The Long Center
Last week, Austin finally got a preforming arts center to call our own. It apparently not only rocks, but after 4 years of construction they managed to use a sizable amount of the old building as well:
…65% of the materials in it were recycled from Palmer, including 500 tons of steel, the stage house and foundation, mahogany from the Philippines, marble from an Italian quarry no longer being mined, and those love-’em-or-hate-’em roof tiles.
The idea of revamping the Palmer was conceived in the money-falling-from-the-sky era of the tech boom and went through a typically Austin level of drama as funds dried up, designs were scaled back and board members left the project. A solid ten years later, the hard work has finally paid off.
Town Lake Park
The new Town Lake Park features a big hill in the middle that the city built for me to take pictures of downtown from (nice of them to think of me for a change). I guess they need to rename the park now that its officially Lady Bird Lake (which while she was great and all, just doesn’t have the same ring to it).
More pictures from our brief foray into the SXSW madness can be found here.
Overheard At Whole Foods…
While picking up stuff for some picnic action on Saturday at Whole foods, I grabbed an extra bread bag so we could split the baguette in half and have it with dinner. It kind of freaked the checker out…
Hippy Checker Girl: Dude something happened to your loaf!
Me: Uh, what ? Oh…no, I jut got an extra bag.
HCG: Oh man that’s a relief. I was like ‘oh no there’s a lost loaf somewhere in the store. Help!’
I love this town.
Ears are still ringing….
Enough of the political-horse-race horse-shit. Standing in the crowd at a What Made Milwaukee Famous show, as the speakers shatter the ice in my drink and setup harmonic oscillations in my nostrils (yeah my schnoz is pretty big), while the kids on the front row use smoke signals to let us know that, yes it sounds good up there too–that’s good times.
Strange Happenings at Galaxy
Galaxy Cafe on West Lynn has a nice euro-style outdoor seating area where me and the special lady friend were sharing some dinner and a few glasses of wine in what turned out to be a very nice evening.
About halfway through the meal, we were joined on the porch by two older gentleman (a couple I would guess), who rolled up in an older Rolls Royce with their dog (yes, we bring our dogs to eat with us in Austin) that was a mix of poodle, malamute and dust bunny. This thing was walking around with 30 pounds of fur, easily.
We were taking our time with the wine, enjoying some conversation, so they ended up finishing their festivities long before we did. As they were leaving a couple of odd things happened. First, as they are walking toward their car, one of the guys rips an earth-shattering fart. This disturbance of seismic proportions could probably be heard in Houston, caused several homeland security alerts, and temporarily grounded all flights out of the airport. Walls shook, trees snapped from the force of the blast, small children cried. Then he opens the passengers-side door to the Rolls (his partner is already behind the wheel), lets the dust-bunny-slash-dog in, and climbs into the back seat like some freakishly weird version of driving miss daisy, where Morgan Freeman’s part is reprised by Alf.
We took it as a sign to order more wine.
Naus Enfield Drug
Good for milkshakes and posting stuff. It’s like a real-life version of flickr (if flickr sold milkshakes).
At Cafe Mundi
Since the demise of Things That Go Pop, I’ve kind of lost my connection to the low-key music scene. Sure I still make it to bigger shows, but last night was the first time I’d been to Cafe Mundi in a good long while.
A guy and guitar, with a small room filled to capacity, with the only occasional interruption from the hiss of the espresso machine. A good way to see a show and a good Friday night.
Vintage Oil
I was driving to work Friday morning when NPR advised me to stay away from 6th street due to an oil spill.
Pardon? This is not exactly an industrial area, and unless the Driskel Hotel has been drilling for oil (not sure why, they make enough money on the exorbitantly priced rooms), there’s not really anything down there that would would cause 20,000 of gallons of fuel oil to be running down sixth into Waller Creek, unless someone had parked, say, 500 Volkswagens on the street.
Well, actually there is. Turns out a water main broke and flooded a long forgotten oil tank, used in the mid 19th century to heat and light homes. Apparently this giant tank of oil has just been sitting under there for 100 years or so minding its own business, until it got flooded out.
Ok, so a downtown reenactment of the Exxon Valdez. The flooding and subsequent closure of the State Theater in 2006 due to another water main break. Three years to rebuild Barton springs (a mile-and-a-half stretch of road) because crews had inaccurate maps of the piping under the street. See a trend? Our tax dollars at work.
This is Austin
Yup.