More adventures with Stan
A successful Thanksgiving meal at our student progeny’s house, but also a complication in that, being graduate student poor, our children have limited numbers of cutlery and, having corrected a similar problem at our own house recently (where for years and years silverware disappeared nearly just as quickly as we layed them [...]

[Read more →]

A note from Bill
Bill says “Even a roadkill kitty like me has plenty to be thankful for. What’s the matter with you?
“And remember: it’s not about turkeys.”

[Read more →]

Traveling with Stan
So Tuesday gets here and most of the day we’re standing around as often happens when it’s time to travel and waiting on someone else to make the move: “Are you going to pack?” “I’ll pack when I see you packing.” “Wait, wait. I just have to write this couple of checks for [...]

[Read more →]

A direction from Stan
Go to the NPR site and listen to the little collection of Hot Club jazz a la Django (including a Django with Grapelli and a Grapelli with Grapelli!). Don’t, especially, skip “It Don’t Mean a Thing.”

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook

…never, never, do I tire of the several square miles of downtown Brownsville, say from Palm Boulevard east, north to the expressway, east to another part of the expressway and south, ever south, to the river ….
…a rooster crows. I look into backyards; it still crows, and I can’t find it.
…and a mailman [...]

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook
…highway worker in north Texas once told me, “Be happy you ain’t!” when looking at a family in a broken-down car, kids in rags, parents arguing …. I try to recall his words, when, for instance ….
- A north wind rips into the bike, and it slows to a wobble. I think of [...]

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook
…and the best moment of the day as sleep nears, the greatest accomplishment ….
…saw two teens walking last night, and I asked them if they wanted to see high Jupiter and low Venus; they said they did, so I got them to a clear spot in the tree-lined street and pointed out the [...]

[Read more →]

A note from Stan
It’s more than blogs, now, although it’s good to see that political observer Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo and Will Bunch have noted the indictments in Willacy County.  The Associated Press has a story out as does Reuters and Dan Froomkin has noted the occurrence in a column on the culpabilities [...]

[Read more →]

A notice from Brian Godinez
You are cordially invited to attend the 3rd Imagine Brownsville Comprehensive Plan Public Workshop.
The event is on Thursday December 4, 6:00pm @ the Brownsville Events Center.
Purpose of the public workshop is to provide an update on the Brownsville Comprehensive Plan project and present the core elements of the comprehensive plan for [...]

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook
…anger flashes, when the driver zips around the corner, a wide turn, and rips into his divorced wife’s driveway ….
…anger flashes when a woman drives up to a man’s home, dumps a garbage bag full of his clothes in the street, yells at him as he comes out of the house and drives [...]

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook
…the large red purse, covered with white dust, is on the abandoned railroad bed. I pick it up, rifle its contents and find some addresses and phone numbers.
I carry it home, and then dump the contents on the living room floor, looking for a number that I can call for information.
I recall my [...]

[Read more →]

An announcement from Virginia Gause
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND
BIRDING & NATURE CENTER
LOGO CONTEST

OVERVIEW
Those who are talented in art and graphic designs are encouraged to submit their unique, individual creation to the South Padre Island Economic Development Corporation for consideration as our official Logo.  The winner will not only receive area-wide recognition for your work, you [...]

[Read more →]

Observations by Stan
Monday morning and we’ve cleaned out the refrigerator pretty much and the shelves have a lean and hungry look to them, so off to the grocery. It’s a good time to go–not a lot of other customers to contend with although there are a lot of vendors stocking up shelves and blocking aisles.
This [...]

[Read more →]

A call to action from Planned Parenthood
The Bush administration promised not to issue any new regulations after November 1. But now, it is poised to implement a rule that could allow individual health care providers to redefine abortion to include the most common forms of birth control — and then refuse to provide these basic [...]

[Read more →]

A note from Virginia Gause

AMERICAN ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
AND
TEXAS PAINTER DOROTHY HOOD

GUEST SPEAKER
Dr. Andrea Pappas
Professor of Art History, Santa Clara University, California
3:00pm, November 15, 2008
Brownsville Museum of Fine Art

Dr. Pappas will be speaking in conjunction with the current BMFA exhibition, Dorothy Hood: A Pioneer Modernist. A published scholar of American Abstract Expressionism, Dr. Pappas will be speaking [...]

[Read more →]

From Gene’s  Notebook
…friend, who won’t usually write … letters, emails, name it, told me to write a line or two about dogs. I will.
…how in the hell can people shine their cars, dress to the nines, daintily avoid wet grass, thorn bushes …and also keep their dogs tied in filthy grass, piles of shit, never [...]

[Read more →]

A poem by Patricia A.
I went around and ’round
and everybody smelled.
I moved away to a new place,
but everybody there also smelled.
I fled again to no avail
for everywhere I went, everybody smelled.
And then, amid a moment of resigned aloneness,
I smelled myself
and I was the source of the stench.

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook
…snow on the frozen fields; one shot, from the fence line, drops the distant deer,
blood on the snow …
…at the Legion and the VFW, the vets drink, and talk war, and they should, it’s Veteran’s Day ….
…mist and fog on the black and wet and twisting road up to Canada, or down
to Massachusetts, [...]

[Read more →]

A brief report from Stan

Saturday marked the second weekend Brownsville’s new Farmers’ Market opened at Linear Park between Sixth and Seventh Streets, and it appearsto be off to a healthy start. Plus the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts set out free coffee and admission to promote its most recent exhibit.

We arrived fairly early, quarter after [...]

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook
…my uncles, who lived within the same mile all their lives, eight decades plus, had many tales, and I’m starting to feel the same, two decades plus minus a move ….
…the elderly owners of the fruit store are gone, same for younger family members, but when one of the owners, a man, was [...]

[Read more →]

A poem by Gene Novogrodsky
Six women leave a mid-morning study session;
They walk into a drizzle.
They laugh.
A horizontal of six, jeans and skirts and dresses Touching.
Three teen-age girls, cross the bridge, hold hands,
Walk to a city bus, going to a local school,
Three in a horizontal, laughing, hands connected ….
Men: and their hunts, their ball teams,
Even their [...]

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook
…harvesting tangerines, oranges, grapefruit, lemon grass and basil for the every Saturday Brownsville Farmers Market, and I know we will plant more come Spring and next Fall, and even plant several more fruit trees …. Exciting this connection with the earth …and may every home in the city have a garden, fruit trees, [...]

[Read more →]

From Gene’s Notebook
…did my share of US hitchhiking, and even a little in Canada and Mexico, and a mile or two in Nicaragua ….
One day, out on 281, I was thumbing, and a pickup stopped. The driver welcomed me in, and then said, “Maybe you can help. I have a new job out of [...]

[Read more →]

An announcement from Virginia Gause
Steven Schneider, Professor of English and Director of New Programs and Special Projects in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas Pan-American, has published a new book of poems entitled Unexpected Guests (Blue Light Press, 2008). He will launch the book with a reading and book [...]

[Read more →]

An announcement from Virginia Gause
Don’t miss the McAllen ISD storytellers at the STC Quinceañera Community Day Celebration, Saturday November 8th at the South Texas College Pecan Campus library in McAllen. (The library is located at the corner of Pecan and 29th Street.)
Kids Corner (1st floor)
10 – 10:30 am [...]

[Read more →]