LOCAL WEBSITE MAKES BOOK 
Does li’l ol’ Buffalo Bayou qualify for a river guide? It does now. Longtime bayou history boat tour guide Louis Aulbach — author of 5 river guides chronicling the courses and histories of a few West Texas waterways — has just published Buffalo Bayou: An Echo of Houston’s Wilderness Beginnings as a book. If you’re a bayou or local history buff and that title sounds familiar, it should: Aulbach has been posting extended excerpts from the project on his old-school HAL-PC website for years. [Memorial Examiner; Amazon link]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Quicklink
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LICKED CLEAN BY MILLIONS OF COCKROACHES “Roaches? I didn’t leave them out. I just didn’t see any — as in, not one. No living creatures at all, except us humans. The place smelled clean, like fresh water. I wonder where those roaches went…. and (ugh) what they were eating down there in the ’80s.” [Lisa Gray, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Cockroaches Found That Cistern First]
ATLANTA HUTS FOR HOUSTON’S HOMELESS 
At yesterday’s meeting new city council member Jack Christie distributed descriptions of prefab huts and “low riders” produced by an Atlanta organization called Mad Housers, suggesting that similar structures — privately funded — could be used in Houston as they are in Atlanta: as shelters for homeless people. “You don’t see the sleeping bags out there, the newspapers,†Christie told reporter Chris Moran afterward. “These have a lock on the door so you have a sense of security.†The huts, which the Atlanta organization stresses are not intended as permanent housing, measure 6 ft. by 8 ft. with 12-ft. ceilings, and feature a sleeping loft, a locking door, and a wood-burning stove for heat and cooking. The “low riders” are 4 ft. by 8 ft. with only 4-ft. ceilings; they’re meant to allow residents to keep their shelters on the down-low, below vegetation lines or other screening objects where they wouldn’t want them to be too conspicuous. These smaller units come with a separate 4x4x4 storage box. [Houston Politics; Mad Housers] Photo: Mad Housers
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE COCKROACHES FOUND THAT CISTERN FIRST “Back in ’83 until about ’85 my buddies Colin Mazzola, Keith Tashima and myself would go down an open hatch into that thing — they closed it up sometime around ’86 or ’87 — this was back when jogging around the North side os Allen Parkway (near the celemetaries) was a little sketchy — people hanging out in the park near/under the Memorial Dr underpasses — anyway, what Lisa Gray left out was the 10 million roaches down there — we couldn’t hang out there for long — you couldn’t sit down or hang — BUT it was really cool and I remember being totally amazed that the City had an underground aqueduct/storm sewer overflow (yes it flooded and was impossible to go down the ladder) that was open and pretty much abandoned.” [David Beebe, commenting on Poking Around in Buffalo Bayou’s Abandoned Basement]
REPAIRS DONE, WEDGE AS IT WAS 
The Swamplot reader who noted a color change in the panels at the top of the WEDGE International Tower at Louisiana and Bell St. downtown last week informs us that they’ve since been returned to their original appearance, and submits this pic from a perch at the Tellepsen YMCA a couple of blocks away to prove it: “Presumably, as one of the commenters surmised, they were just running through some routine maintenance.” We now return to our regularly scheduled Swamplot programming. Photo: Swamplot inbox
H&M LANDING IN HOUSTON, BUT STAYING OUTSIDE THE LOOP Fashion retailer H&M this morning officially announced its first 2 stores in Houston, both in malls. A 19,400-sq.-ft. slot at the Baybrook Mall already mentioned on the company’s website is scheduled to open sometime this spring. Next: a 25,600-sq.-ft. store in the Willowbrook Mall. The company press release didn’t refer to any plans for inner-loop locations. [Shop Girl; previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ONE OF THESE DAYS THEY’LL HAVE HOUSTON PEGGED “Another version of the same description we’ve heard for the past 5 years. Prior to that, no description was heard. I’d say having any kind of identity is better than none at all. L.A. spent decades being bashed until a new gaggle of journalists discovered the ugly duckling had grown up. I expect a similar timeline for Houston.” [Dana-X, commenting on More Spit Than Polish]
MORE SPIT THAN POLISH Another magazine profile of Houston, another run for the metaphor machine: “Houston is what you might get if you took everything that is really, really great and slightly irritating and crazy in a good way about the South and about America and threw it in one of those rock-polishing tumblers for a spin or two before dumping it all out and leaving everything where it lay.” [Garden & Gun]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE HOUSTON MUSIC UNDERGROUND “it sounds really really cool, but aside from asking Pauline Oliveros to re-record her Deep Listening album i can’t think of a single thing that would make good use of an abandoned cistern.” [joel, commenting on Poking Around in Buffalo Bayou’s Abandoned Basement]
CRICKET TRAILER TAKES IT OFFLINE 
How’d the Cricket Trailer do in its national teevee debut last night on Extreme RV, the Travel Channel’s new show? Former furnituremaker-to-the-astronauts Garrett Finney didn’t get top billing in the episode for the second version of his unique 2-wheeler pop-top vehicle, painstakingly crafted in his Woodland Heights workshop — that prize went to Simon Cowell’s behemoth 45-footer motor home. Still, the Cricket website attracted enough attention from the RV early adopter crowd to knock it off its server. From the Cricket’s Facebook page, Finney promises it’ll be back online soon. Update, 1/31: It’s back in business. [Previously on Swamplot]
POKING AROUND IN BUFFALO BAYOU’S ABANDONED BASEMENT 
Lisa Gray finds echoes, art, and a few dramatic rays of light in the giant abandoned 1927 underground reservoir near the Buffalo Bayou at Sabine St., under the planned site of a new outdoor performance pavilion: “The question now, of course, is what to do with the Cistern. [Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s Guy] Hagstette says that everyone now agrees it won’t be used for parking or storage. But what should it be? How should the public have access to it? And how will it be paid for? (The Cistern was discovered after the Buffalo Bayou Project had budgeted all its Shepherd-to-Sabine money for other projects.) When we reached the far end of the Cistern, we left the ledge, walking down concrete stairs to the muddy floor. The silty red mud, Shanley explained, was composed of iron and other minerals that long ago settled out of the reservoir’s water. Every now and then, a drop of condensed water from the ceiling would hit the soft mud, and the tiny sound would echo. Shanley shone his flashlight on the ground, examining the droplets’ marks. ‘It’s like the surface of Mars,’ he said.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Site plan for Water Music Place on top of reservoir: Buffalo Bayou Partnership
COMMENT OF THE DAY: UP OR DOWN “On the agent side of HAR, you can see the different listing amounts. So while you might avoid the big red arrow showing a decrease, any agent can still see the pricing history. What a lot of agents do is lower their places by a few bucks a day, that way people with searches setup for a given location will keep being notified of their listing (since a price change will kick in a notice to be sent out). I know it works as I just RAISED the price of a rental on HAR and got a ton of calls. Likely because anyone that has an alert setup for my rental type just got ‘re-alerted’ about the apartment.” [Cody, commenting on Back, Slashed: Ken and Linda Lay’s Huntingdon Penthouse]
MAYOR PARKER NOT BACKING BEYONCé MONUMENT IDEA, BUT SHE’S COOL WITH THE TUNES 
In announcing plans for a fundraising venture that would include construction of some sort of monument to Houston native Beyoncé Knowles, Armdeonce Ventures’ Marcus Mitchell indicated last night that there was official civic support behind the project. “We’ve gotten support from the city of Houston, from the mayor,” Mitchell told Fox 26 reporter Kristin Kane. “We’re waiting for a very nice letter from the mayor right now.†But if Mayor Parker sends him one, the letter may not include what Mitchell is after. Just out from the Twitter feed of Janice Evans, a spokesperson for the mayor: “Fox is wrong. The City of Houston is not behind, working with or having anything to do with an effort to build a monument honoring Beyonce.” To soften the blow, she adds, later: “But we do heart Beyonce and her music.” [MyFox Houston; Twitter] Photo from Run the World video: Beyonce Online
A SECOND RUN AT GROCERIES FOR DOWNTOWN 
Today is opening day for Georgia’s Market Downtown at 420 Main St., the same space where Byrd’s Market shut down last summer. The opening of Phoenicia Specialty Foods at One Park Place across from Discovery Green in the meantime means Georgia’s won’t be Downtown’s only grocery store. Like Phoenicia, Georgia’s is a second location of a more suburban operation (Georgia’s Farm to Market, in the former Kmart on the I-10 feeder just east of Dairy Ashford), and includes a cafe and bar (The Cellar, underground). [Eater Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Eater Houston
COMMENT OF THE DAY: TOO EASY “I was really interested in buying . . . when it wasn’t for sale.” [northside girl, commenting on On Second Thought: Yeah, It’s Available]