Luck or Reason?

Enjoyed listening to the TED talk from Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs guy-- on how we are usually wrong about things. 

Heres the link--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVdiHu1VCc


I've come to realize that's true and yet still I always think I'm right until proven otherwise. A great example-- I thought the 3-point shot would ruin basketball. I predicted Renee Zellweger was going nowhere when I met her as a college undergraduate. I thought Robert Rodriguez's artistic vision was completely juvenile when he showed me a student film. Well, maybe I was right about that last one. 

I dismissed "Twitter" as a dumb idea when I first heard about it. A few things I did pretty good on-- moving to Austin, suspecting Climate Change was happening.... and betting on Birdstone (pure luck) to win the 2004 Belmont Stakes against Smarty Jones. I liked the name of the jockey, Edgar Prado, with the Prado Museum in Madrid association.


So maybe luck is more important than reasoning...?

Message in a Bottle (from Edge of Glacier)

A 1959 message was discovered by arctic scientists at the very northern end of Canada. A scientist, Paul Walker, left a note in a plastic bottle at the edge of a glacier-- requesting:

"Anyone venturing this way is requested to re-measure the distance..."  


Today's scientists say Walker would not have known whether the glacier would expand or shrink. Walker left his message at a rock ledge just 1.2 meters away from the glacier ice. Now the distance from the buried bottle to the glacier is 101.5 meters. The glacier has melted, or retreated, an entire football field in distance. 

Sounds like no big deal. But the message in a bottle has something to tell us.

Chapter One—December 22, 2013

Got over 70 degrees yesterday in New York, just coldest day in December history by about 7 degrees. Broke the record by 7 degrees. How’s that for seven degrees of separation. Course the seasons are all out of whack. Mankind said we’ll show nature a thing or two about the rhythms of nature—just destroy them. Who cares? All that matters is I make it to work tomorrow on the freeway, driving my car, heating the sky up... let the clouds take care of it even if that means building New York City into a greenhouse. The better to grow tomatoes and jog around Central Park in your shorts and tank top. 

Sargasso Sea of Being

Sargasso Sea, a place for me, a place where the eels bee. A place to let my protoplasmic eruptions of joy and sadness flow. Diluted by the endless salty brine. Maybe you've released your inner demons for the Neptunian tides and eddies to blow and suck them, whistle them, pound into so much mutton chop fibrous sea foam and venous outpourings of virulence and myopic menstruations. Oh sea gods be kind on a cold, windswept Shakespearean night of Lear-like flatulence and turbulence, necropolitan buzz clangering of fear and mythopoeic meanderings of verisimilitude.

The buzzspeak of the electronic smattering machines have lent massive mutterings to the heaving sigh of an antique gramophone. Thomas Edison you fott... Your friends Firestone and Ford, the f-boys and Florida was the place to meet and greet and speak your shared secrets. You unlocked the universe, took Promethean fire and made lemonade, yes for the masses, we love the 'lectricity and the rolling thunder of automobile tires.

Tureens of goose liver pate dot the landscape and pocket watches made by Dali go click, click, click to eternity.

Questor-- What does all this mean?
Anselmo-- Don't ask, unless you really, really, really want to know...

Questor-- That's too many reallys... really
Anselmo-- So you don't really, really want to know, you drunken sot, you're a  bacchanalian     balustrade of barterdom means nothing beyond boredom and you ain't no friend of mine. Passive aggressive and parsimonious. You make me sick.

Questor-- Okay so you know me too well. I like bourbon better than bombast from a pulsating prestidigitator like yourself.
Anselmo-- You find me manipulative?

Questor-- Massively. So much so that I find your octamerous offerings an intrusion, an innocuous recitation on resuscitation for those not yet put unconscious by your drivels, scriveling, scribbles and plenary plenitude of moral morass.
Anselmo-- Now that hurts!

Do you believe in miracles?

A squirrel in my backyard suffered a grievous injury. He lost the use of his back legs. Maybe a storm blew him out of the tree and he landed hard. In any case I saw the squirrel pulling himself along with his front legs. Hw looked pathetic. He had to be in trouble. A squirrel with only two working legs seemed like a squirrel with a death sentence. I figured his days were numbered.

Every morning I eat oatmeal and I  add apple to my oatmeal. I started putting the left-over apple peel next to a tree where I knew the squirrel lived. The peel was missing after a few hours. A month later I saw the squirrel with only two good legs. He looked fat! But he was still able to pull himself up the tree. The squirrel was climbing down the tree and eating the apple in front of me. He seemed to be looking at me.

Recently I found some pecans in a metal canister in my house. I added them to the apples. The squirrel became more confident about looking directly at me. Did the squirrel understand I was leaving the food?  Does this qualify as a miracle? I don't know.

How walkable is my neighborhood?

I live in LoBu (Lower Burnet Rd.) in Austin, Texas. Burnet Rd. is an important north-south artery. Our area of Burnet Rd., between 45th Street and Anderson Lane, traverses several neighborhoods: Rosedale, Brentwood, Allandale and Crestview.  We used to be in the flight path but no longer.

Have enjoyed this area for a long time. My street has always been a mix, a mishmash of apartment complexes, homes, and duplexes. Back in 1996 when I moved in, we had a fair number of shacks, sub-standard housing with cheap rent. This traditionally had been a blue collar area, with honky tonk bars and drive-in movies, must have had a real edge of town feel back in the 1960s. That included Threadgill's, the bar and gas station where Kenneth Threadgill taught Janis Joplin how to sing.

This area  evolved into a twenty-something neighborhood, with young people living the Austin low budget lifestyle. Some attended the University of Texas. There has always been a high turnover rate with the young folks moving in and out.  The same youth have noisy parties on summer evenings. You definitely hear bands belting out numbers at house parties during South By Southwest (SXSW).

Lately the neighborhood has been gentrifying. You see more people walking their dogs and pushing baby strollers than you did back in 1996. An explosion of coffee shops and restaurants has happened along this portion of Burnet Rd.. Cappuccinos are  more readily available here than on the Via Veneto in Rome. With great coffee comes great laptops, and diligent yuppies lurk everywhere being creative. I'm using one as we speak. People want to live close to the center of town and this neighborhood has been booming for the last decade.

Is the neighborhood better or worse as a result? LoBu has been thriving. The demographic shift towards the center of the city, with more people wanting to walk more and drive less, bodes well for the future. However, our neighborhood is not ideal for walking. My street lacks sidewalks, a carry-over from the era when you got in the car for every errand. Most of the walking around here is for exercise or relaxation, but let's celebrate the change-- it is walking! Change is in the air.

Palm Beach Post writer and a House Divided...

Randy Schultz, a writer for the Palm Beach Post, wrote about the current political climate fraught with Red state and Blue state viewpoints, a electronic sectarianism defining our present situation. He makes a great case for the increased tribalism in Washington where tribal divisions prevent progress on just about any issue.

The societal transformation stems from a profound switch in media-- the changeover from print media to electronic media. We expect our electronic media to do what the electronic media once did-- organize thoughts expressed by a public comprised of individual viewpoints. The new media environment comes simultaneously, explained Marshall McLuhan, not in an orderly, visual fashion like the print media of old. The new media environment is auditory and full of emotion with no clear boundaries. Auditory information, like music, arrives without boundaries. It is not like the orderly progression of words across the page. Auditory information arrives constantly from all directions and changes constantly.

"Ours is a brand-new world of allaonceness. 'Time' has ceased, 'space' has vanished. We now live in a global village... a simultaneous happening.

"At high speeds of electric communication, purely visual means of apprehending the world are no longer possible; they are just too slow to be relevant or effective.

"Electric circuitry profoundly involves men with one another. Information pours upon us, instantaneously and continuously. As soon as information is acquired, it is very rapidly replaced by still newer information. Our electrically-configured world has forced us to move from the habit of data classification to the mode of pattern recognition."

* from The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore (p.63)

Schultz comments that the different tribes, conservatives and liberals, stand in isolation from each other. Ideologically we may be very divided but, as McLuhan explains, we are profoundly involved with one another and there-in lies the rub-- we rub up against each other endlessly!

Whatever Gets You Through the Night

As we all are now authors, creators, writers, bloggers, tweeters, philosophers, facebookers, yarn spinners, gossips, ranters, hyperbolic exaggerators and tall tale tellers... how can we discern any truth or quality of thought amidst the myriad voices? And then again, maybe there never was anything that  original said by the poets outside of Shakespeare and a few Greek myths. Oh, I know, I’m being very Western in my thinking, not to mention reductivist and nihilistic. Everybody has a favorite author and truthfully maybe you only remember a phrase or even a single word that stuck with you but somehow that unique parcel of words really resonated for you and made your life better.

Bobby Dylan is quite the wordmeister... and the accompanying tunes only make it easier to remember his poetry.

Don’t the brakeman look good Mama

Flagging down the Double E?

(It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry-- from Highway 61 Revisited album)

And for something a little more cynical from Bob...

Pump don’t work

‘Cause the vandals took the handles.

(Subterranean Homesick Blues—from Bringing It All Back Home album)

So in the space of a few seconds I put my depressive notion to rest. The thought nobody really has anything to say is far from true. Fact is, what do we have except what people have to say. Those people, those viewpoints help make reality real for us by giving it a name, an explanation, a hypothesis. For what is art except a point of view expressed artfully... and we all need art to get us through the night. Science can provide a sleeping pill but the narcotic effect wears off and the thought machine springs back into action.

And in conclusion I refer once again to the eminent Bob Dylan... and Subterranean Homesick Blues... (and make it your Ringtone if you like! Oh there I go getting all jaded and ironic.)

Get sick, get well, hang around a ink well....

Bearded Men in Red Sox (a fashion rebellion)

Recently I noticed my nephew, formerly a clean cut, fairly conservative college kid had adopted a shaggy look, a goatee and long, wavy hair. The hair growth gave him the rough-hewn look of a Viking warrior, a Norseman. The increased facial hair got my attention. He must be searching for a new identity, I thought. The hair made him look older and added gravity to his presence. Then I noticed the the look of players on the Boston Red Sox as they battle in the American League baseball playoffs. The Red Sox players have such extreme beard growth the look borders on the comical. No, make that comical. These guys rival the ZZ Top band for the use of the extreme beard as a fashion statement. So, what is happening....

The beard worn by almost every single one of their players tell me something bigger is going on. The three-day growth has become de rigeur for professional athletes. Some players  beards border the length of mullahs... But no, this is not a religious statement. More like a political statement. The men in beards seem to be questioning their allegiance to corporate culture. They wonder if the corporation can solve all problems, debate whether corporate conformity is a good thing.  Capitalism still produces fantastic wealth but the nowadays the money does not get distributed as well as in the 50s and 60s. Of course, the Boston Red Sox all have a corporate employer-- the Boston Red Sox.

Professional ballplayers happen to be some of the lucky ones. The Boston Red Sox payroll pushes 160 million dollars total, for what?  25 guys. And imagine the mean salary...$3.44 million per player per year! That figure was reported by the Associated Press as the mean salary for professional baseball players in 2012.

Baseball players usually come from the middle to lower class ranks. I'm guessing very few have Ivy League or Wall Street parents. They want to be perceived as hardworking guys, blue collar. And they do use their hands. Ballplayers "shower after work" as Ed Schulz, the MSNBC guy likes to say. Latino players dominate the ranks. Ballplayers also want to be perceived as macho men, guys with an edge and a physical presence, not like the white collar corporate number crunchers, though the ballplayers' salaries rival a hedge fund manager's financial reward. The seeds of a rebellion against The Man may be at the core of the fashion trend towards men growing facial hair.

The Red Sox players possibly incorporate wild beards for another reason, as a way to have fun and to keep things loose in the high-pressure, overhyped world of  today's professional sports. They began playing for fun, as kids playing on the sandlots or in Little League-- before money was a motivator for pitching, hitting and catching the ball with grace and skill.

Climbing the M

If you go to Missoula, Montana the first thing you notice is the big white M resting on the hillside or the mountainside back beyond the University of Montana campus. The whitewashed letter M shines over the town and kind of pulls the whole town together. Look a little closer from the ground and you see a switchback trail leading its way to the letter M. Look even closer and you will spy hikers dotting the path on their the way to the top, a 720 foot climb. Hardy hikers get a commanding view of Missoula,  the city where "a river runs through it," a town nestled in a graceful, gently sloping valley. The M called to me and I had to make the trek.

My first ascent taken on Monday got me about halfway there. I read the sign announcing Mt. Sentinel trailhead and began. I was surprised how quickly my heart raced after traversing the first switchback, one of the longer sections, but just part one. I wondered how ready I was for the challenge. I got a few more switches under my belt and found a bench. I asked a young man what percentage of the trek we had accomplished. He pointed 100 feet further up and said "see that shrub, it's the halfway mark." So I made the shrub my goal and got that far. But I had dinner plans and so I called it a day.

Today, Wednesday, I went back and the rewards continued, but way beyond mere exercise and peaceful views of the Montana mountains stretching as far as the eye could see. This time I met people. I rested at the first bench and a hard breathing guy indicated he wanted a spot next to me. The need to catch your breath trumps any formality or even the awkwardness about sitting next to a stranger on a bench on the side of a mountain. I knew his pain. Within 10 minutes we walked side-by-side up the path. "I'm from Delaware. That's sea level," he reminded me.

"I'm from Austin, Texas, sea level too," I admitted to my fellow flatlander.

In a few minutes it came clear about our lives. He was a family man with a son flying jets in the Air Force. We were both grandparents. Then we were joined by a slender lady, bordering on frail, and a clear decade beyond the 60-something ages of Delaware and me. She walked slowly but with a determined gait. One of the lenses of her glasses was frosted over, intentionally made opaque. Forced to look at her through the one good eye, a bright blue color, she took on something a rakish pirate-quality. We all three rested on a bench and she pulled out a few maps, clipped from magazines, and provided the lowdown on local mountain trails, a hiker's paradise.  Missoulans take advantage of the gifts bestowed upon them as indicated by the steady stream of people, young and old, passing on their way up and down. Some of the college kids were running! Before long our guide mentioned she has emphysema. In the course of the walk, she also mentioned having had a hip replaced this year. Her indomitable spirit became more evident by the buoyancy in her conversation. I noticed a button on her floppy hat; it said "Keep calm and carry on." The button seemed to define her. A few switchbacks further along and I caught sight of the button on the other side of the hat: "I'm here to save the planet."

If anybody can save the planet this lady was the one for the job. I've joined her team. She won an adherent that day on the trail, gained a convert without really trying. Maybe she'll save us all, one by one.

Ten Hottest Women of Cable News

Remember the Playboy magazine pictorial spreads... ten page photo stories like "Girls of the Big Ten" featuring nubile co-eds in various states of undress? These photo cavalcades may still go on within the glossy pages of Hugh Hefner's magazine but my obsession leans towards the covered up beauties of cable news.

Here they are-- "The Women Newscasters of Cable News." Ted Turner may have instigated the movement towards the serious sexiness of today's news anchors and I'll pay homage to Ted by starting with the women of CNN:

CNN
1) Fredericka Whitfield-- a healthy woman with a beautiful face though mature in her career, CNN babes only have a limited  on-camera window. Fredericka comes by her gracious demeanor honestly-- Her father, Marvelous Mal Whitfield, was a great Olympian and one of the Tuskegee Airmen.

2) Brooke Baldwin-- a babe, reminds me of the high school girls who always dated older guys. Kind of makes you feel inferior to admire Brooke, always knowing you just don't qualify for that kind of woman.

3) Carol Costello-- a bit older, has a gossipy edge to her presentation reminiscent of another high school type-- the rumor starter, it's like she's seducing you with one scandal after another. Has a tricky Mrs. Robinson quality, and you're a young and confused Dustin Hoffman.

4) Christina Amanpour-- you meet her in a Parisian cafe. She's decked out in black leather pants, drinking Pernod and puffs clove cigarettes to beat the band. And she has war stories, no I mean literal war stories. You cannot help but consider the crazy lovemaking techniques she has mastered.

MSNBC
5) Tamron Hall-- very clean cut girl, seems youthful and idealistic like she really cares about some of the daily litany of tragedies coming across her desk. Tamron has a modest quality, unusual in the newscasting business, and we used to call woman like her "the marrying kind."

6) Andrea Mitchell-- a matron of the news with unusually wide set eyes and a very broad mouth. She's always referred to as a "veteran reporter" and features a Lauren Bacall sultriness, the type Humphrey Bogart always meets at a corner table in a dimly lit bar in New York. You, not so much.

CNBC
7) Savannah Guthrie-- with an Australian background, adds a nice bit of raciness with her good looks and carefully considered outfits. Business men like nothing better than walking in a woman with a babe like Savannah poised on the arm.

8) Melissa Lee-- even saucier than Savannah, she plays well with boys. However, she might be the type that lets you down due to the failures of your portfolio unless you can make her laugh. She's got a great laugh.

9) Maria Bartiromo-- the original money-honey, she has great lips and a musical Italian last name, almost an aphrodisiac in itself.  Has been a respected reporter for so long not likely to give you the time of day at a cocktail party if your net worth is less than Portugal.

CNN, MSNBC and CNBC
10) Erin Burnett-- has starred in every format and network, despite a tomboy demeanor and physiognomy. She downplays her sexuality, except for the electric blue color in her eyes, and seems not to have a mean bone in her Peter Pan body.

Go Out and Play-- No Don't

Talking to a friend last night about how children do not "go out and play" anymore. He had an interesting insight into the issue of children's safety. His insight-- children are less likely to go out these days because their mothers are working-- makes much sense. What has changed since the 50s and 60s when I was growing up? Many more women are in the workforce. This has changed the physics of the household. So kids stay in school longer and are transported to various places like soccer practice or dance lessons. And, he added with a bit of irony, mom actually puts her kids in greater danger by looking at her cellphone while she drives the car than they would ever face in the playgrounds.

I'm not picking on moms but more interested in my friend's notion of our lack of context for studying an issue. I get distracted by media stories of kids being plucked away by predators and miss the real issues. But the bigger picture, the shift in the dynamics of the household, remained invisible to me. Why so invisible? Because of its very prevalence. The fish never sees the water. How has society changed most profoundly since my youth? Women have moved into the workforce in a big way. The dynamic changed over decades. Our society has hardly noticed the profound influence of the movement of women to the workplace. Hence the famous "soccer mom" demographic. And now they say there are more single mothers than ever before! So that's even less people in the household!

Marissa Meyer, the CEO of Yahoo, got much attention for reaching the upper echelons of the company. Interestingly her first big move was to stop allowing people to do their work from home. I actually liked this decision. I always suspected the people "working from home" were usually the most assertive people in the office, the ones most capable of creating a cushy situation for themselves at the expense of their more passive colleagues. And Marissa Meyer had a baby-- and people complained that she would have a great team on nannies to help her with child care. But that is seeing the forest for the trees, because Marissa Meyer's child, like all the modern kids, will not have much time to just "go out and play."

And there's a new TV show on A&E, shot in my very own hometown of Austin, Texas called Modern Dads.



The dads are very telegenic, clever guys, seem like unemployed television comedy writers actually. Wait, now they're employed! But the dads-- veteran dad, step-dad, single dad, new dad, stud dad, fat dad... whatever, are all very funny and are house-husbands. So, society takes a look at the household shift in dynamics with these men taking the role of nurturer of the children while mom is out making a fabulous paycheck. But how prevalent is the house-husband phenomenon? Maybe it's a trend...  with women fitting more easily into the non-industrial American workplace better than the male of the species. We shall see...

Central Texas-- Golf and BBQ (chap 2)

Resumed a pursuit of small town golf courses in Central Texas with Mario, my buddy in this endeavor. He suggested we add a barbecue element to our Central Texas golf tour. Yesterday, we went to Luling, Texas-- a town about 50 miles south/southeast of Austin. Luling is actually much most famous for its City Market barbecue restaurant and the summertime Watermelon Thump celebration than for golf. I like the look of the oil jacks dotting its grassy fields. The smell of oil, something like the odor of natural gas from your kitchen stove, hits as soon as you approach the city limits.

The Luling Golf Club runs adjacent to the San Marcos river, a feature of the first golf course on our tour-- the San Marcos golf course. I had my breakthrough experience on the San Marcos course, that maybe I could actually enjoy this game. Zen meets brightly colored polo shirts . The key would be going to obscure golf courses, inexpensive and remote, and always going with Mario, my non-judgemental friend. And it worked again-- and the weather even cooperated, providing an overcast September day instead of Texas heat.

The first four holes run in almost a straight line. There are almost no sand traps to worry about and the fairways are wide and fairly well trimmed, or is that just the effects of the prolonged drought? So you can have fun driving the ball and working on your irons. The greens on these small time golf courses seem tiny so getting to the green is really most of the battle. The seventh hole of the course uses the San Marcos river and a grove of trees as a feature, an obstacle to be driven over or around. We should have gone around the trees rather than trying to hit over the river. Mario and I wasted at least five balls apiece trying to go over the river but that didn't dampen our spirits. You get the double entendre on "dampen"...  kerplunk! Nine holes of golf are perfect for our level of play. Playing a full 18 holes would only rub our faces in it... The golf gods must always be respected.

Luling's City Market barbecue restaurant is known far and wide. The RoadFood.com review offers a good summary and photo of the trifecta-- brisket, ribs and sausage. 

I went wild for the ribs and brisket and passed on the sausage. Mario went for the sausage. We found the meat to be succulent. I like going through the smoke room-- a Dante-esque domicile with walls darkened deeply, truly an homage to smoke. You have to walk through the smoke room to order your food. They immediately cut the order on brown butcher paper, and the paper quickly becomes grease-stained butcher paper. This ain't the Whole Food Market! The dining room is great for people watching. We saw some military guys in camo at one table and mostly locals there on a Tuesday afternoon.

The second stop on our tour kicked the small town golfing experience up another notch-- and I'm really enjoying the trip across the countryside. And we got to take the 130 TX Tag toll road-- the one with the unbelievable 85 miles per hour speed limit. Mario kept things mellow at around 70 miles per hour.

That's it for Chapter 2 on the tour. Thanks for reading!

To Flip or Not to Flip: a TV lament

To flip or not to flip- the channel-- that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous commercials,
Or, to take up the Remote against  a sea of ads
and by muting, end them, to die, to sleep-
No more Flo, no more Geckos, to say we end
The schlock of a thousand unnatural messages
That TV errs to-- 'tis a consummation
Devotees, addicts to be sure. To watch, to flip--
To sleep, perchance to nod off. Ay, there's the rub
For in the sleep, the images of sex and violence may come,
When we have shuffled off this coaxial coil,
The messages never pause. No respect, no respect I tell ya'
That  makes calamity of a TV-viewing life.

Holocaust of Heat

Maybe it's too obvious that everything is too hot... and maybe holocaust is too strong a word? I coulda said scourge of heat but not sure that makes the point. A holocaust is a strong word, usually implies lots of death and is most strongly associated with the Holocaust conducted by the Nazis, the mass killing of Jews. But maybe this present holocaust of heat presents a new kind of problem. We don't like to think of ourselves as the evil-doers, the killers, the dispensers of death. And so we rationalize the intense heat being felt most everywhere. I've traveled to four distinct corners of the US over the last year-- Texas, where I live, New York, Los Angeles, Montana and Daytona Beach, Florida. Texas, always known for high temperatures, has reached new levels of scariness. The summer has a monolithic feel like a journey through hell. The sun rises and a few seconds tick by, it seems before you get past 90-95 degrees. Then you wait for 100 degrees. I just got back from New York. They called their incredibly uncomfortable weather... a heat wave. Or after the wave lingered it was referred to as "excessive heat." My aunt tells me things have cooled off a bit in the Big Apple. I went to Binghamton, New York and it was hot in the mountains of upstate. Last fall when I visited Montana the scent of forest fires hung in the air, like a hint of apocalypse for the American West. But this problem is so frightening it gets short shrift if any shrift at all. Understandably we don't like to discuss the problem that is us-- the holocaust of heat we have brought upon ourselves with no clear way to get the genie of heat back in the bottle.

Deep Eddy-- Iconic Austin

Eddy is a nice word. I don't mean the name. I mean the water term... eddy-- current of water running contrary to the main current. Austin has a much loved swimming pool called Deep Eddy just on the outskirts of downtown. The water is cool. But the phenomenon of "running contrary to the main current" is an apt description of Austin itself. I got here many decades ago, back when Willie Nelson was putting Austin on the map, he was bringing hippies and rednecks together in those days. Willie, now 80 years old, symbolized Austin's unique openness with his quixotic quest.

Austin used to be called an "oasis in the middle of Texas" in those days. I'm talking the Seventies. That sound bite continues to work. Austin, called Idea City, by a famous downtown advertising agency, is a town built on consciousness. The Whole Foods Market, the most famous home-grown business, developed on the notion of healthy eating, a not-so-commonplace notion that grew to a huge multi-national corporation as the rest of the world caught on to the idea of eating for health. Consciousness at work again.

Ideas swirl like currents. Most human beings shy away from new currents, ideas not yet fully embraced and understood. Austin has become an international city based on open-mindedness.  Austin has the SXSW conference for music, film and digital media as its banner event. That's no accident. The city is a magnet for creativity. I flew into Austin just as the film segment opened for 2013 and sat next to a Parisian filmmaker, looking to buy a film for distribution. Another European, a globe-trotting photographer, sat in the next row and seemed to have professional pursuits lined up for the conference. They may have known Willie Nelson and the Whole Foods Market, but I doubt they had ever heard of Deep Eddy swimming pool. You have to move here and stay awhile to experience the swirling currents.

Younger and Fitter Using 1/6

Looked back at book Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge and learned more from a second reading. Seems like you create some inflammation in your body when you exercise vigorously. The authors explain that the slight pain you inflict on your body, down to the cellular level, creates growth and greater strength and health in the long run. They promote the use of heart monitors to keep good track of your pulse. In general terms, the maximum pulse rate can be derived by using the number 220 and deducting your age. In my case, the age is 63 years-- so my max heart rate would be approximately 157 beats per minute. You then strive in your exercise regime to get to 65% of your heart rate, or higher with more rigorous workouts. You might even move beyond aerobics to anaerobic levels-- with rates close to 100% of your max, maintained for a minute or two-- with sprinting 100 yards or some other relatively extreme behavior, for a senior person that is. The overall result is that you start feeling better and your body maintains itself at a more youthful level from the age of 60-85 years. It's kind of a natural preservative-- like dipping yourself in citric acid to reduce your physical detoriation with an exercise habit of one hour a day for six days a week. I think of the formula as 1/6-- one hour per day/six days a week.

So far this book has been a good influence in my life. I have been combining gym workouts for strength, about 2 per week, with 3-4 days walking the hills adjacent to my neighborhood in Austin. There is a bit of cultism or self-absorption perhaps in the authors' fondness for their system-- but I am falling into line with many of their assertions. I have not bought the heart monitor, a strap that goes around your chest and signals your pulse rates to the wrist monitor you wear like a watch during the workouts. I have noticed pulse rates on the elliptical machine and other apparatus at the gym and sure enough when I hit about 120 bpm (beats per minute)-- a line of sweat forms at my brow and telltale moisture appears at the neckline of my shirt.

Epicerie -- Great Dining on Lower Burnet (LoBu)

Dropped by Daisies Cafe on Hancock Dr. in Austin, Texas (where else) yesterday. The door was locked and I was told a huge inventory of goods had arrived and the cafe, temporarily closed, would re-open on Wed., March 13. Will try Daisies and report in a future blog post.

Meanwhile, crossed Hancock and entered epicerie a smart new restaurant with a non-English name, and the first "e" in "epicerie" has an accent mark just above. I just looked up "epicerie" in the French-English dictionary and it means...grocer's (shop), greengrocer's; groceries; grocery trade, greengrocery trade. The brightly lit restaurant has an appropriate name; you can buy cheeses and food items to take out, deli style. The name, though exotic and difficult to pronounce, with that awkward piss sound in the second syllable, should not discourage the monolingual. I never studied French but can see this place follows the French tradition for gastronomical quality. The interior has intimate dimensions and an immaculate but still friendly feel. Prices are not cheap, but you pay for quality, again in the French style. My companion got the cheeseburger ($10.95) and I ordered the cured salmon sandwich ($11.95). Both our dishes were scrumptious and we enjoyed the draft beer du jour, a hoppy IPA.

The staff at epicerie is friendly and well-informed. Katy, at the counter, answered my questions about cheeses with humor and a nice welcoming quality. And "welcoming" is the key word. French waiters may  be intimidating, but this is friendly Austin after all, and epicerie follows in our user-friendly style. From the little outdoor dining area, a cheerful, sunlight and private space, to the L-shaped counter where customers order meals and buy deli take-out, epicerie adds some of the sparkle of Paris to the LoBu (Lower Burnet) neighborhood. The City of Lights has the Champ-Elysees but we have Burnet Road,...yes Ilsa, we'll always have Burnet Rd..

Debate in the Austin American Statesman

Apartment complexes are springing up in the Burnet Road area of North Central Austin, the neighborhood I have coined "LoBu"-- for Lower Burnet. I envision the LoBu neighborhood as the Burnet Road corridor, bounded on the south by 45th Street and going all the way up to 183.

The heart of LoBu, however, occurs south of Anderson Lane.  And the heart of the heart  of LoBu is the Burnet Road strip south of Koenig Lane. Remember this is "lower" Burnet Road.

LoBu also happens to be one of the happening nodes for Austin development, a place for the rapid building of apartment complexes, condos, pricey duplex residences and the popping up of restaurants in the neighborhood previously know as Brentwood. The city even planted a stone with the word "Brentwood" on it over by the Omelettry. The Omelettry was a LoBu fixture long before there was a LoBu. The Omelettry, a restaurant especially known for its breakfast and brunch menu, only accepts cash. How cool is that in the era of plastic!

So the Austin American Statesman did a feature on LoBu, on February 11, 2013, entitled "Burst of Growth Raises Hackles in Brentwood." The article considered the possible downside of the plethora of building as an assault on "the dynamics of the neighborhood."

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/burst-of-growth-raises-hackles-in-brentwood/nWLQP/

The Statesman fortunately printed a great rebuttal letter from Heath Hignight on Feb. 14. Hignight was critical of the overly simplistic argument posed by the original article. Heath took issue with the paper's knee jerk assumptions, "Neighborhood folks are against growth; developers and 20-something singles are for it." Bravo Heath!  Heath pointed out an advantage of the new business establishments-- they allow for walking to take care of many shopping needs as opposed to using the automobile at all times.

LoBu has to be North Central's burgeoning best answer to SoCo, the notorious hotspot of Austin hipness just south of the river. And certainly South Austin carries a certain bohemian bonhome. Loyalists to the South Austin experience feel the closer proximity to San Antonio and sympatico Tex-Mex culture, make everything down there inherently superior to the north side. Go far enough north and you do achieve dull Dallas suburbanicity and cookie cutter conformity. But, LoBu actually has a blue collar soul, the original home of Threadgill's gas station and beer joint, the place where Janis Joplin learned how to yodel at the side of Kenneth Threadgill. LoBu used to be the outskirts of town, a place for drive-in movies, bowling alleys and honky tonks. So be it SoCo. We're like you were fifteen years ago, the new kid on the happening block.

Ken Criste-- On Comedy (Part 2)-- Ltr to Whitney

From: Ken Criste 

Date: Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 7:48 AM

Subject: speech

Whitney,

Congrats on your first comedic speech success. John has high praise for your efforts!

Keep a few things in mind while you visualize your performance(s).

The audience for comedy comes to laugh so they are automatically "on your side" and 99% will go along for the ride. Think of yourself as driving a bus. Everyone on the bus ordinarily just wants to enjoy the scenery and relax...you are the bus driver and the more confident you seem the more people just "accept". You do not seek approval as much as you just want them to enjoy.

The audience is conditioned to laugh. harness that and use it to help them enjoy your performance. A performer who is unsure or not confident will be shifting a certain psychological responsibility to the audience to "take care of the performer" or feel pity or something. They didn't pay for that.

Learn the set up/punch format in the beginning and the more cleverly you disquise this the funnier and more intelligent it will be. Of course if you observe the older female comics you'll see how married they are to this delivery and its the type of stuff they do the type of jokes which the audience comes, pays for, expects..no shame in structuring this way if it suits what you are about.

Anyway...take a couple acting classes... you'll learn some things and you might even get parts in movies commercials voice overs etc!

Ken

on. You 

Ken Criste on Comedy (Part 1)

Ken Criste-- Comedy Coach

1)   Occupy your 1-2 feet on the stage.

2)   Own your material.

3)   Set-up and Punch.

4)   Work clean.

5)   Audience wants you to succeed

6)   …. And they want to go along for the ride.

7)   If you’re unsure about where you’re going, they’ll get upset.

8)   Strap them into the back seat &

9)   …. Take them for a ride.

10)   The minute you show your ass, you’re going to lose them.

11)   They are in your hands.

12)   You’re entertaining them—not looking for their acceptance.

13)   … though it’s nice to get.

14)   They’re like kids, first graders, looking to you for entertainment.

15)   Entertain them.

16)   Take them.

17)   You don’t have to ask permission.

18)   Put them in the back seat, strap them in, and take them for a ride.