“For I do not exist: there exist but the thousands of mirrors that reflect me. With every acquaintance I make, the population of phantoms resembling me increases. Somewhere they live, somewhere they multiply. I alone do not exist.”
― Vladimir Nabokov
The Media Wall reflected in The Globe, AT&T Discovery District, Dallas, Texas
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now, I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
― James Baldwin
City Hall, Dallas, Texas
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
““Invention is the most important product of man’s creative brain. The ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of human nature to human needs.”
― Nikola Tesla, My Inventions
Golden Boy, AT&T Plaza, Dallas, Texas
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
See y’all on the back side.
I’ve written about this sculpture before – Golden Boy.
It was originally on top of a skyscraper in New York.
Golden Boy in New York CityThere is another famous statue in the distance.
Then, during the turbulent history of corporate America – it ended up inside AT&T Headquarters in Dallas, Texas. It was hard to get a good look at it.
The view of the statue from AT&T Plaza through the entryway.
But now, that the company has upgraded the plaza in front of the building, Golden Boy is now outside, in all his glory.
“He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.”
― Confucius
Adolphus Hotel, Dallas, Texas
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
See y’all on the back side.
I’m not afraid of bats.
I remember in college, in biology class, we went on a field trip to a bat cave in the Ozark Mountains. At sundown we sat in the entrance while several million bats flew past – a solid stream of bats. It was really cool.
And here was one single bat clinging to the side of the AT&T headquarters building in downtown Dallas. It was out of place – I hope it was alright… only lost and waiting out the night.
“I don’t understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn’t it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?” ― Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
AT&T Plaza, Dallas, Texas
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
“I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn’t know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn’t know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Nasher Sculpture Center
Dallas, Texas
We all wake up in the middle of the night or maybe even five minutes before the alarm goes off and hear them walking around. Hear who? I don’t know.
“His mother, long dead, always told him: your father will outlive us all, but not before he makes us suffer as much as he wants to, and more..”
― Flavia Company, Father and Son
(click to enlarge)
Sculpture by Jason Mehl,
The Cedars, Dallas, Texas
One of the things in my life that I am ashamed of is that my Spanish is so bad. After all, I lived a few of my formative years in Spanish speaking countries – you would think I would be fluent. There is no excuse for that, but there are a few explanations (people have difficulty understanding the difference between excuse and explanation – it is a critical distinction).
When people realized I was North American, they didn’t want to speak Spanish with me – they wanted to practice their English. And if I just shut up – I could pass for a shy speechless native teenager.
English is so important to me, I have trouble switching into other languages.
Nicaraguan Spanish is significantly different (especially in slang) than the Mexican Spanish I hear every day in Texas
Most important – I am lazy
Most people in my high school were completely fluent in both languages. It was fascinating to listen to them switch back and forth. When discussing something concrete – like giving directions or instructions – they would use English. However, if there were emotions involved, or relationships, or food – then Spanish was the language of choice. For example, there were a dozen different terms that translated as “girlfriend” in English (like the myriad Inuit words for snow) and I was always using the wrong one – to my constant embarrassment.
The difference between literature written in Spanish and English is fascinating. The most obvious one is the success of “magic realism” – which works in Spanish (and even in translation) but feels odd and disjointed in English.
Today’s story is a translation – both languages are at the link. It’s an interesting comparison.
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Conjoined, Roxy Paine
My “difficult book club” read Book 4 (7 chapters) of The Brothers Karamazov this week and are meeting to discuss the section on ZOOM tonight. I am really enjoying the book – reading a long/and or difficult book in a group is definitely the way to do it. Plus the weekly schedule (not too bad – a couple hours of reading at most) breaks the chore up into palatable pieces. Looking at 800 pages is really daunting, but looking at 70 pages a week is easy peasy.
The chapter headings for this week’s section feature the word “Strain” – as in “Strain in the Drawing Room” or “Strain in the Cottage.” The word “Strain” occurs in the text a lot also. This word seemed odd in context and more than a little out of place. We are reading the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation of the book. Other translations use the word “Laceration” instead of “Strain.”
It didn’t take much research to discover that the original Russian word used by Dostoyevsky was the word NADYR (pronounced nud-RIF) – which shows up in various lists of Russian words that do not have an English equivalent.
Its surface meaning is “tear” or “rip” but it has a deeper significance as a strong emotional experience. Or something like that. Looking online – everyone in English is dancing around some meaning there – it obviously was very important to Dostoyevsky and critical to the meaning of this novel.
I found this little Youtube Video that seems to make the most sense.
So, at least in her interpretation Nadyr is the emotional state of intentionally inflicting pain on oneself – putatively for the purpose of being able to feel something. In the context of the events of the chapter, that makes perfect sense. Several characters make heartbreaking choices that extinguish the hope of happiness for themselves and others, for seemingly trivial reasons – pride, mostly… maybe tradition, maybe the idea of simply giving in to fate. It’s terrifying. Especially when you think about it – you realize how often people do this. The Russians are lucky I guess, they have a word.
The rest of us are still flailing around in the dark.
I read Dostoyevsky when I was young – I didn’t pay much attention and didn’t get much out of it. That was a mistake.
Bill Chance 