Category: Books

“My compliments to the chef”

It was back down to Austin on Monday morning and back up to McKinney again on Friday.  Diana let me borrow her car so I would be a bit more comfortable on the long drives, while she and Penelope tried to get along on her drives to downtown Dallas.

As you can see from the pictures above, it was oppressively hot all week.  Those red bars are the “feels like” temperature – adjusted for humidity.  Diana’s car is reporting a real temperature of 105 degrees at 5pm.  As a result, I spent most of my time indoors this week.

Cat was in Austin for an Apple Systems Engineering annual meeting, and we were able to meet up on Thursday evening.  We made a quick visit to the Sky bar for the requisite picture, and then Ubered over to Peche – I know, it’s less than a mile, but it was still too hot to walk at 7:30 pm.

We enjoyed an excellent dinner at Peche.  The combination of Cat’s intelligence, world view, and immense wit, make him a perfect dinner companion.  He loved the rabbit and mushroom risotto, and sent his compliments to the chef via Tucker, our waiter.  Chef showed up a few minutes later and Cat told him he liked the dish because you could stop eating to tell a story for a few minutes, and the excellent flavor was still in your senses.  This is a new dish on the menu, and Diana will have to return to try it soon.

We visited the Roosevelt Room, a kind of fancy speakeasy style cocktail bar, after Peche and I enjoyed a Paper Plane.  We sat at the bar and thoroughly enjoyed watching all the craft cocktails being prepared – some works of art.  My drink came with a small origami plane flying alongside

It was very nice to spend an evening with Cat without the girls along.  Wait – maybe that didn’t come out exactly the way I meant it.  What I was trying to say….  Ah, never mind, I’ll just stop digging the hole now.

I tried a couple of new things for my drive on Friday.  #1, I downloaded an audible book to listen to on the ride – I’ve listened to podcasts but never a book.  I chose “Lincoln in the Bardo”, which got such rave reviews last year.  It has an all start cast reading – apparently one of the largest for an audio book.  Nick Offerman is excellent.  What a weird book – I listened for almost four hours and was really struggling to figure out what was going on.  Had to read a synopsis when I got home.  Not sure whether I’ll make it through the remaining 3 hours or not.  #2, I decided to venture away from the standard places along the highway and try a real Waco restaurant for my lunch stop.  Harvest was a very good farm to table casual place, not too far off Interstate 35.  The migas were excellent.  I look forward to stopping there again.

It was very nice to resume the regular weekend routine with Diana – swim, coffee and crossword, reading.  The simple things that I miss when we’re not together.  We ventured out of the normal routine for dinner, trying a new restaurant for us, Knife, located by Willow Bend Mall.  This is a John Tesar place.  You may remember I came home with a whole pan of his duck confit risotto after attending a demonstration he did at the Granada theater a few years back.  He is starting to expand his empire with a few different places now, after getting his real start as the executive chef at the Mansion on Turtle Creek.

We were both very pleased with the quality of the steak and the sauces.  My au poivre was absolutely delicious.  I chuckled at the mini fry basket that the french fries were served in.  We have plenty of left overs for dinner tonight.

I was even able to resist the chocolate caramel treat and have that waiting for desert later.

I finally finished “Lost Children Archive” by Valeria Luiselli.  On the surface this is a family road trip story.  Parents and two young children embark on a trip from New York to Arizona and the Apache homelands.  Several stories interweave, including narratives on the plight of native Americans, and on children traveling alone across the border in attempts to reunite with family members living in the United States.  All very poignant with the backdrop of our governments challenge to figure out a workable immigration solution on our southern border.  I enjoyed the book quite a bit, but got bogged down in some of the historical details and discussion on documentary field recordings.

Welcome to a new series of introductions to my new music finds – featuring some of  my favourite album covers.  I particularly like the diner scene on the back of Supertramps’ classic “Breakfast in America”.  If you zoom in you can see Dougie Thompson reading the Glasgow Herald.

I had been listening to some Philip Glass music this week, and then read in the acknowledgements in “Lost Children Archive” that Luiselli had listened to his “Metamorphosis” a lot while writing the novel.  Also interesting that the owner of Shakespeare & Co in Paris gave her a room above the store to work in for a year while writing.  Here’s Part 2 of metamorphosis – I love the triplet right hand part around 2:30.

Zero 7, an English duo who began as studio engineers, have a new album out this week with a host of guest vocalists.  All very relaxing, chill sounds, and, not surprisingly, beautifully produced.

Something about the Zero 7 music sent me to Stereolab and one of my favourites from many years ago:

Hornet’s Nest

I decided to stay in McKinney with Diana this week, rather than make the trip back down to Austin.  The early part of the week was heavily work focused with some system challenges keeping me busy.  I’m hoping we’ve turned the corner on those now, performance has been great the last few days.  Hope I didn’t just jinx things.

There were no silly 4th of July questions this year.  It seems that every other year or so, somebody asks me “Do you celebrate the 4th of July in Scotland?”.  I know they don’t mean do we celebrate being free of the responsibility of the United States.  Ha.  We celebrated with late morning workouts and then lunch at Toulouse in Legacy West.  Diana was excited when her choice for restaurant stuck – the other two options we discussed were closed for the holiday.  We enjoyed a delicious white wine and steak tartare with frites.  I know, you’re thinking our diet is almost exclusively raw meat these days – only when we go to French places that do it well.

Dinner was the more traditional holiday fare – burgers and veggies on the grill at home.  I was pretty brave to spend as much time by the outdoor grill.  Why is that?  Well…are you familiar with the expression “A Real Hornet’s Nest”?  And did you know that I’m highly allergic to wasp and bee stings – swell up like the Elephant Man.  Turns out hornets nests are not always in trees.  We found five piles of sand in the beds next to the grill, looking just like ant hills without the ants.  Further investigation showed some kind of bug burrowing into the ground and kicking out sand.  We decided to leave well alone and wait for the pest control experts.

The pest control professional arrived on Friday morning and confirmed hornets’ nests.  He was very careful in spraying them, commenting that they can be very aggressive and their sting hurts a lot.  Lots of mud-dauber and wasps nests were also removed.   We feel like we’re under attack from flying stingers of all varieties.

Friday was a light work day for me – I was able to enjoy a swim and watch some good Wimbledon matches.  Coco Gauff’s recovery to win over Hercog was very impressive, more so considering she’s 15 years old and on the Center Court.  I enjoy picturing my Mum and Dad talking to the TV as they watch Wimbledon.

Saturday started with a swim and crossword, before settling in to read and enjoy the tennis on TV, while McD sunbathed.  Then I surprised Diana with an early dinner at the Grape.  She says she had been thinking about going all week – must have some special ESP going.  We started by sharing the chicken liver mousse, which now has the pistachio topping added back – last time we visited, over a year ago we guess, they had changed it, and not for the better.  Then we split a delicious salad, followed by steak frites for Diana and scallops for me.  A lovely evening and way too long since we’ve visited the Grape.

It was an early start on Sunday to get a swim and crossword in, before packing to start traveling at 1pm.  Me over to the bus to Austin, and Diana to the airport for a flight to Tampa.  We both arrived at our destinations about 30 minutes late – which is not too bad for the weekend after the 4th of July and the hordes of people moving around.  As I finish this post up, I’ve just finished troubleshooting the internet and TV service in the apartment – the third reboot was the charm.

We received a couple of entertaining pictures from Denny and Anne this week as they continue their travels through Europe.  This week in Berlin.  Here Jack and Mason recreate the famous picture of them peeking their heads in to the cottage in New Orleans as we were waking up.

And here Dad and the boys manage to find an Irish bar in Berlin to watch the Womens’ World Cup Final:

Two short, quick reads were a very welcome change of pace on the literary front this week.

“The Parade” by Dave Eggers,  a very favourite author, is a spare and powerful story of two men, Western contractors sent to work far from home, and tasked with paving a road to the capital in a dangerous and largely lawless country.

Four and Nine are partners, working for the same company, sent without passports to a nation recovering from ten years of civil war. Together, operating under pseudonyms and anonymous to potential kidnappers, they are given a new machine, the RS-80, and tasked with building a highway that connects the country’s far-flung villages with the capital.  Four, nicknamed “The Clock,” is one of the highway’s most experienced operators, never deviating from his assigned schedule. He drives the RS-80, stopping only to sleep and eat the food provided by the company.  Nine, however, spreads chaos: speeding ahead on his vehicle, chatting and joking with locals, eating at nearby bars and roadside food stands, he threatens the schedule, breaks protocol, and ends up fighting for his life when contracting malaria. His illness, corruption, and theft compromise their high-stakes mission,  and Four and Nine discover danger far greater than anything they could pose to one another.

Impending doom seemed to be lurking through the last third of this book but never arrived.  Then it all struck in the very last paragraph of the book.  Wow – wasn’t expecting that.  This book is a very impressive allegory for so many of the civil wars that are tearing countries apart.

“Biloxi” by Mary Miller is quite different than any book that I’ve read in a while.  Miller  skillfully  transports us to her unapologetic corner of the South—this time, Biloxi, Mississippi, home to sixty-three-year-old Louis McDonald Jr.  His wife of thirty-seven years has left him, his father has passed—and he has impulsively retired from his job in anticipation of an inheritance check that may not come. In the meantime, he watches reality television, drinks beer, and avoids his ex-wife and daughter. One day, he stops at a house advertising free dogs and meets overweight mixed-breed Layla.  Unexpectedly, Louis takes her, and begins investigating local dog parks and buying extra bologna. Mining the absurdities of life with her signature “droll minimalist’s-eye view of America” (Joyce Carol Oates), Mary Miller’s “Biloxi” captures every day life in the South perfectly.

The exotic turntable picture is for you Raj – hope you’ve completed your audio penance.

I found this song was in my Blues Piano book as I revisited it this week.  A great exercise in dexterity and I’m nowhere near up to speed yet.

Speaking of revisiting, I played this album from Charlie Hunter again this week and enjoyed it just as much as on first discovery.

And here’s a new jazz trumpeter from Italy that I enjoyed.  The album gets a bit repetitive, but I do enjoy the modern sound.

The week started well with a relaxing and delicious lunch at June’s All Day brasserie on far South Congress.  This is the place that Mark took me to for lunch when I interviewed for my job in Austin, and I hadn’t been back since.  Diana and I both loved our lunch – delicious wines, smoked salmon nicoise salad for D and steak tartare for K.  The heavens opened as we were finishing up and so we had to stay for coffee and wait for a brief respite in the rain.  Temperatures dropped 15 degrees in a few minutes and the humidity was thankfully gone from the air for a while.

I got tied up at work until late on Monday evening.  Diana was able to meet up with Sheri (after some confusion on which Kendra Scott store they were meeting at) and then they stopped back into June’s for some Happy Hour champagne.

Then they met up with Sean at the Continental Club to see the amazing Peterson Brothers.  These two young men have so much positive energy and interact with each other beautifully.  May they never lose those positive smiles they have playing music together.  I was able to join around 7:30pm for the second half of the show.    We particularly enjoyed the rendition of “Amazing Grace” on violin by Alex – it was his first instrument in school before graduating to bass guitar virtuoso.

Then the Brothers went mobile, wandering through the club, passing the guitar off to a friend at the bar to jam, heading out into the street and then plopping down in the seats behind us for a few minutes.

I thoroughly enjoyed the second hour of this show.  Just what I needed after a long work day.  Here’s a quick clip of the Brothers jamming:

After the show we followed the typical circuit – Hopdoddy burger followed by Hotel San Jose courtyard.  Sean was able to have a nice chat with Glenn and Alex about when they were going to play in California.

Diana headed back to Dallas on the Tuesday bus and I put in some long days at the office, battling system problems.

I enjoyed a work dinner at Bonneville on Wednesday night.  This is a good restaurant, just across the bridge from the apartment, that I hadn’t heard of but enjoyed quite a bit.  The scallop dish was yummy.

I rode back to Dallas with Vinod on Thursday afternoon – always an enjoyable journey because of the wide ranging conversations.  It was really nice to be home with Diana in McKinney for a few days.

The new movie from director Danny Boyle, “Yesterday”, was our entertainment on Saturday afternoon.  We both enjoyed the movie and the interesting concept behind it.  It really brought home the breadth and differences in the Beatles catalog.  Diana mentioned being reminded of the Cirque du Soleil “Love” show in Las Vegas, and how it gave whole new meanings to the classic Beatles songs.

I had always thought that the Beatles “I Want to  Hold Your Hand” was the number one song when I was born.  I just looked it up and that was actually an honor held by the Four Pennies, with their song “Juliet”.  Have you ever heard of the Four Pennies?  I certainly haven’t.  I like the guitar introduction to the song.  It was only number one for a single week.

Take a look at the number one hits from 1964 – so many classics that we still remember.  I challenge anyone to believe the same will be true of the number one hits from 2019 – most of them will be forgotten a couple of years from now.  Cilla Black has a couple of number ones and she got a mention in “Yesterday” during the visit to Liverpool.  What was in that Mersey water?

I heard a song on Spotify that I enjoyed by Alan Price.  The keyboard sound was somewhat familiar, so I did some research.  I found out why it sounded familiar – he was the organ player with the Animals.  You’ll notice above that “House of the Rising Sun” was number one just after I was born – I still enjoy that song today and remember Billy Joel playing it when we saw him in New Orleans recently.  The Western musical brain certainly loves arpeggios – particularly when a minor resolves into a nice major.

Alan Price is a self-taught musician and was a founding member of the Tyneside group “The Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo”, which was later renamed “the Animals”.   His organ playing on “The House of the Rising Sun”, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”, and “Bring It On Home to Me” was certainly a big part of the group’s sound and success.

He also had a big role in introducing one of my favourite musicians, Randy Newman, to the world.  Price’s second album, “A Price on His Head”, released in 1967, featured seven songs by Newman, virtually unknown at the time.

What was number one on December 18, 1964 when my wife entered the world, I hear you asking.  Well – that was a Beatles song – “I Feel Fine”.  Not one that I was familiar with, even though it spent 5 solid weeks at number one.  Oopsy – now that I listen, I know it well.  “I’m in love with her, and I feel fine”.

Changing over from music to the literary front, I finally finished “The Parisian” by Isabella Hammad.  This was a very long slog of a book with lots of Arabic dialog and names.  I did learn a lot about the history of Palestine in the early 2oth Century, and the influx of Jewish immigration that ultimately caused the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that still exists.

Here are some of the reviews that convinced me to embark on this read.  I’m not sure I agree with any of them – this book was really hard work.  I enjoyed the first few hundred pages that were set in Paris, but the Palestinian years were just work.

I’m looking forward to some lighter reading this week.

Here’s the Alan Price song that got me off on that Animals trip earlier:

Diana gave me a beautiful vinyl rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s new “Western Skies” album for fathers’ day.  Here’s one of my early favourites:

How can Bruce still be making such meaningful music while performing every night in his solo Broadway show?

I’ve always loved the music of Robert Cray and came across this recent album.  Ask me about seeing Robert Cray in a small club on Greenville Avenue in Dallas in the late 80s, when Stevie Ray Vaughan joined him on stage.

It was an early (4:30 am) start on Monday to catch the 6:00 am bus back to Austin.  After some shenanigans with Lyft giving me a driver 27 minutes away to fulfill my request for a 4:50 am pickup, I made it just in time for the bus and enjoyed a smooth journey (mostly sleeping).  Santiago, my Lyft driver, did entertain me with stories of his time on the Bolivian national soccer team and his attempt to get his PGA card – quite the sportsman and a very interesting conversationalist.

My main accomplishment for the remainder of Monday was getting D’s car inspection completed, so that she could register the car.  I did struggle on this as the insurance document wasn’t in the glove box (that I could see).  Turns out it was in the owner’s manual in a secret shelf on top of the glove box that tall people would never see.

Another early start alarm awoke me on Tuesday so that I could make my 7:00 am Physical Therapy appointment.  PT is really working well – I was completely pain free when I left and have had very manageable pain most of the week.  I get a few funny looks as I drop to the office carpet and perform the exercises that bring me almost instant pain relief.

Here’s a short riddle that was on the board at PT:

x+8 = 12

x-5=11

x is the same in both equations.  What is x?

Need a hint?  Read down to just before the music section.

On the way home, I stopped into the Saxon Pub for the weekly David Grissom happy hour residency.   You’ll remember me raving last week about the film we saw about the Saxon Pub at the Dallas International Film Festival.  One of the more entertaining characters is Chris who works the sound board and absolutely loves his job.  He does an amazing job on the sound.  Here is on Tuesday night working the sound and also the lights (using some special tool comprised of a rod with a tennis ball on top).

As I was entering the Saxon, I saw a character walk by and thought to myself that the crowd was getting a bit rougher and dirtier.  Turns out that was Chris Maresh, the bass player for David Grissom.  I felt guilty about my initial assessment as it became obvious that Maresh is a world class, virtuoso bass player – reminding me a lot of Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report fame.

He began his professional music career in Austin in 1984 after receiving a degree in Applied Double Bass Performance with an emphasis in Jazz Performance from the University of Texas.  Over the ensuing 35 years, Chris has performed on an amazing 250 albums.  His big break came when he played with guitar legend Eric Johnson for 10 years.  His side project, Alien Love Child, was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Pop Instrumental for the song “Rain” in 2002.

Can you hear the perfect interplay between bass and guitar.  That’s exactly the thing that brought out my “Happy Music Face” at the Saxon.

Chris has also released two solo albums of original jazz material.  I’ve only listened to one so far and the musicianship is very good.

Grissom’s drummer, Bryan Austin,  was equally impressive with some strong jazz capabilities as well.  His online profile is very sparse – all I was able to find is that he played with Santana at some point.

My favourite song of the show was “A Good Day for the Blues”, a song that Grissom wrote in the mid-nineties when in a band called Storyville with Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon from the Arc Angels (and originally Stevie Ray Vaughan).

It’s a rare treat to have music of this quality available for the cost of a tip on my short commute from work to the Catherine.

Severe thunderstorms had been forecast for Wednesday afternoon or evening since early on Monday.  Predictions of 2 inch diameter hail caught our attention as the storm was scheduled to hit both Dallas and Austin.  A lot of folks made plans to drive home early to avoid the storm that was initially scheduled for around 4pm on Wednesday.  Storm arrival time was pushed back throughout the day and it ultimately arrived when we were both asleep.  Diana slept through it in Dallas but I was awoken by the loud thunder just before 2am.  It doesn’t seem like there was any major hail damage.

Diana decided to leave Penelope safely in the garage at home and take an Uber to her first meeting in downtown Dallas.  We were chatting on the phone as she waited for the car to arrive and I was talking about the interesting driver that I had on Monday.  Then this was the view of the boot of the Uber as she went to stow her luggage:

Apparently the driver likes to play the trombone and makes occasional trips to New Orleans to play in a church and at various places on Bourbon Street.  Diana’s bus arrived later on Thursday evening.  I could tell she was ready to be in Austin as I got the countdown clock texts on her arrival time:  34 mins, 22 mins, 15 mins, 10 mins.

Diana had warned me that she was ready to go out on Friday evening, having been cooped up in meetings all week and then on the bus trip down.  We had an early dinner at 2nd bar and kitchen – some of our usual favourites:  smoked salmon rilletes and avocado fundido.  After dinner we walked up Congress Avenue to the Listening Room at the back of The Townsend. This is an amazing room with perfect acoustics that only seats about 60 people.

We saw John Nielson perform with opener Michael Davids.

Michael Davids had a couple of tables full of friends with him.  True to form, Diana discovered that they all worked for a cyber security firm with a couple of the folks employed as ethical hackers.  I swear she can find out more about people in a few minutes than I do in years.  He attempted to get the crowd to engage in a singalong with Jackson Browne and Elton John songs with reasonably tepid results, but mostly played his own original songs.

I had not heard of John Nielson when doing research for McD’s night out, but listened to some of his songs and thought he had a great voice and good songs.  His performance was true to expectations with a number of memorable original songs.  He appears to make some of his living from having his songs used in TV shows.  Here’s one of his performances:

We were walking back home down Congress Street when I heard a good cover of “Have you ever seen the rain?” by CCR coming from the Shiner Saloon.  I had never been in this particular establishment and found it very pleasant – good music and a very nice upstairs patio with various games.  We enjoyed watching these kids playing a very large Jenga game.

Saturday began with workouts downstairs and then Diana put me on notice that she was planning to spend a few hours out by the pool.  It was a perfect day and so I decided to go for  a walk along the river trail.  Here’s a sequential series of pictures looking back on the Catherine that I took on the walk:

The trail is very well maintained with lots of shade.  I came across this sculpture titled “Bikes Forever” that contains 1254 bicycle frames.

Now I was starting to get a bit hot and tired and so stopped for an iced coffee at Alfred’s above the Austin rowing club.  There was a very long line of people below waiting to rent canoes.

On Saturday night we walked over to the Violet Crown cinema (thanks to Shu for pointing it out to us) to see “Amazing Grace”, a documentary of the live recording of a gospel album by Aretha Franklin.

We really enjoyed the cinema – great food and drinks and a very nice feel.  “What about the movie?”, I hear you asking.  Well…I enjoyed it a lot and Diana enjoyed the first 15 minutes as well.  Then she got a wee bit sleepy.  The power and control that Franklin had at the height of her powers in 1972 is amazing.

Easter Sunday morning started with workouts and then Diana joined me for a walk along the river trail – this time on the South side.  Much of the trail on this side is an elevated boardwalk style path that is very well done.  The views back into downtown are quite impressive.

After a nice long walk, we stopped into Bennu for coffee and crosswords on the patio.  Great location but the cacophony of bird squawking was almost unbearable.

We cleaned up and then walked across to Le Politique for Easter Sunday brunch.  I really enjoyed my “Beef Cheek Presse” with a sunny side up egg, chickpeas and avocado.  The beef cheek had a very rich and delicious flavour.  We picked up a loaf at the patisserie next door to enjoy for dinner with some of the cheeses left over from Denny’s visit.

I think we did a good job of taking advantage of what Austin has to offer this week – music, outdoors, and food.

I enjoyed “The River” by Peter Heller this week.  The main protagonists are Wynn and Jack, who have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddling and picking blueberries, and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey. When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one.  But, the next day a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman?  The story quickly pivots from a wilderness vacation adventure log to a harsh survival tale with several twists and turns.

You can tell Heller has spent significant time in the outdoors from his descriptions of nature.  Here’s a passage that I particularly enjoyed describing animals fleeing the impending forest fire:

“The moose trotted to the open margin of the left riverbank and clattered over the broken shale on stiff legs and entered the water without pause, and she stretched her neck and let the water sweep her without concern and set a ferry angle and swam across.  The calf mimicked the mother.  They were only yards ahead of them.  The next was a bull moose, and then a black bear with two cubs.  The cubs hesitated at water’s edge, they seemed frightened, and the mama bear snorted and waded out of the river and got behind them and drove them forward.  They swam.  The littler one lost ground in the current and Wynn thought he would get swept away, but the mother got below him and bumped and shouldered and goaded him across.”

Riddle hint:  Think of a wall clock

Still don’t get the riddle?  The answer is at the end of the music section.

Here’s the orginal version of “Good Day for the Blues” by Storyville that I heard David Grissom perform on Tuesday evening.  I think this is certainly one of his most popular and accessible compositions:

I really enjoy the sound of this song by a band that I heard for the first time this week and can’t remember where.  The National Reserve have good vocals and a great guitar sound with nice production.  They’re based in Brooklyn and have been playing a regular Friday night bar gig there for almost a decade before releasing their first album.  Here’s how they describe themselves on their website, “Founded and fronted by singer-guitarist Sean Walsh, The National Reserve mine an archetypal musical seam, marrying gutbucket R&B, Laurel Canyon lyricism, New Orleans funk workouts, late night soul, and bluesy, boozy rock ‘n’ roll to create their own timeless brand of American music. ”

Samantha Rise is another artist just releasing her debut material.  She claims to play “High Country Soul”.  Again I like her vocals and the excellent guitar accompaniment on this song:

Let’s close out this week with some classic Bob Dylan as heard on the “Billions” TV show this week – I really do enjoy the musical choices for this show:

Mott the Hoople’s Greatest Hits has been one of my favourite albums for more than 35 years now.  I also enjoy the Ian Hunter (lead singer for Mott) solo albums and have one in my collection that I bought on holiday in France with my Mum and Dad (it’s aging very well).  The band reformed recently for a few shows.  Here they are in Boston performing “Saturday Gigs” and “All the Young Dudes” (a song written by David Bowie and gifted to the band as they were trying to get started).

Riddle Answer:  4 am  (I hear you groaning).

Should I make a riddle a regular feature in the blog?

Denny arrived for his Austin “scouting trip” on Tuesday afternoon.  His flight was delayed a few hours and so we skipped the David Grissom show at the Saxon Pub and headed straight to the Odd Duck for dinner.

The weather was nice and so we sat on the patio and enjoyed an outstanding meal.  Some of the highlights of the plates we shared were: egg noodles with goat chili and avocado crema, nachos with grilled mushrooms and tahini chili sauce, and bavette steak with mushroom conserva and charred onion salsa verde.  So many amazing flavour combinations!  The scouting was off to a great start.

I shared the Austin Chronicle daily live music list with Denny before he arrived and was wondering if he would choose the same post dinner show that I thought he might.  We share very close musical tastes and so I wasn’t surprised when he picked James McMurtry at the Continental Club gallery.  The gallery is a tiny music room above the larger Continental Club that feels like a living room and has excellent sound.  We both loved the intimate, solo acoustic show and Diana appreciated it as well.

James is the son of Larry McMurtry, the famous Western author (best known for Lonesome Dove), and his songs feel more like short stories than songs – so much colour and detail.  His 12 string guitar playing was also very impressive.  Here’s a clip of “Choctaw Bingo”:

And here’s my favourite from the evening, “Red Dress”:

We enjoyed the short walk back to the Catherine and then introduced Denny to the view from the Sky Bar.  What a great start to the visit and perfect weather.  We snapped this picture in front of the mural at Jo’s coffee to send to Anne.

Poor Diana had to leave on the bus back to Dallas on Wednesday morning – leaving the two of us unsupervised.  She’s had poor luck on the bus trips lately and that continued as a truck dumped an entire load of lumber a few trucks in front of the bus.  This caused Diana to be late for her client meeting in Dallas but at least she had a good story and accompanying picture.

I met Denny at El Alma for a yummy Mexican lunch on the rooftop patio.   I think he enjoyed the food as much as I do.

After work, we took an Uber over to East Austin, a funky neighborhood that is rapidly gentrifying (like most of old Austin).  We enjoyed a happy hour cocktail on Whisler’s patio and then walked to Kitty Cohen’s, another great patio with a small outdoor swimming pool to dip your hot feet in.

Our next stop was Rainey street – an area of Austin that I’d heard a lot about but hadn’t visited yet.  It’s a street of historic houses that have been converted into restaurants and bars.  I’ll let the pictures tell the story of our Rainey street ramble:

Now it was time for dinner and we chose G’Raj Mahal for a nice Indian.  The food was very good with my only complaint being the watery sauces that were being passed off as chutney to accompany poppadoms.  Even showing the waiter Google search images of chutney didn’t yield any helpful results.  I did enjoy the meal and the patio setting a lot and look forward to visiting again soon.  G’Raj Mahal is about a 15 minute walk from the apartment – just right for walking off a rich Indian curry.

We made one last stop on Rainey to listen to the Canned Beets at the Half Step.  Apparently they’ve been playing every Wednesday night for 5 years.  Another great music option for Wednesday night:

We finished up Wednesday just as we did Tuesday – with a visit to the Sky Bar.  This time my friends Issac and Damon joined us – they had just finished up a work dinner with a vendor and I was impressed with their ability to gain entry up to the Sky Bar without the concierge calling me.  Very resourceful boys.

Denny’s visit finished up with a very pleasant and relaxing lunch on the patio at Shady Grove.  Denny bought himself a Continental Club t shirt that he’s sporting in this picture – he must have enjoyed that venue.  Such a great visit but too short – looking forward to a return visit with Anne included.

I rode back to Dallas with Vinod on Thursday evening.  These trips are hilarious as we share stories and educate each other on a myriad of topics.  Vinod dropped me at Perry’s in Grapevine and Diana and Penelope picked me up there.  We (Penelope was left outside glaring at a Jaguar parked in front of her) enjoyed some of their excellent steak tartare and then headed home.  I complained about how spread out everything is in Dallas and McKinney after the compact, walkable area around the Catherine.

After the usual workouts and coffee and crossword on Saturday, we drove down to the Dallas International Film Festival.

We saw a film called “Nothing Stays the Same:  The Story of the Saxon Pub”.  This is an excellent documentary about one of my favourite music clubs in Austin and it won the Audience award at the South by Southwest film festival a few weeks ago.

A few years ago the land where the Saxon sits was put up for sale and the operators were looking for a new place to host music.  The film director decided to create a record of the club, the owners and the musicians who call it home.  He described it as his “love letter to the Saxon Pub”.

The film does a great job of telling the story of how people are attracted to Austin because of the great music and cultural scene.  That drives up prices of everything and the musicians can’t afford to live there anymore.  And the club owners can’t afford the rent either.  It really is a tough problem.   Many of our favourite performers are featured in the film and there wan’t a bad musical performance anywhere to be found.

There is a very happy ending to this particular story.  Mr. Keller of Keller Williams realty steps in at the final hour and buys the land and tells the owner that he can continue to operate there as long as he wants.  He also worked with the Austin mayor to put together a fund to help do the same for other iconic music venues.  I look at Keller Williams in a whole new light now.

The documentary director, Jeff Sandman, and his team were on hand for a Question and Answer session after the film.  This was an unexpected treat and it was obvious how much Jeff cares for the venue.  A very nice experience and well worth the trouble we took to drive in extended thunder storms to get to the theater.

After the usual Sunday morning routine, we watched Tiger Woods pull off the amazing feat of winning his 5th Masters tournament.  After that relaxation, I fixed Penelope’s windshield wipers and did some light weeding and trimming around the pool.  Everything is in full bloom with all the rain and warmer weather.  Our maple in front of the house seems particularly happy:

With all the activity this week, I was pleased to find a couple of hours of quiet time to finish up a book that I’ve been reading for several weeks.  “The Unwinding of the Miracle” by Julie-Yip Williams is not a positive, uplifting book by any stretch.  I won’t bring everyone down with a lengthy review, but it tells the story of Williams childhood in Vietnam, with cataracts that render her mostly blind, the family’s escape on a barely seaworthy boat, ultimate arrival in America, surgery to restore most of her sight, her graduation from Harvard Law and then, in her early forties, a 4 year battle with colon cancer.  The book is very well written and brutally honest about all the challenges.  The Epilogue by her husband is heart-breakingly hard to read.  Let’s pick things back up now with some new music discoveries.

I love this song by Aretha Franlin with Duane Allman on guitar.  It’s been on repeat play all week:

This live Ray LaMontagne song captured my attention and it sounds great on my home office system – I miss the Linn sound in my home office very much:

This Mellencamp song featured prominently in the excellent episode of “Billions” on TV this week:

And finally, an amazing song from Lukas Nelson and his band.  You can certainly hear what they’ve learned from the last few years as Neil Young’s band: