Dallas Blonde

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Bill Chance

As I work on what my future is going to be like, I had, for all practical purposes, quit drinking. I simply don’t have the time or the calories to spare. The one exception is that if there is an interesting something… I’d give it a go.

Lately, around town, I had been stumbling into events that served beer from the Deep Ellum Brewing Company. If you live in Dallas, you know what Deep Ellum is. If you don’t – it’s a historic district, just east of downtown, that has seen a roller coaster of ups and downs over the last hundred years or so and is, arguably, the heart of the city – from the days of Leadbelly and Blind Lemon Jefferson, to the heyday of the 80’s, and beyond.

Deep Ellum has been struggling for a few years now, but it still has industrial space and is a magnet for the young, hip… and the notso young and hip – anyone looking for something different.

So it is where you would expect a quality craft brewery to sprout up.

Their manifesto:

Beerfesto

To you, the beer drinker, Deep Ellum Brewing Company pleges:
To never waste your time with gimmicks
To let our beer do the talking
To never live or work in a dry county
To remember our roots
To never serve a single glass of bad beer

And, from their website – more of their philosophy:

The Founders of Deep Ellum Brewing Company Have Had Enough
Enough of watching beer’s good name being tarnished.
Enough of watching big, corporate breweries pumping out the same old dull, watered-down stuff, Slapping a different label on it and telling you that you have choices.
ENOUGH OF BAD BEER
To show their dissatisfaction with the status quo, the four founders of Deep Ellum Brewing Company have set up shop in Dallas’ most nefarious neighborhood, and between their big personalities and bigger beers, they plan to show Big D what it’s been missing.

I had some of their Farmhouse Wit at The Foundry and some Stout at the Cedars Food Truck Park (served up by the folks from Lee Harvey’s). It was very, very good. I’m not an expert on the brewing world or a properly educated beer snob, but I know good things when I swallow them… and this was good.

Trying to find something to do on the weekend, and looking at the Brewery’s Web Site, I found that they offered tours. At noon Saturday (and Thursday’s at six) you can pay ten dollars, get a glass, samples, and a tour. That sounded like a plan.

I had to go to work really early on Saturday, but that meant I finished early and had time to get in a bike ride (and a flat tire) and still make it down to Deep Ellum by noon. I changed clothes in my car and was hot, hungry, and thirsty – but hot and thirsty is the best and only way to tour a brewery.

It was a blast. They have a little beer garden down there with live music (the guy was good and I have no idea who he was) [PS – I think the guy was Jes Spires) and a great crowd. A food truck showed up (I needed to get some food in me) and the taps were going strong. I am definitely planning on going back. Thursday evening sounds like a plan.

And the beer was so, so good. I tried their newest brew – Dallas Blonde, then moved on to the Deep Ellum IPA and finished with the Double Brown Stout. I can honestly say every Deep Ellum Brewery beer I’ve tried I’ve liked better than the one before. For example, I’m not that big of an IPA fan – but that stuff blew me away. It’s pretty rare that I think “Wow” to myself when I first sip a new brew – but I did with each of those.

So now I have to modify what I say. Instead of “I don’t drink anymore” I have to say, “I don’t always drink beer – but when I do, it has to be from the Deep Ellum Brewing Company.”

Music in the Deep Ellum Brewing Company Beer Garden

There was a big crowd for the brewery tour.

Zach talks about hops.

A hearty cheer – for good beer.

The taps were going.

Where the magic happens.

Some of the limited production beer is aged in wine casks.

Finished Product

The Eyes of the Cat

Posted on August 12, 2012 by Bill Chance

Detail from Eyes of the Cat, by Moebius and Alejandro Jodorowsky

My last years of college and the first few out in the real world I was a bit of a fan of the magazine Heavy Metal (and of the original French version Métal Hurlant). As anyone of that time and space would, I especially enjoyed the work of the artist/illustrator Jean Giraud – better known as Moebius.

I was sad to see he passed away this year, at 73. I thought of him recently as I stumbled across some of his work on a favorite art blog, But Does it Float.

Recently, that blog had a post on a work I was not familiar with. It was a collaboration of Moebius with Alejandro Jodorowsky – among many, many, other things, a director of amazingly disturbing and odd films.

It’s called Les Yeux du Chat (The Eyes of the Cat) – and was their first comic together (I believe it’s from 1978). It’s a simple collection of wordless drawings, telling a horrific story about a man, his falcon, and an unfortunate cat.

Pretty disturbing, not for all tastes (not too good for a cat-lover, for example) – but it’s the sort of thing that you will like if you like that sort of thing.

It’s what I would do if I had the talent. Sorry.

The book is terribly expensive and very short – but through the magic of this interweb thing, you can see it here.

Detail from Eyes of the Cat, by Moebius and Alejandro Jodorowsky

Tampopo

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Bill Chance

Do you have a recipe that requires egg yolks? This provocative scene from Tampopo is one hell of a way to separate an egg.

It was early afternoon and I was down in East Dallas, overheated and very hungry. As I contemplated the twists of neighborhood streets and grids of avenues I tried to think of someplace to get something to eat… something good, quick, cheap, interesting, on the way home, and, preferably, someplace I’ve never been to before.

One word popped into my dehydrated and sun-frazzled brain – Tampopo.

Tampopo, on Greenville Avenue in Dallas

Tampopo is a bright humble-looking little Japanese café on Greenville Avenue – just south of Northwest Highway (on my way home). I had heard of it, driven by it, but never actually stopped there. Its name (Japanese for Dandelion) has always fascinated me, because it is also the name of one of my absolute favorite films.

Tampopo (the movie) is an odd lark of a film, a Japanese comedy loosely modeled after a Clint Eastwood Western yet set in a Ramen Shop run by a young widow named Tampopo. It is a wondrous wandering mess of a movie – jumping around in tone and sliding sideways into odd set pieces that have very little to do with the main story….

Except they are all about food. Tampopo is struggling with her third-rate Ramen shop until a macho truck driver and his sidekick come along and end up devoting their skill and energy into creating the perfect ramen. It is greatness.

The movie is very difficult to see in the United States. I had to jump through some hoops to get a copy of a DVD and it is one of my prized possessions.

So, I stopped in at Tampopo (the restaurant) and ordered some Beef Udon soup. I was a little disappointed they didn’t offer Ramen – but I’m a bit of an Udon man myself anyway. It was good and a nice treat on a hot day.

My Beef Udon Soup. Unfortunately, I had a telephoto and couldn’t get the soup in focus… but you get the idea.

What I learned this week, August 10, 2012

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Bill Chance

The extended trailer for Cloud Atlas is out:

I am so excited and stoked for this film… I started to write a blog entry about it, but when I did a search, I realized I Already Did – almost a year ago. Go read my old entry. Then go find a copy of the book, Cloud Atlas and read it. Before October, when the film of this unfilmable book comes out.

134 Terrifying Closeups of Bugs

I wish I had a decent Macro lens.

Beutiful bikes and a cool video.

Hey, an album of bicycle music – Bicycle

Nora and One Left

Beautiful Bikes and a cool video – The Porteur bicycle

Reform Is Not Enough: The Federal Government Needs a Complete Makeover

American government is a deviant subculture

This behavior by high-ranking public servants should be considered scandalous. People in Washington consider it business as usual, and don’t even raise an eyebrow.

Right and wrong no longer matter in this deviant subculture. Sealed off from personal responsibility by accumulated bureaucracy and thick walls of special interest money, our government is covered by a putrid mold of cynical gamesmanship and everyday hypocrisy. People scurry around its baseboards seeking short-term advantage, but big change is so inconceivable as to be laughable.

Even reformers have given up. What is politically feasible, they ask? The answer is clear: nothing.

Change will nonetheless happen, political scientists tell us. How? Through a crisis….The main challenge then will be not merely to reform Medicare and other unsustainable programs. The challenge will be to change the culture of government.

Literature’s greatest serial killers
I have read all but one book on this list. My favorite – Anton Chigurh, of course.

I’m sort of suprised Dexter (or Voldemort) isn’t on here – but I’m not sure that a popular series is considered “Literature.” I dunno, it’s not Crime and Punishment (or Macbeth, or even Lolita), but that still feels a little snobbish to me.

Macbeth
Raskolnikov
Humbert Humbert
Tom Ripley
Patrick Bateman
Anton Chigurh
Bruce Robertson
Annie Wilkes
Frank Cauldhame
Hannibal Lecter

Carosel at The Cedars

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Bill Chance

Tom Stancliffe, Carousel 1996

Fabricated silicon bronze, three sculptures approx. 15h x 5 x 5 each for the Cedars Light Rail Station, Dallas Area Rapid Transit authority, Dallas, Texas. Commission awarded through a national competition sponsored by DART. The sculptures relate not only in form to the landscape design but are also intended to recall the evolution of the neighborhood from a cedar forest, to an elegant Victorian neighborhood, to a now light industrial district.

On the way to Toad Corners

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Bill Chance

On the way to Toad Corners

I found a picnic table in the large open Pecan Grove area of the Arboretum to sit and read for a bit. A family went by, on the way through the Crape Myrtle Allee to the popular water feature called Toad Corners.

Kids love to play in the water at Toad Corners

Kids love to play in the fountain. Some folks like to make it a destination on hot summer days – sort of an artistic water park.

This means you!

The signage next to Toad Corners sure doesn’t make it look appetising, though.

The family came back from the fountain after about an hour and ate a picnic lunch at a table near mine. They all looked healthy enough.

Old School

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Bill Chance

Renner School House, Dallas Heritage Village

I was wandering around, looking into the historic buildings that have been moved from all over North Texas into Old City Park, now Dallas Heritage Village. Some kid walked into the Renner School House at the same time I did.

“Can you imagine going to school in a room like this?” I asked.

“I’ve been here before, I think. I think it was a field trip,” he answered.

“Look at how each chair holds the desk for the person behind them. Oh, do you know what the little holes are for?”

“For the inks!” he said.

“It’s a shame we can’t go upstairs or play in the playground,” the kid said. “Do you know what all these cans hanging on the wall are for?”

I said, “Those are what the kids brought their lunch to school in. See, they are little metal buckets. They called them lunch pails.”

I kept running into the kid as I walked around the place and he would leave his family, walk up to me and point out something. In the historic barnyard he was looking around, trying to find the rooster that was crowing.

“I think it’s a recording,” I said. “They are playing that sound over and over.”

“It sure sounds real,” he said.

The historic Renner School House, in Dallas Heritage Village, with the skyscrapers of downtown rearing up in the background.

Lunch pails hung on the wall pegs at the Renner School House.

Daily Reader.

Renner School House desks.

Moonrise Kingdom

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Bill Chance

Suzy, dressed as a raven, in Moonrise Kingdom.

I very rarely get out to see an actual movie at an actual theatre any more. The biggest reason is that I hate going out to the suburban googleplex with everybody else and paying all that cash for an experience much worse than I can get at home on the HDTV.

One exception, though. Back in the day, back when I still had a life, I used to really enjoy going down to the Angelika on Mockingbird Lane. I would take the DART train down there on the weekend – sometimes not even knowing what I was going to see – and pick one of the offerings from the selection of art-house films. There is a little restaurant attached and sometimes I’d get pot stickers or something else simple to eat – make a leisurely afternoon of it.

There was none of the cattle-car feeling of the googleplex – none of the packs of loud, tittering teenagers, blaring lights and sounds of video games or awful garish food displays… I like the architecture of the Angelika – the open areas with little tables and chairs, the little stands with postcards and literature about the upcoming features – the classic old movie posters. It is a place designed to show a film, not corral huge herds of the faceless public into chutes and strip them of their cash.

There are now a whole set of theaters dedicated to art-house quality cinema in the Metroplex – the two Angelikas, The Magnolia, and the Inwood – to name a few. I love the Inwood especially, but it is a long difficult drive from where I live.

Often, when I look at the list of first run films at the googleplex I can’t find a single one I’m really interested in seeing. Today, when I thought of going down to the Angelika, it was tough to decide which one to see – there was Killer Joe – which looks good, but I wasn’t in the mood for NC-17 today… then there was Beasts of the Southern Wild, set in South Louisiana, but again, maybe too intense for a lazy early Sunday. They are showing a classic, The Graduate, and that would be good… but I’ve seen that film, maybe ten times already.

So I decided on the low-intensity alternative, Wes Anderson’s newest, Moonrise Kingdom. I have enjoyed almost all of his work (not a big fan of the animated film, that Mr. Fox thing) – though his highly mannered style can be a bit shrill at times.

I loved Moonrise Kingdom, by the way. The test for a work with a unique and personal style like Anderson’s is a simple one for me – do I care about his characters? Some of his work is so precious and so complex that the people at the center of the story are lost – and at the end you are left with an empty feeling. A lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Moonrise Kingdom is a simply story, however (which I will not discuss – no spoilers here) and the two main characters are sympathetic and easy to relate to. All the messy complexities of a Wes Anderson film are present, but these are played out by the large and familiar supporting cast, and don’t take away from the main conflict at the center.

Strip away all the Wes Anderson shiny trappings and odd eccentricities and it is simply a strange little love story.

When the film ended I thought, “Hey, that was better than I expected,” which is high praise, indeed.

Now I want to go back and see some of those others.