Tag: nuit of the living dead

Biannual round-up of what postcards you read most

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cathedral6Every six months it’s good for me to check back to see what type of post you have been reading during the past 12 months. As usual, you are all over the map, leaving me free to continue selecting topics arbitrarily.

It makes sense that blog-readers love libraries; the most read post expressed concerns affecting funding of the San Antonio Public Library. The mystery surrounding the murder of Helen Madarasz in Brackenridge Park rose to second in popularity, and there are those who pine to hear the San Antonio Song. A few new posts pushed aside several long-time favorites, and, for some reason, you dug deep in the archives to resurrect a couple that had not been read for quite a while.

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

  1. The danger of playing hardball with our Library: Bookworms tend to vote, 2014
  2. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012 (7)
  3. Please put this song on Tony’s pony and make it ride away, 2010 (5)
  4. The Tragic Rule of Maximilian and Carlota in Mexico, 2014 (10)
  5. Remembering everyday people: Our rural heritage merits attention, 2014
  6. Picturing the City’s Past Just Got Easier, 2014
  7. Seeing San Fernando Cathedral in a new light…, 2014
  8. Postcard from San Miguel de Allende: Sun rises again at La Aurora, 2014 (9)
  9. “Nuit of the Living Dead” (8), 2010
  10. How would you feel about the Alamo with a crewcut?, 2011
  11. That Crabby Old Colonel Cribby Condemned the River to Years of Lowlife, 2013
  12. Postcards from San Miguel de Allende: Redirecting Graffiti Artists, Part Four, 2014

Thanks for dropping by every once in a while and for giving me permission to keep rambling on about whatever I’m currently pondering.

And best wishes throughout the coming year.

Biannual roundup of what you are reading on this blog

postcardsfromsanantonio2 Comments

You have done it again. No wonder I wander around flitting arbitrarily from subject to subject. My readers flit, too.

During the past year, you have remained as Alamobsessive as I, particularly focusing on the guns  Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson let be drawn in front of the Alamo. You joined me in remembering my father-in-law, George Spencer, and photographer Rick Hunter. You have demonstrated your interest in photography by two artists, Richard Nitschke and Sarah Brooke Lyons. You have let me take you traveling to San Miguel de Allende, and shown interest in the reign of Maximilian and Carlota in Mexico.

You refuse to let two old posts, one about David Sedaris’ “Nuit of the Living Dead” and one about Sandy Skoglund’s cheesy “Cocktail Party,” fade off of the top 12 list. It makes me particularly happy that you still show interest in the San Antonio Song and have given life to my true tale providing a ghost to inhabit Brackenridge Park.

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

  1. Please come and take them away from San Antonio, (1) 2013

    “They say Sam Maverick forged the bell for St. Mark’s from a cannon used during the Battle of the Alamo. If only the concept proved contagious….” Postcards from San Antonio – No. 12, “Peace be with you.” http://postcardssanantonio.com/other-themes.html
  2. George Hutchings Spencer, 1923-2013 (3), 2013
  3. The State surrenders the Alamo; Run for Cover, (4) 2013
  4. Richard Nitschke: Seeing Agave in a Different Light, (8) 2013
  5. Please put this song on Tony’s pony, and make it ride away (10), 2010
  6. Sarah’s faces more than a thousand times better, (11) 2013
  7. The Madarasz Murder Mystery: Might Helen Haunt Brackenridge Park?, 2012
  8. “Nuit of the Living Dead” (9), 2010
  9. Postcard from San Miguel de Allende: Sun rises again at La Aurora, 2014
  10. The Tragic Rule of Maximilian and Carlota in Mexico, 2014
  11. Cheez Doodles as Art (12), 2011
  12. Rick Hunter lives here. And many other places., 2013

Thanks for hanging out here some and for giving me permission to keep on rambling on about whatever I’m currently pondering.

“Nuit of the Living Dead”

postcardsfromsanantonio4 Comments

“Oh, I see that you have a little swimming mouse.”

I have to thank Texas Public Radio for sending Keynotes into my inbox this morning with news that David Sedaris is coming to San Antonio.  That brought to mind my all-time favorite short story, ideal for Halloween – “Nuit of the Living Dead” from Sedaris’ Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. 

Actually, I first read “Nuit,” then titled “The Living Dead,” in a 2004 issue of The New Yorker while waiting at Shag the Salon.  Tears cascaded down my cheeks.  Couldn’t stop laughing long enough to even begin to explain what could possibly be funny about a man attempting to drown a mouse. (Fortunately, Shag is not an ’09 salon where everyone is supposed to pretend they are “normal.”  As though normalcy exists.)

Sedaris will read from his most recent book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, at Borders in the Quarry Market at 7 p.m. on Saturday, November 20.  I feel as though I shouldn’t blog about his appearance in advance because I fear he will attract far more people than can be accommodated and I would like to be able to hear him.  But I guess I was not the only person in San Antonio to receive the Keynotes email.

Have only read a couple of these animal “fables,” including this excerpt relevant to gated communities or the not-so-great wall of the Rio Grande:

Then a squirrel disappeared, and it was decided that something had to be done.  A meeting was convened in the clearing near the big oak, and the hawk, who often flew great distances in search of food, proposed that they build a gate.  “I’ve seen one where the humans live, and it seems to work fairly well.”

“Work how?” asked a muskrat. 

The hawk explained that once the gate was erected, anyone entering the forest would have to stop and identify himself.  “It keeps out the riffraff,” he said, adding that when bad things happened, that was usually who was responsible – riffraff.

Wondering if anyone has read what the squirrel and chipmunk might be up to in the book….  Would it be safe for Parky the Squirrel, the mascot of Friends of the Parks, to show up wearing her tail? 

Heller Mcalpin might have answered that question for me on NPR’s website:

Despite chatty barnyard animals and charming illustrations by Ian Falconer, creator of the Olivia children’s book series, don’t be fooled into thinking this is a children’s book.  Remember the puritanical brouhaha over Maurice Sendak’s naked urchin in In the Night Kitchen and the hen’s egg-shaped bulges in Ron Barrett’s drawings for Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing?   Well, we’ve come a long way, baby:  “The Grieving Owl” features a puckered pink hippopotamus rectum.

Although “The Cat and the Baboon” includes mention of a less-than talented harp-playing squirrel, it gets rather “assy” as well.  Sorry, Parky.  Think you better leave your tail at home and go incognito.

And, when I go to Shag next week, I hope they behave like Sedaris’ hair-grooming baboon:  No matter what I say, just nod and smile and say you remember the swimming mouse well, “the way one must in the service industry.”