“So generation after generation of men in love with pain and passivity serve out their time in the Zone, silent, redolent of faded sperm, terrified of dying, desperately addicted to the comforts others sell them, however useless, ugly or shallow, willing to have life defined for them by men whose only talent is for death.”
― Gravity’s Rainbow
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
“Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.”
― Wall and Piece
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
The odor of drying alkyd is overpowering. Almost as strong as the smell of burning weed.
“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”
―
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
It’s not a gentle woodland breeze wafting the smells of nature – it’s the sour bite of drying spray paint. Not the rustle of a leaved canopy – it’s the pulsing of a rap song from a nearby video shoot. Not a copse of ancient forest – but an abandoned set of corrugated steel shacks covered with crude graffiti.
But still the sun splashes. The same sun.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
― Gravity’s Rainbow
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
The barrage-balloon cables lay rusting across the sodden meadows, going to flakes, to ions and earth – tendons that sang in the violent nights, among the sirens wailing in thirds smooth as distant wind, among the drumbeats of bombs, now lying slack, old, in hard twists of metal ash. Forget-me-nots boil everywhere underfoot, and ants crowd, bustling with a sense of kingdom. Commas, brimstones, painted ladies coast on the thermoclines along the cliffs. Jessica has cut fringes since Roger saw her last, and is going through the usual anxiety – “It looks utterly horrible, you don’t have to say it….”
“It’s utterly swoony,” sez Roger, “I love it.”
“You’re making fun.”
“Jess, why are we talking about haircuts for God’s sake?”
—-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
This is how they meet. One night Slothrop is out raiding a vegetable
garden in the park. Thousands of people living in the open. He skirts
their fires, stealthy. All he wants is a handful of greens here, a carrot
or mangel-wurzel there, just to keep him going. When they see him they
throw rocks, lumber, once not long ago an old hand-grenade that didn’t
go off but made him shit where he stood.—-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
“The more people you have to ask for permission, the more dangerous a project gets.”
―
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
“Everything he had ever done that had been better left undone. Every lie he had told — told to himself, or told to others. Every little hurt, and all the great hurts. Each one was pulled out of him, detail by detail, inch by inch. The demon stripped away the cover of forgetfulness, stripped everything down to truth, and it hurt more than anything.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
“Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall – it’s wet.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece
The Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
“Once upon a time, there was a king who ruled a great and glorious nation. Favourite amongst his subjects was the court painter of whom he was very proud. Everybody agreed this wizzened old man pianted the greatest pictures in the whole kingdom and the king would spend hours each day gazing at them in wonder. However, one day a dirty and dishevelled stranger presented himself at the court claiming that in fact he was the greatest painter in the land. The indignant king decreed a competition would be held between the two artists, confident it would teach the vagabond an embarrassing lesson. Within a month they were both to produce a masterpiece that would out do the other. After thirty days of working feverishly day and night, both artists were ready. They placed their paintings, each hidden by a cloth, on easels in the great hall of the castle. As a large crowd gathered, the king ordered the cloth be pulled first from the court artist’s easel. Everyone gasped as before them was revealed a wonderful oil painting of a table set with a feast. At its centre was an ornate bowl full of exotic fruits glistening moistly in the dawn light. As the crowd gazed admiringly, a sparrow perched high up on the rafters of the hall swooped down and hungrily tried to snatch one of the grapes from the painted bowl only to hit the canvas and fall down dead with shock at the feet of the king. ’Aha!’ exclaimed the king. ’My artist has produced a painting so wonderful it has fooled nature herself, surely you must agree that he is the greatest painter who ever lived!’ But the vagabond said nothing and stared solemnly at his feet. ’Now, pull the blanket from your painting and let us see what you have for us,’ cried the king. But the tramp remained motionless and said nothing. Growing impatient, the king stepped forward and reached out to grab the blanket only to freeze in horror at the last moment. ’You see,’ said the tramp quietly, ’there is no blanket covering the painting. This is actually just a painting of a cloth covering a painting. And whereas your famous artist is content to fool nature, I’ve made the king of the whole country look like a clueless little twat.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece
“Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece
Fabrication Yard, Dallas, Texas
Bill Chance 