Red Line DART Train reflected in the gold mirror of Campbell Center at Northwest Highway and 75.
Animated Train
Tag Archives: Dallas
Tacos!
I had been eating all day, but I had also been walking a lot, so I was developing an appetite. Not too hungry, but I wanted something… and there are still food trucks I haven’t tried.
The Yum Yum Food Truck spends most of its time in Fort Worth, so I wanted to be sure to try it while it was handy. I took a look at the menu… Tacos… perfect!
Yum Yum Food Truck in the Dallas Arts District.
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- Notice all the sauces in little plastic cups. It makes me hungry thinking about it.
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- The menu. Simple, but a lot of choices. I didn’t try the hamburgers, but I’ll bet they are good. Look at the sauces… Habanero, Chipotle, Red Chile, Green Chile…
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- Chipotle Brisket with cheese and Green Chile/Tomatillo Salsa. It was delicious – as good a taco as you are going to get. The meat was tender spicy and juicy.
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Bánh mì!
Oh, and it was food truck heaven in the Dallas Arts District! I was hungry and the trucks were arranged all up and down Flora Street. So much food and so little time.
Mae West said, “When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.” That always seemed to be good advice to me. So in choosing between six food trucks, I decided to eat one I’ve never tried before (by the end of the day, I had tried three).
The Nammi Food Truck down in the Dallas Arts District
I picked out The Nammi Food Truck. I wanted some Vietnamese food! I wanted some Banh Mi.
No Fried Egg Today
A BBQ pork sandwich and a drink was the ticket.
Waiting for her order.
There were plenty of customers hanging around, but the food came quick.
They had some sauces in squeeze bottles down in the ice in the front compartment – spicy mayo, cucumber (I think), and Sriracha. I filled ramekins with cucumber and rooster sauce.
Banh Mi from the Nammi Food Truck. Giant sandwich with rooster sauce and ... some other sauce.
The sandwich was huge and stuffed with stuff. One woman at another table was gesturing at her sandwich and yelling, “It’s bigger than my arm!” My only complaint was that I didn’t open the paper carefully enough and too much stuff fell out. It was really good. I want to go get another.
A couple sat next to me eating their Banh Mi. The sandwiches are on the messy side. Some of the good stuff spills out and falls on the ground.
Luckily the cleaning crew is right there to hop on things right away and fly away with the leftovers.
Granite
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.
—-Gustave Flaubert
I was down in the Dallas Arts District. In front of the Symphony Hall the Bald Cypress trees have been growing for decades now, they are huge and beautiful. Their knees are coming up now and pushing through the little blocks of granite that pave the ground between the sidewalk and the street.
- The small granite paving blocks.
I set my camera down on the ground and took these pictures – mostly to remind myself of the spot. I’ve always liked the stretch of shaded sidewalk along there, and the rough displacement of the carefully set granite pavestones… the bits of goldbrown cypress needles falling into and filling the gaps… I like that even better.
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.
—-Thomas Carlyle
“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: ”I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.””—-Primo Levi
Then and now, DART train and the White Rock Creek Trail
And there is the headlight, shining far down the track, glinting off the steel rails that, like all parallel lines, will meet in infinity, which is after all where this train is going.
—-Bruce Catton
I like to take pictures of the DART trains. While I was exploring the Cottonwood Trail I snapped this one of the intersection of the Cottonwood and While Rock Creek Trails.
- The southern terminus of the Cottonwood Creek trail, where it connects with the White Rock Creek Trail. The DART train is crossing White Rock Creek over the trail.
Have you ever had one of those moments when you look up and realize that you’re one of those people you see on the train talking to themselves?
—-Marc Maron
And here’s a picture of the trail from the train, showing the spot I took the picture.
The White Rock Creek Trail from the DART train. I don't know what the crap on the window was. I probably don't want to know. It was on the outside, at least.
Here is what it looked like this Saturday. I took this picture from the train with a better camera (my Nikon is back from repairs). Look how much greener everything looks after only a rain or two over the last weeks.
The trail runs through some thick woods between the train line and the creek south of Forest Lane. There is a nice rest area built there. This homeless guy was sitting in the rest area, reading and writing in his notebook. We talked about the weather and I helped him find a lost sock.
I took this picture of a homeless guy at a nice wooded rest area along the Cottonwood Trail.
Here is the same spot along the trail taken from the passing train. There is usually a homeless person (different ones each time) camped out here, but today it was deserted.
Shooting in the Galleries
I decided to go downtown on Saturday for the first day of the Arts District’s Art in October celebration. The night before, I struggled to get to sleep, and didn’t get up as early as I wanted – but soldiered on anyway.
When I arrived at the DART station and was buying my ticket at the kiosk I looked up to see my train go by. They are scheduled every twenty minutes on weekends so I knew I would have to wait a while. No problem, it was a beautiful day and I settled down on a little seat on the deserted train platform and started to read my Kindle application on my Blackberry.
The Richardson Library now has Kindle books available for loan. I haven’t mastered the method yet, but I had managed to get a book of Billy Collins‘ poetry (“Ballistics”) to appear on the tiny screen – so that is good.
At a break between poems, I looked down and noticed a laptop bag right beside me, leaning up against my little seat. I looked around, nobody… so I unzipped the bag a bit and peered inside. There was a top-end laptop with accessories, including a really nice USB camera, folders of papers, and a VISA card stuck into a side pocket. I zipped it back up and sat there, trying to think of what to do.
A train going the other way pulled into the station and the doors opened wide right in front of me. I expected some panicked commuter to tumble out and yell, “Thank God it’s still here!” and grab his laptop case. It would be easy to get on the train and leave your case behind, but surely you would realize it was missing by the next stop. It would be easy to hop off and grab the next train back the other way.
Nothing.
I sat there for a second and stared at the gaping door in the train. I would love to have a nice high-end laptop like the one in the bag – among physical possessions that is the only thing I can really think of (now that I have my camera back). It would be so easy to simply stand up with the bag and get on that train. The platform was still empty.
I could actually see myself doing this – lifting the case and entering the train with a sigh, as if I was having to go to work on a Saturday. It would be the perfect crime.
A lot of people… maybe even most people (but not you, dear reader, surely) would not even consider this stealing. They would consider it a “found” laptop and they simply lucky. I wonder about people like that. What does the world look like to them? I guess they think of all the stuff that has been stolen from them and that the world owes them one now and then. I guess they have a piece of their head missing, the one that imagines the pain and suffering of someone else that has lost their valuables – in the case of a personal laptop, lost a big chunk of their life. Morality aside, a laptop case like that – with all the critical data in it – is a lot more valuable to the person losing it than to the person stealing it.
The train doors closed and it sped off.
Now what to do? My train would be there soon and I would have to make a decision. Obviously, until my train came, all I had to do was sit next to the case. Any thief would assume it was mine, only the owner would walk up and claim it. But my train would be the next one – nobody will arrive before then. Should I look in the case again, try to find a cellphone number? Should I take it with me and hope to locate the owner later? The easy thing to do would be to simply leave it where it sat and be done with it – but isn’t that about the same as stealing? I wouldn’t get to keep it but I would be abandoning it to a heartless and uncertain world – it would surely end in grief and while I would not be directly responsible and would not be aware of its fate, by inaction I would set the wheels in motion.
Luckily, I didn’t have to make the choice. I looked up and a Hispanic woman and a DART ticket official were walking up from the tunnel (the Arapaho train station is separated from the rest of the world by a wide, busy street – you have to go under it in a long pedestrian tunnel to reach the platform). The official asked me if the case was mine. She began to carefully probe the case, weary of terrorism (something that had not occurred to me until then). I didn’t mention that I had already opened it up. She moved the zipper and inch and saw the laptop within.
The woman that had made the report said the case had been there for a while, “At least five trains,” she said. She and I talked about how odd it was that nobody came back for the case. The official was making a report on her radio. I asked her if there was a lost-and-found and she said, “Yes, but I’m not allowed to do anything, I have to call for the transit police to pick it up.”
At that moment my train pulled up and I was gone.
On the train I went back to reading the Billy Collins poems on my Blackberry. The poems are short and I could pretty much digest one between each train stop.
One of them, “August in Paris” in typical Collins style, spoke of the poet watching a painter in France and standing behind the painter, taking notes, while he worked. He then made the jump to the reader, and how this readers can’t watch him work but he thinks about who they are.
He says, “there is only the sound of your breathing/and every so often, the turning of a page.”
I thought about this… how times had changed. There isn’t the sound of my breathing, but the clacking rails and the tumult of a crowded commuter train cabin. There is no turning of pages… only the silent movement of my thumb across the tiny black Blackberry trackpad and a new dinky screenfull of luminescent text appears.
Dining area at the Dallas Museum of Art. Glass by Dale Chihuly.
Nasher – Tony Cragg
Everyone is taking pictures, not everyone likes it.
The one person not taking photographs was sketching
At the Nasher
Ceiling of the Nasher
One of my favorite Bang Bang videos will not allow imbedding.
Shame.
Trailercakes!
It was a long beautiful afternoon down in the Dallas Arts District. It was the first Saturday in the Art in October thingy and I had been hanging around for a while, visiting the museums, taking some photographs (I have my Nikon back from the shop and it seems to be working better than ever) and scarfing down some food truck food. I was sitting right off the sidewalk finishing off a pair of chipotle bar-b-que tacos when a couple women with children dressed in white t-shirts that said, “Trailercakes,” on them came by passing out menus.
“We’re down another block,” they said, “come on down and try our cupcakes.” Their menu looked impressive – I’ve never been a huge cupcake fan – but my idea of a cupcake was a stale cylinder of dry cake slathered with some oversweet food-colored goop passed to you at some underfunded church luncheon. These Trailercakes looked like treats of an entirely different sort.
I had seen the silvery glint of an Airstream trailer down in front of the Meyerson Symphony Center. At first I thought of getting some dessert for myself, then decided to hoof by there on the way home and get something for Candy.
So once I was ready to head homeward I walked over to the Meyerson. The main thrust of the festivities and the rest of the food trucks were all down Flora Street towards the Nasher. I hope some folks were able to wander down to the other end – it’s a nice spot, actually.
The Trailercakes Airstream “Bubbles” sitting down in a grove of bald cypress trees in front of the Meyerson. From this picture, you would think it was camped out in a rural park somewhere.
Bubbles!
Customers looking at the selection of cupcakes while the bubbles float by.
Working on an order.
One of the things I like about the whole food truck thing is the interaction between the chefs and the customers (me). I bought six mini-cupcakes to take home and we talked about what to get. They asked about peanut butter and jelly cupcakes. I hesitated and they said that was their specialty. They gave me one to try and I gobbled it down.
It was pretty darn good. So I had them include one.
Here’s what I walked away with. Clockwise, from the top, ending with the peanut butter one in the center:
- Hitched (white/white)
- Slap-Your-Mother Chocolate (chocolate/chocolate)
- Bananarama (I think) (banana/cream cheese)
- The King (banana/peanut butter)
- Happy Days (white/white/sprinkles)
- PB&J (white/grape jelly center/peanut butter fluff)
I had to ride home on a crowded DART train with this in my lap. It was full of kids coming back from the Texas State Fair. They all eyed that tray of cupcakes the whole way – I’m lucky I wasn’t attacked.
Tony Cragg
It was only two weeks ago but it feels like a thousand years. I walked out of the sodden night rain soaked miasma through the glass doors and was smacked in the face with the bracing cold dry air conditioning. It felt like being slapped by mechanized civilization. After catching my breath I stood as straight as I could, gathered together whatever tatters of pride I had left – like collecting strips of tissue in a gale – and looked around.
The walls of Italian Travertine never felt more cave-like, the glass planes at each end were black as a well. The wooden floor was polished to suggest a muted simulacrum of the world above. The works were arranged carefully about the space – curves alien and familiar mixed and cast by an expert hand.
I knew nothing of Tony Cragg – the artist – although he is so very well-known and famous. He has had a long and varied career with shapes and accumulations and paintings and piles of things and sketches and whatnot. His stuff was scattered all around inside and out, up and down, filling every nook and cubbyhole with some precious object.
But I was drawn by siren call to this gallery, to these monumental curves.
Tall and White. This was named Lost in Thought and it was my favorite. It looks like it is ready to start shambling across the floor. If I was a billionaire I would buy this and put it in my room so I could stick my hands inside and learn its secrets. Or maybe make it into a really big lamp.
People walked among the statues, looking up and down. I looked at the other guests. They were as interesting as the sculptures – but every bit as unreachable. Ghosts of moveable artworks. Made of meat.
My good camera was broken and the pictures are bad. It was too dark.
Some of the work had hidden faces. Some faces were not so hidden.
This one is called Mental Landscape. The label said it was made of Jesmonite. I had to look that up to see what it was.
Both of these two are called Ever After. One is made of wood and the other of bronze.
A view from earlier, from outside, looking in. The sculpture in the foreground is called Tree. It’s made of wood.
What I learned this week, September, 29, 2011
The ease with which the self-publishing platforms now enable aspiring writers to upload their work is mind-boggling. The only thing standing between you and being on Amazon are a few mouse clicks. Gone is virtually the entire delivery system that defined the traditional publishing business for generations. Trees don’t need to be sawed down, trucks don’t need to go to and from warehouses filled with freshly printed books, stores don’t need to occupy valuable space that could house another Starbucks or fast food joint. It’s a brave new world we’re writing in; the old rules are dead and the sky’s the limit.
(read the whole thing)
I have this continuing fascination with Food Trucks. One of the interesting aspects is the battle with City Hall and the struggle for permitting and permission. You would think that you could drive where you wanted and sell sandwiches. Nope.
Even when the city likes something, it sets up barriers. And charges fees.
Dallas City Hall Likes Food Trucks
Redistribution of wealth rather than emphasis on its creation is surely a symptom of aging societies.
What Should I Do with the Cables, CDs, and Accessories that Come with My Gadgets?
Great Ideas, from Lifehacker
My camera is fixed! If you need repairs or other work on your digital cameras – I highly recommend Archinal Camera Repair. It is located in an old storefront in old Downtown Richardson.
It isn’t cheap – repairing complex electronics and delicate mechanical devices never is – but they do good work and are pleasant to deal with.
Archinal Camera Repair on Beltline Road in Downtown Richardson
from The Telegraph
- Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
- The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
- The Long Goodby by Raymond Chandler
- Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson
- Give Us a Kiss by Daniel Woodrell
Do you remember this song from “Kill Bill”? It was originally done by Cher, and was written by Sonny Bono.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on
I remember when each and every building in the Dallas Arts District went up – starting decades ago when I worked downtown and they built the Art Museum and I’d sit in the sculpture garden and eat my paper sack sandwich lunch (it was free back then, believe it or not). Then the Symphony hall, and the Nasher. Finally, the completion of the district with the Opera House and the Wyly theater (there is still one more theater under construction).
I love the area and hope that Dallas can make it into the vibrant urban spot they want. So far, it’s a beautiful but usually desolate destination. It hasn’t reached the tipping point where the vast population out in the suburbs think of downtown as a place to go – but the city is working on it.
One fact that I was definitely wrong on is that, as much as I loved the Wyly as architecture, I was afraid I’d never be able to actually go to the thing. It felt like a gift to the wealthy, a plaything for the rich, and the poor proles like myself, the workin stiffs, would never be able to afford to visit.
I was mistaken. I read that the Dallas Theater Center was producing The Tempest at the Wyly and I surfed over to check out the price. It cost about what a 3D movie is going for. Well, I love me some Shakespeare, so I clicked on to a Tuesday night and bought a couple tickets. I was as interested in the theater itself as the play, so I bought the cheapest seats – up in the nosebleed section.
The Wyly Theater.
The Wyly is a magnificent and unique piece of architecture. It is a theater of a revolutionary “Stacked” design – the the boxoffice and lounge, performance space, rehearsal and ancillary spaces are piled up on top of each other to give tremendous flexibility and endless possibilities for unique performances. I looks like a Borg Cube has landed in downtown Dallas and it operates like a theater “machine.”
I was excited to actually see the thing in action. Oh, and I love “The Tempest” too.
We rode the DART train downtown to the Pearl Station and walked over to the Wyly. You descend down a ramp to the main entrance which is beneath the building itself. Then you ride an elevator up to the seats. We were in the cheap seats – but they were still great. We were looking down onto the stage from a short distance away – I can’t say these were any worse than the premium seats (only a few dollars more, actually) below us.
Kids Splashing in front of the Wyly Theater. An HDR image I took on the opening day of the theater.
This was a pared-down version of The Tempest which let the skills of the actors shine through. Still, there was plenty of clever stagecraft – a terrifying plane crash in the beginning (with the rows of seats tumbling down through a hole in the floor) – a character emerging from beneath the earth through a crack in the chalky island soil, and a terrifying spirit descending from above to deliver the message of doom.
The production was gorgeous to look at.
One nice touch was that the lighting would subtly change whenever a character would deliver a soliloquy or aside. It was an effective way of signaling what was going on.
All modern Shakespeare productions, especially The Tempest, are modified to some extent. At first, I thought they had simplified the language, because I understood it so much better than I usually did. After a while, I realised that the text was the same, it was simply that the acoustics are so good in the Wyly that I could hear the actors like crystal. Greatness! Oh brave new world that has such people in’t.
In my opinion, a production of The Tempest rises or falls on Ariel. Can the Actor/Actress (I’ve seen both… about 50/50) make a believable sprite? Can they be light as a breeze when needed while as powerful and terrifying as a storm? This production had a local actor that has made it on Broadway, Hunter Ryan Herdlicka … and he did a great job. They were able to use his singing voice as a powerful tool to move the drama along – too often I’ve seen the songs in The Tempest be more of a distraction than an effective part of the play.
Reviews:
So, I went down there to see the theater, and I was not disappointed. And I came away impressed with the production, I really enjoyed it… and after all, the play’s the thing (oops, wrong Shakespeare play).
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be reliev’d by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
Aluminum Tube Skin on the Wyly Theater
Bill Chance 