Did you hear the one about the librarian who once played a cadaver in a movie? No joke actually, and I got your attention now, right? In 2000, said librarian and Austin native Red Wassenich coined a phrase that stuck like glue. The locals embraced it and now he’s written a book to back up what has become a motto for the city: Keep Austin Weird: A Guide to the Odd Side of Town.
As he explained in this recent Library Journal interview, “It’s kind of a skewed version of a traditional guidebook to a city, as the subtitle says. Probably every town has two or three odd events. There just seems to be an inordinate number of them here in Austin.”
Wassenich serves as tour guide to some of the wackiest folks and things that make Austin such an oddity — events like the Spamarama and O’Henry Pun-Off; spots like the Cathedral of Junk and the Polka-Dot Lawn; and a whole lot of other weird stuff. Local bookstore BookPeople made the Weird guide too, and Wassernich will be there at 3 PM today chatting about the colorful people and places that make the Texas state capital such a terrifically bizarre city.