Fiesta Texana!
Okay, Texas history fans: It’s time we got our stuff together for a Texas history carnival. [Update: The inaugural Fiesta de Tejas! is here, at the Bathtub, on April 2.]
Except, this being Texas, just calling it a “carnival” probably won’t cut it. It needs to be a fiesta.
Our friend and colleague David Parker over at Another History Blog mentions the Georgia History Carnival today (the carnival itself is at Provocative Church). If Georgia, with its dull, almost-landlocked, not-found-by-Europeans-until-the-17th-century and having-only-peaches-instead-of-peppers history can do it, Texas should be able to do it better.
Heck, we could almost do a carnival on Texas-shaped cooking gear and foods.
Texas-shaped grill from Texas Correctional Industries.
Nobody makes Georgia-shaped burgers. And contrary to popular belief, Wendy’s burgers are not really shaped like Colorado, or Wyoming.
So, what do you think? Should we have an internet carnival of Texas history and things Texan? If you think it’s a good idea, leave a comment saying so. If you have something to contribute, send it along to Fiesta Texana!, e-mail me at edarrell[AT]sbcglobal.net. Let’s see what happens.
(Chili pepper nightlight from Katsu Designs.)
Update: Okay, we’re registered as Fiesta de Tejas at the Blog Carnival. We’re off and rolling, accepting entries. Send in your best!
(We could also use a logo — something with an armadillo, or a pepper, or a cowboy hat, sideoats grama grass, or surprise us! No pay, of course — just glory.)
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] let me take this moment to plug the upcoming carnival of Texas history and all things Texas, Fiesta de Tejas! If you blog for history, or for Texas, please pass the plug […]
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This Virginian is smugly sitting on the sidelines enjoying the show!
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It came in by treaty negotiation, and . . .?
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Somebody mentioned Texas music and didn’t mention Janis Joplin? For shame, for shame. (I once sent a bottle of wine backstage to her at a concert, not that it ‘did me any good,’ just because I wanted to do it.)
And, in keeping with the quiz ideas above, when Texas came into the Union, it was unique in two ways. Can you name them?
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Hey, thanks for giving the Georgia Carnival some play over here in the Texas section of the blogosphere. I commented over at David’s post that I seemed to remember a group of Georgians heading out to Texas to help colonize the place way back when….I believe part of the King family (Roswell King) had something to do with moving out west. Don’t we get a little credit for that?
The Ga. Carnival is my brainchild and I have been trying to improve it with each edition but it’s challenging to say the least. Folks like David Parker and our current host have been invaluable to me. Texans seem to have lots of folks blogging so it shouldn’t be too hard to get a following. The main hub for the Georgia Carnival is over at Georgia On My Mind (http://mymindisongeorgia.blogspot.com)
I’ll give your carnival a shout out at History Is Elementary within the next day or so.
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Botanical overload. Bluebonnets? They’re nice. They’re on everything. I did mention sideoats grama, the state grass. I considered the pecan, the state tree, and I considered the Austin Treaty Oak, and that huge live oak near Goose Island State Park; but I taught native plant identification and planned Forestry Merit Badge curricula with Scouters in the last couple of weeks, and the botanical possibilities look a lot larger to me than the famous flower.
But of course, you’re right.
I also didn’t mention the lightning whelk, the state shell, nor the state’s large mammal, the longhorn (the armadillo is the state’s small mammal). Nor did I mention the state’s Dutch oven dish, the official state food . . . Texas takes pride in a lot of stuff.
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P.S. I can’t beleive that you didn’t consider a bluebonnet for a logo!
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Actually, give me some warning of when you are going to have it, and I could pull something together, with pictures!
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You are welcome to add my post that you commented on to the carnival. ;)
Yeehaw.
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Texas does have a lot of music, good music, of a wide variety of styles, shapes and colors. Stevie Ray Vaughn grew up just a few miles from where Robert Johnson recorded in Dallas 40 years earlier, and even closer to where Ray Charles once lived.
And Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys were essentially a Fort Worth act, just 40 miles away. It gets better as the circle widens to include Waco, Austin, Houston, Lubbock, San Antonio, Texarkana (Scott Joplin, anyone?) and El Paso.
So, can we get a couple of musicologist bloggers to submit entries to the Fiesta?
Anyone from Montana care to comment on Texas skies?
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“Bumper Sticker?” Heck, I have that slogan on a t-shirt, from a Stevie Ray Vaughn concert in the Houston Arena. His opening act was his brother, Jimmy Vaughn and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and the two played a duet together on the same guitar at the same time.
Central Texas does have the best skies of anywhere, with big, fat, flat-bottomed cumulus clouds.
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1519? Well, that’ll teach me to trust Wikipedia. In any case, such a claim reminds me too much of those lists Mildred Lewis Rutherford, longtime Historian-General of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, used to draw up–trivial fact masquerading as historical significance.
I’ve been to Texas a half dozen times. (I used to spend a week in June in San Antonio, grading AP U.S. History essays, and that accounts for four visits.) The prettiest sky I ever saw was there. And any state that gave us both Molly Ivins and the Playboys (Bob Wills’s, not Hugh Hefner’s) is OK in my book. Oh, and Shiner Bock.
Besides, Clio Bluestocking, in comments over at Another History Blog, reminded me of the bumper sticker, “Don’t Mess with Texas.”
Georgia’s peach obsession does get a bit tedious. I prefer Roy Blount (another Georgian) to Lewis Grizzard, but that’s almost heresy around here.
Several years ago, when I was writing a “column, weakly,” I did a piece on Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, who briefly settled in Georgia in 1526. I want to finish writing an encyclopedia entry I foolishly promised to do and then take the night off, but I’ll find that piece and put it up on my blog.
Keep up the good work!
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1526? Really?
I think Texas’ claim to 1519 is really somewhat tenuous. But I had no idea Georgia goes back that far. Who did that exploration?
And besides, it’s all interstate rivalry in good fun — I hope.
Georgia has its charms, I think. The continued jokes about Sherman, the peach obsession, dogwoods and magnolia, pines, etc. But to someone who comes to Texas from somewhere else, this is really quite a trip. Admit it: Georgia doesn’t have prisoners making Georgia-shaped grills for sale. Nor are there Georgia-shaped macaroni for sale at the local Piggly-Wiggly, I’ll bet. California is big enough that the beer companies and a few others make state-specific, and even city-specific ads and promotion campaigns. But I’ve never seen a California-shaped cake or pie tin.
Texas is unique in its state patriotism.
And I have actually heard Alaskans threaten to divide Alaska in two, thereby making Texas the third largest state in the U.S. Texas pride irks the heck out of people from other states.
That’s part of what makes it possible to have a Molly Ivins, or a Lewis Grizzard, of course.
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Ed, You “silently” corrected a typo in a comment I made in one of your previous postings, which kept me from looking like an idiot, so I’m not going to say a word about your characterization of Georgia (I won’t say it here, anyway). Not a word–but I’ll say a number: 1526.
Best wishes getting a Fiesta Texana together!
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