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The Texas Bushes

Since my recent foray into Texas, I've become a Texas Monthly nut. Last month they had a terrific piece (not available online without subscription, but thank god for Google cached content) about the Bush legend in Texas. Great read!

"Putting your name on Texas is [not] all that easy. Lyndon Johnson did it (better yet, he monogrammed us) and also got to lead the free world for a while. Yet between LBJ and the Bushes was a two-decade interregnum in which Texas voters strongly trended Republican but neither party could put the other away. It took both the Bushes to pull off the remarkable feat of rebranding this contested turf as their dynastic homeland—and whoever hopes to claim future naming rights to our state should take some notes on how a patrician New England family turned Texas into Bush Country. It wasn’t just brilliant political bean counting, chicanery, or a masterstroke of political strategy. Texas is a storytelling culture, and the Bushes told a story about Texas that was so good they got to put their name on our state."

"Much like an epic in an oral tradition, the Bush story was composed of threads of history, myth, and previous narratives, and it evolved over time, which is why it held its force during two of the most transforming decades in Texas history. But at its heart was a powerful, patriarchal, almost biblical tale. It may have lacked the sheer moral drama of Exodus—that was LBJ’s Texas narrative, bringing the state out of the bondage of grinding poverty and Jim Crow racism. The story the Bushes told was more like the Book of Deuteronomy, a political covenant intended to bind a fractious, prolifically multiplying people and prepare them for the promised land."

Posted by Sebastian / Texas / June 30, 2008 /

Vancouver's floating foot problem

Despite my unabashed love affair with Vancouver, I'm the first to admit the city has the highest sketchiness-quotient of just about any big city on the continent. There is, of course, Vancouver's missing women, the bizarre Robert Pickton, drug violence, and so on...and now comes news about a little washed-up foot problem.

A fifth human foot was found washed ashore near Vancouver recently but the BBC reports, "Police have said there is no evidence that the feet were deliberately severed or removed by force." A few days later, Reuters reported that the sixth foot found was actually an animal’s paw and seaweed stuffed into a sock. WTF?

• Toronto Star: BC floats endless foot theories

Posted by Sebastian / Vancouver / June 21, 2008 /

Miami

I can't believe that as of yesterday, I'm 26. I flew down to Miami and enjoyed a quiet birthday spent at a lovely dinner on an island in Biscayne Bay with my friend Jeffrey, where, after enjoying a delish meal, we sipped on teas imported from Kuujjuaq.

Stayed at the Albion South Beach hotel, which was truly dirt cheap. I was unsure about the quality from its web site and its price, but it came highly recommended, and now I highly recommend it. Think Kimpton-wannabe. I was upgraded to the penthouse at check-in, which offered a large balcony for me to enjoy the view of Collins Ave and the beach beyond. Well, sort of. It was a torrential downpour for the 24 hours I was there, except for a brief moment at sunrise when I snapped this shot.

Posted by Sebastian / Florida / June 19, 2008 /

Random photo

I recently stumbled upon this photo -- perhaps the cutest one ever -- and instantly fell in love. It's Jerome Liebling's "Butterfly Boy, NYC" (1949), on exhibit all summer at the Yale Art Gallery.

Posted by Sebastian / Etceteras / June 17, 2008 /

The watch

Those of you still shopping for the perfect birthday gift for me are really cutting it close! There is only 48 hours to go. A quick and easy suggestion is this watch from Birks, bargain priced at $995 CAD, which is somewhere in the vicinity of $23,000 USD. Call the Vancouver flasgship today and ask for Dan, who assures me he can somehow get it shipped, through customs, and on my doorstep by my birthday!

Posted by Sebastian / June 16, 2008 /

SF

Before arriving in San Francisco a few days ago, I was warned to expect a heat wave. This of course, being the coldest city America, the "heat wave" meant mere 70-degree temps. But it sure has been spectacular -- especially for lazy, long afternoons in Dolores Park with the amazing views!

Posted by Sebastian / SF / June 14, 2008 /

Sam Sullivan out!

So the Vancouver mayor, whom I was so loud to support during his bid for office three years ago, has been defeated and is on his way out this fall. This week Sam Sullivan lost his party's mayoral nomination bid to Peter Ladner, a city councilor from Sullivan's Non-Partisan Association party. Municipal elections are set for this fall; in the meantime, Sullivan will continue to preside over Vancouver City Council, of which Ladner, of course, is a member. Awkward much?

In any event, Sullivan's ouster seems to be great news for Vancouver. I've yet to meet anyone who wasn't for him in the 2005 election, and who isn't against him now. The woman who dumped a large jug of icy Coca-Cola on Sullivan in the Downtown Eastside this week, since arrested by police, may have had the right idea. The Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason offered up a simple reason for Sullivan’s unpopularity: people “just can’t stand him."

Posted by Sebastian / Vancouver / June 9, 2008 /