Despite crippling heat and severe drought, we have heedlessly flung ourselves out into the blasted steppes of the Texas Hill Country to visit that Bastion of Weirdness, Austin, for an appearance at my “home town” convention, ArmadilloCon. Along the way, we swung east to brave Fury Road, aka I-35 for a side trip to Interabang Books, where I connected with Josh Rountree and his book signing for the release of The Legend of Charlie Fish. If you’ve ever wondered aloud, “Gee, I’m curious what a story that features The Creature from the Black Lagoon, written by Charles Portis, might look like,” then this is the book that answers that very question. Highly recommended.
Austin is, by and large, a stranger to me, now. So many of the landmarks I used to forge my internal map of the town are not only obliterated, but also hidden from view by—mostly—parking garages and/or apartments, built out to the very edge of the sidewalk. Now the city has installed a multitude of plastic rails to mark off the existence of a bike path. I get why it’s there; I have always hated those wily daredevils that zip between the car lanes during red lights, coming within a hair’s breadth of the side mirrors, and boy, do they look pissed when you don’t see them out of the corner of your eye and try to, you know, drive in the lane. Putting the bikers there means they won’t be in the middle of the road.
Only, see, now you’ve basically taken up most of the right lane that cars used to drive down, forcing everyone into a single lane of traffic on busy streets like Lamar. I’ve not tried driving in it between the hours of 4 pm and 7 pm on a weekday, but I’ll just bet that’s a delight.
None of this is conducive to any wool-gathering or navel-gazing that you might be doing whilst pondering the fate of everyone that used to work at Art’s Rib Crib or Maria’s Taco Xpress. And anyway, such thoughts, if chased far enough down their respective rabbit hole, end up in dark places I’m too tired to visit. Thank Crom for retail therapy.
Book therapy, to be specific. I picked up the first issue of Conan the Barbarian #1 to marvel at Rob De La Torre’s artwork and Conan fan Jim Zub’s script. My buddy Jeff Shanks wrote the intro to the book. Check it out!
NOTE: this missive is penned prior to the commencing of the ArmadilloCon festivities. Pictures will be taken in an attempt to record the incident. That report won’t be ready until next week, I’m afraid.