[ transplog ]

Hurricane Alex did not visit us on the Gulf Coast, despite showing an early inclination for our fair city. Instead she gifted Houston with rain and lots of it. In the past two days, I've seen plump drops flicking from the skies and turbo-charged dashes of rain and sideways swirling masses of rain.

And today on the drive home, I spotted a new water feature in the neighborhood streets...

Rain comes down, sewer fills up

The forecast for this weekend offers more of the same. That means slogging again through urban ponds and wrestling with stubbornly inverted umbrellas. (And count Houston lucky if no homes or streets flood.)

And I hope that Alex moves on, soon. Fireworks! We need fireworks.

Once a year, Liendo Plantation in Hempstead Texas indulges in time travel. The Red Brahman cattle are replaced by reenactors, both Federal and Confederate.

With a digital SLR, capturing the frenzy of battle and camp life becomes simple. But aging the pixels, that's trickier.

Liendo 2009 gallery
*Many thanks to a Gavin Phillips present, brownsoft, which brings out the rich textures and contrasts in glorious sepia tones.

Houston, It's Worth It: Ike is a book that celebrates the city's dogged and sometimes wry recovery from the hurricane's visit in September 2008. It arrives on Amazon and a few local bookstores in a timely manner, on September 12th: link to Amazon.

Houston, It's Worth It: Ike [5411] by transpixt

I offer some counsel to the graffiti-istes who decorate the brick walls behind my house. Hone your craft as you wish—creep to any public wall under cover of night and do what you will—but please consider both the relevance and impact of your message.

To wit, I offer the following:
Exhibit A: Graffiti with short-lived relevance.

I suspect its relevance is short-lived, like a tattered billboard that offers a half-off sale today only or a TV spot for a rebate that expired last week. But really what I'd like from my local graffiti-istes is something more substantial: an epigram, an imponderable to ponder whilst I brush my teeth. That said, I do enjoy the subtle way that you've signed your work.

Exhibit B: More to ponder.

Now this work from the graffiti-istes offers more to ponder: a simple act of labeling that which lies , a comment on the provenance of the building material, a remark on contemporary political debate — what? Although I can only see this exhibit by contorting myself over the sink, I rather like it and the multiplicity of meanings it suggests.