There's a lot of talk from real estate developers about trying to make their big new structures as "Austin" as possible. Is it keeping the frontage of the old rail depot on Third and Lamar but leveling the building behind for apartments? Plastering pictures of guitars on the safety cloth around a building while you flatten the land behind it for lofts on Lamar?

It all depends on how you define Austin and preservation. In addition to its claims to musical and weirdness fame, our beloved 512 is a military town (did you know the distinctive circular Airport Hilton used to be the Strategic Air Command Center for the U.S. Air Force?) and a light-industrial center (we at the Chronicle should know: Our offices are in a converted brick-company showroom). Integrating these other traditions, and the architecture that came with it, is how local architect Michael Antenora shaped his approach to design and green construction.

Antenora's career-defining work was the redevelopment of the former Army Air Corps base at Penn Field. The mix of industrial renovation and people-friendly proportions has since become a distinctive component of the "Best of Austin" winner's commercial portfolio. Talking to Antenora recently, I discovered his viewpoint was that the project shouldn't be about flat-out demolition. "It was better to save the buildings and do something with them," he said. "But the question was: What?"

I don't know how many of us eventually found time last weekend for the big Thanksgiving payoff after hunting and gathering and then gathering again: gettin' down like a raccoon in your favorite socks with some groovy new books. I begged for, borrowed, and stole the time. Rain was welcome.

It seemed appropriate for a holiday so steeped in family memories that my first choice was Texas Quilts and Quilters: A Lone Star Legacy by Marcia Kaylakie (Texas Tech University Press, $39.95). A gorgeous monster of a book, it is so well-organized that after wading into what appeared to be a simple coffee-table affair one realizes that it is in fact a lengthy and important resource for Texas historians. Kaylakie has been turning a shiny needle on the national quilt scene for more than fifteen years, and conducts a wide array of lectures and workshops. It was also interesting to note that she is a curator of next month's art quilt exhibit, Eye of the Needle, at the Quattro Gallery here in Austin.

This book is beautifully designed around stunning photographs taken at such close range that you can almost smell cotton flour sacks and goodness. The type is large as well (note to self for gifting), lending even more immediacy to the material, which includes painstaking documentation for thirty-four Texas quilts created from 1870 to 2003, biographies of their creators, and the family photographs whose memories are surely found deep in the batting.

Hannukah is fast approaching (December 5th, I think), and my only question is:

Who's going to buy me this?

or this?

or this?

or this?

or this?

or this? (awwwww so cute! and sad!)

Send all donations to Andy Campbell c/o the Austin Chronicle!

The holidays are here, my friend - and if you're anything like me, you're pulling the covers over your head and wishing for spring. (Though not before cursing at the television, which is airing that Zales commercial for, like the 40th time.)

Luckily for us, the shopping part of the season can be accomplished entirely online. You don't need my help with that, but if you have a special graphic designer in your life, I have a few ideas for you - all sure to delight lovers of type and wielders of the mouse.

I don't know how to look at art. I always see people gazing, stroking chins, remarking on the "vulnerable tones" and "emotional inner landscape." That's fine and all, but thankfully it was also kind of impossible to do during the sixth East Austin Studio Tour, a sort of scavenger hunt to see as much as you possibly can in the alloted time. Yes, there's plenty of bad art (just say no to erotic bronze sculpture), but there was also plenty of "wow"-worthy stuff to peruse when I went EAST Saturday afternoon.

Pump Project Art Complex housed a dizzying collection of local artists, as did Big Medium, over in Bolm Studios. Down the street from Bolm, some very friendly polo-shirted boys listening to Ghostland Observatory invited us in to their house see their art, though it was clear they were already way in party mode. Local poster gurus/silk-screeners Obsolete Industries displayed their prints, including a Sonic Youth poster that I eyed in extremely vulnerable tones for at least 15 minutes. Dog House Studios collected the wonderful, surreal, and often zaftig paintings of Jennifer Balkan.

It used to be Robert E. Lee's plantation (or at least, he was the custodian for a time). Lee left when Virginia became part of the Confederacy. Then, the Union began to bury dead soldiers there, rendering the property unusable should the Lee family ever come back to reclaim it.

Damn Yankees.

This is Arlington National Cemetery, of course, and it's where I spent this past Friday - burying my cousin.

Christopher Loudon was killed in combat operations in Iraq on October 17, 2006. That was 13 months ago. At that time, my family and I attended the funeral services in Pennsylvania and paid our respects to his parents and brothers, as well as his young (suddenly widowed) wife.

The initial funeral felt foreign to me - mostly because it was a military affair. Marching soldiers, 21 shots, and "Taps" played out on a bugle. I was upset and deeply saddened. This was not the Chris I knew. The Chris I knew was a goofy, lanky guy - the first to crack a joke in an awkward situation. Perpetually picked on by his older brother, perpetually picking on his younger brother, Chris was a middle child. He was sweet to women, eternally playful, and yes, handsome in a quirky way. Chris was most definitely a catch.

But why am I writing about Chris in a design blog?

I am a visual person. I was upset by Chris' death but destroyed when I saw the casket. I knew that his family was in the deepest pain, but I didn't understand until I saw their faces. Likewise, it wasn't until I was standing in Arlington Cemetery, with its neat and orderly rows of small, white headstones, that I grasped the enormity of the tragedy, and also the meaning of Chris' life.

November 10, Austin Convention Center

When we left the Stitch Fashion Show and Guerrilla Craft Bazaar in the last gasps of Saturday night with the spats-like leg-warmers we had reclaimed from some other soul's long-forgotten sweater sleeves, we weren't feeling thrifty or clever, or even a little crunchy. Instead, the event, considered as the sum of its impressive and varied parts, brought sexy back to the sewing table. Women of every age, shape, size, and level of style-consciousness could, for once, all feel sexy for the same reason. What used to be, "It's not how you look, it's what you think," mutated to, "It's not how you look, it's who you wear," tonight becomes, "We like how you look, but it's really about what you make." Just to note, there were some beautiful male creatures there as well, but you know who you are.

What follows here is a fairly straight recounting of our impressions, as the sudden need for surger, notions, and abandoned knitwear is too seductive to ignore. On the way out we actually heard people musing about what they could do with their bright green admit-bracelets.

I'm a lighting fanatic. So much so, that my place is in danger of being too well lit!

But how can I resist a levitating lamp by upstart design firm Crealev?

Answer: I can't.

This is my cry for help.

They’re waterproof. They’re durable, cute, and generally cheap…(just don’t try to walk on fire with ’em, that most likely won't work). And they are stink-free. They’re Jelly Shoes, and like it or not, they’ve made a comeback into the 21st century.

Yeah, some say jellies are as ugly a cow’s ass, but this comes from a generation of Croc-wearin' freaks. Crocs (the oh-so-comfortable, inbred cousin-in-law of the jelly) are way uglier than a cow's ass. But they are comfy. We'll give them that.

While observing people in the creepy manner in which I often do, I noticed that one of the other 10 Megans in the room had on a rockin’ pair of jellies, slipper style. The slipper, or ballet design (also known as ‘flats,' of course, a recent fad themselves), had one little problem: The pretty little girl feet inside them couldn’t breath. Naturally funk followed, so the ladies with the cute shoes had stinky feet. No fun.

Needless to say, when I saw this Megan character with a pair of breathable, adorable, jelly flats, I'm sure I frightened her with my leg-humping enthusiasm:
“HOT SHIT! Where’d ya get those?!?!”
“Um,” (nervous blink) “Target, maybe?”