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Everything but the ball

By Michael Barnes | Saturday, January 3, 2009, 02:26 PM

There was never any doubt that the high-ranking University of Texas would beat lowly Appalachian State. Yet the Mountaineers come from traditional basketball country and they kept the game close during the first half. Eventually, it was just a question of whether the Horns would win by 30, 40 or 50 points. All the Longhorn “minutemen” played, so named because, all season, they may play only the final minutes of games such as this one.

I had an extra ticket and offered it to Jason Stoddard, the marketing guru who’s done up as Mark Twain for his Facebook mug. The only other things I knew about him were his passionate support for Ron Paul and his tenuous roots in Katy, Texas.

After a quick stop at Primizie, we strolled over to the Erwin Center, and rather than focus on the game, we discussed, among other things, Henry James, “Battlestar Galactica,” rental housing, Harlan Ellison, the Statesman’s rapid adaptation to social media, Edith Wharton, HBO, Baptists, spinach, Jews, competitive golf, “The Piano,” Houston’s Greenway Theater, contact improvisation, Sean Penn, burlesque, women’s basketball, Oscar Wilde, polyamorists, What Made Milkwaukee Famous, teaching, gardening, “A Room with a View,” Jesuits, Kip, the Big 12, “Six Feet Under,” acting majors, “Ryan’s Daughter,” East Austin, Heath Ledger, red wine, educational testing, Nine Inch Nails, Club DeVille, California, Chicago, short stories, Boston College, the Oscars, classical morphology, Houston Rockets, and, finally, the big one, liberal arts and marketing as the studies of motivation.

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