The Daily Texan | Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900

You are here

Home » Blogs » Culture Spotlight

  • How to dodge the West Mall fliers

    By Jourden Sander

    As an English major, most of my classes are in Parlin or the Flawn Academic Center. This means that I have the displeasure of being harassed every day as I walk to class. People diligently set up their folding tables, nesting for the day as they prepare their fliers, cupcakes, signup sheets and overly aggressive positions.

    They may say “Here take a flier!”, or “Would you like to do X for our club Z?” Or my personal favorite, the people that yell as you walk past. “YOU! TAKE A FLIER!” Every day I walk to class with my ear buds plugged in, or my eyes trained to the ground, but it doesn’t matter how distracted you look, or how fast you walk.

    They will talk to you. And you will take their flier.

    Are they all students? I don’t know. After nearly being scammed by a suspicious looking guy on the Drag, I came to the conclusion he wasn’t really hoping I’d help save kids in Africa. But that was after he asked for my credit card number. I drew the line before he asked for my social security number too.

    It starts innocent. They will say, “Can I ask you a question?” as you walk past.  It’s so easy to let your guard down. You’re curious, what do they want to know? But if you pause, even just for a second, they go in for the kill. They start asking you more questions. They take out their sketchy looking clip board. They say how important their cause is.

    It is the people with the clipboards you can’t trust. Watch out for them on the Drag. They hang out near Jamba Juice, and they are the craftiest. Maybe I’m a skeptic. They could be people truly just wanting support for their cause. Could be, but the insistent friendliness coupled with the sleazy attitude of a car salesperson makes me cynical.

    One time while walking to Jamba Juice, a man and a woman were holding those wicked clipboards. I dodged the woman, but the man was too quick.

    “Would you like to take thirty seconds to save a dying child?”

    Touché. How do you keep walking after someone says that? How can you say “No, I don’t want to save a dying child.” But as I looked wearily at his sneaky clipboard, his too happy face, and his jar for donations, I kept moving.

    In order to keep from being harassed near the Drag or by the FAC, or on Speedway, one must learn the protocol. Listen to music, stare at your phone, walk fast, appear angry or unapproachable, and walk in the middle of the crowd. This is crucial, because if you’re in the middle, the people on the edges will get harassed while you move forward and get to class on time.

    Still, I understand most of these irritating people are students who simply want to reach other students for a real reason. Either way, it will be nice when summer is here and I don’t have to be harassed anymore.

     

  • What Vine means for journalism

    By Bobby Blanchard

    By nature, I am skeptical and untrusting of new social media developments. 
     
    In high school, I told my parents to “slap some sense into me” if I ever got a Twitter. At the time, I could never compute the need of a tool that allowed you to share a 140-character thought. I saw Twitter as a waste of time. Now, much of my day revolves around checking my Twitter feed for news I might have missed. I use Twitter every day, and I tease Texan reporters who don’t.
     
    Initially, I had a similar attitude toward Vine, a video-sharing app that allows users to capture six seconds' worth of video. Everyone seems to be in love with it, and until recently I was holding out. Why not just take a picture? How is it possible to capture anything of value in just six seconds?
     
    But when considering the journalistic implications of Vine, I have reversed my opinion. Just like Twitter did, Vine marks the beginning of a new way to cover breaking news.
     
    Vine allows journalists to film a 6-second video and instantly post it to their social media sites. I am not aware of any other technology that does the same. It allows reporters to cover breaking news with more multimedia elements. This is for news consumers who are on a bus and can’t tune in to TV to watch breaking news. This is for the breaking news story that requires a little bit of video to tell the tale. 
     
    And this is already happening. On Monday, a Twitter user by the name of Doug Lorman sent a Twitter message of a Vine of the Boston Marathon explosion. 
     


    Lorman has only 300 followers, but since then his Twitter message has gotten more than 100 retweets and his Vine has been the subject of several news articles — including ones on HuffingtonPost and AdAge.  

    What if the next winning Super Bowl touchdown catch is caught on Vine? What if the most dramatic point of the next presidential debate is shared on Vine? What if the next tornado to tear apart Central Texas is caught on Vine?
     
    Last week, I noticed that a substantial number of Texas Student Television volunteers use Vine. And they aren’t just using Vine — they are using it well. I sent a Twitter message of this observation, and the TSTV Twitter responded with: “makes sense that we would love a video app though, yes?”
     
    “Oh,” I thought. “Well, duh.” 
     
    It makes perfect sense that broadcast journalists would be falling head over heels for a social media service that allows instant video sharing. And as a reporter who deals primarily with words and little with video, I will be looking to broadcast journalists as I stumble into a world of video-sharing and try to find the best way to make use of Vine. 
     
    After all, next time breaking news happens, I might not just be live-tweeting it. I might be live-vining it as well. 

  • Best snow cone in Austin

    By Laura Wright

    Put simply, I am a snow cone connoisseur. When I was a kid, a snow cone stand painted with a picture of Winnie the Pooh sat around the corner from my house, and buying a snow cone there signaled both the beginning and end of summer.

    As a college-bound 18 year old, I lived in a different house, but a snow cone stand still sat at the nearest HEB. In the weeks before I left for college, I visited it every day, hell bent on tasting each and every one of the offered flavors.

    Now, as a college student, I live mere blocks away from the Sno-Beach trailer on Guadalupe, and though I have not sampled every flavor, I am certainly a frequent patron. Below, find a list of the best flavors at the three best snow-cone stands in Austin, compiled by your truly.

    1. Casey’s New Orleans SnowBalls on 51st and Airport

    Yes. It’s worth the drive. Casey’s tops the list because it has variety, not just of flavors, but also of add-ons and sizes (a big plus if you dislike getting the giant ‘small’ size at Sno-Beach.) Casey’s flavors come in two varieties, cream and regular. The cream flavors have cream mixed in, and taste like the perfect in-between: not quite ice-cream, not quite snow cone, light enough for a summer day but heavy enough to support cream-based flavors like chocolate.  The best of all is that despite all the variety, the service at Casey’s comes in one only one flavor: amazing. The employees are cheerful, helpful, and make each snow cone like the treat is the only thing between you and a great day. Which, considering how good these snow cones are, it just might be.

    2. Jim-Jim’s Water Ice on Sixth

    No, a “water ice” is not a snow cone. The texture is, as you might suspect, more watery, but their breaking tradition is forgivable because of the juicy, fresh-fruit flavors that Jim-Jim’s trades in. Get the mango or the strawberry, but skip the cream: it’s too thick, they put too much on, and it ruins the light, juicy flavor of the treat.

    3. Sno-Beach on Guadalupe

    At sno-beach, get a small (their sizes are larger then most), and order Almond flavor with cream. Or peach with cream. Or horchata with cream. If you suspect the flavor would taste good when added to vanilla ice cream, adding the snow beach cream mix will make for a great combination.

  • A runner's perspective on the Boston marathon

    By Robert Starr

    To the rest of the world, runners are crazy. We wake up at 5 a.m. every morning, risking shin splints, nasty falls, back problems, IT band syndrome, pulled muscles and stress fractures. And for what? To continue our hobby, which non-runners liken to torture.

    The media portrays running as glamorous, filmed in slow motion: muscular men smiling at the camera alongside tall women with long hair that flows behind them in the wind.

    Running is nothing like that.

    It’s sweaty, and painful. A constant conflict where the cramp in your stomach, the lack of breath in your chest and the weight of your legs fight against your willpower and dignity, which won’t let you quit even when everything else begs you to stop.

    Why do we do it? We love it. How is that even possible? If you don't understand, then you probably can't. Nobody can. Except for others like us.

    When we run past each other in the mornings, we’re exchanging more than just polite greetings between strangers. The wave-and-nod is a sign of mutual respect because we know exactly what the other person had to sacrifice to be right there on the sidewalk moving at a seven thirty pace past us.

    In this religion we call running, races are holy days, where we hope that the gods of running will grace us with good weather and a personal record. Like druggies, we start small with mile runs leading into 5Ks, 10Ks, and eventually work our way up to harder stuff like half-marathons and marathons, which are seemingly never-ending stretches of agony, that test both your physical and mental endurance.

    If you happen to be a man who finishes the 26.2 miles in under 3 hours and 5 minutes, or a woman who makes it in under 3 hours and 35 minutes, you qualify for a long distance runner’s dream: running in the Boston Marathon.

    And, for those lucky few who achieve that, it's among the very best days of their lives.

    Unless somebody decides that it shouldn't be and all the ice baths, tempo runs, foam rollers, bloody nipples and blisters that led up to the event aren’t as important as hurting and killing wonderful people.

    And I know they were wonderful people. They were runners.

    If I had seen them on my daily route, I would have said, “Good morning,” and they would have smiled and said it right back to me. And then we would continue on our separate paths, enjoying the serenity of a quiet city that can only exist while everybody else is still asleep.

  • Why was it so easy to watch eight episodes of “Parks and Recreation” this weekend?

    By Alex Williams

    You know the kind of weekend where taking shelter from an intimidating mountain of homework leads to an impulsive dive into the bottomless pit of Hulu Plus? Shockingly, the thought of a “Parks and Recreation” marathon outweighed the appealing idea of hitting the books. After burning through every episode aired this year, it’s easy to say the show remains a goldmine of comedy, and packs the most hilarious and well-rounded ensemble on TV.

    “Parks and Rec” has always been good at pulling off setpieces, but the scene where Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) suffered from food poisoning was a glorious bit of physical acting from all three of them. While watching the trio in a constant state of painful clenching was hilarious, even better was the way Scott played Wyatt's devastating realization that they were poisoned by his beloved calzones.

    Moments like that make it clear that “Parks and Rec” knows exactly when and how to deploy its ensemble, and its constantly shifting showcase of dynamics always manages to find new jokes to tell and character notes to explore, no matter which characters are interacting. Offerman predictably shines in every episode, continuing to make Swanson, a character grounded in inertia, the funniest man on TV.

    Five seasons in, “Parks and Rec” is still telling stories with the confidence and consistency of a much younger show. By giving its characters desires and dreams outside of the parks department, it’s also expanded its focus in interesting ways. By making Leslie Knope a city councilwoman, the show has expanded the scope of its exploration of small-town politics.

    Storylines like Swanson protesting Knope bailing out a struggling local video store aren’t exactly pinnacles of subtle social commentary, but the show’s introduction of the toxic Councilman Jamm (Jon Glaser) has given it a villain for the first time. Having an unambiguously scummy character to keep things moving has let “Parks and Rec” bring actual stakes to moments like Knope intentionally bombing an emergency response test for the good of the parks department.

    Few shows are able to maintain comedic momentum for five seasons. “Parks and Rec” hasn’t faltered yet, and is constantly finding ways to keep its storylines and characters moving in compelling directions. More than that, it’s such an effortlessly charming, witty show that you barely need an excuse to spend “just one more episode” with this excellent ensemble.

Pages