Life is made up of marble and mud.
—–Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Trinity River was still boiling, but it had obviously been higher a couple days earlier. The dropping river left its burden of mud.
Soon enough all will be dust.
Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie.
—- John LeCarre
“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
Trinity River
Dallas, Texas
“The immappable world of our journey. A pass in the mountains. A bloodstained stone. The marks of steel upon it. Names carved in the corrosible lime among stone fishes and ancient shells. Things dimmed and dimming. The dry sea floor. The tools of migrant hunters. The dreams encased upon the blades of them. The peregrine bones of a prophet. The silence. The gradual extinction of rain. The coming of night.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
Steel in the forge,
Frisco, Texas
“You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me? No! I am the one who knocks!”
—-Heisenberg, Breaking Bad
Trinity River Bottoms
Dallas, Texas
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
― Nikola Tesla
Trinity River Bottoms
Dallas, Texas
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it’s yours.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Forge Fire
Frisco, Texas
“But I pushed and pulled in vain, the wheels would not turn. It was as though the brakes were jammed, and heaven knows they were not, for my bicycle had no brakes. And suddenly overcome by a great weariness, in spite of the dying day when I always felt most alive, I threw the bicycle back in the bush and lay down on the ground, on the grass, careless of the dew, I never feared the dew.”
― Samuel Beckett, Molloy
Frisco Heritage Village
Frisco, Texas
“Phyllida’s hair was where her power resided. It was expensively set into a smooth dome, like a band shell for the presentation of that long-running act, her face.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot
Dragon Park,
Dallas, Texas
“Historical fact: People stopped being people in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we’ve all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joy-sticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
Frisco, Texas
“There was a wish to get something exceptional, … I also wanted to deliver something technically unique.”
—-Santiago Calatrava
The arches of a second Calatrava designed bridge rise in the river bottoms. The Horseshoe, Dallas, Texas
Masses of construction equipment in the Trinity River Bottoms are roiling the mud with steel and concrete. The work area, like a giant’s anthill, is called The Horseshoe.
A second Calatrava designed bridge arcs up into the air. I’m a bit confused – this one is in one sense only window decoration – the cars will be relegated to the conventional concrete causeway. On the other hand, the arches will support bicycle and pedestrian spans. That is a cool thing, in my mind.
I only wonder how people on foot or on pedaled wheels will reach the bridges. I guess we’ll all wait and see.
Bill Chance