But how weird?

You'll note that the name of this Blog is Retired in Austin.

The city that has as an official slogan "Keep Austin Weird." I'm not making this up. The Mayor, when meeting delegations from elsewhere, often wears a tee shirt with that slogan and hands them out as mementos of the occasion. At least the former Mayor did; the new Mayor seems a little more stodgy. So little surprises you when you live here. I mean, we've got a homeless drag queen living downtown that has run for Mayor - and received lots of votes.

But occasionally things transpire in Austin that make you stop and wonder. Here are two of them - on the same, momentous day! You tell me which is weirder.

The first is the announcement of a 6-week, $75, 000 ad campaign to make Austin aware of poop.

Here's humorist for the American-Statesman John Kelso's take on the subject. And I quote:

"That big pile of dirt on Auditorium Shores? Are you wondering what that's all about? 

Well, it's part of a City of Austin campaign to get you to start picking up your dog's droppings."This is a pile of dirt," says the educational sign in front of the dirt pile, on the banks of Lady Bird Lake near the western end of Riverside Drive. "Imagine, if one day all the dog poop in the city were put in one big pile. It would be this big. It would weigh 60,000 lbs." 

Really? That's the equivalent of a day's worth of Austin dog mess? 

Yes, says Kathy Shay, the city's water quality education manager, who helped put together the $75,000 campaign called Scoop the Poop, Austin! This 60,000-pound figure, Shay said, is based on the estimate of 120,000 dogs in Austin and the average weight of each daily dog bomb weighing a half-pound. 

And the pile, she said, is five dump truck loads of dirt. "And they were big dump trucks." But she said the estimate on the number of dogs in Austin might be a little low. So to be accurate, the pile perhaps should be bigger."

Oh, there's a lot more, including a snappy video with an Austin-original song about the subject, which shows cartoon doggies leaving little cartoon doggie calling cards. I looked online for the video, but honestly, not too hard. All I found was a video of Ms Shay, keeping a straight face while she explained the mound of ersatz poop. You can see it here if you have to. And all of Mr Kelso's article is here.

But there's more.

 

This is a picture of  choreographer Allison Orr directing a bunch of trash men sanitary engineers as they operate their trucks and pick-up arms in a "Trash Dance." I can't find words to describe this - watch the video of the rehearsal. I'm sorry to tell you that you missed the actual performance. At least this was privately funded. Except the City loaned her the use of the trash trucks, and the ex-mayor volunteered to drive one of them - as long as he got to wear his Keep Austin Weird tee shirt.

Oh, and here's the whole story if you don't have a life, like me.