When the typewriters happen to pause (8:20 and other mythical hours), and there are no flights of American bombers in the sky, and the motor traffic’s not too heavy in Oxford Street, you can hear winter birds cheeping outside, busy at the feeders the girls have put up.
—-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
B-25 “Devil Dog,” Commemorative Air Force, Dallas, Texas
“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
Memorial Park
Plano, Texas
Riding up outside Community Brewing in the Dallas Design District
In college, we managed to score a keg of beer that had been left behind from a Fraternity Party in a cafeteria cooler. It has sat there for well over a year. We threw a big party, tapped the keg, and realized it had gone bad.
“What are we going to do?” my friend asked, “The beer is bad and all these people are coming over.”
“I know,” I said, “Let’s tell everybody it’s Lone Star.”
People would complain about the beer and I’d tell them it was Lone Star – they would nod knowingly and keep drinking.
Bicycle Second Line
New Orleans, Louisiana
Bill Chance 