Tag Archives: Photography

The Party is Over

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I believe when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade…and try to find someone whose life has given them vodka, and have a party.”

― Ron White

The Block apartment complex, Richardson, Texas

Next to the smelly dumpster behind the coffee shop in the apartment complex I saw a sad bunch of colorful Mylar balloons left over from a birthday party. I had ridden my bicycle down for a cold brew and a place to hang out and write.

The balloons bothered me. So vivid and kaleidoscopic – and yet starting to droop and lose their helium. They are a symbol of good times, happy times, friends gathered together. But the party is over, and all that is left is a sad fading echo out by the disgusting rotting trash, its noble gas leaking away, its lift failing – starting to settle down towards the ground. The people from the party never appreciated how good is was while it lasted and now its gone.

I feel like that all the time.

Heroic Man

Posted on by Bill Chance

“In those days I learned that nothing is more frightening than a hero who lives to tell his story, to tell what all those who fell at his side will never be able to tell.”

― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Heroic Man, Lachaise, Gaston, Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans

Rootbound

Posted on by Bill Chance

“If I had my way we’d sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes.”
― William S. Burroughs

City Library, Richardson, Texas

The Root of the South’s Downfall

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The first time I saw my father-in-law’s cotton, I though of the Original Sin, gardening being the root of the South’s downfall.”

― Michael Lee West, She Flew the Coop: A Novel Concerning Life, Death, Sex and Recipes in Limoges, Louisiana

The McKinney Cotton Mill at Sunset, McKinney, Texas

Spirit of Communication

Posted on by Bill Chance

“By being published, any author’s words cease to be his own, but rather belong to his reader.”

― Andrew Crumey, D’Alembert’s Principle: A Novel in Three Panels

Spirit of Communication (Golden Boy), Dallas, Texas

From Wikipedia:

Spirit of Communication is the formal name for the statue by Evelyn Beatrice Longman originally called Genius of Telegraphy. The statue has been the symbol of AT&T (and also the former Western Electric) since their commission was completed in 1916. It is also known informally as the Golden Boy statue and formerly as Genius of Electricity.

Commissioned for 195 Broadway in New York City. the sculpture has followed AT&T to other sites in New York and New Jersey over the years. In 2009, the statue was relocated to AT&T’s current corporate headquarters in downtown Dallas, Texas, U.S. As of 2022, the statue is located outside in the AT&T Discovery District in Downtown Dallas.

Monolithic Dome

Posted on by Bill Chance

“After our negotiations were completed, the dome would be imploded and launched toward the nearest black hole, so that none of its atoms would ever contaminate this particular universe again. I thought that last part was overkill.”
― John Scalzi, Old Man’s War

Monolithic Dome Institute, Italy, Texas

Stuck in Traffic Behind a Philosophy Fan

Posted on by Bill Chance

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
― Confucious

Bumper Sticker (on a rear window) in front of me for a long time.

3 Bikes in the Back of a Toyota Matrix

Posted on by Bill Chance

“We have annexed the future into the present, as merely one of those manifold alternatives open to us. Options multiply around us, and we live in an almost infantile world where any demand, any possibility, whether for life-styles, travel, sexual roles and identities, can be satisfied instantly.”

― J.G. Ballard, Crash

Last weekend there was a local bike ride to three different local breweries. Both my sons wanted to go – and I was tasked with showing up to the starting point with all three bicycles.

I drive a tiny piece of junk Toyota Matrix – which is classified as a sub-miniature-station-wagon. I can get one bike in the back with ease (with the back seats folded, of course). I didn’t know if I could cram three in there – but after removing the wheels they all went it there with no room to spare. The resulting mess had a post-modern complex ridiculous sculpture look to it.

It was difficult getting everything out and reassembled – it was all tangled up. But, in the end, it was all good.

Three bikes (and shoes, locks, helmets, and a pump) in the back of a Toyota Matrix.

Cylinders

Posted on by Bill Chance

“When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended.”
― Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles

The Block (apartments), Richardson, Texas

Pumpkins in the Pond

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Miraculously, smoke curled out of his own mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes, as if his soul had been extinguished within his lungs at the very moment the sweet pumpkin gave up its incensed ghost.”

― Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree

City Hall, Dallas, Texas