On tour in Austin

The Riverside Branch closes on October 13. It's all very nice that there's going to be a big new branch opening in January (or projected to open then). Too bad the current branch can't stay open in the meantime. Too bad that the new branch is going to be much less accessible to all the people who arrive at the current one from a bus stop or on foot. Nobody's happy about this. When we left our bags o' mags, we picked up in exchange a discarded old library copy of Real Simple magazine. This is another of those "aspirational" publications and touts the kind of simplicity that's at least a couple of steps more expensive and time-consuming than the Martha Stewart sort. I'm glad I didn't pay to learn this. We also lucked out in getting El Mundo, El Norte, La Prensa, and Arriba, and then at our next stop were Nokoa and The Villager. In keeping with our grand tour of Austin, the next stop was the City Market on Airport. The sound track is quiet storm. The clientele is pretty evenly divided between retired African-Americans and young Spanish-speaking families. My two favorites from the very off-brand greeting-card section were "sorry about your accident" and one that had "Hay, Bro" on the cover and "Happy Bir" inside.