Tag Archives: Photography

Can You Spare A Square?

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The worst job in the whole world must be recycling toilet paper.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

I always stop at a handful of Little Free Libraries on my bike rides around my ‘hood. I don’t pick up books (though I look to see if there is an especially interesting one – there hasn’t been) – rather, I drop books off. That helps me deal with my natural bookish hoarder tendencies.

Today, at one near my house, I spotted this extra addition.

Little Free Library near my house – with extra goodies.

Little Free Library near my house.

Six rolls of precious toilet paper tucked in among the tomes.

So if you live on the east side of Richardson, and are desperate for a roll, contact me and I’ll give you the location.

Our Past Is Real

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Repaired cracked mural, Denton, Texas

Even artworks… no, especially works of art… develop cracks and hopefully will be repaired. Is the art lessened by this? Or does it add a greater dimension, one of time, pain, and disaster – if not avoided, refurbished.

One Book In My Hand And A Stack Of Others On the Floor

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I like best to have one book in my hand, and a stack of others on the floor beside me, so as to know the supply of poppy and mandragora will not run out before the small hours.”
― Dorothy Parker, The Collected Dorothy Parker

Recycled Books, Denton, Texas (taken a long time ago, obviously)

There was a time when we could go to bookstores. Especially big ol’ huge used bookstores (like Recycled Books) with rooms – a confused labyrinth of passages between towering shelves – that odd quiet of millions of sheets of paper adsorbing the sound – the slight smell of mold and ancient wisdom. I would stand in a place like that (or the library) and feel panic because I would never live long enough to read one percent of this – so much knowledge that I would never possess – haunted by the thought that somewhere in there – in that massive agglomeration – is the one book that would enlighten me and tell me exactly what I need to know and I don’t know enough to find it and wouldn’t know it if I saw it.

It feels like those days are so long in the past – it seemed like we could do anything (except smoke in the elevator) – the memories are fading – will those days ever come back again?

Recycled Books
Denton, Texas

Recycled Books Records CDs
Denton, Texas
(click to enlarge)

Recycled Books, Denton, Texas

 

 

The Small Things You, Yourself Have

Posted on by Bill Chance

“What’s really important here,” I whispered loudly to myself,”is not the big things other people have thought up, but the small things you, yourself have”
― Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

Mural, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

 

I Enter A Swamp As A Sacred Place

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Thoreau the “Patron Saint of Swamps” because he enjoyed being in them and writing about them said, “my temple is the swamp… When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most impenetrable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum… I seemed to have reached a new world, so wild a place…far away from human society. What’s the need of visiting far-off mountains and bogs, if a half-hour’s walk will carry me into such wildness and novelty.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings

Bald Cypress Knees, Waco, Texas

The Girl With Many Eyes

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The Girl With Many Eyes
One day in the park
I had quite a surprise.
I met a girl
who had many eyes.

She was really quite pretty
(and also quite shocking!)
and I noticed she had a mouth,
so we ended up talking.

We talked about flowers,
and her poetry classes,
and the problems she’d have
if she ever wore glasses.

It’s great to know a girl
who has so many eyes,
but you really get wet
when she breaks down and cries.”
― Tim Burton

Tattoo Parlor Window, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas

 

Laissez les bons temps rouler – from Bishop Arts Mardi Gras Parade – 2013