Category: Festivals of San Antonio

What would Eeyore think?

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“I’m just telling everybody. We can look for the North Pole, or we can play ‘Here we go gathering Nuts in May’ with the end part of an ants’ nest. It’s all the same to me.”

Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

Eeyore was not much of a party boy, but that has not deterred celebrants in Austin for the past 48 years. Most years, Eeyore’s Birthday Party conflicts with King William Fair, so, despite hearing about it forever, we had never been. This year, however, five Saturdays in April comfortably separated the two on the calendar.

With Austin friends as our guides, we found our way to Pease Park and began wandering around. An “Eeyore of Liberty” with a bubble-blowing honor guard greets attendees. What we found in the way of organized activities was a costume contest, an egg toss and a tiny children’s area containing one appropriately gloomy in the Eeyore tradition burro representing the birthday boy. Freestyle hula-hooping, drumming and pot-smoking comprised the rest of the entertainment, which means the focus is on the people.

The people-watching was great, with costumes resembling the Haight Ashbury look of 1968. But, like us, the vast majority of the party-goers were party-poopers – no costumes and fully clothed – falling into the voyeur category.

Not sure what the Austin undress-code is as defined by law, but it appears looser than San Antonio’s, or more loosely enforced. The topless and near-nude emerged from Hippy Hollow to invade the park. But hey, Eeyore only wore a hat for his birthday.

Austin police must have the same attitude as that adopted by New Orleans police on the episode of Treme last night: “Let Bourbon Street be Bourbon Street.” Regard revelers as only “momentarily underdressed.” Think Austin police also are instructed to ignore any whiff of “eau de maryjane.”

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 What would Eeyore think?

“Everybody crowds round so in this Forest. There’s no Space. I never saw a more Spreading lot of animals in my life, and in all the wrong places.”

Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

I say, “Keep Austin Weird” and “Keep San Antonio Lame.” Happy to have celebrated Eeyore’s Birthday this year, but will be more than content to be locked in the middle of the King William Fair next year. It’s one of this city’s “quills” I love.

Update on August 21, 2014: Bed time story actually read by A.A. Milne courtesy of Brain Pickings

Yet another reason to drink beer during Fiesta: Preserving our quills

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If peculiarities were quills, San Antonio de Bexar would be a rare porcupine. Over all the round of aspects in which a thoughtful mind may view a city, it bristles with striking idiosyncrasies and bizarre contrasts.

Retrospects and Prospects by William Sydney Porter (O Henry)

Often I only hear brief tidbits from longer stories on Texas Public Radio because of the short distance between errands, and some of these are pleas for funds – particularly critical now as Congress is once again picking on the funding provided Public Radio. But even Public Radio’s fundraising requests can be enlightening or entertaining; although I’m certainly happy Ira Glass never has called personally to pin us to the mat about the size of our contribution.

In one of the local pitches the other day, David Martin Davies talked about his visit to the O. Henry House downtown (My apologies possibly, because, for the above reason, I am not positive who was speaking.). He pointed out a few historical inaccuracies, such as the small stone structure should be called O. Henry’s Office and “O. Henry’s typewriter” on display in the shuttered museum was not manufactured until two years after the author’s death. But the typewriter hooked him, and he ended up buying one just like it on ebay for $50. What’s great is not only does the antiquated typewriter work, but the next generation in his family loves typing on the strange piece of machinery not connected to a screen.

Okay, I have probably lost all readers by now. Where does the beer figure into this rambling post?

Davies mentioned on air that the Texas Public Radio spot on the O. Henry House was part of a new series focusing on historic preservation, and this series is made possible by a grant from the San Antonio Conservation Society. The main source of income for the San Antonio Conservation Society is A Night in Old San Antonio, or NIOSA, which gets underway on Tuesday, April 12. So, much as with the prior post about the King William Fair, every beer you drink helps the Conservation Society’s efforts to preserve San Antonio’s distinctive heritage.

Seems O. Henry would have approved, as even he remarked long ago of San Antonio’s party spirit:

…it stands with all its gay prosperity just on the edge of a lonesome, untilled belt of land one hundred and fifty miles wide, like Mardi Gras on the austere brink of Lent….

Retrospects and Prospects by William Sydney Porter (O Henry)

So let the Fiesta begin (even in the midst of Lent), and keep San Antonio quilled.

P.S. Help even more by purchasing one of Kathleen Trenchard’s 2011 NIOSA pins.

April 10, 2011, Update: Paula Allen writes about the giant “party with a purpose.”

Mudslinging Season along the River Walk

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There are so many trucks, cranes and workers in the muddy river bottom this week it looks more like Loop 410 than the river bend.  The silt-removal effort is a major (de-)construction project. 

When the river bend was drained for its annual maintenance in “the old days” – back in 1985 when we staged the First Maybe Annual River Bottom Festival and Mud Parade and votes for mud royalty had to be paid in cash, literally a nickel at a time – only a handful of Parks and Recreation employees would be spotted in waders in the mud, fishing out chairs, glassware and utensils tossed in by river revelers.  Workers might patch a crumbling wall or two, but that was it. 

Fortunately, the water will be returned to the river by January 11.  In the mean time, it’s actually entertaining to watch the big trucks get stuck in the muck and it all just means another excuse to party for the Paseo del Rio Association.

Maybe if the city elected not to refill the river, the owner of the Riverwalk Plaza Hotel would not be forced to erase the lime green paint from the wall that assaults pedestrians as they head into downtown from King William.  Then he could even remove “Riverwalk” from the hotel’s name.  If he does not want to be governed by the standards that apply in the district, why market the property that way?  It also would be so convenient to reserve the river bed for overflow parking (Sorry, but that wall just invites mudslinging).

Update on January 6:  Learn who is campaigning to serve as Mud Queen and King and how you can join in the festivities.

Update on January 7:  Mud news in USA Today

Update on June 5: Finally, the lime green wall of the Riverwalk Inn has been painted a more subtle tan, blending in with the brick of the nearby Granada and Tower Life Building.