The last time I spoke with Dad McMains on the phone, he mentioned that he was slated to speak at a conference in Las Vegas in September, 2001. I mentioned to Kathy that I thought it would be fun to go out there with him, and to my surprise, she said “I think you ought to go. I’ll take care of the kids.” So, recalling that Ross had mentioned en passant that it would be fun to hit Vegas sometime, I asked him if he’d be interested in crashing Dad’s conference, to which he responded an enthusiastic affirmative. Then I remembered that Chris and Ross had a great time together when he was out west, and that we hadn’t had a time to all get together for ages. I fired off an email to him, and he duplicated Ross’ response. So, it looks like not only will I finally get to see Blue Man Group in person, but I’ll get to do it with 3 of my favorite people! In Ross’ words, I am SUCH A HAPPY MONKEY!

I really like the days before holidays, as everyone in Austin seems to take off early, making my commute almost pleasant.

We’re getting ready to have family over tomorrow for Thanksgiving dinner. I think it’s the first big holiday meal we’ve hosted, and we’re looking forward to it quite a bit. I’m going to make cranberry salsa for a bit of seasonal regional flavor.

The Korg Trinity keyboard I’d bought on eBay arrived yesterday, and I spent a happy afternoon getting to know it. The sounds themselves are of course great, but the fun really began when I fired up the sequencer and started layering dance rhythms over pipe organs, marimbas, and panpipes. What can I say — I want to be Mannheim Steamroller when I grow up.

Christopher Guest, of This is Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman fame, brings on another documentary style comedy. Best in Show focuses on the world of Dog Shows and the people and hounds that inhabit them. Though not quite as funny as Guffman, there are bits that make the whole thing worthwhile. The interplay between the announcers at the show is marvelous, Guest’s portrayal of a southern man who discovers his true gifts is great, and the Busy Bee crisis caused my Palm Pilot to fall out of my pocket. I don’t think the big screen adds much, but it’s not to be missed once it gets to video.

The 1960 film version of H.G. Wells’ classic, The Time Machine, is a fun romp. Though the pacing is a bit slower than modern films, it clips along nicely once it gets started, with some fine time-lapse photography during the time travel scenes. The acting is serviceable, and the Moorlocks appropriately scary looking, especially when their pants pull down a bit too low in back as if they’re some kind of far-future refrigerator repairmen. Actor trivia: Rod Taylor, who plays the lead in this film, also voiced Pongo for 101 Dalmatians. (The real version with no Glen Close to be seen.)

Mel Gibson has a pretty credible American accent, I’ll give him that. But that’s pretty much where the credibility in The Patriot ends. The historical aspects of it are a bit goofy, the portrayal of the British ridiculously one-sided, and much of the plot is predictable melodrama. But once one starts thinking of it more in terms of Zorro than Glory, it becomes a fairly enjoyable romp through Revolutionary War Lite. It’s worth seeing for entertainment, but not if you really want to learn anything about history. Looking at Roland Emmerich’s Film History gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect: Independence Day with rifles.

My friend Angela Doss is going to a Paul Simon concert this weekend, and has a chance of meeting him. She asked if there were any questions I had for the legendary musician. These are all I could come up with:

“Paul Simon, how do you get your whites so white?”

“Why didn’t you ever tell Art to get a haircut?”

“During the Graceland tour, did you pay that guy who only played one note every other measure less than you paid the rest of the band?”

“Now that you’re older and more experienced, do you still think that it’s all happening at the zoo?”

“You remember when…when you and Art…y’know…played in New York…in Central…in Central Park? Y’know? You remember that? Yeah. That was awesome!”

“Do you have any insight into Fermat’s last theorum? I mean, that so-called solution from a few years back couldn’t possibly have been what Fermat was thinking about, since it’s obviously not ‘elegant’ and wouldn’t have fit into the book, much less the margin.”

Thanks for delivering these to the one man who’s capable of answering them.

Sean

Today I took out Emily and Abigail for a wonderful romp through Austin. We started at the Texas Book Festival, where my friend Paul Hightower had alerted me he’d be manning a booth for the weekend. It took us quite a while to get past the storytelling and crafts tents, where the girls spent a delighted 90 minutes, but we finally were able to track down Paul and get in some visiting. He and some of his family members are starting Upstream Press, a publishing company that will be doing both traditional paper-based publishing and electronic educational materials. After the book festival, we took a quick tour of the awe-inspiring Texas Capitol Building, an enormous edifice constructed of Texas pink granite. From there, we started off for lunch. Midway through the drive, I realized that we were only four blocks away from Things Celtic, a store in Austin I’ve heard advertised on NPR I’ve been wanting to stop by and check out for ages. The girls and I spend a half-hour rooting through all of their wonderful stuff, which included pennywhistles & bodhrans, jewelry, kilts, books on Celtic history and art, various celtic crosses and artwork, and much more. I eventually bought them each a little book of temporary Celtic tatoos, Kathy a lovely matted illuminated rendering of a traditional Irish blessing, and myself a pennywhistle with the Guinness logo emblazoned upon it. (It doesn’t play quite as well as my Susatos, but it’s not bad.) Finally, we made it to The Hula Hut, an unusual eatery I’ve been wanting to check out since we moved to Austin, which combines Mexican and Polynesian cuisines with some great results. We sat at our booth, munching down goodies and applying temporary tatoos to each other, making our plans to surprise Kathy when we came home by telling her that I’d taken the kids to the tatoo parlor as part of our romp. Knowing me as well as she does, she didn’t believe it for an instant.

Thanks to Conversant, the excellent system I use to manage this website, you’ve always been able to subscribe to the site via email. Unfortunately, until now the method for doing so has been buried deeply in the member preference pages. But now if you’d like to participate in the goings-on here, all you have to do is to send an email to McMains-subscribe@free-conversant.com. This will create an account for you if you don’t have one already and subscribe you to the email version of the site. Conversely, if you get tired of the informed and elucidatory discussions that go on here and prefer to return to the dark night of loneliness and ignorance, you can do so by sending an email to McMains-unsubscribe@free-conversant.com.

The latest McMains family update is up on the home page. The big news is Maggie’s arrival, along with Kathy’s latest renovations, a new instrument in Sean’s collection, an update on the progress of church, and the latest kiddo news.

Frank McCourt’s second memoir ‘Tis traces his life from the time he arrives in America as a young man to the death of his parents several decades later. As with Angela’s Ashes, it is delightful story telling, alternately poignant, hilarious, and thoughtful. Interestingly, some of the episodes portrayed in the film version of Angela’s Ashes were taken from this book, rather than the previous one. If you’re interested in the Irish experience, both in Ireland and America, or you just enjoy good storytelling, give this one a read.