In the archives at the University of Texas Harry Ransom center.
This is indeed good news for mystery fans, though I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Maybe they’re great, but frequently trunk stories remain in the trunk for a reason…
Archive for the ‘Austin’ Category
15 New Dashiell Hammett Stories Found
Wednesday, February 9th, 2011Dear Austin: Sucks to Be You
Monday, February 7th, 2011They’re closing down I-35 at Ben White from Friday night to Sunday morning. Needless to say, you should probably avoid I-35 for about 25-miles in either direction for the entirety of that shutdown.
This gives me a chance to mention something I experienced in Dallas a few weeks ago: Do you think if you’re going to divert a major freeway onto a downtown side street, do you think you might want to, oh, I don’t know, reprogram the stop lights for the two otherwise deserted intersections? Or, if that’s too technically challenging, just turn them off and station one policeman at each intersection to direct traffic? Obviously, the Dallas City Hall and Police Department thought that was entirely too much to ask.
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011!
Friday, February 4th, 2011If you haven’t heard, Austin got a couple of inches of snow last night, which may not sound like a lot, but when you convert that to Austin Driving Units, that’s SEVENTY BAZILLION INCHES of the stuff. Austinites that can drive on snow are about as common as New York restaurants that serve good TexMex.
So sit back and enjoy the winter wonderland, because nobody is going anywhere for a while…
Freezing Rain in Austin
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011Freezing rain has hit the Austin area, although just a light misting of it, plus a dusting of snow. The sidewalks were already slick when I walked my dog, and I saw cars starting to slip and slide.
I don’t think I’ll be driving anywhere for, oh, at least the next 12-14 hours…
12°F, Rolling Blackouts in Austin?
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011I’m seeing some forecasts that it will hit 12°F today (it’s 16°F now). It would be a good day to stay in and stay warm.
Naturally, I have to go in to work…
Screw Macy’s
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011From Dwight comes news that the Macy’s in Highland Mall is closing. Sad news for anyone losing their job, but I can’t really work up much sympathy on the care-o-meter otherwise.
Which is a real shame, because I used to be a regular shopper at that store…when it was a Foley’s. Foley’s was a Houston-based department store chain that offered decent prices on good products. (I did a short stint as Christmas help at one of their stores long before I had a lawn to chase you punk kids off of.) Macy’s, by contrast, expected you to pay list price in the Internet era for the privilege of shopping at Macy’s. So I stopped going and never looked back.
There’s a lesson for businessmen there: Don’t do away with a cherished local brand for the sake of uniformity. The pennies you save on printing costs are far outweighed by the dollars you lose in ill-will.
Of course my disdain and indifference is nothing compared to the white-hot hatred of people unfortunate enough to work there.
Not Going to the Austin Comic Con
Thursday, November 11th, 2010As I’m going to be busy watching Skyline (another movie Howard and I are reviewing) and they didn’t have any literary SF guests, I won’t be going to The Austin Comic Con (though I have friends who are going). But they do seem to have rounded up a surprisingly large number of 70s TV stars (plus Chewbacca, Darth Maul, Billy Dee Williams and, err, the cast of The Film I Refuse to Name). (And I’ve already met Lee Majors, for certain values of “met” that include “have your hand touched briefly as you walk past in a line with 10,000 other kids and their parents at a Toys”R”Us opening in the 1970s.” Also “met” William Shatner that way. I wonder when Toys”R”Us stopped hiring TV celebrities for store openings?)
But I must admit I’m a little bit tempted to go just to meet Oscar Goldman.
Oh, and here’s a hint for the Austin Comic Con Webmaster: if you’re going to copy text out of a Wikipedia entry, it’s usually best to take out the “[citation needed]” bit…
Library Curiosities: The Space Squid Cuneiform Clay Tablet
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010You may have heard about science fiction fanzine Space Squid printing one of their issues on the ultimate form of Dead Media: inscribed in cuneiform on a baked clay tablet. Of these, I think they auctioned off five at Armadillocon.
Being one of the few people in the world with a complete collection of Space Squid issues (they actually told me that Nova Express was one of their sources of inspiration, the poor deluded fools), naturally I had to pick one up, which I did for the munificent sum of $11. (Bidding seemed more brisk for the usual cats-with-wings and dragon-related art items.)
My tablet. Let me show it to you.
Click to gallery-ize, the click again to embiggen. The first picture is of it sitting in its resting place on my mantelpiece, and the other two pics are close-ups of the front and back. (And here’s another Wired story with pics.)
In truth, the tablet (which contains the Kevin Brown story “Hunting Bigfoot”) is actually pretty hard to read, and I’m not sure how permanent the medium is; the clay has a tendency to flake off. Still, I’m sure that some 50 years hence an insane fanzine collector will be paying big bucks for one…
Here’s Matthew Bey’s step by step tutorial on how he created them.
The Usual Idiots at Wikipedia are Trying to Delete Don Webb’s Entry
Thursday, October 7th, 2010This entry, here. Evidently publishing some dozen-odd books doesn’t make you “notable” enough.
The deletion discussion page is here.
At this point I would rant about the deletion of my own entry from Wikipedia a year ago by some wrestling fan who objected to the review Howard Waldrop and I did of the Watchmen movie, but that would mean actually caring what the usual Wikipedia idiot zealots think. It’s simply wiser and easier to ignore them entirely.
Sad News: Joe Domenici, RIP
Friday, September 3rd, 2010A poster on one of my Armadillocon photo threads said that Joe Domenici, former co-owner of Houston specialty SF bookstore Future Visions, and more recently a thriller writer living here in Austin (his first novel, Bringing Back the Dead, came out in 2008) died on Tuesday. Sadly, the news has been confirmed in the Statesman obituaries. I had known he was hospitalized with pneumonia during Armadillocon (Mike had gotten a call full of hacking coughs apologizing for not being at the con), and I knew he smoked, but I hadn’t heard he had died until just now.
This is sad news, as Joe was a swell guy, always ready to talk about authors and books, and I bought my share of books from him back in the Future Visions days. I had seen him just a couple of weeks ago at the Recycled Reads book sale, and had bought more books off him when he had a book sale in his own apartment (just across Lamar from the main Half Price Books) a few months ago.
According to the Statesman he was only 49.
RIP, Joe.