Today is our terquasquicentennial, but I wouldn't recommend walking into the nearest honky-tonk and telling everyone "hey, have a great terquasquicentennial!"
Plenty has happened at the Bottlecaps household in the past few weeks: The older boy got a very short haircut (pictures to come on Friday, I hope). The younger boy has begun to reach for his bottle and try to hoist it to his mouth. But we'll carry on about the kids later.
Today in 1836, Texas signed its declaration of independence. And yet, probably because the label was designed by Yankees who don't know better, Lone Star beer still features a "Since 1845" on its label. Texas did become a state in 1845, but we were Texas a decade before that. And the beer? It showed up almost a hundred years later.
Some time ago, I wrote a letter to Lone Star, and was ignored. What do you think? Should I hassle them some more?
After all, I've consumed plenty of Lone Star in the past month during my honky-tonk tour of Austin. The enormous story, in which I review some of Austin's joints based on their Texan-ness, is scheduled to run this Sunday, and yet nobody has asked me to help cut a word and I've gotten nary a word of feedback.
I wrote the opening to the story about a year ago when I got the idea, have been working on it on and off since November, I'm pretty much at the point where I don't know if it's good or if it's terrible.
Assuming all goes well, I will post a link to the story next week.
In the past month I made my second trip to Kreuz Market, though I don't recall the first. I've also been to the Salt Lick and to Cooper's in New Braunfels. Don't have anything to say about them, in particular, I'm just bragging.
Was thumbing through an old Texas Monthly the other day and ran across a story about photographer Keith Carter, who not only taught a freshman photography course at Lamar University in Beaumont, but was so impressive in a lecture that I happened to see, that I actually enrolled in Lamar to take the class.
(Of course, the 8 a.m. class was difficult for a 28-year-old copy editor who worked until midnight and liked to drink beer into the wee hours. Ultimately, I dropped out and got an "F." But for the half-semester that I attended, I learned a lot.)
(Another problem, of course, was that photography was expensive in the pre-digital age. I had a good camera from my dad, but I was constantly buying film and photo paper and darkroom supplies and that cut heavily into the alms I received from the Enterprise.)
Anyway, in this Texas Monthly article,' Keith Carter managed to drive home another lesson. The writer was talking about how Carter, as an artist, needed to have a sense of place. Suddenly, he no longer needed to go to NYC or Paris or L.A. to be an artist, he could do that right there in Southeast Texas.
Once he felt the kinship with his surroundings, he was able to flourish (I know, a decidedly non-Texan word to use, but my coffee has grown cold and I don't have another word handy).
I've been thinking about that recently, as I've been visiting the joints in Austin that should feel the most like home to me. But Austin, with its growth/hip/ wealthy/tech complex, seems to have left me behind. It's weird to think that for as hard as I worked to get here, I arrived to find out it wasn't what it used to be.
Of course, the real question is, was it ever?
I'm not going anywhere of course. I have a good job and a mortgage and a wonderful network of professionals we do business with, from preschools to dentists.
And I'm not saying that if I went back to San Angelo that I would be an artist or even more sucessful than I am now.
But I do miss my sense of place.
Maybe I can go visit this summer for a weekend.
Funny how I could at any moment, go back to San Antonio, and there would be parts of the town that were still EXACTLY LIKE they were when I was a kid. Some may scoff, but I take comfort in it.
Posted by: shannon | March 02, 2011 at 09:49 AM
Dave, I actually took -- for the entire semester -- his B&W photography class the spring of 2008, maybe? We still used film and we spend a gazillion hours in the darkroom. I loved it, but the time I had to spend working on everything was immense (along with my kids, work already and my other grad work). But I felt so honored to be in his presence! I made a B.
Posted by: Beth | March 02, 2011 at 12:03 PM