Things I do or feel like talking about around town.
As part of my ongoing investigation into my Native American lineage, Shlomit and I attended the Longhorn American Indian Council Powwow in the University of Texas last Saturday. The event was not as large as I expected, and I did not find any hints of having any Native American ancestry whatsoever. But it was an interesting and educational time. Here’s a little video of an interesting Cherokee dance to a catchy tune that I recorded:
The summer is hitting us hard with high temperatures, and there is no better way to beat those than a Saturday on a boat in Lake Travis. Given that Luis “Lucho/El Brody” Navarro was in town, we made him handle the organization (great success). We headed out on a lovelyAugust 21. Highly recommended.
More photos at The MKX® Photo Central.
I took Leny, Sonia, and Luis Kirsch, who were visiting last weekend, to see the overwhelming spectacle that Mother Nature puts on for us every summer night in downtown Austin, when the world’s largest urban bat colony emerges from their home under the bridge on Congress Avenue, all approx. 1.5 million of them.
I have an older video from 2006 but the this one is in full 720p cellphone quality thanks to the unstoppable progress of human technology. We’ve also posted about other local bat incidents in this website before, and then shortly after.
On August 22nd the National GoTopless Protest will be held in Austin on the corner of Congres and 6th. It’s organized by GoTopless, an organization claiming that women have the same constitutional right to be bare chested in public places as men.
The MKX® is all for gender equality. Yes, we even believe that women should be allowed to drive.
But in all seriousness, this is an interesting topic and movement in which some of our society’s taboos are questioned. I might go and participate (I think I’d be required to wear a bikini top). The only think I don’t like about this whole thing is that it was founded by the Raelian movement, which is pretty out there when it comes to wackiness levels.
Given that this is a long weekend because of the 4th of July celebrations, I went kayaking with a few friends to Town Lake. We stopped short of making it to the Congress Avenue bridge (home of the largest urban bat colony in the world). According to my calculations, we traveled just over 4 km.
This is a very common activity in Austin, so this post is not exactly groundbreaking, but I thought it would be a nice chance to try out taking some new “Now less crappy!” cell phone photos. They look pretty good to me (click on them to enlarge).
The awesome Austin institution Alamo Drafthouse movie theater decided to show all FIFA World Cup matches live in one of their beautiful screens. This is probably the next best thing to being there, so I headed out there today to check out Uruguay VS Holland. It’s great to watch the game like this, with our own pitcher of Firemans 4 and good food.
My only suggestion: Make it 3D the next time!
The lineup for the Austin City Limits Music Festival has been announced. It looks good, but not 2009-good. Read more to see the whole lineup, or go see it in the ACL website for yourself.
It was a busy Saturday. After a cultural morning at Art City Austin, I headed over to Pease Park for Eeyore’s 47th birthday party. This year it seemed even more crowded than the years before. The usual assortment of colorful costumes, drum circles, dancing, beer, topless hippies, and family vibe was present again.
I have posted some higher-than-usual quality photos in The MKX® Photo Central of this awesome Austin tradition. They were taken with Jaramillo’s big manly camera, not my tiny puny pocket toy.
Art City Austin is an event organized by Art Alliance Austin. I had heard of it but attended this year for the first time on April 24th. They close off about five blocks in Austin’s 2nd Street District downtown and 190 artists, many local, but most (all?) national set up a booth where they show off their goods. Lots of very good painting, some very impressive metal work, sculpture, glass, etc.
Read more for more details, photos, and the ever important description of the food available.
I went to support my friends in the Green Team, Jill and Jamie, who made it to the final of the world renowned National Karaoke League. Sadly they lost to the Black Team, which was semi-pro and put together a Broadway-level Super Mario Bros show. I guess my support doesn’t carry the weight I thought it carried. Maybe next year. Congratulations!
