Rolling Traveler

Keep Austin Weird is a slogan you’ll see all over Austin. It’s on postcards, in shop windows, and on bumper stickers, not to mention T-shirts, hoodies, caps, and mugs. I’d know idea what it meant when I first visited. To be honest, I thought it was marijuana-related, some kind of organized and visible support for legalization of the drug. To support my theory (which, given that some of the slogan-bearing products were on sale in the official campus store, was admittedly a bit of a stretch), the character on one of the postcards was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette… and the smell of it did waft from a couple of windows as I was rolling around the neighborhoods, and I did see a large group of people on the university steps passing around a pipe: it didn’t seem to be something anyone was hiding. However, Keep Austin Weird had nothing to do with marijuana, nor did it have any relationship to the city’s live music scene (my second guess). It has a far more down-to-Earth meaning, one that I would’ve guessed if I’d just read the fine print.

Keep Austin Weird is a slogan associated with the commitment of the Austin Independent Business Alliance to supporting small local businesses. The ‘weird’ in the slogan is intended to mean ‘different’ or ‘unique’: that there are stores and coffee houses in Austin that you won’t find anywhere else; that the city is weird for having a business profile that is not a copy of that of every other city in the US. The campaign is also associated with several events and local personalities that fit the profile of being weird or unique to the city, but at its heart, it’s about the businesses that you won’t find anywhere else in the US.

 Whether you like the slogan or not, the idea of supporting local businesses appeals to me. There’s a richer traveling experience if various cities have different things to offer. Austin is not unique in trying to support local businesses. I encountered similar sentiments in San Francisco, particularly in the Mission and the Inner Sunset. However, Austin has one of the most vocal communities I have seen in terms of giving that support, and some of the stores and restaurants that thrive there are among my favorite to visit anywhere. Tomorrow, I’d like to introduce you to a few of them.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS