Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Bunnyman in Austin
On 1 Jan. 2007, as I drove with friends to get my traditional thai new year's meal along the low unfamiliar warm streets of Austin, TX, I saw, along the side of the road, a man with twin blotches of pink on the top of his head.
I wondered what these could be. As it happens, they were ears made of crinoline (a Simon and Garfunkel song played in the back of my mind as soon as I noticed they were made of crinoline...but I couldn't remember the title. Only that it was the only elegant use of the word crinoline, much less of the material, that I had ever seen). I also, at that time, noticed that the man was paunchy, older, balding and wearing metal somethings on his legs.
He tossed a casual wave in our direction, and then he took a little hop, as though to keep pace with us slowing at a light. Turns out that the metal thingies were twin pogo somethings that he had attached to his legs. The man kept pace with us, leaping more gracefully than I thought his ears or his pogo whatsits would allow until we reached the restaurant, the arcs of his leaps high enough that I felt sure his crinoline ears would lead him to a fate not unlike that of Icarus. But he made it.
I was left, then, to eat New Year's first pad thai. It was only toward the end of the meal when I opened my fortune cookie, that I wondered what the Bunnyman could possibly portend. Would he flap over my New Year like a crow? Hang around its neck like an albatross? Or would I feel the luck of his steel, spring loaded feet whisking me away from danger and toward good fortune?
For good or ill, I knew, in any case, that I would have occasion to write the word crinoline many times. So excited was I by this that I didn't even read the fortune.
I wondered what these could be. As it happens, they were ears made of crinoline (a Simon and Garfunkel song played in the back of my mind as soon as I noticed they were made of crinoline...but I couldn't remember the title. Only that it was the only elegant use of the word crinoline, much less of the material, that I had ever seen). I also, at that time, noticed that the man was paunchy, older, balding and wearing metal somethings on his legs.
He tossed a casual wave in our direction, and then he took a little hop, as though to keep pace with us slowing at a light. Turns out that the metal thingies were twin pogo somethings that he had attached to his legs. The man kept pace with us, leaping more gracefully than I thought his ears or his pogo whatsits would allow until we reached the restaurant, the arcs of his leaps high enough that I felt sure his crinoline ears would lead him to a fate not unlike that of Icarus. But he made it.
I was left, then, to eat New Year's first pad thai. It was only toward the end of the meal when I opened my fortune cookie, that I wondered what the Bunnyman could possibly portend. Would he flap over my New Year like a crow? Hang around its neck like an albatross? Or would I feel the luck of his steel, spring loaded feet whisking me away from danger and toward good fortune?
For good or ill, I knew, in any case, that I would have occasion to write the word crinoline many times. So excited was I by this that I didn't even read the fortune.
# posted by andrew @ 3:18 AM 
