Tag Archives: black and white

We Are The Goon Squad And We’re Coming To Town, Beep Beep

Posted on by Bill Chance

There’s a brand new dance
but I don’t know its name
That people from bad homes
do again and again
It’s big and it’s bland
full of tension and fear
They do it over there but we don’t do it here
—-David Bowie, Fashion

Belle Plaine Service Area, Kansas Turnpike

Belle Plaine Service Area, Kansas Turnpike

As a tiny young kid I rode in cars along the Kansas Turnpike so many times that the strip of asphalt took on a life of its own in my tiny young mind. Looming large in the imaginary mythology inside my bean were the oddly-shaped proto-spherical water towers that emerged from the featureless plains at each service area. They were like silver spaceships marking off the molasses crawling miles.

This photo is of the Belle Plaine service area – recently rebuilt after a devastating grease fire in the resident Hardees. The one I remember most is the tower from the Matfield Green service station – one of the most oddly beautiful and weirdly desolate places on earth (in my opinion… and I know desolation when I see it).

A Vision Was Given In My Youth

Posted on by Bill Chance

And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth, — you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.
—-Black Elk, from Black Elk Speaks

Keeper of the Plains sculpture, Wichita, Kansas

Keeper of the Plains sculpture, Wichita, Kansas

C-Beams Glitter in the Dark

Posted on by Bill Chance

I have… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like tears… in… rain. Time… to die…
—-Rutger Hauer, as Roy Batty, in Blade Runner

Photos of Wind Turbines in the Blackwell Wind Energy Center wind farm, near Blackwell, Oklahoma.

Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma

Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma

Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma

Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma

Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma

Wind Turbine, Blackwell, Oklahoma

The first thing that strikes you about the turbines in a wind farm is the sheer size. Since they are hoisted up above a featureless, flat plain – they are visible for miles away and it took more driving than I anticipated – down sliding sand roads to reach them. I was surprised that there were no fences, gates or other security and that I was able to move right up to the base of the massive towers. Then, looking up is a giddy, vertiginous adventure. The size of the tower and the surprising speed of the blades is intimidating and unnerving – like looking up into an unexpected, impossible abyss.

The second, even more unforeseen thing is the sound. The rural bean fields were completely quiet – the air at ground level apparently motionless and completely silent. Yet the blades move at astonishing speed with an exquisite swoosh. It’s the sound of a giant jetliner wing flying past you at breakneck speed only a few feet overhead. Amazing.

Lungs Inflate With the Onrush of Scenery

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas

Perched Upon A Bust Of Pallas

Posted on by Bill Chance

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door –
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door –
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
—-Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

Arts District, Dallas, Texas

Arts District,
Dallas, Texas

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,’ I said, `art sure no craven.
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore –
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’
—-Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven

An Aggregate of Last Moments

Posted on by Bill Chance

“It’s been a prevalent notion. Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation. And someday, somehow, before the end, a gathering back to home. A messenger from the Kingdom, arriving at the last moment. But I tell you there is no such message, no such home — only the millions of last moments . . . nothing more. Our history is an aggregate of last moments.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

The end of a game of giant Jenga - Community Beer Company, Dallas, Texas

The end of a game of giant Jenga – Community Beer Company, Dallas, Texas

“My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. some rises and falls. But that’s it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I’d loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

Climbing

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I thought climbing the Devil’s Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Commerce Street Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas

Commerce Street Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas

“Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can’t fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

The Masks We Wear

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Masquerades disclose the reality of souls. As long as no one sees who we are, we can tell the most intimate details of our life. I sometimes muse over this sketch of a story about a man afflicted by one of those personal tragedies born of extreme shyness who one day, while wearing a mask I don’t know where, told another mask all the most personal, most secret, most unthinkable things that could be told about his tragic and serene life. And since no outward detail would give him away, he having disguised even his voice, and since he didn’t take careful note of whoever had listened to him, he could enjoy the ample sensation of knowing that somewhere in the world there was someone who knew him as not even his closest and finest friend did. When he walked down the street he would ask himself if this person, or that one, or that person over there might not be the one to whom he’d once, wearing a mask, told his most private life. Thus would be born in him a new interest in each person, since each person might be his only, unknown confidant.”
― Fernando Pessoa

Dallas Museum of Art Dallas, Texas

Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas

Be Content With Silence

Posted on by Bill Chance

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
― Ansel Adams

Silence Antoine-Augustin Préault Dallas Museum of Art

Silence
Antoine-Augustin Préault
Dallas Museum of Art

Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas

(label text)

Antoine-Augustin Préault
French, 1809-1879

Silence
c. 1842
Patinated plaster
Anonymous gift and General Acquisition Fund, 2014.10

French sculptor Antoine-Augustin Préault created eerie contrasts of shadow and light in this composition featuring merely a face and a hand. Linear drapery enshrouds the androgynous figure’s face, drawing attention to its gaunt features, half-closed eyes, and skeletal hand. A finger lifted to the lips is a gesture commonly found in ancient funerary sculptures that glorified the dead. Portraiture or reliefs bearing images of the deceased performing this gesture were intended to conjure pleasant memories, but Silence, with its brutal evocation of frailty and death, breaks from the well-established canon.

Préault designed Silence for Jacob Roblès’ tomb at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, which is the city’s largest and most famous burial ground. The medallion’s compositional elements combine to convey a somber nature perfect for the purpose of a tomb. Its superb round, dark hardwood frame with a deep ogee, or S-shaped molding, enhances the sculpture’s dimensionality and melancholy theme.

“Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?”
― Lawrence Durrell, Justine

She Watches Over Us As We Run For Our Train

Posted on by Bill Chance

Sculpture outside Plaza of the Americas
Dallas, Texas

Plaza of the Americas Pearl Street Dallas, Texas

Plaza of the Americas
Pearl Street
Dallas, Texas

“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road