“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
― The Art of War
Mural, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
Fall Like a Thunderbolt
Category Archives: Photography
Creepy Snowman
“It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.”
― A Child’s Christmas in Wales
Grapevine, Texas
At the Grapevine Christmas Festival they had these crude animatronic snowmen – where a moving face was projected inside a frosted glass globe when the snowmen talked. They told some sort of winter/Christmas story. The kids were fascinated. I thought it was creepy and didn’t stick around long enough to figure out what they were talking about.
Two Dreams About Him After He Died
“I had two dreams about him after he died. I don’t remember the first one all that well but it was about meetin’ him in town somewheres and he give me some money and I think I lost it. But the second one it was like we was both back in older times and I was on horseback goin’ through the mountains of a night. Goin’ through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept on goin’. Never said nothin’. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin’ fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin’ on ahead and that he was fixin’ to make a fire somewhere out there in all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.”
― No Country for Old Men
Nightwatchman, Grapevine City Hall, Grapevine, Texas
Nightwatchman, Grapevine City Hall, Grapevine, Texas
As we walked down Main Street in Grapevine taking photographs for the Winter Dallas Photowalk I couldn’t keep from looking ahead at a giant statue, The Grapevine Nightwatchman, on top of the Grapevine City Hall. It was a giant bronze man in a cowboy hat holding a lantern in the night. By the time we arrived at that part of the street the sun had long set and I couldn’t get a good photo of it – couldn’t do justice anyway. Sometimes it’s like that… you know you have to see it live – but you snap that shutter anyway.
For some reason I kept thinking of that quote at the end of No Country for Old Men (the book and the movie) about the sheriff’s dream of his father going ahead on horseback carrying fire in a horn. I know the statue had a lantern… not a horn of coals and wasn’t on horseback, but he had that same look of ancient burden and longing – of stoic hopeless responsibility – that I imagine the sheriff’s father had in the dream.
Cosplay – Placed in Unaccustomed Clothes
“His gray suit makes him seem extra vulnerable, in the way of children placed in unaccustomed clothes for ceremonies they don’t understand.”
― Rabbit Is Rich
Grapevine, Texas
Grapevine, Texas
Water Off A Duck’s Back
“-Hey, listen,” I said. “You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know, by any chance?” I realized it was only one chance in a million.”
― The Catcher in the RyeBachman Lake, Dallas, Texas
I watched the ducks go about their start of the day routine from a bench along the water at dawn. One ritual was to repeatedly duck under the water and rise up – letting the water run off their feathers. Like taking a little duck shower.
Cell Phone Tower Reflected in Bachman Lake, Before and After Sunrise
“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.”
― A Hat Full of Sky
Bachman Lake, Dallas, Texas, before sunrise
Bachman Lake, Dallas, Texas, after sunrise
Crew Practice
“How often have I watched, and longed to imitate when I should be free to live as I chose, a rower who had shipped his oars and lay flat on his back in the bottom of the boat, letting it drift with the current, seeing nothing but the sky gliding slowly by above him, his face aglow with a foretaste of happiness and peace!”
― Swann’s Way
Bachman Lake at dawn, Dallas, Texas
Out of bed at five AM out of the house at five-thirty. My son Lee was running a 5K – four laps around Bachman Lake at dawn. I enjoyed sitting by the lake, watching the sky brighten and the sun rise, the early morning planes lifting off from Love Field, the ducks coming to check if I’d give them something to eat, and the early morning crews rowing on the smooth lake. There was no wind – the only disturbance was from the ducks and the boats.
Lee wanted to run a fast time on the flat and open course. He did succeed in a personal best, beating a time he ran years ago, in high school.
Over Managed And Under Led
“WIth silo mentality, organizations lose their collaborative advantage as they are being over managed and under led.”
― Digital Maturity: Take a Journey of a Thousand Miles from Functioning to Delight
Grapevine, Texas
The Christmas Tree Is In A Hurry
“If my Valentine you won’t be,
I’ll hang myself on your Christmas tree.”
― 88 Poems
Grapevine, Texas
Not Just On Halloween
“I think if human beings had genuine courage, they’d wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn’t life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don’t they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you’d meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to – like talking to dogs. ”
― The Gum Thief
Cosplay, Grapevine, Texas
Bill Chance 