“The more successfully a city mingles everyday diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets, the more successfully, casually (and economically) its people thereby enliven and support well-located parks that can thus give back grace and delight to their neighborhoods instead of vacuity. ”
― The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Klyde Warren Park, Dallas, Texas
“You live by yourself for a stretch of time and you get to staring at different objects. Sometimes you talk to yourself. You take meals in crowded joints. You develop an intimate relationship with your used Subaru. You slowly but surely become a has-been.”
― Dance Dance Dance
The Cedars, Dallas, Texas
I have ridden my bike past this chicken joint many, many times… but have never tried to eat there. I want to – though I am a little worried that I won’t be able to decide whether to order chicken… or things.
“Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all.”
―
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
“After the rains departed the skies and settled on earth – clear skies; moist brilliant earth – greater clarity returned to life alone with the blue above and made the world below rejoice with the freshness of the recent rain. It left heaven in our souls and a freshness in our hearts.”
― The Book of Disquiet
The Cedars, Dallas, Texas
“Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side?”
― A Game of Thrones
The Cedars, Dallas, Texas
“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”
― The Land of Heart’s Desire
Mural in back of Sandwich Hag, The Cedars, Dallas, Texas
“There is a tree in California, a Great Basin bristlecone pine that was found, after an intensive ring count, to be five thousand and sixty-five years old.
Even to me, that pine seems old. In recent years, whenever I have despaired of my condition and needed to feel a bit more mortal and ordinary, I think of that tree in California. It has been alive since the Pharaohs. It has been alive since the found of Troy. Since the start of the Bronze Age. Since the start of yoga. Since mammoths.
And it has stayed there, calmly in its spot, growing slowly, producing leaves, losing leaves, producing more, as those mammoths became extinct,… the tree had always been the tree.”
― How to Stop Time
Mural outside of Sandwich Hag, The Cedars, Dallas, Texas
“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
―
Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas
Euphonic Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas
Despite the warning sign at the Ervay Theater during the performance by Euphonic Autonomy (and I didn’t hear anything that would warrant such warning) there were two young kids dancing in the dark at the back of the theater. They were having a blast. The low-light capability of modern digital cameras is amazing.
Euphonic Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas
Euphonic Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas
Euphonic Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas
If you go down to Deep Elem
Just to have a little fun,
You’d better have your fifteen dollars
When the policeman come.Chorus:
Oh, sweet mama, daddy’s got the Deep Elem Blues;
Oh, sweet mama, daddy’s got the Deep Elem Blues.If you go down to Deep Elem,
Keep your money in your shoes;
The women in Deep Elem
Got those Deep Elem blues.If you go down to Deep Elem,
Take your money in your pants;
The women in Deep Elem
Never give the men a chance.Now I once knew a preacher,
Preached the Bible through and through,
He went down into Deep Elem,
Now his preaching days are through.Now I once had a sweet gal,
Lord, she meant the world to me;
She went down into Deep Elem;
She ain’t what she used to be.Her papa’s a policeman
And her mama walks the street;
Her papa met her mama
When they both were on the beat.—-Deep Elm Blues (Deep Ellum Blues), Traditional
Jerry Lee Lewis sings the “Deep Elm Blues“. This was an unissued take made in the Sun Studios (lyrics and audio from wikisource).
Deep Ellum Poster, by Brad Albright, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
I saw this poster hanging on telephone poles in Deep Ellum honoring some of that spot’s musical history:
Bessie Smith, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson
The poster is by Brad Allbright (website, instagram)
I have a piece of original art by him, bought at the Kettle Art Gallery’s For the Love of Kettle event.
Painting #1 – by Brad Allbright
“Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”
― House of Leaves
Euphoric Autonomy, Ervay Theater, Dallas, Texas
Bill Chance 