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Author: James Brush

James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.

Terrible Days

April 26, 2006 • • 4 Comments

When I arrived to work yesterday, I learned that two of my coworkers had been killed in a car accident on Monday night. It was on the front page of the Austin American Statesman today. One was the campus secretary who made the whole place run and who did so much to help me get settled in when I started there. The other was an English teacher, a favorite among the kids and a woman who made everyone feel welcome. There is so much pain in that building, such a palpable feeling of loss.

Both women were people who truly made the new guy (me) feel welcome. They helped me get settled into the routine there which is so different from a normal school. It’s hard to fathom how you can just say ‘see-ya tomorrow’ on the way out the door only to find that that’s it. It’s a terrible thing to lose one person in such a small tight knit faculty, but two at once is just… well, there aren’t words. Everyone is so rattled at work, just hanging on. I can’t imagine what the two families are going through.

Until yesterday I had been teaching mostly GED prep courses, but because my certification is in English, my GED classes were given to other teachers and I’ve taken over the English teacher’s classes. I had no idea what the kids would be like, but they all wanted to carry on what they were doing in her classes so I will now need to read and get caught up on My Side of the Mountain, The Count of Monte Cristo, and To Kill a Mockingbird. I just told them I couldn’t be who she was and that I wouldn’t try, but that we’d muddle through together. Then I taught them a bit of poetry writing. Most of them liked that and things went as well as could be expected.

Hell’s Belles at Antone’s

April 24, 2006 • • 3 Comments

On Saturday we caught the Seattle-based all female AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles at Antone’s. My cousin is one of the Belles so not only was it a great show, but it was a chance to sit around and catch up before the set.

The last time we saw them was great, but I really liked seeing them at Antone’s (instead of Stubb’s) because the layout puts everyone close to the stage, which is a must with this band since they work so hard to engage and energize the audience.

There’s nothing more infectious and flat out fun than watching a band that appears to be enjoying themselves on stage, and I think that that party-all-nite excitement that they bring to their shows is as important as the music, which as I’ve written before is simply incredible.

The last time we saw them, I didn’t know much of AC/DC’s material, except for the big songs, but I still loved it. This time around I was more familiar with the songs (mainly through the Hell’s Belles We Salute You CD) and so enjoyed it even more. They wrapped up way past my bedtime, but it still seemed early which is exactly what a high energy rock show should do.

Uhhh, Like Housekeeping and Stuff

April 22, 2006 • • 2 Comments

One of the many fun things about blogging is tinkering with the blog and in the process learning a bit about how web sites work. I haven’t been writing the past few days; instead, I’ve been playing with my code (uh-huh-huh…Shut up, Beavis that’s not what I meant) in an effort to create a separate archives page so as to clean up the left sidebar by placing a single link in the navigation section. Anyways, that’s where the archives and categories are for all you scholars doing research on my blog.

The coolest thing about the archives page is the live calendar plug-in that uses AJAX so that the whole page doesn’t have to reload when you move to another month.

Now that my left sidebar is cleaned up, and I’ve learned how to make static pages that use WordPress’s php tags, I’m debating making a links page for my blogroll and then reconfiguring to a two column fixed layout. I like fluid design (which is what I have now) because I like how it fills a monitor and gives users the option of resizing the browser to create a comfortable column width for reading, but with a fixed layout I could control the layout of posts, which would be nice when using pictures.

Oh, what to do. Perhaps I just miss playing with my code (uh-huh huh…damn it, Beavis, don’t make me kick your ass!) since I haven’t made any changes to the look of Coyote Mercury since January, but then I do find a very clean minimalist site somewhat appealing. Change for the sake of change? Yup, that’s me.

Ok, I’m off to rearrange the house…

The Old Jamestown Bridge

April 19, 2006 • • Leave a comment

I recently posted an old piece I had written about crossing the Newport Bridge, which spans the Narragansett Bay between Conanicut and Aquidneck Islands in Rhode Island, but I did not mention, except in passing, another bridge: the old Jamestown Bridge that once connected Conanicut with the mainland.

Perhaps it was fear that held me back.

Crossing the Jamestown Bridge was terrifying for me when I was a kid. I was small so perhaps the bridge really wasn’t as fearsome as I remember, but it was narrow and it was high and it was steep.

Mainly, though, it was loud.

I remember the sound of wheels rumbling over the steel grating while wind tore through the spans and shook the car, rattling teeth and nerves.

The noise resulted from the fact that the main span of the bridge was nothing more than open steel grating which meant that you could look down and see the blue of the bay directly beneath the tires. Add the bumpiness and the terrible noise to that vertiginous view and it felt like you’d be lucky to make it across alive.

This morning, I saw a picture in the Austin American-Statesman of a bridge exploding. At first glance it appeared to be festooned with flowers. I read the caption to see that it was none other than the old Jamestown Bridge, replaced by a more stable bridge in 1992 and since designated a navigational hazard by the Coast Guard, that was sent to the bottom of Narragansett Bay yesterday morning.

So long, old nemesis.

The Burma Road

April 18, 2006 • • Leave a comment

Donovan Webster’s The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China – Burma – India Theater in World War II is a gripping account of the enormous battles and personal sacrifice in what ultimately came to be (barely) remembered as something of a backwater in World War II.

In the beginning of the war between the Allies and Japan, the Allies pursued a two-prong strategy: island hopping in the Pacific on one front and on the other pushing in towards Japan from mainland China. The latter required the Allies to keep China in the war by supplying the nationalist army under the command of the apparently incompetent and corrupt Chiang Kai-shek.

The man responsible for pulling off this impossible task was American general Joseph Stilwell, whose main mission was to reopen the Burma Road that ran from India to China and which would allow the Allies to provide provisions to the Chinese.

Though Webster focuses on Stilwell’s efforts, both military and bureaucratic, to drive the Japanese out of Burma and away from India so that the road could be rebuilt and reopened, the book ranges widely, recounting the exploits of the British Chindit brigades, Merrill’s Marauders, the hump pilots who flew the airlift missions over the Himalayas into China, the Flying Tiger squadrons and the day-to-day lives of the men in the field. It’s a testament to Webster’s storytelling abilities that he is able to bring all of this together into a narrative that is both concise and detailed.

Webster’s greatest achievement here is his depiction of the terrible conditions under which men fought and died, often as much from starvation and disease as from combat. He moves nicely from battlefield heroics and tragedies to the tactical details of the military campaign, ultimately presenting a picture of the CBI Theater from multiple perspectives from soldiers on the ground to the lines of the generals’ maps.

The Burma Road is a well-researched and engaging work of popular history that is definitely worth the time of anyone wondering how China managed to stay in the war and how the Japanese were ultimately pushed out of south Asia.

Monday Movie Roundup

April 17, 2006 • • 5 Comments

Danny Deckchair (2003, Jeff Balsmeyer)

Danny’s life as a cement worker leaves only one thing to look forward to: vacation. When his girlfriend cancels on him everything seems lost, and Danny falls into a tailspin of misery. In a bout of self-pity and frustration, he ties a bunch of helium balloons to a deckchair and rises into the air, leaving his life in suburban Sydney far behind.

When he finally comes down, it is in the small town of Clarence. Here he meets Glenda, the town’s one parking cop, who is stuck in the same kind of rut that Danny just escaped. While in Clarence, Danny discovers happiness and self-fulfillment and begins to live the kind of life he had only imagined. Meanwhile, he has become a fixation with the Sydney media as journalists try to track him down, and his old girlfriend enjoys her newfound celebrity.

Danny Deckchair is a well-crafted independent film that’s occasionally predictable, yet quirky enough to stay engaging and full of such a whimsical charm that you can’t help but smile through the whole thing. What could have been a routine romantic comedy turns out to be a ride as magical as the view from Danny’s deckchair as he drifts uncertainly over the Australian countryside. Three-and-a-half stars.

Weekend Hound Blogging: Teeth Glinting in the Moonlight

April 16, 2006 • • Leave a comment

Readers of this blog who bother to read my greyhound posts (both of you) know that Daphne is the shy one. The one that never barks. The one that is afraid of… well, of everything. I think it’s why she only ever (willingly) goes outside at night. Unfortunately for me, she loves to go out at night. Almost every night. But it was on one particularly luminous night that I let her out and while sitting on the couch waiting for her to come back to the door, I heard barking. Not just any barking, but full-throated ferocious barking.

The neighbor’s dogs sometimes bark at Daphne and Phoebe, but usually my pups just ignore them. But this barking was different. I went to the window and squinted out into the unusually bright night to see what I could see and was stunned to see Daphne – Daphne! – running along the fence barking at the two neighbor dogs. I could see her teeth flashing in the glow of moonlight and her bark (which had previously only been heard six times in the past four years) was that of a big dog.

My sweet, gentle Daph was out there tearin’ shit up and trying to throw down with the neighborhood hounds. I was so proud.

Since that day, however, I’ve not heard a peep from her.

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Want to make a fast friend by saving a greyhound in Central Texas? Check these pups out. Or go here to find a greyhound near you. You can also go here to find out why greyhounds are running for their lives.

If you have dogs who need proven leadership, go here to find a cat.

Driving All Night

April 14, 2006 • • Leave a comment

I find that doing taxes and editing a video take up most of my blogging time. That’s why I’ve been posting old stuff lately.

Old to me anyway.

I’m also trying to plan a bit of a vacation which has me thinking about trips taken in the past. Oftentimes, I had no film (it was expensive!) so I just tried to capture my experiences in short snippets of free poetry, and so with thoughts of Kris Kristofferson singing, “nuthin’ ain’t worth nuthin’ but it’s free,” I give you this, hopefully worth more than nuthin’, but still free…

Some Highway Somewhere

driving all night

three twenty eight a.m.,
they were all asleep;
i stopped the jeep on the roadside,
stepped into the desert dream of night alone;
i sought peace from the thundering snores
of bodies stuffed under blankets
and the moldy smell of a taco bell dinner
bought in wichita falls.

all new mexico’s stars spilled out,
diamonds across the milky way;
i shivered in the crystal air;
i spotted shooting stars and satellites;
i longed for a coyote’s howl to complete my cliché,
but coltrane’s notes were just as good,
drifting like ghosts from the cracked window;
i smiled when elvin jones’ drum solo kicked in
on summertime.

by morning, to sleepy to care,
we argued about who would drive next,
and we rested in the garden of the gods.

©1995, James Brush