When I walked around the Chihuly glass exhibit at the Arboretum… here, here, here, here, here, here, and here – I heard one questions several times. People asked, “What happens when it hails.”

This is Texas, and they don’t say “if” it hails, they say, “when.” Even the Arboretum literature addresses that. It said that the glass is tougher than you think, and that Chihuly has capacity standing by to replace anything that breaks. When it hails.

Well, it hailed. It looks like the only damange is to the white blossoms in the Persian garden pool, the ones I saw the second time I visited the exhibition. They said the works will be replaced and the rest of the glass is unscathed.

The Chihuly glass in the Persian Garden Pool that was damaged by hail at the Dallas Arboretum. This photo was taken before the storm.

Hail Damages Chihuly Exhibit at Dallas Arboretum  

For those of you from places where the weather isn’t quite so… Texas-like, here’s some homespun video of what we live with here. All from Thursday afternoon.

Nasher architect Renzo Piano pleads for a solution from Museum Tower

From the article:

Piano says that because the Nasher is a privately held collection, it is free to leave its Flora Street museum and go elsewhere — although he noted that this is not something the Nasher family wants to do, that it was the dream of founder Raymond Nasher to put his collection in the Dallas Arts District at that location. Were Nasher alive today, Piano says, he would “mad, mad, mad, mad, mad.”

I agree, I think the Nasher is playing way too nice with this. If it were my collection I would be in talks with, say New York City and see if the colection could be relocated to… maybe a nice site in Central Park. They would leap at the chance. I know the city of Dallas would be hurt by the move, but to make it up they could use the Nasher site for low income housing and maybe a homeless shelter. I’m sure the Museum Tower next door would enjoy that.

The Museum Tower Condominiums tower over Tony Cragg’s “Lost in Thought”

Finally, a Dallas Food Truck Park.   Coming soon. Faster, please.

Debating the Root Cause of Zombie Infrastructure

From the article:

For generations, government policies have been geared toward creating endless landscapes of strip malls like the one Bentivolio looks at with such fondness. In the process we have gutted our traditional downtowns. We have eaten up farmland and forest. We have, …, endangered the lives of our senior citizens. We have engineered a world where children cannot walk or bike to school without risking their lives. We have created countless places devoid of any real social value.

Why You Shouldn’t Be A Writer

An interesting article, but one that, for me at least, is ultimately useless. You might as well send a heroin addict an piece of paper listing the inconvieniences of shooting up.

Thomas Pynchon: Another Author Concedes to Digital

Oh, good! Now I can carry Gravity’s Rainbow around on my Kindle.

Swedish Edition of Gravity’s Rainbow

I’ve discovered that one of my favorite cult bands, My Favorite, is now The Secret History… with the same quirky feel. Good stuff.

A Seven-Song Primer On Michael Grace Jr., New York’s New Wave Cult Hero

What’s going on this weekend?

Well, on Friday, there’s the Arts District Summer Block Party.  These are always a lot of fun. I might do Late Night at the DMA. The Nasher has been showing kid’s movies on an inflatable screen in the garden, but this week it’s 500 Days of Summer. I’m getting a little tired of Zooey Deshanel’s Goofy Quirky Zany Adorkable Hipster Doofus persona… but still…

Then, on Saturday, the Deep Ellum Outdoor Market is growing and ecompassing Filipino Fest – which sounds like fun.

Sunday? Don’t know yet… but I feel like maybe some Oak Cliff…. Maybe some Bar Belmont. Oh, Shakespeare in the Park is starting up with Twelfth Night.

Any other ideas?

It’s been a bad year for great musicians.
RIP Eduard Khil