February 18, 2020 @ 10:48 AM
Sip Brew Bar, Corner of Saint Mary’s & Houston
San Antonio, Texas
I like Starbucks, but I know when a store has gone rogue. The Starbucks at Houston and St. Mary’s has a lovely location, occupying a space on the sidewalk of the building housing the Majestic Theater. I walk into the interior, and I see that all of the plugs have been replaced with metal electrical boxes. Nothing for the laptop users to use for a charge. Hence, someone has decided to discourage studying or running a small business or writing a novella.
Most Starbucks, you see all these seekers, earphones in, staring at screens, working, hoping to catch a break, earn a degree, open a business. Not here. This Starbucks wants to just sell you drinks. I didn’t even look to see if the restroom was open.
I go across the street to Sip and I feel at home right away. There’s only a few plugs, and most are used to keep the Christmas lights in the window glowing. The staff welcomes me to use the one by the counter or the one in the cozy corner towards the back. I ask for a glass of water to go with my latte and the barista doesn’t push a bottle of water on me. A fustini sweating condensation keeps my glass full because in San Antonio, drink before you get thirsty. I find that the metal table out front satisfies my hunger to people watch and dash out sentences.
The Alamo stands south of here less than a mile, and it has already begun to suck me into a historical blackhole. Only a true historian can enter that hole and expect to emerge with a credible book or a play. I’ve already admitted to being a folklorist. I want to look up what was the karma that punished Santa Anna for allowing two hundred of the finest Texans and American frontiersmen to be slaughtered. James Bowie and Davy Crockett were already offering terms of surrender. The Tejanos, the Mexicans born in Texas, were granted quarter. The remainder were granted no quarter whatsoever. I want to search for the karmic punishment in Wikipedia, which hardly shows an impulse to scholarship.
The Alamo, like the Golden Gate Bridge or the White House, has become a symbolic location where people come to speak their truth. Yep, even the Trump Rally that marched around the green believed they were speaking truth to power, be it liberal power. I read aloud one of the flags as I filmed, “Trump 2020, No More Crap”, making it clear I was quoting the flag. The resulting TikTok video has screen two thousand times. It has put a lot of Trump supporters in touch with one another. I have one comment that has been “hearted” twenty times. I picked up plenty of followers, not that I’m going to schedule a meet and greet with them.
I am frustrated. The content that agrees most with my values barely hits eighty reads, which is static for TikTok. Almost every video hits eighty reads, probably all the search engines and analysis engines running over it, doing sentiment analysis. I roamed the San Antonio Riverwalk this morning and I discovered a plaque honoring the architect who drew up the plans for the bridges, the walks, the fountains and stairways. I made a video. It has gone nowhere.
The architect had to fight to keep the people who wanted to tame the floods by making the river a drain, nothing more than a sewer. H. H. Hugman drew up detailed plans, even showing where every tree should be planted. He talked to anyone who listened, planning boards to dining societies. When the Works Progress Administration began to fund projects in 1938, his landscape architecture was “shovel ready”. I feel I share a secret because I have little doubt most people walking the riverwalk or enjoying dinner along its course don't know his name.
He left his name of markers by the rather various fountains. He wrote H. H. Hugman AIA. But this is lettered H.H.HUGMANAIA. I wonder. I’ve heard of Beatlemania. But maybe I’m the first person to have Hugmanaia? I have written a San Antonio joke! AIA means that Hugman was a member of the American Institute of Architecture.
The High Line that ignited the Hudson Yards section of Manhattan came down to a live or die court fight. The elevated rail line that supports the High Line almost met the wrecking ball. The High Line and the San Antonio Riverwalk show what is possible when we let our designers create places to walk, meet and eat.
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