At the footstep of Camp Bullis, in the outskirts of San Antonio sits Eisenhower park. Reportedly one of the nicer places to visit and hike around but it happens to be on the opposite side of town from me. The easiest way to get there is by taking the 1604 loop but the construction around those parts is kinda crazy so I avoid it at all costs. I happen to have the week off and my niece was in town so I thought it would be a good idea to kill a little time with her this evening and exhaust the dog a bit before I split town tomorrow.
I can confirm that the park is indeed very nice. We didn’t explore much outside of the paved paths because I’m not sure how my niece will do on hikes yet. She young and full of energy, but she isn’t a fan of walking. I’d like to get back out there and check out some of the non-paved paths but i’ll check it out when I’m on my own with Canelo. Hopefully the stars will align again and we can knock it out on a random weekday morning I have off so that I can avoid some of the traffic that builds up on 1604.
Ya know, if there’s one thing I like about hiking with someone it’s the random conversations that can kinda organically occur. My niece was surprisingly quiet on this little venture, I tasked her with holding Canelo tightly on a leash and took the responsibility pretty seriously. I didn’t tell her about the Tower at the park so that was a little surprise. Her only observation was that “I can see where I get my eyebrows done from here”.
Peca's Pecado
Took in a lot arts over the weekend including a production of “Peca’s Pecado” at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio.
The play itself was ok, I learned a lot about the pedigree of the play on the evening of the performance. I wasn’t aware of its accolades and the many places it’s been performed. I admittedly got tickets because I misread “Petra” for “Berta” which happens to be the name of my mom, so I snagged a pair of tickets and surprised her with an evening of theater and eats. She didn’t particularly care too much for the performance, but we both agreed it had a good communal message.
The play centers around a sin that occurs at the very start of the play. Petra and her husband own a tortilla business and are having a hard time making ends meet. Petra was faced with a difficult decision of paying the staff or paying taxes…. she opted to help her workers and that has put the business in peril. To distract herself and her husband of all that she ordered Cable TV for the family because there was a 30 day free promotion. An absurd thing to do but I’m pretty sure I’ve made similar missteps in my lifetime. Pop Culture has always got me thru some tough times. I recall a number of times where I would forego eating to catch a concert or buy a CD I probably didn’t need. I digress…. included with the cable package was some premium channels that included a XXX Channel. Petra found her self channel surfing and found herself briefly watching Porn. This was her sin (pecado) and this thrusts her into a confession that results in a new local priest asking her to put on a production of the Virgin Mary. Later on in the play, we’re led to believe that statue of Mary in the Church (that goes missing) comes to life and helps resolve a number of issues in the community, Petra’s sin isn’t really revealed until the very end where she feels comfortable to tell her husband about what happened.
After leaving the performance I thought a lot about a handful of productions put on at the Guadalupe Arts Center and its made me think a lot about how I want and need to write some family stories in some capacity. the plan this week is to attempt to write and post three short stories about Christmas.
Writing isn’t the hard part, it’s more about having the courage to get into the creative process and allowing it to be digested warts and all. I remind myself that this is to an audience of none tho and that will make it all better.
Stage Right of the Guadalupe Theater
Wonderful World of Zines
Randomly saw a post the other day from Mitch Clem on Instagram, plugging his participation at San Antonio Zinefest. I didn’t have anything planned on Saturday, so I penciled in the fest as a possible thing to do during the day and then made it a point to check out when I saw that they were going to have some panel discussions on the topic of “Zines”.
I haven’t been to a Zine show since the days of STAPLE out in Austin, Texas. I admittedly didn’t really know where Zines were in 2023 and I was kinda shocked at how much it appeared to be THRIVING in and around San Antonio. UTSA has appears to have a program and community around Zines and people seem to be leveraging the ability to Self Publish at much lower costs and are cranking out self published works in Zine/Book/Large print formats that not only look professional but kinda collectable.
The best part of the day was getting to hear a guy by the name of Patrick Brooks talk about the history of Zines. I had no idea that they dated as far back as the 1920s and i didn’t realize that the synergy behind creating Zines then and now hasn’t really changed much. Its basically born out of needed to create, publish and share outward. I spent a lot of time thinking about print Zines and Electronic Zines…. not to sound like a purist but I did think a lot about the medium of print, the paper stock and the technical ability it takes to put something together that has incredible content. I left feeling inspired to sit down, write and collect feelings and thoughts together with the intent to just share.
