Button Tapper

Living in Austin, one of the perks (or downsides, depending on how you view traffic jams and industry insiders taking over your town) is being around for the annual SXSW festival. Having never been to this mega-fest in years past, and always looking on rather enviously, I’m now actually living at Ground Zero for some of the year’s big reveals in the music, film and tech industries.

In the words of Keanu Reeves: WHOA. (And also: DUDE!)

My husband is getting really excited about the music stuff, and has even started a website to profile some of the seemingly millions of kick-ass bands that will be here. We are both miffed by the amount of Canadian has-been bands on the roster (uh… Sum41, anyone?), but aside from that, it’s pretty exciting to know that lesser-known (yet TOTALLY AWESOME) experimental and avant-garde musicians like Zoë Keating are going to be here alongside heavyweights like Broken Social Scene and hometown heroes Spoon to play for an audience of appreciative geeks, nerds and industry insiders.

THE GOOD

I’m also pretty pumped for the film festival side of things, although the amount of “badge required” parties is annoying me at the moment. Obviously, I’m drawn to the “Midnighters” category, described on the official site as “Scary, funny, sexy, controversial – provocative after-dark features for night owls and the terminally curious.” (I mean, hello? Cannibal Girls?!) The Headliners Get Low (starring Bill Murray and Robert Duvall), Mr. Nice (starring my favorite wacky Welshman, Rhys Ifans), and The Runaways (Dakota Fanning in a Joan Jett biopic?! and directed by Floria Sigismondi??!??) are all on my Must-See list as well. And even though I really have no idea what connects barbershop quartets to punk rock, I am totally down with seeing interviews with my idols Henry Rollins and Janeane Garofalo in Barbershop Punk.

THE BAD

I am already convinced that Leaves of Grass (starring Edward Norton x2 as identical twin brothers and Richard Dreyfuss [?!] as a drug dealer [?!?] in Oklahoma [!!?!!]) is going to be a pretentious pile of wank. Prove me wrong, but you heard it here first: naming your film after an interminable Walt Whitman transcendental poem is really just too much.

THE FUGLY

Oh, and as for the fugly? I’ve never been able to make it through an entire Harmony Korine film, so Trash Humpers is on my list here. It’s not that I don’t think it’ll be entertaining or worth seeing, exactly. It’s just that Korine is one of those filmmakers that tends to rub me the wrong way. I guess that’s the point of everything he does, but his shock tactics doesn’t really rate with me. I don’t think art necessarily has to be beautiful to be worthwhile, but all doom and gloom all the time isn’t exactly honest, either, is it?

So yeah, SXSW is in the air, and I’m really hoping that the weather here in Austin clears the hell up before the fest gets started, because honestly? Snow in February is a big ol’ mood-killer for this gal, and you better believe no visitors to our fair city will stand for that white crap!

MORE HELPFUL HINTS

Still need a place to stay? I know a joint or two. Let me hook you up with $20 off a 6-day stay at the Extended Stay Hotels in the area. Hey, what’re friends for, yo? Besides, they’ve been spamming the hell outta me since I stayed two weeks with them, so I might as well return the favor…

SXSW runs from March 12-21, 2010. For more info on how to organize your personal SXSW to-do list, read Laura’s Gifted Travel piece here. Be sure to follow Laura on Twitter @originaloflaura to get up-to-the-minute info on all the latest parties, buzz and events!

Y’know, I hate to give any credence to the work of an obvious terrorist and possibly delusional psychopath, but I just read through Joe Stack’s “manifesto” (posted in full by The Huffington Post, despite its being removed from his website by government officials), and I really have to wonder what was going through this guy’s head when he decided to crash his plane into an IRS building in north Austin. Call it professional curiosity, as I’m a writer who’s always in search of a good seed for a story.

First of all, I live fairly close to the IRS building he targeted. I drove past it all the time, never knowing it was an IRS satellite office; it was a nondescript place, much like any other office building in the area. So when the plane first plowed into that building and everyone was freaking out about possible ties to Al Qaeda, I just chalked it up as some poor fool, perhaps someone who hadn’t had enough training as a pilot, making a terrible mistake in trying to land a wounded vessel. It certainly didn’t strike me as the work of a terrorist cell, and having lived in NYC when the 9/11 attacks took place, I didn’t have the same feeling of “Holy shit!” that I did on September 11. I even remarked to the bank teller who called my attention to the TV that if the building was only a few stories high, it wouldn’t be that difficult for escaping employees to jump to safety, unlike those who perished in the World Trade Center attacks. (I didn’t mean for that to sound callous, but to point out the obvious difference between the two attacks and the level of threat involved. The Austin IRS building hit this week was only six stories high.)

Unfortunately, as we now know, this wasn’t a mistake at all; it was an aggravated assault by a disgruntled person in trouble with a government agency.

Now, nobody in their right minds is a big fan of the IRS as an institution, as I’m sure we’ll all agree. They take your hard-earned money out of your pocket at least once every year, and then they hand it over to other government agencies, who spend it on god-knows-what half-baked ideas, wars and whatnot. The IRS is an obvious target for people who are pissed off, though most have the good sense to limit their attacks to angry emails and stand-up comedy types of jabs. Still, I can’t say it’s surprising that someone would make an attack on such a building, since it’s a potent symbol, although I’m not sure why the main branch in Washington, D.C. wouldn’t have made a better target for someone so unhinged as Joe Stack.

But even if you were unhinged and pissed off about how the government was perpetually stealing your money, and even if you owed tens of thousands of dollars to said agency, I don’t see the logic here. Crashing a plane into the side of a building doesn’t solve your debt. (Furthermore, what kind of rich bastard still owns both a plane and a sweet house when he owes several thousands of dollars to the IRS?! Something don’t add up.) Suicide is certainly a response to overwhelming money woes that many people take, but suicide bombing? That’s what we’ve got here, people. His plane itself was the bomb, and flying it into the side of a government building is both a terrorist attack and an act of treason, by most common definitions.

To me, Joe Stack is no hero. He’s no patriot, no “true American,” and he’s certainly no one to emulate. He’s a sad example of someone who thought he was above the law, who thought he could play the system for his own ends and lost big-time. And by flying his plane into the side of that building, he lost any sympathy he could’ve had from any people who might have looked kindly upon his plight. He’s gone, but his debt is not. And now his wife and kid are stuck with it, not to mention knowing that their dear old Dad was a nutbar who totally screwed them over as his last earthly deed. They don’t even have a home to go back to, since ol’ Joe Stack burned it to the ground so that the IRS couldn’t claim it in exchange for all the thousands of dollars he owed them.

What prompts such acts of selfishness and greed? And what prompts others to look upon these selfish acts as “heroic”? I honestly don’t know. And maybe I don’t want to know.

I guess my point is that I can see shades of Fight Club in this story. Fight Club is a story I enjoy as a piece of fiction, precisely because of its anti-authoritarian tones and sense of rebellion against a world gone mad. But Fight Club has one hugely glaring flaw in its storyline that is always overlooked, and that is: blowing up buildings does not erase the debt record. Everything is stored on computers, and even if you were to destroy many computers and their hard drives, that information is undoubtedly stored on many other computers, many other hard drives and systems. Information is replicated all the time, and there will always be copies and copies and copies to fall back on. You cannot erase your debt by destroying physical items, then. You can only erase your debt by committing another illegal act, by hacking into the system and changing 1s to 0s. Period.

For a software engineer, Joe Stack wasn’t very bright. You’d think he would have known this, or figured it out while he was wallowing in self-pity. Violence isn’t the answer, you twit. But maybe computers are.

To be clear: I’m not advocating hacking into anyone’s computers, governmental or otherwise. I may be fascinated by hackers, but I’m not one of them, nor do I have any desire to be. Still, if you really wanted to set everyone on a level playing field, or become a true American hero by liberating the people from their chains the way Joe Stack’s supporters claim he wanted to, you’d need to be a bit more crafty about it. You’d have to be a helluva lot more selfless, and a lot more intelligent. You’d have to have heart, and you’d have to have skills. And you’d have to be a ninja who left no trace, rather than a simian who left a giant suicide note right on his website’s homepage.

There’s undoubtedly a thriller type of novel in the bones of Joe Stack’s story, but not as reality has written it. I still think Stack’s a selfish idiot, a traitor and a terrorist, and if he’d survived his attack on that building, I would’ve advocated harsh punishment, but there’s something to this story that I think people (unfortunate as that may seem) relate to. It’s why people are calling him a hero, even though he isn’t, and the use of the word in this situation is insulting to anyone who is or has been truly heroic (like, say, Robin De Haven, an Iraq war veteran who helped get many of the people working in the building to safety). There’s something more to the story than the simple summary of “disgruntled tax dodger commits suicide,” and I’ve been thinking about this from the perspective of someone writing a short story or novel about it. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything else.

In the meantime, what do you think about Joe Stack? Hero or terrorist—or something else entirely?

Let me just say, up front, that I have had words with Valentine’s Day in the past, and that it is well aware of my feelings on the subject, for all of the obvious—and not-so-obvious—reasons. However, seeing as the day is upon us and all must comment, whether in the Pro or Anti camps, I offer you a simple drawing that I think should sum things up nicely. I call it “Surreal Valentine: Austin, TX”:

"Surreal Valentine: Austin, TX" by Laura Roberts

This drawing was inspired by a sign on the side of the road that cracked me up, plus a little imagination and speculation as to what “Chotes” might actually mean. Yes, yes, it’s probably just someone’s last name, but as you can see, my mind is rather dirty. And also, I’ve been wondering lately wtf people actually do with their used sex toys, since you’re not really supposed to recycle hazardous materials (which includes anything that has, or has had, bodily fluids on it).

In any case, to paraphrase a Jon Stewart saying, I hope you enjoy this moment of Zen. You’re welcome. Oh, and Happy V-Day.

I haven’t written any of my haiku-a-day in a while, and since I’ve got a few Basho books out of the library right now, I thought I’d give it a go. It’s the end of January, and I’m feeling a bit unmoored. I’m used to ice and snow at this time of the year, and while it’s certainly cold here in Texas (apparently it’s 34 degrees outside right now) and rather a desolate landscape (as evidenced by my recent visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center), the lack of a standard Winter Wonderland is making me feel kind of spooked.

Add on top of that the fact that I just read The Road by Cormac McCarthy (which I wrote up briefly on CrackBooks), where the two protagonists are shivering with cold virtually all of the time and the post-apocalyptic landscape is described as “cold enough to split rocks,” and you’ve got a bit of a paranoid writer on your hands. Am I dying, or is it just cold in here? (To paraphrase a Sarah Silverman song lyric.)

So, here are three of my winter haiku:

"texas winter landscape (with poodles)" by Flickr user greg westfall

Silent winter snow
missing from Texas landscape
Strange chill without ice
–

"texas in winter #4" by Flickr user greg westfall

Do I miss freezing?
Strapping boots to venture forth?
Not at all! (a bit)
–

"Real winter in Texas" by Flickr user CameliaTWU

Montreal Winter

Icicles question,
breath hanging in air shatters.
Cold, clean fear of death.

I should note that I wrote all of those haiku in a great (free!) Zen-style writing program called OmmWriter. If you’ve got a Mac, you should definitely check it out (it’s not currently available for you [suckafool] PCs), as it’s quite a neat way to approach your creative writing. It takes you out of the clutter of your desktop and allows you to choose your background, a repeating pattern of music that resembles my husband’s Buddha Machine (another great little gizmo if you want to clear your mind), and another ambient noise associated with tapping the buttons of your keyboard. You’re focused on the words on the page, and the repeating musical patterns are meant to keep your thoughts flowing, rather than snagging on the words to a familiar tune or even the hook to some classical music. I really like it, especially for things like my haiku writing project—and did I mention it’s free?

Seriously, try it. You’ll convert.

Finally, I am announcing a crazy (but attainable) goal, inspired by my recent reading of Jeremy Mercer’s Time Was Soft There. Apparently George Whitman, the owner of the illustrious Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris, allows writers to stay at the bookstore so long as they read one book per day to earn their keep, so to speak. This is an amazing idea, both because it will help any writer improve his or her craft, but also because it immerses you in the world of literature and ideas. It allows you to see the connections, to see yourself as one in a long line of writers, to broaden your horizons and deepen your interests. It sounds time-consuming in our rush-rush world of corporate consumption and pointless motion, but really, what have you got to lose when you sit down and read a book?

I always have a book or two on hand anyway, and regularly read about a book a week. I’m already the type of person that puts library books on hold so I can have good books delivered (almost) to my doorstep, and since the Austin library nearest my house has a drive-thru, well, I’ve been going a bit nuts with my holds (despite their threat that you’ll have to pay $1 per book if you don’t pick them up within 10 days of your request being fulfilled). I am, in a word, voracious. Always have been. I was the kid who checked out stacks of books, and once a little girl saw me with my pile and whispered to her mother, “Look at all the books she has, mommy!” The mother whispered back, “She’s not going to read them all.” I turned to face them and said, “Yes I am!”

That child was undoubtedly scarred for life, but you get my point. I’m an unstoppable reading machine. So now it’s time to step it up a notch and really get serious. Thus, I pledge to join the ranks of the Shakespeare and Company writers, from afar. Tonight I’ve got a few hours left to kill Under the Tuscan Sun. Let’s do this thing!

Who’s with me?

I’ve applied for a job in NYC, because that’s where publishing happens in the United States. You can say all you like that location no longer matters, that everyone can work remotely from their home offices, and to some extent that’s true, but if you want to learn how the old-school publishers do their thing, you’d best move to the heart of it all.

New. York. City.

(I keep hearing that old Pace Picante sauce commercial in my mind: “That stuff’s made in New York City!” “NEW YORK CITY?!”)

I haven’t lived there in about a decade, and I’m still not sure whether I miss the place. In some ways I definitely do. New York has the best subway system in the world, and I dare anyone to say otherwise. Sure, it may take you an hour and a half to get from your apartment in the Bronx to the airport in Queens because you have to go through Manhattan by subway and bus in order to take the cheapskate route, but it can be done. Show me Austin’s subway system, pal. And riddle me this, while you’re at it: why did CapMetro just raise the fares on the express bus from $1.50 to $2.50—a 75% increase overnight? Shouldn’t that be illegal?

Anyway, back to my original point, which was this: New York is a city I’ve loved and hated. I’ve loved its big-city glamour, the ability to easily get around no matter what time of day via subway, the crazies, the zanies, and the only-in-New-Yorkers. I’ve loved Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (my comparison chart for all museums), the NYC library system, the pizza, and the glamour of being able to say “I’m from New York,” like it’s the center of the universe, when anyone asks.

I’ve hated New York, too, of course. It’s dirty, it’s impersonal, it’s full of yuppie scumbags and jerkoffs who think they own the universe just because they live on the Upper East (or West) Side. There are total degenerates looking to grope you on the subway. The place is often best described as an open-air insane asylum. There are hazards on every street corner. A single gal has got to be sharp in that concrete jungle. It’s nothing like Sex and the City, or any one of millions of rom-coms (When Harry Met Sally, anyone?), and for that I am bitter.

Throgs Neck Bridge, via Wikimedia

But you know what? I miss it, too. And what’s more, I miss being in the know about all the latest and greatest. I miss exploring everything that city has to offer. I miss the hustle and bustle. I miss driving my crummy Chevy Celebrity late at night down the West Side Highway, doors locked, windows up tight, just staring at all the sights. I miss sitting by the water with a cup of crappy coffee and waiting for the lights on the Throgs Neck Bridge to blink out, like they always do, sometime during the night and totally at random—a lit-up string of pearls winking out of sight. I used to stare at those blue lights on lonely nights in the Bronx, feeling oddly comforted, like if one beautiful thing were in my field of vision, then everything couldn’t be that bad.

So I applied for a job in NYC, even though I’ve just moved to Austin. Even though I would love to get to know this place better. Even though there are a million little things that drive me crazy about NYC. Because, ultimately, I think I belong there, along with the man of my dreams (who also belongs there, as an artist and musician), exploring that city together, sharing the greatest city in the world.

I’ll let you know how that roll of the dice turns out once I know myself. In the meantime, wish me luck.