Monthly Archives: May 2012

Eight Hundred Snails on a Beer Stein

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Look at that S Car Go!”

Snails on a Beer Stein.

Schwarmerei

On the way to the restrooms, down in the cool, dim Basement (where the deadly burning rays of the Museum Tower cannot reach) of the Nasher Sculpture Center is a room with three oddly disturbing sculptures. This is the first installation at the Nasher by a local artist. His name is Erick Swenson, and he makes strange meticulous tableaux out of resin, most involving animals in some stage of death or decomposition. They are arrestingly realistic and strangely surreal at the same time.

You can trap and kill snails and slugs in your garden with beer. This sculpture is called Schwärmerei – a German import to English that means something like fanatical enthusiasm, or the deadly insanity of the crowd (a word that could be fine-tuned and well-understood in Germany).

He says, “This is a static object. I’m asking you to look at this for more than three seconds. That’s hard to do sometimes. People just blow through stuff, you know. So it’s leaving things sort of enigmatic and open-ended.”

I granted his wish, staying and staring, then photographing the Stein ‘N Snails. Other than the obvious metaphorical underpinning, it was a gorgeous and highly skilled work of craftsmanship. I can see it as an advertising piece for a new chain of eateries called the Brewpub Escargot.

Unfortunately, I don’t posses a macro lens or decent flash lighting so the photos do not do due justice. For a good picture of a snail go here. So I suppose y’all will have to go down to the Nasher and see for yourself. By the way, the third sculpture, the one hidden from the squeamish public behind the little wall, is a doozy… you are forewarned.

Most folks were spending more than three seconds at the sculpture.

Sunday Snippet – Character Sketches

Posted on by Bill Chance

When my writing group was wandering around the Dallas Arboretum doing our photography thing, I took a step to the side while we were in the Women’s Garden and looked down some steps into a large, rectangular formal garden setting. There, in the center of the garden, sitting on a wooden crate, was an attractive young couple, messing around with something that was wrapped in a complex packaging.

It was obviously a staged engagement. The couple was surrounded by smiling people, friends and relatives, all pointing cameras in their direction. I took a couple shots of the scene and moved on.

Now I have a picture of all these people I don’t know at all. That’s a good way to practice doing character sketches. I take a look at each one and try to make up their story.

I know that’s a nasty thing to do… make up a bunch of stupid lies about a group of complete strangers and then put the thing out on the web. But there is something about expectation of privacy at work here… and if you are going to get yourself engaged in the middle of a formal garden in the Dallas Arboretum on a Saturday Morning… well you can kiss any expectation of privacy goodbye.

So, here, without any further ado… I give you:

The Happy Couple

Roberta Bustamante
Franklin Sellars

They met when stuck next to each other for two hours on the Texas Twister ride at the second-rate amusement park Frontier Daze. The ride was upside down for the entire time with the riders hanging from their safety harnesses and Roberta liked that Franklin had smuggled in a sizable flask in his pant leg. Franklin had chugged a good part of the flask to empty it so Roberta would have a place to pee. She thought that was a chivalrous thing to do; he was impressed by the gymnastics.

The park had been rented out by Franklin’s boss, Tyrone Woodchipper and his company Acrasia Investments as a cheap morale booster. Franklin hated the place but felt he had to attend.

Franklin has never been given a straight answer as to why Roberta was there.

They dated for some time and then moved in with each other a year ago. Roberta had a much larger and more luxurious apartment but she insisted on moving into Franklin’s. He has always wondered how she could have afforded such a nice place and was disappointed they couldn’t move there. Franklin loved the window treatments.

Their long-range plans pretty much peter out at the end of their European honeymoon.

The Parents and entourage

Front to back:

Svetlana Bustamante (Roberta’s young half-sister)
Smithsonian (Smitty) Bustamante (Father)
Georgia Bustamante (Stepmother)
Metal Hurlant (Mrs. Sellars’ personal secretary – barely visible)
Claudia Sellars (Mother)
Freemont Sellars (Father)

Smitty is a widower – his first wife, Roberta’s mother, was killed in a mall parking lot – run down by a shoplifting suspect speeding in a pickup truck, fleeing mall security. Georgia was a mail order bride from the Ukraine. Smitty had never lived on his own and didn’t want to mess around with the dating scene. The little girl, Svetlana, is Georgia’s daughter. She left her behind with relatives and didn’t tell Smitty about her until they had been married a year – he immediately sent for her and loves her like his own.

In the back are Franklin’s parents Freemont and Claudia. He made a fortune off of the chain of furniture rental shops he inherited from his father. He always expected Franklin to follow in his footsteps but was secretly relieved when he went off on his own. Even though he undoubtedly loves his son – the kid always made him uneasy when he was around him too much.

The two, Freemont and Claudia, were high school sweethearts. They watch a lot of television. He collects antique watches, she likes to crochet.

Next to Claudia, barely visible in the photograph, is Claudia’s personal secretary who was originally hired from France as an au pair to help raise their daughter, Penelope. Her name is Metal Hurlant – and is from Marseilles – although Claudia tells everybody she is from Paris. Metal organized and set up the whole engagement extravaganza.

Jimmy Bustamante

Roberta’s little brother. He was an infant when his mother was killed and doesn’t remember her at all.

He has been in a very good mood lately after finding a motherlode of illegal drugs hidden in what used to be Roberta’s underwear drawer. He made the discovery when he finally moved into her bedroom after she became engaged and made it clear she would not be moving home.

The drugs were stashed there in a panic by Joaquin Smirnov – a handsome yet terribly addled fling of Roberta’s. Joaquin panicked and threw the bundle of baggies into the drawer when he heard Franklin, Roberta’s fiancé, coming up the stairs. Joaquin hid under the bed, naked, while Franklin paced around, waiting for Roberta, upset (he suspected something) for over an hour and a half. Roberta, unknown to anyone, had gone downstairs for a glass of ice water and bailed out the back door when Franklin drove up and was hiding, also naked, in a large clump of ornamental grass waiting for him to leave.

Joaquin forgot about the stash due to the strain of hiding under the bed for ninety minutes. The drugs stayed there for Jimmy to find because Roberta never looked in the drawer – she hasn’t worn underwear for a year and a half.

Jimmy is now the most popular kid in General George S. Patton Junior High School. He is taking photos with the new hi-tech Nikon compact camera he bought with sale proceeds.

Wendal Fruitbat

He is Metal Hurlant’s boyfriend, though nobody in the family knows this. She is madly in love with him. Their only discussion of the future has been her telling him that if they ever marry, she will not take his last name. He understands perfectly that she does not want to go by the name Metal Fruitbat.

She hired him for the engagement when he told her he had been his high school yearbook photographer. Metal rented him his equipment. Unfortunately, though Wendal is a good person generally, he is a helpless inveterate liar. He knows nothing about photography and is currently using a terrifically expensive camera without a data card.

Reginald Von Sample.

He is Franklin’s oldest and closest friend. They met by random their freshman year at university when they were put in a room together due to an experimental and controversial software program that analyzed students’ admission essays and placed freshmen that the algorithms deemed compatible. They lived the entire six years of both their undergraduate studies together in the same dormitory room.

Reginald left after graduation for a stint in the Merchant Marine. He said he wanted to see the world. He returned two years early and said there didn’t seem to be much out there worth seeing. He moved back in with Franklin until there was a nasty drunken argument late one night. Reginald suffered a serious cut under one arm that seemed to be inflicted by a Cuisinart Chef’s knife. He declined to press charges but moved out.

There was a distance between Reginald and Franklin after this, but the engagement seems to have brought them close together again.

Deasel Widdershins

Deasel is a private investigator hired by an unknown person (even to herself). She receives her instructions by anonymous email and payment through a mysterious Paypal account. She has been instructed to get to know the family and report on anything untoward.

Her cover story is that she is a scout for an obscure cable channel that is considering a newlywed reality show.

It was made clear that she was selected due to a reputation of absolute trustworthiness. Her honesty is not accompanied by competency, however, and she has not found out anything interesting yet.

Penelope Sellars

Franklin’s little sister. She is at that confusing age… made even more confusing by the sudden appearance of deep feelings for her brother’s fiancé. She has made the decision to simply go with it and see what happens. She doesn’t really have any choice.

Tyrone Woodchipper

He has been the Sugardaddy to the soon-to-be blushing bride for the last three years. He made his fortune through his company, Acrasia Investments, which advertises itself as offering speculation in arbitrage futures, but is in reality a front used by Mexican drug cartels to launder their United States profits.

He met Roberta through his son, Luther, who saw her briefly but passionately after their meeting at a speed-dating event. Roberta had an acrimonious breakup with Luther a month after she started sleeping with his father.

Tyrone has very mixed feelings about his mistress’ upcoming nuptials. He is glad that her husband works for him, which will enable him to keep her around easily, but he feels his manhood threatened in general. He is not getting any younger.

Luther Woodchipper (hiding in bushes)

Luther has never recovered from his breakup with Roberta and desperately manages to keep tabs despite the various court issued restraining orders. He doesn’t know what he will do but knows that whatever it is, it has to be soon.

Bird of Paradise

Posted on by Bill Chance

Bird of Paradise

More pictures from my writing group’s trip to the Arboretum.

Dale Chihuly’s installation is something of wonder. But the plants in the gardens can hold their own against anything any man can create.

Agave

A big agave plant was sending up a shoot, getting ready to bloom. I have always loved the looks of these desert plants. Plus, this is where tequila comes from.

Blooms in the water.

What I learned this week, May 18, 2012

Posted on by Bill Chance

Another good article, this one from Vanity Fair, on the ongoing cotroversy between the Museum Tower and the Nasher Sculpture Garden.

A Glare Grows in Dallas: Why a New Condo Tower Has the City’s Art Community Up in Arms

From the article:

It’s hard to know what the mediation will accomplish, since the developers of the condo tower and their Los Angeles architect, Scott Johnson, have so far done little to accept responsibility. In an exhaustive report on the issue in D, Dallas’s city magazine, Tim Rogers quoted the developers as asking the Nasher what it was prepared to do to help, as if this were a negotiation in which both sides were expected to give an equal amount to reach an amicable compromise. Johnson, for his part, told The New York Times, “I can’t say sitting here now that the Nasher may not need to do something on their end.”

Why, in heaven’s name, should they have to? The Nasher was there first, it didn’t create the problem, and it is suffering from it.

 
There’s a photo of the glare inside the Nasher’s beautiful, Renzo Piano designed pavillion.

Photo from Vanity Fair

  

http://youtu.be/pD7T7y6CsJA

http://vimeo.com/26504393

The Next Great Technology Platform: The Bicycle

http://youtu.be/p24IdqUT_zY

I don’t want to sound like the old fart that I am, but look at this list of the best 70 albums from the 1970’s (not considered the best decade for music by any shot). There is nothing that comes close to any of these being done today.

Just sayin’

The 70 Best Albums of the 1970s

The ’70s sometimes get a bad rap: Often these years are remembered as the musical era that brought us disco at its absolute gaudiest. But there was far more going on in the decade than polyester, sequins and cocaine; the 1970s saw the rise of the singer/songwriter, the birth of punk rock, reggae’s infiltration of the mainstream and the long, strange trip led by some of psychedelia’s finest.

In fact, it’s a decade so musically diverse, we had quite a time whittling it down to our top albums. When we polled our staff, interns and writers, over 250 albums received votes, but ultimately these 70 emerged as clear favorites.

14 Photographs That Shatter Your Image of Famous People

http://youtu.be/NZU1B8kb8EQ

Awesome People Hanging Out Together

Crepe Myrtle Allee and Dale Chihuly

Posted on by Bill Chance

I remember when I first went to the Dallas Arboretum a couple decades ago – one place that I enjoyed and remember was a double row of Crepe Myrtle trees  with a walkway running between. Now, after all this time, the trees have grown together overhead, forming a long, dark, mysterious tunnel.

During my writing group’s trip to the Dallas Arboretum to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit I set up my tripod in the Crepe Myrtle Allee with my camera facing the Dallas Star sculpture down at the end. Here are a couple of HDR three-exposure shots I came up with.

For a larger and more detailed version of this photo – go to the Flickr Page

For a larger and more detailed version of this photo – Go to the Flickr Page

Food Truckapalooza

Posted on by Bill Chance

There was a lot going on over the weekend. One of the events I had circled on my calendar was a Food Truck Festival in the parking lot at Valley View Mall. It looked like fun. One of the selling points was that they were bringing some trucks in from Austin, a famous Mecca of Gourmet Foodtruckery.

After work on Friday, the weather was threatening, light rain and boiling clouds, but Candy and I drove over anyway. We paid the five bucks to get in and I put the wristband on. Now, I knew I’d be careful because I wanted to come back on Saturday and didn’t want to pay another entrance fee.

What is it worth to sleep with a Tyvek writstband on? Should I have simply torn the thing off and just handed over another fiver? I’m too cheap so I wore the thing.

I haven’t worn a watch for years – ever since I read a news item that said young people didn’t wear watches because they rely on their smart phones. I want to be cool. With a wristband on, I kept unconsciously glancing down at my arm for the time – the old muscle memories of wearing a watch are still there.

Friday evening at the Food Truck festival had a healthy crowd but not too many. The trucks had small lines – a short wait to order and a couple minutes for your food. Candy and I could sample a few of the many trucks that were there.

We had sliders from Easy Slider, which were good, and a pulled pork grilled cheese from Jack’s Chowhound, which I liked better than the Steak Frites I had from them before. We tried two kinds of pizza, a thin crust from TX Delizioso and a thicker one from Doughboy’s Pizza. Candy found some ice cream from Short N’ Sweet and then we headed home – full, but none the worse for wear.

On Saturday, Candy was off to New Orleans and I drove down to the Dallas Arboretum to meet with some friends and take some pictures. When that was done, I was hungry, so I headed back north to the Festival.

The crowd was huge. The place was packed and every truck was sporting a long snaking line of food fanatics waiting for their grub.

I knew from experience that lines like that mean the trucks were going to start running out of food soon so I jumped in line for the Crazy Fish truck to get some Sushi. I was lucky, right after I placed my order they had to close down… out of rice. I had their last order (though they were able to open up a few hours later).

While I was eating (I know sushi from a truck sounds odd – but I will eat anything… and the food was good, I’ll write a review in a day or so) the Three Lions truck pulled in and stopped. A line began to form immediately; before they could open a hundred people were queued up. I looked around for something else I had never tried and found a Colombian food truck from San Antonio and had some Platanos Fritos and Chicken with Rice (review to come).

Some friends were supposed to meet me and I called them to warn of the crowds and the trucks running out of food. They said they’d come anyway, but were about an hour out. I was tired and full of food, so I took a little nap in my car, and felt a lot better when my friends arrived.

The choices were getting limited – truck after truck was shuttering down, out of food. We did manage to score some really good Korean Bar-B-Que Tacos from the Chi’Lantro Truck. The Austin trucks did rock the festival, but Dallas isn’t very far behind.

One other truck that we checked out was a new one – the Coolhaus truck, a recent transplant from LA. They had excellent ice cream sandwiches – but I liked their design – pink roof and brushed steel, plus the fact they are named after the architect that designed the Wyly Theater.

With this many people willing to pay five dollars apiece simply for the opportunity to wait in line up to an hour to get food out of a truck…. I can’t help but think this gourmet food truck thing still has some legs in Dallas.

Bronze and Glass

Posted on by Bill Chance

In addition to the interaction between the plants and the glass of Dale Chihuly’s installation at the Dallas Arboretum, there is the interaction between the glass and the other sculptures, mostly cast bronze, that already populate the gardens.

 For larger and more detailed versions of this photo – please visit the Flickr Page.

For larger and more detailed versions of this photo – please visit the Flickr Page.

Dale Chihuly at the Dallas Arboretum

Posted on by Bill Chance

I haven’t been to the Dallas Arboretum in decades. I used to go the the DeGolyer Estate for concerts back in the day, but once it became the Arboretum I’ve only been once. It was close to when it opened and I was disappointed because the plants hadn’t grown out yet. I took Nick there as a toddler because they were giving away free trees. I picked up a little live oak in a coffee can and planted it in back of our house in Mesquite. Everyone gave me a hard time because it was only an inch high (it looked bigger when it was still in its can). Over the decades, though, the thing grew – it’s now a huge beautiful tree.

The problem always was that the Arboretum admission is so expensive. I always felt it was more a private playground for the wealthy members of the Dallas Garden Club than an asset for the city. That was a silly opinion, I know, and I wanted to go visit, but never was able to get around to it.

I have always been a fan of Dale Chihuly, but I hadn’t seen very much of his work, other than some glass flowers at the Dallas Museum of Art. When I read about his exhibition at the Dallas Arboretum I was excited.

Our writing group has branched out into photography. We decided to go down there as a group and take pictures together. Everyone liked that, and one member had a set of tickets in a goody bag from a recent purchase. We picked a day and met down there at the opening, cameras in hand. I had a pack with extra lenses and a tripod and was self-conscious about lugging all that stuff. I shouldn’t have worried, most of the people going in were carrying tons of gear – either photographic or picnic stuff.

For a day I set aside my goal of taking pictures of people and gave myself permission to do “postcard shots.”

There were thick crowds of photographers wandering around. As is typical of Dallas, everyone seemed to be a gearhead. Near the entrance I stood next to a couple – he had a big, manly, camera with a long lens. We were looking at a giant yellow glass tree raised up into the sky.

“It would be cool to come out at night with a tripod and shoot that with a long exposure,” I said, just to make conversation.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” the guy with the big camera said, with a superior air, “I can hand shoot under any circumstances, I just shoot at 3200 ISO.” He waved his expensive hunk of optical glass and circuitry in my face.

“Oh, you are such a show off,” his wife said, the pride evident in her voice. The two of them walked off into a bit of woods. I had to chuckle – gearheads are so funny. I’m happy you can buy all that stuff… but you’ve still got the same old eyes and brain – and that’s what you really take pictures with.

But that little exchange really brought the challenge I faced into focus… so to speak. With hundreds of photographers in the Arboretum snapping hundreds of photographs each all the time from now until the exhibit closes in November…. How can anyone take a picture that is in any way unique? I don’t want to have the same picture as everybody else.

Four of us from our writing group spent about four hours walking around taking pictures. That’s a surprising amount of work, and a lot of walking. It will be interesting to see how we see the same thing in different ways. Peggy already has some of her fantastic photos up – go take a look – plus some more here.

Now I have about a hundred images and a lot of work getting these edited and in a form where they are usable. I’m not sure what I’ll do with all of them – I’ll use my Flickr account to store some. I should be able to get at least a half-dozen blog entries out of it… which is always a good thing.

Oh, the Chihuly Exhibition at the Arboretum is absolutely stunning, by the way. There are many varied groups of glass pieces in all kids of settings. He has done an amazing job of blending the glass with the living plants. His works range from small works interspersed in beds of plants to giant trees, maybe thirty feet high, made completely of glass. Walking through the gardens is an unforgettable experience – as you enter each new area you can’t help but gasp at the unexpected beauty that is waiting there.

I enjoyed taking all these photographs, especially since I wasn’t alone. I’d like to go back without a camera and simply look at the place. I’d like to go down with a sketch pad and some colored pencils. I would love to go back and try to take pictures of real people there among the sculptures, greenery, and beautiful settings.

Still, photographs do not to the thing justice. If you live in the Metroplex, you need to make plans to go down to the Arboretum and see this exhibit. If you don’t live here… I think it’s worth a trip by itself.

We’re really broke right now, but I want to find some way to scrape up the money to buy a membership to the Arboretum. I would love to be able to go down there and simply find a place to sit, look around, and maybe sketch a little bit. Beautiful things are so rare and fleeting in this world and to be able to go to a place like that and… well, simply wallow in the beauty is a wonderful thing.

(click to enlarge)

For a larger and more detailed version – Go to Flickr

Detail of a gigantic yellow glass tree.

For a larger and more detailed version – Go to Flickr

(Click to Enlarge)

For a larger and more detailed version – Go to Flickr

(Click to Enlarge) These boats full of Chihuly glass aren’t really floating on White Rock Lake like it looks. They are on the Arboretum infinity pool – beautiful.

For a larger and more detailed version – Go to Flickr

Sunday Snippet – Night Guitar (opening scene)

Posted on by Bill Chance

This week’s snippet is the first scene from the worst short story I’ve written in the last few years. It’s so bad I should simply delete the files and get on with my life, such as it is, but I haven’t done that yet. The mere existence of that pile of silly randomness bugs me like a hangnail and I can’t help but pick at it. I’ve taken it apart and am editing some of the parts that might work sometime and trying to create a creaking framework to hang everything on.

And because I am just too damn tired to come up with anything worthwhile this evening I give you what I’ve written for a opening scene so I can humiliate myself and you can wallow in some shallow schadenfreude before you click away.

Night Guitar

Copernicus Mayhem was the lead singer and guitar player of the band Sweetmeat Valentine. He made damn sure nobody called him anything else. The name his parents had chosen for him was Doug Chandler. But nobody called him that. Not any more.

“Oh, come on Copernicus, please, pretty please, let’s go. I wanna go,” said Serena Twist. She was his West Coast girlfriend, and that was where they were, so she was his girlfriend.

“Oh, babe, I’m beat. This is the first three days off I’ve had in a month. Let’s stay here, the suite’s big and nice, hit some weed, soak in the tub.”

“Hit some weed and soak in the tub? That’s all you wanna do. I’m bored. I’m bored. Let’s go.” Serena had switched her voice into her high sniveling mode – like fingernails on chalkboard. Copernicus knew that he would be giving in, but he wanted to hold out for a minute or two. Have to keep up appearances. He had a sliver of pride left – or he hoped he did.

“What kind of stupid concert is this anyway?” Copernicus asked without any intention of listening to the answer.

“It’s classy. It’s classical. This composer, Tyrone Page, has done a new symphony. It’s never been performed before. You’ve been invited and I want to go. It’s a humongous honor.”

Copernicus had heard of Tyrone Page though he had never actually heard his work. Page was a mystery, an enigma, nobody knew who or where he was.

The scores of Page’s works arrived on the desks of famous conductors at random intervals. Copernicus wondered why he had never heard anything written by the infamous mystery composer… then he remembered. Page never allowed his stuff to be recorded. It had to be heard live. And though the composer was hidden, his lawyers weren’t. Nobody dared put the sound down on tape, or disk, or anything else.

Copernicus was interested. Now, he actually wanted to go; intrigued. It had been a long time since he had felt intrigued.

“Ok, ok, If you want this thing so much, I’ll go,” Copernicus said. “But I want you to call Skinner and make the transportation arrangements. I want a stretch this time, no van. And I want some weed in the car and a bottle of Maker’s Mark. And plenty of ice.”

“Sure honey, I’ll set it up. Thank you, Thank you.” Serena seemed truly grateful.

“Yeah, you do that. And Serena? I’m gonna be hungry when we get back. I want some good room service this time. Not that usual stale crap. Oh, and please change. If this is a big deal like you say, I want you to wear something… something shiny.”

Mass Transit – On the Red Line

Posted on by Bill Chance

Dallas has never been seen as a city that is amenable to mass transit. Unlike an east coast megalopolis it was created in the age of the automobile – vast suburban tracts vomited out across the endless cotton fields along the pulsing arteries of constantly rebuilt freeways. But, for fifteen years now, we have had the DART rail. Always controversial, overly expensive, oft-reviled – the colored lines – Red, Blue, Green, Orange – crawled out inexorably across the map like vines on a brick wall.

Two tattooed guys – one skinny, one not – the skinny guy stands holding his skateboard, the other one sits hunched over a single speed bicycle – like a low slung bike for a kid a third his size. I am used to bicycles used as transport – this would be useless for that. It’s a bike used as a lifestyle statement. He rocks and stares at the chain like he’s afraid it will leap off the cogs if he lets it. Tired middle aged men slumped in seats, a guy playing a game on a smartphone, and a young couple standing in the door holding hands.

These are the people I live a lot of my life with. They are the same people you live a lot of your life with. Perfect strangers. Strangers on a train. I want to know these people and I want their stories.

The two guys, the skateboard and the inefficient but cool bicycle – they may be gutterpunks but they look like they are having fun. The guy on the bike moves back and forth at each stop to let folks get to the door or their seats. When their stop comes (one before mine) he shouts, “Off to another adventure” and shoots out the open door.

Looking at the young couple makes me ache. They may be poor and doomed… but together, today, right now, they are a thing of beauty. Beauty is so rare and so fleeting.

The others… all forgettable. But I know that the forgotten folks all have stories that will raise the hairs on the back of your necks. But we all sit and sway, look around, adjust our headphones, and get off at our stops.