Category: Written Word

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.”

Is this a picture worth a thousand words? 99 cents?

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Another Say Si Small Scale Art Auction approaches, which reminds me I have been blogging away for almost a year. I wanted to make a statement.

At the end of 2009, I decided to mount a visual protest against the visual clutter surrounding Alamo Plaza. A picture’s worth a thousand words.

Had not Delacroix’s unveiling in Paris in 1824 of his monumental “Massacre of Chios” swayed public opinion in Europe toward intense loathing of the Turks for slaughtering 10,000 Greeks? If the painter had chosen instead to depict the earlier savagery of the Greeks at Tripolitsa, might Europe have supported the Turks instead?

Inspired to try to motivate someone in the world to clean up Alamo Plaza, I assembled two of the ugliest collages ever created by combining photos snapped around the plaza.

Well, to put it mildly, Delacroix was more successful. Maybe my works are too small in scale. Maybe it’s because I have no bare-breasted women up front and center. Okay, I admit it. You can’t have known Delacroix personally; yet you know I’m no Delacroix.

So I switched strategies to attack by blog. The press is a powerful weapon.  After much haranguing, not much progress to report. Okay, I admit it. I am no great poet either.

Alas, even Lord Byron thought the sword mightier than the pen and found himself among the inspired volunteers traveling in resplendent uniforms in 1824 to join Prince Mavrocordato at Missolonghi. Byron wrote:

                    The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.

Awake! (not Greece–she is awake!)
Awake, my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home! ….

If thou regrett’st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here–up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

Byron perished soon after, and most of Europe then seemed to pay attention to his call to support Greece.

I’m just not willing to sacrifice my life for signage. So I’ve come full circle and have donated “We’ve Lost the Alamo” for Say Si to include in the benefit auction on February 25.

My initial thought was that someone would see it and be so offended he or she would buy this print and insist it be hung at City Hall. If first impressions are important, why is this what we show more than 2.5 million visitors every year? Maybe that person should order another print for the office of the Convention and Visitors Bureau to show them that no matter how sleek the ads are trying to sell San Antonio this is the reality of what is here. Why the pair of prints should be in the office of every city council representative, every member of the Historic Design and Review Committee, in the home of every officer of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and every member of the board of directors of the San Antonio Conservation Society and in every office at the Texas State Historical Commission. Governor Rick Perry himself should have to look at this every single day. I never should have limited this edition of prints to only 25.

Okay, that is not going to happen. I decided to make my point, though, about the general appearance of Alamo Plaza by valuing the price of the print as that of the frame only – $20. As I drove off, I thought I should have requested its value be 99 cents.

As I felt guilty about using Say Si’s fundraiser as a political forum, I donated two more marketable prints based on “San Antonio Song” to make up for “We’ve Lost the Alamo.”

And, fortunately for Say Si, a multitude of artists stepped forward once again to contribute art you actually will want to have in your home. The work is all up for preview prior to the auction, or view it online in advance. Call 210-212-8666 to reserve a ticket for Friday, February 25 – $40 per person in advance, or $50 at the door.

Someone at Say Si felt sorry for the lowly valued print, “We’ve Lost the Alamo,” and decided to up its value to $45. Guess it’s coming back home with me to inspire me to keep typing. Here go another 700 words….

February 26, 2011, Update: Even “We’ve Lost the Alamo” found a new home, and the buyer really got the message without having to read the 700 words above.