“I got up from the sofa to put on some background music by Tony Fruscella, Another of my favorite artists” p 76 Bartley & Co. By Enrique Vila-Matas.
I have taken a 6 week hiatus in writing. Cold weather. I’ve hunkered down to read novels. Bartleby & Co by the Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas is appropriate. It consists of 176 pages of footnotes about artists, specifically, novelists who do nothing, or at least, they write no novels. It turns out there have been a spate of famous literary celebrities over the centuries who never actually wrote their magnum opus, yet are somehow remembered.
1854 WATSON HOUSE ON UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS CAMPUS
It’s 10 am and I discovered Tony Fruscella, a one album wonder, this morning in my read before work. The music is just right for the last cold winter morning in Austin.
Watson House — 1856, one of the oldest structures in Austin. Here resided the headmaster of a country school for boys. Situated on a bluff overlooking the creek, it must have always provided a secluded retreat. It looks like the work of architect Abner Cook. Its now overshadowed by the building where I work in between art shows when I am not in my studio.
Once an elegant party house built in the French Country style, the structure is camafauged in the winter oaks by its weathered cypress cladding.
A modern bridge, itself handsomely designed and which we may examine at another time, cuts away a view into the abandoned back yard. A cypress gate secludes a rock-walled koi pond from the hubbub of the highway, I-35, 150 yards away. Before the Interstate there was East Avenue which would break off into Cameron Road which left the mules with a choice of going to Houston or Nacadoches, Texas.
Health Center Garage
About 125 yards South, behind the Seton-University Teaching Hospital, landscape architects have begun the restoration of the banks back to the condition they were, in the days of Headmaster Watson. This structure was designed by the architectural firm of Page Southerlnd Page. This firm has deep roots in Austin going back almost to the time of Abner Cook, himself.
One may wonder what relation this meander through architecture, time and a creekbed has to do with Literature of No. This note rests on the music of Tony Fruscella,mentioned by Enrique Vila-Matas on page 76 of Bartleby & Co.