austinoutsider.com

Saturdays. People’s Pharmacy on N. Lamar. You must talk to Ricardo. On Saturdays Ricardo sits on the benches outside of the people’s pharmacy against a backdrop of tabloid paper sized ink drawings of famous sites all around Austin and other parts of the country. As people pass him to go into the store, he grumbles about people hating art under his breath. He is a stocky man, white hair, in his 60s, wearing an old T-shirt, unsmiling. From his appearance, I couldn’t tell he was selling art. I thought that the drawings taped all over the pharmacy’s windows were a part of some coloring contest for kids. I told him as much and he countered that everyone knows him and knows that he’s selling art, but people don’t care about art anymore. Sensing that art is a sore point for Ricardo, I let the subject go, but apparently I had not only broken ice, but floodgates of conversation. Ricardo is a genius quantum theorist, a genius string theorist; he studies voices in white noise and the history of Christianity. Mary, mother of God, hid in Southern France after her son’s death, and aliens probably won’t come back to Earth because humanity is too stupid. Really, if you want to engage in deep, philosophical coffee shop conversation, you must pay Ricardo a visit. And bring five bucks with you so you can buy one of his drawings. They really are quite good.

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