Who Should Have a Historical Marker in Houston?

OK, so Lightnin' Hopkins is getting his own historical marker up on Dowling later this year. That's good--well-deserved. Lightnin' makes me proud to be a Houstonian. As Slampo says, he deserves even bigger official kudos. But Slampo follows up with the fact that historical markers tend toward the highly respectable and avoid the disreputable demimonde that are undeniably part of our history. These markers also tend to whitewash their subjects (but it's hard to blame them for that, usually). I'd go even further and say that historical markers tend to be seriously boring objects about mostly pretty boring subjects. On one hand, I don't have a problem with the boring bits of history--after all, lots of important parts of history are basically pretty boring.

But I'd like to see more exciting people, places, and events from Houston's history on historical markers.

So I throw it out to you--what persons, places, or events from Houston history should be "honored" (or at least recorded) on a historical marker? You can see a list of already existing markers here.

The Secret History of Houston's Gay Mayors

Turns out that almost all of them were gay.

Sig Byrd's Houston

A recent article in The Houston Press reminded me that I needed to check out Sig Byrd's Houston. So I went on Alibris and bought myself the cheapest copy available, and sat myself down for a read. It was enthralling. Byrd was a newspaper columnist whose column, "The Stroller" was filled with street stories, mainly from neighborhoods where polite white folk rarely went. I'm sure reading it gave them an somewhat forbidden thrill, just as it does for me more than 50 years later. He chronicled the stories of Houston's black and Mexican population, as well as the demimonde of hookers, hustlers, junkies, dealers, bar-flies, beggars, street-corner preachers and honky tonk angels. These columns appeared in The Houston Press--the old daily newspaper, not the current-day weekly--in the 40s and 50s.

A lot has been written about Byrd. The modern Houston Press reveres him and wrote a detailed biography of Byrd, who was evidently a fairly prickly customer. Leon Hale was a colleague and similarly wrote stories about folks who generally weren't all that newsworthy--Hale's were more rural and gentle than Byrd's--and Hale wrote a great column about Byrd when Byrd died. And the record store, Sig's Lagoon, is a double tribute to the man--"Sig" for the man, and "lagoon," a term that Byrd recorded in his column that was used by the 5th Ward boogie-woogie boys to mean "cool."

For a book that has been out of print for decades (and will cost you a pretty penny online), Sig Byrd's Houston has its devotees. They tend to be hipsters with an interest in Houston history--mostly male as far as I can tell, many who are writers mining some of the same ground as Byrd did back in the day. People like John Nova Lomax, Alex Wukman, the owners of Sig's Lagoon, Scott Gilbert, and me.

Each chapter collects a group of columns and is centered around a specific geographic region. Congress Avenue starts off the book. Think of Congress Ave. today--one one side of Main it's all courts and criminal justice-related buildings and businesses. On the other side--some nice old bars like La Carafe and Warren's. I guess it wasn't all that long ago that it was still a pretty seedy street. But in Byrd's time, it was a place of hookers and junkies, like the pill-head protagonist of his first story, Twitchy Tess. Another story tells of the mechanics of how the drug deals on Preston went down., with a man with a scar on his face leaving the reds, yellows and dexxies under certain carpets in open doorways and picking up money from those carpets later. The next chapter is about the 2nd Ward, or "segundo barrio" as it was called. Then as now is was a largely Mexican American neighborhood. One story tells of Chento, a 20-year old veteran of Huntsville with a tattoo of a cross between his eyes and the letters H A T E tattooed on his knuckles (but not L O V E). But then Chento fell in love with Belen, a nice girl who would have nothing to do with a tattooed pachuco. So Van Gogh-style, he uses his knife to cut the cross and the letter E off--before he passes out from loss of blood. Belen witnesses this, screaming. And by the time Chento told Byrd this story, the scars were almost healed and he was walking around with H A T on his knuckles.

If you go to the 400 block of Milam today, one one side there is a multistorey parking garage, and on the other side is a parking lot. Back in Byrd's day, it was "Catfish Reef."

The Reef is bi-racial. The light and dark meet here. Generally speaking, the odd numbers, on the east side, are dark, the even numbers light; but the exception proves the rule.

You can buy practically anything here. Whisky, gin, wine, beer, a one-hundred-and fifty-dollar suit [about $1200 today, according to the BLS], firearms, a four-bit flop, a diamond bracelet that will look equally good on the arms of a chaste woman or a fun-gal. You can buy fried catfish on Catfish Reef. You can buy reefers on the Reef.

The Catfish Reef chapter has several stories about music in Houston; for instance, young boogie-woogie players recording at Martin Nelson's photo, recording and shoeshine parlor. He also uses these columns to try his hand at a little bit of black hipster dialect, such as in this sequence where Gafftop Powell, who has found a diamond ring on the floor of a dancehall, takes it into Marv Bernhard's jewelry store. to be appraised. Bernhard looks at it with his loupe and declares it worthless.

"This," he said, holding out the ring, "is one hundred percent fertilizer." ["fertilizer" is one of Byrd's many humorous euphemisms for more earthy phrases--these columns were written for a family newspaper, after all.]

"Well, I ain't gona lose my cool over it," said Gafftop, taking the ring. "I found it on the floor at the gloss house."

"You might win the favors of an idle fun-gal on an off-night with that," said Mr. Bernhard. "But in cash money, I wouldn't give you a rough for it."

"I ought to have knowed," said Gafftop, looking down at the circlet of rhinestones. "These-here rocks is too big. [...] Do you rebop, Mr. Marv?"

"I rebop," said the jeweler. "When easy rocks come too big, or the big rocks come to easy, they won't get you two. Look, I'll show you the difference."

From his wallet, Mr. Bernhard took an envelope, from the envelope a pill of lovely blue ice, the kind that doesn't defrost, even from its own red, white, and blue fire.

"Lagoo-oo-oon!" said Gafftop, his eyes as big and round and white as hundred-watt globes.

Byrd tells a number of stories set in the rough waterfront dives on 75th Street (aka "Six-Bit Street") north of Canal. There we get tales of foreign sailors, old Wobblies, and the hookers in tight jeans who would sit next to the sailormen at the bars. The corner of Hill and Lyons was known as "Pearl Harbor" for its violence--it was in the middle of the Fifth Ward, also known as the "Bloody Fifth." One of the best stories there is the one about the sorrowful Handsome Easley--released from jail on parole, his most beloved hobby was acting as an unpaid roadie for the jazz acts that came through town. He had been looking forward to handling the Duke's instruments--Duke Ellington would soon be playing in Houston. But Handsome was about to be taken back to prison for breaking parole by drinking beer with a hooker in a bar.  But the story has an unexpected denouement:

Handsome was at the City Auditorium, unpacking the Duke's instruments, like he'd always done. The Board of Pardons must have read that story about Handsome, because they had given him a full pardon just in time to let him be with the Duke and Johnny Hodges and the other musicians when they got to town.

This bit comes from a record store conversation about the inventor of boogie, Pine Top Smith, and his death by being stabbed in the back (while playing piano) in a Galveston night club. Others disagreed and said he was shot in Chicago. (For the record, that's what Wikipedia says as well.) Of course, the point was not the facts but the discussion among enthusiasts, killing time at the record store.

There's lots more here. Sig Byrd's Houston is a rich collection of muscular, unjudgmental writing about what was, for most Houstonians (and presumably for most readers of the old Houston Press) a fairly invisible part of their city.

One simply cannot imagine someone writing feuillitons like this for the Houston Chronicle today. First of all, the Chron wouldn't dare write about criminals with the casual sympathy that Byrd shows (he shows it by telling their stories straightforwardly). Addicts and prostitutes are to be condemned or pitied, but are not to be given voice.

Also, the circumstances were different then. There were three daily papers in Houston, all competing for the same pool of readers--generally a broader pool than what we have today. The Press, as the underdog, had to distinguish itself. If Byrd's earthy urban tales were not to some readers' tastes, well, the Press probably didn't have those readers in the first place.

The modern Houston Press carries on some of the old Byrd tradition, but Houston could really profit from something like "The Stroller" again.

Hasn't He Suffered Enough?

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua — Disgraced Texas financier R. Allen Stanford is being stripped of his knighthood in the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, the head of the government panel that approves the awards said Monday. (Anita Kentish, Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, November 2, 2009)

Willie Morris and Donald Barthelme

I just finished reading Willie Morris's North Towards Home and the biography of Donald Barthelme, Hiding Man, by Tracy Daugherty. The two writers, so distinct in what they wrote, also had interesting similarities. Willie Morris was a journalist and editor whose reputation largely lies in his editing of Harper's Magazine from 1967 to 1971, during which time he was one of the editors responsible for what later became known as "new journalism," a personal, literary approach to journalism. Donald Barthelme is generally considered one of the giants of postmodern fiction in the U.S., and wrote frequently for The New Yorker. His genre was the short story (he wrote four novels, but my impression is that they aren't held in the same esteem as his short stories). They were both literary men in New York City during the 60s, but as far as I can tell, had little if any contact with one another.

The two men were born in the early 1930s, and both grew up in the South (Yazoo City, Mississippi, for Morris, Houston for Barthelme). They both distinguished themselves editing innovative publications at their respective universities. Morris was editor of The Daily Texan, where he raised holy hell with his liberal crusading, especially in favor of intellectual freedom on campus. He was brutally clamped down on by the U.T. regents, and his means for fighting back was classic--blank editorials and editorials on transparently trivial subjects like "Let's Water the Pansies" that signaled to the reader that something had been censored. Barthelme edited a short-lived (1956 to 1960) interdisciplinary journal called Forum at the University of Houston. There, too, he fought with the faculty editors who didn't get where he was coming from. Nonetheless, he published amazing things--he was the first person to publish Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium Is the Message" and he published a chapter of Walker Percy's The Moviegoer before the novel was published, among many other pieces by great writers and thinkers of the day. Not surprisingly, the University of Houston had no idea what it had.

Both Morris and Barthelme took their next steps of their careers in the same towns where they'd done their college editing. Morris, after getting a Rhodes scholarship, ended up back in Austin editing The Texas Observer, and Barthelme ended up as the second director of the Contemporary Arts Association (it's amazing to think there was a time when college dropouts like Barthelme and Walter Hopps were allowed to run museums). But eventually both writers, hemmed in or burnt out by the limited opportunities in Austin and Houston respectively, moved to New York, where each really made his reputation.

Barthelme was close to the cutting edge writers of his day. Thomas Pynchon lived downstairs from him, for example. His tenure at The New Yorker was therefore strange (The New Yorker isn't exactly an avant garde literary magazine), but for whatever reason, Roger Angell fell in love with Barthelme's writing, and The New Yorker paid his bills for the next 20 years or so (even if they did reject his most experimental short stories). 

Morris had a strong relationship with a group of Texas journalists who had literary aspirations and the need to get the hell out of Texas--at least for a while. These included Larry L. King (think "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas") and Edwin "Bud" Shrake. For all of these guys, the model--and counter-model--was Billy Lee Brammer, who published a more-or-less forgotten classic novel, The Gay Place, in 1961. He pulled up stakes and lived all over, but never published another book. And he returned home to Austin and lived a marginal existence until he died in 1978 of a drug overdose. All of these guys returned home--Morris eventually back to Mississippi (long after North Toward Home was published in 1967) and Barthelme back to Houston.

Part of the reason was that as these guys got older, they needed some more stability in their lives than being a freelance writer provided. It may be too much to say that they moved home for insurance, but both ended up at universities where such benefits were standard. Morris taught at Old Miss (a place he ridiculed in North Towards Home--and a place his father told him to avoid, advising the teenaged Morris to go to UT instead). Barthelme returned to U.H.

They are both also somewhat forgotten men today. Sure, people know who they are, but their books haven't all remained in print, and as time passes, their memory grows dimmer. Barthelme's story is particularly interesting to me because of his Houston roots--it's weird to think one of the great American writers came from Houston. But would you know Barthelme had been from Houston if you were to take a tour of the city? Is there a plaque on his childhood home, a street named after him, a school named after him, or a giant David Addickes bust of him in some city park? Nope. Barthelme deserves better.

Seen in Rice Military

Hmmm... How should this be interpreted? I guess you could take it to mean that if someone is biking instead of driving, then at that moment there is "one less car" on the road. That's a benign, positive message.



Unfortunately, the artist and the person who applied the sticker almost guarantee that the message will be received differently. The image of a car smashed by a giant fist (which looks like an old 1960s "Black Power" fist) is not very benign. The style of the graphic recalls radical posters from Paris May 1968 or those by Seth Tobocman. And the fact that it is stuck on a piece of public property also contributes to a basic "outlaw" vibe.

The thing is, I think it looks pretty cool, and I generally support the benign interpretation (even though I drive a zillion miles a day in my commute, alas). But I guess I'm an old guy now, and I see cyclists as citizens who, like any other citizens, want to carve a space out for ourselves within a society in which we are a minority who have to share public space with the majority. And the way to do that is through legal means and through increasing our numbers. That's what "power to the people" looks like when you get to be middle aged.

So I wonder what the intended effect of this sticker was? Who is it for? What action is it trying to provoke? Is it aimed at drivers? Is it trying to convince drivers to get out of their cars and onto their bicycles? Because I don't think a lot of drivers will come away from it with that message in their hearts. I think that what at least some drivers will get from it is confirmation of their opinion that cyclists are a bunch of scofflaws. Which doesn't help cyclists at all.

Dallas vs. Houston, part 3,296,847

"In Houston, only 250 miles to the southeast, business conservatism had never exactly been impotent, and the radicalism of its rightists had often exceeded Dallas'. Yet Houston was no monolith; it was, as one of its writers would say, a whiskey and trombone town, openly in conflict with itself, and its very disorder had encouraged a rough and open democracy. Dallas, in contrast, had grown sick from its very order, from the organized caution and self-interest of an ethos that demanded undeviating conformity."

Willie Morris, North Toward Home, 1967

The Hatchet Beat

If you see Melchor Izquierdo, he'd like his hatchet back please

What is it with Houston and hatchets and machetes and killing people? Dale Lezon of the Chron seems to have the "hatchet murder" beat, and it's keeping him busy!

Police are searching for a man wanted in the apparent hatchet killing of a his co-worker whose body was found in the cab of a dump truck days after he had been slain.

Melchor Izquierdo, 29, is charged with murder in the slaying of 42-year-old Estevan Francisco Tellez.

Police said Tellez's body was found in the truck that was parked at small business park in the 5500 block of Gasmer about 7:30 a.m. on Sept. 14.

Tellez had several deep cuts on his face and a hatchet was found nearby. He had been dead in the truck for several days before his body was discovered by workers.

Izquierdo and Tellez worked together at a foundation business in the office park. (The Houston Chronicle, Dale Lezon, October 1, 2009)

(See also this.)

Monsterville Horton IV -- the best name ever!

The empty parking spaces at lunchtime are an uncanny sight, and the rumbling in the distance bodes ill.

Rice Village merchants have come to hear that sound as a harbinger of doomed sales, a menace that keeps shoppers at bay. It's the low, incessant grumble of track hoes on Kirby Drive.[...]

At Cova, a high-end wine shop, owner Monsterville Horton IV watched the confluence of three Cats gouging out the intersection of Kirby and Quenby, where traffic alternately stopped and lurched forward. (Jennifer Latson, The Houston Chronicle, 9-23-2009)

Monsterville Horton IV?! Were there three previous Monstervilles??

 

Monsterville Horton IV... He looks so normal. (Photo by Julio Cortez)

Leigh Boone Memorial

Leigh Boone was riding her bike through the pedestrian-and-bike-heavy intersection of Dunlavy and Montrose when two hot-dogging firetrucks from the same station who were racing to a call managed to collide. They killed her. This a memorial to her.

Disco Bank Robber from Outer Space!

Jeezus, it's September already, but people got a few excellent crimes in the last days of  August! The latest bank robber to hit Houston wants to out-weird the Reckless Robber (hero to bicyclists everywhere).

Authorities are searching for a man they say robbed two banks in less than a hour while wearing a silver sweat-inducing jogging suit and toting a pistol.

The first robbery occurred about 11:30 a.m. last Friday at a Wachovia branch at 5650 Memorial Drive, according to the FBI. The second heist occurred about 45 minutes later and 25 miles away at a Bank of America branch at 1550 West Bay Area Boulevard, officials said.

Because of his distinctive get-up, which included sunglasses, the FBI has labeled him the “Sweatin' to the Oldies” robber. (Dale Lezon, The Houston Chronicle, Sept. 3, 2009)

What the fuck? Is it the official policy of the FBI to give ridiculous names to robbery suspects?

    

Over at B.S. Houston Art Blog, it is suggested he looks like Frank Black. But I think he looks more like David Thomas of Pere Ubu. What's your opinion, readers?

 Frank Black

David Thomas

James Surls at Lawndale

Check it out at my other blog.

Never Forgetting Steven Hardin

Every now and then, I don't take the freeway home from work, but try to explore the many interesting neighborhoods between IAH (near where I work) and Memorial City (near where I live). If you go more-or-less straight south from my office, you end up on Gloger Street, and where the ends of Gloger and Mt. Houston meet, you see this sign.



It looks the same from the back.



Then as you go down Hartley, you see the same basic sign affixed to a chain-link fence.



This is apparently the home of William Hardin. And his son was indeed murdered by a firefighter named Barry Crawford.

In April, some of Crawford's neighbors in his Humble trailer park complained that he was hogging parking spots. He was warned that his truck would be towed, and on April 17, Steven Hardin tried to do that.

Crawford, a veteran Houston firefighter, left his house with a loaded rifle and tried to get Hardin to release his truck. He testified that he kicked Hardin in the face to try to get him to stop.

The confrontation escalated when Crawford pointed the weapon at Hardin. Witnesses said Hardin grabbed a nearby shovel, and Crawford shot him in the chest.

Crawford claimed self-defense. But the jury said it was murder, and prosecutor Kelly Siegler asked for a minimum 25-year sentence.

"Do you really think probation is punishment?" she asked the jury during the punishment phase of the trial. "Probation for a murderer like this is a joke."

But that's what the jury gave Crawford. (Stephanie A. Sin, Houston Chronicle, October 10, 1998) 

Ten years probation. The judge was Ted Poe (now a Republican Congressman), and he added additional conditions to the probation (which had been decided by the jury). Poe required Crawford to put flowers on Hardin's grave every year, and every year Crawford had to spend two days parading with a sign saying that he had murdered a fellow citizen. And most important, he had to pay $412 a month in restitution to Hardin's widow and children.

But in the case of the court-ordered restitution and child support, family members say more than $12,000 is owed to them that has not been paid. This family plans to go to court to try to get the matter settled. (13 Eyewitness News, Cynthia Cisneros, June 16, 2009)

Hardin's sister remembers her brother on a website dedicated to his memory.

I miss my brother very much!  He was my best friend and would call me several times a day just to chat.Oh, how I wish that when the phone rings, it could be Steven on the other end of the line. Just saying, Hey, T, what are you doing? Oh, what I would give to hear his voice just one more time!  To see his smile one last time! Just to hug him and say I LOVE YOU - ONE LAST TIME!

The idea of my car getting towed fills me with anger. I remember a comic by Scott Gilbert where he fantasized about burning his car rather than letting a tow-truck take it. I could relate. But we're civilized people. We don't kill someone because we're mad at him, mad at what he's doing. Crawford stepped outside the bounds of civilization and should have paid a heavier price.

Funny what you stumble across when you drive around Houston.

Frenetic Fringe Fotos

I was contacted by choreographer Toni Leago Valle, who had three dances at last weekend's Fringe Festival. She knew one of the photographers present (Ted Viens), and has given me permission to post some of his photos from her dance pieces.


Catalina Molnari in "Silent Victim"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ted_viens/ / CC BY 2.0

Mechelle Flemming in "Interview for a Date/I Take My Dress Off"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ted_viens/ / CC BY 2.0

Toni Leago Valle in "I Am Mother"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ted_viens/ / CC BY 2.0

Pieced Together and the Tradition of Graffiti

I went to the opening of "Pieced Together" at the Aerosol Warfare Gallery, an exhibit of graffiti art by a variety of Texas artists. This show has been traveling around the country, and Aerosol Warfare is the final stop. Aerosol Warfare is a local gallery devoted to graffiti art and related items.


exterior of Aerosol Warfare


interior of Aerosol Warfare

The pieces on display are small, essentially acrylic versions of the type of large-scale wall pieces that typify the artform.


"Icons" by Reks and Worms


"Extended Release" by Dmise

The opening was not just a passive viewing experience for gallery goers. They had a wall of tiny canvases where you could make your own micro-graffiti piece for $5; it was very popular with the kids (and their parents). They set up a computer-controlled projection system that allowed people to create large scale graffiti pieces projected onto the wall of a building across the street. And they had car-hoods on easels with local artists creating pieces on them.









Even notorious local poster artist Give Up did one. I asked if Give Up was present, but the publicity-shy artist apparently stayed away, lest someone snap his photo. (Someone even asked me if I was Give Up.)

There was an amazing display in the store.



Commemorative Puma sneakers in honor of the late, great Vaughn Bode. This shows that the proprietors of Aerosol Warfare have an awareness of history.

Graffiti art is essentially ephemeral. Illegally put up on walls and concrete barriers, they get rapidly painted over by property owners, city workers, highway departments, transit agencies, etc. This situation would seem inimical to the formation of a tradition. And yet, in pre-literate societies, traditions like this of impermanent artforms (performed music, spoken poetry) have lasted for centuries.


"Michelle" by Sloke

So who was Vaughn Bode and what does he have to do with graffiti? Was he a graffiti artist? Nope. He was a cartoonist whose style informed a lot of the early New York City graffiti artists.



Early writers not only imitated Bode's art style. They included many of his figures in their pieces--Cheech Wizard, the lizards, the "Bode broads", etc.

What were some other non-graffiti sources? I think the psychedelic rock posters of the 60s had their effect. I also think these artists were looking at the artists from Heavy Metal magazine (which started publication in the U.S. in 1977). Specifically artists like Caza and Druillet.


"Supher" by Supher

But these artists who were covering subway cars in NYC in the 1970s have no relationship to an artist like "News" from the Rio Grande Valley--except that a tradition has been established and spread across the U.S. and indeed all over the world.


"Daily News" by News

This artform has been given a certain degree of respect from the fine arts world, analogous with its grudging embrace of comics art by the art world. Art critics respect its folkish traditions and seeming authenticity. But graffiti art has some problems as far as being a part of the art world. It's not a perfect fit. There is a basic truth about graffiti--it is a fundamentally adolescent artform. This is not to say its practitioners are teenagers (although many are), but graffiti, like so many adolescent activities, involves the thrill of petty crime. The colors and cartoonish origins also feel adolescent.

I am not trying to insult the art of graffiti. But I do wonder what it would mean to be an old graffiti artist. Maybe it would look something like this piece.


"Paper in the Wind" by Spain

Frenetic Fringe Festival -- Weekend 2 Bullets

Last week I complained about the Fringe Festival not being quite "fringe" enough. This week was an improvement on that score, and over-all a more interesting and pleasurable evening. You can still see it tonight (Saturday, August 15) or tomorrow. Again to be brief, I'm going to use bullets.

There's a Tsunami at Your Door

• A short play by Mary Ellen Whitworth.
• A woman about to commit suicide is interrupted by a desperate cable salesman.
• Similar to "Velocity" from last week it its use of a tragedy that happened in the past as the cause of what's happening now.
• But it is a straight-forward narrative, not fractured like "Velocity."
• The acting was slightly raw.
• The play had funny moments despite its grim subject.

Dancing Diana

• This struck me as fairly innovative.
  
• Instead of a musical score, there were three short, personal stories by Diana Weeks.
• They were recorded by her and played over loudspeakers.
• She sat stage (she's an older woman, perhaps in her 60s or 70s) while the dancers danced.
• The dancers "interpreted" her story through dance.
• The connection was tenuous, but--
• Both aspects--the story and the dance--were enjoyable.
• It was like, say, riding your bike while listening to your Ipod. You get simultaneous pleasure from both activities.

Spelling Bee Sluts

• A short play by Paul Locklear.
• Slight, farcical story about a hillbilly who comes to L.A. to make it big on the spelling bee circuit.
• He ends up working as a male prostitute.
• A pretty minor piece of work, I'd have to say.

G.I. Joe PSAs

• These were cartoon public service announcements from the 1980s, featuring the G.I. Joe characters telling kids about safety.
• Eric Fensler has recorded new dialogue for them.
• This had the potential to be funny but predictable.
• But Fensler's dialogue (often sounds or made-up foreign languages) was absurd and bizarre.
• It wass still really funny--but not in an easy or obvious way.

Thurmond, W. Va.

• A documentary by Laura Harrison about a soon-to-be ghost town.
• 18 people still live there.
• The National Park Service has bought out most of the folks in town. The intent is to turn this coal mining town into a park along the lines of Mystic Seaport.
• It felt like a typical documentary, one that had neither the power of the old-school documentaries of, say, the Maysles brothers.
• Nor did it use the innovations of Errol Morris or Michael Moore.
• Not that it was bad, just not all that exciting...

Three dance pieces choreographed by Toni Leago Valle

• These were the best things I saw all night, indeed the best out of both nights.
• Three solo dances, three solo dancers. They were highly controlled athletes, but each with a kind of way about her that marked them as artists.

"Silent Victim"

• Catalina Molnari is stranded on unsteady looking rectangular boxes. She barely moves as she grips them and attempts to balance.

"Interview for a Date/I Take My Clothes Off"

• Mechelle Fleming is the dancer in this strangely sexual piece.
• In the first part, there is a film of a girl (Valle) being questioned, job-interview style, about why she would be a good girlfriend for the unseen male interviewer.
  
• The interview itself is forced and calculating, dealing with the value she brings to him as a girlfriend. She is desperate.
• When the interview seems to go wrong, she remembers something.
• She tells him, "Oh, I forgot! I'm good at sex!"
• The whole time, Fleming is sitting on a chair, facing away from the audience.
• She twitches and makes small moves, as if she is constrained and ready to move.
• The movie ends and she starts dancing.
• Her dance struck me as almost tortured. I can hardly describe it in a way that makes sense.
  
• She seem struck by things outside herself, while engaging with a negotiation with herself.
• She seemed buffeted, struck by forces.
• (But, it should be said, it was clear she was fully in control as a dancer.)
• Finally, she took off her dress.
• And it ended with her standing there in her underwear.
• It it appropriate to mention that she is an astonishingly beautiful woman?
• I regret not having photos of the Fringe Festival, especially for the three dances that Valle choreographed.

"I Am Mother"

• The dancer was Valle.
• Her skin was covered with white, pasty makeup except for her eyes, which were kind of a red racoon mask.
• The dance was done seated, under a soft, dim red spotlight.
• Weirdly enough, I was reminded of the installation by Carlos Runcie-Tanaka called "Tiempo Detenido/No Olvidar." The atmosphere was similar.
• Her movements were constrained by her seated posture.
• But the effect was nonetheless electrifying.

I haven't seen enough dance to have a vocabulary to describe what I was seeing. But Toni Leago Valle's three dance pieces were undeniably moving; thrilling even.

General vibe.

• I sat under a fan, so the lack of AC wasn't too horrible.
• They have us fill out an audience poll that includes demographic info.
  
• Apparently collecting this info will help them get grants.
• With which they can, say, buy central air-conditioning.
• The seats at Frenetic are only slightly more comfortable than airline seats.
• It seems like a lot of folks are there just to see their friends or family's performance.
• Consequently, a lot of people leave at the intermission.
• Maybe it's not so bad on Saturday and Sunday.
• But one would certainly wish for more support from people who have no personal connection with the performers.
• (Of course, I could be wrong about the audience...)
• I wish I could photograph some of the performances and put them up here.
• That said, there were two photographers with serious-looking photo set-ups in the audience.
• So perhaps if you search the web, you can find some images.

I thought the show was well-worth the modest ticket price, so catch it tonight or tomorrow if you can.

More Photos of the Reckless Robber

Hero to cyclists (i.e., CRIMINALS) everywhere!

Oh, and awesome fanny-pack, fella!

(Swiped from B.S. Houston Art Blog.)

Bad Bicyclist

Recently I have been blogged about crimes against bicyclists (here, here, and here). But maybe I was too hasty! Maybe bicyclists deserve what they get and more because of their own criminal nature. Indeed, if you read the reader comments of the stories linked to above, you will find numerous examples of bicyclist lawlessness being used to excuse crimes against bicyclists.

Up to now, I have pooh-poohed their concerns. After all, the fact that cyclists sometimes don't stop at stop signs hardly seems to justify killing them. But check this out (reported by the Chron's master of weird crimes, Dale Lezon):

A man who is suspected in more than a dozen armed bank robberies in the Houston area struck again this week, riding a bicycle to get away and brandishing a pistol as he demanded money from tellers at a bank in Kingwood.

The man, who has been dubbed the "Reckless Robber" because of the way he waves his gun wildly, most recently hit the Wells Fargo branch at 1910 West Lake Houston Parkway about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, federal officials said.

He is suspected in 13 other bank heists dating back to Oct. 8 according to the FBI.

I think this proves the criminality of bicyclists, which in turn certainly justifies running them down with cars or shooting them. I condemn the "reckless robber," but at the same time, I want to commend him.

The Reckless Robber

He wore a white T-shirt with dark colored sleeves, dark shorts, a dark-colored bicycle helmet, bicycle gloves, and dark sunglasses.

Bike safety is an important lesson to impart to our children, and it is encouraging to see that even violent criminals are doing their part to get the message across. Reckless Robber, on behalf of the children of America, I thank you.

Rice is #1!

In "quality of life" as ranked by the Princeton Review.

The Houston school ranks No. 1 nationally in the newly released edition of ‘The Best 371 Colleges.” (Houston Business Journal)

The rankings for quality of life are based on students’ assessment of food on and off-campus [...]

(The "serveries" are a great improvement over the barely edible food when I was an undergrad, to be sure.)

[...] dorm comfort [...]

(What the fuck? The "new" dorms must be a huge improvement over the old once for this to be true.)

[...] campus beauty, ease of getting around campus, relationship with the local community [...]

(What relationship?)

[...] campus safety, the surrounding area, interaction between students, friendliness and happiness of the student body and smoothness with which the school is administered.

(Oh, they're smooth all right!)

Actually, I have no clue what campus life is like now, so I shouldn't be so snarky (except that I am required to do so by the terms of my Blogger license). Certainly if they had asked students who lived in the old Weiss College where I lived, they wouldn't have gotten such a positive response. But the old Weiss College was torn down in 1872 so who cares?

Frenetic Fringe Festival Week 1 bullets

Friday night I attended day one of the Frenetic Fringe Festival at the Frenetic Theater out on Navigation. This was the first night of a month-long series that combines theater, dance, and film/video pieces. My expectations were for some really avant garde stuff. But what counts as avant garde today, after a 20th century full of it? I imagined the theater would be Samuel Beckett or Charles Ludlam-type things, or maybe pieces related to modern performance art, or Antonin Artaud-Alfred Jarry-like provocations. For the film, I imagined Bruce Conner-like assemblages, Stan Brackhage-ish abstraction, or even Andy Warhol-esque minimalism. And I know nothing about dance, so I didn't have much in the way of expectations there--or so I thought.

The Festival was not as radical (so far) as what I expected. The pieces were all pretty approachable. I was hoping to be challenged a bit more.

Nearing Velocity

• A short play by Liz Gilbert.
• In fragments, we see all the people who were involved in a car accident at Richmond and Montrose.
• One driver Mallory is now paralyzed, a man, Boyd [sic], in the other car paralyzed with guilt.
• It was a strong opener, with good actors and a play that unfolded in an interesting way.
• I now realize that they bookended the opening night of festival with their two best pieces (of the night).
• It might be my old age, but I sometimes had to strain to hear what the cast members were saying.

Beyond the Sphere

• Three women dancing.
• Supposedly about life after death. Music combined with a tape of someone relating a after death experience.
• I have a preconceived notion that all dancers are perfect physical specimens, strong but elegant and beautiful women.
• (See Olga Khokhlova and Lydia Lopokova of the Ballets Russes, for example.)
• But one of these women was a bit on the chunky side.
• People in glass houses should not throw stones, yet this slightly disturbed me!
• The piece was long (it seemed) and by the end, I was in a pleasantly hypnotic state.
• Despite having not understood it at all.

Nevel Is the Devil

• This short film was mildly amusing, but not particularly "fringe."
  
• Office Space was a better movie on a similar theme.

Bruna Bunny and Baby Girl

• The second play of the evening had a tepidly surreal premise.
• A former circus performer's 12-year-old daughter has hair on her chest.
• The girl, Baby Girl, was actually played by a little girl, who did a hell of a job.
• But the play's point was lost on me--it seemed silly without being all that entertaining.

Access Pending

• This dance piece seemed a little more what I would expect from a dance piece than "Beyond the Sphere."
• At least, so it seemed to my dance-virgin eyes.
• I was impressed but the dancer's skills, but not particularly engaged by them.
• But again, maybe that's just me.
  
• I don't know what to look for really.

Kuliman mixes YouTube--ThruYou

• This was a rather astonishing piece of appropriation.
• Kuliman took bits and pieces of solo music uploaded to YouTube.
• (Often these were music lessons, sometimes they were musicians showing off some of their skills.)
• Out of all these disparate bits of music, he created coherent, multi-instrumental songs.
• The lyrics were often based on spoken-word YouTube videos auto-tuned.
• I recall Thomas McEvilley discussing Hellenistic poetry that consisted of appropriating different poets lines into a single poem.
• McEvilley was making the point that post-modernism's practices of appropriation was an ancient practice.
  
• But this piece reminded me very specifically of those ancient Greek poems.
• The skill shown in finding and mixing these fragments is astonishing.
• But the results, while perfectly good, are not great.
• This is a complaint that can be made about much OuLiPo-style art.
• i.e., art that puts a really complex, limiting constraint on the artist with the intent of fostering new, creative ways of making art.
• It's amazing, for example, that A Void was written at all.
• The fact that it is also a great novel is a fucking miracle.
• Kuliman's mixtures are totally listenable--but won't stick in my mind.

So the Fringe Festival's first night was a mixed bag. I would have been surprised if it hadn't been. I will be there for the subsequent shows. My hope is that someone in Houston will amaze me.

(There is an art show along-side the Fringe Festival. The artworks are for sale. Stephanie Toppin, for some insane reason, is selling her drawings for $25 apiece. I personally think this is a bargain. I encourage anyone who liked her work at Diverse Works and Box 13 to pick up a drawing or four, before Toppin comes to her senses.) (Toppin, not "Tobbin"--corrected now.)