“There was a sky somewhere above the tops of the buildings, with stars and a moon and all the things there are in a sky, but they were content to think of the distant street lights as planets and stars. If the lights prevented you from seeing the heavens, then perform a little magic and change reality to fit the need. The street lights were now planets and stars and moon. ”
― Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream
Downtown Dallas Skyline
from Pegasus Plaza
“For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”
― Kahlil Gibran
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
Bikes locked up in front of Parkway, New Orleans, Louisiana
Woman writing in a Moleskine Notebook, Wichita, Kansas
Magazine Street, New Orleans
I don’t know if these are really the “top ten” – it tends to list middle-road sandwich places – but there are some interesting choices here.
I absolutely have to go see this.
Actually, this seems like a way to drive the “little guy” out of the marker – who can afford that sort of ultra-freezer?
Murakami baby!
One of my favorite things ever is riding in the monthly Dallas Critical Mass ride. It runs from Main Street Garden Park in Downtown Dallas to a different, usually secret, destination – the last Friday of every month. To find out more, check out the Facebook Page.
Here’s a nice video of the last one – which ended up at a party (DJ, ice cream truck, keg, tamales) in the Sheep Barn at Dallas Fair Park.
The month before, June, was epic in that the ride was caught in a massive thunderstorm and we had to take refuge under the overhang of Dallas City Hall.
Here’s a 8X speeded up version of the ride.
And, if you have the patience to sit through it, is the whole thing.
“The spider Mercer gave the chickenhead, Isidore; it probably was artificial, too. But it doesn’t matter. The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.”
― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Manmade Stream and Naturemade agave plants
Downtown Dallas, Texas
I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
—-W.B. Yeats, The White Birds
Foam on a small fountain,
Street Corner,
Arts District
Dallas, Texas
A bar of steel—it is only
Smoke at the heart of it, smoke and the blood of a man.
A runner of fire ran in it, ran out, ran somewhere else,
And left—smoke and the blood of a man
And the finished steel, chilled and blue.
—-Carl Sandburg, I. Smoke Nights 1.Smoke and Steel
Tony Smith
Willy
1962, Steel
Dallas Museum of Art
“I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn’t identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music. They just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male.”
― Kurt Cobain
Design District, Dallas, Texas
“Empires die, like all of us dancers in the strobe-lit dark. See how the light needs shadows.”
― David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks
Dallas Arts District
Dallas, Texas
“She sat beside him on the bench, and her presence troubled him. He was inside the atmosphere, or light, or scent she spread, as a boat is inside the drag of a whirlpool, as a bee is caught in the lasso of perfume from the throat of a flower.”
― A.S. Byatt, Angels and Insects
Dallas Arboretum
Dallas, Texas
Who needs a macro.
“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Nasher Sculpture Center
Dallas, Texas
Bill Chance 