Category: austin

March music madness, food and follies

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Above: Bottlecap Mountain playing at The Highball

Not sure how many people were registered officially for the first four days of SXSW 2024 (SouthBy ’24), but there were more than 75,000 from 100 countries in 2023. Those are mainly the techies. Add in the film and music festival attendance throughout the week, and the number doubles. There were somewhere in the range of 1,500 acts scheduled, not counting the unofficial ones rippling across music venues throughout the city.

In other words, Austin was hopping.

We are among the fringe attendees who avail themselves of a couple of the many free or low-cost events not requiring badges. Some snapshots from those, several at The Saxon Pub, are found below, along with a snippet of Bottlecap Mountain’s new “I’ve Got Something for You.”

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No need to travel afar to engage with contemporary art

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Above: Detail of “11th-Century Persia to 19th-Century America,” from “The Black God Tapestry,” Sandra M. Sawatzky, 2008-2017

Today many of us have become so accustomed to abstractions in contemporary art that any kind of figurative work comes almost as a shock. Yet, how are we to connect to the many non-human worlds that surround us if not through figurative imagery?”

Amitav Ghosh writing about Sandra Sawatzky’s “Black Gold Tapestry”

Through the years, I find myself increasingly drawn to figurative art. After wandering around the Blanton Museum of Art this past weekend, I realized those were the only pieces that caused me to pause and read the descriptive text accompanying them. The only ones I snapped pictures of to share.

The other unifying factor of these images is that all the artists are from North America. And all, save Mexican muralist Sequieros, are living, contemporary artists. Several I have been fortunate enough to meet or hear them speak about their works.

When we travel, we enter as many art museums as we can squeeze into our trip. Yet, when home in Austin, we often fail to make time to see the art available in our own backyard.

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Dangling horse dominates, but you’ve a hearty appetite as well

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Above: Skyline of downtown Austin, 11:59 p.m., December 31, 2023

Smoking mezcal cocktail delivered in Palermo, Sicily

Readers of this blog seem drawn to the embalmed horse, of course, suspended by artist Maurizio Cattelan from a dome in a former castle above Turin, Italy. And any mention of the Alamo always attracts a crowd, even when I’m drawing no line in the sand but waving a flag of truce. But you also seem drawn to photos of food, or cocktails, no matter the country of origin; street art; ghosts; and saintly tales not taught by nuns.

The following list represents the biannual results of the most-read postcards on this ever-rambling blog, with the numbers in parentheses indicating rankings from six months ago when applicable.

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