It is still light when, stuck
in the sludge of another thick, hot, Texas summer evening, I start moving in
slow motion, almost wishing I still lived the kind of life where this heat
called for slow but serious and steady drinking. When I first moved to Texas —
and for many years after — I hated this heat. Now, I welcome the way it seeps
into my bones after work, weighting me down and wringing me out. I welcome the
way it saturates the day and pervades the house.
Instead of a drink, I find my son, and we go swimming at one of the
neighborhood pools. We do this almost every night; it is a good way of closing
the day.
The order of the work of putting out this newspaper, which grows ever more
orderly, butts up against this summer pace. The heat, the sun, the air tell you
to slow down, to soak it up, to move with the heat and not against it. Around
us, Austin, which used to be slow and lazy in the summer, bustles as though
there were a light freeze expected. In the middle of this boom, the weather
doesn’t make a difference. Here at the Chronicle, the summer, once slow
and leisurely, is now just work against a hotter setting. But every evening
there is the pool.
There should probably be some warm, clean segue here into the Short Story
Contest and how proud we are to sponsor it again this year. Something about
reading by the pool, maybe, or about how summer is just a long short story or
somesuch. But I can’t figure it out. The Short Story Contest has always been
close to the Chronicle‘s heart, though, encouraging our readers to
write.
Instead, this: Five years and literally thousands of stories after this
competition began, the winners of this year’s event will read their winning
submissions at 2pm, Sunday, July 14 at Book People. This event is co-sponsored
by Book People, the Chronicle, Salado Creek Amber, Whole Foods, and
107.1 KGSR. We thank all the writers who submitted stories, all the judges, all
the sponsors, and everyone who helped make this contest happen.
As part of the Austin Film
Society’s Film Noir series, I will introduce Jacque Tourneur’s brilliant Out
of the Past next Wednesday, July 17, at Dobie Theatre, 7:30pm. This
screening is being presented by the AFS (without the assistance of Nancy
Schafer). n
This article appears in July 12 • 1996 and July 12 • 1996 (Cover).