Gratitude For Every Single Moment Of My Stupid Little Life

Posted on by Bill Chance

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time. For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout Camp, watching falling stars. And yellow leaves from the maple trees that lined our street. Or my grandmother’s hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper. And the first time I saw my cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird. And Janie, and Janie. And Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain, and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry. You will someday.

—- American Beauty

Atrium, American Beauty Mill, Dallas, Texas

American Beauty Mill

 

A Physical Book is Like a Shark

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screens: as Douglas Adams once pointed out to me, more than 20 years before the Kindle showed up, a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there wil always be a place for them.”
― Neil Gaiman

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Reunion

Posted on by Bill Chance

No, I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
But the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away

—-Paul Simon, Mother and Child Reunion

Reunion Tower, Dallas, Texas

To See is To Devour

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Curiosity is gluttony. To see is to devour.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Warped in the Folds of Time

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Silence. How long it lasted, I couldn’t tell. It might have been five seconds, it might have been a minute. Time wasn’t fixed. It wavered, stretched, shrank. Or was it me that wavered, stretched, and shrank in the silence? I was warped in the folds of time, like a reflection in a fun house mirror.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

Bank of America Plaza building reflected in the Hyatt Regency Dallas from the Union Station DART platform, Dallas, Texas

Micro Macro Mojo

Posted on by Bill Chance

“It makes me sad, sad inside, to see a warrior without his pride. ”
― Adam Ant

Micro Macro Mojo sculpture (detail), by Ed Carpenter, Greenville & Alma, Richardson, Texas

Micro Macro Mojo

It Still Freaks Me Out a Little

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I come to a red light, tempted to go through it, then stop once I see a billboard sign that I don’t remember seeing and I look up at it. All it says is ‘Disappear Here’ and even though it’s probably an ad for some resort, it still freaks me out a little and I step on the gas really hard and the car screeches as I leave the light.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero

Pinstripe Skull, Car Show, Denton, Texas

I Lay My Vengeance Upon Thee

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Well, there’s this passage I’ve got memorized that sort of fits this occasion. Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of the evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper, and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!”

—-Pulp Fiction

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

I Like Turtles

Posted on by Bill Chance

“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Delta Duck-Potato (Sagittaria platyphylla), Leonhardt Lagoon, Fair Park, Dallas, Texas

 

 

Somebody Had a Bad Day

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The ambiguous role of the car crash needs no elaboration—apart from our own deaths, the car crash is probably the most dramatic event in our lives, and in many cases the two will coincide. Aside from the fact that we generally own or are at the controls of the crashing vehicle, the car crash differs from other disasters in that it involves the most powerfully advertised commercial product of this century, an iconic entity that combines the elements of speed, power, dream and freedom within a highly stylized format that defuses any fears we may have of the inherent dangers of these violent and unstable machines.”

― J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition

Lyndon Baines Johnson Freeway and Texas Instruments Boulevard, Dallas, Texas