What do boundaries sound like? Identifying Austin’s geo-political boundaries depends heavily on the ocular (although sight is insufficient in Austin’s case without the help of a math). There is no sonic marker when you cross the city boundary. Your cell phone does not beep. Your car radio does not alert you to the crossing. So here is what one point on the city limit sounds like.
Austin has long been known as a live music haven, boasting old school dance halls (The Broken Spoke, Donn’s Depot, you know), casual dive bars (everywhere on Dirty 6th), swollen festivals (SXSW, ACL, etc.). But what are the boundaries of that reputation? As many twangy acoustic guitar players and experimental pseudo-punk bands that clog the dark corners of Red 7, La Zona Rosa, even our own Cactus Cafe, where can we locate Austin music that doesn’t as readily cater to bars and fields?
Considering where the hidden nodes of Austin music might lie isn’t easy, for obvious reasons: they are hidden. You can’t readily stumble upon a classical music performance strolling down Red River on a Saturday night.
But we might still try; we might listen. The sounds of Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, the Butthole Surfers (adopted Austinites, I think, even if they emerged from San Antonio initially), and Spoon may dominate what we understand as the Austin music scene, but we can find a scene of a different sort - however quiet and voiceless it might seem amid the cacophony of punk and rock.
What does - will - the end of Austin sound like? A bang, a whimper, the Apeshits?
The end of Austin is a place. But it is not a place. When does it exist and for how long? Following is an iphone visual exposition on one clear thing we know about the “end” of Austin: if it is a place, it is not that place.
02.24.2007 - 5th & Nueces - Intel Austin implosion.
-KNEE-DEEP IN THE RUINS-
11.13.2011 - 5th & Nueces - Construction of Federal Courthouse continues.
the drought becomes acutely dangerous to life and land: fires threaten Austin in early September 2011.
For those who’ve met their end in Austin…
A bright day in Evergreen/Highland Cemetery. Although the cemetery began in 1891, the southwest corner is primarily populated by the more recently deceased. The restrooms seem to be out of order … Robert Piper, died 1969. Only a few square inches of his headstone retain the the colorful, glassy stone mixture that was glued onto it. The rest has been worked into the surrounding soil … A very recent burial, the soil is still dark with moisture and packed loose. Tire tracks suggest that a truck was used to help tramp the dirt down … The grave farthest back in Bethany Cemetery. In a secluded alcove of trees, this grave seems visited more often than the rest, possibly because of the privacy. Scattered around are candles, a prescription bottle, dried flowers, feathers, a condom wrapper, a bra, a smashed plate, and an old office chair … A short obelisk has cracked in half, the base rests on its side. “Not forgotten” … Going up the street that divides Oakwood Cemetery from the Oakwood Annex, the tall lights of Disch-Falk Field loom large and threaten to light well the crumbling and toppled headstones. Why not await some silent recognition under 200,000 candle-power? … And as I sat in the car, pulled over, wondering what I should be looking at, a man sidled across the street and through the cemetery gates. He walked from grave to grave, reading the headstones intently, glancing over his shoulder as I watched from a distance. I realized, watching him, I was very scared to be seen stalking through the graveyard … If “Disneyland exists because America does not,” what does Mickey’s cheeky death mask mean for passersby? Does he do anything to divert or reroute the suction of intensities from the terminal whirlpool he guards? … “Invest in taxes, there [sic] sure to go up,” among others … Many of the older graves in Oakwood have stalky bushes, maybe roses, planted in front of the headstones, but they were all cut off at the base. If the roots reached too deep, would the flowers be too haunting? … The Kreisle crypt. The most eye-catching part is the Master lock securing the gates; no in or out … The northeast corner of Oakwood is at the busy intersection of Comal and Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. If you catch yourself speeding by, take a breath and “don’t be in such a hurry.”
historical cemetery info: save austin cemeteries
Black Churches
“Over the past 25 years, middle-class African American households have left east Austin for the suburbs and other parts of Austin… Many community leaders talk today of how many of these families are still returning to churches in east Austin on Sunday morning. However, many of these same community leaders fear that the newly-suburban African American population will eventual build suburban churches closer to home, leaving the original houses of worship somewhat stranded. The potential impact of the loss of these churches and their community outreach and community care programs on the African American households left in east Austin could be devastating.”
-Ryan Robinson, City Demographer, City of Austin
In 1842, there was much controversy about the capital of Texas. Austin had been voted the capitol four years earlier. Early in the year, however, the Mexican army cast the Austin’s permanent status as capitol in doubt by staging two raids on nearby San Antonio.
In response to the threat that the Mexican army posed to the Republic of Texas archives, Republic of Texas President Sam Houston—who disdained Austin anyway, for its squalor—declared Washington-on-the-Brazos the interim capital. In December of 1842, Houston sent a small militia to remove the Republic’s archives from Austin.
Austin residents were not pleased. The statue below, located on 6th and Congress, depicts Angelina Eberly, an Austin resident who, putatively, fired a canon into the General Land Office, where the militia was loading the archives into wagons. The malitia beat a hasty retreat, and Austin residents soon banded together to track down the stolen archives. That same night, they chased the militia 18 miles into Travis county, and, the next morning, brandishing a recently arrived two-ton canon, they convinced the militiamen to return the archives.
Though Austin won the “archive war,” the ensuing years were not kind to the once-and-future capitol. Its population dipped below 200, its buildings crumbled, and its economy reverted to barter. One visitor called the city “the abode of bats, lizards, and stray cattle.” Another deplored, somewhat histrionically, “On entering the city of Austin, Lo! Dreariness and desolation presented themselves.”
Austin then seemed on the brink of oblivion. Only when Sam Houston stepped down from the Republic’s presidency did the Texas government return to Austin. In July of 1845 it was determined that Austin would again be the state capital until 1850. It has not since relinquished that title.
Below is a chart roughly detailing the growth of Austin from 1850 to the 21st century.
Data Source: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/demographics/tabular.htm
All historical narrative drawn from Austin: An Illustrated History by David Humphrey and William Crawford.
A city writes its history in the dirt. Not just the dirt that floats around the city, the grime we can see, but the stuff beneath the asphalt, the layers of stone that hold aquifers—the soil that stretches out beyond the last house. Yet we don’t think about the dirt too much. The chimerical glow of the shopping center is too bright to discern an unfettered horizon, the places out there where the soil comes to the surface.
It is all too easy to neglect dirt. The stuff seems like it’s everywhere, accumulating on shoes, the floor mats of cars, even the sides of windblown houses. Urban humans are inclined to expel dirt from their abodes, identifying it with uncleanliness.
Before arriving in Austin in Fall 2009, I envisioned the city as a place to sweat profusely, eat smoked meat and dream of large and recondite tattoos to garland my neck. Such fantasy was decisively curbed at the unforgettable hour of eight pm on August 17th of that year, marked by “an informal meet-and-greet” at an “authentic Austin” tarpaper bar-cum-chicken-shack lacking air conditioning or windows, illuminated only by low-hanging string lights that caught and lifted my glasses off of my face as soon as I stepped inside. None of this gnarled geography mattered much, though. The Austin that truly welcomed me registered as immaterial, an inland empire, a portable confessional chamber tailored for the perpetual review and atonement of intellectual sins. One’s discipline would follow you down the grocery aisles of dried beans and canned jalapeno in search of ninety-eight cent tortilla strips. It would rustle in the bed sheets by your feet. It would cheerfully accompany you into the shower. This was not a city, but an echoing solitary space capsule, and the air supply was limited.
FREEwayDOM
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour? In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling. And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
Passage from “On Freedom” in The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Archival photographs found at: www.texasfreeway.com/Austin/historic/photos/austin_historic_photos.shtml
Composite and Contemporary photographs by Therese T. Tran
read from the bottom to the top, from “south” to “north”
Elizabeth Ney Museum
Austin Heart Hospital|Austin State Hospital Receiving
Jimmy Johns
Blue Elephant
Paper Place
Beauty Store and Salon
Central Market
Heart Hospital Austin
Gables Apartments
Austin Jr Form Christmas at Caswell House
Central Park
Valero Corner Store
United States Postal Service
R and D Motors, WE FINANCE
Wanderland, roadside attraction
Psychic Reader
Jiffy Lube
Reed’s Cleaners
Verizon Wireless
P-Terry’s Hamburgers
Shell Station
Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Homes
N Salon
Austin Simply Fit
Cornerstone Financial Education
Midtown Ishmael Lawfirm
Balanced Hormones and Health
Central Chiropractic
KMFA Austin’s Classical Channel, classically Austin
McBride Guns|Radiant Plumbing
University Cyclery - Ride to school on a new bike
29th / Lamar
State Finance Commission Building
Permanent Makeup
Nothill Office Park
Adult Novice Tennis Classes
Caswell Tennis Center
Prudential Texas Realty
North Lamar Commercial
Dreyfus Antiques
MLK / Lamar
T3
Vote for Travis County Props 1-2 Election Day November 8th
Austin Independent School District Football Field
ALC Steaks
Austin Land and Cattle Company
ACE Tailors
Kick Pleat
The Tavern, Air Conditioned
Time Auto, We Finance
Seven-Eleven
COFFEE
Shoal Creek Restaurant
Shoal Creek Saloon, creekside patio
Avenue One Properties
Constant Communication
Book People
REI
Anthropologie
Whole Foods
Luke’s Locker
Riverside / Lamar — Crossing pfluger bridge
Taco Cabana
Hill Country Running Company
Bows and Arrows
Coffee and Smoothies
The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf
Taco Bell
Enterprise Rent-a-Car
Jack In the Box, Breakfast served all day
Mcdonald’s
Bicycle Sport Shop
Music Makers
Ridgeway’s Cash Pawn America
Howl
Unbridaled
The Uncommon Thread
Five Elements
Moss
Tara’s Dog Training
Uchi
The Spring
Chiropractic
Active Living Wealth and Healthcare Center
McCallister and Associates, Real Estate Services
Fine Arts Services Custom Framing
Rising Sun, Japanese Automotive Services
Cash Loans on Car Titles
Luke’s
Gibson - Sunday brunch, mustache Mondays, wine & cheese Wednesdays
Odd Duck Farm to Trailer
Gourdough’s Donuts
Brakes Plus
Genie Car Wash
Jiffy Lube
Texaco
Starbucks Coffee
Lamar’s Donuts
Topaz and Salon
Domino’s Pizza
Slick Willy’s Family Pool Hall
Darque Tan
Self Storage
Affordable Insurance
Longhorn Collision Center
Cartridge World
Mr. Nice Guy’s Smoke Shop
Mom’s Tatto
Beck Automotive
Discover Auto Sales
Austin Pizza
Get Motivated
Sola Clothing Accesory Gifts
Whittaker’s Auto Body and Paint
Harveson Auto Sales
Martin Electronic Transportation
Olivia - dinner nightlife brunch
Protape
Martinez Bros Taxidermist
CVS / Pharmacy
Office Depot
Lulu B’s
McCallister and Associates, Real Estate Services
Walden Park Massage
G-spot
Little Penguin Party Shop
American Propane
Liberty Tax Services
Beer Wine Liquor
Shag
Chris’s Liquor
Lu Pit Stop
Van’s Auto Parts
Animal Hosptial — Don’t let barcass eat your turkey day carcass
Eureeka’s Car Wash - laser wash
Used Trucks
Kyle Chapman Motor sales
For Lease Talisman Group Inc
Spaceman Moving Co
Verizon Wireless
Walgreens, menengitus vaccine now available
Taco Xpress, eat cheap live music
El Rancho, King of Mexican Food
Faith United Methodist Church
Texas Preparation Bookkeeping
Down Under Auto Sales
Austhin Auto Machine Shop
Juicebox and Soup Peddlar
Thundercloud Subs
Papalote Tacohouse
American Cleaners
Amy’s Icecream
Phil’s Icehouse
Castle Dental
Halfprice Books
Baker Street Pub and Grill
Rockin Tomato Pizza Company
Dog Almighty
Nails
UPS Store
Punch Jim
Subway
Torchy’s tacos
Andy’s Auto Electric
El Deco
Austin Furniture Consignment
Capital City Collision
Broken Spoke, dining and dancing
Muffler and Radiator Repair
Low Cost Car Insurance
Larry Nelson Boot Camp, Fujitsu
J Johnson Enterprises
Carter’s Transmissions and Auto Service
Brake Check
We finance, Your job, Your credit - Southwest Auto
Bill Munday South
Woodmoor Apartments
Golden Corral
Wendy’s
People’s Pharmacy, now serving organic pumpkin smoothies
Pro-Med Medical Care Center
Red Lobster
Pep Boys Auto
Pluckers Wings
Savers
Hancock Fabrics
Wells Fargo
Halloween Spirit Store
Cokesbury
Arty A Promart
Outback Steakhouse
Souper Salad
Austin Gift
Dollar Tree
Ben White / Lamar
Yoga Yoga
Bealls
Central Market
Whole Earth Provision
Treehouse
Westgate Cinema
Hyde Park Bar and Grill
Madam Mam’s Fine Thai Cuisine
Shell Gas Station
QVL Pharmacy
Castle Dental Center
Linus Brown Jr MD
Westgate Pet and Bird Hospital
South Austin Family Health Clinic
Tien Jin Chinese Restaurant
Texas Physical Therapy and Specialist
Funny Bone Defensive Driving
Achila Commerical
Color Salon
Family Practice Chiropracter
Black Swan Yoga
West Tower Village
Farmers Market at Sunset Valley, Saturdays 9am-1pm
Tony Burger Activity Center Austin Independent School District
Cannoli Joe’s, dinner 12.99 Sat Sun
Kohls
Red Robin
Brodie / Lamar
