It's Batty! It's Opera!

Austin Lyric Opera (and Esther's Follies) reimagined Die Fledermaus as "The Bat." With Strauss' beautiful music came hilarious English lyrics full of inside jokes and costumes and sets evoking our fair city at its most, um, outrageous. At the after party, Katherine Shileds (who wore a silver wig as a member of the chorus) sported these bat wings. She said the costume came with a black 'halo' but it looked silly. Bat wings, though, perfectly elegant. You can still run out and buy tickets to see this at the Long Center. Couldn't be more Austin.

A Little More Mascara

Last night at Austin Cabaret Theater, the theater's producer, Stuart Moulton, did a show himself. He's a great producer and brings a lot of cool acts to us. Last night, though, he took the stage with a band and a couple of helpers and put on quite a show himself. He did a finale of the transvestite lament (or celebration?) "A Little More Mascara." It was a good show and the dinner before in the dining room of The Mansion at Judge's Hill and the show made a nice birthday for one of the friends we'd invited. If only he'd told us it was his birthday before!

Art on Burnet

On Burnet, a bit north of 45th Street this old stone house has turned into the Art Pad. A place to send the kids for projects this summer? Or a spot to get your inner creative mojo going?

Unnatural World

I understand the choice of palm trees for this plaza on the south of the 360 building and even I guess on the pool deck. What else has the scale to instantly compete with a tall building. And maybe this one, sheltered by the building will survive. Sometimes palm trees in Austin meet a cruel fate. Anyway, I like this photo looking up at the building and catching the top of the palm and the deco decoration on the garage.

Wet Land

The little park behind Central Market on Lamar, extending to Guadalupe, has a wet land with a pond promoting these aquatic plants, ducks and fish apparently. When my visiting little ones threw pizza crusts into the pond for the ducks, hundreds of little minnows would attack them, propelling them across the water like little boats.

Looking Out Into Space!

Those are my shoes in the foreground. Just beyond is an area of the pool marked "four inches" and '"NO DIVING." Well, no. Those recliners are in the water. Across the pool are people enjoying the 360 Condo Grand Opening and beyond that a drop of nine stories to the ground. That's a bit of the Monarch apartments to the right and soon I think the Spring Condos will loom into view. (That project seems to be going at a snail's pace. But their marketing is good because people ask me if I'm moving there all the time.)

Chocolate Bacon

There's no other way to say it. Chocolate bacon. While my older great nephews shopped for candy using a bucket to choose from hundreds of old-fashioned confections this lady coated bacon with chocolate at the fine confection counter. Big Top Candy Shop also sells traditional shop fountain drinks. I thought it would be a disaster for the nephews, but my niece unwrapped a lollipop for the little one and gave the clerk the wrapper and he sat by me happily while the older boys where given free rein to pick some confections with a little help from mom in deciding the limits of decency. To balance we stopped by Farm to Market Grocery and got organic milk for them. I didn't taste the chocolate bacon, but I think it goes on the list of things I have to try before I die. We've shown Big Top's candies before but we thought they deserved another feature for chocolate bacon!

I see on the WEB that the Big Top folks also own Monkey See, Monkey Do featured here once before. Amusing.