Category Archives: Photography

The Party is Over

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I believe when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade…and try to find someone whose life has given them vodka, and have a party.”

― Ron White

The Block apartment complex, Richardson, Texas

Next to the smelly dumpster behind the coffee shop in the apartment complex I saw a sad bunch of colorful Mylar balloons left over from a birthday party. I had ridden my bicycle down for a cold brew and a place to hang out and write.

The balloons bothered me. So vivid and kaleidoscopic – and yet starting to droop and lose their helium. They are a symbol of good times, happy times, friends gathered together. But the party is over, and all that is left is a sad fading echo out by the disgusting rotting trash, its noble gas leaking away, its lift failing – starting to settle down towards the ground. The people from the party never appreciated how good is was while it lasted and now its gone.

I feel like that all the time.

Heroic Man

Posted on by Bill Chance

“In those days I learned that nothing is more frightening than a hero who lives to tell his story, to tell what all those who fell at his side will never be able to tell.”

― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Heroic Man, Lachaise, Gaston, Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans

Flow From Me

Posted on by Bill Chance

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Galatyn Park Fountain, Richardson, Texas

Mochinut

Posted on by Bill Chance

I’d rather get a hot dog or a doughnut than write a song.

John Prine

Ceramic cat at Mochinut

The other day I wrote about having to drive between two donut stores on the way to work every day. Due to medical conditions I can’t eat donuts… not even one. I’m used to that, but still I can dream. I am especially interested in the one on the south – a new Japanese fusion donut shop called Mochinut. The donuts look like a circular string of donut holes and are made with rice flour. Best of all, they come in tantalizingly oddly different flavors.

We were coming back from Mother’s day festivities in Downtown Dallas and my son expressed an interest in something sweet to eat. I suggested a quick stop at Mochinut – we would be passing by soon.

Even if I can’t eat it, I can see… and dream.

They were very good (I’m told) the shop is bright and simple – the flavors varied. Here is what they offered:

Mochinut flavors: Coffee, UBE snow, Original, Dark Chocolate, Strawberry W/Poky, and Churro – the flavors change ever week.

The place had a nice attention to detail. For example, on the dark chocolate Mochinut – there was a little chocolate bear sleeping on a marshmallow pillow. Cool.

Chocolate cake bear sleeping on a donut.

Rootbound

Posted on by Bill Chance

“If I had my way we’d sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.”
― William S. Burroughs

City Library, Richardson, Texas

The Root of the South’s Downfall

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The first time I saw my father-in-law’s cotton, I though of the Original Sin, gardening being the root of the South’s downfall.”

― Michael Lee West, She Flew the Coop: A Novel Concerning Life, Death, Sex and Recipes in Limoges, Louisiana

The McKinney Cotton Mill at Sunset, McKinney, Texas

What Does the Beauty Of A Building Mean To Us Now?

Posted on by Bill Chance

“…Originally everything about a Greek or Christian building meant something, and in reference to a higher order of things. This atmosphere of inexhaustible meaningfulness hung about the building like a magic veil. Beauty entered the system only secondarily, impairing the basic feeling of uncanny sublimity, of sanctification by magic or the gods’ nearness. At the most, beauty tempered the dread – but this dread was the prerequisite everywhere. What does the beauty of a building mean to us now? The same as the beautiful face of a mindless woman: something masklike.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

Downtown Dallas

Gremlin

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Horns sounded from the trapped vehicles on the motorway, a despairing chorus.”
― J.G. Ballard, Crash

AMC Gremlin

When I was a kid, my friend’s mother had an AMC Gremlin. I thought it was the coolest car I had ever seen.

Then, as now, I had no idea what I was doing.

Spirit of Communication

Posted on by Bill Chance

“By being published, any author’s words cease to be his own, but rather belong to his reader.”

― Andrew Crumey, D’Alembert’s Principle: A Novel in Three Panels

Spirit of Communication (Golden Boy), Dallas, Texas

From Wikipedia:

Spirit of Communication is the formal name for the statue by Evelyn Beatrice Longman originally called Genius of Telegraphy. The statue has been the symbol of AT&T (and also the former Western Electric) since their commission was completed in 1916. It is also known informally as the Golden Boy statue and formerly as Genius of Electricity.

Commissioned for 195 Broadway in New York City. the sculpture has followed AT&T to other sites in New York and New Jersey over the years. In 2009, the statue was relocated to AT&T’s current corporate headquarters in downtown Dallas, Texas, U.S. As of 2022, the statue is located outside in the AT&T Discovery District in Downtown Dallas.

Monolithic Dome

Posted on by Bill Chance

“After our negotiations were completed, the dome would be imploded and launched toward the nearest black hole, so that none of its atoms would ever contaminate this particular universe again. I thought that last part was overkill.”
― John Scalzi, Old Man’s War

Monolithic Dome Institute, Italy, Texas