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We're at the movies.

The Limits of Control

I love Jim Jarmusch’s latest film! It uses few words.

"But words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind will soon encounter the limits of control."

~William S. Burroughs' essay, The Limits of Control

Eternal Slowdown

The Prince of Poverty Row Films

Minutiae

My friend bought me the cutest Diane for my birthday and I just discovered all the new Diane gear like different lenses and an adapter for instant photos. The Holga has also come a long way since i bought my first in 1999. The Holgawood?! I have a serious novelty/toy camera addiction. What's this cute Golden Half Camera? UGH! One at a time.

* Companies like Lomo, Shout Factory and Rhino make me happy.

*Looking forward to Serge Gainsbourgh: A Heroic Life, because I'm a biopic junkie and can't help it. I have to watch them all, the good,the bad and the truly ugly. According to Variety, there will also be a Sinatra biopic. Please Scorsese, no more Leonardo (de Crapio). It doesn't matter, I'll watch, I may cringe but I'll watch. I really wish the Jimmy Roselli biopic would finally make it to some director's hands.

*It's up to you when to start the summer at the Paramount, but tonight it is beginning with From Here to Eternity and Casablanca.

Luz Arcos

Ages ago my Grandmother told me about members in her family being murdered over sour milk. It was one of the many stories she had told me. She never did tell me there was a corrida based on that story. Luz Arcos by Los Hermanos Chavarria was recorded  in San Antonio for Columbia,  April 1931. This is a version by Los Pingüinos Del Norte released in 2005.

Luciano Barrientes had sold Luz Arcos some milk. Arcos returned the milk because he said it was spoiled and was given his money back. Barrientos then told him he would not sell milk to Arcos ever again because he was insulted and Arcos had such trouble with it. Arcos would purchase milk from the Barrientos to re-sell. Because the milk had been spoiled he lost his business for the day. 

Arcos was married with three children and yet was after one of Barrientos' girls. This could be the real reason Luciano Barrientos didn't want to do business with him anymore.  Perhaps this is the real reason Barrientos did not want Arcos returning to the store.  No one really knows what made Luz Arcos so angry on December 25, 1928, but he left the store angry and returned with a gun and shot my Grandmother's great-uncle and then shot his two sons.

What followed was a sensationalistic trial and a spectacle that lasted twenty months. He was sentenced to life in prison but the Barrientos widows wanted him to receive the death penalty. When transferred from the Bexar county prison to Huntsville,  Arcos had an expensive, custom made suit created to arrive at Huntsville in style. He made the most out of his ill gotten fame. He would be arrogant, and at times, humble depending on the audience. The Mexican-American newspaper, La Prensa, followed the Luz Arcos story and even encouraged him to write his memoirs to keep their readers in suspense.  There was a fascination with this criminal who shot three men in the Barrientos family in cold blood. Arcos' wife and mother claimed he was mentally unstable and prone to violent outburst that he would not remember later. San Antonio society women were defending him, following the trend set by the wife of a notorious Texas lawyer. On November 7, 1930, he got the chair and that was the end of Arcos.

Listening to the song for the first time left me feeling rather creeped out. I asked my Grandmother if she had ever heard it. She said, "Of course, it was on RCA Victor"...by that I knew she meant a 78. The Barrientos family was left destitute after the death of the three men. The farm, dairy and store that Luciano had owned were gone before the stock market crashed in 1929. He had come a long way from the simple fruit stand he had along the street in Eagle Pass.

Rain is a good idea

Rain in Austin makes everyone so happy. I love what it did to our garden and backyard and it made the weekend so lovely.

It was one of those nice long weekends. I passed up the the "biggest and most awesome" estate sale ever to go to the gym, visit a friend and run a few errands. Around 11ish the storm came through and we got a wonderful shower followed by nice, cool weather. The garden grew about a foot it seems. The tomatoes are plumping up and the cucumber vines are reaching.

A small evening soiree made me tres happy. My friend has this awesome dining room that overlooks her beautiful backyard. When she throws a get together you know you'll get farmer's market fresh tomatoes in some yummy dish, great music and great conversation. Sitting at her round table under the sparkly lights in her magical dining room was a lovely way to spend a Saturday evening after a good rain.

I discovered electrical tillers. I never looked into tillers assuming they were always huge, complicated, gas guzzling things that had no place in an urban backyard. This weekend I was introduced to this tiny, electrical machine that I could use a million times over. Maybe a tiller.

Brunch at Opal Divine's Penn Field is a good idea, so is watching West Side Story late on a Friday night, Sinatra when it's raining and always having the ingredients for caprese salad on hand. The weekend was filled with good ideas.

Tiny Minut Tiae

The mega estate sale was not this weekend. It is next weekend. So I have one more week to ponder it. Let me know if you'd like to come along. From past experiences, any estate sale promising to be the largest and most awesome estate sale ever, bombs. However, there is always an exception to the rule.

I used to garage sale on Saturday morning with my friend Chris. One morning we made it to an awesome South Austin yard sale. This was one dreamy sale. It was so awesome and dreamy in fact, we wondered if there was such a thing as a Garage Sale Forum because we were so moved to write of this once in a lifetime sale. One thing I remember coming home with was a 1940's Zenith turntable/shortwave radio console. Cosmetically it was as close to mint as you could get. Really beautiful. It was a cute piece. Never did work on it, took up space, tried to buy tubes for it and couldn't find them. They knew what they had when they sold it for $5. Here I was thinking I found gold. Memories of past garage sale purchases make me want to skip the estate sale completely and head for the farmer's market. This is cool, I feel I can already pass up this sale. I heard it was really awesome yesterday.

Tomatoes and squash are spotted in the garden. Shhhhhhh lets let them grow...

Flowers for Frank

"I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life."

~Jack Kerouac

Can I pass it all up?

I used to collect Enid Collins purses. Well, I began a collection of Enid Collins purses, got to a total of three and then left them behind when I moved out of an apartment years ago. I thought they were sort of ugly but I liked how they reminded me of my childhood because all my Grandmother's friends had them as did the older women in the neighborhood and at church. I remember being in a doctor's waiting room before I started school, All My Children was playing on an old black and white TV set in the lobby. I vividly recall looking around seeing some sparkly Enid Collins purses sitting obediently on the floor next to their owners. Of course I didn't know they were Enid Collins designer purses at the time, just that sparkly purse I loved to see. They really called my attention when I was a kid because of how colorful, sparkly and toy like they were.

They were best on a shelf, at least in my possession they were. Using them resulted in a broken sequin or scuffed bead. I realized at the time I was moving that owning them brought me no more or less happiness than the memory of them. So I left them behind. I didn't regret it, didn't miss them. I would have taken them but I ran out of boxes so I placed them in the laundry room of the building with a sign saying, "Free Vintage Stuff". I put everything I didn't want there and came back a few hours later to find everything was gone.

It's hard to keep from buying those things that remind me of my childhood but I'm doing pretty good. My friend and I are going to a mega estate sale in the hood this weekend. I am going to look, browse, check it out. I'm not even bringing cash. I really like checking out those old ranch homes with their long, dark hallways and pink bathrooms. I'm really going to check out the house.

Being a recovering vintageholic, I am hoping that I'll be able to view all these estate sale items in detail and then put them down. I am going to hold them, covet them but walk out of the house empty handed. If I can do this and feel good, I know I've recovered. I have already previewed the sale and it's going to be tough. I don't know, I may have to read Baudrillard's, The System of Objects‎ again.

Teehee

Fuzztop made it into Fuck You, Penguin!