Popularity Contest Results

Above, 1912 New Year’s card from Chapter Seventeen of An Ostrich-Plumed Hat

You have been judging my posts, as always, for the past six months, picking and choosing whatever piques your interest. For several years, the focus here has been on travel, relying on extensive use of photographs. Well, 2020 certainly cut short this blogger’s boulevardier ways, so, instead, I have “gifted” you with my novel about the sensational 19teens’ tale of the doomed relationship of Hedda Burgemeister and Otto Koehler. More than thirty chapters of An Ostrich-Plumed Hat, and, Yes, She Shot Him Dead are now posted on this site.

an ostrich-plumed hat

The good news is that more of you have clicked on the Introduction and Chapter One than any other post since July. The flip side is less flattering; there was a steep drop off in readership by Chapter Two. Numerous chapters ranked in the top dozen of this biannual roundup, but, for the sake of variety and not to encourage skipping around in the book the way I read Moby Dick in high school – every fifth chapter (Did I miss much?), I am omitting them from the list. Am hoping for some more feedback from you, my beta readers, as this release continues.

Beyond that, you seem to still appreciate my efforts at populating Brackenridge Park with ghosts, railing about whatever in the world is happening to Alamo Plaza and spinning tales from vagabond times. And perhaps you are looking for miracles ahead in 2021.

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A pair of Marys’ distinctive impressions of city landmarks

bonner keating concepcion

Above, Mission Concepcion de la Purisma by Mary Bonner (left) and by Mary Aubrey Keating (right)

‘I had always dabbled a little in artistic things in a sort of boarding school fashion, but I had certainly never taken anything I had done very seriously.’

Mary Bonner (1887-1935) in a 1926 interview by Penelope Border in the San Antonio Express

Mary Bonner, well known etcher, in conjunction with her sister, Emma Jane, has a studio on Agarita Street. There, period furniture, rare objets d’art, first editions, and, of course best of all, etchings my be had. ‘Mary’ has won many medals and decorations from the French Government for her etchings. The Bonner place… is set in an ancient walled garden, hemmed in by giant cypress trees. In the garden there are many paths. One leads to Mary’s studio, another to an underground part of the Shop, known as the Caverns…. Beyond this, is the room for the gigantic etching press where the artist spends most of her time.

Mary Aubrey Keating (1894-1953) described her fellow artist in Keating’s 1935 guide, San Antonio: Interesting Places in San Antonio and Where to Find Them.
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Spectacular illumination projects city’s colorful history on San Fernando Cathedral

These photographs from 2014 are not great, but reposting them to refresh a suggestion for an outing appropriate for these times – entertaining, outdoors and admission-free on a plaza large enough to allow ample room for spreading out.

The painterly projection of Xavier de Richemont‘s San Antonio Saga (click there for much better photographs) sweep masterfully across the façade of San Fernando Cathedral, founded by Canary Islanders in 1731. Accompanied by lively music, the massive kaleidoscopic collages mesmerize those on Main Plaza.

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