“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.”
― Elmore Leonard, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
Leave Out All the Parts Readers Skip
Tag Archives: portrait
Music Or the Misery
“What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Kicken’ Brass Band, Arts District, Dallas, Texas
The Gold of Her Laughter
“To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else’s heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Oblique Strategy: Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list
I saw this woman standing in a studio in an art gallery. She was so stunning that it made me ache. When I ran into her again outside, I had to grab a couple photographs.
I Lift My Gaze
All of a sudden, as if a surgical hand of destiny had operated on a long-standing blindness with immediate and sensational results, I lift my gaze from my anonymous life to the clear recognition of how I live. And I see that everything I’ve done, thought or been is a species of delusion or madness. I’m amazed by what I managed not to see. I marvel at all that I was and that I now see I’m not.
—-Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Deep Ellum Brewing Company, Dallas, Texas
Oblique Strategy: Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
I sit there with my camera ready to raise and shoot… waiting for the woman to take another sip of beer. Sitting there waiting with my weapon in my hand, ready to raise and shoot, like a big game hunter… or more like a little kid with a BB gun waiting on a sparrow to land within range.
What Does a Mirror Look At?
“What does a mirror look at?”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune
Deep Ellum Brewing Company
Dallas, Texas
Herding Cats
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore
—-Ogden Nash
Walkway on the levee, New Orleans
Bartender and Regular
Molly’s was home to the demimonde, to artists, journalists, retired teachers, lawyers, politicians, cops, and people of uncertain description. Laura and I wrote poetry together there, sometimes with other poets. For a time I became addicted to the video poker machines in the bar and lost a lot of money. I once brought Philip Glass, the musician, to Molly’s, and he sat before one of the machines and became instantly fascinated by their Zen randomness and sounds. We had a hard time getting him away from it. We snapped great moments in Molly’s photo booth, when there was one, immortalizing the goofiness and sweetness of ourselves.
—- Andrei Codrescu, Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans – Some Prefatory Remarks, from New Orleans, Mon Amour, Twenty Years Of Writings From The City
The Bartender and a Regular, Molly’s, Decatur Street, French Quarter, New Orleans
Hipster Talking to a Girl on Decatur
“The beauty of Molly’s is that it is not, whether in the daytime or at night, the exclusive preserve of an age or income group. Unlike the sterile night scenes of pretentious San Francisco or New York, Molly’s (and most other New Orleans bars) welcomes all ages, all colors, and all sexual persuasions, provided they are willing to surrender to the atmosphere.”
― Andrei Codrescu, New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City
Taken from the window at Molly’s – French Quarter, New Orleans
Champ
“I like dogs. You always know what a dog is thinking. It has four moods. Happy, sad, cross and concentrating. Also, dogs are faithful and they do not tell lies because they cannot talk.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
My son’s dog, Champ
My son’s dog, Champ
My son’s dog, Champ
My son’s dog, Champ
I was sitting in my office room trying to get something written. My son Nick’s dog came in and settled into his favorite red chair. I put my camera onto its tripod and took some shots of the dog as he moved around in the chair. I don’t have a lot of experience with this sort of posed photography – don’t have the kind of lights that I need – most of all, I have a lot to learn.
Faces of Deep Ellum – The Poet
“What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music…. And people flock around the poet and say: ‘Sing again soon’ – that is, ‘May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
Bill Chance 