Viewers Like You

August 31 is Slacker Day in Austin, Tx. How do I know this? Austin Mayor, Lee Leffingwell, proclaimed it so at the world-premeire of Slacker 2011, which Viewers Like You was invited to as “Freeloaders” (donors).

You see, back in the day, Richard Linklater wrote a love poem to his hometown of Austin. It was a movie titled Slacker. The landmark film explored Austin’s subculture in a loose narrative with a serious dose of quirky characters. Linklater’s humble bit of cinema was, and remains, an inspiration to filmmakers. All those years ago, not yet Austinites ourselves, we too were feeling the civic love.

Celebrating the movie’s 20th anniversary, a coterie of Austin’s top filmmakers came together to update Slacker with their own perspectives on the city. Slacker 2011 is a remake of the stream-of-consciousness chronicle of a day in Austin populated with the city-dwellers, dragworms, proto-hipsters and locations that give the city its modern identity.

Imagine my shock when smack dab in the middle of the movie, the Pixl-Visionary scene, I notice one of the characters wearing a t-shirt highlighting my neighborhood’s zip code. A t-shirt WE designed YEARS ago! Gobsmacked, and not wanting to miss a moment of our costume design debut, David and I sat eyes-wide-open, jaw-slacked for 60 seconds.

Like a celebrity-sighting, seeing the 78722 T on screen gave me a little lift, the same shot of adrenaline I get on the rare occasion I see a live human sporting one. It also brought back a stream of memories about why we created the shirt in the first place.

As newbies to Austin, we hit the jackpot as far as neighborhoods are concerned. French Place couldn’t have been a better fit for us. Our affection manifested into a sartorial bumper sticker that sold at our local coffee house, Thunderbird, and the Cherrywood Art Fair.

And after a most difficult summer that felt like living in Phoenix–a summer where we, and everyone we know, have seriously considered moving elsewhere–watching Slacker 2011 reminded me how one-of-a-kind Austin is and how very rare Austinites are. That t-shirt sighting was an express train, returning me solidly home.

A few youth-sized shirts remain. But I’ve known adults in the petite realm who’ve rocked the size 12 ones. Interested? Check out our shop.

::  If you liked this post, your next move would be to explore here. And if you loved this post… Let’s set aside time to just, be aimless. ::