At the Dallas Arboretum, down at the end of the Crepe Myrtle Alee, sits a little square called Toad Corners. Four huge bronze toads spit water towards a metal sphere and a bubbling fountain in the center. This spot is popular with kids, especially on hot Texas summer days. They direct the water at each other and run through the spray, trying to cool off.
It’s a blast.
Sometime, somewhere, somehow, while perusing the ‘net on a day when, though I don’t remember the details, I most certainly should have been doing something more worthwhile, I came across some sort of magazine article or web page that was extolling the delicious risk of eating fiddlehead ferns. I’m not sure exactly where it came from, but there’s a lot out there… here’s a quick sample for reference purposes:
It is always tempting to put out a link to the Wikipedia entry on Fiddlehead Ferns. Except… how useless – everyone knows how to look something up on Wikipedia. To me, that reminds me of my childhood, when everyone would start their school essays with the phrase, “Webster defines (insert subject here) as (insert dictionary definition here). How lazy can you get? It was especially common with oral reports. If you had five minutes to kill, you could get a good forty seven seconds out of the way with ol’ Webster. I always wanted to start a report with, “Webster defines cunnilingus as (insert definition here) – which has nothing to do with my report on the petroleum industry in Venezuela. Ooops, I’m getting off-subject here. The Wikipedia Definition of Fiddlehead Fern.
The unwritten ethic among fiddlehead foragers is to take three violin tops. A fern produces five to nine fronds per growing season, so harvesting more than three can jeopardize the plant’s survival. Found Food | Fiddlehead Ferns
Think of fiddlehead ferns, those tightly coiled, emerald-green symbols of spring, as ferns interrupted. Fiddlehead-Fern Bruschetta
The ostrich fern is the safest fern to eat, even though it, too, can contain toxins. The fiddleheads of cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea), lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina), and bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) can also be eaten, but all are at least mildly toxic and can cause nausea, dizziness, and headache, so it’s probably best to avoid them. Fiddlehead facts
When the Spiceman is in, you can buy a fistful of exotic Tokyo longs to dazzle the pants off your in-laws (or maybe just your spouse). Best Fiddlehead Fern Finder: Tom “Spiceman” Spicer of F.M. 1410
Fiddleheads have a bright, earthy flavor that calls to mind asparagus, artichokes, and green beans. Fiddlehead Ferns
It fascinated me for a good three minutes. The idea of eating foraged food is cool – the idea of eating foraged food that is toxic if not gathered or prepared properly is even more cool. I could almost taste the slight bitterness and feel the crunchy texture of the boiled coils.
After these slight impressions collected somewhere in my useless mess of gray matter I was on to other tasks, probably working on remembering things like where did I leave my car keys and what is my bank account pin number.
My thoughts on fiddlehead ferndom lay dormant somewhere in there until I was walking around the Dallas Arboretum with my writing group taking photographs of the Chihuly exhibition when I overheard a woman talking. She was staring intently at a guide to the exhibit which I had neglected to obtain at the entrance. She was rattling off the names and locations of the colorful glass sculptures and I heard her say, “It says here he did some sculptures called Fiddleheads but I haven’t seen them yet.”
And that set off the memories. The rest of the day I couldn’t help but keep my eye out for some glass fiddlehead ferns. Finally, in the last garden at the end of all things, there were the fiddleheads sticking up amongst the greenery.
Now I can die in peace.
Fiddlehead fern fiddleheads
In case you think I’m full of shit when I write this stuff, here’s the woman I overheard asking about the fiddleheads. This was taken an hour later, and you can see, she is still looking at her guide book. She is now so tired of looking at it that she has her husband holding it for her. Or maybe that’s her husband on the other side and that’s her pool boy holding the guidebook. Or maybe the three aren’t related at all – maybe they are three technical writers that get together on the weekends to go various place and critique the guidebooks.
a Chihuly Fiddlehead
The glass ferns were growing in a bed of greenery.
A fly enjoying the Chihuly Sculpture. I bet he didn’t have to pay to get in.
More photographs from my writing group’s trip to see Dale Chihuly’s work in the Dallas Arboretum.
One of the many cool things about the installation is that you never knew when you would turn a corner and run into something unexpected. The artist placed large turquoise colored irregular blocks of glass in a rock creek that ran through the gardens. Water ran past the glass and tumbled down the artificial watercourse towards the lake. The glass looked like huge blocks of translucent ice – unexpected and beautiful.
The most powerful and ethereal beauty is that which is a surprise.
Everywhere I go there are crowds of people with cameras pointed at grinning subjects. From Canyon Creek to The Nasher, from the Arts District to New Orleans to the Farmer’s Market to the reflecting pool people are out posing while the photographer contorts with a huge hunk of semiconductors, injection molded plastic, and optical glass plastered to his eye.
Fashion, weddings, or engagements, there they are preserving the moment for posterity and relatives’ mantel pieces. The most common, in Texas, right now, is the Quinceañera.
When my writing group was wandering around the Dallas Arboretum doing our photography thing, I took a step to the side while we were in the Women’s Garden and looked down some steps into a large, rectangular formal garden setting. There, in the center of the garden, sitting on a wooden crate, was an attractive young couple, messing around with something that was wrapped in a complex packaging.
It was obviously a staged engagement. The couple was surrounded by smiling people, friends and relatives, all pointing cameras in their direction. I took a couple shots of the scene and moved on.
Now I have a picture of all these people I don’t know at all. That’s a good way to practice doing character sketches. I take a look at each one and try to make up their story.
I know that’s a nasty thing to do… make up a bunch of stupid lies about a group of complete strangers and then put the thing out on the web. But there is something about expectation of privacy at work here… and if you are going to get yourself engaged in the middle of a formal garden in the Dallas Arboretum on a Saturday Morning… well you can kiss any expectation of privacy goodbye.
So, here, without any further ado… I give you:
The Happy Couple
Roberta Bustamante
Franklin Sellars
They met when stuck next to each other for two hours on the Texas Twister ride at the second-rate amusement park Frontier Daze. The ride was upside down for the entire time with the riders hanging from their safety harnesses and Roberta liked that Franklin had smuggled in a sizable flask in his pant leg. Franklin had chugged a good part of the flask to empty it so Roberta would have a place to pee. She thought that was a chivalrous thing to do; he was impressed by the gymnastics.
The park had been rented out by Franklin’s boss, Tyrone Woodchipper and his company Acrasia Investments as a cheap morale booster. Franklin hated the place but felt he had to attend.
Franklin has never been given a straight answer as to why Roberta was there.
They dated for some time and then moved in with each other a year ago. Roberta had a much larger and more luxurious apartment but she insisted on moving into Franklin’s. He has always wondered how she could have afforded such a nice place and was disappointed they couldn’t move there. Franklin loved the window treatments.
Their long-range plans pretty much peter out at the end of their European honeymoon.
The Parents and entourage
Front to back:
Svetlana Bustamante (Roberta’s young half-sister)
Smithsonian (Smitty) Bustamante (Father)
Georgia Bustamante (Stepmother)
Metal Hurlant (Mrs. Sellars’ personal secretary – barely visible)
Claudia Sellars (Mother)
Freemont Sellars (Father)
Smitty is a widower – his first wife, Roberta’s mother, was killed in a mall parking lot – run down by a shoplifting suspect speeding in a pickup truck, fleeing mall security. Georgia was a mail order bride from the Ukraine. Smitty had never lived on his own and didn’t want to mess around with the dating scene. The little girl, Svetlana, is Georgia’s daughter. She left her behind with relatives and didn’t tell Smitty about her until they had been married a year – he immediately sent for her and loves her like his own.
In the back are Franklin’s parents Freemont and Claudia. He made a fortune off of the chain of furniture rental shops he inherited from his father. He always expected Franklin to follow in his footsteps but was secretly relieved when he went off on his own. Even though he undoubtedly loves his son – the kid always made him uneasy when he was around him too much.
The two, Freemont and Claudia, were high school sweethearts. They watch a lot of television. He collects antique watches, she likes to crochet.
Next to Claudia, barely visible in the photograph, is Claudia’s personal secretary who was originally hired from France as an au pair to help raise their daughter, Penelope. Her name is Metal Hurlant – and is from Marseilles – although Claudia tells everybody she is from Paris. Metal organized and set up the whole engagement extravaganza.
Jimmy Bustamante
Roberta’s little brother. He was an infant when his mother was killed and doesn’t remember her at all.
He has been in a very good mood lately after finding a motherlode of illegal drugs hidden in what used to be Roberta’s underwear drawer. He made the discovery when he finally moved into her bedroom after she became engaged and made it clear she would not be moving home.
The drugs were stashed there in a panic by Joaquin Smirnov – a handsome yet terribly addled fling of Roberta’s. Joaquin panicked and threw the bundle of baggies into the drawer when he heard Franklin, Roberta’s fiancé, coming up the stairs. Joaquin hid under the bed, naked, while Franklin paced around, waiting for Roberta, upset (he suspected something) for over an hour and a half. Roberta, unknown to anyone, had gone downstairs for a glass of ice water and bailed out the back door when Franklin drove up and was hiding, also naked, in a large clump of ornamental grass waiting for him to leave.
Joaquin forgot about the stash due to the strain of hiding under the bed for ninety minutes. The drugs stayed there for Jimmy to find because Roberta never looked in the drawer – she hasn’t worn underwear for a year and a half.
Jimmy is now the most popular kid in General George S. Patton Junior High School. He is taking photos with the new hi-tech Nikon compact camera he bought with sale proceeds.
Wendal Fruitbat
He is Metal Hurlant’s boyfriend, though nobody in the family knows this. She is madly in love with him. Their only discussion of the future has been her telling him that if they ever marry, she will not take his last name. He understands perfectly that she does not want to go by the name Metal Fruitbat.
She hired him for the engagement when he told her he had been his high school yearbook photographer. Metal rented him his equipment. Unfortunately, though Wendal is a good person generally, he is a helpless inveterate liar. He knows nothing about photography and is currently using a terrifically expensive camera without a data card.
Reginald Von Sample.
He is Franklin’s oldest and closest friend. They met by random their freshman year at university when they were put in a room together due to an experimental and controversial software program that analyzed students’ admission essays and placed freshmen that the algorithms deemed compatible. They lived the entire six years of both their undergraduate studies together in the same dormitory room.
Reginald left after graduation for a stint in the Merchant Marine. He said he wanted to see the world. He returned two years early and said there didn’t seem to be much out there worth seeing. He moved back in with Franklin until there was a nasty drunken argument late one night. Reginald suffered a serious cut under one arm that seemed to be inflicted by a Cuisinart Chef’s knife. He declined to press charges but moved out.
There was a distance between Reginald and Franklin after this, but the engagement seems to have brought them close together again.
Deasel Widdershins
Deasel is a private investigator hired by an unknown person (even to herself). She receives her instructions by anonymous email and payment through a mysterious Paypal account. She has been instructed to get to know the family and report on anything untoward.
Her cover story is that she is a scout for an obscure cable channel that is considering a newlywed reality show.
It was made clear that she was selected due to a reputation of absolute trustworthiness. Her honesty is not accompanied by competency, however, and she has not found out anything interesting yet.
Penelope Sellars
Franklin’s little sister. She is at that confusing age… made even more confusing by the sudden appearance of deep feelings for her brother’s fiancé. She has made the decision to simply go with it and see what happens. She doesn’t really have any choice.
Tyrone Woodchipper
He has been the Sugardaddy to the soon-to-be blushing bride for the last three years. He made his fortune through his company, Acrasia Investments, which advertises itself as offering speculation in arbitrage futures, but is in reality a front used by Mexican drug cartels to launder their United States profits.
He met Roberta through his son, Luther, who saw her briefly but passionately after their meeting at a speed-dating event. Roberta had an acrimonious breakup with Luther a month after she started sleeping with his father.
Tyrone has very mixed feelings about his mistress’ upcoming nuptials. He is glad that her husband works for him, which will enable him to keep her around easily, but he feels his manhood threatened in general. He is not getting any younger.
Luther Woodchipper (hiding in bushes)
Luther has never recovered from his breakup with Roberta and desperately manages to keep tabs despite the various court issued restraining orders. He doesn’t know what he will do but knows that whatever it is, it has to be soon.
Bird of Paradise
More pictures from my writing group’s trip to the Arboretum.
Dale Chihuly’s installation is something of wonder. But the plants in the gardens can hold their own against anything any man can create.
Agave
A big agave plant was sending up a shoot, getting ready to bloom. I have always loved the looks of these desert plants. Plus, this is where tequila comes from.
Blooms in the water.
I remember when I first went to the Dallas Arboretum a couple decades ago – one place that I enjoyed and remember was a double row of Crepe Myrtle trees with a walkway running between. Now, after all this time, the trees have grown together overhead, forming a long, dark, mysterious tunnel.
During my writing group’s trip to the Dallas Arboretum to see the Dale Chihuly exhibit I set up my tripod in the Crepe Myrtle Allee with my camera facing the Dallas Star sculpture down at the end. Here are a couple of HDR three-exposure shots I came up with.
For a larger and more detailed version of this photo – go to the Flickr Page
For a larger and more detailed version of this photo – Go to the Flickr Page
In addition to the interaction between the plants and the glass of Dale Chihuly’s installation at the Dallas Arboretum, there is the interaction between the glass and the other sculptures, mostly cast bronze, that already populate the gardens.
For larger and more detailed versions of this photo – please visit the Flickr Page.
For larger and more detailed versions of this photo – please visit the Flickr Page.
I haven’t been to the Dallas Arboretum in decades. I used to go the the DeGolyer Estate for concerts back in the day, but once it became the Arboretum I’ve only been once. It was close to when it opened and I was disappointed because the plants hadn’t grown out yet. I took Nick there as a toddler because they were giving away free trees. I picked up a little live oak in a coffee can and planted it in back of our house in Mesquite. Everyone gave me a hard time because it was only an inch high (it looked bigger when it was still in its can). Over the decades, though, the thing grew – it’s now a huge beautiful tree.
The problem always was that the Arboretum admission is so expensive. I always felt it was more a private playground for the wealthy members of the Dallas Garden Club than an asset for the city. That was a silly opinion, I know, and I wanted to go visit, but never was able to get around to it.
I have always been a fan of Dale Chihuly, but I hadn’t seen very much of his work, other than some glass flowers at the Dallas Museum of Art. When I read about his exhibition at the Dallas Arboretum I was excited.
Our writing group has branched out into photography. We decided to go down there as a group and take pictures together. Everyone liked that, and one member had a set of tickets in a goody bag from a recent purchase. We picked a day and met down there at the opening, cameras in hand. I had a pack with extra lenses and a tripod and was self-conscious about lugging all that stuff. I shouldn’t have worried, most of the people going in were carrying tons of gear – either photographic or picnic stuff.
For a day I set aside my goal of taking pictures of people and gave myself permission to do “postcard shots.”
There were thick crowds of photographers wandering around. As is typical of Dallas, everyone seemed to be a gearhead. Near the entrance I stood next to a couple – he had a big, manly, camera with a long lens. We were looking at a giant yellow glass tree raised up into the sky.
“It would be cool to come out at night with a tripod and shoot that with a long exposure,” I said, just to make conversation.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” the guy with the big camera said, with a superior air, “I can hand shoot under any circumstances, I just shoot at 3200 ISO.” He waved his expensive hunk of optical glass and circuitry in my face.
“Oh, you are such a show off,” his wife said, the pride evident in her voice. The two of them walked off into a bit of woods. I had to chuckle – gearheads are so funny. I’m happy you can buy all that stuff… but you’ve still got the same old eyes and brain – and that’s what you really take pictures with.
But that little exchange really brought the challenge I faced into focus… so to speak. With hundreds of photographers in the Arboretum snapping hundreds of photographs each all the time from now until the exhibit closes in November…. How can anyone take a picture that is in any way unique? I don’t want to have the same picture as everybody else.
Four of us from our writing group spent about four hours walking around taking pictures. That’s a surprising amount of work, and a lot of walking. It will be interesting to see how we see the same thing in different ways. Peggy already has some of her fantastic photos up – go take a look – plus some more here.
Now I have about a hundred images and a lot of work getting these edited and in a form where they are usable. I’m not sure what I’ll do with all of them – I’ll use my Flickr account to store some. I should be able to get at least a half-dozen blog entries out of it… which is always a good thing.
Oh, the Chihuly Exhibition at the Arboretum is absolutely stunning, by the way. There are many varied groups of glass pieces in all kids of settings. He has done an amazing job of blending the glass with the living plants. His works range from small works interspersed in beds of plants to giant trees, maybe thirty feet high, made completely of glass. Walking through the gardens is an unforgettable experience – as you enter each new area you can’t help but gasp at the unexpected beauty that is waiting there.
I enjoyed taking all these photographs, especially since I wasn’t alone. I’d like to go back without a camera and simply look at the place. I’d like to go down with a sketch pad and some colored pencils. I would love to go back and try to take pictures of real people there among the sculptures, greenery, and beautiful settings.
Still, photographs do not to the thing justice. If you live in the Metroplex, you need to make plans to go down to the Arboretum and see this exhibit. If you don’t live here… I think it’s worth a trip by itself.
We’re really broke right now, but I want to find some way to scrape up the money to buy a membership to the Arboretum. I would love to be able to go down there and simply find a place to sit, look around, and maybe sketch a little bit. Beautiful things are so rare and fleeting in this world and to be able to go to a place like that and… well, simply wallow in the beauty is a wonderful thing.
(click to enlarge)
For a larger and more detailed version – Go to Flickr
Detail of a gigantic yellow glass tree.
For a larger and more detailed version – Go to Flickr
(Click to Enlarge)
For a larger and more detailed version – Go to Flickr
(Click to Enlarge) These boats full of Chihuly glass aren’t really floating on White Rock Lake like it looks. They are on the Arboretum infinity pool – beautiful.
For a larger and more detailed version – Go to Flickr
Bill Chance 