Slacker, the picture perfect image of an Austin which no longer exists.
May 29, 2023 3:52 AM Subscribe
Search high and low, the charming, funky Austin of "Slacker" is gone. Please don't misunderstand -- Austin today is spectacular, so long as you inked a mortgage before 2020. It is a beautiful city. Austin of "Slacker", I doubt you'd call it a beautiful city. It was charming, and funky, and fun, but not beautiful. I saw "Slacker" while still living in Houston, it was a large part of what it was I knew about Austin before moving here.
Over the years -- moved here in 1992 -- I'd see Slacker every now and again, and always it was fun, see the things that had changed -- not too many -- and seeing what was the same. Always you'd see the Austin of Slacker, this restaurant, that movie theater, those green taxi-cabs. the blue cop cars.
About ten years ago changes really cranked up, maybe 15 years. You'd be hard pressed to see "Slackers" Austin.
I watched the movie yesterday. Slackers is gone.
~~~~~
The movie is still fun. It could have been set in most any college town. It was real fun for me because I got to see it In Real Time
~~~~~
Slacker
Wikipedia
Ebert
Over the years -- moved here in 1992 -- I'd see Slacker every now and again, and always it was fun, see the things that had changed -- not too many -- and seeing what was the same. Always you'd see the Austin of Slacker, this restaurant, that movie theater, those green taxi-cabs. the blue cop cars.
About ten years ago changes really cranked up, maybe 15 years. You'd be hard pressed to see "Slackers" Austin.
I watched the movie yesterday. Slackers is gone.
~~~~~
The movie is still fun. It could have been set in most any college town. It was real fun for me because I got to see it In Real Time
~~~~~
Slacker
Wikipedia
Ebert
I was pursuing a job in Austin about 1990, but I got cold feet about moving so far away as a youngster and backed out of contention. Maybe a month ago I was talking to an Austin resident, another Gen-X type, who sighed, “Yeah, you missed your moment. It was a great place to be twentysomething in the nineties.”
I still have never been.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:35 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I still have never been.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:35 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I used to visit Austin regularly forty years ago. My best friend was a manager at Wheatsville, a food co-op that is still around, but whose existence was threatened in the early 80's by this other new joint called Whole Foods.
My friend then became an environmental lawyer, and recently fled Austin to live in Mexico. Swimming in Barton Springs, walking down Sixth Street at night...I think I'll let these remain as memories rather than re-visit the city as it is now.
posted by kozad at 6:05 AM on May 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
My friend then became an environmental lawyer, and recently fled Austin to live in Mexico. Swimming in Barton Springs, walking down Sixth Street at night...I think I'll let these remain as memories rather than re-visit the city as it is now.
posted by kozad at 6:05 AM on May 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
By sheer luck I landed in Austin in '96 as part of the tech wave that would eventually rot the city, and it felt like the most cyberpunk place possible at that time. Fringeware still had a storefront, you could hang out with the grumpy old roboticists at Ted's Greek Corner, coffeeshops had ethernet jacks in the walls, ASDL was getting rolled out across town, and everything was 24 hours. Home Depot was open 24 hours! You wanted a story, you go to Home Depot at 3am and ask anyone what they're working on, and they would not disappoint. Once a friend put a turkey in the oven at midnight before realizing it would take four hours to roast, and so we went to Mojos and drank coffee until it was done. Good times. I left a few years later, and every time I'd return to visit friends more and more of the town it had been would have disappeared. Then the friends left, too, and there was nothing to go back to.
We used to have a game we'd play called "where's next?" where we'd try to guess what the new interesting place would be after Austin stopped being fun. We never came up with a good answer, probably because being in your twenties is part of of where you are, and so it's really two places I can't go back to.
See? See? this is what GenjiandProust meant. Apologies for the nostalgia dump.
posted by phooky at 6:06 AM on May 29, 2023 [20 favorites]
We used to have a game we'd play called "where's next?" where we'd try to guess what the new interesting place would be after Austin stopped being fun. We never came up with a good answer, probably because being in your twenties is part of of where you are, and so it's really two places I can't go back to.
See? See? this is what GenjiandProust meant. Apologies for the nostalgia dump.
posted by phooky at 6:06 AM on May 29, 2023 [20 favorites]
You could write something similar about Singles vs. Seattle today. Which is not a complaint about the article, quite the opposite. This documents a trend in a lot of cities where creativity flourished in the 80s and 90s, only for creatives to get priced out of the area. 25-year-old me could not afford to live anywhere near the places I lived when I was 25, and the people I knew who were doing really cool stuff absolutely couldn't afford it.
posted by rednikki at 6:34 AM on May 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by rednikki at 6:34 AM on May 29, 2023 [12 favorites]
In the mid-90s, I LDR’d a woman who lived in Austin. I visited her first and we had a great time. The relationship ended because I didn’t want to move closer without a job, and she got a job that had her move to Iowa before I got one in Austin. But we had some fun times wandering parts of the city,
(We keep in touch, we’re friends still. and both came out as trans about the same time, which says a lot about how it might have gone if we’d stayed together.)
posted by mephron at 6:40 AM on May 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
(We keep in touch, we’re friends still. and both came out as trans about the same time, which says a lot about how it might have gone if we’d stayed together.)
posted by mephron at 6:40 AM on May 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
I moved to Austin in the middle 60's when I was in high school. Still here. Out of high school though. I'm not much on nostalgia but occasionally I will spot a place, a space or a building I remember from then. I usually keep such revelations to myself because I really don't want to be that "Well, in my day" guy...
posted by jim in austin at 7:20 AM on May 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 7:20 AM on May 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
Everybody knows Coffee House Guy. He sticks to you like chewing gum, and will follow you down the street filling your ear with conspiracy theories.
In "Slacker" he and his half empty glass of latte appear at the 13 minute mark, and his opener is that NASA and the Soviets have been covering up the discovery of a "large spacecraft" on the Apollo 11 moon mission.
Idiocy of this vein continues for several minutes, but then things take a different direction.
"Everybody says...Greenhouse effect. A hundred years from now. Oh, I'll be long dead, gone and out of here. Not so, my friend. Not so . . . it's 10-20 years maximum. It's getting hotter, don't you think? Yeah, and when the polar ice caps begin to melt...It's not gonna take a certified genius to understand that we're in serious global confusion."
Without skipping a beat, he returns to other conspiracy theories. Like drugs harvested from Guatemalan rain forests by the CIA that do a memory wipe on their subject.
Slacker was filmed in 1991.
posted by Gordion Knott at 7:33 AM on May 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
In "Slacker" he and his half empty glass of latte appear at the 13 minute mark, and his opener is that NASA and the Soviets have been covering up the discovery of a "large spacecraft" on the Apollo 11 moon mission.
Idiocy of this vein continues for several minutes, but then things take a different direction.
"Everybody says...Greenhouse effect. A hundred years from now. Oh, I'll be long dead, gone and out of here. Not so, my friend. Not so . . . it's 10-20 years maximum. It's getting hotter, don't you think? Yeah, and when the polar ice caps begin to melt...It's not gonna take a certified genius to understand that we're in serious global confusion."
Without skipping a beat, he returns to other conspiracy theories. Like drugs harvested from Guatemalan rain forests by the CIA that do a memory wipe on their subject.
Slacker was filmed in 1991.
posted by Gordion Knott at 7:33 AM on May 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
After each losing good gigs in publishing and at a boutique design/ad shop in '92, my wife and I decided to rent out our house, sell our cars, pile into our Westfalia and set out to see where we might want to move next. After six months across America and six weeks in Mexico, Austin and Portland topped the list - each feeling still just enough funky but also on the verge of a creative, ascendant future. Then life happened upon our return, an excellent opportunity to freelance from home, a decade slipped by and both were well past the "discovery" stage and rocketing toward seemingly unsustainable futures and "early adopters" were already complaining and cashing out. (We had to laugh when we learned a third place we loved and looked at property, the tiny and beautiful hamlet of Hailey, Idaho, had been bought lock, stock and barrel by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore). By 2020 we knew more people who'd left both those cities than people still there.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 7:33 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by thecincinnatikid at 7:33 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was 24 when I started grad school at UNC Chapel Hill in 1992, and even though Chapel Hill is a much smaller town than Austin, SO MUCH of Slacker rang so very true to my experiences there, in terms of the look and feel of the place, and the types of conversations I was having and overhearing, and the people I'd encounter out and about... and, yeah, Chapel Hill is mostly unrecognizable now, too.
posted by fikri at 7:39 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by fikri at 7:39 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
“Yeah, you missed your moment. It was a great place to be twentysomething in the nineties.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:35 AM on May 29 [+] [!]
Your friend was only part-right. It was a great place to be thirtysomething in the nineties, also, and 20s or 30s or 40s t was a really sweet place into the '00s
My best friend was a manager at Wheatsville, a food co-op that is still around, but whose existence was threatened in the early 80's by this other new joint called Whole Foods.
Swimming in Barton Springs, walking down Sixth Street at night...I think I'll let these remain as memories rather than re-visit the city as it is now.
posted by kozad at 8:05 AM on May 29
Wheatsville is the best grocery/health food store in Austin, by far. Makes me want to throw rocks at Whole Paychecks; thank your friend for helping them negotiate what looked like awfully treacherous shoals. They appear to me to be rock solid now; I do wish they had learned the magic trick of expanding like Alamo Drafthouse and/or Trader Joe's.
Swimming in Barton Springs is still really sweet, though you've got to pick your spots; the crowds can be epic It's really turning into quite a bicycle town. Riding into and around the amazingly beautiful inner city at night is great. The libraries are just amazing really sweet. Sixth Street has been a frat rat dead zone for 20 years.
everything was 24 hours. Home Depot was open 24 hours! You wanted a story, you go to Home Depot at 3am and ask anyone what they're working on, and they would not disappoint. Once a friend put a turkey in the oven at midnight before realizing it would take four hours to roast, and so we went to Mojos and drank coffee until it was done. Good times.
Covid has *really* knocked the 24 hour stores, restaurants, coffee shops down.
We used to have a game we'd play called "where's next?" where we'd try to guess what the new interesting place would be after Austin stopped being fun.
posted by phooky at 8:06 AM on May 29
Alpine perhaps is next. They have a university, tiny but it's there. It's funky and fun and gorgeous if you dig the desert. San Marcos has a shot at it. San Antone -- never. It's got everything to make it happen but it just has no pulse, it's like a beautiful corpse.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:54 AM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:35 AM on May 29 [+] [!]
Your friend was only part-right. It was a great place to be thirtysomething in the nineties, also, and 20s or 30s or 40s t was a really sweet place into the '00s
My best friend was a manager at Wheatsville, a food co-op that is still around, but whose existence was threatened in the early 80's by this other new joint called Whole Foods.
Swimming in Barton Springs, walking down Sixth Street at night...I think I'll let these remain as memories rather than re-visit the city as it is now.
posted by kozad at 8:05 AM on May 29
Wheatsville is the best grocery/health food store in Austin, by far. Makes me want to throw rocks at Whole Paychecks; thank your friend for helping them negotiate what looked like awfully treacherous shoals. They appear to me to be rock solid now; I do wish they had learned the magic trick of expanding like Alamo Drafthouse and/or Trader Joe's.
Swimming in Barton Springs is still really sweet, though you've got to pick your spots; the crowds can be epic It's really turning into quite a bicycle town. Riding into and around the amazingly beautiful inner city at night is great. The libraries are just amazing really sweet. Sixth Street has been a frat rat dead zone for 20 years.
everything was 24 hours. Home Depot was open 24 hours! You wanted a story, you go to Home Depot at 3am and ask anyone what they're working on, and they would not disappoint. Once a friend put a turkey in the oven at midnight before realizing it would take four hours to roast, and so we went to Mojos and drank coffee until it was done. Good times.
Covid has *really* knocked the 24 hour stores, restaurants, coffee shops down.
We used to have a game we'd play called "where's next?" where we'd try to guess what the new interesting place would be after Austin stopped being fun.
posted by phooky at 8:06 AM on May 29
Alpine perhaps is next. They have a university, tiny but it's there. It's funky and fun and gorgeous if you dig the desert. San Marcos has a shot at it. San Antone -- never. It's got everything to make it happen but it just has no pulse, it's like a beautiful corpse.
posted by dancestoblue at 7:54 AM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Weird! I navigated away from this post and ran right into a tweet about this Austin Chronicle t-shirt honoring beloved haunts that are now gone. No Tamale House #3, though, which is a glaring omission. My partner is on a multi-year quest to replicate their migas with cheese; they have proven elusive.
posted by Tuba Toothpaste at 8:07 AM on May 29, 2023
posted by Tuba Toothpaste at 8:07 AM on May 29, 2023
The movie is still fun. It could have been set in most any college town.
I think that that's key. A lot of the specifics (the people, etc.) may be particular to Austin, but any large flagship public university probably attracts a lot of the same kind of people--former students who may or may not have gotten a degree, oddballs who never matriculated but found something in the environment that kept them there after they happened to wander in somehow. The key was that, not only was tuition way more affordable a few decades ago, but so was everything else. You could volunteer at the food co-op and get affordable healthy food; you could split an apartment with students; you could get by on a minimum wage job. You could even use the university computer labs without a university ID. There may have been some rich kids, but everyone that I knew ate government surplus cheese.
That sort of environment is largely gone; a lot of the ramshackle student housing was torn down to make way for high rises that can only be afforded through student loans--some students borrow more per year than my entire college education cost.
We used to have a game we'd play called "where's next?" where we'd try to guess what the new interesting place would be after Austin stopped being fun.
The late, mostly-lamented Spy magazine once did a satire of Details magazine, called Retails, and the best part of it was an article about some town--I don't remember where--that the Retails reporter was trying to spotlight as The Next Hot Town, and the locals were desperately trying to convince him that no, this definitely wasn't the next place for the trendchasers to invade and ruin, maybe try Town X, we heard that that was happenin'.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:32 AM on May 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
I think that that's key. A lot of the specifics (the people, etc.) may be particular to Austin, but any large flagship public university probably attracts a lot of the same kind of people--former students who may or may not have gotten a degree, oddballs who never matriculated but found something in the environment that kept them there after they happened to wander in somehow. The key was that, not only was tuition way more affordable a few decades ago, but so was everything else. You could volunteer at the food co-op and get affordable healthy food; you could split an apartment with students; you could get by on a minimum wage job. You could even use the university computer labs without a university ID. There may have been some rich kids, but everyone that I knew ate government surplus cheese.
That sort of environment is largely gone; a lot of the ramshackle student housing was torn down to make way for high rises that can only be afforded through student loans--some students borrow more per year than my entire college education cost.
We used to have a game we'd play called "where's next?" where we'd try to guess what the new interesting place would be after Austin stopped being fun.
The late, mostly-lamented Spy magazine once did a satire of Details magazine, called Retails, and the best part of it was an article about some town--I don't remember where--that the Retails reporter was trying to spotlight as The Next Hot Town, and the locals were desperately trying to convince him that no, this definitely wasn't the next place for the trendchasers to invade and ruin, maybe try Town X, we heard that that was happenin'.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:32 AM on May 29, 2023 [9 favorites]
I grew up in Austin but can't imagine ever being rich enough to live there now
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:42 AM on May 29, 2023
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:42 AM on May 29, 2023
phooky, your nostalgia for Austin in the 90s also triggers my memories of Albuquerque from that same era.
It was like living in a cyberpunk western due to the proximity of the many national labs and military bases. The auction sites and junk yards were the weirdest of the weird and most of it still sort of worked despite being stored outside, thanks to the high desert's 0% humidity. Massive control panels across a dozen 42U racks, just sitting in the dusty back lot with a sign "Must buy all of it". Supercomputers, or pieces of them, for "$1/kg or make offer". A friend filled a station wagon with ancient Macs and Sun3 hardware for $10; they were too heavy for it to drive itself, so we pushed it with another car along Central Avenue to his warehouse near the Rio Grande, just off of Route 66.
Some other friends started an ISP on surplus labs hardware so that we could get uucp email and newsgroups; I still have an email account there after three decades, although the Sun4/110 that used to run honeydanbear has long since gone to the bitbucket. And there were so many 24-hour places to chill with weirdos, having coffee and green chile on everything, while hacking on bulky wearable tech cobbled together from these scrap heaps. We burned a NeXT Cube out on the west mesa and the curious cops who could see it from 10km away came to watch it with us like some sort of white-hot techno magnesium bonfire.
So many friends who moved away eventually came back that we joked that New Mexico's motto was "The Land of Entrapment". Somehow I broke free and left my job at the Labs, but I still miss The Frontier's breakfast burritos.
posted by autopilot at 9:02 AM on May 29, 2023 [14 favorites]
It was like living in a cyberpunk western due to the proximity of the many national labs and military bases. The auction sites and junk yards were the weirdest of the weird and most of it still sort of worked despite being stored outside, thanks to the high desert's 0% humidity. Massive control panels across a dozen 42U racks, just sitting in the dusty back lot with a sign "Must buy all of it". Supercomputers, or pieces of them, for "$1/kg or make offer". A friend filled a station wagon with ancient Macs and Sun3 hardware for $10; they were too heavy for it to drive itself, so we pushed it with another car along Central Avenue to his warehouse near the Rio Grande, just off of Route 66.
Some other friends started an ISP on surplus labs hardware so that we could get uucp email and newsgroups; I still have an email account there after three decades, although the Sun4/110 that used to run honeydanbear has long since gone to the bitbucket. And there were so many 24-hour places to chill with weirdos, having coffee and green chile on everything, while hacking on bulky wearable tech cobbled together from these scrap heaps. We burned a NeXT Cube out on the west mesa and the curious cops who could see it from 10km away came to watch it with us like some sort of white-hot techno magnesium bonfire.
So many friends who moved away eventually came back that we joked that New Mexico's motto was "The Land of Entrapment". Somehow I broke free and left my job at the Labs, but I still miss The Frontier's breakfast burritos.
posted by autopilot at 9:02 AM on May 29, 2023 [14 favorites]
This documents a trend in a lot of cities where creativity flourished in the 80s and 90s, only for creatives to get priced out of the area. 25-year-old me could not afford to live anywhere near the places I lived when I was 25, and the people I knew who were doing really cool stuff absolutely couldn't afford it.
Ah, Toronto for me. A great place to be a broke artsy twenty-four-year-old thirty years ago. Now to live the same life is basically impossible and there’s... a lot less interesting going on. Much less bang for your buck, really.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:46 AM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ah, Toronto for me. A great place to be a broke artsy twenty-four-year-old thirty years ago. Now to live the same life is basically impossible and there’s... a lot less interesting going on. Much less bang for your buck, really.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:46 AM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
One thing that hasn’t been brought up here is one reason that Austin is different and Slacker couldn’t ever happen now is housing prices and cost of living. Part of what made Austin happen in the 80’s was that it was possible to do the bare minimum of work and still live “comfortably”. You could get a cheap group house and just do what you wanted to do and have enough left over for beers. Now it’s all about your side hustle and your main hustle and just trying to survive. Austin mirrors the creative areas of every city that has been gentrified but did it at a municipal level.
I was born in Seattle and grew up in Minneapolis and Vienna (Austria) and all of those cities are very, very different now and than they were in the 80’s and 90’s. Interestingly, they were all slacker centrals when I was of proper slacker age but no more - now it’s all hustle.
posted by misterpatrick at 9:50 AM on May 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
I was born in Seattle and grew up in Minneapolis and Vienna (Austria) and all of those cities are very, very different now and than they were in the 80’s and 90’s. Interestingly, they were all slacker centrals when I was of proper slacker age but no more - now it’s all hustle.
posted by misterpatrick at 9:50 AM on May 29, 2023 [5 favorites]
As an Austinite of 27 years, who moved here at the height of "slacker cool," I wonder if any quirk-friendly city can ever stay that way? I don't know if it's the inevitable march of "progress" or a symptom of late-stage capitalism, where everything eventually gets monetized. Between the increasingly ridiculous cost-of-living and the intolerable Texas politics, we're finally pulling up stakes later this year. But I have to wonder - are we going to be facing down this same predicament wherever we wind up? Is this the new American normal?
posted by nightengine at 10:06 AM on May 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by nightengine at 10:06 AM on May 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
The last time - and the first time- I was in Austin was a few years before Slackers came out, as part of a high school cross country tour. So the movie was fun for me because it made me remember some of the places I saw and the vibe I got. Since then it went from “the city you have to visit, it’s awesome,” to “the best city to move to” to “it’s not what it used to be,” to what could best be characterized by a shrug and a sigh.
So for me, Slackers Austin is still the only Austin, and it lives in my mind almost like a vision of a better, future Austin, because to me it’s the Austin for cool post-college folks, as opposed to what I saw back at 16.
What I’m saying is, maybe I won’t watch the video.
posted by Mchelly at 10:06 AM on May 29, 2023
So for me, Slackers Austin is still the only Austin, and it lives in my mind almost like a vision of a better, future Austin, because to me it’s the Austin for cool post-college folks, as opposed to what I saw back at 16.
What I’m saying is, maybe I won’t watch the video.
posted by Mchelly at 10:06 AM on May 29, 2023
"I might not live well, but at least I don't have to work to do it..."
posted by AJaffe at 10:22 AM on May 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by AJaffe at 10:22 AM on May 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
Tallahassee has everything Austin had in 1991 - mild winters, cheaper real estate, low taxes, healthy underlying employment picture from big universities and state offices.
So does Vegas - Vegas has a lot of cool stuff way of the Strip.
posted by MattD at 10:37 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
So does Vegas - Vegas has a lot of cool stuff way of the Strip.
posted by MattD at 10:37 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Reading all these Gen-Xers doing their Grandpa Simpson imitations about all these towns other than Austin — I've seen Chapel Hill and Albuquerque and Seattle and Minneapolis and Vienna and Toronto and Tallahassee and Vegas (and I can even personally include NYC and Brooklyn and San Francisco and Chicago) — maybe Austin is not that special, it's being in your 20s (in the peak decade of a human lifespan) in the 90s (enjoying the peak of Western Civilization after winning the Cold War) that is.
posted by Borborygmus at 10:37 AM on May 29, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by Borborygmus at 10:37 AM on May 29, 2023 [18 favorites]
Tallahassee has everything Austin had in 1991
If you don't have a uterus, or a desire to read about the black experience in America.
posted by praemunire at 10:38 AM on May 29, 2023 [25 favorites]
If you don't have a uterus, or a desire to read about the black experience in America.
posted by praemunire at 10:38 AM on May 29, 2023 [25 favorites]
"Tallahassee has... a healthy underlying employment picture from big universities"
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! HA-HA!
...
>plop!<
posted by Don Pepino at 11:19 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! HA-HA!
...
>plop!<
posted by Don Pepino at 11:19 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Came here to say the same thing @Borborygmus did -- for me it was Tucson in the 90s. I think there was a convergence of opportunity and tuition costs that made university towns awesome places for 20 year olds in that decade, whether they were in college or not.
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:40 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by OrangeDisk at 11:40 AM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Don Pepino not sure I get you. State of Florida, FA&M and FSU must combine for 25k-30k jobs in the Tallahassee region, and FA&M and FSU are something like 50k students ... that's a huge amount of cash flowing from outside Tallahassee into Tallahassee.
posted by MattD at 11:42 AM on May 29, 2023
posted by MattD at 11:42 AM on May 29, 2023
For me, it's the Atlanta of 1999-2009, when you could afford to live solo on barista wages.
I was in the Dirty Dirty a few weeks ago, after not having visited since 2016, and the friend we were staying with in Reynoldstown took me on a brief tour of Memorial Drive as it is Now, so so different from Then. It was really hard to believe. So much of my old stomping grounds--Poncey-Hi, Va-Hi, Cabbagetown, East Atl--were nearly unrecognizable. (Looking for old ghosts, I suppose.)
Out of all my friends who still live there, only three still live centrally. One bought a house in Reynoldstown in 2008; one just bought a Grant Park condo in 2022; and the other still rents at the North Highland apartment complex (he's a touring musician and has no interest in homeowning). Everyone else moved out towards the suburbs because they started to have families and couldn't afford to do that in town.
I loved Atlanta. I still love Atlanta but all the changes are so strange.
posted by Kitteh at 12:08 PM on May 29, 2023
I was in the Dirty Dirty a few weeks ago, after not having visited since 2016, and the friend we were staying with in Reynoldstown took me on a brief tour of Memorial Drive as it is Now, so so different from Then. It was really hard to believe. So much of my old stomping grounds--Poncey-Hi, Va-Hi, Cabbagetown, East Atl--were nearly unrecognizable. (Looking for old ghosts, I suppose.)
Out of all my friends who still live there, only three still live centrally. One bought a house in Reynoldstown in 2008; one just bought a Grant Park condo in 2022; and the other still rents at the North Highland apartment complex (he's a touring musician and has no interest in homeowning). Everyone else moved out towards the suburbs because they started to have families and couldn't afford to do that in town.
I loved Atlanta. I still love Atlanta but all the changes are so strange.
posted by Kitteh at 12:08 PM on May 29, 2023
It's not just the rising cost of living in Austin, it's also the rising tide of fascism in Texas. Many people have left, or are planning to leave because they no longer feel safe anywhere in Texas. Many of my friends have already left because of the cost of living issues, and now the fascism is increasing the rate of exodus. My spouse and I will be here through next June, but after that I'm not sure.
On the upside, there is a much larger diversity in restaurants that there was in the 90s.
posted by thedward at 12:29 PM on May 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
On the upside, there is a much larger diversity in restaurants that there was in the 90s.
posted by thedward at 12:29 PM on May 29, 2023 [6 favorites]
Slacker was the first movie I ever saw where the characters seemed like human beings that might plausibly exist in real life. Weird ones, yes, but realistically so.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 12:57 PM on May 29, 2023
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 12:57 PM on May 29, 2023
maybe Austin is not that special, it's being in your 20s (in the peak decade of a human lifespan) in the 90s (enjoying the peak of Western Civilization after winning the Cold War) that is
Well, it's any one of a number of college towns in this time period, each with its own flavor, but I assure you there were many many places in the U.S. in that time that did not offer this particular lifestyle. That's why we went elsewhere.
posted by praemunire at 1:09 PM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Well, it's any one of a number of college towns in this time period, each with its own flavor, but I assure you there were many many places in the U.S. in that time that did not offer this particular lifestyle. That's why we went elsewhere.
posted by praemunire at 1:09 PM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
Places change. We lived in South Beach, (Miami Beach) back in the mid 90s to about 2000. Even in those five years it started getting gentrified. When we were first there, it was kind of run down, funky, full of small weird boutiques, art galleries, old Cuban diners, little underground clubs, inexpensive rent, lots of artist types, lots of gay people, hippie types, free spirits, drifters, people from Haiti and other islands, lots of young people living in (often) run down old buildings. But it was vibrant and alive and safe(ish) and felt like real freedom. By the time we had left there were two (2) Banana Republics within walking distance of each other, all the chain stores had started to move in, the rents skyrocketed and high-rises sprouted like tall skinny mushrooms everywhere.
We drove through it a few years ago. It is nearly unrecognizable. I had no desire to walk around and see it closer. It is gone. I'll never return. I can't return. It lives in our memories.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:11 PM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
We drove through it a few years ago. It is nearly unrecognizable. I had no desire to walk around and see it closer. It is gone. I'll never return. I can't return. It lives in our memories.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:11 PM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Late 80's, early 90's Austin was a magical place. I've got stories that would fill a dozen Slacker movies. There was this exchange of high weirdness already going on between New Orleans and Austin (of which I was a part of) for years before I first visited. By 1996 things had changed greatly, both in NOLA and in Austin. Sadly, Austin stopped being that kind of weird by 2000. I still love the place and I have a ton of friends there.
posted by garbhoch at 1:59 PM on May 29, 2023
posted by garbhoch at 1:59 PM on May 29, 2023
We used to have a game we'd play called "where's next?" where we'd try to guess what the new interesting place would be after Austin stopped being fun.
Along with other people I recognize lost lamented Seattle in this, a place I never saw because I got here in 2007 and it was already gone by then (and now is so far gone that 2007 Seattle seems like a half remembered better age tbh). General consensus is 00s Portland was a happening place and probably was the “where next” for that… after Portland, is the a place? Do places like that even still exist as a posibility? It feels like all the 2010s crazy Millenial hipster articles were some kind of extinction burst and that sort of thing is never going to happen again.
posted by Artw at 2:02 PM on May 29, 2023
Along with other people I recognize lost lamented Seattle in this, a place I never saw because I got here in 2007 and it was already gone by then (and now is so far gone that 2007 Seattle seems like a half remembered better age tbh). General consensus is 00s Portland was a happening place and probably was the “where next” for that… after Portland, is the a place? Do places like that even still exist as a posibility? It feels like all the 2010s crazy Millenial hipster articles were some kind of extinction burst and that sort of thing is never going to happen again.
posted by Artw at 2:02 PM on May 29, 2023
Small cities are where it’s at these days. Shit’s still cheap and there’s cool stuff to do. Yeah our restaurants kinda suck but there’s no Gap or Banana Republic except at the mall.
posted by slogger at 2:14 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by slogger at 2:14 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
A footnote in the bigger scheme of things, but National Instruments, a stalwart of Austin since the 70's, is being sold off after a decade of horrible decisions.
Yet another sign, I suppose.
posted by SunSnork at 2:27 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Yet another sign, I suppose.
posted by SunSnork at 2:27 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
Small cities are where it’s at these days. Shit’s still cheap and there’s cool stuff to do. Yeah our restaurants kinda suck but there’s no Gap or Banana Republic
I don't know where you're talking about; I'm about to get priced out of fucking CLEVELAND. I don't think nostalgia for one's twenties has shit to do with the topic under conversation, frankly. The cost of living is stratospheric in this garbage country.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:45 PM on May 29, 2023 [14 favorites]
I don't know where you're talking about; I'm about to get priced out of fucking CLEVELAND. I don't think nostalgia for one's twenties has shit to do with the topic under conversation, frankly. The cost of living is stratospheric in this garbage country.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 2:45 PM on May 29, 2023 [14 favorites]
Tallahassee has everything Austin had in 1991 - mild winters, cheaper real estate, low taxes, healthy underlying employment picture from big universities and state offices.
So does Vegas - Vegas has a lot of cool stuff way of the Strip.
posted by MattD at 12:37 PM on May 29
I lived in FLA (Clearwater Beach) when I was early 20s and didn't like it. We (ex-wife and I) were desperately poor, FLA was on the tail end of a monster real estate crash We literally counted pennies to buy corn bread @ 09 a box, pinto beans, poor peoples food which we pretended was peasant food.
We did put together $850 and bought a very simple, very well maintained 1968 Ford Econoline van, a delivery van from Sweat's Flower Shop. We sure had fun with it, used rubbing compound to remove the lettering, that van said Sweat's Flower Shop of all four sides, it was variously "Sweat lower" "eat lower" "eat low" "eat Flowers" "Flower hop" "Sweat Flowers" on and on, etc and etc.
But that fun didn't help much in putting up with the endless streams of tourists from right after yankee christmas was over through the end of the summer. Admittedly, the end of the summer brought the most gorgeous weather you can imagine, a pounding, horror show rainstorm at exactly 3:30 every day -- we're talking set your watch at these Noah' arc rains, something else -- for 35 minutes, then 40 minutes for the streets to handle that massive rain, followed by absolutely gorgeous, crystal clear sky, perfect sunsets walking on the beach, seeing what the storm had brought in. The best of the gulf coast of FLA.
Long blather. The tourists were the worst, plus starving. Lasted a few years...
One of my best friends (The Wanderer -- I've known Tina 37 years, she has to have lived in at least 30 places and I'd bet more) Tina lived in Vegas a couple of years ago, for about a year, said you get away from all the silly jive of the strip it's actually a pretty great place. If you can deal with the desert -- myself, I love it. TONS of hiking and bicycling and she said also a lot of the things I like in Austin, some fun/funky areas, some good little fun restaurants, easy to strike up friendships (Tina is unreal social, I have my moments.) And compared to Austin I could afford a nicer place, not that this one sucks, though it does, built in 1974 as apartments, I run my dishwasher and you'd think the building was going to fall down, and it might. Anyways, Vegas I would look into.
for me it was Tucson in the 90s. I think there was a convergence of opportunity and tuition costs that made university towns awesome places for 20 year olds in that decade, whether they were in college or not.
posted by OrangeDisk at 1:40 PM on May 29
Maybe it was the university. But Tucson was a fine, fine town, drive ten minutes and I'm in The Suguaro National Monument, one of my favorite places on the planet. (I prefer the west side park, both totally rock, both absolutely gorgeous. But Tucson has an awfully thready pulse, the fact that they actually roll up the sidewalks at 8:00 PM was a wonder to me. Then California happened to it, and while still sweet, especially compared to the encrusted, inflamed hemorrhoid 2 hours north --Phoenix -- it is not what it was. I love that town but I'd not live there.
It's not just the rising cost of living in Austin, it's also the rising tide of fascism in Texas. Many people have left, or are planning to leave because they no longer feel safe anywhere in Texas.
posted by thedward at 2:29 PM on May 29
This governor, knowing he wants to crush everything and knowing he's in a wheelchair, I cannot but think of that Gibran line "And what of the cripple who hates dancers?"
Last. Austin had a *huge* bust. In the mid 1980s. You could not give away real estate. I bought this bitty 1 BF condo 1993 for 28,500. 3 years prior to that, a women I knew bought a 2 BR 1.5 bath for 19, 500. 2 years prior to that, you buy a box of cereal, they'd give you a condo. That is the dirt Slacker grew in.
posted by dancestoblue at 2:50 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
So does Vegas - Vegas has a lot of cool stuff way of the Strip.
posted by MattD at 12:37 PM on May 29
I lived in FLA (Clearwater Beach) when I was early 20s and didn't like it. We (ex-wife and I) were desperately poor, FLA was on the tail end of a monster real estate crash We literally counted pennies to buy corn bread @ 09 a box, pinto beans, poor peoples food which we pretended was peasant food.
We did put together $850 and bought a very simple, very well maintained 1968 Ford Econoline van, a delivery van from Sweat's Flower Shop. We sure had fun with it, used rubbing compound to remove the lettering, that van said Sweat's Flower Shop of all four sides, it was variously "Sweat lower" "eat lower" "eat low" "eat Flowers" "Flower hop" "Sweat Flowers" on and on, etc and etc.
But that fun didn't help much in putting up with the endless streams of tourists from right after yankee christmas was over through the end of the summer. Admittedly, the end of the summer brought the most gorgeous weather you can imagine, a pounding, horror show rainstorm at exactly 3:30 every day -- we're talking set your watch at these Noah' arc rains, something else -- for 35 minutes, then 40 minutes for the streets to handle that massive rain, followed by absolutely gorgeous, crystal clear sky, perfect sunsets walking on the beach, seeing what the storm had brought in. The best of the gulf coast of FLA.
Long blather. The tourists were the worst, plus starving. Lasted a few years...
One of my best friends (The Wanderer -- I've known Tina 37 years, she has to have lived in at least 30 places and I'd bet more) Tina lived in Vegas a couple of years ago, for about a year, said you get away from all the silly jive of the strip it's actually a pretty great place. If you can deal with the desert -- myself, I love it. TONS of hiking and bicycling and she said also a lot of the things I like in Austin, some fun/funky areas, some good little fun restaurants, easy to strike up friendships (Tina is unreal social, I have my moments.) And compared to Austin I could afford a nicer place, not that this one sucks, though it does, built in 1974 as apartments, I run my dishwasher and you'd think the building was going to fall down, and it might. Anyways, Vegas I would look into.
for me it was Tucson in the 90s. I think there was a convergence of opportunity and tuition costs that made university towns awesome places for 20 year olds in that decade, whether they were in college or not.
posted by OrangeDisk at 1:40 PM on May 29
Maybe it was the university. But Tucson was a fine, fine town, drive ten minutes and I'm in The Suguaro National Monument, one of my favorite places on the planet. (I prefer the west side park, both totally rock, both absolutely gorgeous. But Tucson has an awfully thready pulse, the fact that they actually roll up the sidewalks at 8:00 PM was a wonder to me. Then California happened to it, and while still sweet, especially compared to the encrusted, inflamed hemorrhoid 2 hours north --Phoenix -- it is not what it was. I love that town but I'd not live there.
It's not just the rising cost of living in Austin, it's also the rising tide of fascism in Texas. Many people have left, or are planning to leave because they no longer feel safe anywhere in Texas.
posted by thedward at 2:29 PM on May 29
This governor, knowing he wants to crush everything and knowing he's in a wheelchair, I cannot but think of that Gibran line "And what of the cripple who hates dancers?"
Last. Austin had a *huge* bust. In the mid 1980s. You could not give away real estate. I bought this bitty 1 BF condo 1993 for 28,500. 3 years prior to that, a women I knew bought a 2 BR 1.5 bath for 19, 500. 2 years prior to that, you buy a box of cereal, they'd give you a condo. That is the dirt Slacker grew in.
posted by dancestoblue at 2:50 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm jealous of you all who were cool and/or artistic and/or socially-grounded enough in your 20's that you could enjoy these slacker meccas, and have all these great memories of them. My 20's were mostly a bewildered rootless prolonged adolescence, and then a career snuck up on me. Twerp to yuppie without any cool bohemian interlude.
Anyway, it seems relevant to mention here the TVO series The Life-Sized City, in which the host Mikael Colville-Andersen visits world cities in search of the people and ideas for making city communities more inclusive, affordable and vibrant. And cool. It's encouraging to see people striving to build the sorts of communities that have the same vibes and values of the ones you're mourning the passing of.
posted by Artful Codger at 4:12 PM on May 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
Anyway, it seems relevant to mention here the TVO series The Life-Sized City, in which the host Mikael Colville-Andersen visits world cities in search of the people and ideas for making city communities more inclusive, affordable and vibrant. And cool. It's encouraging to see people striving to build the sorts of communities that have the same vibes and values of the ones you're mourning the passing of.
posted by Artful Codger at 4:12 PM on May 29, 2023 [7 favorites]
That is the dirt Slacker grew in
It's amazing what the two ingredients "cheap" and "interesting" do together.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 4:20 PM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's amazing what the two ingredients "cheap" and "interesting" do together.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 4:20 PM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
"Cheap" gives people the breathing room and space to create the "interesting"
(Went to UT for grad school, 2000-2002, so probably missed the true slackers heyday but caught glimpses. Haven't been back in a while but last few times I did, I was shook.)
posted by misskaz at 4:26 PM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
(Went to UT for grad school, 2000-2002, so probably missed the true slackers heyday but caught glimpses. Haven't been back in a while but last few times I did, I was shook.)
posted by misskaz at 4:26 PM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
What struck me when I first saw Slacker a few years ago was, in the many scenes in cafes and coffee shops, there were no computers and no cell phones.
Nowadays in similar places there are open laptops on many tables, and many people are looking at phones --- even if they also have a laptop open.
I think Slacker must have been made at almost the last moment before the computers and phones arrived.
posted by JonJacky at 4:32 PM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
Nowadays in similar places there are open laptops on many tables, and many people are looking at phones --- even if they also have a laptop open.
I think Slacker must have been made at almost the last moment before the computers and phones arrived.
posted by JonJacky at 4:32 PM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
I went out there for a couple of Pharmaco studies around 92-93. I had a volkswagon van and parked up the hill behind a health food store. The next day two more volkswagon vans pulled in behind me on the side street. I had nothing else to do for a couple weeks between the screening physical and the start of the study where I'd be testing some drug for 11 days. So I hung out on Guadalupe street by the university and got to know all the other folks who were hanging out doing nothing. Heard this dreadlocked dude on his guitar busting out Now by NOMEANSNO and I jumped up and jammed with him. Turns out his van was parked right behind me on the side street, he'd driven down from Canada. I hung out with all these street kids, once over to Barton Springs where we all snuck in by going through a very tight grate around the side of an overflow tunnel. Next day someone's got a Thomas guide and the bright idea that they can maybe have a more permanent place to camp by finding little strips of green-colored parkland on the map and checking them out. So a bunch of them piled in my van and off we went to scope out spots on a regular adventure. Neighbors call the police in due course, someone goes to jail for a knife tucked in their boot, good times. Wasn't my only time out there, but it was the best I've had for having too much time and too little money.
posted by Catblack at 5:09 PM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Catblack at 5:09 PM on May 29, 2023 [4 favorites]
If you would like a taste of Old Austin, check out the Deep Eddy Cabaret...
posted by jim in austin at 5:49 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 5:49 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I finally watched Slackers today, and strongly suspect that even if I hadn't been a decade late for that, my experience would have been much different than what's shown in the film. So many random awkward conversations with strangers!
I hadn't heard about National Instruments, wow. When I interned there, they were touting their hundred-year business plan. I'd heard things changed when the founders started looking to their personal retirement.
Austin really peaked in the late 90s/early aughts, imho - when, by sheer coincidence, I lived there in my early 20s. Lucky me! (However: the food has improved considerably, and the craft beer scene had fallen on hard times and revived after I moved here.) Between the politics, the cost of living, and the infrastructure failures, 'are you thinking about leaving and where to' is getting to be a common topic of conversation.
posted by mersen at 6:48 PM on May 29, 2023
I hadn't heard about National Instruments, wow. When I interned there, they were touting their hundred-year business plan. I'd heard things changed when the founders started looking to their personal retirement.
Austin really peaked in the late 90s/early aughts, imho - when, by sheer coincidence, I lived there in my early 20s. Lucky me! (However: the food has improved considerably, and the craft beer scene had fallen on hard times and revived after I moved here.) Between the politics, the cost of living, and the infrastructure failures, 'are you thinking about leaving and where to' is getting to be a common topic of conversation.
posted by mersen at 6:48 PM on May 29, 2023
I don't know where you're talking about; I'm about to get priced out of fucking CLEVELAND. I don't think nostalgia for one's twenties has shit to do with the topic under conversation, frankly. The cost of living is stratospheric in this garbage country.
The one next door as well. I grew up in Hamilton ON, an hour from Toronto, and moved away in 1990. I was paying $480 a month for a quite nice two-bedroom place (my flatmate had departed a year earlier and I stayed on alone).
The Bank of Canada inflation calculator says $480 in 1990 dollars is a little over $800 now. The average rent on a two-bedroom in Hamilton is north of $2000 currently.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:22 PM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
The one next door as well. I grew up in Hamilton ON, an hour from Toronto, and moved away in 1990. I was paying $480 a month for a quite nice two-bedroom place (my flatmate had departed a year earlier and I stayed on alone).
The Bank of Canada inflation calculator says $480 in 1990 dollars is a little over $800 now. The average rent on a two-bedroom in Hamilton is north of $2000 currently.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:22 PM on May 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
We lived in Austin for ten years from 2010 on, and there are plenty of names I recognize from the Austin Chronicle t-shirt Tuba Toothpaste linked above -- even Dart Bowl is gone?!
There are a lot of fond memories about the city from those 10 years, but the one that probably stands out most is the one Moondance backyard concert/potluck we got to attend in 2019. One grandma-led Tex-Mex rock band and a math professor from UT with awesome guitar chops made wonderful music that night, and I danced my heart out like I never danced before or since. That night was almost too stereotypically Austin.
posted by of strange foe at 8:27 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
There are a lot of fond memories about the city from those 10 years, but the one that probably stands out most is the one Moondance backyard concert/potluck we got to attend in 2019. One grandma-led Tex-Mex rock band and a math professor from UT with awesome guitar chops made wonderful music that night, and I danced my heart out like I never danced before or since. That night was almost too stereotypically Austin.
posted by of strange foe at 8:27 PM on May 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
I hitchhiked into Austin in 1971 at the age of 17 with $10 and a toothbrush. Couch surfed for months before I got a job selling the Rag on the drag. The Armadillo was going strong and the acid was high quality. By 1977 I'd worked at Motorola enough to save for a down payment on a bungalow in Hyde Park which I still inhabit. Had many musicians and artists as roommates. Hung out at Liberty Lunch and saw a huge number of excellent bands. Got a job at the aforementioned Wheatsville Food Co-op and worked there until 2020. Wheatsville was and is a hub of slackerdom and many people in the film worked at Wheatsville. My house is still rundown and funky, an outpost of the old days of Austin and I still swim at Barton Springs, though it's not as clear as it used to be. Most of the places I loved are gone and Covid killed off almost all of the survivors. But some of my people are still here and we love to talk about the good things we got to live through. Come on by to the roundabout at 41st St and Ave B and see a survivor of weird. The yard with the bamboo and wisteria and art pieces slowly rusting,
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:04 PM on May 29, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:04 PM on May 29, 2023 [17 favorites]
I went to UT between 2004-2008, just I guess I caught the very end. I thought it was nice for the few years I went back to visit after that. Now I hear a bunch of Californians moved there and ruined it :P
posted by LizBoBiz at 5:08 AM on May 30, 2023
posted by LizBoBiz at 5:08 AM on May 30, 2023
By total chance, my personal experience of Austin has evolved contrary to the general narrative over the past 30 years. The first time I visited, in the 90s, I was consulting for some internet startup, and all I saw was a sea of highways, conference rooms, and cubicles full of red-faced men name-dropping and blustering about the future of the internet. (Somehow I even got to meet Jim Seymour, long-time editor of PC Magazine, and it was a bit disappointing that he seemed to fit right in with that vibe.)
Now I have come to have family and friends there, and visit often, and my impression is that more than most places there still really is a special culture of building communities and making creative things happen that people make an effort to keep alive despite the different economic circumstances and challenges of having to be more geographically diffuse.
posted by mubba at 5:19 AM on May 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
Now I have come to have family and friends there, and visit often, and my impression is that more than most places there still really is a special culture of building communities and making creative things happen that people make an effort to keep alive despite the different economic circumstances and challenges of having to be more geographically diffuse.
posted by mubba at 5:19 AM on May 30, 2023 [4 favorites]
So last night I finally clicked the video link. And it starts playing, and it starts just like Slacker, with no preamble. Which seems like an odd choice, but it’s an interesting one. But then it keeps going. And I think, hunh, it’s taking a long time for the video creator to start talking or cut to scenes of modern day Austin… and then I keep watching and it’s still Slacker, which is still great, but I’m still waiting, and then it occurs to me, Hey wait, this isn’t an FPP video essay about “Search high and low, the charming, funky Austin of "Slacker" is gone,” where someone compares the locations from then to now and talks about the changes to the city… this is an FPP of the movie. So I gave up the rest of my night and settled in and watched Slacker. So that was awesome.
I will say that if you’re trying to recapture the feeling of watching Slacker for the first time, you can’t do better than thinking you’re going to be watching something else and confusedly waiting for it to start.
posted by Mchelly at 5:46 AM on May 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
I will say that if you’re trying to recapture the feeling of watching Slacker for the first time, you can’t do better than thinking you’re going to be watching something else and confusedly waiting for it to start.
posted by Mchelly at 5:46 AM on May 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
Came here to say the same thing @Borborygmus did -- for me it was Tucson in the 90s.
I think it's kind of interesting, because I was graduating high school in 1995, and UT Austin was incredibly expensive (tuition was $4000 for 12 hours, housing in the freshman dorms was just under $7,000 per semester) and it was exclusive, which isn't too big a surprise considering it was basically among the best universities between California and Georgia and south of Illinois.
Certainly the nearby schools in NM didn't compare.
Only the valedictorian in my school qualified for enrollment, nobody else. Starting in late '80s, UT Austin took over 2% of freshman students from 2 school districts (Texas has over 1000 school districts), which are among the wealthiest in the state. They took 0 from about ~80% of the districts, even though it has auto-admit for top 10%, but auto-admit only qualifies you for a 'general education' slot, not the science or business schools, so auto-admit is pretty crappy - you have to compete your way into the STEM schools via top grades and ranking. That's also why it's involved in so many affirmative action lawsuits.
So yeah, it's not surprising that Austin gentrified.
I also interviewed with National Instruments in 1999 as I was nearing graduation from another school - they only took married couples from my school, and were pretty open about that. Them and JC Penny (the interviewer was like 'don't go to work for this company it sucks' were the the creepiest interviews.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:48 AM on May 30, 2023
I think it's kind of interesting, because I was graduating high school in 1995, and UT Austin was incredibly expensive (tuition was $4000 for 12 hours, housing in the freshman dorms was just under $7,000 per semester) and it was exclusive, which isn't too big a surprise considering it was basically among the best universities between California and Georgia and south of Illinois.
Certainly the nearby schools in NM didn't compare.
Only the valedictorian in my school qualified for enrollment, nobody else. Starting in late '80s, UT Austin took over 2% of freshman students from 2 school districts (Texas has over 1000 school districts), which are among the wealthiest in the state. They took 0 from about ~80% of the districts, even though it has auto-admit for top 10%, but auto-admit only qualifies you for a 'general education' slot, not the science or business schools, so auto-admit is pretty crappy - you have to compete your way into the STEM schools via top grades and ranking. That's also why it's involved in so many affirmative action lawsuits.
So yeah, it's not surprising that Austin gentrified.
I also interviewed with National Instruments in 1999 as I was nearing graduation from another school - they only took married couples from my school, and were pretty open about that. Them and JC Penny (the interviewer was like 'don't go to work for this company it sucks' were the the creepiest interviews.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:48 AM on May 30, 2023
"Cheap" gives people the breathing room and space to create the "interesting"
No, no it doesn't do that by itself, just being cheap.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 10:42 AM on May 30, 2023
No, no it doesn't do that by itself, just being cheap.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 10:42 AM on May 30, 2023
« Older Collar Me, Don't Collar Me | “You can’t make a Tomelette without breaking some... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:11 AM on May 29, 2023 [3 favorites]