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Showing posts with label Austin. Show all posts

Was it just by chance that the building that small plane crashed into housed the IRS?

In Austin, Texas.

Here's the pilot's suicide note (supposedly):

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals [sic] represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal [sic] is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

Read on. It's long. And it's about taxes. It ends like this:

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

At the Little Dog Café...

... you can get all excited and hop up and down.

At the Encouraging Building Café...

... there's a good chance you'll be very annoying.

At the Too-Early Breakfast Café...

... maybe it's getting light earlier. Spring is coming, perhaps. Or at least Spring Semester. It arrives on Tuesday. I'm caught up in syllabi. Syllabi in lieu of lullabies. I make coffee with the Meadhouse Aeropress and heat the milk in the microwave instead of using that machine that makes cappuccino/latte at the push of a button.

It's still winter here but "Summer Samba" plays in my head. It was one of the songs that played softly in the common room at our hotel in Austin, Texas, where we ate breakfast every morning from January 4th to January 13th. But we're not in Austin anymore, and it's not summer or even spring. It's the middle of winter in Madison, Wisconsin, and there's no morning light that has me up at this hour. I'm nearly through my first glass of coffee, and there's no reason to be up now except that I've slept enough.

***

The name of our Austin hotel? The Kimber Modern. Here's a NYT article about it. And here's one of those "36 Hours In" articles about Austin.

"When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music."

(Photos from the same place seen here.)

(You can read the larger context of the quote — by Kahlil Gibran — here.)

Another late night in the Crazy Water Café...

... where we never rest, but we don't work very hard either.

A nighttime walk down 6th Street in Austin.

Here's what we saw from the sidewalk as we walked down 6th Street after the movie:

What movie? Why, it was "Girlie Night" at the Alamo Drafthouse, and — it was my birthday — we saw the 1997 cult classic "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion." For added birthday festivity, we sat in one of the 2 private balconies, in leather recliners, and ate chili and drank Guinness.