4103 North IH-35 Austin, Texas 78722
Store phone: 512-472-5015
11:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Often in Austin — “It’s really him.”
See listing for details — astrofish.net/travel.
“First to arrive gets the best deal.”
Excavated from mounds of reuse that is getting recycled? A simple image that brings up memories of the natatorium, summers spent in the lake water, or even more recent vintage, for me? A decade spent around Barton Springs, in Austin. Fish and swim, best of both worlds?
I’ll return to frivolities, but first, just a notice. I’m not pro-abortion. I’m not anti-abortion. I’m male: I don’t have a say in what a woman does, not on any moral, ethical, or rational sense.
I have no rights, implied, or otherwise, over what happens. The recent ruling is just absurd. Regrettably, that’s what I’ve always thought about the battle. Logic clearly dictates that my gender has no rights to mandate women’s health decisions. Moral, ethical, rational, or even religious.
It’s absurd. I made my decision — it’s not my decision — but I support choice, and that includes, keeping laws, and “scripture” off female body parts.
Seriously, it is absurd.
As an American, as a native Texan, the policy incongruous. The political theatre is beyond despicable.
It’s absurd.
At the beginning of the earnest portion of this career path, I wrote about the changing of the guard, so to speak, as the big planets shifted, and the backwards march through the millennia shifted, introducing the more rational Age of Aquarius, and what I recall pointing out?
The predominant religion, symbol is a fish? The perverted and maligned dogma was going to be replaced, but the “religious right,” which is neither right nor religious, was not going to go away without a fight.
President Biden opined that his religion, and he is a believer, was opposed to abortion. That noted, he also believed that it was fundamental right for a woman to choose. That makes him a great president because he understands, and acts on a transparent belief system.
Separation of church and state.
I owe the masterful author Stephen King an apology. I thought he scripted the last few years, as horrifying as it’s been. Clearly, this is terror on a whole different level.
From King Lear?
’Tis the time’s plague, when madmen lead the blind.
The Tragedy of King Lear (IV.i.46)
“Out in New Mexico, people there they treat you kind…”
(White Freightliner Blues)
“New Mexico ain’t bad, Lord, women there treat me kind
White freight liner, won’t you steal away my mind?”
(Steve Earle)
Just a lick. A simple piece of a song, an echo in the canyons of my mind.
“Well, New Mexico ain’t bad, Lord
The people here, they treat you kind
Oh, white freightliner, won’t you steal away my mind”
A quick search of both my material, and what’s freely available online? No real consensus as to the exact lyrics, and some problem with attributions, ranging from Townes van Zandt to Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett. Seems like a common thread therein. Mostly attributed to Townes van Zandt and his erratic genius.
But as a sense of purity, a sense of place?
“Out in New Mexico, people there they treat you kind…”
(White Freightliner Blues)
In Santa Fe, NM, there’s a side street from the square, and two notions. One is the original Cactus Cafe, the “ground zero” for exporting, in style, New Mexico cuisine. Now, more a tourist trap than a real place, I mean, it’s real and all, but the place lacks the appeal of other landmark joints around town. Still, I tend to pass by and nod in appreciation. It was a fashionable, off-the-beaten track joint, back in the early 90’s. 30 years or more?
Down the street from there, there’s a bookstore called “Collected Works.”
202 Galisteo St
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Always good for questions and answers about books. So few stores have true book lovers in them, anymore.
In a mall, just north of the square, walking distance to me, but not everyone, there’s another bookstore that is also a book lover’s delight. Used books, new books, all tumbled together. Luck of the draw, there. Still, obviously, lovers of books, lovers of the written word in all its formats.
Because I was traveling by air, I couldn’t really afford to buy a stack of books. So the favored stop, this trip? Collected Works.
“Out in New Mexico, people there they treat you kind…”
(White Freightliner Blues)
“Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you no stinkin’ badges!”
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Excerpt From
Pink Cake: The Quote Collection
’Tis the time’s plague, when madmen lead the blind.
Gloucester in Shakespeare’s
The Tragedy of King Lear (IV.i.46)
#shakespeare
As a clue, a source file.
But the way I remember it? It was a Faulkner quote, attribution, mired, and buried in time.
“The south has produced so many great writers because we lost the war.”
In modern more contentious and litigious times?
“If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate. The ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn’ is worth any number of little old ladies.”
(Hi Mom!)
I couldn’t find, in a quick search, that as a Faulkner quote, “The south has produced so many great writers because we lost the war.” Instead? Looks like Walker Percy.
Without a quick source, I can’t rely on a vague memory as a verified, fact-checked source. Might be a Walker Percy quote, for all I can quickly dig up, but the sentiment remains, and by his end, awards and all, Faulkner was a dreadful drunk.
He was, depending on source, deeply ashamed at the cultural legacy leftover from the old south, and in the same tone, reverential about the old south, despite that horrible historical blot.
I don’t think he was ever able to reconcile those internal differences. Listening to a client, with her deeply Southern lilt — a gorgeous accent itself? The acknowledgement that Faulkner’s position as royalty might be a little overrated. “A bit wordy.”
I’ll accept that.
I’m always a little leery of revisionist history.
Never having done a thorough assessment of the literature of the north versus that of the south, best I can do is accept that part of my family is southern, with a touch of the true southern gothic layered into the mix, just as an added flavor. Like a touch of pepper in a deep-fried batter mix.
It’s there.
Doesn’t make any of this more — or less — right.
Pink Cake: The Quote Collection
It’s a different format from what I recall. No, the settings are familiar, lawyers, crooks, the corrupt south, and death row. Just the structure, like three different tales, say, a hundred pages each, roughly?
Maybe that’s not it, exactly, a novella, an overly long short story, and the titular tale, which might be a short novel in itself.
I’m not sure.
One of my older rules about travel, especially air travel? Always carry a book to read. In the last decade, or thereabouts, I’ve gotten more accustomed to reading novels on a tablet, but this was a Costco book. I started reading in the San Antonio airport, boarded a flight to Dallas, read the whole way, paused to land in Dallas — Love Field — get an expensive breakfast sandwich, then line up for a flight to Austin. Got some Jo’s Coffee in the Austin airport, got back on the same plane, and continued reading while passing over West Texas, with the oils fields looking like cosmic pin cushions from 30,000 feet up. Southwest pulled a fast one, and routed the plane funny like that, but we arrived on time, and I was part way through that last section of the book.
We’ve got a copy of Ford County at home, and I’m pretty sure I read it. I finished the last section, Sparring Partners as the New Mexico coyotes were echoing in the dry arroyo behind the house in Santa Fe.
Airport reading at its finest, I must say.