THE ART OF BROWNSVILLE - COMMENTS

I went to home for the weekend and the drive wears me out more and more each time. But it also goes by faster. It's goes and feel like this...

Brownsville(77)/pass/Harlingen(20minutes)/pass/Raymondville(1 hr)/pass/checkpoint(1.5hrs)/pass/What reststop?(Sarita)/pass/Kingsville(2 hrs)/pass/Robston(Corpus)(2.5hrs)/pass/I-37/pass/Mathis(359)(2.75hrs)/pass/Skidmore(181)/pass/Petus(3 hrs into drive and rest stop)/pass/Karnes City(123)(3.5hrs)/pass/Sequin(4.25 hrs)/pass/San Marcos(1-35)(4.5 hrs)/pass/AUSTIN!!!/Destination made 5 hrs later!

And somehow I have managed to bring this trip to 5 hours after learning where the speed traps are (Driscoll, Corpus, Beeville), where I can speed past 75mh (the area between Raymondville and Kingsville and the hill country), how to keep good speed (70-85pmh) and to keep a good CD collection at hand!

I went home early this year to attend my aunt's funeral and tried to spend as much time with my family as usual. I caught some of the Charro festivites and attended the International Parade and went to the carnival..followed by my usual throw-up session. I think it will become habit now or something...I am slowly making my decent to being that person that goes to the carnival to walk and do some cheap gambling and watch and wait for other people to go on rides.

Okay. enough about me! So what is the news of Brownsville art...

Amigos Artistas is hosting an art exhibition of Mexican artists at the Historc Brownsville Museum located on Madison and 7th behind the Brownsville Police Station. Sadlly I did not get to catch it but I will definitely catch it during Spring Break. I hear it's a good show so stop buy.

I saw more hip hop grafitti driving along Jefferson and I think somewhere between 3rd and 5th st. The throw-ups had a daring use of bright color and I was impressed with it's clean edges and fills, especially this nice one that said PARRA (i am guessing the name of the barrio gang) but again, the tags were gang glorification and a bit stenciled (Old English font), which make it look more like a sign and less like "writing". I mean, in the end grafitti is grafitti, but I always like the mystery and scent (figuratively speaking) left from anomymous alias writers who use individual style and creative freedom in their writing. The PARRA throw-up is almost so graphic that I want to compare it it to how big corportaions build architectural marvels to glorify their own success or power. Which I guess it a perfect analogy since gang graffiti is a show of power or control of a certain territory as is architecture for big corporations (Ex. the Manhattan Skyline). ofcourse, its so easy to go into a Phallic analogy with this, but I won't...this topic warrants so much more research on my part to go into a cheap sexual analysis.

Oscar Casares was at UT-Austin this past Monday and read from his book Brownsville Stories at the Texas Union. I didn't get to see him since I didn't know about him being in town, but Frank did get to see him and I heard it was a pretty good session. Rumor has it he's up for a position at UT-Austin. That's great for him but it's also rather sad, because it seems to add proof to the Brownsville brain drain theory. Can Brownsville retain the talent it filters out to the world? Wouldn't the talents of the bright individuals from Brownsville be better served in their own community, or as ambassdors to outside communities? These are major questions that are going to be coming up more often in the future as higher education becomes a greater role in Brownsville society and culture. As it is UTB has alreasy passed an 11,000 enrollment and more and more high school students are attending colleges outside of Brownsville. But how much of this education is going back to Brownsville?