“Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Working on freeform embroidery,
Klyde Warren Park
Dallas, Texas
The Delicate Toil Of the Needle
Monthly Archives: August 2015
The Monco Poncho
You were born too soon
I was born too late
But every time I look at that ugly lake
It reminds me of me
It reminds me of me
Do you like American music
We like American music
I like American music baby
—-American Music, Violent Femmes
The Monco Poncho
at Four Bullets Brewery
Richardson, Texas
The Hope of Being Seen
“Most people would trade everything they know, everyone they know- they’d trade it all to know they’ve been seen, and acknowledged, that they might even be remembered. We all know the world is too big for us to be significant. So all we have is the hope of being seen, or heard, even for a moment.”
― Dave Eggers, The Circle
University of Texas at Dallas,
Richardson, Texas
Too Busy Watching Evening Television
“Why the ancient civilizations who built the place did not use the easier, nearby rocks remains a mystery. But the skills and knowledge on display at Stonehenge are not. The major phases of construction took a total of a few hundred years. Perhaps the preplanning took another hundred or so. You can build anything in half a millennium – I don’t care how far you choose to drag your bricks. Furthermore, the astronomy embodied in Stonehenge is not fundamentally deeper than what can be discovered with a stick in the ground.
Perhaps these ancient observatories perennially impress modern people because modern people have no idea how the Sun, Moon, or stars move. We are too busy watching evening television to care what’s going on in the sky. To us, a simple rock alignment based on cosmic patterns looks like an Einsteinian feat. But a truly mysterious civilization would be one that made no cultural or architectural reference to the sky at all.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
View down Elm Street from walkway, near Harwood.
Downtown Dallas, Texas
For awhile now I have been interested in the phenomenon of Dallashenge. This is when, one certain days of the year, the sun is aligned to rise or set directly on a line with one of the major canyon streets of downtown, either in the evening or in the morning.
A lot of people do photography in New York at Manhattanhenge, but few realize the same phenomenon occurs in other big cities.
You can use Suncalc to determine the henge dates. I’ve gone downtown a few times to shoot both the morning and evening henges.
Morning Dallashenge from the triple underpass in Dealey Plaza.
Links to blog entries:
Test Shots for a Morning Dallashenge
Morning Dallashenge – maybe a couple days early
When I first did this I had to look around for shot locations. One place I thought would be good was the pedestrian bridge over Elm Street – but at the time I wasn’t sure how to get into the thing or what the view would look like, so I opted for a street-level view.
Here’s a test shot I took that shows the pedestrian bridge.
Elm and Harwood Streets. I like this view. I’m not sure if the pedestrian bridge will ruin the shot. Also, the Lew Sterrett jail is at the end of the street and may block the sun’s orb..
At any rate, the other day I went on a tour of some of Downtown Dallas’ pedestrian tunnels and bridges.
As part of the tour we passed through the pedestrian bridge – it’s easy to get to and even has a cool coffee shop, Stupid Good Coffee nearby.
As you can see from the photo I took (the first one in this entry) during the tour, the view from the walkway is pretty good. One problem though, is that the distant Lew Sterrett jail blocks the horizon, so the best shot might be a couple days later (or before… I’ll have to think about it).
Plus, the tunnel system is officially only open from six to six and the sun sets at about six forty five – so I’d have to overstay a bit. A tripod set up with a camera might be a defense – we’ll have to see.
The next evening dallashenge date looks to be around October 26, so I have some time to think about it.
Remembering the Water Days
“From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the “River of Silence”; for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora
Dallas, Texas
To See Your Soul
“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Your Match-Book Songs And Your Gypsy Hymns
“With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?-Bob Dylan, “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Betty
“It’s better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you’re not. It’s a sign of your worth sometimes, if you’re hated by the right people.”
― Bette Davis
Betty, the newest streetcar in the McKinney Avenue Trolley system, at the Turntable getting ready to go the other way.
I have always had a soft spot for streetcars – especially both the famous New Orleans version and the unknown Dallas version – The McKinney Avenue Trolleys. I’ve written about the trolley line before – and its individual cars – The Green Dragon, Petunia, Rosie, and Matilda.
The trolley line has expanded and has become very popular since the opening of Klyde Warren Park.
Last week, after I finished a tour of the underground tunnels beneath downtown, I walked over to Klyde Warren for a Food Truck lunch then decided to catch the streetcar for a ride to the turntable next to the CityPlace DART station.
I was lucky in that the car that I caught was Betty – a new car that I had never ridden before. Life if made of tiny thrills.
The Conductor driving Betty along McKinney Avenue, Dallas, Texas.
If You Try And Lose
“If you try and lose then it isn’t your fault. But if you don’t try and we lose, then it’s all your fault.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
Munger & Gaston Streets, Dallas, Texas
I was planning on riding my bicycle down to The Lot to meet Nick for his birthday. At first, I was going to ride the train downtown, then out the Santa Fe Trail, but the people on the train were getting on my last nerve, so I took that as an omen and left the train early, from the underground station at Cityplace. After riding the two extensive escalators to the surface, I had to work my way through East Dallas to the lake. That part of town is a confusing maze of angled streets, and more difficult on a bicycle than a car. You have to avoid some busy streets, some killer hills, and a mistake can put you miles out of your way.
However, I’ve been there a few times recently and was able to find my way without any real problems – with an occasional Googlemaps look on my phone.
I did make a little side trip to the intersection of Gaston & Munger. There’s a sculpture there – on the corner of a redone apartment complex of a man and woman pushing a mirrored sphere. I had seen it before, but never able to stop and get a good look.
My camera was in my pack this time, so I took a quick photo of it. I don’t know anything about its title or sculptor or backstory – but I’ll try to get back and get a better shot.
It’s in an unexpected spot – and looks really cool.
That I Might Touch That Cheek
“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O, that I were a glove upon that hand
That I might touch that cheek!”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Dallas Museum of Art
“So she thoroughly taught him that one cannot take pleasure without giving pleasure, and that every gesture, every caress, every touch, every glance, every last bit of the body has its secret, which brings happiness to the person who knows how to wake it. She taught him that after a celebration of love the lovers should not part without admiring each other, without being conquered or having conquered, so that neither is bleak or glutted or has the bad feeling of being used or misused.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Dallas Museum of Art
“Touch. It is touch that is the deadliest enemy of chastity, loyalty, monogamy, gentility with its codes and conventions and restraints. By touch we are betrayed and betray others … an accidental brushing of shoulders or touching of hands … hands laid on shoulders in a gesture of comfort that lies like a thief, that takes, not gives, that wants, not offers, that awakes, not pacifies. When one flesh is waiting, there is electricity in the merest contact.”
― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
Dallas Museum of Art
Bill Chance 