Category: Festivals of San Antonio

Chalking up the street: Wish the art were not so fleeting

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The pavers on Houston Street downtown radiated kaleidoscopic colors today as Artpace sponsored its 12th annual Chalk It Up event.

Yes, there are invited professional artists and school groups, but this elongated public art project is participatory. People of all ages enthusiastically accepted the invitation to pick up chalk and make their marks.

Families flocked to the admission-free event.

Houston Street never looked better. The only drawback is the result is so temporal….

Traveling around the world via accordion….

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Started in San Antonio on the banks of the river with Santiago Jimenez, Jr. But then, only a short stroll away at the International Accordion Festival in La Villita, Mahala Nola transported us to Bulgaria and Serbia. Then we switched to music sounding as though it was being performed along the Seine by Musette Explosion, a trio based in New York City.

Paused between stages for a Pakistani kebab from Rickshaw Stop.

Mahala Nola
Musette Explosion
Mahala Nola
Flying Balalaika Brothers
Flying Balalaika Brothers
Musette Explosion
Mahala Nola
Mahala Nola
Buyebongo
Flying Balalaika Brothers

Then went back riverside for the ruckus-causing group Buyepongo from Los Angeles. And we ended up listening to Russian-Ukranian-conjunto(?) played by the Flying Balalaika Brothers.

And that was in only four hours. If you are reading this before 8 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, stop and zip over to La Villita before it’s too late. Incredible music rarely heard in one venue, and it’s admission-free.

I spy what you are reading here….

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A 1911 postcard shows the beauty of the land in Brackenridge Park formerly owned by Helen Madarasz.
A 1911 postcard shows the beauty of the land in Brackenridge Park formerly owned by Helen Madarasz.

Time for the semiannual big-brother spy report on what posts you have been reading most during the past 12 months. As usual, you are all over the map, seemingly encouraging me to continue randomly sending postcards from San Antonio and back home no matter where we wander.

The mysterious murder of Helen Madarasz in Brackenridge Park rose to the top, which makes me wonder why ghost-hunters have not latched onto the story of Martha Mansfield. There are still some who pine to hear the San Antonio Song, a post from five years ago, but a few new posts squeezed into the top dozen. Hope some of you have found your way to dine in our favorite restaurants in Oaxaca, but my personal favorite entry about food in Oaxaca is on grasshoppers.

The number in parentheses represents the rankings from six months ago:

  1. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (2)
  2. Artist Foundation unleashes another round of creative fervor, 2015
  3. The danger of playing hardball with our Library: Bookworms tend to vote, 2014 (1)
  4. Remembering everyday people: Our rural heritage merits attention, 2014 (5)
  5. Seeing San Fernando Cathedral in a new light…, 2014 (7)
  6. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (3)
  7. Picturing the City’s Past Just Got Easier, 2014 (6)
  8. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011 (10)
  9. That Crabby Old Colonel Cribby Condemned the River to Years of Lowlife, 2013 (11)
  10. Weather Forecast: 11 Days of Confetti Ahead, 2015
  11. Photographs from the 1800s place faces on the names in Zephaniah Conner’s Bible, 2014
  12. Postcard from Oaxaca, Mexico: Favorites on the food front, 2015

Thanks for dropping by every once in a while. Love hearing your feedback.

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