“It is not for me to judge another man’s life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
― Siddhartha
Buddhist Center of Dallas
I Must Spurn
Tag Archives: Sculpture
Poor Receptacles For Dreams
“I thought climbing the Devil’s Thumb would fix all that was wrong with my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing. But I came to appreciate that mountains make poor receptacles for dreams.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild
Arts District, Dallas, Texas – PATHS by Steinunn Thórarinsdóttir at HALL Arts
A First Crack Reaching
Once he sat all day staring at a single white dodo’s egg in a grass hummock. The place was too remote for any foraging pig to’ve found. He waited for scratching, a first crack reaching to net the chalk surface: an emergence. Hemp gripped in the teeth of the steel snake, ready to be lit, ready to descend, sun to black-powder sea, and destroy the infant, egg of light into egg of darkness, within its first minute of amazed vision, of wet down stirred cool by these southeast trades…. Each hour he sighted down the barrel. It was then, if ever, he might have seen how the weapon made an axis potent as Earth’s own between himself and this victim, still one, inside the egg, with the ancestral chain, not to be broken out for more than its blink of world’s light. There they were, the silent egg and the crazy Dutchman, and the hookgun that linked them forever, framed, brilliantly motionless as any Vermeer. Only the sun moved: from zenith down at last behind the snaggleteeth of mountains to Indian ocean, to tarry night.
The egg, without a quiver, still unhatched.
—-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Sculpture, Energy Square, Dallas, Texas
Sculpture, Energy Square, Dallas, Texas
Sculpture, Energy Square, Dallas, Texas
One of my favorite sculptures in Dallas is in the Energy Square development, right next to the Lover’s Lane DART station. I took some photos of it years ago, but was in the area this weekend with a different camera and thought I’d grab a shot or two. The area is under (re)development and the sculpture is looking a bit more ragged than it did six years ago. I hope somebody cares enough to fix things up.
I have not been able to find any information about this sculpture – though I’ve misplaced my reference book on Dallas sculptures – it might be in there. I’ll update the post if I find anything out.
A Droll Melody
Out at sea a single clarinet begins to play, a droll melody joined in on after a few bars by guitars and mandolins. Birds huddle bright-eyed on the beach. Katje’s heart lightens, a little, at the sound.
—-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Travelling Man, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
There Is More Than One Way To Travel
“Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria’s mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Travelling Man… and a jet, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
Warning Of Departed Time
“It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave.”
― Washington Irving, The Sketch Book
Large Bell, Edo Period, Crow Collection, Dallas, Texas
From the Crow Museum Website:
Large bells such as this were common in the Edo period to mark time for communities. They were often paid for by collecting coins from parishes and locales, and then melted down for the metal. These bells are clapper-less and were struck with a large wooden beam. With the introduction of Western clocks into Japan, fewer large bells, like this one, were needed. Modernity also called for replacing the traditional calendar based on the zodiac with a January to December year. Bells continued to be made, but their use was more commemorative and ceremonial than practical.
As Crazy As Your Conscience Allows
Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.
—-Joseph Campbell
Metal bas-relief in a stairwell at Union Station, Dallas, Texas
There is amazing art all around you, where you least expect it. All you have to do is look.
It was cold and raining tonight as I left the DART train line at Union Station to walk over to the Bishop Arts Streetcar… but I stopped and took a photo of an amazing bas-relief… it looked like aluminum over a concrete wall over a stairwell leading to the underground tunnel under the station platform. It’s an obvious reference to Pegasus – one symbol Dallas uses to refer to itself. I don’t know the history or the artist – will have to do some research.
