Tag Archives: park

Harrow

Posted on by Bill Chance

The other day I came across an article: 5 landmarks you probably didn’t know about in Downtown Dallas. I knew four of the landmarks well, but had never heard of or been to Lubben Plaza outside the Belo building in downtown.

Last Saturday, after I did a group bike ride on Exposition Avenue and Deep Ellum that visited a number of fashion boutiques in the area (but before I came across the car fire) I wanted to ride a few more miles so I crossed downtown Dallas along the Sharrows on Main Street and jumped over to the park.

There were three cool sculptures there:

LUBBEN PLAZA

Belo Corp. developed Lubben Plaza in 1985 to commemorate the centennial of The Dallas Morning News. It was given to the City of Dallas in honor of Belo’s long-time employees, past and present.

It is named for John F. Lubben and his son Joseph A. Lubben, who together completed 101 years of combined service to the Company.

Belo commissioned three Texas artists to produce the sculptures installed here. “Harrow” by Linnea Glatt and “Journey to Sirius” by George Smith were installed in 1992 in commemoration of Belo’s sesquicentannial. “Gateway Stele” by Jesus Bautista Moroles was installed in 1994, when Belo developed the current Lubben East parking lot.

The most obvious piece was “Harrow”. It’s a giant steel spiral that rotates slowly around a circular bed of sand, cutting a series of concentric eponymous harrows and it goes.

The Harrow, in Lubben Park, Dallas, Texas

The Harrow, in Lubben Park, Dallas, Texas

HARROW

1992

by Linnea Glatt

Dallas, TX

Combining elements of time, motion and place, “Harrow” is an installation of many materials and elements. The motorized cone of Cor-Ten steel turns on a circular track completing one revolution in 24 hours. As the cone turns, its bands travel through a bed of sand forming concentric rings, Seats of Cor-Ten and wood are placed in informal groups amidst trees outside the circle of sand.

James Cinquemani designed and produced the mechanical elements of “Harrow”.

Linnea Glatt:

“I am interested in the idea of placemaking, of which this is my most obvious manifestation. Of my works, ‘Harrow’ is the most active and on the contrary the most serene and contemplative. The repetition and constancy of the bands of the cone drawing in the sand symbolize for me the cyclical nature of life and the balancing of life’s events. The gesture is meant to embrace, to settle and to provoke thought. As with my previous pieces, ‘Harrow’ implies a human presence and dialogue.”

 harrow1

A distant, out of focus skateboarder jumps across the street from The Harrow.

A distant, out of focus skateboarder jumps across the street from The Harrow.

The Harrow, by Linnea Glatt

The Harrow, by Linnea Glatt

I sat and looked at it for a while, but it didn’t seem to be moving. Maybe they shut it off on the weekends. I’ll have to check it out again, see if I can see it roll.

Dog and Master

Posted on by Bill Chance

 

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
—- Groucho Marx

Another Set List on the Green

Posted on by Bill Chance

I had a lot of fun last week at the Set List on the Green – downtown Dallas in Klyde Warren Park. So much fun that, braving a bit of chill, I hopped a train and headed down as the sun set.

What Set List is about is, on Thursdays at 6:30 PM they have six local musicians take the stage for a half-hour set each. What is cool is the wide variety of talent (and, frankly, wide range of talent) on display. Though, not surprisingly, the musical stylings tend toward the folk/acoustic/country/songwriter sort of thing… your really don’t know what to expect.

It makes for a nice evening. A chair or blanket on the grass, a bit of sustenance from a local gourmet food truck, a beer or glass of wine from a nearby stand, and some good local music. I am compiling quite a list of music that I like and am able to follow them around the city… find stuff I like. It’s pretty damn cool, if you ask me.

This is only the second SOG (Setlist On the Green) and it’s the last of the season. Due to the impending cold weather (yes, it does get semi-cold here in Dallas in the dead of winter) they will be on hiatus until March. I’m looking forward to it starting up again… though if they go on Thursdays, they will compete with the Patio Sessions nearby…. so little time, so many choices.

At any rate, the lineup this week:

next_week_set_list

This time, I did drag my camera along.

Arianne Gray

Arianne Gray

Tyler Lowe

Tyler Lowe

Nicholas Altobelli

Nicholas Altobelli

Claire Fowler

Claire Fowler

Carl Sullivan and the Rising Suns

Carl Sullivan and the Rising Suns

http://vimeo.com/22583608

Workmen on the Roof

Posted on by Bill Chance

God buries His workmen but carries on His work.
—-Charles Wesley

“Any fool can write a book and most of them are doing it; but it takes brains to build a house.”
—- Charles F. Lummis

“Our house was made of stone, stucco, and clapboard; the newer wings, designed by a big-city architect, had a good deal of glass, and looked out into the Valley, where on good days we could see for many miles while on humid hazy days we could see barely beyond the fence that marked the edge of our property. Father, however, preferred the roof: In his white, light-woolen three-piece suit, white fedora cocked back on his head, for luck, he spent many of his waking hours on the highest peak of the highest roof of the house, observing, through binoculars, the amazing progress of construction in the Valley – for overnight, it seemed, there appeared roads, expressways, sewers, drainage pipes, “planned” communities with such names as Whispering Glades, Murmuring Oaks, Pheasant Run, Deer Willow, all of them walled to keep out intruders, and, yet more astonishing, towerlike buildings of aluminum and glass and steel and brick, buildings whose windows shone and winked like mirrors, splendid in sunshine like pillars of flame; such beauty where once there had been mere earth and sky, it caught at your throat like a great bird’s talons, taking your breath away. ‘The ways of beauty are as a honeycomb,’ Father told us, and none of us could determine, staring at his slow moving lips, whether the truth he spoke was a happy truth or not, whether even it was truth.”
—-Joyce Carol Oates

“For me, it is as though at every moment the actual world had completely lost its actuality. As though there was nothing there; as though there were no foundations for anything or as though it escaped us. Only one thing, however, is vividly present: the constant tearing of the veil of appearances; the constant destruction of everything in construction. Nothing holds together, everything falls apart.”
—-Eugene Ionesco

Making New Friends

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Blessed are they who have the gift of making friends, for it is one of God’s best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of one’s self, and appreciating whatever is noble and loving in another.”
—-Thomas Hughes

friends

“Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his MAKING friends–whether he may be equally capable of RETAINING them, is less certain.”
—-Jane Austen

The Right Move

Posted on by Bill Chance

The beauty of a move lies not in its appearance but in the thought behind it.

—-Aaron Nimzowitsch

… the woman who grows up with the idea that she is simply to be an amiable animal, to be caressed and coaxed, is invariably a bitterly disappointed woman. A game of chess will cure such a conceit forever. The woman that knows the most, thinks the most, feels the most, is the most. Intellectual affection is the only lasting love. Love that has a game of chess in it can checkmate any man and solve the problem of life.

—- Charles Dickens

Dance

Posted on by Bill Chance

Let us read and let us dance – two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
—-Voltaire

Set List on the Green

Posted on by Bill Chance

set_list

After having written a “Bad Review” of Klyde Warren Park… I sure seem to find myself going down there a lot.

Thursday night was a fun event planned at the park – it was the first Set List on the Green, where they had chosen six local musicians to play from 6:30 on, a half hour each. I had not heard of or heard any of the artists:

  1. 6:30 Dan O’Connell
  2. 7:00 Michael Mojica
  3. 7:30 CW Ingram
  4. 8:00 Victor Andrada
  5. 8:30 David Lopez
  6. 9:00 Kirk Thurmond

Work has been tough this week and as the end of the day approached I began to have second thoughts. I had plenty of stuff I needed to do at home. It would be a hurried trip on the DART train downtown. It was getting cold outside.

Sitting at my desk, I decided to make my decision right when I walked into the parking lot. If it felt cold, I would take my car home, otherwise – off to the train station and a ride downtown.

The air temperature was right on the edge, so I hesitated. I’m am trying to live my life outward, so, if in doubt… I go. I went.

I’m glad I went. I had some sliders from The Butcher’s Son and sat down on a little green table to watch and listen. What I enjoyed was the variety of the performers. You really didn’t know what you were going to get – from someone playing Coldplay covers on a solar powered piano to folk music to cool jazzy vocals to complex emotional original stuff to some real banging on the guitar.

I really liked a few of these guys and will make a note of trying to catch them as they appear hear and there in the Metroplex. There is nothing better than local live music.

next_week_set_list

They will do this the next couple of Thursday nights, and I’m going to give it a shot. Then they will hopefully start up again in the spring – I’m not sure if this will conflict with the Patio Sessions… but at least Dallas is moving in the right direction.

I did not bring my camera, so no original photos – but here’s some youtube videos of the performers.

Balls

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Baby,” I said. “I’m a genius but nobody knows it but me.”

—- Charles Bukowski

Jenga

Posted on by Bill Chance

The Jenga Master

She spent a decade of deprivation, dedication, and study at a monastery in the mountains of Bhutan, high on the slopes of unclimbed Gangkhar Puensum, studying the game under the mysterious monks until she returned a Jenga Master.

Now she earns a meager living hustling the game in the city park.

The children are amazed at her skill, but they will never have the patience nor the passion to become a Jenga Master.

.