. That’s about it for now. I’m in a lovely house with a wonderful wife, a cat sitting directly on my shoulder, a couple of beautiful snails, and with a delicious (and heart-healthy) dinner in my belly. Life is a lot better than I expected it to be. Nice surprise, that. -RK
RKQ&A 4
Since I follow The Onion’s AV Club on Facebook, I see their Q&A feature pop up in my feed on a regular basis. They’re the sort of writing prompts I can’t resist and I’m not going to let the fact that I’m not technically (meaning “in any sense”) in the AV Club prevent me from offering up my answers to their questions. This is the fourth one I’ve done. Here are the first, the second, and the third. What pop culture you love is most difficult to explain? I may get roasted for this, but Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch is a movie I just can’t abandon to the people who (maybe correctly) bash it for its misogyny. Snyder is an ambitious visual director who struggles to get his point across clearly. In Sucker Punch, I see one of the most ambitious movies I’ve ever seen. He tries to one-up Brazil both in terms of depicting fantasies that intersect with reality and with his outrageous anachronistic set pieces. Maybe I was seeing things that weren’t there, but I think his depictions of the women’s fantasies were positive, both in intent and execution. I say “think” because I can understand arguments to the contrary. The film’s point of view is too shifty for its own good. I’m not sure that Sucker Punch is really a good film, but it tries to be a great one, and I love it for that, even if it doesn’t hit the bullseye. What pop culture did you eventually come around on? When I was working for record stores, we used to take home promotional copies of records once we were done playing them in-store. In some cases, the record was never going to get any play and we just gave them away immediately. Since they were freebies, we often left with music we’d never heard of and weren’t particularly invested in giving a long listen to. I brought home the promotional copy of My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, which was a cassette, half-heartedly listened to it on my way home in the car, and immediately gave it to a friend who I thought might like that sort of thing. It turns out a crummy car stereo is the wrong way to listen to one of the most intricately-crafted guitar albums of all time. Who knew? Anyway, headphones turned me around on this one. The album sounds like being drunk at night on a merry-go-round in the absolute best way possible. What’s your favorite comfort food? This is going to be the most pedestrian answer to this question you can imagine, but the honest answer is: Anything with chicken broth in it. Growing up, my mother would give me chicken soup and a salad for lunch when I was home sick from school. Ever since then, I’ve associated chicken broth with comfort. Chicken noodle soup, of course, but also chicken and dumplings, chicken ramen, chiken pho, and cream of chicken soup. If I had to pick one, though, it would be what commonly passes for tortilla soup in these parts. The spices, the aroma of the cilantro, the cheese, and even the baby ear of corn, all spell “comfort” to me. If we’re low on cash or just want something to warm our bones, Nicole cooks up a giant pot of her homemade tortilla soup using a whole chicken and we’ll eat that for four or five nights in a row. I never get tired of it, and I’m always a little sad when we finally run out. What’s your favorite pop culture about change? Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman reads like an anthology series made out of nesting dolls. There are stories within stories within stories. It’s not until you get near the end, around “Brief Lives,” that the pattern starts to emerge (of course, Delirium flat-out giving it away helps): The Sandman is about the Destruction brought on by change and the price of being unwilling to accept change. I was about to write “The beauty of the series is in…” and I just can’t narrow it down like the. There’s beauty in the telling, in the sly way the overarching story unfolds, in the complimentary one-off stories, in the art, and in the way it ends the way it must end and still manages to surprise. Change is inevitable; how you react to it (or don’t) determines its impact.