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

We stayed, on our travels, in an old ranch-house

We stayed, on our travels, in an old ranch-house, built here in 1859, when Texas was a very different place. Sam Houston became Governor in that year, and far to the north-east, John Brown led a raid on the federal armoury at Harper's Ferry, sparking what is often held to be the genesis of the civil war. Two  years later, against Houston's strong counsel, Texas became one of the five states that seceded from the Union.
Also, in this year, Juan Cortina spoke out against the mistreatment of mexicans within Texas by the incoming settlers, and led a short-lived uprising centred on Brownsville.

Just a few miles away to the north-west, the U.S. army was sending an expedition to map the way west, men, camels, and mules, faltering and dying of thirst on the way.

I say this because I sometimes joke, unfairly, that Texas' history started only last thursday; -coming from a place where I can see evidences of the sweep of history pretty much forever back into the past, iron-age, bronze age, celts, vikings, romans, it amuses me to see what in my world would be unremarkable buildings revered because they were built in 1920, and thus are 'Historic'....

I pass a building every day here, built in a.d. 1150.

A few miles away, I can find 4000 year-old stone carvings on the moor tops.

Staying in this cabin, travelling through the Texas hill-country, I was very aware that the people who settled this land were truly pioneers of the unknown. This was the frontier, the edge of the known world. Yes, California and the west coast were being settled, but for the most part, the lands to the north and west of here remained unmapped and mysterious. Life was precarious and uncertain. 

Now, in the current era, life is not so bad, and the Gruene Homestead Inn (New Braunfels, handy for San Antonio and Austin,) is a very good choice as a place to stay. More about it later, maybe. One of the pleasures here is breakfast, held in the main house, a rather grander affair, moved bodily across the street and planted here a few years back. This is the only place I've ever seen fruit salad with strawberries teamed with hard-boiled eggs and cheese.

(Very tasty, I must say. Especially after a good dose of bacon and scrambled egg).
"How", you might ask,  "do they shell all those eggs?"

They have a machine to do it, of course!

At the Gruene Homestead Inn, this sight intrigues me, the old well and water tank. Wind pumps are a common sight in the vistas of Texas, in so much of the country, the water's deep below the surface. But here, the hard edges of the steel are tempered and softened by the twining wisteria, who sees the  opportunity, in her embrace, to climb above the surrounding countryside, turning the steelwork into a frame for her blue flowers and soft green foliage.
We stayed here a year ago. Another post from this place can be found here.

Sometimes I see this as a metaphor for us, RDG and me. Each partakes of the other's qualities, and each gains in the exchange. Over the years, like the windpump and wisteria, we've grown together, and entwined.