Seduced away from intellectual pursuits by the sounds of the squeezebox….

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Last year during the Texas State Book Fair in Austin, my daughter and I left the Paramount Theatre inspired by the words of Margaret Atwood.  As much as I love hearing great authors muse on their writings and on the art of writing itself, this year I felt conflicted.  Why would someone have scheduled the Book Fair on the same weekend as the International Accordion Festival?

I’m weak.  The squeezebox won.

Funding woes put a little bit of a squeeze on the Accordion Festival’s schedule this year – one stage instead of two, not as many groups from distant lands, not as many good food booths – but, hey, it’s admission-free and almost in my backyard.  Missed some of the performances, but enjoyed Copper Box, Orgullo Vallenato and Debra Peters and the Love Saints.  And then there was the hometown band that blew everyone away with a sound like Brave Combo on speed – Piñata Protest.

The Columbian rhythms of Houston-based Orgullo Vellenato kept Terry Ybanez and Jeannette MacDougall on their feet.
Pinata Protest makes Brave Combo sound “asleep at the wheel.”
Copper Box – “Like a Texas Tornado that went through New Orleans and landed in Wisconsin”
The 10th Annual International Accordion Festival took over the stage of the Arneson River Theatre October 15-17.

Only hope the festival can grow back to two stages next year and does not conflict with the Texas State Book Fair.

Note Added on October 25:  The “Arty Semite” blogs about Socalled’s set, which I unfortunately missed.

Compelling Evidence for Birthers Surfaces in Barcelona

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Spent a great two weeks in Barcelona, Sevilla and Granada, but have been playing catchup ever since.  Behind in work, and, with hundreds of photos to edit, blogging therapy does not yet have a time slot…. 

Be back soon.

Blogger’s Post Fans Memories of The Flame Room

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David McLemore has a great post on Hot Wells. 

On adventurous evenings, we used to head south to the bar there, named The Flame Room because of the fire that had destroyed much of the former resort.   The woman behind the bar would come “entertain” you by making a tacky, spindly-legged bird marionette dance.   Ahead of fashion trends, the muscular carnival workers who wintered on the grounds sported intimidating tattoos. 

We played shuffleboard*, sat on the circular sofettes, tried to inconspicuously observe the unusual clientele and drank longnecks until forced to make the dreaded trek to the facilities.  While the men’s room was under a huge propeller conveniently adjacent to the bar, the ladies’ room required a journey down a long hallway past opening after opening of the dark ruins of private bathing rooms that certainly seemed haunted.  The sulphur smell from the pool was almost overwhelming.  We always went in pairs, too frightened to try to reach the lone dangling lightbulb at the end of the hall alone.   One night, Annie and I had almost reached our destination when, “Boo!”  That’s all the haggard woman screamed when she jumped out from one of the doorways, but we screamed as though she were a chupacabra.

Another night we came out to find out someone had carelessly crunched the bumper of their pickup through the front grille of our Volvo.  Thinking of the muscular tattooed arms inside that far outnumbered ours, we elected not to go back into The Flame Room and demand to know who hit our car.

The connection of Otto Koehler to Hot Wells David mentions is one of several reasons my novel about the brewer’s murder is called An Ostrich Plume Hat.  An in-depth history of Hot Wells can be found on the Edwards Aquifer website, from which I plucked this card.

Although I would be much too chicken to cross it, I wish a swinging bridge like the original one linking Hot Wells to Mission San Jose could be installed as part of the San Antonio River Improvements Project.

*Help!  It’s not called shuffleboard.  Long raised table-alley that you apply sawdust to and push these sort of pucks down to knock other pucks off the table….?

Note Added on September 17:  Also visit David’s article on Nowcast, a slide show and Charlotte-Anne Lucas’ video.  And more Hot Wells photos.