Round Top, TX II

Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown;
Here, cousin,
On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen, and full of water:
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

King Richard II (IV.i.181)

Listening, or hearing, I don’t recall, part of that passage, I kept thinking that there was tie-in to certain imagery on tarot cards. The (neo) traditional Star Card is a female pouring water between two vessels. Because I have a Dali Tarot, I looked in it, as well, and found that it was Temperance, with his offset humor, surreal.

“The image of the king as an actor is a trope that recurs throughout Shakespeare’s history plays and throughout the culture that prompted them.”

(Excerpt From This Is Shakespeare by Emma Smith)

In this recent production, might’ve been opening night, there was a female actor playing one of the King’s supporters, and as a father-figure, in the play, I saw a new part, an echo, a simple dramatic device I’d not seen before. In part, mostly, it was due to her performance, and the command of the language. York to the king. King Richard the Second — I went for the king, and the actor playing him nailed that. But that supporting role, York, was amazing, the play is written almost entirely in verse, yet her delivery of his material was easy to follow, understand, and conveyed emotions.

“I felt that.”

Richard 2 quote
Richard II 2019
Richard the Second 2017

The love of wicked men converts to fear,
That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both
To worthy danger and deserved death.

King Richard the Second (5.1.66)

Surviving (Shakespeare) Winedale

Tips, two tips, simple, two easy guidelines to see, enjoy and thrive at the UT Winedale Shakespeare thing. Event. Performance. Classroom. Whatever it is.

Except for the first pandemic summer, I think I’ve been regularly attending every year for a decade — or more. First went back in the naughty nineties. The plays themselves? Sometimes good, occasionally pedantic, but mostly spirited with some standout performances. What they lack in stature? The students tend to make up for in effort.

Shakespeare Winedale

It’s a credited class from University of Texas (Austin), either English or Theatre, I’m not sure, and they put on three plays. Seemed like a handful of student actors, and that was splitting up the minor roles, not unlike the original King’s Men, or Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Out-of-doors, under an alfresco barn setting.

Saw the inaugural 55th Anniversary show; cool that. Got lucky the last two years with weather, and having rain cool off the ambient temperature. Still, it’s always good to get out of the heat sink of the city, halfway from Houston to Austin, or thereabouts.

One of the great secrets, learned this years back, “frozen water bottles.” A single frozen bottle of water, the usual half-liter, 500 ml, 16.9 fl oz? Freeze it at home, and then, store it in the cooler at the motel. Rental. Wherever. Before the show? Stick it in my pocket. Drips, cools, and gives enough cold water to make it through the night. Can be used in number of ways, but the secret? Frozen water bottle. Simple trick. Hat tip to the old girlfriend for that one.

The second? A flashlight. Can be a large one, a small one, a pocket-sized, or the typical EDC, I tend to carry with everything, a penlight. Single double-A or triple-A cell flashlight. Pocket-sized penlight.

The shows tend to start at 7 or 7:30, sometimes twilights, sometimes right at the sunset, depends on the dates. I’ve sweltered in near hundred-degree heat and other evenings, gentle zephyrs make for cool evenings.

Still, the first secret to success? Frozen water bottle. The second? A flashlight to see the way back out to the parking lot, after the show.

Surviving (Shakespeare) Winedale

Simple, two simple, every-day, household items can make seeing UT Winedale’s Shakespeare so much more enjoyable.

Surviving (Shakespeare) Winedale

Two tips to insure comfort: a frozen water bottle and a flashlight. Every year, the language. Outstanding.

It’s like an actor’s laboratory: myth, meaning, production, performance. Shakespeare is best in performance.

#Winedale
#Shakespeare

July 22 at the New Rock Shop in Austin


11055 N IH-35
Austin, TX
11 AM – 4 PM
512.472.5015
astrofish.net/travel

July 22 at the New Rock Shop in Austin

Austin images.

Going away party?

There are three ways to see me for a reading. Catch me at the rock shop in Austin, 7/22 11AM – 4 PM. Read this week’s horoscopes. Book online for a reading.

the Portable Mercury Retrograde

portable mercury retrograde

The Correspondent: A Novel

Epistolary: a style of novel, narrative, told in the format letters. In more modern formats, text messages and emails.

Seen it before, I think. Mentioned in passing, Stoner (thought I read that novel).

There are years of letters, supposedly hand-written, passing from the main character to her children, friends, fan letters to famous authors, tracking correspondence over a law career, and after. Great depth of detail, evocatively rendered. Bittersweet and poignant, touching on those questions, more than answers, birth, life, death.

The Correspondent: A Novel

12th Night 2015
12th Night 2021
12th Night 2006

I’ve come to rely on UT Winedale as the perfect place to see some local Shakespeare. The performances are invariably uneven. Spirited. Joyful, tearful, emotionally fraught with whatever is in the play.

Good stuff.

The opening night of this year’s 12th Night did not disappoint. Brilliantly acted, playful, odd nod to local conditions, and as there’s a musical point? One player had an accordion.

Reminded me of concert, as I was singing along at the end.

In part, I listened to a long podcast series, big thanks to Chop Bard, walking through the mechanics, definitions, and possible interpretations of the play.

But casually not thinking it through, if Hamlet is a revenge play, can 12th Night be about revenge, too?

Undeveloped thought, I can explore at a later date. With possible sexual undertones, yeah, never mind. Always a fun play, and even better when it’s well-done.

Worth the trip to Winedale.

“It’s the language.”

Bill King’s Brake-O

Hours of Operation

In my formative years, when advertising was more educated guess-work and less scientific? Local airwaves were bombarded with a specific ad, about Bill King’s Brake-O. I even used such a service, same name, back in the day, old Austin days. Turned the rotors on the front of the truck.

But the advertising slogan, the pitch and the push, it was about customers arriving at “Five minutes to Six,” and the follow up was that the store would stay open to fix the problem.

Sets a good model for customer service.

Why my e-mail is always open. But anything else?

The two locations I’m working most frequently, the shop in Austin, for example? I have to perform a check-out before 5:30. Since I’m long-winded, and even though it doesn’t look like much, packing up can take a few minutes, I have to close any business by 5. Simple as that. Their rules.

I am verbose and for the dollars, everyone wants more time. I tend to cut off at 4 PM, as it’s just easier. I can squeeze in two, after that.

Back in El Paso, usually the January shows, and at least one summer show, some of us would stay as late as 8 PM, squeezing in maybe four or six more readings. There was a slang term, derogative, for the readers who stayed late. That promoter put up with the late check-out. Kind but cranky soul.

In Austin, there was usually a grace period of an hour, but even then, years of different promoters experimenting with times? It was polite to not linger past 6:30. That was then. This is now.

The current promoter in San Antonio, nominally Capricorn, seems kind enough about allowing a little extra time, but trying to do a reading while everyone around me is tearing down?

There should be two take-away points:

  1. Nothing starting after 4 PM (1600 Hours)
  2. E-Mail me to guarantee a slot in my schedule.

Walk-ins are always welcome, but I prefer a few days notice to schedule, to guarantee a time.

This is not Bill King’s Brake-O. I can’t afford the ire of the counter help so I won’t be staying late. Show a little respect. It’s not me; it’s the rest of the crew.

Show some respect for the workers.

Bill King’s Brake-O

Early pandemic, I started with this version: Bill King’s Brake-0.

Vincit Qui Primum Gerit

Originally, I found this as a part of the Army Air Corps Supply Command, and the image was an infantry soldier with a rifle, supported on the wings of an eagle. Short-lived army division, responsible for air-supply to remote battlegrounds, circa World War II. Old history.

There are two google options on translations, and I suspect neither is the correct one. The original intent, “He who arrives first, wins” being the intended message of the motto.

That’s my source. “Show all work.”

I’ve co-opted it to mean, show up early, get on the list, early, get there first, better chance to see me.

Vincit Qui Primum Gerit

This isn’t Bill King’s Brake-O. The one who arrives first wins.

Hashtag SorryNotSorry

Old School Indian

A little history? In June of 1998, I was rushed to the South Austin ER. Maybe 24 hours later, western medicine started treating me for a weird blood disorder, like an overactive autoimmune thing. Short version? Near Death Experience, all better, no recurrences. Freaked a lot of people out. Red blood cells ate the white blood cells.

Me? I had a vision the first night, might’ve been oxygen getting to my brain for the first time in days. Who knows? Leads to an intimate knowledge of autoimmune disorders, host pitfalls, and so forth. Stuck in a hospital with tubes running into me, jacked up beyond recognition on various steroids, thinners, thickeners, and in-betweeners. But that was then. (Pluto conjunct Sun, see Predictive Astrology.)

Digging further into history, my understanding of indigenous populations, tribes, and the peoples? My understanding, comprehension, is based almost solely on two sources, natives and lands encountered in my southwestern pilgrimage and media, i.e., The Lone Ranger, &c.

Between school then living in New Mexico and Arizona, that furthered my understanding. So setting this, in part, upstate New York with Indians, it goes smashing through some of my own preconceived understandings. The same — only applies in a very different setting. Expands on ideas, concepts, and my personal grasp of the material.

Freaking white appropriation.

Old School Indian

Pitched as a bildungsroman, only the guy is in his mid-forties, kind of an elder millennial, Xennial, no that’s Gen X, by some standards. To my ear and eye, certainly darkly comic, set against the backdrop of a disease that is eerily eating away at his body. To a Caucasian? It’s about a Mohawk Indian. Dark comedy as death is lingering at the front door, top of mind.

In my mind, it’s a novel that deserves a place alongside Ceremony, House Made of Dawn, Bless Me, Ultima and other literary luminaries. I still have several shelves full of Western American Literature, and this would be a book to add to that cannon.

True “Western American Literature” has to include, be dominated by, denizens of the land, the cultures, the indigenous, the native, Chicano, Mestizo, Mexican, and all the First Nations.

Especially the voices of the lands and its peoples.

Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis