Fruta Bomba

“Then there is the tamarind. I thought tamarinds were made to eat, but that was probably not the idea. I ate several, and it seemed to me that they were rather sour that year. They pursed up my lips, till they resembled the stem-end of a tomato, and I had to take my sustenance through a quill for twenty-four hours. They sharpened my teeth till I could have shaved with them, and gave them a “wire edge” that I was afraid would stay; but a citizen said no, it will come off when the enamel does” – which was comforting, at any rate. I found, afterward, that only strangers eat tamarinds – but they only eat them once.”
Mark Twain, Mark Twain in Hawaii: Roughing It in the Sandwich Islands: Hawaii in the 1860s

Mural, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

There Isn’t A Train I Wouldn’t Take

“My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I’ll not be knowing,
Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
No matter where it’s going.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Selected Poetry

 

Mural, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

A Depth To Which Divers Would Find It Difficult To Descend

“There, at a depth to which divers would find it difficult to descend, are caverns, haunts, and dusky mazes, where monstrous creatures multiply and destroy each other. Huge crabs devour fish and are devoured in their turn. Hideous shapes of living things, not created to be seen by human eyes wander in this twilight. Vague forms of antennae, tentacles, fins, open jaws, scales, and claws, float about there, quivering, growing larger, or decomposing and perishing in the gloom, while horrible swarms of swimming things prowl about seeking their prey.

To gaze into the depths of the sea is, in the imagination, like beholding the vast unknown, and from its most terrible point of view. The submarine gulf is analogous to the realm of night and dreams. There also is sleep, unconsciousness, or at least apparent unconsciousness, of creation. There in the awful silence and darkness, the rude first forms of life, phantomlike, demoniacal, pursue their horrible instincts.”
Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Frequently There Must Be A Beverage

“Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: Frequently there must be a beverage.”
Woody Allen, Without Feathers

Mural (detail), Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

A Flower That Was In Bud Only Yesterday

“It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer… and everything collapses. ”
Colette

Mural (detail), Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Pointed Blasphemously At Heaven

“This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.”
Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

Mural (detail), Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

That Accidental and Unrepeatable Combination of Features

“The serial number of a human specimen is the face, that accidental and unrepeatable combination of features. It reflects neither character nor soul, nor what we call the self. The face is only the serial number of a specimen”
Milan Kundera, Immortality

Mural, Radiator Alley, Deep Ellum Dallas, Texas

Always Silent and Alone

“In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.”
Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Mural (detail), Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Fall Like a Thunderbolt

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Mural, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

The Mad Were Often Allowed To Mingle Freely

“I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.”
Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas