Monthly Archives: June 2011

Fender Bender

Posted on by Bill Chance

Sometimes I sit up in the darkness
And I watch my baby as she sleeps
Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight
I just lay there awake in the middle of the night
Thinking ’bout the wreck on the highway
—-Bruce Springsteen, Wreck on the Highway

I was driving home from the library after having dropped off a stack – the traffic was heavy and jittery in a late rush-hour need to get home right now way. Everyone was driving faster than they should. This is on a neighborhood artery – Arapaho Road – six lanes, lots of stoplights, lots of in-and-out. I’ve seen too many fender benders in this sort of tumult so I took a deep breath, slowed down, and kept my eyes open.

I could see a clot of cars ahead of me forming around the railroad tracks. Behind me, I saw a car coming up fast, winding between the commuters, swerving between lanes. It was an ordinary ambiguous American sedan, some unidentifiable dark color, with a long dent, more like a big scrape, all down the left side. I could see the driver’s smooth round head sticking up – at first I thought they must be very short but I realized they were simply reclined, sitting back, one hand idly resting on the wheel. I noticed the nonchalant aggression of the driving, the macho languid position of the driver, and the evidence of past indiscretions and said to myself, “This person is about to have an accident.”

They pulled up to within inches of my rear bumper and as I touched my brakes to prepare for the stopped traffic ahead the car immediately swung to the right into the parking lane and used it to dash if front of me. I slowed down some more and watched as the car darted back into traffic right in front of me and immediately smashed into the halted cars.

There is the ubiquitous sound of accidents. The sudden screech of brakes, the squeal of rubber sliding on concrete. Then a fateful  BANG! – a concussion wave that pushes against your head and drills into your ears. That is the crossing point when you know an accident, not a near-miss, has actually occurred. The irrevocable forces of chaos and entropy have been unleashed. After that the sound of rending metal as all three of Newton’s Laws of Motion work together to run up huge bills at the body shop. Finally, the tinkling coda as glass falls and shatters onto the unforgiving concrete.

I watched the crumpling as the rear of the car rose and then fell back. The trunk of the car in front flew open, forced straight up like a huge metal surrender flag. It wasn’t that bad of an accident, nothing more than the usual fender bender, thousands happen every day, but it is always such a shame. I’m not a car person, but when I see something like this I always think of the thousands of hours that went in to building the car and the tens of thousands of hours spent working to pay off a car loan. There is that beam of pride smile when someone shows off their new ride.

All torn asunder in a moment of testosterone.

A few years ago I was driving back home from the gym with Nick and Lee in the car. We were coming up Skillman and getting ready to cross the LBJ 635 Interstate. That’s a nasty little intersection, with a half-dozen busy roads all coming together in a confusing, curving snarl. Now that I think about it, it was the same time of day – late, evening starting to set in, not dark yet, everybody tired and in a hurry. Coming up to the light at the frontage road I saw that the green light was beginning to get the slightest hint of yellow. Looking ahead, I saw someone coming the other way in the left turn lane. He was accelerating, obviously going to try and cut me off, run the left turn in front of me before the light turned red. I’m not going to play chicken with my car so I started to brake.

Looking in my rear view mirror I saw a custom souped-up compact speeding up right on my tail. I could read his mind, “Oh shit! don’t tell me that asshole in the crappy mini-van is going to stop on that yellow light. I have places to be, I’m not going to wait.” I knew he was going to dart around me and run the light.

I think Nick had just picked up his learner’s permit and Lee was only a year behind. I told them, “Hey, watch this, there is about to be a car wreck.” They perked up, looking a little confused.

The car behind me roared as his glass-packs spewed exhaust when he stomped the accelerator and squealed around me. Meanwhile, the other car made his left turn toward the frontage road.

It was only a glancing blow. A quick POP! and a grind as the two scraped past each other. But the car from behind me lost his front right tire and careened in a quick curve until he smacked the bridge wall pretty hard. His car climbed the concrete and if it hadn’t hung up on the steel guard rail that ran a foot above the top of the wall he probably would have hurtled over and fallen into the eight lanes of heavy Interstate traffic screaming by thirty feet below.

Nick and Lee were flabbergasted. I glanced – their mouths were hanging open.

“How did you know that was going to happen?” they both said.

I did my fatherly duty and explained how important it is to pay very close attention to what is going on, to always check your mirrors, and to not be too aggressive or too fast.I don’t drive through that intersection very often but when I do I always make note of the bent guard rail about a third of the way across the bridge.

I’m afraid I didn’t stop in either case. I do feel bad about that, I kept on driving like nothing had happened. It was obvious that nobody was hurt – and there were plenty of others around that would be more than willing to get involved in a minor traffic brouhaha.

Plus, I may be going slow, but I have places to be too.

Today, I have to go to work. I hate slaving through the weekend. While I’m there, you can enjoy this video:

New Orleans Noir

Posted on by Bill Chance

No place as pretty and sad as New Orleans. Depending on if the sun’s shining or not. You ever notice that? Sun’s out, ain’t no prettier place on earth. No place more … resplendent. But gray and gloomy, cloudy, rainy, this town is so shabby, dreary, and downright depressing, makes you wanna take morphine and die.

—– From the short story Marigny Triangle by Eric Overmyer from the collection New Orleans Noir

Since my son Lee enrolled at Tulane I have been reading material set in New Orleans as much as possible. Confederacy of Dunces, Across Magazine Street, The Awakening, The Moviegoer, the Dave Robicheaux series, Zeitoun…. And there are plenty more to go.

I just finished a book of short stories set in The Big Easy – New Orleans Noir. As the title suggests, it is a book of hardboiled crime fiction. Eighteen different stories from eighteen different authors: Thomas Adcock, Ace Atkins, Patty Friedmann, David Fulmer, Barbara Hambly, Greg Herren, Laura Lippman, Tim McLoughlin, James Nolan, Ted O’Brien, Eric Overmyer, Jeri Cain Rossi, Maureen Tan, Jervey Tervalon, Olympia Vernon, Christine Wiltz, Kalamu Ya Salaam, and Julie Smith. This is one book in a series of noir collections, each one set in a different city. I haven’t read any of the others… and I’m not so sure… what city can be more Noir than New Orleans?

The book is divided into two parts – pre and post Katrina. The earlier stories are all over the place: time, tone, setting, genre. Some have a bit of horror thrown in – the excellent “Pony Girl” by Laura Lippman, for example. Post Katrina – well, they focus in on a horror of an entirely different sort. Not so much the rising water but the breakdown in society that can ensue after a disaster like that. I remember the Nicaraguan Earthquake in ’72 – it was that breakdown that was even more frightening than the tumbling masonry.

New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods. Each story is set in a different part of the city: Uptown, French Quarter, Bywater, Faubourg Marigny… with a map in the front to keep you oriented.

As you might expect from a collection with eighteen authors, the stories are a bit uneven. Still, the good outweigh the bad by a large margin. Ones that especially resonated with me?

The Lippman “Pony Girl” – short, visual, horrific. Really good.

All I Could Do Was Cry, from the Lower Ninth Ward… by Kalamu Ya Salaam – heartbreaking.

… Now that I look over the table of contents, there is really only one that I didn’t like. I’ll have to reread that one… maybe I missed something.

I’ll have to single out one of the post-Katrina stories, the one by Julie Smith, the woman that put the collection together. Her story, Loot, was a little uneven in pacing, I would like to have seen it written out longer… but the basic story, of the friendship between a lawyer and her housekeeper, was wonderful and felt real.

Don’t take my word for it, read the story here.

Now I have to decide what to read next. I have to be careful what I read because the style and attitude of what I’m reading has such a huge impact on what I write.

Let’s see… I bought a Kindle Book, I Wish, from Wren Emerson and I want to finish that. But I never read only one book at a time, I have a handful of non-fiction library books and a half-dozen in my “Current Reading” collection on my Kindle.

I did read a short story, “Child’s Play” by Alice Munro this afternoon. She is so good, her stories so perfect and jewel-like, they make my heart ache. Nobody does it like she does.

We can all dream

Ok, since I’m thinking about New Orleans, how about a little Big Easy Jazz, OK?

With a Great Big Noise Like Thunder

Posted on by Bill Chance

It’s odd how I can remember some things from when I was a little kid (odd because I can never remember where my keys are or what my PIN number is). For example, I remember this record album. It was a strange little educational thing for kids, all about outer space. The cover sticks in my mind – a cone-shaped rocketship, a circular space station with hub and spokes, and maybe an astronaut floating free.

I must have listened to the thing a million times because I can even remember bits of some of the voices and some of the songs. One in particular… how did it go? “With a Great Big Noise Like Thunder, the Rocket Takes off for space.” That’s it.

Well, the Internet is nothing if not a time machine for wasting time looking up useless crap. And here it is – The Record Album.

A Child's Introduction to Outer Space

A Child's Introduction to Outer Spacechee

Let’s see, it came out in 1956, a year before I was born. I must have been really young when I was listening to it. That was a year before the first Sputnik, so I guess the album was ahead of its time.

Oh and the song, With a Great Big Noise Like Thunder? I was able to download the music – it is a lot cheesier than I remembered. But at that age, the cheesy sense isn’t very developed, it isn’t developed at all.

Now, not everything from back in the day is cheesy… well, maybe it is. But there is bad cheesy and good cheesy. You may disagree, but I think this video (ten years more recent than the children’s space record) is good cheesy.

Lives of folks like you

Posted on by Bill Chance

AS THE FLOWERS ARE ALL MADE SWEETER BY THE SUNSHINE AND THE DEW, SO THIS OLD WORLD IS MADE BRIGHTER BY THE LIVES OF FOLKS LIKE YOU.

—-Epitaph, Bonnie Parker, Oct. 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934

I was driving around in an unfamiliar part of town, more lost than not, when I noticed on my right, the Crown Hill Memorial Park Cemetery. I had been there once before, many years before, following the directions on some Find-A-Grave website. I had driven over there guided by some morbid curiosity – I wanted to see Bonnie Parker‘s gravesite.

Bonnie Parker's Gravesite

Bonnie Parker's Gravesite

It is always peaceful to visit the grave site of someone you don’t know. I wonder who puts the flowers out for Bonnie after all these years.

The grave is in a nondescript spot.

The area around Bonnie Parker's Grave

The area around Bonnie Parker's Grave

Her mother is buried to the right of her. I’ve wondered about the recent family plot that is to the left, the Tyner plot. Do you have to pay extra to get a plot next to someone infamous? Or did people avoid it all these years. I think it would be cool to be buried next to Bonnie, simply for the kick of having people come visit and say, “Jeez Honey, look who’s right next door.”

What about Clyde? He’s buried across town, I’m afraid. Her family didn’t want him buried anywhere near Bonnie. There was some interest in having him moved next to her, but nothing came of it.

I tried to visit Clyde’s grave once. It’s in a particularly unpleasant part of town and when I walked up the gate to the small overgrown cemetery was locked. While I was contemplating hopping the fence, a transvestite prostitute appeared and asked me for some smokes. I decided it best to call it a day. Maybe I’ll try going back there again, some redevelopment has improved that area in the last decade.

I’m sorry, this is all too morbid, isn’t it. So watch this video, it’ll make you feel better.

Chipotle Sourdough Bread

Posted on by Bill Chance

I’ve been experimenting with the recipes and, more importantly, the techniques from the books/web site Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The basic idea is to make up a week-long supply of dough, let it rise, and keep the pre-risen dough in the refrigerator. When you want some bread you break off a chunk of dough and bake it. I bought a big, heavy, baking stone for the oven (or the grill outside in the Texas Summer Heat) and can use the same dough for artisan loaves, pan loaves, pizza, pitas, shaped loaves… whatever.

I have been straying from this technique in making sourdough bread.

It started back in January or so. I filled a little crock with a mixture of whole wheat flour, water, a little yeast, a little sugar, and let it sit until it foamed up… and about four days later it was nice and ripe. That was my sourdough starter. Now that same starter has been through maybe twenty cycles or so, every batch I make I save about a quarter of the dough and reuse it in the next, not adding any fresh prepared yeast.

What makes sourdough so… sourdoughy is a symbiotic culture of yeast and bacteria that forms over time. After six months my starter is getting to be good. There are a few little difficulties that I’m starting to learn to deal with.

First of all, the acid produced by the bacteria (what makes it taste sour) tends to break down the protein in the flour and makes the dough runny and keeps it from rising as much as it should. So instead of pre-rising it and then throwing a pile onto the stone (where it usually runs out and makes a pancake) I put the fresh dough into a loaf pan and let it rise there. It rises slowly, much slower than a batch of dough with commercial super-dooper (and pretty much flavorless) yeast, so I let it rise while I’m at work.

Ingredients

The ingredients for the Chiplotle Sourdough Bread set out. Flour, water, sourdogh starter (in plastic margarine container) and chopped chipotle peppers in adobo.

This is the routine: put the ingredients together before I go to bed at night – mix it up in the morning, setting aside one quarter of the dough to act as starter for the next batch – let it rise all day – bake it in the evening.

Ingredients:

—Four cups of flour (all-purpose, bread flour, whole wheat – whatever, in whatever mixture I feel like)  with a pinch of salt and a tiny bit of sugar (I find this helps make the rising process more reliable).

—A little less than two cups water

—-Sourdough Starter – dough left over from the previous batch. Let it sit for at least a day or so, any longer than two days, put it in the fridge.

—Extras – in this case, about half a can of Chipotles in Adobo Sauce, chopped (be careful with these beasties, they are hot)

Mix the dough, don’t worry about kneading it or anything like that. Don’t forget to save some starter for next time, then stir in the extras if you want. Dump that in a loaf pan, cover it with something if you think about it, and let it sit out on the counter.

Dough

The dough mixed up and in the loaf pan. The adobo gives it a yellow color. A quarter of the dough goes into the margarine container as starter for the next batch.

Now, off to work. The little yeasties will multiply and the dough will rise while I’m there.

If you get bored waiting, here’s a video to watch:

Back home again. These twelve hour days are killer. Too tired to do much. Luckily, the stuff has risen like I wanted it to. Pop it in the oven, 450 or so, about forty minutes. I put a pan of water in the oven to help make a nice crust.

Risen Dough

The dough rises while I'm at work.

Fresh sourdoughy goodness.

Meanwhile the starter is getting nice and ripe, ready for the next batch. I wonder how long I can keep this going. I’ve heard of sourdough starters that keep making over and over for decades.

Chipotle Sourdough

Finished loaf of Chipotle Sourdough Bread. A little too much Chipotle, it made the dough a bit wet and it came out very spicy. Still Delicious. There are kids over and it was gone in five minutes.

Notes from the Underground

Posted on by Bill Chance

I AM A SICK MAN…. I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased.

—Dostoevsky, Fyodor . Notes from the Underground

Another long day, like the one before, like the one after, I don’t know when it will end. Looking at my calendar… maybe March of next year? Looking at my 401k… never.

It was so hot today… Summer won’t be here for another two weeks or so but it’s already smothering, baking. I had to drive all over the Metroplex, all the way from Bachman Lake (I remember when this was one of my favorite slices of the city… now, yikes!) out to the suburbs around Allen. Accidents everywhere, I had to navigate by GPS traffic reports, winding around avoiding the sections of red lines on the map.

I’m still further behind than I was the day before.

Oh, wait… I have to go to the kitchen and make my lunch for tomorrow. Maybe a nice piece of fish and some stir-fried vegetables. I’ll be back in a few minutes.

While you’re waiting. Here’s something to watch… a little entertainment.

OK, now I’m back.

Still here? Had fun watching the video? I thought so.

Well, let’s see, where was I?

Oh yes, Notes from the Underground

I write only for myself, and I wish to declare once and for all that if I write as though I were addressing readers, that is simply because it is easier for me to write in that form. It is a form, an empty form — I shall never have readers. I have made this plain already …

I don’t wish to be hampered by any restrictions in the compilation of my notes. I shall not attempt any system or method. I will jot things down as I remember them.

…..

 I shall perhaps obtain actual relief from writing. Today, for instance, I am particularly oppressed by one memory of a distant past. It came back vividly to my mind a few days ago, and has remained haunting me like an annoying tune that one cannot get rid of. And yet I must get rid of it somehow. I have hundreds of such reminiscences; but at times some one stands out from the hundred and oppresses me. For some reason I believe that if I write it down I should get rid of it.

Why not try?

—Dostoevsky, Fyodor . Notes from the Underground

Oh, shoot! Look at the time. I keep reading that a good night’s sleep is important to health, well-being, and a happy life. Too late already for that tonight… but must do the best I can.

Toodles.

Sunday Snippet – Rufus Amalgam Loved his Bluetooth, Part 2

Posted on by Bill Chance

Time for another silly bit of throw-away fiction. A week ago I put up part one of Rufus Amalgam Loved his Bluetooth based on a character idea from Peggy’s Blog. If you haven’t read Part One, go read it here first. Here is Part 2.

“Rufus!” Sandy was so loud in his Bluetooth headset that Rufus had to pull it out of his ear and hold it out or he would be deafened. Sandy’s voice sounded tinny and distant like that, which suited Rufus just fine.

“Damn it Rufus! You need to get your ass down here and take care of that Sylvester dude. He’s in my apartment and he won’t leave.”

“And this is my problem, why?”

“It’s your problem because you set the whole thing up. Now you get down here right now and help me throw the guy out or I’m gonna start making some calls. And you won’t like who I call or what I am going to say.”

“Ok, Ok, calm down. Now, you said that the Radio guy is in your apartment? Where exactly is he? What’s he doing?”

“He’s on my couch. Asleep. Has been since this afternoon. I can’t get him to budge.”

“Ok, Ok, Sandy. Don’t get your panties in a wad. I’ll be right down. Won’t be any big deal.”

Rufus stood up and walked out of the Starbucks, glaring at the table of women that had been eyeing him all night. As the front door closed, he thought he could hear a smattering of applause filtering out through the narrowing crack of the glass door. “You all can go to Hell!” Rufus yelled back at the coffee shop as he walked quickly to his primer-colored Ford Taurus.

He headed directly for the car door, his eyes focused on the latch. Rufus didn’t like to look at the long, winding rusty dent that buckled along the entire driver’s side. He knew there was a shorter, but deeper puncture wound on the passenger’s. The trunk was held down with a piece of wire, and there was even a wide dent on the bottom of the car where he had driven up over a parking barricade in a drunken stupor.

Reaching the door, he didn’t need a key, the lock had been drilled out months ago. The ignition cylinder spun freely and with a turn and a few seconds of sputtering and coughing, the engine came to life, idling roughly.

The yellow “low gas” light stared him in the face, mirroring the “Check Engine” symbol on the other side of the dash. He did some mental calculations and decided he could make it to Sandy’s place, though he’d be on fumes once he arrived there.

He was glad that Sandy needed his help and as he started out down the road, began to plan his angle. He needed somewhere to stay and he thought he remembered Sandy’s place as having a good, working, air conditioner. That Sylvester Radio guy was a skinny little runt and he’d have no problem rousting him out the door. If he did it in an assertive, manly way, then Sandy was sure to show some appreciation.

Maybe he could get a little more out of the deal than just a place to crash. Rufus started to imagine Sandy’s face full of gratitude, her eyelashes batting. The fantasy became more and more involved, more and more pleasant, a nice warm spot in his mind and gut, until he sprinted up the two flights of stairs to Sandy’s apartment and rapped confidently on the door.

Rufus’s fantasy left immediately when Sandy opened the front door. She stood there, her dirty blonde hair sticking in all directions, her face smeared with mascara, and wearing old torn cutoff blue jean shorts, a dirty T-shirt, and mismatched Crocs on her feet.

“I am so glad you are here,” Sandy said “he’s not moving at all.”

“Well, don’t you worry your…  little head over this bum. I’ll just pitch him out and then we’ll talk.”

Rufus strode to the couch where he saw Sylvester’s head sticking out from under a ratty quilt. He bent over and gave the quilt a yank. It came up quickly – flying into the air.

“Okay Radio! It is time to.. Oh geez! Damn it Sandy! The guy is naked.”

Rufus had to reach in the air to grab the quilt and push it down back over Sylvester Radio as quickly as he could. The image of those skinny hairless limbs and sunken chest would not leave his mind even after he shook his head violently.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was naked!”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“You forgot? I don’t even want to think about…”

He didn’t want to finish the sentence. It was best to get things going fast, so Rufus leaned over and grabbed Sylvester’s shoulder and started shaking as hard as he could. At the same time he started yelling to wake the dude up. Rufus wanted to get him out as soon as possible.

“Oh Christ Sandy, he’s stiff as a board.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think the guy is dead!” Rufus jumped back in disgust as quickly as he could. He stood in the middle of the living room shaking and staring at the quilt with the tuft of wild dark hair sticking out of one end and a pair of grubby feet with overgrown, yellow toenails out the other.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes I’m sure. He’s as stiff as a board… as dead as a doorknob. What did you do to him?”

Sandy said nothing. She simply stared at Rufus and he was horrified when he thought he saw a small grin flash across her face for a second.

“Where’s your phone? We need to call the cops.”

“Oh no,” Sandy said. “No cops. No cops! I’m on probation you know. This will send me back to the big house for sure. And I’m telling you I’m not going back there because you sent me some scrawny pervert with a weak heart.”

“Well then what do you suppose we’re going to do?”

So Sandy told him what they were going to do. It bothered Rufus when she came up with a plan so quickly. He suddenly had the thought that Sandy might have known Radio’s condition before she even called him at the Starbucks. He even wondered when that quilt had been placed over the corpse. The first step, Sandy told him, was to wedge the dead guy off the couch onto the floor while keeping him wrapped up in the blanket.

Rufus looked around for something to use; he did not want to touch the body. All he could find was a toilet plunger leaning against the end of the couch. He didn’t even want to think why it was there. He grabbed the wooden handle and used it to wrench the corpse off the couch. Thankfully, it landed in the quilt, and the blanket settled draped all around it. He took two corners and Sandy took two and after checking the front stairs they dragged the body out the door and down the two flights as quickly as they could. Luckily no curious bystanders showed up.

“Okay, where’s your car,” Sandy said.

“My car? Tanks dry as a bone, coasted here on fumes. We’ll have to use yours.”

Sandy shook her head in disgust and clumped around the corner. Rufus heard the whine of a small engine and a tiny Smart car appeared.

“What is that? Is that a toy? How are we going to fit in there with him?”

“You should have thought about that before you came here with no gas.”

“I know. I have an idea. I’ll wait here and you can drive with him in the passenger seat.”

“No way! I am not going to do this alone. You sit in the passenger seat and hold him on your lap.”

And that was how they drove. Sylvester Radio’s head was covered with the blanket and sticking out the passenger window at an angle. His corpse was too stiff to sit down and Rufus held the body with his eyes scrunched shut. They drove to a spot Sarah knew about where a rough gravel road crossed an old railroad spur and dipped down into a thick grove of scrubby trees.

“I don’t even want to think about why you know about this spot,” Rufus said.

“It is lucky that I do.”

They opened the door and slid the body on the quilt down to a thick weedy patch and pulled the blanket while the body rolled away into the darkness.

“I don’t know,” Rufus said “it doesn’t seem right to leave him like that. Should we cover him?”

“That’s my quilt. I’m not going to leave it here for the police to find. God knows what kind of DNA is in there. Don’t worry. They’ll think he’s just some dead naked junkie. He’ll never be missed.”

As they were driving away Sarah asked Rufus to open the glove box. Inside was a wallet and keys. Rufus instinctively checked the wallet.

“There’s no cash, no credit cards. I’ve already pulled them,” Sarah said. “I want you to check his driver’s license and give me the address.”

“What for?”

“We’re going to his place. Those are his keys. I want to see what’s there, I want to look…”

“Come on Sarah, we are not burglars”

“You can’t be a burglar to a dead man.”

Rufus recognized the address, he had been there before. It was a small brick duplex not far from the University. They parked a half block away and walked along the darkened sidewalk. As they approached the door with Sarah holding the keys they jumped as a voice called out from the darkness of the next door entryway.

“Are you two friends of Sylvester’s?”

“Uhhh,” the same confused sound came out of both their throats as they started to slink away from the unexpected interruption.

A spindly old woman suddenly moved from the darkness into the blue light from an overhead street lamp.

“It’s good to see that Sylvester has some friends, some young friends.”

“Yes,” Sarah said, thinking quickly, “we are Sylvester’s friends, we’re here to check on him.”

“Good,” the old woman said, “Sylvester needs someone to check on him, especially with his, well, you know, his disease and all.”

“Disease?” Both Sarah and Rufus spoke at the same time.

“Yes, don’t you know? That’s why I stayed up waiting for him. He has this nervous disorder. When he gets too excited. His whole nervous system – his brain and spine – his muscles – they freeze up stiff as a board. Catatonic. You would swear he was dead. Sometimes he won’t wake up for hours. Scares me to death to think that something bad might happen to him. You don’t think… Has something bad…?”

Rufus and Sarah stared at each other.

“No, no,” Sarah said “nothing bad… but, you know, we had better be going.”

“Yes yes,” Rufus replied, “we had better be going right now.”

Dr. Noodle

Posted on by Bill Chance
Dr. Noodle by chancew1
Dr. Noodle, a photo by chancew1 on Flickr.

A collage from my Moleskine Sketchbook. From three years ago – I must have been hungry that day.

Dallas Arts District Architecture Tour

Posted on by Bill Chance

The guide for our walking tour in the Dallas Arts District, standing at the end of the barrel vault at the Dallas Museum of Art, gestured toward the towering spire of Postmodern granite, the Trammell Crow Building, and said, “in the eighties there was a building boom in downtown Dallas.”

That simple sentence brought the memories tumbling out of the cowbwebby recesses of my creaking old head. At that time, I was working at the old Cotton Exchange building, only a few blocks away, and I would look out of my office window every day and watch the progress of the Trammell Crow tower as it rose out the enormous hole where a cracked parking lot used to be. It went up fast, it grew like a weed. I was young then, I still gave a shit, and was fascinated with the construction techniques – pouring the concrete floors and support columns, the utilities, the dark glass, and the polished granite cladding. I did not know what it would look like when finished and watching it grow was like a slow-motion puzzle being solved right in front of me. The building was assembled inside-out and looking at it now, almost thirty years later, I still know its innermost secrets.

Trammell Crow Center and the Winspear Sunscreen

The Winspear Opera House is surrounded by a massive sixty foot high sunscreen made of aluminum louvers.It is amazing how much cooler the killer Texas heat is under this high-tech shade. The picture shows a small section of the slats with the tip of the Trammell Crow Center beyond.

The Dallas Museum of Art was also built while I worked down there. Admission was free when it was new and I would walk over there almost every day at lunch and pick out one single painting or sculpture and stare at it until I felt that I possessed it completely.

Yesterday, I checked the Friday Newspaper (online, of course) to see if there was anything interesting to do over the weekend and I found a notice about a walking tour of the architecture of the Dallas Arts District at ten AM on Saturday. That sounded like a plan.

A pole-sitting sculpture in front of a new Condo Tower going up.

A pole-sitting sculpture in front of a new Condo Tower going up.

It was interesting… and although I’m pretty familiar with the Arts District, I did learn a few things.

At the turn of the century or so (1899, not Y2K) Ross Avenue was the street where all the wealthy scions of Dallas built their mansions. The only one remaining, The Belo Mansion was purchased and rebuilt by the Dallas Bar Association. Prior to that, for many years it was leased to a funeral parlor. In 1934, Clyde Barrow’s bullet-ridden corpse was displayed and attracted a crowd of thirty thousand macabre curious onlookers.

I was a little disappointed that the wonderful European sculpture was gone from the walk around the base Trammell Crow Building. Our guide said it had been moved to the Old Parkland Campus and that it would soon be replaced by a garden of Asian sculpture. That will be cool.

Of course, it’s common knowledge that the district features public buildings designed by four Pritzker Prize winning architects – I.M. Pei and the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center, Renzo Piano and the Nasher Sculpture Center, Norman Foster and the Winspear Opera House, and Rem Koolhaas and the Wyly Theater. At the east end of Flora street is the City Performance Hall (under construction) and the One Arts Plaza mixed-use development. It’s a bit sterile sown there on the east, but there is still a lot of construction.

Guadalupe Cathedral

The Bell Tower of the Guadalupe Cathedral framed by skyscrapers. Taken next to the construction site of the new City Performance Hall.

We ended the tour there on the east end of Flora. I walked back taking some pictures. The Nasher was open for free, and I couldn’t resist a visit. The Trammel Crow Collection of Asian Art across the street is often overlooked – but it is always free and although it is small, there is always something wonderful to be found there. This time it was the art of Tenzin Norbu and Penba Wandu – they combine ancient techniques with a modern spin – the results are stunning. Norbu‘s painting, “Story of the Northern Plain” was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time.

The tour was fun. I guess they do these every now and then, if you find yourself in the Big D, I highly recommend it.

Aluminum Tube Skin on the Wyly Theater

Aluminum Tube Skin on the Wyly Theater

Calder, Rodin, and Yoga

Eve, by Auguste Rodin, Three Bollards, by Alexandre Calder, and a yoga class.

Worshipping a New God.

Worshipping a New God.

Headless Construction

Headless Construction. Magdalena Abakanowicz, Bronze Crowd, and the Condo Tower being built next door.

Balloon Room

At the Nasher, they had a room full of balloons. It was an installation by British Artist Martin Creed. Children were queued up for a chance to get inside.

Inside the Nasher’s Balloon Room

Kids Splash in front of the Wyly Theater

Posted on by Bill Chance
Kids spash Wyly Theater by chancew1
Kids spash Wyly Theater, a photo by chancew1 on Flickr.

My favorite bit of architecture that has risen during the orgy of recent construction in the Dallas Arts District is the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater. Designed by OMA architect Rem Koolhaus and REX, the building doesn’t look like a theater, it looks like a Borg Cube.

I took this HDR photograph of children playing in the shallow reflecting pool that connects the Wyly Theater with the Winspear Opera House.