Dallas / Fort Worth and Me

On September 14, I attended one of the better festivals I’ve been to this year: the City of Grapevine’s annual Grapefest. That’s not just my opinion, incidentally; other reviewers agree! In addition to this great festival (which was surprisingly family oriented, despite the wine orientation), Grapevine already has a lot of things going for it, among them its railroad history, its quaint downtown, and of course the fantastic Grapevine Mills Mall (which I’ll get to very soon).

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All righty then! Let’s wrap this three-parter up with the dancing that makes a Pow Wow like this so enjoyable. I have to admit that I’m not very well versed on the dances themselves, or on the songs that go with them, so most of this entry is going to be devoted to the photos. I took about a hundred of them, and in this entry, I’ll present the best ten percent or so.

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Welcome back, Gentle Reader! Last entry, I introduced you to the 46th Annual Nation Championship Indian Pow Wow, which was so splendiferous that I actually visited it on two consecutive days (September 6-7).  Now, an event this big isn’t something you can easily review in a single entry, and so I didn’t even try. In fact, it’s gonna take three.

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First of all, folks, allow me to assure you that I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth. I’ve been going places and seeing things and taking photos, all for your sake (it’s a hard life!), and now I’ve got several blog entries waiting and eager to be written. I’ve also been working on the 2009 Calendar of Events, which I’ll be unveiling shortly.  

Today, let’s talk about the 46th Annual National Championship Indian Pow Wow, one of many Pow Wows around the continent, which I visited at Trader’s Village in Grand Prairie this past weekend.   It was a fascinating cultural event, about which I’m going to have a lot to say — at least two entries’ worth, I suspect. 

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In my last exciting entry, I told you about my recent visit to the House of Blues in Dallas, which I rather enjoyed and heartily endorse to you all. When I left you, we were waiting for the band (Tokio Hotel) to come on stage. And waiting. And waiting.

That’s the Tokio Hotel symbol up there on the curtain, by the way.

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I spent the evening of August 27, 2008 (last night, as I write this missive) at the Dallas iteration of the House of Blues. HOB is a relatively new addition to the West End; it’s been there, at 2200 N. Lamar, only since 2007. I’ve never been inside before, much less to one of their many concerts, but I have to say this:  both are a kick. Especially when you’re rockin’ to a band as young and energetic as Tokio Hotel.

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Finally, finally, I’m back. As I mentioned in this entry, I’ve been moving my household, and oh what a pain it’s been. Not only was the move massive — I had to move a whole house full of stuff as well as the leftover stock of my defunct bookstore — the Internet company blundered and turned off my Internet on August 19, A WEEK EARLY. I got it back up a day or so later, but of course all that punched a big hole in my production schedule. I’m still catching up.

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While tooling around looking for the neighborhood of Lower Greenville recently, I somehow ended up at White Rock Lake and came across the Bath House Cultural Center. Now, anyone who knows Dallas would probably wonder how the hell I managed to end up there when I was supposedly heading for a whole other part of the city, and don’t ask me how it happened; my only excuse is that I was suffering from a combination of too much heat, irritation at a condescending store clerk, an upset stomach, and an annoying bout of moving house. Yes, I really have been living in Dallas for 15 years, and yes, I really did get completely turned around the other day. These things happen to me. Look, shut up.*

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To paraphrase an old Mark Chestnutt song, I’ll sure be glad when these ol’ dog days of summer are gone. There’s just not much brewing here in the middle of August, when it’s omigod hot and the days go on and on — what Southern novelist Babs Deal described as “acres of afternoon.”  You want to know what I’ve got planned for the rest of this month? Well, you’ve seen a lot of it already in my recent entries on July Jazz and Symphonic Saturdays, both of which we can thank the civic-minded Town of Addison for. So gracias, Addison, for doing your damnedest to keep culture alive as we slide slowly toward fall.

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If you head over to West Dallas, off Olive Street, you’ll find an interesting place called Victory Park. It’s only a few years old, but it’s definitely worth visiting when you’re in town. Not only does Channel 8, WFAA-TV, maintain a broadcasting studio there — with glass walls, so you can gawk at the local news personalities as they work — but American Airlines Center, our newest and most expensive sports stadium, anchors the far end. 

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