“He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.”
― Confucius
Adolphus Hotel, Dallas, Texas
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
See y’all on the back side.
I’m not afraid of bats.
I remember in college, in biology class, we went on a field trip to a bat cave in the Ozark Mountains. At sundown we sat in the entrance while several million bats flew past – a solid stream of bats. It was really cool.
And here was one single bat clinging to the side of the AT&T headquarters building in downtown Dallas. It was out of place – I hope it was alright… only lost and waiting out the night.
“I don’t understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn’t it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world?” ― Emil Cioran, On the Heights of Despair
AT&T Plaza, Dallas, Texas
I haven’t been anywhere except for work for a long time. I’m sure you all know how frustrating that is.
Last weekend I went on a photowalk (with masks and proper social distancing) with some folks to AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. We used to do that all the time, it was an attempt to return to normal… as much as possible. I did enjoy myself.
Now I am going to try and kick it up a notch – go on a road trip. A big gulf coast triangle of driving – Dallas-Houston-New Orleans-Dallas. I’m not sure how much digital access I’ll have, so I’m going to pre-post some blog entries with photos I took on the photowalk to publish while I’m gone.
Actually, she is beheaded, her body thrown from the car and decapitated with such force that the head sails through the air and lands in a pile of pumpkins spilled out onto the road.
—-Francine Prose, Pumpkins
Reflecting Pool, City Hall, Dallas, Texas
In surfing around the internet and trying to learn/get inspiration on some flash fiction – I keep reading about the story Pumpkins, by Francine Prose. No wonder. It is crackerjack.
Overhead, Danny heard a sound like a hundred horses galloping in unison. The craft had looked like a stray gout of orange flame rising into the sky. The white blades of its propeller carved a halo over its head. The ice cream slipped, forgotten, from Danny’s hand. The cone crunched beneath his sneaker.
—-Nicholas L. Sweeney, Helicopter
Helicopter, Downtown Dallas, Texas
I shot the helicopter reflected in a building in downtown after riding my bike to visit a new park, Pacific Plaza, in downtown. It was lifting what looked like roofing materials to the top of another skyscraper.
I looked around for a flash fiction about a helicopter, and found this one… it’s pretty good.
“The worse the country, the more tortured it is by water and wind, the more broken and carved, the more it attracts fossil hunters, who depend on the planet to open itself to us. We can only scratch away at what natural forces have brought to the surface.”
― Jack Horner, How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn’t Have to Be Forever
Spring Creek, Garland, Texas
The bicycle bones are exposed yet slowly sinking into the muck along the flowing creek. Like a fossil from the recent explosion of eighteen thousand dockless shared rentals the bright yellow steel attests to the (possibly) well-intentioned insanity that swept suddenly then faded even faster. No mastodon skeleton could be a better representative of the once-swarming extinct than this pile of tattered metal.
I was at work and pretty much everyone filed out into the parking lot to watch them fly over – wearing our surgical masks and staying six feet apart from each other.
They were over in a few seconds. I had brought my camera and snapped a few photos – though I have friends that were, say, downtown, and took much better pictures of the jets against the towering crystal skyscrapers. Still, I raised my camera and shot – something doesn’t really happen unless you have a photo of it.
The Blue Angels over my work parking lot.
The Blue Angels over my work parking lot turning with smoke.
“But how can I put a name to what it is that I want? How am I to know that I really don’t want what I want, or that I really don’t want what I don’t want? These are intangibles that the moment you name them their meaning evaporates like jellyfish in the sun.”
― Andrei Tarkovsky, Stalker: un film de Andreï Tarkovski
Broken Concrete and Rebar, Dallas, Texas
I took a day of PTO today (I am still working, I am essential) to try and heal my knee which I hurt in a fall outside my shower on Sunday. Someone reminded me of RICE – Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation (Would like to try RICED – with the addition of Drugs… but no luck there) and that sounded good for me. I made a spot where I could stretch out with a flexible ice pack on my knee. To kill the time I watched a movie on my laptop which I had seen over three decades ago – Stalkerby Andre Tarkovsky.
Tarkovsky is, as I’m sure you know, an unmitigated genius – a master of idiosyncratic film making. I’m glad I saw the film again – I noticed a lot that I missed the first time.
One aspect is the Russian technique of adding very deep philosophical soliloquies spouted by characters in the story – the plot becomes a scaffold to present these musings on faith, desire, and humanity. It is like Dostoevsky or Tolstoy where dramatic action illustrates deeper issues.
Here’s an example – the long monologue by the character known only as Writer after he narrowly escaped death in the room of dunes (you’ll have to click through and watch it on YouTube).
Look at this closely… who is he talking to?
And, like all of Tarkovsky’s films… what images! I hadn’t noticed (or remembered) the Wizard of Oz trick of having the day to day life in black and white (or at least de-saturated sepia tones) and only have the full luscious color spring out in the Zone itself (when you see the film note carefully what other subject is shown in color). The burning rocks on the shore. The room of dunes. The dust devils on the dried up undulating swamp (apparently this scene and others involved carcinogenic chemical wastelands that may have eventually led to the death of the director and others involved in the film). The catalog of items in the long shot through the shallow water. The stalactite festooned tunnel of horror, the meat grinder. The way he films faces….
It is a feast for the eyes as well as the brain.
Let everything that’s been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But when it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.
Bill Chance 