Old Cars, and Texas Junk

Cruising around San Antonio, I spotted this black beauty lurking in a backyard.

And down a quiet street by the railroad tracks...

Sixties cruiser mates with pick-up truck? The Fonz would love this.With the motorbike in the back, it looked as though Steve McQueen was in town. Just the thing for a movie bank-heist.

While I was photographing, the car alarm woke up. He made it quite clear, unambiguously, that he'd be happy to tear my throat out if I just came a little closer. I asked him to smile for the camera...

On an elsewhere...
We found a store that had us both in rapture. Yes, she loves this stuff as much as I do. 

The sad thing was, that it was closed, dammit!

So I had to lean over the fence

Peer through windows,

Pick over the treasure on the porch,

I felt almost unhinged!

Look! An antivibration coupling from the Convair airborne nuclear reactor of 1967....
Or maybe something more prosaic. I liked it anyway.

Look, a cast-iron thingummy

It was a treasure trove inside. Or so it seemed, through the windows.
The store, well, I lost the bit of paper with its name, was in New Braunfels (just east of San Antonio), on the side of the railroad tracks just opposite the old firehouse.

A shed built like a sculpture.

 

The firehouse museum was closed too.

Hooray for windows.

The trains were asleep.

So was the biggest, meanest disk-cutter I've ever seen. When I need to cut into stone, I use a 24cc machine with a two-stroke motor and a 14" blade. This thing would seriously up my game.

Phew. I was getting a bit excited there, thought I'd better backpedal a bit. Finish up with some lush greenery. This is why texans wear those cowhide chaps, I think. Well, maybe this is why texas longhorns wear cowhide too. 

So, When You're Not Demolishing Things, What Do You Do?

 

 

This is what those wooden stairs were resting on.

Moth-eaten steels.

 

Here we have an old industrial building. Pretty much nothing has been done to this space since the 1970s, the last tenant was a screenprinter. He's moved out, to a smaller unit (this one is about three times the size that you see here).

So what do I do? Well, a bit of everything, to change that space into....

This.

Last jobs today before handing over were fitting the blinds and assembling furniture. 

A 'Windows' theme?

 Meeting room.

Office kitchen

 Psychedelia from my Google Nexus 4 phone-camera.... I'm still figuring out the 3D Panorama stuff.

Yes, I'll get tired of it, but I only discovered the spherical imaging ability today.

People ask, "What is your Favourite...?"

And I am always struggling to answer.
My favourite music?
My favourite food?
My favourite author?
Film?
Story?

I can't answer. They change, by the day, by the hour, by the moment, by the mood. Today's answer is neither tomorrow's nor yesterday's.

And if I say I like a particular book, or a particular painting, it does not follow that I am delighted by every book by that writer, every painting, nor does it mean I am uncritical of that item, maybe something in it is not quite as I would wish it, maybe I think it could be better in some way.


Poets? There are a few, well quite a lot who, from time to time I think of as favourites. T.S. Eliot is one, four quartets is something I can read over and over, but it does have some lumpy lines.... "T.S"., I'd say, "That's no good, take it back and do it again...."

e.e. cummings though. oh e.e., how did you get that vision? how did your mind work? why did you eschew capitals? was your shift-key broken, or did you just hate it? were you a one-finger trypist like me?

Oh, you were so lucky, you died before you  could ever meet the f@*%ing capslock key.

Here's one of your poems. I wish I could write poems like this.


i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

 

The job was supposed to take a couple of hours.

Put up temporary supports, cut the steel rods with an angle-grinder, working off ladders. (oh, and go get the generator, grinder, spare blades, fire-extinguisher ), saw through the treads in sections, take down in sections, carefully.

But of course, if you have a fifty year old vehicle and a bit of blue string, there might just be a quicker, safer, and easier way...

Pierre Bensusan

Mr Fix-It?

xxx!

Austin, Texas, "Keeping Austin Weird".

We just missed the Lonestar Roundup, due to work requirements, but there were still plenty of interesting old cars to look at, a few days later .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I asked him if I could take a picture, I don't know his name, but like so many of the people we met on our travels, he was smiling and friendly. I come from Yorkshire in the north of England, where we value eccentricity. I'm happy to say, Austin does too.

 

Shoes...

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Red Dirt Girl and I share some laughs over shoes. Her blog, the one I first read, posted pictures of the shoes and boots she liked, along with the poetry she loves. She had, just before my arrival, taken possession of a pair of extremely neat red lace-ups, which I admire greatly.

It would not be an inexactitude to suggest I was a just a tiny wee bit jealous of her for having such cool footwear.........

I had always wanted a pair of shoes with toes in them, so I threw common-sense to the wind, and went ahead and bought some Vibram Five Fingers. They're silly, but comfortable, and allow me to hang upside-down like a fruit-bat, using my prehensile toes.

Okay. I lied. I can't hang upside down using my toes, but I can leave strange footprints in the mud.

Not to be outdone, the Red Dirt Girl's youngest son (12) just came home from school with  this cool footwear made out of duct-tape over socks, by his schoolfriend. Kelyn.

LINK