“one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duelist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six-inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab.” ― Herman Melville
Bait shop outside Hot Springs, Arkansas.
Last week, we took our first traveling vacation as an entire family (plus two dogs) in quite a while. We rented a cabin outside of Hot Springs Arkansas. It was a nice and relaxing few days.
But there was this sign on the highway leading to where we were staying. That has to be the worst name for an establishment, even one as lowly as a bait shop, that I have ever seen.
And Jeez, look at the size of and expression on that worm.
Finished loaf of Chipotle Sourdough Bread. A little too much Chipotle, it made the dough a bit wet and it came out very spicy. Still Delicious. There are kids over and it was gone in five minutes.
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” ― T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
The Wave that Washes us all
The last few days I have been haunted by the same nightmare. It’s the same because when I go to sleep my dream starts up right where the last one ended, when I woke up. This has been happening not only at night, but if I try and sneak in a nap.
I’m in the dream, of course, but the person in the dream isn’t exactly me. I’m someone else, though I don’t know who.
The dream is set in Tokyo, sort of. It’s Tokyo but not the real one. It’s a dream nightmare Tokyo (and no, I’ve never been to Japan). The city itself isn’t as big or crowded as the real Tokyo is – it feels sort of like an American mid-sized city… maybe Lubbock. It’s definitely Dream Tokyo, though, I know that, I remember taking a long dream flight to get there.
I don’t know why I’m in Dream Tokyo. There is some sort of work that I am supposed to do. I have a vague feeling that my job is very important, but don’t remember what it is that I am doing.
Dream Tokyo is a coastal city with a very complex harbor, with several peninsulas and inlets. The border between land and water is very important to me.
The most obvious feature of Dream Tokyo is a highway bridge that links two parts of the city across a wide bay. This bridge is what gives the dream its nightmare edge. It’s not a regular bridge, of course. It’s very, very wide and extremely high. A huge arch reaching up into the sky. It is visible from everywhere in the city and dominates the horizon. Not only is it wide, but the edges simply end. There are no guardrails or other barriers along the side.
It should still be safe, though. It is so wide, almost like a field in the sky (it is green in color and covered with a very short grass, like a golf green) and not heavily used, so you could drive right down the middle with no risk of going over the edge.
That’s not how it works for me, though. I go off driving through Dream Tokyo (I know I wouldn’t ever actually drive in Real Tokyo, but here, there isn’t any mass transit) and I get confused on the poorly-labeled complex highway interchanges. All of a sudden, here I am, driving up the ramp to the vast grassy sky bridge even though it’s the last place I want to go. There is no turning back, I have to cross.
It is horrifying. I can see the sea off to each side and the blue water with the green bridge surface fills me with absolute terror – something about the open spaces sends me into panic (and no, in real life I do not suffer from agoraphobia in any way). I clutch the steering wheel with white, sweaty knuckles and drive quickly, almost with my eyes closed.
I do make it across. That was very odd – the road, despite being amazingly wide and crossing what must be a multi-billion dollar bridge, simply ends. The road narrows and ends in a short stretch of old, cracked tarmac that peters out at the water’s edge. Here the shoreline is paved and the water is dark and full of trash.
There was no clear path forward. I had to drive my car (a rental, I seemed to know that) over a curb and down onto a narrow paved alley that ran along the water and curved off into a neighborhood of run-down warehouses.
That’s the point where I woke up this morning. When I go to bed tonight will I be back in the car, entering the warehouse district? I doubt it. Writing the dream down will certainly kill it.
I’ll be somewhere else, somewhere completely different. A different city, a different seaside, a different bridge.
I DO NOT like to talk on the phone. I get so stressed when I have to call I have trouble dialing right. When my phone rings, I jump and I feel the panic rising (although now its usually junk calls). I know and see people talking on the phone for hours and don’t understand it. When I stop at a light on the way home and watch the cars going by and more than half are on their phones – I wonder, “Who the hell are they talking to?”
Artwork in the Braindead Brewing Company, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
After a year of lockdown, many of us are finding it hard to think clearly, or remember what happened when. Neuroscientists and behavioural experts explain why
For the last two weeks, I’ve been using “to-don’t” list, which sounds like an inverse to a to-do list, but is a bit more exacting. In essence, the list is a curated collection of activities that can derail your energy and motivation. They’re often alluring but end up creating a distracting spiral, sapping you of your most productive hours.
Here’s some origami I did. I’m working on a story and I decided to origami my draft. The design is called, “This is a bunch of crap.”
Ángel León made his name serving innovative seafood. But then he discovered something in the seagrass that could transform our understanding of the sea itself – as a vast garden
Working summers at an authentically quaint roadside produce stand, a teenage salesperson is schooled in the not-so-subtle art of how to con a foodie from the big city.
Perhaps you’ll unearth a can of Crisco for the holiday baking season. If so, you’ll be one of millions of Americans who have, for generations, used it to make cookies, cakes, pie crusts and more.
But for all Crisco’s popularity, what exactly is that thick, white substance in the can?
Electric cars aren’t truly zero-carbon – mining the raw materials for their batteries, manufacturing them and generating the electricity they run on produces emissions.
I remember in 1981, when I first moved to Dallas, driving all the way from Oak Cliff to Plano in horrible evening traffic (it took over an hour) to visit this brand-spanking new wonder of a mall that had just been built – Collin Creek. Now its gone. I think I actually shopped there twice in those forty years, even though I’ve lived very close to it.
How should we make decisions in life? Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, a behavioral economist and cognitive neuroscientist, says that whatever you do, Never Go With Your Gut. It’s such bold advice that Dr. Tsipursky decided to make it the title of his latest book. In this interview, Dr. Tsipursky discusses his unorthodox approach and warns against the dangerous mental blindspots that lead to decisions we later regret.
(click to enlarge) Sixth and Camp in New Orleans – a beautiful row of Camelback Shotgun Houses
To be human … means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. – Stephen Fry, Bafta Lecture, 2010
The day was sunny, cool, and beautiful. The drive was easy and the paperwork non-existent. We did enter the large senior center building from one door and exit from another. A large man was walking by yelling, “Why the fuck do they make us leave by a different door!” The exit was a good twenty feet farther from the parking lot. He was very angry. I was mostly grateful for getting immunity from a deadly pandemic.
It was such a nice day and I had driven an hour, so I decided to take a spin on a local Waxahatche bike trail. I threw my bike into the back of my car before I left and after my shot I drove a couple miles to Lion park where a trailhead was. I felt bad about taking up a parking spot – the tiny lot was filling fast due to a kid’s birthday party.
The trail is about four miles each way and runs along Waxahatche Creek past a dog park, downtown bridge, cemetery and finally to Getzendaner Park – a big park in the middle of town.
The weather was beautiful and people were out and about all along the route. Walking dogs, playing basketball, birthday parties, hiking the trail, visiting the cemetery, or riding the mountain bike trails that also run along the creek.
Seven years ago I saw the play Red at the Dallas Theater Center. It was a fantastic play about the artist Mark Rothko as he painted the famous group of large murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York. Really good – one highlight is that during the play the actor playing Rothko and the one playing his assistant actually paint a giant canvas right there, in front of you. You could smell the linseed oil.
Something
In front of
Braindead Brewing
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
“Many of [life’s] big decisions involve choices to have experiences that teach us things we cannot know about from any other source but the experience itself.”
If you have 15 minutes to spare, do not sit and chill. Instead, a new study says, you should go out for a quick, light jog. It will leave you feeling more energetic than resting, which will lift your spirits and in turn make your thinking more effective.
My Aeropress at a campsite, Lake Ray Roberts, Texas
It’s not surprising to me. After a lifetime of trying different ways of making coffee – the Aeropress is the best. I miss going to coffee shops – but I can’t imagine getting a better cup than what I can make with fresh-ground beans and my ‘press.
I can’t believe that this is a half-century old. I mean, it does have the 1960’s esthetic, but it is still really, really cool. The movie was a disappointment at the time (I looked it up) but this Bob Fosse dance number is fascinating. I’m a little obsessed.
“I have no idea what’s awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.” ― Albert Camus, The Plague
The pandemic has taken so much from us. Much that it has taken may never come back.
One thing that I miss very much is the rectangular plastic bar at the grocery store that you put on the moving belt between your groceries and the person in front of you. That piece of smooth plastic doesn’t seem to be very dangerous to me, but I guess other people, strangers, do touch it – so it has to go.
I miss it. I liked to watch the checker slide it down the little channel so the next person in line can wall off their purchases. I miss that.
The other day I had a list of groceries to pick up so I stopped by one of the local establishments (we do not live in a food desert – there are at least five grocery stores from several different cultures and styles of food within an easy bike ride from my house). The place was crowded, with several folks lined up placing stuff from their baskets onto the belt.
From the busy checkout line one over, behind me, I heard a woman say, clearly, “I stop at the bananas.”
I stop at the bananas.
What a cool phrase. How useful.
“Yes, I know there is a sale on papayas, but I stop at the bananas.”
“Sorry I’m late but on the way over here I saw a fruit stand. I stop at the bananas.”
“Apples…. not Cucumbers, I stop at the Bananas.”
“She’s a lunatic, not me, I stop at the bananas.”
“Every morning, I make a smoothie. There are lots of different kinds, but I stop at the bananas.”
Or, as it was today, a simple tip to the checker where the boundary was. It was right after the bananas.
“Danger’s over, Banana Breakfast is saved.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Trophy from the Gravity’s Rainbow Challenge. Yes, I read the whole thing.
Bill Chance 