Tag: memories

Another one bites the dust

It was different from all the other stores in the Bookstop chain. The people who worked there had a certain attitude–not quite as “customer-friendly” as the one trained into Bookstop employees in different stores. The attitude came with the neighborhood. Their customers seemed to expect and even like the rudeness, much as tourists crave the same from NYC cab drivers or the French. Such attitude gives us stories that usually end with a shake of the head and a slow smile of acceptance that we’ve joined a community of the skillfully insulted.

When Barnes & Noble bought the chain, only the Alabama Theater Bookstop got to keep its name, as if to reassure customers that nothing important to them would change–and the exterior, with its blazing marquee and art deco facade, rated high on the list of importance.

Over time, Bookstop’s next-door-neighbor, Cactus Records, disappeared, but Whole Earth Provision Company expanded to fill the empty space. Another neighbor, Whole Foods, moved to a new location across from the Borders down the street, but was replaced by a Petsmart. The copy place turned into a restaurant, then a different restaurant, but Bookstop stayed, lighting up the night, luring customers with the promise of multi-levels of book browsing, a magazine off the stand in the mezzanine, a cup of coffee or tea from the barista in the balcony, an impromptu conversation with a fellow shopper, and beautifully preserved walls and ceiling.

Now B&N has been lured to a tonier address in a new development a few blocks away–across from the River Oaks Theater, also a beloved landmark. No one knows what will become of the Alabama Theater Bookstop, but we all know this is a city that loves to level and rebuild. So we wait and see what an improving economy will bring and hope developers are listening–the chatter seems to have made them back off a plan to tear down the River Oaks theater, at least for now.


On the night when I took these photos, the doors of the Alabama Theater Bookstop closed for the last time not just on a store, but on a piece of my history. It was here I met a person who would reshape my personal and political landscape in ways I never imagined. I miss him.

And I will miss this place.

Happy birthday to a lucky thirteen!

Happy birthday, Todd, from me and guess who else?


J.K. Cowling at the 1900 Storm Memorial, Galveston, Texas, August 2009

It was on this day last year that Hurricane Ike roared ashore, causing us all kinds of grief. We lost power, tree limbs, roof shingles, and an entire tree at The Compound, but when daylight came, we and our friends and animals were safe, so we had much to be grateful for.

To give you an idea of Ike’s wrath, compare my August 2009 photo of that sculpture:
See more photos by clicking here, please.

And so I go forth, to try again

I thought it was interesting that the theme for Photo Friday was “Fear.” Even if Friday hadn’t been the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, I still would have thought first of tall buildings. During my twenty years in Houston, I’ve worked in skyscrapers downtown and in the Greenway Plaza and Galleria areas. (In fact, it’s been my plan for a while to go around Houston and photograph the many buildings I’ve worked in.) Before that day, I liked the views that being on high floors offered, because Houston has so many different skylines and its flatness makes them visible from great distances.

As it happened, most of the corporations I worked with prior to September 11, 2001, were severely impacted by that event, as well as the subsequent economic woes of Compaq, Enron, and Continental Airlines. As a contract employee, my work went away. It was probably for the best, as images from that day were so burned into my brain that just getting into an elevator made me break into a cold sweat. I’m not sure I could have handled ten hours a day twenty or more stories above ground.

The second thing “Fear” brought to mind was jets. I was never a good flier to begin with, and September 11 pretty much sealed the deal. Of course, I’ve flown again–including to Manhattan three weeks after the attacks, and as I’ve mentioned on here before, when Tom and I walked into the terminal at IAH and I saw the National Guard standing inside the door with weapons, I burst into tears. And, sadly, I then started profiling all my fellow travelers. I’m a flawed human. Regarding jets, however, the only photos I might be able to get would be of jets landing or taking off, and I actually love those two sights–as long as I’m not on the jet–so shots of that wouldn’t speak to my fear of flying.

Fear… I thought of sharks and cemeteries, but since I don’t actually have any photos of sharks, and cemeteries don’t really scare me–unless maybe I was trapped in one after dark, and I’m not in a horror movie or a gothic novel, so that isn’t likely–I tried to think of something else. One of my worst fears is losing anyone else I love to AIDS, but any photos I have related to AIDS are either sad or hauntingly beautiful–not the same as “Fear.”

I was talking to Lynne on Friday, trying to decide what to shoot, and she told me I could take pictures from the twentieth floor of her building. That would work, because looking straight down really does scare me. Then Tim came over, and since he and I share many of the same fears, he’d been thinking of buildings, too, only he wanted to shoot them from outside looking up. Off we went, and he took some amazing shots of the building I insist on calling Transco Tower, even though it’s actually Williams Tower now. If you haven’t seen the one he picked for Photo Friday, check it out here, because I’m all kinds of awed and envious. Great photo.

I got some good shots from inside Lynne’s building, but not exactly what I wanted. Still, I got to see Lynne, so no complaints. After coming home and starting dinner, I went out to shoot the American General Center. In spite of its tallness, I appreciate that building and the flag on top of it because whenever I’m out wandering and lose my way, it’s my landmark to get home. When I saw that its flag was at half mast, I knew I had the photo I wanted.

All these years later, my memories of September 11 still evoke so many emotions–fear and horror, of course, but also pride and compassion–and especially hope, because my family got a new baby on that day in 2001. Steven has always helped me look toward the future, as do all the beautiful children in my family.


On a lighter note, I could have used this photo–little sea creatures laughing at me as ONCE AGAIN I vow to conquer Moby Dick. I’ve gotten further into it than I ever did on previous attempts, but Ishmael still makes me laugh, and I still wonder if the novel’s supposed to be funny or if I’m just strange. It still rocks my world that I got A grades on every essay question I ever answered on the book, or every paper in which I referenced it, in spite of the fact that I didn’t read it. Students, this is what LISTENING to your teachers and developing your WRITING skills will do for you–turn you into a CHAMPION bullshitter with the pen. I may be afraid of tall buildings and jets and sharks and palmetto bugs and dogs I don’t know and people who text and drive or talk on their cell phones and drive or hell, just drive–have you been in Houston?–and I’ll probably end up afraid of white whales, but when it comes to writing a literary essay, I am FEARLESS.

Hump Day Happy

HDH will return to its regularly scheduled slot next week. I know you’ve all been shedding buckets of tears about its absence.

Speaking of buckets, one of my favorite memories involves walking down the Strand in Galveston one year with Jim, Tim, and our friend Steve C. I won’t publish photos of them trying on cowboy hats, because I need their friendship. But I’ll never forget Tim stopping into the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. When he came out, I asked what he was eating, and he answered, “Peanut butter bucket” with an accent that could have come right out of my deep South childhood.

When The Brides, Tom, and I went to Galveston recently, guess what I brought back for Tim? As soon as he saw the bag, he said, in the same accent, “Is that a peanut butter bucket?” It wasn’t. It was TWO peanut butter buckets.

Button Sunday

Wouldn’t that be something? That button is from the early 1970s, after the big break-up. I told Tim I felt like I’d gone back in time when I received this recent issue of Rolling Stone.

Back in February 2008, Lisa and Mark were in Houston. They, along with Lindsey and Tom, went downtown to shoot some photos, which I often go back and look at in their LJs and Flickr sets. Included are photos of David Adickes’ “The Virtuoso.” Here are a couple of shots I took of that sculpture when I went out night shooting with Lynne:

I’ll admit that sometimes I can be a little bit of an art snob, but my preferences are rarely based on what art critics tell me I should or shouldn’t like. I react to art viscerally. If I like something, no one can make me dislike it by telling me I’ve got awful taste. However, sometimes when I don’t like something, I can come to appreciate it, at the least, when I get the insights of someone who views it with a perspective different from and more approving than mine.

In general, I like David Adickes’ work. I think it has a whimsical quality and his sculptures are public-friendly. There are lots of people who love him and just as many who dismiss him. Probably the first art of his I saw, without knowing it was his, was “Big Alex,” a giant telephone once visible from I-45 which has since been moved.

My second introduction to his work, again, without knowing the artist, was “Cornet” in Galveston. In the mid 1990s, Tom and I went to a friend’s wedding reception when the building behind the sculpture was a restaurant called “Trumpets” (long gone). Because of that restaurant and a jazz club using the “Trumpets” name, many people mistakenly call the sculpture “The Trumpet.” It was originally created to display at the World’s Fair in New Orleans in 1984.

I like both sculptures, but I’m not as fond of “Big Sam,” a sixty-foot statue of Sam Houston between Houston and Huntsville, Texas. Sam overwhelms me a little.

I’ve visited Adickes’ studio–a HUGE warehouse by necessity, considering the scale of his work–and will probably eventually publish my photos of the gigantic presidents’ heads that replicate ones placed in parks in Virginia and South Dakota. But there are four sculptures that I FREAKING LOVE, and they go with this post.


They get high with a little help from their friends. Thirty feet high.


From a different angle, with the Houston skyline a couple of miles behind them.

You can read a good Houston Chronicle article on David Adickes, his perspective on his work, and reactions to it, at this link.

Sometimes a great [sewing] notion…

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the dead-of-night hours Thursday/Friday were the worst of being sick. Even though I felt like crap physically and had insomnia, visiting dogs (Sugar, Rex, and Pixie) made for some highly comedic moments in the battle of mattress real estate. Somehow we all eventually got sleep.

Last year, a storm called Ike had whipped itself into hurricane status out in the Atlantic by this time. Here at The Compound, we had no idea whether Ike would impact us, but looking back at my day planner, I see that I was making notes about it, just as I had Gustav. I moved to Houston in 1989, and I don’t remember giving much thought to hurricanes and tropical storms even when our city was flooded because of them. Katrina changed that in 2005. Now I pay attention.

But last year, Ike’s landfall was still more than a week away. I’d just returned from the Southeast, where my family and I held my mother’s memorial service, and I was looking forward to a visit from Mark G. Harris. We’d planned to do lots of sewing, and as Mark reminded me in a note I got from him on Friday, we did just that, sitting at the table in the dining room with this on the floor next to me.

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Lizzy runs this bitch.

A long time ago, someone told me “Every day, you see a cow.” I wanted to deny it, but in fact, I’ve come to believe it’s true. You see them on commercials, in pastures, in magazine ads, in kids’ drawings, in online stories and ads, on other people’s blogs, on kitchen towels, in art stores, in toy stores, in museums, on milk cartons or containers of sour cream, ice cream, cottage cheese, or even glue–they are FREAKING EVERYWHERE. And that’s okay with me, because unlike Gary, I feel great affection for cows. I’ll admit that at times I’ve been edgy when walking around a group of them, because they stare at me with those bovine expressions of theirs and I start to wonder, What are you up to, pretending to so placidly chew your cud? Are you planning a revolt against your oppressors and murderers?

(Full disclosure: Yes, I do eat beef. I’m fully aware that makes me a cow killer, and I frequently apologize to the cows and find that I’m eating fewer and fewer of them. Also, I attempt to atone for it in this feeble way: Having fed baby calves from huge bottles when I was a young’un and seen their sweet eyes looking up at me, I have never and will never eat veal. Your grazing habits may vary on either side of this fence; I leave it to you to pontificate about the meat issue on your own blog or journal. This is the journal of a guilty cow killer.)

click here to read more from a guilty cow killer

Hump Day Happy–Late Edition

I have “comfort books.” These are books I first read at a young age that became such favorites that I’ve reread them many times over the years. Several of those comfort books were written by Mary Stewart. I love Stewart’s romantic suspense heroines because they’re never shrinking, simpering females in need of rescue from strapping, arrogant heroes. Her females are smart and spirited, and though prone to getting themselves into difficult situations, are just as capable of getting themselves out. Her males are also smart, wry, and understated, sometimes even bookish, and as likely to be geologists and musicians as secret agents. Though her bad guys can be sinister, a vein of humor runs through her novels that often allows the villains’ accomplices to be more entertaining than tragic.

I well remember the first Mary Stewart novel I read that hooked me: Airs Above the Ground. It was my mother’s book. The dust jacket had been lost, and the book itself was a pale blue-gray. I hope my sister has it, because my own copy is this often-read paperback.

In addition to the story of a husband and his (possibly) wronged wife, there’s another romantic tale within the novel, an old tragedy connected to the famous, 400-year old Spanish Riding School of Vienna. The book’s title comes from a series of dressage movements of the school’s fantastic Lipizzan stallions.

One of the novel’s most poignant moments involving an old circus horse brings tears to my eyes no matter how many times I read it. In honor of good storytelling and one of my favorite novels, today’s Hump Day Happy is brought to you by the pictured horses that I’m calling my white Lipizzans. If you comment with a page number between 1 and 611, and another number between 1 and 25, the horses will dance through the pages and find your own little bit of magic.