Not So Much With Teh Suck, Actually

So I'm driving away from Tiny Park Gallery near North Loop last Saturday afternoon.

I'm heading South on Guadalupe and I'm planning to stop & check out the new "Fugue States" show at grayDUCK Gallery off South First before attending the Ladies Are Funny Festival's PRO panel at Downtown's Hideout Theatre.

I mean, there's just that in itself: Two excellent visual-arts exhibitions that I'll be talking more about later – Oh, look, there's a review of Tiny Park's soon-to-close "Drawing Annual" show right here – and an information-rich, biz-demystifying discussion among professionals in the midst of the other distaff delights of LAFF.

Which could've been Sufficient Unto The Day, right?

But.

But, I say, the thing that really galvanized my appreciation of
this city's cultural scene … was the red swing I saw hanging
from a support over a sidewalk's corner just a block before I passed City Hall.

It was, I recognized, one of the many red swings
that had been installed around Austin in conjunction with the recent Fusebox Festival.

It was still there, the swing.

And it was in use: A man and a woman were gently pushing a little kid in that swing, right there in the middle of the city. And this family didn't look like they were fierce art aficionados or scenesters or whatever; at least, I mean, they weren't dressed in any style that signified hipsters-with-kids. They were just this family, having their day brightened by one of the installations that remained from Fusebox's glorious explosion of creative industry.

And that small act of goodness, that joyous and intentional intersection of art and community,
was happening in the middle of where you and I have chosen to live.

In the middle of a city that includes Tiny Park and grayDUCK and Mexic-Arte and Arthouse among its many galleries; that hosts the Ladies Are Funny Festival; that the Rude Mechs and the Golden Hornet Project and the White Ghost Shivers and Forklift and Spankdance call home; that has the West Austin Studio Tour coming up this weekend; and the New Media Art & Sound Summit (NMASS) on its way from the Church of the Friendly Ghost; and a gaming community to die (and be instantly re-spawned) for; and a culinary scene that gets even Anthony Bourdain drooling, and, and, and, gosh, so much that it tempts a person to Kickstarter enough funds
to throw Michael Corcoran a big ol' pity party, y'know what I'm saying?

But maybe that's just me.

Yeah: It's been suggested.

Maybe I'm easy? Like Sunday morning?

Eh – whatevs, citizen.

Thanks for reading, and check back here (often!) for more about some of
what's going on in a city where one enjoyable hell of a lot is always going on.