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(click any image to enlarge for higher resolution)
by James Brush
Category: Random Stuff
The catch-all category for random things about life in Austin, food & drink, politics, the occasional rant, whatever else.
Flying west over the diamond, egrets glow orange in the setting sun as they round second base and head over and beyond third, deep into foul ball territory. It’s good to watch the sky. You might see birds, perhaps an owl. You might see free-tail bats racing through the insect swarms around the stadium lights. You might even see that foul ball coming right at you. Hopefully you have a hat to use for a glove; otherwise, that ball will sting when it smashes into your palm.
The year Andy Pettitte came down from the Astros for some rehab work, the cars were an extension of the first base line, stretching down 79 all the way to the interstate. He stood above the opposition like Goliath facing 9 Davids, but wanting to give them hope, he let them stay in the game until sometime in the 6th when he decided it was over. Then, the only bats we heard were the ones hunting insects in the glow above.
In the minor leagues, we are ladies and gentlemen and respect the good play. Sure, things can get rowdy on Thursday nights when the beers and dogs go for a buck, but stout applause greets any man who plays well. Home runs, doubles, triples, we’ll cheer work well done whether by the home team or the visitors.
There are stormtroopers, Jedi knights and even Boba Fett wandering around the stadium. I don’t know why. There could be trouble. A stormtrooper stops near our section, pauses while everyone takes his picture. He looks so real, I worry that he’ll ask to see the papers for my droids and I’ll have to blast my way back to my ship—a real piece of junk, but she’ll make point-five past light speed. Made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs, I tell anyone who will listen.
In the front of section 119 almost everyone has a radar gun, held toward home in steady hands, measuring each pitcher’s worth and tallying the results in worn notebooks. These radar guns are windows to the future flashing the potential greatness of up-and-comers in red digital miles-per-hour, but they are also portals to the past documenting the steady irreversible slowing of arms that once threw lightning in the big leagues.
There is a crack, and the crowd silences as the ball sails over the outfield. You can hear the prayers, the screams and cheers waiting on thousands of lips. If the ball falls short, the stadium will sigh. When it clears the wall, the crowd lets go. Did you see that? we all ask whoever’s closest, but they don’t answer because they’re asking the same question. Hats circulate through the crowd, collecting fives, tens (twenties on those one-dollar Thursdays), tips for the batter, that master of physics, who stopped and restarted time with nothing more complicated than a wooden stick.
Some nights it all comes down to the bottom of the 9th. One more strike and the game is over. Or one good hit and the game is over. It could go either way. There is only the pitcher and the batter staring one another down. There is nothing else in the world. Soon even the players are gone as the pitch is released. All that is left is a small sphere hurtling through space toward a future we can only imagine.
A smoke-filled room and shafts of sunlight from gaps in the black paint on the windows and skylight greet you as you walk into Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor, TX, one of my favorite corners of the Barbecue rectangle surrounding Austin.
When I used to teach out in Taylor, we’d sometimes go to lunch at Louie Mueller on teacher workdays. It was easy to tell who had gone because they smoke their brisket inside the building so you walk out even after a short lunch smelling like a barbecue pit.
We went for lunch last week, which was the first time I’d been out there since I quit teaching at Taylor High and since then, the Food Network has featured Louie Mueller on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives so they were more crowded than I thought they’d be what with the SXSW crowd who’d made the drive out of Austin, but the line moved reasonably fast and the wait gave more time for anticipation and a little iphone photography of the flag above and the business cards on the wall, browned by years in the smoke.
When you reach the front of the line, they cut you a piece of brisket to sample before you order, but my decision was made: brisket sandwich, chipotle sausage, potato salad, slaw and iced tea. It was as good as I remembered.
Some things never change and that’s a beautiful thing.
Now that February is half-gone and winter winding down, I’m starting to think about my garden again. It’s in the shade of the house so it only gets direct light in spring, summer and early autumn. In the hottest part of summer, it gets 5 or 6 hours of sun, not much, but it protects the plants from the extreme heat that kills many other gardens.
I once spoke with a gardener who claimed the best things to plant in the midst of a Texas summer are “your feet on the coffee table,” but my shady garden is almost pleasant even in July. Of course, the trade-off is a lack of winter gardening, but the break is nice. It’s good to return to it after letting it lie for a few months.
I’m still finding shards of broken glass from last June’s hailstorm so I need to remember to wear gloves, but looking at the empty beds and imagining the the good things that will be growing there soon fills me with anticipation. I love the work of gardening, which is good since the possum and birds make off with a lot of the produce.
As per the dictates of tradition, I post the same old picture I’ve posted every New Year’s Eve since I started blogging.
2009, like many years, was a year.
Have a good 2010. See you on the other side.
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but blogging has taken a backseat, so at long last, some links to cool sites I’ve discovered of late…
Stop #1.
For months, I’ve been meaning to write about fellow Austinite Lavanna Martin who has one of the most interesting blogs I’ve seen in quite some time. She paints people in coffee shops, often without their knowledge, and posts them on her site: I Stare at People. Lately she’s been painting people in her studio as well. I love the coffee shop portraits as they capture these quick moments so nicely. Her portrayals of her subjects’ faces are especially interesting as they seem to contain the beginnings of stories we’ll never really know.
Stop #2.
Last spring, the online literary site qarrtsiluni announced a chapbook contest. The winner, A Walk Through the Memory Palace by Pamela Johnson Parker can be read online or ordered from qarrtsiluni‘s bookstore. I haven’t read it yet as I’m eagerly awaiting my print copy.
Stop #3.
Visit Lucy over at Box Elder. I can’t recall how I found my way there, but I’m glad I did. Beautiful photography and thoughtful writing from France (but written in English which is how I can say honestly say Lucy’s writing is fantastic).
Stop #4.
George at I’m Not One to Blog, But… is calling it quits, at least for now. Go on over and say so long to George and the boys (greyhounds Nigel and Mookie) and thank them for making it a better blogosphere.
Stop # 5.
In all honesty, I don’t really have a 5th stop. It’s important that I be upfront and honest about that because almost a month ago Fred at Ironicus Maximus gave me the Honest Blogger Award.
If there was an academy, I’d thank it.
I’m supposed to list 7 other honest bloggers, but I’m not going to do that. The sites I’ve listed above would certainly qualify as would nearly all of the sites on my links page.
One of my favorite places in the neighborhood is the little stream that runs north along the trail and feeds the pond. It’s about 1/8th of a mile from the house, but it’s a lovely little shaded place to sit and watch or listen to birds. There’s a little wooden footbridge over the stream, which is where I took this picture late last summer.
About 2 weeks ago a monster hail storm rolled through our neighborhood. No tornadoes, but the center was rotating when it went over the bridge on its way to our house where it broke a window and ruined the roof. It also took a bunch of trees. The picture below is the same view, standing on the bridge. Despite the fact that I shot it with a much wider lens than the one above, the trees over the water make it seem tighter.
The stream still flows beneath all that and the grackles at least could be heard bathing and nuk-nuking under the fallen tree.
For another view, here’s one I shot last winter. I used the same lens — all the way wide — for both of these shots. There isn’t much shade left there now.
We spent the weekend in the southwest Missouri Ozarks visiting some of R’s relatives and extended family including the ones that are in the ground. We looked for relatives in two cemeteries: one in Lanagan and the other in Pineville, both maintained by volunteers and donations. The one in Lanagan had flowers on every grave and flags for all the veterans.
These were surprisingly social places, and R’s parents found that the people there often knew of them and their kin. Surprisingly, these cemeteries were full of life, and not just of the avian variety, though I did enjoy watching a pair of Broad-winged Hawks circle ever higher over the Lanagan cemetery.
It’s odd how much I enjoy wandering around graveyards. When I was in college, I took a photography class in which we here assigned to shoot found objects. I spent a semester exploring cemeteries, graveyards, boneyards and gardens of eternal rest. I read tombstones and imagined the lives and stories they commemorate. Graveyards are great places to let the imagination wander while listening to birds and the wind.
I came across a grave for a young man in his twenties who died on November 11, 1918. The last day of World War I. He wasn’t marked as a veteran so who knows how he died, but for someone, I guess that was an unhappy day.
I especially like looking for the oldest person. I didn’t check them all, but this was the oldest I found.
I don’t know anything about this person. Only that he probably served in the Civil War. He would have been in his ’30s, and he was a doctor. I wonder what he saw, how many limbs he may have amputated. It fascinates me that he lived through the end of the frontier and the inventions of movies, electric light, the telegraph, automobile and airplanes. Whoever he was, someone cared enough to place a flag near his grave.
This was another one that fascinated me. R’s aunt found it and led us to it. Dr. Chenoweth was almost 48 when he was assassinated, “a martyr to the cause of temperance and religion.” The Latin inscription beneath says, ‘the truth will prevail.’ There’s not enough to know anything about what happened to him, but just enough to let the mind wander down the dusty lanes of invention and imagination. Such is the wonder of old cemeteries.
