Donnie: Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?
Frank: Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
—-Donnie Darko
Large Leaping Hare
Barry Flanagan, 1982
Northpark Center
Dallas, Texas
Why Are You Wearing That Stupid Man Suit?
Monthly Archives: October 2014
The Voice Of Perpetual Becoming
“Is a mountain only a huge stone? Is a planet an enormous mountain?”
― Stanisław Lem, Solaris
Water and Stones, Dallas, Texas
“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
What You See Over There Aren’t Giants, But Windmills
“Destiny guides our fortunes more favorably than we could have expected. Look there, Sancho Panza, my friend, and see those thirty or so wild giants, with whom I intend to do battle and kill each and all of them, so with their stolen booty we can begin to enrich ourselves. This is nobel, righteous warfare, for it is wonderfully useful to God to have such an evil race wiped from the face of the earth.”
“What giants?” Asked Sancho Panza.
“The ones you can see over there,” answered his master, “with the huge arms, some of which are very nearly two leagues long.”
“Now look, your grace,” said Sancho, “what you see over there aren’t giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind and turn the millstone.”
“Obviously,” replied Don Quijote, “you don’t know much about adventures.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
(click to enlarge)
Wind Turbine Blade on a tractor trailer, Interstate 35, just south of the Kansas/Oklahoma border.
Man’s Heart, Away From Nature, Becomes Hard
“Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life – that to the white man is an ‘unbroken wilderness.’
But for us there was no wilderness, nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly. Our faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings.
For us, the world was full of beauty; for the other, it was a place to be endured until he went to another world.
But we were wise. We knew that man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard.”
― Chief Luther Standing Bear
Another view of the Keeper of the Plains sculpture, Wichita, Kansas
We Are The Goon Squad And We’re Coming To Town, Beep Beep
There’s a brand new dance
but I don’t know its name
That people from bad homes
do again and again
It’s big and it’s bland
full of tension and fear
They do it over there but we don’t do it here
—-David Bowie, Fashion
Belle Plaine Service Area, Kansas Turnpike
As a tiny young kid I rode in cars along the Kansas Turnpike so many times that the strip of asphalt took on a life of its own in my tiny young mind. Looming large in the imaginary mythology inside my bean were the oddly-shaped proto-spherical water towers that emerged from the featureless plains at each service area. They were like silver spaceships marking off the molasses crawling miles.
This photo is of the Belle Plaine service area – recently rebuilt after a devastating grease fire in the resident Hardees. The one I remember most is the tower from the Matfield Green service station – one of the most oddly beautiful and weirdly desolate places on earth (in my opinion… and I know desolation when I see it).
The Secret of Magic
“Learning the secret of flight from a bird was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician.”
― Orville Wright
Little Arkansas River, Wichita, Kansas
Like Spiders Across the Stars
“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Wind Turbine blades on Tractor Trailers, Interstate 35, Oklahoma
(click to enlarge)
All up and down Interstate 35 you see trucks hauling giant turbine blades, destined for the wind farms that have been growing like mushroomy weeds all across the wind-swept plains.
“Shaw banged on the door of the shack and explained to the farmer what had happened. The farmer started his tractor and the two men rode back to the car. After tugging, digging, and a push from the tractor, they were able to free the Model-T. Shaw continued toward Clayton. Anxious, thinking about the baby, worried about more drifts, he kept the speed up, pushing the car to its limit. When he came to a sudden swerve in the road, he was going too fast to correct his speed. The Model-T teetered on two wheels and tipped on its side. For an instant, Shaw thought he was pinned. He was bruised and bleeding but otherwise all right. As he crawled out the window, he saw two wheels still spinning in the dust. He was able to pry the car out of the dust and tip it back, right-side up. The engine started. He finished the drive and made it to St. Joseph’s Hospital. Just as Hazel went into her high contractions, in walked a bruised, bleeding, dusty man, his eyelids clogged with mud, his fingers oiled and dirty. Hazel gave birth to a girl late that day, April 7, 1934. They named her Ruth Nell. She was plump and seemed healthy, but the doctor was concerned about taking her outside. The air was not safe for a baby. He ordered Hazel to stay in the hospital for at least ten more days and remarked that the young family might want to consider moving out of No Man’s Land. Others were buttoning up their homes and getting out before the dust ruined them. But the Lucas family had planted themselves in this far edge of the Oklahoma Panhandle at a time when there wasn’t even a land office for nesters. They were among the first homesteaders.”
― Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
A Vision Was Given In My Youth
And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, — you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
—-Black Elk, from Black Elk Speaks
Keeper of the Plains sculpture, Wichita, Kansas
C-Beams Glitter in the Dark
I have… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like tears… in… rain. Time… to die…
—-Rutger Hauer, as Roy Batty, in Blade Runner
Photos of Wind Turbines in the Blackwell Wind Energy Center wind farm, near Blackwell, Oklahoma.
Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma
Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma
Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma
The first thing that strikes you about the turbines in a wind farm is the sheer size. Since they are hoisted up above a featureless, flat plain – they are visible for miles away and it took more driving than I anticipated – down sliding sand roads to reach them. I was surprised that there were no fences, gates or other security and that I was able to move right up to the base of the massive towers. Then, looking up is a giddy, vertiginous adventure. The size of the tower and the surprising speed of the blades is intimidating and unnerving – like looking up into an unexpected, impossible abyss.
The second, even more unforeseen thing is the sound. The rural bean fields were completely quiet – the air at ground level apparently motionless and completely silent. Yet the blades move at astonishing speed with an exquisite swoosh. It’s the sound of a giant jetliner wing flying past you at breakneck speed only a few feet overhead. Amazing.
That Student’s Letter As A Precious Treasure
“The poor girl ws keeping that student’s letter as a precious treasure, and had run to fetch it, her only treasure, because she did not want me to go away without knowing that she, too, was honestly and genuinely loved; that she, too, was addressed respectfully. No doubt that letter was destined to lie in her box and lead to nothing. But none the less, I am certain that she would keep it all her life as a precious treasure, as her pride and justification, and now at such a minute she had thought of that letter and brought it with naive pride to raise herself in my eyes that I might see, that I, too, might think well of her.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
Woman writing in a notebook, Wichita, Kansas
Woman writing in a notebook, Wichita, Kansas
Woman writing in a notebook, Wichita, Kansas
I have a stack of Moleskine notebooks, going back years. In the times I didn’t have a blog – I wrote in them every day. Now, it’s more hit and miss – collections of thoughts, ideas, and stuff I want to remember. Some snippets of truth and more of lies.
It’s the slightly oily cover, the cream paper and the way that fountain pen ink feathers. A permanent part of a person’s mind – converted into reality and held there for posterity. Writing in a Moleskine notebook is a calming thing – maybe because of the way it holds the relentless advance of time at bay for a little while.
Bill Chance 