“Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.”― William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2
Downtown Dallas, Texas
Where do these pipes go to? What do they convey? What comes pouring out of them when they decide it’s time to go to work? What happens if you are on the sidewalk beneath?
“There is a love that equals in its power the love of man for woman and reaches inwards as deeply. It is the love of a man or a woman for their world. For the world of their center where their lives burn genuinely and with a free flame.
The love of the diver for his world of wavering light. His world of pearls and tendrils and his breath at his breast. Born as a plunger into the deeps he is at one with every swarm of lime-green fish, with every colored sponge. As he holds himself to the ocean’s faery floor, one hand clasped to a bedded whale’s rib, he is complete and infinite. Pulse, power and universe sway in his body. He is in love.
The love of the painter standing alone and staring, staring at the great colored surface he is making. Standing with him in the room the rearing canvas stares back with tentative shapes halted in their growth, moving in a new rhythm from floor to ceiling. The twisted tubes, the fresh paint squeezed and smeared across the dry on his palette. The dust beneath the easel. The paint has edged along the brushes’ handles. The white light in a northern sky is silent. The window gapes as he inhales his world. His world: a rented room, and turpentine. He moves towards his half-born. He is in Love.
The rich soil crumbles through the yeoman’s fingers. As the pearl diver murmurs, ‘I am home’ as he moves dimly in strange water-lights, and as the painter mutters, ‘I am me’ on his lone raft of floorboards, so the slow landsman on his acre’d marl – says with dark Fuchsia on her twisting staircase, ‘I am home.”
― Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan
Mural on construction fence, Farmer’s Market, Dallas, Texas
Derrick S. Hamm
“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil
Mural on construction fence, Farmer’s Market, Dallas, Texas
Derrick S. Hamm
From the artist’s Instagram.
This piece is based on the previous intaglio print ‘Harbingers’ and is inspired by the works of Botticelli, Caravaggio and Rubens
“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.”
― Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald
Mural on construction fence, Farmer’s Market, Dallas, Texas
Yesterday, when I was looking at the stream of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents vintage television show – I noticed that one of the episodes that stretched across the top of the screen was “The Man From The South.”
That episode is taken from a Roald Dahl short story. I’ve written about it before – it’s one of my favorite things – both the original story and the television episodes made about it. It is a prime lesson in how to build tension… nothing is better.
It’s been done several times – but this one features two legendary actors, Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre – both at the top of their game.
You can watch it (and believe me, you will want to) here.
“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
― Alfred Hitchcock
Mural on Construction Fence
Farmer’s Market
Dallas, Texas
Chris Hoover
I couldn’t sleep last night, so I turned on the television. Tuning around I came across the start of an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It caught my eye because it featured a very young Burt Reynolds. It also had Harry Dean Stanton (- who looked like he always looks) and Murray Hamilton (don’t worry, you don’t remember the name but you’ve seen him). The show was from 1960, season 5, episode 37 – “Escape to Sonoita.”
The thing wasn’t perfect, but the story was crackerjack with a nice twist ending. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and the woman in distress was beautiful. What more can you ask for?
If you have a few minutes to spare, you can watch it here.
“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”
― Ernest Hemingway
Fullmoon Bicycle Ride, Dallas, Texas
The line of bicycles behind me, heading down the Trinity Skyline Trail, heading for a certain spot and waiting for the moon to rise.
“Without knowing it, he had constructed a gigantic vertical zoo, its hundreds of cages stacked above each other. All the events of the past few months made sense if one realised that these brilliant and exotic creatures had learned to open the doors.”
― J.G. Ballard, High-Rise
Dallas, Texas
A skyscraper reflected in a skyscraper.
We’re dying to be invaded and put the blame on something concrete
Waiting for the ufos.. waiting for the ufos
We are waiting for the ufos we know that they’re thereWe’re just a joke they sometimes crack, they’ll get away with anything
The government is holding back, they won’t say a word
Now is that a light in sky or just a spark in my heart?
—-Graham Parker, Waiting for the UFOs
Bike riders waiting for the moon to rise, Trinity River Bottoms, Dallas, Texas
Click to Open
I took this picture, a thirty second timed exposure, on this month’s Full Moon Ride along the Trinity Skyline Trail near downtown Dallas.
The white Calatrava bridge is the Margaret Hunt Hill bridge.
The red lights to the left, reflected in the pond (there wasn’t much water – Dallas in late August is very dry) are the other bike riders waiting for the full moon to rise. The white streak to the right is the smeared-out headlight of a bike rider coming around the trail to where I was.
One thing I didn’t notice – click on the image to view it full size – is that there is a subtle slightly curved line across the sky… with a series of evenly spaced dots caused by a blinking light in the long exposure.
Is it a UFO? Of course not. The extremely busy DFW airport is only a few miles to the left of the photo – it’s an airplane circling to land. Still, I never noticed it when I took the photo… it could be anything… now preserved in pixels.
We’re just waiting for the ufos – dying to be invaded.
one more song from the same album – always loved this one.
“We ran as if to meet the moon.”
― Robert Frost
Moon rising over the skyline of Downtown Dallas.
The Full Moon rising over downtown Dallas. The white streaks at the bottom are the other riders in the Full Moon Ride leaving. Thirty second exposure. Need to work – should have used a higher ISO – the long exposure caused the moon to smear. Next time. — at the Trinity Skyline Trail.
One of my favorite local bike rides is the Full Moon ride. Every month a friend of mine organizes a ride through the Trinity River Bottoms near downtown Dallas at sunset on the night of the full moon. I lug my camera along and try and get interesting photographs – still a lot to learn.
“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.”
― Ray Bradbury
Unnamed Sculpture
Ed Carpenter, Richardson, Texas
Unnamed Sculpture
Ed Carpenter, Richardson, Texas
Workers installing glass bits,
Unnamed Sculpture
Ed Carpenter, Richardson, Texas
Richardson, where I live, has an ambitious trail that bifurcates the city from North to South roughly along Highway 75 and the DART Red line – the Central Trail. However, one key spot near the north end of the trail has been pretty much useless for over a year due to all the construction at Alma and Greenville. Now all of that is headed into the home stretch (until something new pops up) and now, something really new is growing up out of the ground.
At first, most folks assumed it was a cell phone tower or other piece of infrastructure – but it actually is a huge work of art.
From the city’s description:
An iconic art piece celebrating the history of the technology in Richardson will be installed late this summer just south of the Eastside development. The site at Greenville and Alma was specifically selected for a unique public art opportunity since it is a highly visible location, located at the center of the community and Telecom Corridor® area and is in close proximity to the Central Trail for pedestrians to enjoy. This public art installation corresponds to the goals set for the City’s Public Art Master Plan adopted in 2015.….
The art piece features a lattice of crossing diagonal stainless steel cables on a galvanized carbon steel main structure supporting laminated dichroic glass elements. The glass elements suggest abstract ones and zeros, the basic building blocks of all things digital, which the artist and committee felt was fitting for a city with a high-tech identity.
At first, I thought it looked like a giant frisbee golf goal. Now, I realize it looks more like the world’s largest set of tomato cages.
An now the vines are starting to climb up. Workers are out on a lift in the late summer stifling heat installing strings of colorful glass over the armature. I have no idea how much they will hang up – what it will look like when it is finished. At that point they will put in some landscaping (hopefully, a nice rest stop with some benches, shade, and water along the Central Trail). Eventually, all will be revealed, including the sculpture’s name.
We’ll see – if you are interested, stay tuned.
Bill Chance 