Used to tell Ma sometimes
When I see them riding blinds
Gonna make me a home out in the wind
In the wind, Lord in the wind
Make me a home out in the wind
I don’t like it in the wind
Wanna go back home again
But I can’t go home thisaway
Thisaway, Lord Lord Lord
And I can’t go home thisaway
I was young when I left home
And I been out rambling ‘round
And I never wrote a letter to my home
To my home, Lord Lord Lord
And I never wrote a letter to my home
—-Bob Dylan, I Was Young When I Left Home
My little bike ride through the Tulane campus was bittersweet. It was fun but I was filled with a melancholy nostalgia. Lee has graduated – this might be my last visit… or at least it will be the last visit with any connection or significance. I remembered visiting five years ago for parent’s weekend, walking the sidewalks on the guided tour, imagining what it would be like to study at such a beautiful place in such an amazing city.
This last visit – I almost felt more connection than with my own campus… that was long ago and I was just a kid, anyway. Nobody knows the terrible lucidity of nostalgia at a young age – it only comes with the onslaught of incipient dotage.
Baritone Mia Westerlund Roosen Tulane Campus, New Orleans (click to enlarge)
“The Greek word for “return” is nostos. Algos means “suffering.” So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”
― Milan Kundera, Ignorance
While I was going on my little bike ride in New Orleans I made a quick stop on the river side of Audubon Park, next to the Zoo. There is a cool tree there – an ancient (planted circa 1740) and enormous live oak. Locals call it the “Tree of Life” – its official name is the Etienne de Boré Oak. It’s a beautiful spot – very popular for wedding photographs – and was worth a look even on a rainy and overcast cold day.
My commuter bike by the Etienne de Boré Oak – Audubon Park, New Orleans (click to enlarge)
I noticed a work crew with a highlift and a series of ladders working around the tree – laying down plywood for stability in the muddy soil. A van pulled up and discharged a couple of women drinking hot coffee. They walked over to the workmen and began to plan a project.
Walking around, I found a large collection of finely detailed birdhouses. Most were still in a pile off to the side, but a bunch of them had already been hung off the branches, mixed in with the Spanish Moss.
Birdhouses waiting to be installed, Audubon Park, New Orleans (click to enlarge)
Birdhouses in the Tree of Life, Audobon Park, New Orleans (click to enlarge)
Birdhouses in the Tree of Life, Audobon Park, New Orleans (click to enlarge)
It was pretty cool – I wished that I could stay and see them all hung up there – but I had places to be so I peddled on.
I spent a few more minutes sweeping the bridge over the Trinity River than I had intended, so I had to rush out. Bike Friendly Richardson was doing their annual Black Friday Ride at 1PM and I only had twenty minutes to get out to Beltline and 75. It shouldn’t have been a problem, but this was Black Friday and my GPS showed a dark red streak at 75 and Northwest – folks were backed up trying to get into Northpark Mall. Nothing to do but wait it out.
So often when I’m in my car these days I wish I was on the bike.
It wasn’t too late when I arrived… I was able to put my old Technium together and ride out with the group, no problem.
It was a very nice, easy ride – a ten mile tour of the “other” side of Richardson, across 75 from where I live. I said, “It’s nice to ride around Richardson and not look for sculptures.” We stopped at the Pearl Cup for some coffee and then rode back. The weather was perfect – not a breath of wind… maybe a little cool when stopped, a little warm when pedaling.
Bike Friendly Richardson, Black Friday Ride (click to enlarge)
Bike Friendly Richardson, Black Friday Ride (click to enlarge)
Bike Friendly Richardson, Black Friday Ride (click to enlarge)
Waiting for a flat to get fixed.
After the ride, I should have stopped in for some beer at Haystack, but this was only the second of three bike events I wanted to do. This was the last Friday of the month – so it was best that I head home and get ready for Critical Mass. I was worried about the weather, but shouldn’t have been – it was as nice as it could be.
Usually I am a stickler about leaving my house on my bike but today I thought it prudent to drive to the Forest Lane DART station and leave from there. That way, if I missed the midnight train home, I could ride to that station on the White Rock and Cottonwood trails.
The Critical Mass rides are getting smaller now that the winter is here, but there were enough hard-core fans to make it fun. One interesting thing about these rides is that nobody knows where they are going until they get there. The Black Friday route looped through downtown and then Deep Ellum, ending up on a winding path through Fair Park.
Riding through the fairgrounds with a big group on bicycles after dark was pretty interesting and a lot of fun. We wound through the art deco buildings, past the wonderful murals that loomed overhead in the gloom of darkness, and around the sculptures gleaming as best as they could in the murk. Finally we looped past the bright lights and giddy crowds of the Chinese Lantern Festival which was a riot of bright color thrust above the opaque night.
A pond in Fair Park. The red paths are part of a massive sculpture by Patricia Johanson. I have always loved those red paths running through the water, weeds, and turtles. A neglected jewel in the city. – it was a lot darker on the bike ride, of course.
Mural at Fair Park, taken during the day.
The bicycles poured out of the park and everyone split up to go to their favorite night spot. I had a quick beer at Craft and Growler and then received a text that Candy and Lee were with friends and relatives at Rustic, in Uptown. After some thought, I realized I could get there on my bike, so I rode up Exposition, through Deep Ellum, across Downtown, then turned north through Uptown to get to Rustic.
I really enjoy riding my bicycle through the big city at night. The traffic is broken up and I have decent lights, so I feel surprisingly safe. The cool night air, the giant glittering buildings overhead, and the close look at the heart of the metropolis from the saddle is a lot more fun that fighting the traffic and looking for parking spaces.
I locked my bike outside on a light pole and walked past the disapproving stares of the doormen carrying my helmet under my arm. The Rustic isn’t my kind of place, but it was fun to see everybody. One good thing is that it is right next to the turntable at the end of the streetcar line and the long escalator down into the DART tunnel – so we rode that back to my car and home. Taking my bicycle down that escalator was a bit awkward – but it worked.
Candy’s car was at another DART station so I left again on my bike to go pick it up, getting home at about one AM. A nice long Black Friday – mostly on a bicycle.
Closeup of the crazing in the ice sculpture at the Dallas Contemporary
The ice sculpture at the Dallas Contemporary
The last moments of the ice sculpture at the Dallas Contemporary
I have always been fascinated by ice as a sculptural medium. It is cheap, versatile, and, most importantly, temporary. It is fixed in time. What you see now is totally unique, it will never be repeated.
The coolest ice sculptures were Dane Pennington’s Transcendence – from the Arts District a couple years ago. Larger than life figures and monoliths slowly melted – releasing stones that were imprisoned within. I kept going downtown day after day to watch them melt.
First, let me tell a little story. It’s a story I’ve told too many times before, and if you know me, you’ve probably heard it more than once. But if I type it out here, maybe I can get it out of the way, and quit repeating myself.
When I first moved to Dallas, in 1981, I had no money (and I have no money now… how does that work?) and lived with some friends in Oak Cliff until I saved enough to get an apartment. I rode the bus down Sylvan and then across the Trinity River on Commerce into Downtown, where I worked in the Kirby Building (now converted into condominiums). The bus would go past the Belmont Hotel every day – I think it was abandoned at the time. It was a very nasty area in those years – if you stood on that corner very long you would probably get your throat cut.
I would tell people, “That Belmont property is so cool. Someone needs to buy it and fix it up. It sits up on a hill with a great view of downtown – wonderful Dallas Art Deco architecture. It’s a shame, somebody needs to do something.”
They would reply, “You are crazy. You’ll get your throat cut down there.”
Now, thirty years later, the Belmont is restored into a cute little boutique hotel, it boasts a famous restaurant, and the area around it is booming with cool hipness. I was thirty years ahead of my time… but then again, a stopped watch is right twice a day.
I decided to ride my vintage Technium instead of my commuter bike – in my constant efforts to keep the thing working I have rebuilt the rear wheel, lacing new spokes around a new hub and cassette and truing the thing – so I wanted to give it a try. I rode my bike to the train station for the ride downtown and, as always, right after I bought my ticket for the DART train at the Arapaho station, the train pulled in. You have to cross a street through a tunnel to get to the platform, so I usually miss my train and am therefore late for whatever I have planned. This time I hauled ass down the tunnel and caught it right as it was pulling out. The transit gods smiled on me that day.
There was a good bunch of bicyclists and we headed out from the Dallas Contemporary down to Commerce and across the river to the Belmont – following the bus route I remembered from thirty years ago. Along the side of the cliff up to the hotel three murals were painted. The first by Shepard Fairey (he’s best known for the Obama poster), the second by JM Rizzi, known as JMR, and the third by local artists Sour Grapes.
Bike tour group in front of the Belmont Hotel murals. (click to enlarge)
Shepard Fairey mural at the Belmont Hotel, Dallas, Texas.
Sour Grapes mural at the Belmont Hotel, Dallas, Texas.
Closeup of the Sour Grapes mural at the Belmont Hotel, Dallas, Texas. (click to enlarge)
One really cool part of the ride was that each stop had a talk by a docent – Erin Cluley from Dallas Contemporary who talked about the process of setting up the murals and getting the artists into town and working. I was particularly interested in how the out-of-town artists adapted their work to the more conservative attitudes here and what they thought of the city in general.
Erin Cluley, the docent giving a talk on the murals in front of the Belmont Hotel
From the Belmont, we went down the street and around the corner to Trinity Groves – a very interesting area of restaurant incubation. There were more murals by Shepard Fairey and JMR, plus some work by FAILE – a pair of Brooklyn based artists that had an amazing exhibition back at the Contemporary.
The murals from Trinity Groves.
Shepard Fairey mural at Trinity Groves.
FAILE mural at Trinity Groves.
FAILE uses the year 1986 in their work – the year of the Challenger Disaster.
Murals by FAILE and Shepard Fairey, Trinity Groves, Dallas, Texas.
Bike tour stopping to look at a mural by JMR. The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and Downtown Dallas in the background.
It was time to ride back to the Contemporary, where there are murals by Fairey and JMR.
Back at the Dallas Contemporary. (click to enlarge)
Shepard Fairey mural at the Dallas Contemporary.
JMR mural at the Dallas Contemporary.
The ride was a lot of fun and very educational – now I’m going to be looking for murals all over the city.
To get to the Carrollton Festival at the Switchyard I rode my bike to the Arapaho Red Line DART station – hung my bike on the transit hook and rode downtown (as always, I was a minute late, missed my train, and was twenty minutes late downtown – I need to cut that crap out), met a friend, and we then rode the Green line out to Carrollton. It would have been quicker to drive my car down Beltline (to get anywhere in Dallas you start out driving down Beltline Road) – but then I would have had to find a place to park, plus there is a lot of freedom and flexibility in having a bicycle. With a bicycle and a DART pass – I can go anywhere.
At any rate, heading back downtown, waiting for the train, I had the time to look around at the artwork on the Carrollton station. To my uneducated, ignorant, and untrained eye, DART has done an admirable job of adding artwork to its train stations – at least as far as a giant government bureaucracy can be expected to go. Maybe I should do some blog entries on some of my favorites….
At the Carrollton station – elevated high in the air (cool view from up there) over where I suppose the old switching yard might have been, I noticed all these little windows cut into the concrete pillars supporting the roof structure. In each window was an old photograph combined with, or framed by, pieces of found metal. It made for a series of interesting and entertaining collages. The time spent waiting for the train was reduced by me dashing up and down, looking into the little windows at the parade of aged faces and arranged fragments of history.
Later, at home, an internet search led me quickly to the artist, James Michael Starr. Although, he seems to be unhappy with the initial installation – everything seems to have worked out and his collages are there for the enjoyment of the unwashed masses. The bits of metal seem to be mostly artifacts that the artist was able to dig up around the area, now on display, high in the air… forever waiting for the next train.
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
Collage by James Michael Starr, Carrollton DART station.
The showroom at Bowman Hot Glass. A lot of beautiful work here. (click to enlarge)
Our first stop was at Bowman Hot Glass – a glass studio, showroom, and workshop. The place has a very artistic… almost Santa Fe feel to it. But it is obviously a hard working studio – dedicated to the art of blowing glass. While we visited a two man team were making glass pumpkins.
Bowman Hot Glass offers glass blowing classes – which looks more than a little interesting… more hard work than fun. But that’s a good thing.
My bicycle parked next to “Tomorrow’s Legacy” by Jerry Sanders, Richardson, Texas (click to enlarge)
“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. Knows remembers believes a corridor in a big long garbled cold echoing building of dark red brick sootbleakened by more chimneys than its own, set in a grassless cinderstrewnpacked compound surrounded by smoking factory purlieus and enclosed by ten food steel-and-wire fence like a penitentiary or a zoo, where in random erratic surges, with sparrowlike childtrebling, orphans in identical and uniform blue denim in and out of remembering but in knowing constant in the bleak walls, the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly adjacenting chimneys streaked like black tears.”
― William Faulkner, Light in August
My bicycle parked next to “Tomorrow’s Legacy” by Jerry Sanders, Richardson, Texas
“Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an angle to the iron way!”
– Herman Melville, Moby Dick
“Tomorrow’s Legacy” by Jerry Sanders, Richardson, Texas
I’m working on DIY solutions for storage on my bicycle. Looking around at useful stuff I see, one of the most common, hipster, useful, cheap, and crunchy things to do is to simply bungee a plastic milk crate on to your rear rack.
Milk Crate Bike in the reading area in Klyde Warren Park.
(click to enlarge)
The Dallas Morning News Reading & Games Room area in Klyde Warren Park is one of my favorite spots in the city. It is a quiet, leafy, relaxing spot, with games and stuff to look at. I was there for a few minutes to catch my breath. The powers that be came by and made this woman move her bike (it was leaning against a tree) – but she didn’t seem to be too bothered by it all. I’m afraid that I had already given in to The Man and had my bike locked up on the official bike racks.
Bill Chance 