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(In which we witness love and marriage and indegestion.)

Howdy!

The boyfriend and I just returned from a weekend in the great country of Texas – Houston, to be exact. We went there to celebrate the marriage of some neat humans.

The boyfriend was Best Man at the wedding, so I spent a lot of time in the chapel entertaining myself as he practiced marching down the aisle, handing over rings, smuggling in tequila shots and body-blocking any attempts the bride might have of going “runaway” – you know, typical Best Man duties.

Having been raised in a church, I know how to find all the best hiding spots, and I felt immediately at home. Curled in a cool, dark alcove between the pipe organ and a wood-carved dove of peace, I listened to music on my iPhone and surfed the World Wide Web – reading The Guardian, watching this and this, and wondering why Facebook suggested I be friends with Bill Murray (who I still haven’t forgiven for dog-earing my copy of Dubliners).

Rice Memorial Chapel, the house of God in question, is tucked centrally on the campus grounds of Rice University. It’s a lovely, small chapel, decorated with gold tile and royal blue carpeting. It is noticeably lacking in denominational iconography – a single, movable, wood cross sat off-stage – which is to be expected, I suppose, from a University that specializes in applied sciences. Stained glass glorifying Dr. Willem Kolff healing the crippled with Jarvik-7’s and panels depicting various stages of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial would not have seemed out of place.

Posted by Job O Brother on May 4, 2009 at 01:29pm | Post a Comment

Happy Texas Independence Day!

After Mexico gained its independence from Spain, the newly independent country organized itself into several states. In the northern Coahuila y Tejas, there were many Native peoples like the Alabama, Apache, Aranama, Atakapa, Caddo, Comanche, Coahuiltecan, Cherokee, Choctaw, Coushatta, Hasinai, Jumano, Karankawa, Kickapoo, Kiowa and Wichita that the nearly bankrupt Mexican government had little resources to subjugate. So they invited immigrants from the US, called Texians, to help keep down the aborigines. Soon the immigrants outnumbered the Mexicans and Natives put together. These Texian immigrants made little effort to assimilate, making little to no effort to learn the language and customs of their new home. Even though slavery was illegal in Mexico, the Texians (who numbered about 30,000) simply ignored Mexican law and brought 5,000 slaves. Before long, Mexican president Bustamante sought to restrict futher American immigration to Mexico, recognizing they were up to no good. Before long, the Texians took up arms and ultimately gained independence from Mexico.

Joel McCrea, not Texian, but played one on the radio

By 1850, Texians started referring to themselves most commonly as Texans. The Texas Almanac of 1857 waxed purple about the mere dropping of the letter "i," continuing the Texan tradition of making something out of nothing, moaning [in Chris Elliot's fancy lad voice] "Texian...has more euphony, and is better adapted to the conscience of poets who shall hereafter celebrate our deeds in sonorous strains than the harsh, abrupt, ungainly, appellation Texan -- impossible to rhyme with anything but the merest doggerel."

Posted by Eric Brightwell on March 2, 2009 at 11:21am | Post a Comment

TEXAS IN MY REAR VIEW MIRROR

A Few Observations on Texas, Urban Cowboys, Hair Metal and Manly Footwear

"Don't rock the jukebox; I wanna hear some Jones. 'Cause my heart ain't ready for the Rolling Stones."

I just returned from my annual trek to Dallas, which is always a bit depressing, but it's "home." Dallas is sort of the nexus where God meets commerce, with the former and its cognates of tradition and morality always losing out to the latter. All a moneyed interest has to do is play to the ideal Dallas existing in the minds of its citizens, and the local governing body will allow just about any historical site to be torn down. Hell, this largely conservative population will even vote for increased taxes if sports are involved. (As parochial wisdom has it, sports -- despite being universally popular -- are part of our Southern essence; God bless the Cowboys.) Consequently, the town itself (which, due to white flight, is more Dallas County than just Dallas these days) has little charm or uniqueness -- i.e., no sense of place -- left to it. It exists as pure concept, which is why it's a great place to be from, just not to live. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, thar ain't no thar thar. Anyway, I have friends in Austin, so I use them as a good excuse to go to the one true Texan town, Austin (although many of its long-term residents wouldn't agree -- but they ought to try living in Dallas). After listening to the Townes compilation that I brought with me, I discovered that my aunt had removed the cds I leave in her car for this particular occasion. That meant once more through Townes and then on to the accursed Texas radio.

Now, listen to this, and I'll tell you 'bout the Texas
I'll tell you 'bout the Texas Radio
I'll tell you 'bout the hopeless night
Wandering the Western dream
Tell you 'bout the maiden with wrought iron soul
-- The Doors, The Wasp

I'm no Morrison scholar and can't say I pay much attention to his lyrics, but naming a song about Texas radio "The Wasp" captures what often passes for culture there: bourgeois consumerism in place of illusory country values. I've yet to hear King Bob Wills on the radio (including the 25 years when I was a resident), but I always get my yearly dose of Van Hagar and 50 Cent every time I visit, just by using the scan function on the car radio. And if you ever wonder why bands that used to be called nü-metal are still putting out albums, out yonder is the answer. It all is the continuing (de-)evolution that I remember from high school, where all the wannabe cowpolks in FFA used to wear dusters and cowboy boots. They would pull into the school parking lot alternately blasting RUN-DMC or Reba from their shortbeds. They exaggerated their drawl and said stuff like "bulldoggyshit." Urban Cowboy was lost on them, if they saw it at all, taking it as another fashion code rather than a lament for dying cowboy authenticity within modernity's sprawl. Unfortunately, even as a fashion statement, it was already out of date for these future suburban cowboys.

Posted by Charles Reece on April 19, 2008 at 05:16pm | Comments (1)

The Levelland UFO Incident

50 years ago tonight ...

Fifty years ago tonight on November 2, 1957 - and coincidentally about an hour after the Russians launched Sputnik 2 carrying the first passenger ever lifted into orbit, Laika the dog - one of the best known and well documented cases of UFO close encounters took place on the outskirts of Levelland, Texas, population 10,000.

Patrolman A. J. Fowler, on duty that night, received the first call at about 11pm and would receive another 14 different calls over the next two and a half hours. Among the witnesses were Levelland's sheriff and the town's fire chief who confirmed they too observed something pass across the highway in front of them. Most of the reports depicted the object as a brightly lit torpedo or cigar-shaped flat-bottomed object, eyewitnesses pretty consistently described the UFO as a glowing, pulsating bluish-green. The first call came from Pedro Saucedo, traveling with a co-worker named Joe Salaz. While driving down Route 116, about 4 miles west of Levelland, an object suddenly rose into the air from a nearby field. Saucedo estimated that it was 200 feet in length, and soon was flying at speeds around 800 miles per hour. While passing over their truck there was a sound of “thunder” and a “rush of wind.” The truck rocked from the blast, and both passengers felt “a lot of heat." As the object flew over the truck, the headlights went out and the engine stalled, but as the UFO vanished into the distance the engine restarted easily and the lights worked normally. In total, there were at least seven separate UFO incidents that night reporting either a car or a truck becoming disabled, but recovering each time the UFO departed.

Posted by Whitmore on November 2, 2007 at 09:03pm | Post a Comment

(In which Job extols the merits of the Great State of Tey-haas.)

PART ONE

A map of Texas, courtesy of AAA... or maybe it was AA? Anyway, they were nice and had free maps.

I’ve recently returned from the Great State of Texas; more specifically, Houston and its surrounding communities. I’ve also just eaten a lemon-blueberry scone. What do these facts have in common? They both concern me, though only one of these things will be mentioned again in this blog.

I went to Houston to accompany my boyfriend to his 10-year high school reunion. It was my first time in Texas. It was also my first time at a high school reunion, having never been invited to mine. It’s not my alma mater’s fault, though – I was probably handed a form to fill out so they could reach me, and, knowing me, I ignored it in favor of flirting with Zach H’s girlfriend in the campus theatre lobby instead. Or maybe reading an Anne Rice novel while drinking screwdrivers from my thermos. High school was bleak.

"I hate Driver's Ed, too! Mr. Mancy sucks."

The trip was delightful. Corey gave me a tour that covered his life’s history up to his flight to the Sunshine State. One stop on the tour was Wes Anderson’s high school, where the film “Rushmore” was shot. Faced with this spectacle, I said:

“Oh.”

It occurred to me that I should honor the State that so graciously fed me the greasiest* taquitos on God’s Earth, found at the epic Tex-Mex fast food chain, Whataburger (imagine McDonald’s breakfast menu wrapped in a steamed, flour tortilla). Here then, is a list of some proper nouns I love which I have Texas to thank for:

Posted by Job O Brother on October 18, 2007 at 09:34am | Post a Comment