"The trolls have a particular following in the United States, where Dambo has scattered them across 22 states, with plans to build them in the remaining 28."

"He was drawn to America’s 'big, wild spaces,' he said, adding, 'We don’t have anywhere you can get lost like that in Denmark.' In Breckenridge, Colo., one of the trolls drew such large crowds that it was relocated to a more out-of-the-way location. A troll that he created for the 2025 Burning Man festival now has a permanent home at Filoli, a historic property about 30 miles from San Francisco. And this week, one of Dambo’s trolls burned down in a park in Austin, Texas, the city’s Fire Department said...."

I'm reading "He’s Trolling Your Trash, and Turning It Into Art/Thomas Dambo built a global following by turning Denmark’s scrap into giant, hidden forest creatures. Now, the art world is finally letting him inside" (NYT)(gift link, for the photographs and because I focused on the part of the text that's about the arson in Austin but there are other angles on Dambo).

Speaking of Burning Man — Dambo built a troll that was at a Burning Man festival — I've been wondering if the burning of the Austin troll was influenced by the tradition of burning a large wooden sculptural figure — not Dambo's troll —  at Burning Man.

I bounced this theory off Grok, which noted that the burning at Burning Man is done according to a plan, presented as art, and drawing a crowd that experiences the fire as a ritual or celebration. The Austin troll burning happened without a ceremony or crowd or air of artiness. As far as we know. Unless it was some very elite and nihilist group of art lovers.

Grok, write a short short story in which the burning of the Austin troll WAS done by a small group of elite nihilists who absolutely believed in what they were doing as art.

Excerpt from the story: "The troll was too sincere. Eighteen feet of reclaimed wood and optimism, grinning like a simpleton at the joggers and children and civic-minded Austinites who posted heart emojis under her photos. Thomas Dambo had built her to remind people of recycling and wonder and other gentle lies. The Consortium found this unbearable. 'Sentiment is violence,' Elena whispered as they poured the accelerant...."

"Pease Park's giant troll sculpture burned to the ground after early morning fire."

The Austin-American Statesman reports.

In happier times:

ADDED: Back in 2022, another troll by the same sculptor was burned to nothing: "'Damaged beyond repair': police investigate after WA troll sculpture set on fire/Blaze destroys one of six Giants of Mandurah by Danish artist Thomas Dambo with arson squad examining cause" (The Guardian)(WA = Western Australia).

AND: My son Chris, who lives in Austin, photographed the Pease Park troll last year:

"So, we were just talking about this wild crime spree that happened this weekend in Austin.... they stole cars and stole guns and switched cars and they shot at like 10 different locations...."

"They shot multiple people.... &ou were saying that the reason why they had a hard time catching them is because they had Flock cameras in Austin, but then they shut those cameras off for political reasons...."

Said Joe Rogan, inviting Mark Andreeson to talk about Flock, which applies AI to info from municipal cameras to find cars for the police. Andreeson is a big investor in Flock.

 

Andreeson: "It's used all over the country. It solves crimes every day. We get reports on carjackings with kids in the back seat and their lives get saved because they track them down. So a lot of towns and cities have this and they love it. In cities like Austin with the intense politics, they run into backlash on privacy and surveillance concerns. And so Austin had Flock and then turned it off. And as a consequence, they were not able to find these guys for several days. And then what happened — the late breaking news today is these guys drove into some adjacent town up against Austin and Flock was live in that town. And so Flock tagged them the minute they drove into that town and then they caught the guys. Subsequent to that, the mayor and your chief of police gave a press conference and said, 'We really need to rethink this,' because it's crazy to have the ability to solve crimes and stop crimes and not be able to use it...."

"Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety...."

Our investigators lost critical hours tracking down today’s shooting suspects because Austin’s City Council chose politics over public safety and prevented APD from using license plate readers and other crime-fighting technology.

Those cameras could have helped identify suspect… https://t.co/yp4ZKdLc1a

— Michael Bullock (@MBullockATX) May 18, 2026

Here's an AP report from half an hour ago: "3 young people arrested in series of random shootings across Austin that left 4 injured." I wonder how do they know its random? They're calling it a "series." It might have been coordinated.

What is excluded by that "almost"?

"Cinemark is going all out for National Popcorn Day in 2026 [January 18 and 19], offering moviegoers in Austin and around the country the chance to BYOBucket: bring almost any kind of container to the theater and fill it up for just $5 (plus tax)...."(culturemap).

MEANWHILE: Another Austin movie theater distinguishes itself in a wholly different way:

Pick your style of theater here in the Magnited States of America.

"... the baby is fat... "

Chris, who reads biographies of U.S. Presidents, texts me this photo from "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism" by Doris Kearns Goodwin (commission earned).

If your first baby was "frail from birth" and died at 14 months, you too would experience joy to see the new baby is actively fat. Taft grew to a heft of 340 pounds, our fattest President by far.

Chris also sends this photograph he took, in case you are wondering what Christmas decorations look like in Austin:

"From the start, everyone recognized that the purpose of Texas’s redistricting effort was Republican political advantage."

"The district court erred by inferring bad faith and racial intent because the Texas Legislature’s map did not (through some hypothetical means) transform the only Democratic district in Austin — an exceptionally Democratic city — into a Republican stronghold."

Wrote Texas Solicitor General William Peterson, quoted in "Alito lets Texas reinstate gerrymandered House map that could give GOP 5 more seats/Alito’s move allowing Texas officials to continue to prepare for primary elections under the new map came just after the state asked the Supreme Court for an urgent ruling" (Politico).

This is one of the "certain topics" I was talking about yesterday in "I feel as though unseen readers are leaning on me to write about certain topics that I see out there." Today is a new day, with Alito's stay of the lower court's order. But if you want to engage with the very lengthy and emotional lower court opinions, I recommend the discussion on the podcast "Advisory Opinions," here. Excerpt: 

"It’s a tough time to have a civic-minded election about municipal services. If anything takes us down, it’s going to be this 'to hell with them all' approach to government."

Said José Vela III, of the Austin City Council, which voted for a big property tax increase but must abide by Texas law that requires a referendum.

Quoted in "Austin Asked Voters to Raise Taxes for the Homeless. It’s Not Going Well. A proposed tax hike before the city on Tuesday has become a referendum on governance in the fast-changing Texas capital" (NYT).

Austin's heinous new logo.

Reminds me of when NYC spent millions on bringing arts and culture back to the city after Covid. It was hard to believe it wasn’t an SNL skit pic.twitter.com/0dYhP2bWna

— King Francis the Turd (@YourTurdliness) September 5, 2025

"If you say 'Keep Austin Weird' to somebody under the age of 40, they would think of that as an antique-y slogan, like Ye Old Shoppe."

"It doesn’t have any resonance for their lived experience of Austin."

Said H.W. Brands, a University of Texas historian, quoted in "Austin Welcomed Musk. Now It’s Weird (in a New Way). The famously liberal bastion of Austin is grappling uneasily with Elon Musk’s rightward turn, which has begun transforming his adopted home into an unlikely hub of right-of-center thinkers" (NYT).

Tie-dyed T-shirts still urge residents to “Keep Austin Weird,” mostly in hotels and tourist shops. But a different kind of counterculture has taken root amid an influx of decidedly right-of-center figures (including Mr. Musk), self-described freethinkers (like the podcasters Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman), and conservative entrepreneurs (like Joe Lonsdale). Already in town was Austin’s resident conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, and his far-right Infowars. There’s even a new, contrarian institution of higher learning looking to compete with the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Austin. Weird, perhaps, but not in the way of the old bumper-sticker mantra....

Can weirdness fans complain when weirdness gets weirder? Yes, they can and they do. They may prefer a softer, quirkier form of weird. And they may think weirdness is inherently left-wing. But the left got so censorious and repressive... and yet, the left is often weird... in specific, prescribed ways. 

Hey, remember when "weird" was the dominant insult deployed by the Democratic Party? It seemed that they chose their Vice Presidential candidate because he said it just so at the perfect time.

"Mr. Musk has told people close to him in recent months that he envisions his children (of which there are at least 11) and two of their three mothers occupying adjoining properties."

"That way, his younger children could be a part of one another’s lives, and Mr. Musk could schedule time among them. Directly behind the villa is a six-bedroom mansion.... When in Austin, he often stays at a third mansion about a 10-minute walk away.... One of the mothers, Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink... has moved into one of the homes with her children. But Claire Boucher, the musician better known as Grimes, who is the mother to three of his children, is in a protracted legal fight with Mr. Musk and has so far steered clear. The third mother is Mr. Musk’s first wife, Justine Musk, with whom he has five living children, all in their late teens or older. There is room in the Austin compound if they were to visit, though he is estranged from at least one of those children.... Mr. Musk has said that I.V.F. is a more efficient way of having children because it allows parents to control parts of the process, according to a person who understands his thinking.... In 2021, without Ms. Boucher’s knowledge, Mr. Musk donated sperm to Ms. Zilis, who became pregnant with twins through I.V.F.... That same year, the billionaire and Ms. Boucher were expecting a second child also conceived via I.V.F. but carried by a surrogate.... Further complicating matters, Mr. Musk took a name that he and Ms. Boucher had chosen for their daughter — Valkyrie — and gave it to one of Ms. Zilis’s twins...."

From "Elon Musk Wants Big Families. He Bought a Secret Compound for His. As the billionaire warns of population collapse and the moral obligation to have children, he’s navigating his own complicated family" (NYT)(free-access link).

I wonder what kind of "control" he is doing with IVF.

"Of the many recent failures of the American left, one of the greatest is making entry-level battle-of-the-sexes humor seem avant-garde."

"(Did you know that women often run relationship decisions past their female friends? Bitches be crazy! That sort of thing.) As Rogan himself says after he emerges in stonewashed jeans, clutching a glass of something amber on ice: 'Fox News called this an anti-woke comedy club. That’s just a comedy club!'... Rogan now lives in Austin, which has recently become known for its transformation from chilled-out live-music paradise to a miniature version of the Bay Area—similarly full of tech workers, but with fewer IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE… signs.... It is... the center of the Roganverse, an intellectual firmament of manosphere influencers, productivity optimizers, stand-ups, and male-wellness gurus. Austin is at the nexus of a Venn diagram of 'has culture,' 'has gun ranges,' 'has low taxes,' and 'has kombucha.'"

Writes Helen Lewis, in "How Joe Rogan Remade Austin/The podcaster and comedian has turned the city into a haven for manosphere influencers, just-asking-questions tech bros, and other 'free thinkers' who happen to all think alike" (The Atlantic).

That's a free-access link, because there's a lot going on in that article, beyond what I chose to excerpt.

"Around 55 residents, including 15 children, live in the village as 'missionals'..."

"... unpaid neighbors generally motivated by their Christian faith to be part of the community. All missionals undergo a monthslong 'discernment process' before they can move in. They pay to live in R.V.s and manufactured homes distinguished by an 'M' in the front window. Their presence in the community is meant to guard against the pitfalls of concentrated poverty and trauma.... Though the village is open to people of any religious background, it is run by Christians, and public spaces are adorned with paintings of Jesus on the cross and other biblical scenes. The application to live in the community outlines a set of 'core values' that refer to God and the Bible. But Mr. Graham said there is no proselytizing and people do not have to be sober or seek treatment to live there.... 'This is absolutely not nirvana,' Mr. Graham said. 'And we want people to understand the beauty and the complexity of what we do. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on the face of the planet than right here in the middle of this, but you’re not fixing these things.'"

From "Can a Big Village Full of Tiny Homes Ease Homelessness in Austin? One of the nation’s largest experiments in affordable housing to address chronic homelessness is taking shape outside the city limits" (NYT).

"Mr. Graham" = Alan Graham, a real estate developer who raised $20 million to build a village to house the homeless on land near Austin, Texas where there are no zoning laws.

None of this matters....

It ain't over 'til it's over....

One day you're here...

And the next day you're gone...

Austin faces.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

Traipsing around Austin.

At the Austin Café...

... you can write about whatever you want.

Views of Austin.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

"Do you like The Zombies" — a random text from my younger son at 6:31 today.

Too many Republicans "is precisely why he is moving out of what Rick Perry once described as the 'blueberry in the tomato soup,' a predominantly Democratic city full of liberal expats..."

"... like himself seeking progressive politics and an urban lifestyle at a red-state cost-of-living discount. 'It was easy to just be in Never Neverland, floating with a bunch of other transplants having a good time,' said [somebody named John] Stettin, who relocated from Dallas to Austin five years ago.... [He's moving to] Massachusetts.... What was once seen as an affordable, creative haven is now a runaway boomtown, pricing out most of whatever was left of Austin’s proclaimed weirdness.... In the past year, rent soared more than 20 percent, and the median home price rose almost as much over the same period (before home prices dropped thanks to interest-rate hikes). The airport has new direct flights to Vail, Colorado, and Texas’s first Soho House opened there last year. Elon Musk has built a $1.1 billion 'gigafactory' nearby, turning 'Tesla' into shorthand among some to describe the city’s bougification. 'There’s nothing weird about Austin,' said one Soho House patron, who recently flew home to California for an abortion...."

From "Austin Has Been Invaded by Texas/The progressive paradise is over for some, and they’re fleeing to bluer pastures" (Intelligencer).