“To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.”
― Aldous Huxley
Every Man is Napoleon
Tag Archives: park
Enliven and Support Well-Located Parks
“The more successfully a city mingles everyday diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets, the more successfully, casually (and economically) its people thereby enliven and support well-located parks that can thus give back grace and delight to their neighborhoods instead of vacuity. ”
― The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Klyde Warren Park, Dallas, Texas
Perforation!
“Perforation! Shout it out! The deliberate punctuated weakening of paper and cardboard so that it will tear along an intended path, leaving a row of fine-haired pills or tuftlets on each new edge! It is a staggering conception, showing an age-transforming feel for the unique properties of pulped wood fiber.”
― The Mezzanine
Perforations in the roof of the Pavilion in Pacific Plaza Park, downtown Dallas, Texas
The centerpiece of the new Pacific Plaza park in downtown Dallas is the Pavilion. Designed by HKS it is an elliptical metal ring suspended in the air – giving much needed shade. I wondered what the story behind all the holes was.
From a D Magazine article:
The design team punctured 58,290 holes in the pavilion canopy, a subtle, morse code tip of the cap denoting the names of 337 stops along the Texas and Pacific Railroad.
Pacific Plaza Park, Dallas, Texas
Is This a Noun, A Verb, or a Command
“It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt”
― Zen and the Beat Way
Pacific Plaza, Dallas, Texas
One Last Landing
“We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.”
― The Green Hills of Earth
Pacific Plaza Park, Dallas, Texas
Drained the Pond
“Remain in the world, act in the world, do whatsoever is needful, and yet remain transcendental, aloof, detached, a lotus flower in the pond.”
― The Secret of Secrets
There are these ponds in the park at the end of my block. I think they are mostly there for flood control, but they look great. I’ve taken photos of them over the years.
Pond at the end of my block, Huffhines Park, Richardson, Texas
The ponds at the end of my block, Richardson, Texas
The ponds at the end of my street,
Huffhines Park,
Richardson, Texas
Men Between the Ponds
The ponds are surrounded by hiking/biking trails – it’s on my work bicycling commute. I always enjoy riding past or around the ponds – except on the days/times that the trail is too crowded.
Not too long ago, I noticed a guy sitting by the pond watching his black lab out in the water. The dog wasn’t far from shore – but still the water barely came up to his dog knees. That’s when I realized the ponds are a lot shallower than they look. They must be silted full.
Sure enough, a couple weeks ago, as I rode to work, I noticed an orange temporary fence around the pond and machines installing huge sheets of plywood, making a road to the water’s edge on the other side of the pond. Then, some workers started visiting the pond all day and night, using big portable pumps to empty the water out.
Then came in the giant shovel machines to scoop out the black muck. It was so vile and watery they had to lime it and then stir the mix with the long arms of the shovel buckets to stabilize it enough to scoop it into waiting trucks. The smell was awful – that mud had a lot of grass clippings, trash, and who knows what mixed with it and it had been sitting down there underwater for years.
One day there was an elderly woman sitting on a bench with her tiny dog held in her lap. They both were watching the machines work – unbothered by the smell of the muck and the diesel fumes from the straining engines. Everybody else seemed to be ignoring the scene.
Finally, they seem to have finished. I wondered what the bottom of the ponds would be like – they were too big to be concrete lined. I forgot that there is caliche limestone only a few feet below the surface (that’s why nobody in Dallas has a basement) and it looks like they scooped some of the rock out (it isn’t very strong) when they made the ponds – making big oval saucer-shaped indentations in the earth.
The equipment is being loaded up – I guess they will start letting the ponds fill in now. The calendar says fall – but it’s still summer here in Texas – not sure how long until we get enough rain… we’ll see. When they are filled I guess they will look exactly the same as they did before. Deep water looks just like shallow.
The drained and scooped pond at Huffhines Park.
The caliche limestone at the bottom of the pond. Huffhines park, Richardson, Texas.
The Only Thing That Could Spoil A Day Was People
“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― A Moveable Feast
Glencoe Park, Dallas, Texas
A Trick That Is Too Much Fun
“Sometimes a writer, like an acrobat, must try a trick that is too much for him.”
― E.B. White
Klyde Warren Park, Dallas, Texas
To get my holiday time off work to an exciting start – I spent a day arranging and organizing my room. I’ve built a new desk and am working on setting it up neatly and efficiently. Part of the work was getting my backup external hard drives out and making sure they work properly. Looking through my old photographs I found this one, part of a set I took years ago at Klyde Warren. I have used other version on the blog before, but felt like playing around with it a bit.
The weather is nice now…. I need to get out.
Black Boots
“Black boots, said Rawlins. Aint that the shits? I always wanted to be a badman.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Klyde Warren Park, Dallas, Texas
The Thud of a Great Beast Stamping
“The waves broke and spread their waters swiftly over the shore. One after another they massed themselves and fell; the spray tossed itself back with the energy of their fall. The waves were steeped deep-blue save for a pattern of diamond-pointed light on their backs which rippled as the backs of great horses ripple with muscles as they move. The waves fell; withdrew and fell again, like the thud of a great beast stamping.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Children’s Waterpark, Waxahachie, Texas
Oblique Strategy: Would anybody want it?
There’s a button on a stand. The button doesn’t do anything at first – but then the water, a little bit at first, then more and more and more until torrents are spewing from pipes and nozzles. A plastic bucket fills, tilts, and dumps it’s cargo of dihydrogen monoxide out in a foamy amoeba into the hot Texas sun.
Bill Chance 