Going Out

Forget Sudoku. If you want to get some serious mental exercise, try explaining the Austin art scene to a bunch of small-town Texans.

My sister Margie's in a new band, which is playing tonight at L_M_N_L, and she insists I have to go, though frankly the last time I was there I had a bit of a negative experience.

Margie's new band is called Palette, or Pallet, or Palate. "What kind?" I asked her, since she told me the name over the phone. "Color palette, or moving pallet, or hard palate?"

"It could be any of those!" she enthused. "It's multi-purpose!"

They'd better get somebody with really bad handwriting to do their flyers.

Anyway, at lunch with district contacts from a few small Texas towns last week, I was trying to explain Margie's musical activities. "What kind of band does she play in," one of the guys asked, "country?"

"No, no," I said, "it's sort of an art band. They play at art openings and stuff."

"Oh, so it's classical?" he asked.

"No, no, it's kind of avant-garde," I said, and realized this didn't clarify anything. "It's weird. Not like a regular genre."

"Hippie music?" suggested the Carl Sagan of Laredo.

"Well, maybe," I said. "Hippie-punk-alternative-retro. They wear big papier-mache masks. They play at the Art Car parade."

Silence.

"The scene - they're all a bunch of chain-smoking vegetarians," I went on.

At least Carl immediately understood what I meant.

Margie says L_M_N_L, which had been gutted the last time I was there, and was once more just a largish, high-ceilinged room, has platforms and levels and cubbies all built into it again, but in a completely different configuration. I'm glad. It was sort of dull without all the exploring and crawling around.

And it means that, if need be, there are a lot more places to hide.