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| O. Henry sidewalk ATX April 2024 - Jake Katel |
Bet you never been to the O. Henry Museum in the Historic 6th St Area of Austin, Texas.
Bet you never even heard of O. Henry other than the candy bar.
Reason why is, that's all I knew either. Apparently the guy was a great writer who moved to Austin, Texas in the 1800s and changed history. I found this concrete writing of his while I was walking around looking for whatever I could find to take pictures of.
O. Henry was an outlaw poet who met his wife at a bricklaying ceremony for the State Capitol of Texas. He worked at a bank and wrote stories on the side, then got busted for embezzling, ran off to Honduras, where he coined the term "Banana Republic," came back to see his lady, who died of Tuberculosis, and served years in the penitentiary for his crime while still writing professionally from inside, using a mail drop and different pen names. Short stories. National magazines. When he got out, he moved to NYC, and that's where he got famous. But Austin still got love for the wily fox.
His museum is the best kind. Free and outside. A park.
As it turns out, I have great timing. For the very O. Henry guy I speak of is actually the King of "One of Austin's oldest weird events," according to the organizers of Great American Pun Off. 47th annual. Happening May 11, 2024.
A Pun Festival.
No.
A pun competition. A World Championship, no less.
That's hilarious.
Funnier than shit. Punopoly. Punder, Lightning, and Rain. Pungilistic battle. Puntasia. Puntagram. Pun crock. Punelope Cruz. The Pelopunesians puntificating punstantly for punternity for punternity tests over who started all this punster shit anyway. There is not a prepunderance of evidence. No turn left unpunned.
Organizers say, "The Austin Parks and Recreation Department’s O. Henry Museum, in collaboration with the Brush Square Museums Foundation, presents the 47th Annual O. Henry Museum Pun Off World Championships. The event will take place on May 11, 2024 from 10:00 am-6:00 pm at Brush Square Park, behind the O. Henry Museum at 409 E. 5th Street in Austin, TX. The event is free to the public and no ticket is required for admission, but additional details about the event can be found at punoff.com
I googled around to find out about this concrete poem and this is what I found: https://www.facebook.com/events/363105096750789
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| O. Henry sidewalk ATX April 2024 - Jake Katel |
It's all part of whatever is called the Brush Square Museums. According to AustinTexas.org, "Brush Square is one of the three remaining original downtown squares as envisioned in Edwin Waller’s 1839 plan for Austin."
6th Street used to be called Pecan Street. Texas is not all white like I thought it is. It's a lot of Black, White, Mexican, Texican, Tejano, Puerto Rican, Cowboys, Indians, Thick Blonde Women, Built Ford Truckers, tech dorks, pie graphers, imappers, indeeders, lidars, we wrokers, and eye trackers. I was only there for 24 hours so I'm sure there's more.
I did not go inside, too expensive for me right now, but the energy around The Comedy Mothership was far more electric than the Comedy Cellar on a recent Tuesday night actually.