Philanthropy and Other Words I can Spell

Philanthropy is a good thing. I wish I had more to give. Something between what I actually have and the pesky billions that Gates and Buffet have to struggle to organize and give away.

That's FFP with a sign in the front of Arthouse at Jones Center. We were a minor sponsor so they put our names there. Deprived FFP or one of his 'r's though. (Rule of thumb: spell donor's names correctly. Double check.)

Reading List
I haven't been getting much reading done. The other night I told a friend that when we went to New York we planned to go to Symphony Space and hear actors read from James Joyce's Ulysses. The friend looked a little puzzled. I said "It's Bloomsday, June 16, the day the book is about. You've read it?" "Nobody has read it, all the way through," he asserted. "I've read at it." Well, I did. It took a long time, but I did. But lately magazines and newspapers (mostly papers) are all I seem to get around to reading. I have been listening in my rare and short car trips to books on tape and I've been listening to an explicaton of Wagner's Ring Cycle that has the occasional musical fragment. Have decided I need to see the Ring someday, but maybe not someday soon.

Writing
I worked on the novel some. A character I hadn't really anticipated having showed up due to some random detail I wanted to include because I found it amusing. Then this ten-year-old semi-prodigy hijacked the book. The main character (assuming he can hold onto that position) and the boy child are frozen now in a game of Scrabble and a discussion of tennis and life. And the meaning of the word 'craven' which I anticipate the man will make by adding an 'n' and other characters to the boy's word 'crave.' I will, with craven disregard for the folly of it, milk all the metaphor I can from all of this. I am wondering what word the man should make crossing craven. Perhaps 'knight.' I really haven't written all of this...it's mostly in my head. I think they are really eating dinner and haven't fetched the Scrabble set yet. I had to research the letter mix in Scrabble to think about this, however.
A-9 B-2 C-2 D-4 E-12 F-2 G-3 H-2 I-9 J-1 K-1 L-4 M-2 N-6 O-8 P-2 Q-1 R-6 S-4 T-6 U-4 V-2 W-2 X-1 Y-2 Z-1 Blank-2

Where is the Time Going?

Well. Screening movies for Austin Film Festival. Not allowed to say anything except the most general about that. I have decided, however, that use of the following devices to drive the narrative has to be done with care: road trip; time travel; youthful angst; drug use; the play (or film) within the play (or film); mistaken identity; vomiting; your friends' music; multi-generational conflict; fake documentary pose. Also, I believe documentarians will finally get so close to the interview subjects that we will be looking at a single eyeball. Then it will be cool to pull out again until the subjects are speaking from down the street.

I've been planning my New York trip. Seems it will be interesting.

I've been getting out and about. End of social season hasn't really stopped the non-stop scene downtown. Sometimes I don't think I'm up to it.

My tennis doubles continue. I have more wins than losses in these casual games. Am convinced the secret is encouraging your partner and capitalizing on her strengths while looking for weaknesses to exploit when the person becomes an opponent. We change partners after each set. And yeah I've been watching too much tennis. I confine tennis watching to Grand Slams. Still too much.

I'm thinking of trying to improve my exercise and diet (inspired by one friend) and write more (inspired by another).

I've been writing too many tweets (which I have set to migrate to facebook where most of the friends are). I should blog more. Or write my novel. Or read a book. Or go to the movies. I'd like to see Up in 3D. I have three Netflixs I've had forever. Sigh.

And now...off to a museum opening and some jazz.

Pleasing the Public

If you had a store, what would you sell? (Here we have some of the wares recently on display at Mercury Design Studio on Second Street.)

If you wrote, would you blog, twitter, make facebook notes and updates? Would you labor quietly in your corner on the computer or in longhand on legal pads writing short stories, essays, novels? What would you give the public?

If you were a visual artist, would you make photos, collages, oil paintings, acrylics? Would you represent things realistically? Abstractly? Small works? Big? Sculpture? In what?

Would you insist that people pay to read or look? Or would you just be happy to create and give it away?

Art is a series of choices, but a lot of them, I think, seem pre-ordained to the chooser.

I've been working on a novel that I've been kicking around for a long time. Over two years. The main character is clear in my mind. However, the secondary characters are not. And I apparently can't keep up with the main character's given name. I am working on it, though, not for the public but just as a project that keeps me thinking and researching the peripheral ideas.

I am writing this blog entry, however, why? Because some people don't won't to read twitter updates, facebook comments and look at a blog that is largely about straight-up pictures of Austin. And you have to give your audience something even if it's a weak effort and even if there are very few of them. Not producing anything? Yeah, that's a choice, too. But it seems weak to me.

Getting a Handle on It

There is something I want to do. A goal is lurking out there. Do I want to write? Do I want to make collages? Do I want to research something? Maybe study some obscure historical or technical subject. Throw myself into raising money for a good cause? I think there is something. But I'm not sure what it is.

There is still plenty of 'need to do' activity lurking, of course. Wednesday I attended a couple of meetings at the club. (And got righteously frustrated listening to two issues I have really, really heard quite enough about. Settle them already and move on.) I had to pick up a prescription for my dad and also take him to a doctor yesterday. That and a workout pretty well shot the day. I spent a bit of time on financial shenanigans (not in the Madoff sense, just in the balance checkbooks, pay bills, calculate cash flow sense). There wasn't time for much else especially since we decided to go out for a Happy Hour drink and snacks. There is always some dalliance to displace from any serious endeavor whether it's the must do cleaning and errands or writing a novel or whatever creative and questionably constructive thing that might 'fulfill' me. We really dallied at Ruth's Chris on Wednesday because all the owners were there, they had Guy Forsyth behind the bar, friends wandered by. (One said she moved to Austin on my 50th birthday and was invited to the blow-out party I had by a friend. I had no idea she'd been there.)

I started writing this entry yesterday (Thursday) and decided to displace from it to clean the main bathroom and the bedroom. Then when I got back to it I decided to pick up the fragments of the novel scattered in blog entries and assemble them in a document and work on it a bit. So I did that. It doesn't feel like a particularly profound or necessary piece of work, but I'm thinking that I'll work on it nonetheless. Until some other idea comes along. I've also been working with a children's programming language called Scratch. Ostensibly I'm doing it so I can show it to my nieces for my great nephews and great niece. Really it's sort of fun and I'm interested in the formal logic behind the point and click object-oriented language. Invented at MIT, it is the modern equivalent of the 'turtle graphics' in the old LOGO language. I'm not thinking of getting into programming again. But I am thinking of studying the higher concepts of languages. It is infinitely fascinating to me even though the curtain has been pulled back for me for years and I understand conceptually how it all works. We all think what we are doing on the computer (or a phone or other gadget for that matter) is the interaction. But some levels away the chips follow instructions that are 'hard-wired' into them. And typing a sentence does a plethora of things starting with sending a key from a USB gadget (in this case). I understand this, but I still fall into the 'interface is the message' mode. Programming anything, even coding HTML, removes one from this false world into the inner workings a little, backing up a level.

But I digress. So, yes, I've been fooling with a programming language for kids, making 'sprites' move across a 'stage' sometimes leaving tracks or reacting to other sprites or the edges of the stage.

But I did pull the novel fragments out of this blog and edit and add to them a bit. I have about 3500 words. In that version. There are other versions lying about with completely different character names, events and time lines.

Anyway, I can't seem to finish a blog post. (Let alone a novel.) So I'm going to sign off on this rambling bit and hope that, having this drivel out of the way will help me move on. Yeah. Good luck with that, as the kids say. And move on to...where?

[Photo taken at Mercury Design Studio last weekend. They really come up with some weird goods!]

Why Haven't You Written?

Remember when there was no on-line chat, no e-mail, no blog, no IMs, no text messages, no social media, no unlimited long distance calling plans even? Yeah, people wrote letters and mailed them. It cost less than forty-four cents to post one, but still what an effort! And people would write you wondering why you hadn't written. And famous peoples' letters were/are preserved in books and carefully archived and edited.

I don't write any more. It's the middle of May and this blog has no entries for May. The Journal of Unintended Consequences is fallow. I'm not writing a novel. Sadly I have been transcribing old journals into the computer. In some cases old 'to do' lists as if this typing was somehow writing. I twitter (and my terse pronouncements are echoed on facebook). People comment. There are e-mails and responses. Today FFP and I actually talked, in person, to an old friend. My time doesn't go to writing. It is swallowed by eating and drinking and watching stuff I shouldn't watch on TV and cleaning. FFP has an excuse...he has writing jobs, he has follow-ups for his non-profits. I'm playing tennis or goofing off. I embrace distractions, I think.

I also am pretty sure that I no longer have anything to say. I started an entry with this title a week or so ago, accidentally lost it. When you become cavilier about your words...yeah, you are probably right about what they are worth.

I have kept up with Austin Daily Photo, which seems like a distraction in and of itself. I updated a friend's WEB page. There is always something else to do besides my own allegedly creative stuff. I need to finish reading the paper, I need to go brush my teeth, I need to pay some bills, I need to tidy my desk.

Life will hand you whatever distractions you need, I think. I'm off to type in years-old paper journals or extract the bits of my novel from this forum and fret over it or, oh, I don't know. But I wanted to stop by and say that I hate that my mantra ("Pretending to write but really just blogging") has now become "Pretending to write but really just tweeting." Heck...I haven't even taken that many shop window reflections lately. (The one here is from weeks ago.)

Take a Step Back

We've spoken here before, I feel sure, about how I like shop window reflections because of the layers and the distance of portrait subject from the portrait. If we haven't, we should have.

I'm all about distance these last few days, feeling like I need to step back from certain situations and some people. Feeling like I need to let some situations play out without my input. Some things I'm just tired of thinking about. I also have been considering taking my bits and pieces of novel out of blog posts and putting them in a document on my computer and working on that. I feel like the book needs to be written. I don't feel like it needs to published (even as squibs on a blog). Just written and that's that and don't think about that again. But we all know that even the effort to cut and paste the fragments into a document will probably elude me.

Much ink and pixels have been spilled arguing about twitter, facebook, blogs, newspapers, books, magazines and their relevance/quality/future. Uh-huh. I say that you can blog brilliantly or inanely, tweet nonsense or a profound 140 characters, build a facebook world of friends who alert you to the best of life and information or one that panders to the lowest drivel. You can write and publish bad books, natter on and still get published by legitimate newspapers or magazines or...contribute something true to the bone. Oh, there are less barriers and fewer copy editors in cyberspace. Nevertheless profundity, truth, emotion, timelessness of words can be achieved anywhere. Even the back of an envelope.

Which reminds me, speaking of stepping back and the back of an envelope, I need to make a 'To Do' list I think. Maybe.

My list might look like this:

• pay xxxx (a certain credit card)
• record deposit
• call yyyy (a friend who should be called)
• RSVP in the negative to a wedding
• record receipts
• watch movies and write reviews
• capture phone numbers from old phone in preparation for...
• buy a Smart Phone
• clean out physical inbox
  
• clean our e-mail inbox
• reservations for NY trip
  
• etc.

Is this (the above) writing? Hmmm....should I add a 'to do' list of writing I need to do?

Yep, the above is the blog equivalent of tweeting about what you eat or that you are about to take a shower. Ho. Hum. I think I'll take a step back and think about what I really should do.

Pogonip Lives!

Not really. He's a fictional character in a novel I'm not writing.

But, this morning, I can't leave him hanging in the lobby of the Austin Four Seasons, looking across the table with the elaborate flower display at a distressed Jilly while an agent of the U.S. Government flashes a badge at him. I have to get that over with. It's not a thriller damn it.

But should it be FBI? Or Homeland Security? Oh. Well.

Inside the small business office downstairs from the lobby, Pogonip sat in chair. The agent who had brought him down and several other suits were crowded into the room.

"We'll be brief, sir. We know you knew the victims from Austin of this attack. We wonder if you know what they were doing in Berlin at this site."

Cliff wondered how best to put it. He paused and then said as confidently as he could. "Yes and no."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said another officer impatiently. The first guy held up his hand. He said, "Go on."

"Well, we were playing a travel game I set up for the guys. I gave them a hint that was supposed to take them to Paris, but I understand why they went off to Berlin. But as far as being at the Memorial...I guess they were just being tourists."

"Do you know why Carter Evans' wife was not with them?"

"I spoke with her. She was shopping. They went to look for clues and she didn't go."

"You said they were being tourists!" This was the aggressive guy again.

"Well," Clint continued, "My guess is that they went to the Reichstag and didn't find a clue and this memorial is nearby. I don't think they'd seen it. So...." He trailed off and the aggressive agent fidgeted.

Sputtering, the aggressive guy said, "They hadn't been there before?"

Clint looked at him. "Not that I know of. I think they were last in Berlin in 2002. I was with them. It wasn't built or not completed."

"You know a lot about it!" the menacing guy said, leaning toward him.

"Not really." He stopped. He thought to himself that he'd read about it when it was dedicated, thought of making a trip to Berlin. Why hadn't he done it?

The calmer suit said, "So you think it was the first time they were there? You think they were just accidentally there?"

"Yes."

"Well," the calmer guy continued, "Do you think they might have taken pictures there or even uploaded pictures before the explosions?"

Clint had not thought of this. But, of course, they might have. They had iPhones and cameras and they were constantly making updates to track their progress or lack there of on the silly quest. It all seemed quite frivolous now and he hated talking about it.

"Can't you get the records? Did you find cameras or phones or the memory cards?" Pogonip wanted to flip around to the computer in the room and start looking on the WEB. But he didn't even look toward the machine, put there for hotel guests he imagined.

They didn't seem inclined to answer. Clint took a small leather notebook from his pocket. He fetched out a card, flipped it over and wrote a URL and two twitter names on it.

"If anything got posted, this should help you find it. I haven't looked. I didn't even think of looking. Didn't Sally and Stuart give you this?" He was referring to the wife of Carter and the girlfriend of David. He got no answer.

The agent who seemed about to boil over twitched. And then said, "Did your friends have anti-Semitic leanings? Had they talked about, even casually, possible attacks?" He was almost shouting.

Clint and all the other suits stared at him.

"No. And no." Clint said. He didn't know if he should say that David was, in fact, Jewish. That his great-grandfather had perished in the Holocaust. He wished he had offered it as an explanation for the visit. "Just tourists?" he thought. "Crap." Too late now. Now it was an apology. And, of course, it wasn't like a quest for that was in David's mind. He would have had no idea where the adventure would take him and as far as Clint knew he hadn't focused on his family's history a lot.

"We might be in touch. Where are you staying? Here?" concluded the calm agent.

"No," Clint said as the other agent looked angry. "You have my phone number, I think."

"Where will you be staying?" the calmer one asked, less gently.

"The address is the Austin one on that card." Clint said. The agent flipped it, stared at the London, New York and Austin addresses.

Oddly, this concluded his business with the FBI, Homeland Security and all officials about the incident. He would never hear from any of them again and was not in fact sure who was represented in that room. Only the FBI guy in the lobby had shown a badge. Given what he found on the WEB, maybe it was not so odd that this ended the brush with authorities.

Clint walked out and started toward the stairs but the maitre-d stopped him. "Your friends are in the cafe," he said.

What are You Driving At?

Perhaps it's a lack of goals that has inserted a certain randomness into my life, my writing, my selection of activities.

I struggle out of bed in the morning, get a cup of coffee and discharge my daily duties. Seven days a week I always (well almost): (1) phone my dad; (2) select, edit and title a photograph taken in and around Austin, write a paragraph or so about it, maybe add some links and post it on Austin, Texas Daily Photo.

There are things I also get around to on a regular basis at some point. I almost always make the bed although sometimes FFP does it or helps. Sometimes I strip it, put the extra set of sheets on it and wash the sheets. I'll dust, do laundry, take out the garbage, do other cleaning tasks as needed. I download digital pictures from our two point and shoot cameras for the ATxDP blog and this one and whatever uses FFP's work requires. Sometimes I write a blog entry here because, more than anything, I can't decide what else to do while I'm sipping coffee and planning the day or a quiet afternoon or evening makes me feel like typing if not writing. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I drive to the club and play tennis unless the weather is inclement. It feels delicious when something is canceled like a regular tennis game. I don't know why. It feels briefly exhilarating when there is a day on the calendar that is blank. I love to get out, do things. But I love to see the calendar day inviting me to do something creative or have time to clean and sort without a rush. Almost every weekday finds me sorting through checkbooks, bills, financial stuff online and on paper and making sure that checks are written, QuickBooks and spreadsheets updated. We don't have much business stuff any longer and our financial life is not all that complicated. Still, it takes time. It feels good when it's caught up. FFP usually handles taking deposits to banks and brokers, making calls to them. I don't like making calls. To anyone, ever, really.

We socialize. We get invitations to stuff. Usually benefits and performances. We get tickets, schedule things, get it on the calendar. Occasionally we (usually FFP) are involved in organizing the event.

We write a little for publication. FFP mostly although occasionally I edit or even create a few paragraphs.

I don't focus. I think up writing projects, research projects. I think about doing something with my digital photos.

I think about connecting socially with people I haven't seen lately, encouraging others to go to events we find worthy. Sometimes I do it.

I check my e-mail, online news, twitter and facebook. Maybe I comment on my 'status' or comment on the status of others. I read other people's online journals, follow other people's links.

But where is my ardent focus? Is there a book or creative project that I need to be doing because it could only come from my mind? Should I be using my alleged talents to come up with an idea to make the world a better or more interesting place?

Or. Should I just clean the kitchen, enter a stack of receipts into my budget spreadsheets, tidy up a bit and call a friend about getting together since another friend with be in town? And thus is the dilettante mind exposed for what it is: something that ducks and darts and really never gets to the point of contact that makes something happen. Interest piqued is interest waning. Perhaps only a job or school ever focused me to real accomplishment. And, perhaps, not even then.

[Shop window reflection picture of mannequin in Hello, Kitty hat with me in Niagara Falls hat and camera at a Japanese souvenir and bubble tea shop near UT campus.]

I'm easily entertained...

...but also easily bored.

In the presence of words (almost any book, magazine or newspaper will do but spare me the Sports section with no news of tennis and Romance novels) I am almost always be entertained. I may be distracted by something else and lose track of the reading, but I won't be bored. I read the program at concerts and events before they begin (assuming I haven't taken a magazine). I read ads. Pictures are nice, too.

Give me a keyboard and the right mood and I can type until the cows come home. My dad used to whistle for them to do that on the old 60-odd acre home place at about dusk. But I could type on until midnight. I may not say a thing but I will produce a stream of letters formed into English words but the sentences may make sense, alone or together. I will even invent initialisms like HQWF (How Quickly We Forget). Even though I hate them. Laugh out loud! Not going to abbreviate it.

I can people watch endlessly, browse the WEB and, even, read old online and handwritten journals by yours truly for hours on end.

Unless I get distracted.

I am easily bored in some ways. Playing tennis the other day with someone who never runs after an errant ball and who strolls into position to receive, back turned, holding up her hand and saying 'wait a minute' strains me. So I start observing things and entertaining myself. Noticing how the uniforms (all red outfits, all white visors) on some players down the way look, wondering what weeds have opportunistically poked through the cracks in the awful court we are using, considering the resemblance of the Lacrosse player practicing on the half court behind us to a send-up painting of a kid with a backwards cap on the cover of The New Yorker a few years back on the anniversary issue. (Supposed to be a Gen X version of Eustace Tilly he was.) And so it goes until I get a chance to touch ball to strings. Or to serve. I like serving because I get to hit more balls. Two aces Tuesday. I don't hit hard but I move it around. I've been writing a poem in my head about math, tennis and boredom. I work on it sometimes while I'm bored at tennis.

Fractal branches cast fractal shadows against the order of the lines.
Perpendicular lines and partial lines carving the court into rectangles.
Spaces of in and out and fault and ace. Rules about touching and missing.
Why twenty-seven feet? Or twenty-one? A three-foot net at the middle.
I see a pattern and yet not. Only one prime in sight. But I digress, interrupted
By caroms in three space, arcs predictable except for spin and striking
Nails in the tape to hold the lines to the clay surface. How far apart?
How distracted and yet focused the math makes the tennis and the ennui.

No, that isn't the poem. It's just random lines I constructed just now to illustrate.

I have been writing a short story in my head (although it might be a novel or a novella or a part of a novel) for a long while about a guy hitting tennis balls on the very court where I played Tuesday so I thought about that when things were going. too. slowly. I like how some online writers invented the technique of adding extra periods to slow you down as you read. The story has a bicycle rider and an SUV and so when I see a bike go by and then an SUV I visualize what the protagonist (a guy from Odessa, Texas, I'm not sure why) sees through the fence and wind screen.

Yeah, I'm easily bored and yet, sometimes, when I flip from running my iMac as an Apple to the window running XP under VMware and it has gone into a screen saver mode and is showing my own picture collection to me I just sit there, watching pictures I've already seen over and over for a few minutes. But in front of the TV with the satellite hookup and a DVR with captured episodes of this and that I can be so completely bored and unable to be engaged that I have to get up and get something to read.

I watch a lot of TV and movies at home. And sometimes they are pretty exciting and encompassing. But I get bored if I JUST watch them. And not just because of commercials which we usually skip anyway. I almost always read as well. Newspapers usually. So I'll be reading about Somalian pirates, Taliban areas of Pakistan, Obama's dog, Broadway revivals of "Hair" and "West Side Story", whatever, and sort of watching with one eye and listening. Makes sub-titled movies (which I love especially if they are French although German is sort of amusing, too) hard to follow. I also like to work puzzles while watching TV. I will learn a new word in a crossword (e.g.: marten; toque meaning a woman's hat instead of a chef's tall one) and not be able to contain myself until I look the word up in a real or online dictionary.

There is infinite entertainment in this apartment and yet I get stir-crazy to leave it now and then. Then when I'm out I get eager to come back and settle down with my computer, newspapers, books.

I stay engaged with movies, in a dark theater, although I like to have some food and I hate the food except for the Alamo where drinking beer and eating fried things and actually watching the movie keeps me there. Unless my mind wanders.

This restlessness, dare I say bordering on attention-deficit, makes me anxious. So, I guess I go from being entertained by many things to boredom to anxiety, all in the space of minutes.

When I was in school or at work in meetings with presentations by others, I had to write something to stay focused. It might be about what was being presented. It might be a 'to do' list or a grocery list or a doodle. It might be an idea only peripherally about the content the lecturer was presenting. One such segue produced an idea which is one of the few ideas that both received a patent for some of us at the company and actually made a bit of money in the marketplace.

I see people who are really focused on something. Maybe it is a very BIG thing like running a company or non-profit or a tiny thing like a very focused hobby or sport. Nothing gets my attention like that. I'm used to starting on things and never following up. Blogging and posting pictures online is something I've been pretty faithful doing (if that's the proper word) but, let's be honest, the form is constantly changing. And it isn't a thing you finish. It's the equivalent of notebooks full of non sequitur musings created during lectures and other entertainments that did not fully engage my dilettante mind.

Lately I've been watching people who focus closely on something, shutting out distraction. They are creating businesses, fighting for causes, writing books and plays. That will never be me, I guess. And my accomplishments will always be brief breakthroughs: an idea, a sentence, a paragraph, the short essay, the clever bon mot. The other day on twitter I said:

viswoman found blogging reduced her writing to a few paragraphs. Twitter to 140 characters. New service: Heartbeat. Nine letters or less.

I thought I was so clever. Heartbeat. In some techie worlds it is a notice that some process or service is there, working, alive if you will. And the word has nine letters. And yet when I tried to label this post, selecting from labels used on some of the prior 638 posts, I ended up with more than two hundred characters which, apparently, is the blogger limit.

Ennui

Maybe I'm doing a series of essays about single words, huh?

I couldn't decide on the title. Should it be ennui:

–noun a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest; boredom.

Or malaise:

–noun

1.	a condition of general bodily weakness or discomfort, often marking the onset of a disease.

2.	a vague or unfocused feeling of mental uneasiness, lethargy, or discomfort.

Ennui seemed more like it.

I get up on a day like today, with few duties, and I just don't feel the excitement one ought to feel. Perhaps it was the continuing pressure I felt in my head. That's now been cured, I think, by 400 mg Ibuprofen.

I worked out a little. But it wasn't as exhilarating as usual. I read the papers. I dusted the closet and put sweaters away for the summer with little moth packets. I dusted here, and tidied there. Nothing seemed to give much back. We watched an episode of "Office" off the DVR, we ate slices of pizza FFP got at the Royal Blue downstairs.

Maybe it's that I haven't gotten off the tenth floor of this building all day or maybe it is just part of the process of kicking the allergens out of my body, but the world just isn't as exciting as I'd like it to be. Usually things kick up my interest. I feel like learning and doing. Not today. I feel ho-hum.

Maybe having some guests come down and visit our place and taking them out in our 'hood for dinner and entertainment will do the trick. I really have no reason for ennui (or malaise for that matter). Maybe the key is satiety. I have so much of what I could possibly want that the spark is gone. Only, usually, I pull out of this and things start to charge me up again. In fact, just looking up a couple of words has improved my mood immensely.

Hubris

Nah, it's not my car. The friend walking with me said it was an older Rolls. It was at a repair shop on South Congress.

It did seem like a photo worthy of the title of this piece, however.

I've never owned a Rolls. I've never ridden in one either. I don't have anything against someone who does, however. I'm a capitalist. I like having money to get things I want. But I know that I am lucky to live in a place where I could amass a little money (starting at zero? less than zero?) and enjoy things I like in my dotage. Oh, I have a beat-up Civic I bought eight years ago because my other beat-up Civic got totaled. And I only have 1200 square feet to shelter me. But it is a cool place, downtown where things ain't the cheapest and I spend profligately (by Honda Civic standards) on eating out, travel (well not so much last year) and my favorite charities.

Apparently there are people who will hold my lifestyle against me. (An article we wrote in the Austin Chronicle about walking to bars and restaurants and museums elicited a detractor who compared us to French royalty during the French revolution. Off with their heads!) And, certainly, there are people who will hold a Rolls or a yacht or a big estate and 'compound' or lavish trips against those (many) folks richer than I. Not me, though.

I know that if you start deciding what people 'deserve' to own, you are no longer a capitalist. Of course, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have sensible regulations, prosecute fraud, have reasonable taxes (not punitive ones).

What I find unforgivable is hubris. Not just pride but:

hubris–noun excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.

I think it is fine to be a little proud, to stand up for yourself, your accomplishments. But in excess it is the thing I despise most.

Hubris can be exhibited by anyone, too, not just the rich. You see rich people, though, who believe their circumstance is the direct result of superiority, of brains, wits, risk-taking with no element of luck. You see it in the poor, too, who adopt a victim's mantle with an excess of pride, as set apart and enamored of their lack of luck and their circumstance as any rich man who worked for (or defrauded for or stumbled blindly into) his riches.

I love my life. No Rolls although I suppose I could have had one if I'd wanted little else! I have food, shelter, health, a computer, a retirement income. I have most of what I could possibly ever want. Maybe more than I can successfully consume (especially if you count newspapers to read, books to read, movies to watch, walks to take, blogs to read, etc.).

But I hope I always remember that while I tried to get to this place and have the things I want and be safe and happy some luck helped, too. I try to be thankful for potable water, shelter, medical care for me and those I love. I try to be thankful I live where women, if discriminated against sometimes in some ways, are basically considered human and free. I know that my luck in having these things has little to do with me and much to do with where I was born. I also don't believe a god blessed me with these things but if you do, that works, too.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18

I have trouble forgiving pride and think gods do, too.

I also think there is a great amount of hubris people adopt in their attempts to identify and right wrongs. Some people are convinced that only they see the true path to what is right. That the world is only flawed because they have not come up with the right procedural path to an ideal world. I think the world is flawed and we only make it better when we admit how unimportant one person is although our acts are magnified if others adopt them.

Perhaps I would have been more successful (hard for me to imagine, though) if I had been more proud, more sure of my own ideas. But the doubt of my anti-hubris kept me grounded, I think, and perhaps kept me from making a few frightful mistakes.

And, maybe, just maybe, I'm too proud of not being proud! Still I hate hubris. But I love the word.

Shrinking for the Global Good

While I've been missing from this space I've been thinking. Yeah, really. About lots of things. About how we are all connected. About shrinking the footprint those of us in the developed world make. About my own (continuing??? I hope) downsizing. We've been downsizing a lot of things, really. Commitments. Spending. But mostly stuff and space consumed and car trips.

Today's illustration is a collage of (mostly) decade-old scribbles from a notebook. Originals recycled. Yeah, I have no delusions of about the value of my own messy notebooks. I do however try to capture actual journal entries in a computer file and I enjoy scanning some of the hand-written and drawn stuff for my amusement. Several cubic feet of this stuff remains to be dealt with in the downsizing of the 2000's, but every little bit helps, I figure.

We have moved out of 3000 square feet on 2/3 of an acre into 1200 sq. feet in a high rise footprint. We still have a house that serves as a home for my dad (and housing for a few visitors) and we help FFP's parents remain in their cottage. So, yeah, decadent amounts of space. But less. We consider stuff acquisitions now in terms of having space to store things. I'm also thinking about how much I might use something. We are trying to buy local (from the grocery store downstairs, from local restaurants) and support local arts groups and charities serving our community. I go days without starting my (old but fuel-efficient and with maintained pollution control) vehicle. I am planning trips, but when I go somewhere I want to stay a little longer and make the jetting less wasteful.

When I read my papers about tent cities in the U.S. and conditions world-wide I feel a little helpless in the face of it, but I really think that what we do right here makes a tiny difference. I know that our lives are wildly extravagant to many people in my own city and country and unbelievable to millions around the world. I don't want to give up my computer and my AV stuff and my meals and fine wine and my glorious lifestyle. But I'm trying to make changes, not sacrifices, that both simplify my world and make a small difference in the rest of the world and the future. Is it 'enough?' For me, it is. I'm going to try to escape the next couple of decades (after which the world belongs to someone else) in relative comfort with time to think and space enough. Free time and free thinking...they are pollution-free and can be constructive!

Use Your Head

Lots of hats and heads in this photo from Let's Dish on South Lamar. (Including a shadow me head with spiky hair, a sort of signature in these photos as you know.)

Lots of thoughts lately all jumbled and unblogged. Some unbloggable, crossing lines I don't cross. (Spell check doesn't like unblogged or unbloggable for the record.)

SXSW is over and a visit from two aunts (one with husband) and two cousins (one with wife) to my Dad is absorbed and recorded. I have once again realized that there is not a winning strategy to a game called 'Spinner' played with double nine dominoes with a wild 'spinner' thrown in and certain family rules. And that these family gatherings will always be familiar in certain fundamental ways.

I'm enjoying my morning, thinking about the movies and music and SXSW and reading some things in The New York Times. Using my head to think about issues and the arts. Interesting essay about a C.P. Snow essay in yesterday's Book Review and a review of a play we might see when we go to New York. I can entertain myself thoroughly by watching movies, reading and then writing and thinking about them. (I also took a quiz on Facebook about 'what writer are you' and it came out Jack Kerouac. That's food for thought. Or impetus for a road trip.)

I didn't get to watch as many movies at the end of SXSW (or as we call it here 'South By') as I would have liked because of the relative invasion. I had to make a trip to the airport on Friday which I dreaded but which turned out to work very smoothly.

On Thursday, we saw "Soul Power" which is made from footage of a 1974 three-day soul music festival in Zaire when Ali and Foreman had the 'rumble in the jungle'. Amazing footage of the musicians and music and some great Ali monologues, too. Made me want to see "When We Were Kings." I thought I was going to have to take my aunt and uncle to dinner, but they went out with Dad and so I got to go with FFP to see "The Way We Get By" which is a doc about troop greeters in Bangor, Maine. Sort of ironic since the aunt and uncle I was ignoring are not that different than the movie people: they are both ex-military and live in Maine. Excellent doc. One of the people profiled was the director's mother. This wasn't clear until the Q&A which, I think, is a good thing. Does that mean that the personal is fine as long as you can take a step back? Maybe the personal is the only thing that works, in some ways. I was giddy to get to see this extra movie when I thought I'd be engaged with the relatives. I'm glad it was a worthwhile effort. I shudder to think what the movies cost me on a per movie basis since we bought badges and pretty late at that, not getting much of a discount. After that movie we went to Taste and had delicious fried chicken and champagne.

Before I had to go to the airport we got time to see "Breaking Upwards." We get wrapped up in docs and the fest is a great time to see them, but it's fun to find an indie narrative that you really like and this was one. The stars were co-writers with another writer, the male lead directed and the stars played people with their own first names. In other words, the film was very personal. It felt 'real' with funny lines and situations tossed away for free like in real life. Sometimes you thought you'd probably missed two or three things because it was going along like life in messy, sometimes irrational directions like life itself. It was very satisfying I think and ended ambiguously without trying in romantic comedy fashion to tie up loose ends. The parents of the leads were beautifully drawn as well as some minor characters.

I had to do further excavation in my car before I went to the airport to find room for relatives' luggage. Uncovered a stack of unread Harper's and The New Yorker magazines I still couldn't recycle. Never will there be enough time for the life of the mind I'd like to pursue. But I did take one inside the airport to wait and had a satisfying few minutes reading. I was early because I was afraid of traffic and finding a short term parking place around the 4:30 arrival of the plane, but it was actually early and so it was good that I didn't cut it close and leave the relatives in the lurch. The rest of the evening consisted for finding a suitable restaurant for dinner for eight, eating homemade pie and playing the aforementioned game about which one can hardly muster a shred of strategic thinking.

Saturday I devoted pretty much the entire day to family. Picked up a couple of things for my dad at the grocery, got his shirts from the laundry and visited with the assembled family and a friend who dropped by. Got through lunch (take-out barbecue brisket and sausage and sides from Rudy's...I had to pick up but not pay...it was a cheap weekend that way), more games, leftovers, several pots of coffee, discussion of family matters and excused myself at nine or so as everyone was winding down. I also excused myself from the next day's activities and departures. There was a time when I wouldn't have done that. That time is passed and I have become more selfish. So be it. Thus I was able to watch the SXSW fireworks from my balcony, make a brief appearance at a party in the building and go to hear a set of music at 1AM on Sunday morning (Partice Pike at Momo's). (Yeah, we never do that, but we did it Sunday and then slept and goofed off the morning.) We ended up catching a set of music from the Jeff Lofton quarter at Belmont in the afternoon and then attended possibly the best anniversary party ever.

Speaking of selfish: I have used my pea brain to decide that I will do my duty but also be a bit selfish. I have been accused of "selfish bordering on narcissistic" in the comments of another blogger. I was misunderstood, I would claim, but that made me realize that commenting in other people's corners is unwise if the topic is serious to anyone. (And lots of things are serious to people.) I decided to save myself from the unsettling arguments by not commenting in such space nor even reading the comments of others or any further messages directed at me there. It is much better to write in your own space and moderate your own comments. I know I'm a selfish person...but I don't need that taken out of context! You must be accurate in your assessment of why I'm an ass or it makes me mad.

So, yeah, I'm enjoying my morning, thinking and reading and doing as I please and going over in mind the things that I want to think about. It's great to have activities. But it's also great to have a day when you can exercise, do chores and think when you feel like it. We are back to a more normal schedule now and that's a good thing.

Drifting to the Other Shore of SXSW

It's a crazy time for me and the town. I'm coming out of the weird protracted illness that demanded OTC drugs and carrying Kleenex and cough drops about just in case. I've sat in a bunch of darkened movie theaters and seen other worlds. The town is alive with people doing whatever it is that engages them. (Me as we pass a rooftop venue with some 'sounds' pounding out: "You would have to pay me to listen to that!" Himself: "You read my mind.") Last night there was a venue in the Ballet Austin's Armstrong/Connelly studio and people were lined up when we went by at what we thought was a late hour. FFP got up in the wee hours and saw people rocking out there.

As we walked to our movie (in the Convention Center) and to Taste to have fried chicken and half price champagne after, there were hoards of people walking and queuing and sounds of all kinds floating around.

We are going to a movie this morning and then I have to go to the airport in the afternoon and get some relatives and be a dutiful daughter for part of the weekend. I'm not looking forward to the airport but maybe it won't be too bad. It's a terrible time traffic-wise anyway but so be it. The good news? They are not flying when they leave but getting rides with other relatives. And my aunt and uncle and Dad did give me a pass for entertaining them last night so what, after all, am I complaining about? I'm not really. I'm glad they are visiting Dad since he doesn't like to travel far in the car anymore to visit them. One aunt and uncle will be off to Maine for the summer soon so it is a chance to see them again...otherwise we'll be waiting for November or going to see them in Maine. (Now, there's an idea with merit.)

I have this feeling that now that I'm mostly recovered from mystery illness and SXSW is winding down and the relatives will be gone that things will settle down. But then I look at the calendar and see that it is pretty darn packed. Easter brings a reprieve and the last part of April looms with some 'free time' when, I'm sure, I will get everything finished, organized, clean, straight, created and well, you know. Or else I'll enjoy leisurely walks and some Centex drives.

Why always looking ahead, though? Enjoy today for Heaven's sake.

Downsizing and Collecting Memories

Me, reflected two ways, in the shop window of Let's Dish with a very cool punch bowl and cups. Once I would have coveted it for its decorative appearance in a collection of such things. No more. I read an article about some folks trying to pass a law to keep museums from selling art to pay the bills. Made me say 'hmmm.' Seems like a museum has a charter, yada, yada and a board with oversight. A law? Hmmm.

Anyway, it always makes me think about downsizing when I see something interesting that I might once have owned but now have to be circumspect about. Makes me think how now we collect words as pixels (instead of in notebooks) and digital pictures of things instead of prints. Or, even, the things themselves.

It's surprising how fuzzy the line is between the concrete and the virtual. Especially with art...words and pictures. In our building lobby there is some real art and some TV screens showing slides of art from galleries. I enjoy both.

Of course, some things are real and corporeal. This cup of coffee in my hand. Plunged into SXSW movies and (last night) a bit of music, one wonders about the levels of experience. The live music vs. the iPod. The movie house versus the real experience versus the movie on TV. Subtitles versus understanding the languange.

Yes, since last we spoke I have fought off illness to see all of three movies in two days. Oh, we also went to the Austin Music Awards and sat through it until the end when Roky Erickson jammed with a band called Black Angels. It was pretty entertaining, really, although the Austin Music Hall is the worst venue imaginable. Uncomfortable, bad accoustics. Oh. Well. I'm pretty sure if the city didn't own it they would shut it down.

But the movies. Of the three we saw on Tuesday and Wednesday, I'd say that the best by a long shot was "Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo." About the Oklahoma prison rodeo with a focus on the women allowed to compete in recent years, it was really about incareration and prison life and the very real people inside. They came to life as characters. We also saw "Sissyboy," a show with promise about a troupe of guys performing very radical skits in drag. It failed me as I didn't get a sense of the characters beyond their participation in the group and the basic 'growing up gay and different' thing. The piece didn't have a dramatic arc and the lives didn't seem to either. Yesterday we saw one movie. "For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism." It was complete and it is good that they captured some people while they were still alive to speak about movie criticism. I wasn't mesmerized, though. But I felt more educated about the subject.

Today we plan to see one movie. Well, I plan to see one movie. It is a fascinating topic. In 1974 when Ali and Foreman had the 'rumble in the jungle' in Zaire, there was also a three-day soul music festival. This documentary is made from many hours of footage from that event. FFP may see more movies, but I have to deal with relatives visiting my dad so it isn't too hard on him. I could have caught another one this morning but, instead, I'm doing a few chores. Changing the bed, doing laundry. I managed to clean one bathroom yesterday. It seemed like a big chore because I wasn't feeling that well. I need to clean out my car, too, so I can fetch some relatives from the airport tomorrow. I sent FFP off with a grocery bag stuffed with things for the thrift store. It feels like downsizing all over again perhaps because I stashed things in my car that I couldn't decide about last summer during the death throes of getting out of the house.

But, as the kids say when things look a little tattered but everyone is still standing, "it's all good." SXSW has taken over downtown but our place is a quiet enclave. You wouldn't know anything was going on from up here. I have relatives visiting and the attendant hassle of entertaining them, but, as Dad says "they will be gone soon enough and you will forget about it." My head hurts a little, but some decon has cleared up some morning dizziness and some Ibuprofin will probably make everything great.

So...I went to my car and as I looked at a stack of New Yorkers therein I remembered the very articles I was hoping to read sometime before I tossed them. But I did get rid of a few things. Very few. My attachment to to things is ephemeral now. The trunk is full of tapes and CDs that I'm listening to one last time before tossing them (in other words, putting in the thrift store bag). There was also a suitcase of spare clothes (now in storage). A ton of old tennis balls. Haven't dealt with that yet. My tennis bag, a spare tennis racket and a 'pick up' container of old balls to take to a court and practice serving. I think I'll ditch the latter and assume I'll never use it again or, if I'm tempted, I'll borrow one at the club. My car was definitely the refuge of last resort to save things from being downsized. Or was it Dad's house? I brought a box of books and articles and maps for and about New York from there the other day. Definitely need to get rid of some of it. Sigh.

My SXSW

When last we spoke, dear reader, one day of SXSW was gone and we had seen exactly one movie after getting our badges and some advanced tickets. Of course, we had gone to the Texas Film Hall of Fame party and the pre-party before that. (See Connie Britton above left with Dana Wheeler-Nicholson helping with the live auction at the gala. They are stars in "Friday Night Lights," a TV show we love.)

Well, the weekend went well. We managed four films and a panel on Saturday and Sunday. Some peoples' schedules are much more brutal but with my persistent allergy/cold (I thought I was getting over it and then it morphed and bit again) and FFP needing to do some writing we couldn't do the death march. We met up with some Cinematic people including our friend Jette who were rushing about madly and our friend Christopher Holland of B-Side Entertainment said he had to wait until a lot of people left before he could see some films. A college sophomore from Baylor declared in the line Sunday night that it would be her sixth film. She should have the stamina for the nursing career she is going to pursue.

Saturday we got a few things handled and then went to the Convention Center theater and queued up for "45365." A man who turned out to be the three brother filmmakers' father handed us a matchbook with the times for the showings and the title stamped on it. The title (pronouneced four-five-three-six-five) is the zip code for Syndey, Ohio where the filmmakers grew up. The kids wanted to write about their home town which they had left behind for film work and college and finally decided to make a doc and make the town speak for itself through film of the place and some inhabitants. At first I thought maybe they needed to edit some stuff but gradually I realized the film was pitch perfect. They stayed out of the way and let the town and some residents speak. By the end we had figured out relationships, we wondered about backgrounds and what would happen next for people. We knew what events people looked forward to and how the seasons unfolded there. We found ourselves in a line for another movie later talking to other people who'd seen it about the various characters in it like they were from our own hometown or, at least, characters in a well-formed narrative.

We walked back to the condo for a quick snack and refresh and headed out to the movie "Objectified." It was made by Gary Hustwit, who made the movie "Helvetica" we so enjoyed last year. The movie is a documentary about the 'stuff' around us and how it is designed and the life cycle of all the things in our world. Very enjoyable. We headed to Taste after that to have a meal. Just didn't have another movie in us. The meal and wine were pleasant.

Sunday we sat around in our sweats for a while, doing some writing and taking in the Sunday paper and such. FFP made us a big breakfast of migas and toast which sustained us until we ate a meal in front of a movie at Alamo South Lamar.

We headed to the Convention Center and went to Christopher Holland's book book signing for "Film Festival Secrets." We wanted to see a panel on design with the director of "Objectified" and some designers and a New York Times magazine writer, Rob Walker, who writes a column about, well, stuff. There was a bit of time to wait so we got a cup of coffee and went into the day stage cafe where the Interactive conference interview of Nate Silver by Stephen Baker was being broadcast. Heh, we wouldn't have been admitted to an Interactive panel with a film badge. It was pretty interesting. Silver is the numbers guy behind FiveThirtyEight.com and Stephen Baker wrote "The Numerati." After this we went to the panel on design. It was packed. Like the movie "Objectified" it was a joint Interactive/Film event. There were lots of people with funny dye jobs and vintage clothes. Must be more of that in the online world than in film.

We decided when the panel ended to try the new (for this year's fest) shuttle and waited a few minutes to catch a bus at 4th and Red River. We were tremendously early for "Bomber" but it was worth the wait. It was a witty family drama about a mom, dad and son who go off on a quest to let the dad resolve the wounds of a mistake made when he was a teenaged kid in WWII. Around this hook we see a delightful bit of Europe and watch a family try to unravel the damages life brings and get down to basic caring.

When the movie (and our meal) was over we were wondering "could we actually see another?" We decided to try. We waited for the shuttle bus which came after a while and delivered us to 7th Street near Congress. We decided not to try going back to the house and had a cup of coffee and a snack at the Hidelout. Lines were long for the movie, "Women in Trouble," at the Paramount. There were many VIPs and celebrities but we got in, no problem, and got our favorite seats (left section orchestra, row T, two on the aisle). We were excited that Connie Britton was in the movie and another "Friday Night Lights" actress, Andriane Palacki. The movie was raunchy, irreverant, unlikely and laugh-out-loud funny. It was "Pulp Fiction" all is connected style without the violence. Well, there was a tiny bit of violence, nothing to speak of.

We were more than done when the movie was over, but people were queued outside for another. We got home just after midnight.

Yesterday (Monday) we were all about trying to have a reasonable pace. I was trying to get over whatever weird illness plagues me and FFP was up against some deadlines. We finally settled on seeing a shorts program at 1:30 at Alamo South and walking up there for our alleged exercise. Shorts Reel 1 seemed disorganized and theme-less. I know themes are hard to achieve in these things but this one had everything from a wordless narrative short of amazing physical comedy ("Sunday Mornings") to a documentary about cleaning up the 'chicken bones and newspaper' type hoarder's house ("Isis Avenue"). Those two were pretty worthy as was an over the top improv about therapy called "Countertransference." But all in all the reel left me hungry for coherence. But I was otherwise quiet sated with a three cheese grilled sandwich and fries and a Coke.

We walked home. (The walk home from Alamo is easier because it is mostly downhill.) We got a few things done and headed out for "The Two Bobs." It was a big deal movie for the fest, shot around town and with Tim McCanlies, writer and director. We'd gotten an advance ticket which allows first dibs in the badge line. We were surprised to see a good sixty or eighty people with 'cast and crew' tickets. All was utter chaos at the Paramount but we got in and got our usual seats. The movie was slapstick and predictable but great fun nonetheless with fabulous set decoration and many local folks involved. The game animation was great fun, a bloody sendup of the genre. I have to say I liked it. I was looking for friend Jeff Lofton who was an extra but missed his moments on the screen. (I think I was distracted by Turk Pipkin in drag in that scene.) We were going to meet the Loftons for drinks and dinner, but after all was chaos. We didn't have a mobile number so FFP went back to the place to find it. I waited around trying to spot them. There were such crowds for the next movie plus Leslie posing in front of the Paramount that I finally decided we'd missed them and started home myself. Then FFP called and he'd gotten them on the phone and they were in front of the Paramount. We converged at Taste, heard the end of Trevor LaBonte and Liz Morphis doing their set and ate dinner and drank, all six of us. Taste was deserted. If you SXSWers are looking for a place to dine, venture all the way to Cesar Chavez, it's not far, and grab some fab food and wine. They even have Yelp specials for SXSW.

And then bed. I developed a cough at the beginning of the meal which I contained with cough drops and decon and water (and OK some wine). It's heck being sick during so much activity. Today is St. Pat's day. Last night was chaos downtown already and music isn't starting until the end of the week. We are going to try to see two movies today. And perhaps get some errands done. If I feel like it, maybe house cleaning. (I don't have to be very sick to eschew that.)

Know Thyself

It's good to know oneself, I think. SXSW film always makes me realize a few things about moi. And I'm going to tell you some of those things this morning. FFP sits behind me writing for hire (although admittedly for a pittance). I sit here writing about my favorite subject (me) for free. (At least I'm not paying for the privilege of writing other than the cost of the computer and all.)

I would rather not be in crowds or lines. We went to the trouble of trying to get an advance ticket for this movie we wanted to see last night. We bought badges, but they are giving out limited numbers of advanced tickets that they said would allow you to be seated in front of other badge holders. However, when we got to the theater (later than we normally would have) the guy was uninformed and made us go to the back of the line. After some people were seated they reversed themselves and let us in ahead of a few people who hadn't waited around to get advanced tickets. This irritated me, but once I had an OK seat I just drank a Guinness and enjoyed the movie about conspiracy theorists. I don't like lines and crowds. It's hard to go anywhere at the film fest where there aren't a lot of other people. So that is kind of a downer about festivals.

The movie we saw last night was a doc about conspiracy theorists who believe everything in the world is controlled by a handful of people. I don't agree with the folks who are featured in it, but I don't necessarily think the government always tells us everything. But that isn't the point of watching a documentary like "New World Order." The point is to look in the eyes of people obsessed with something. The point is to see what is going on with other people without having to be where they are. It is nice to be presented with another viewpoint while having a goat cheese plate and a Guinness at the Alamo Ritz. So I don't like lines and crowds but I do like seeing obscure docs instead of the latest blockbuster film.

And, yeah, we only saw one movie. I had another 'penciled in.' But we knew, in our heart of hearts, that we probably wouldn't make that one. I've been battling some little cold or allergy. I'd even napped in the afternoon before we went and I was taking medicine. It was cold and rainy out in line land. (See above.) So we came home and watched TV and read the papers. Today we have three movies on the calendar. One we definitely want to see and we got an advance ticket for it. How many do I think we'll see. Maybe, two. We were just sitting here discussing how we might skip another movie...to have drinks with friends.

Drinks, yeah. There are lots of parties where free food and drink is available to badge holders. But we know in advance that we don't really want to jostle in crowds for special drinks or certain beers offered by sponsors or fight over cheese cubes or other apps. We just as soon go to a favorite bar and pay for our sins. So the idea of a party that is exclusive to gazillion badge holders? Not so much. So I sort out the party invites and then plan one-by-one to miss them.

It's time to get showered up and face my fun day. It's a bit dreary and cold. I have this cold or allergy that has robbed me of my voice and some of my sensibility (or maybe that is the drugs). But I have fun things to do, really. See obscure movies. Look at life through others' eyes. And see what's happening on the streets of Austin as SXSW takes it by storm. (Music doesn't start until next Wednesday.)

I know these things about myself. Just must remember them. I'll only make it to half the movies I think I will because of the crowds and lines, mostly. I'll see an array of obscure docs and such (which won't reduce the crowding, there are other weirdos here). I'll skip parties, but we will be tempted to go out to bars and restaurants (probably while skipping a movie).

La ti da. So goes retirement. I could have to work and have to take vacation to continue the fest on Monday. I guess when you don't work, you have to find something to play hooky from even if it is supposedly fun stuff.

Celebrity Watch

I am not that into celebrities. No really. My Austin Daily Photo pictures from the last two days might make it seem so. But no. Unknowns are as interesting to me as celebrities. In fact, I often embarrass myself by not knowing who celebrities are, why their faces look familiar. Assuming I even recognize them as, you know, someone that should be recognized.

These photographers were shooting people last night as they came down the red carpet at the Texas Film Hall of Fame gala. I doubt they wasted film or pixels on us. (Although one friend in the press line did shoot us, I think.)

Now the festival begins. People will flock to the big deal premieres not just to see the film but to look for celebs and maybe ask them a question at Q&A. That is sometimes interesting, but not essential to my experience. I just want to see a few weird docs and meet people who are yet to be famous. Only I can't talk to anyone because I have almost totally lost my voice. So it goes. I'll be quietly watching movies for the next week or so. If you see me, nod hello. I'll nod back.

You can't disappear even for a moment...

That's what it's come to really. If you blog and you miss a day (or a week or whatever) people wonder. On facebook? Your friends follow. Tweeting? They follow more. Have e-mail? Your friends, too? Why aren't you keeping up? Smart phones let you follow and be followed everywhere. You never have to out of touch with buddies or family.

I still don't have a smart phone. (I am starting to pass my phone around at parties and meetings to show what a relic it is.) But I have opened a Twitter account. (Not to Tweet but just to follow one person. No it's nothing like that. Just a blogger I like.) I am kind of a facebook addict and I try to make my silly life interesting in short, frequent sentences. I blog, of course. And I have been thinking about this blog entry for a few days. (It was better in my head, really it was.)

Anyway, I was thinking about how, now that we are so connected in so many ways, that it is a radical act not to communicate or to build communication walls with a particular person. Wasn't always so.

Around Labor Day 1972 I left for a tramp around Europe. I had an open-ended return ticket (to New York anyway) and a three month Eurailpass, a bit of money and a vision of adventure. It wasn't exactly what I imagined but it was pretty glorious. I came home around the first week of December. Letters went home, taking many days if not weeks. Letters came to Post Restantes or American Express Offices and finally to the home of friends of friends. Long lapses of communication. I phoned home maybe once or twice. Expensive proposition of going into an office, waiting in line, getting a booth and having the call placed. With no Internet and a limited knowledge of the languages around me, I craved words in English. Precious English language novels and magazines were passes around and after I made friends with someone who worked on an army base we got some magazines that way.

I was out of touch with people back home. They had to follow along with those much-delayed letters and postcards. The lag did us some good, I think. Put a bit of reflection on all relationships. Dulled the edges of things. I still have some of the postcards I sent home. And letters on thin paper designed for Air Mail with every bit of the space carefully filled. It allowed me to grow in a new place and way.

Makes me wonder if our very connectedness today doesn't tie us to our current selves. Not that much personal growth or change will come about at my age. Although...what do you think of my radically short haircut? And what do you think about the fact that everyone on the Internet can see it this way? No going away now to lose a few pounds, change your hairstyle or get a tan and surprise everyone next time they see you. You have to upload mobile pictures all along the way.

It's not really true, though. Actually we can't mentally keep up with any more things than we can physcially really. When millions are out there, you can still just keep up with so many. But maybe you can do it at home, while being a recluse and communicating only one way and keeping your haircut to yourself.

A Few Random Reflections

Shop window reflection courtesy of AuthentiCity on Congress Avenue.

But I was thinking more of reflections of the verbal, essay-like sort.

• Does a stock market rally that is HUGE percentage-wise really mean anything in this environment?
• Is it true that joblessness has caused a new surge of volunteerism because people have to have something to do and they have less money to give?
• I heard a thrift store (run by Junior League) on Burnet Road was closing due to competition from new clothes sold by Costco, Walmart, etc. Can this be a real trend?
  
• A friend who sorts collected donations for a charity's annual sale says donations are down. Are people not buying new clothes either and just wearing the stuff they used to give away?
• Above two remind me that there is a sack of stuff in my car that needs to be dropped at the thrift store. I patronize Top Drawer. I hope they don't go out of business. I hope they keep making enough money to stay open because they give vouchers to clients of AIDS orgs in town to shop for free. Free clothing and housewares seems good.
• I gave lots of stuff including toys and collectibles and housewares of some value to the above in the great downsizing. We gave away a lot of books, too.
• FFP has been looking for a book called Guns, Germs and Steel for two days. It never got cataloged but he says he once owned it. Maybe we gave it away.
• We were trying to sort and get rid of magazines a couple of days ago. I can't give away the Harper's Magazine or The New Yorker without first flipping through them. Too often this results in many minutes reading an article.
• We are going to the SXSW film festival. We claim to be film buffs but really we aren't. We like obscure docs. We have no idea about, for example, Watchmen and will be happy to never see it. Movies about young peoples' angst leave me cold.
  
• And yet we watch 24.
  
• We watched L Word. They spent the entire season teasing about killing off a character I hate. So, yeah, they did it. Ho. Hum. Not sorry to see them go.
• Have you seen United States of Tara? Inexplicably, I like it. That Diablo Cody really surprised me. She made me like a like some young folks and their angst and someone with an identity disorder.
• Speaking of young people (or maybe ALL people) have you noticed how people go out in groups in these sort of uniforms. Saw two guys in the Texas Chili Parlor, both in cargo shorts, tennis shoes with no visible socks, safari shirts (the ones with the vents and such), untucked, ball caps. Of course, FFP and I go out in slacks/blazer. You know what else? Young ladies go out in fancy party dresses with decolletage and lots of leg showing and high heels and are accompanied by guys in jeans, untucked shirts and flip flops. And all those tattoos and piercings you see. Although, I've got to say I meet more and more of the adorned young that are really great creative people. Diablo Cody. I'm just saying.
• Do you ever notice that when you don't have too much to do, you don't get much done? Lately I've had lots of free time really. Did I get stuff cleaned and organized? Not so much. Did I do any serious writing? You know the answer to that. No, instead when some appointment comes up I'm a little colicky even if it's a fun thing. I was thinking I'd have tomorrow free, but I was talking to Dad and he reminded me that I have to take him for a blood test and a haircut. I'm such a slug. Oh. Well.
• I'm upset at my coffee machine. It said it wanted to be cleaned I went through the cycle but it forgot we were doing it and went back to wanting to be cleaned again. This has happened before but somehow I got out of it. The only thing in the place I love more than that machine is FFP. But it can be frustrating loving stuff when it does you wrong.
• Which reminds me. I'm using this software I found called syncplicity as a third level of backup. (I have a local script backing up to a drive on the network and a paid-for Internet connected backup.) It is free. When it failed briefly this morning, it upset me. Ditto free scheduling software for the film festival. It's free. But if it's not perfect I can still get upset. facebook doesn't work to suit me? Same thing. People providing stuff for free are still held to the highest standards. I used to work for businesses that sold software. We had bugs all the time. We always acted sorry, though.
  

Yeah, random stuff. I'm going to do something useful now. Um.. Yeah.

Comfort and Politics

A friend who blogs on many weighty subjects said recently:

"I realize my best moments of magnanimousness are easier because Steven and I are safe - economically, physically and spiritually."

He also quoted Warren Buffet who said recently:

"The people that behaved well are no doubt going to find themselves taking care of the people who didn't behave well"

This morning I was reading Harper's (March 2009) and Lewis H. Lapham quoted C.V. Wedgwood in his column.

"Few men are so disinterested as to prefer to live in discomfort under a government which they hold to be right, rather than in comfort under one which they hold to be wrong."

Lapham was assailing Obama's cabinet choices, but I'll leave that argument aside. I want to talk about comfort. And politics.

A lot of people talk about wanting change. And now that the stock market has tanked and mortgages are threatened with forclosure (if they can be found at all) people would like to change that. But folks who have achieved some comfort don't want to give it up. Sure Buffet and Gates can talk about not minding paying more taxes. I get that. They already had billions (with a 'b') dollars of excess money to give away. Clearly the lifestyle they find comfortable is far below the income they have. The tax code makes a bigger difference to me. Sure I give away money. Obama wants to change the way that donations are taxed. Probably the big boys don't care. I do. It's either taxes or donations for me on that percentage. I'd rather get the tax break because I'm not crazy about the government spending money, buy hey. I don't look forward to the government deciding on a confiscatory tax rate down in my realm because, of course, I foolishly planned my retirement on a more reasonable one. Of course, some of the returns are disappearing...making the tax rates irrelevant. Also, to make things more predictable, we invested in tax-free bonds. I suppose the goverment could decide to tax this income. I don't think they will given the disarray of all credit markets including that for municipal bonds. I imagine that such an action would bankrupt thousands of cities and utilities and schools. But you never know.

Are my views selfish? Of course. But how many of us are willing to make ourselves uncomfortable in some outpouring of fairness? Certainly not me. I understand that my good sense in the past will be punished to some degree as my tax dollars provide 2% mortgages to people who did not plan well. (Or behave well as Warren would have it.) I just wish that those of us who did behave well could get 2% on our money markets!

There is a reason that fiscal liberals are largely found among the very, very comfortable and the penniless. Those of us in betwen must plan more carefully to stay comfortable. The very comfortable person already has a large discretionary level of income they can do without. (Of course, some people can never get enough money for themselves. Like you, Bernie.) The penniless have nothing to lose in a tax increase and everything to gain in increased food stamps, mortgage resets, etc. I budget for my charity and for my taxes. Like everything in my budget, when something gives one place, it gives another. The last thing I give up willingly is my comfort. Regardless of how unfair some might think it is for me to be comfortable. The sad thing is that the deficit can't be handled by the billionaires, it will ultimately fall further down to me and to other retirees and folks who just were trying to be comfortable. People worry about bankrupting the next generation. I worry about bankrupting mine and the greatest generation in their retirement.