New BalanceBrooklyn, New York, USA
31_8_2008
L’Observateur : Welcome Back Edition
Condos, condos, condos. Who is going to live in all the condos?Just about every place I go in Austin I see someone I know or know of, but never think about.
The wall near the bathroom at the Austin Music Lab rehearsal space features several music-related covers I designed for The Austin Chronicle over 10 years ago, and like me, they are yellowing.
Thrift Town has a Best of Austin banner which reads “Best Place to Refry Beantown,” from a snippet I wrote a few years ago about how they get all their used clothes from the Boston area. The have lots of winter coats.
Almost all new clothing here is available in “plus sizes,” but for some reason almost none of the vintage shirts fit me.
The Taste of Bitterness
Michael Phelps, left, consoling Alain Bernard after the race Sunday. From the New York Times: But in France, reports of Sunday’s dramatic relay race put the vow to smash the Yanks in a very secondary position, when it was mentioned at all. The authoritative sports daily L’Equipe did not include it in its natation roundup from Beijing, instead focusing on the “cursed eight hundredths,” which was “exactly what separated France from the USA, silver from the 4×100m gold, a race which will stand in Olympic history.” The paper added that even though it was the first Olympic medal Frenchmen had ever won in a swim relay, “that silver has a taste of bitterness.”
L’Observateur : Relámpago Edition
I give you the 1932 Real de Catorce baseball team (above).In Mexico City, they call a combover hairdo “Oaxacan Queso” because the wraparound hair on one’s head looks like a ball of Oaxacan string cheese.
The day I left Catorce a man from Monterrey was rumored to have fallen to his untimely death in a canyon near the road to Cerro La Bufa. There were two men in custody at press time.
My buddy Bill Gassiot was once struck by lightning (relámpago). He relayed this tale over dinner one night in Potrero. One of the town drunks happened to be sitting across the table, and as coincidence would have it, he too had been struck by almighty God. Only, he didn’t come away so well: he has a huge scar on his forehead and he is now a drunk.
On an entirely separate occasion Bill was stung by a centipede, passed out, hit his head, and forgot who he was for about 24 hours. When he returned to Catorce – though noone in the town knew of the accident – a tiny Huichol Indian named Chinchito told Bill that he had a dream that Bill had lost his memory and that he had been worried about him.
A Canadian girl from Manitoba is living in my house until at least the end of January. The rent is 2000 pesos ($190) a month. She comes with free gardening.
There are a lot of Italians living in Catorce at present. The Swiss are fortifying their positions.
The town of La Luz, which is directly across the mountain from Real de Catorce was once the set for the direct-to-DVD film Las Bandidas starring Penelope Cruz and Selma Hayek.
Plus Tard is on the road again.
L’Observateur : Ni Modo Edition
Mexicans make strong drinking glasses. I recently saw a glass (like they have at the Hotel San Jose in Austin, Texas) hurled at a cement floor in anger, and it barely chipped. Then there’s those shot glasses I got that time in Oaxaca. Buena fuerte.
The most recent landowner in Real de Catorce is named Urs.
Don’t name your kid Balz.
Goatherding is a special way of life.
Multas are no longer a way of life in Mexico.
I understand a lot more Spanish than people suspect. Ad-In.
I also understand a lot more Swiss German and Hochdeutsch than people expect. Switch sides.
The most recent landowner in Real de Catorce is named Urs.
Don’t name your kid Balz.
Goatherding is a special way of life.
Multas are no longer a way of life in Mexico.
I understand a lot more Spanish than people suspect. Ad-In.
I also understand a lot more Swiss German and Hochdeutsch than people expect. Switch sides.
L’Observateur : Cosmic Eagle Edition
Recently, we trekked down the mountain to Los Catorce to see our pals Monica and Felipón and search for a natural spring called El Chicle.
There are a bevy of beautiful avocado, pomegranate, and apple trees growing in the semi-tropical environs there, between Real de Catorce and the desert.
Monica is from somewhere around Joplin, Missouri. The first time she layed eyes on me about five years ago, she immediately pointed at me and said, “you’re one of my people” – and since my great grandfather was from around Joplin, Missouri, and she happens to look and speak a lot like my paternal aunt, I believe her. She listens to the Art Bell radio show a lot.
Felipón is a local artisan who sells his wares in the streets of Catorce. As an aside, he also sells bags.
She and Felipón live on a hill in a two-room adobe shack with about fifty goats, a dog, and a gaggle of turkeys, hens, and roosters. All the animals have names and according to her “none of them are edible.”
At one point, she was worried that my house was going to fall off the side of the mountain, and in an effort to diffuse her ramblings, I said that if that happened, I would fill it with water, put a live shark in it, and sell admission. Now people call my house “The Fishtank.” Be careful what you say.
Then, about three years ago, she told me she found some shark bones and that she had made a dreamcatcher for me to put in my house – over my bed. Fearing the spiritual repurcussions of not hanging the thing over my bed as she demanded, I did. And it’s been there ever since. Sometimes it catches dreams, other times not so much.
Last night it caught a dream where pre-stroke Ben Gazzara and post-stroke Ben Gazzara were having a yard sale together – and my camera wouldn’t work when I tried to get my photo taken with them. Mostly, it was them being grumpy and me feeling nervous about taking up their time.
Every time I trek to Monica’s place, she spots me coming from hundreds of yards away, and comes bounding out of the house to greet me screaming, “is that you, Taylor? I recognize that walk.” And then she mocks me – arms akimbo, loping gait.
Her next question was, “has anyone given you your Intergalactic Star Sign?” Let me see ... um, not lately.
The Mayans have a 260-day calendar. On December 21, 2012, their calendar “ends.” Really, it’s the end of a 26,000 year cosmic cycle. The rejuvenation of this supposed new cycle is in many mythologies. In America, it is best known as The Age of Aquarius.
In lieu of astrology, the Mayans also had typecasts for men and women based on their exact date of birth. There are 200-some for men and 100-some for women.
Guess who is on the cusp between Cosmic Eagle and Magnetic Warrior? That would be me, chingones. The Cosmic Eagle: Protector of the west, builder of communities. Vigilancia. I get my power and inspiration from the Earth. I have visions. Cover your head. The paranormal existential weirdnesses compounded from there, and I don’t want to go into it.
Monica wanted us to stay and get “synchronized,” but she was late to take the goats out, so we left in search of the spring (which we never found), and subsequently got berated by a ranchero viejo for trespassing his land.
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