Sky Mirror

What interests me is the sense of the darkness that we carry within us, the darkness that’s akin to one of the principal subjects of the sublime – terror.

—-Anish Kapoor

Sky Mirror by Anish Kapoor, Arlington, Texas

Monday the whole family went to the Cotton Bowl – my son Lee graduated from Tulane and a bunch of his friends were in town to see them play USC (Roll Wave).

I wanted to leave The Death Star from the east entrance because I wanted to see the Sky Mirror, a sculpture by Anish Kapoor (the guy that did The Bean in Chicago).

While not as cool as The Bean – it was a pretty impressive hunk of reflections. It was a perfectly gray sky, so the other side, the one that reflects the heavens – wasn’t too impressive. I would love to see the thing at sunrise.

Cthulhu?

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”
― H. P. Lovercraft, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

Cthulhu

From the 2022 Cedars Open Studios Tour.

I saw this window displaying the back side of James Allen Tucker Rodriguez’s work at Good Coworking during the Cedars Open Studios tour.

I thought to myself – cool – that looks like Cthulhu – the giant head with horrific tentacles. It’s hand was cradling a shark with a laser gun.

But from the other side – it was a portrait of a woman – the tentacles were just hair.

I’m sorry , I was a little disappointed. The art is way cool, though.

James Allen Tucker Rodriquez Instagram

Yella Balls

“Ol’ man Simon, planted a diamond. Grew hisself a garden the likes of none. Sprouts all growin’ comin’ up glowin’ Fruit of jewels all shinin’ in the sun. Colors of the rainbow. See the sun and the rain grow sapphires and rubies on ivory vines, Grapes of jade, just ripenin’ in the shade, just ready for the squeezin’ into green jade wine. Pure gold corn there, Blowin’ in the warm air. Ol’ crow nibblin’ on the amnythyst seeds. In between the diamonds, Ol’ man Simon crawls about pullin’ out platinum weeds. Pink pearl berries, all you can carry, put ’em in a bushel and haul ’em into town. Up in the tree there’s opal nuts and gold pears- Hurry quick, grab a stick and shake some down. Take a silver tater, emerald tomater, fresh plump coral melons. Hangin’ in reach. Ol’ man Simon, diggin’ in his diamonds, stops and rests and dreams about one… real… peach.”
― Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Yella Balls Grapefruit

From the 2022 Cedars Open Studios Tour.

Hole To Another Universe

“Things aren’t like this,” he kept repeating. “It shouldn’t be this way.”

As if he had access to some other plane of existence, some parallel, “right” universe, and had sensed that our time had somehow been put out of joint. Such was his vehemence that I found myself believing him, believing, for example, in the possibility of that other life in which Vina had never left and we were making our lives together, all three of us, ascending together to the stars.

Then he shook his head, and the spell broke. He opened his eyes, grinning ruefully. As if he knew his thoughts had infected mine. As if he knew his power. “Better get on with it,” he said. “Make do with what there is.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

Hole To Another Universe

From the 2022 Cedars Open Studios Tour.

Reserved Parking

“When Armageddon takes place, parking is going to be a major problem.”
― J.G. Ballard, Millennium People

my Xootr Swift folding bike, plus helmet and gloves

I had a great time riding around (although the actual riding was not too great – about ten miles) on the 2022 Cedars Open Studios Tour. I’ll write and post some more photos over the next few days.

This is at the stop at Good Coworking on Good-Latimer Expressway, a very cool place. I guess my folding bike counts as a “Low Emitting & Fuel Efficient Vehicle”

What I learned this week, November 18, 2022

The Time Traveler of Paranormal Percussion, with Clyde Casey New Orleans, Louisiana

Physics explains why time passes faster as you age

The chronological passage of the hours, days, and years on clocks and calendars is a steady, measurable phenomenon. Yet our perception of time shifts constantly, depending on the activities we’re engaged in, our age, and even how much rest we get.


Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s

A new study finds that people today who eat and exercise the same amount as people 20 years ago are still fatter.


Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Olive

How To Teach Your Brain Something It Won’t Forget A Week Later

Cramming got you through college, but it’s probably paying diminishing returns in your career. Here’s the scientific reason why.


The Universal Flow has led you to this exact moment in time and space.

Mind-altering South American brew causes adverse side effects, study says.

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive, or hallucinogenic, plant-based tea native to the Amazon, where it has a centuries-long history of healing use in traditional medicine, according to the article.

But contemporary ritual use of ayahuasca has been expanding worldwide for mental health purposes and spiritual and personal growth.


Loving Oil and Gas, Dallas, Texas

Tap Oil Fields, Not Our Emergency Reserves, to Lower Energy Prices.

Our nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is running dangerously low. New statistics released indicate our national emergency oil stockpile, which is intended to protect the United States from unexpected and severe supply disruptions, has hit another historic low. It’s a dangerous point for the United States, and even worse, it’s self-inflicted.

‘No more drilling,’ Biden makes apparent pledge to end fossil fuel extraction in the U.S.


Massive flock of sheep has been walking in a circle for 12 days straight in China.

Dozens of sheep have been eerily walking around in a circle for 12 days straight in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region.

The bizarre behavior, captured on surveillance video, shows the large flock continuously marching clockwise in a nearly perfect circle on a farm.


detail from the LIghtning’s Bride – Elliott Hundley

The Lightning Rod

After having done her stalwart best for the Covid Crusade for more than two years – demonizing those who refused to get the vaccination or wear masks everywhere, or see our children locked out of school, or who suggested that ivermectin or chloroquine might alleviate the symptoms – Professor Oster now is suggesting that … really, it was all just a silly misunderstanding, she and her pals just got carried away but they meant well and didn’t know anything for certain, and why can’t we all just all forgive and forget?


Nutemptress

“Oh, this beer here is cold, cold and hop-bitter, no point coming up for air, gulp, till it’s all–hahhhh.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

nutemptress beer, from Lakewood Brewing

I’ve written about the Temptress Milk Stout from Lakewood Brewing – I consider it one of the best things in the world. Once, I rode my bike to the train then all the way to Fort Worth because a restaurant there had chicken and waffles with Temptress syrup.

The beer is often sold in different varieties/flavors. I have had (and written about) Mole Temptress and Bourbon Barrel Temptress (a personal favorite).

The other day, on the way back after dropping Candy off at the airport, I stopped at a Central Market to buy some coffee beans (they have a huge selection). Walking past the beer section I noticed a variety pack of Temptress – two each of Sin Mint Temptress, French Quarter Temptress, and something called NuTemptress. That looked like a plan to me – I don’t (usually) drink more than a beer at a sitting, so this could get me through a pretty good week.

I had not heard of the NuTemptress and assumed it was some New Temptress… but I was wrong. The nu stands for Nutella – it’s a hazelnut flavored milk stout.

And Oh God is is good.

This is truly the best of all possible worlds.

Absalom, Absalom!

It’s because she wants it told, he thought, so that people whom she will never see and whose names she will never hear and who have never heard her name nor seen her face will read it and know at last why God let us lose the war: that only through the blood of our men and the tears of our women could He slay this demon and efface his name and lineage from the earth.

—-William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

Mural outside of Sandwich Hag, The Cedars, Dallas, Texas

So, about a month ago my Difficult Reading Book Club started in on Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. We finished it up last week – it certainly makes the cut as a difficult book – but I made it through relatively unscathed.

And this week we started in on the second tome in our Faulkner journey – Absalom, Absalom!. I am now three chapters in. I had heard a lot of talk about how difficult a book it is – but after The Sound and the Fury I’m finding the second book quite a bit easier to read and understand. Now, there are sentences that run on for pages (although Ulysses by James Joyce has a 4,491 word sentence in a soliloquy, The Guinness Book of Records lists the longest proper sentence as one from Absalom, Absalom! at 1,287 words – I haven’t reached it yet), the story is frames within frames within frames, and the language (is wonderful) is difficult… For example I made a note of one phrase on page 53:

presbyterian effluvium of lugubrious and vindictive anticipation,

Ok… I know all those words… but I never thought of seeing them strung together in one place like that.

Oh. Seeing that phrase that I had highlighted reminded me of something. I bought a paperback copy of the book, plus a Kindle copy. I then discovered something I never knew about reading on a Kindle. I have been reading books on my Kindle for well over a decade – hundreds of books. During all this time I have been highlighting passages that I wanted to remember. Only this week did I discover that there is a web page:

https://read.amazon.com/notebook

That contains all the highlights (and notes) that I have made in all those books over all those years on all my devices. It’s pretty damn amazing. Looking through it is like going back in time. There are books in there I didn’t remember reading until I perused the feedback I input at the time – then it came rushing back.

I am now going through these highlights and hand copying the ones that still mean something to me into my commonplace book. Cool! Also a huge waste of time… but it is what it is.

Well… better go read. I’ve heard that chapter Four is a doozy.