“I could dance with you till the cows come home. Better still, I’ll dance with the cows and you come home.”
―
Italy, Texas
There is something odd about seeing a movie at nine o’clock in the morning. Especially when it ends and you walk out into the sun… and realize that most of the day is still to come.
I’m glad that everyone has been good about not saying or posting spoilers for Avengers Endgame – though the movie played out pretty much exactly as I thought it would.
“The glance of women resembles certain combinations of wheels, which are tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You pass close to them every day, peaceably and with impunity, and without a suspicion of anything. A moment arrives when you forget that the thing is there. You go and come, dream, speak, laugh. All at once you feel yourself clutched; all is over. The wheels hold you fast, the glance has ensnared you. It has caught you, no matter where or how, by some portion of your thought which is fluttering loose, by some distraction which had attacked you. You are lost. The whole of you passes into it. A chain of mysterious forces takes possession of you. You struggle in vain; no more human succor is possible. You go on falling from gearing to gearing, from agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune, your future, your soul; and, according to whether you are in the power of a wicked creature, or of a noble heart, you will not escape from this terrifying machine otherwise than disfigured with shame, or transfigured by passion.”
― Les Misérables
2527 King, Dallas, Texas
“In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.”
― The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Ellis County Courthouse, Waxahatche, Texas
I knew that I wanted to be an artist and it started out as a solution to making work at the beginning. I was a literature student, but I knew very well that I didn’t want to be a novelist.
—-Mai-Thu Perret
from Sightings, by Mai-Thu Perret, 2016, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas
“The greatest artist does not have any concept
Which a single piece of marble does not itself contain
Within its excess, though only
A hand that obeys the intellect can discover it.”
― I Sonetti Di Michelangelo: The 78 Sonnets of Michelangelo with Verse Translation
Birth II, by Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas
Twice over the last decades (2013, and 2019) I have stopped at the Lover’s Lane Red Line DART station to photograph the sculpture there. It’s really cool looking, and hard to find – I imagine it was once more obvious, but the construction of the DART station and the expansion of Central Expressway cut it off. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a plaque or other sign and had no idea who the sculpture was done by or what its name was. It seems to have been neglected over the years, it is getting a bit ragged looking.
Finally, I dug out a book I bought used a long time ago and have found very useful: A Comprehensive Guide to Outdoor Sculpture In Texas by Carol Morris Little. The sculptures are listed by the name of their sculptors (which I did not know) so it took a bit of page-turning, but I found it.
From the book:
Arthur Williams
American, born 1942Birth II 1983
Abstract, 7′ x 15′ x7′ 8″ ; welded and pressed steel
Location: 6688 North Central Expressway
Funding: Sullivan CorporationComments: Sculpture by Arthur Williams appears in public and private collections throughout the United States. In addition to large steel and cast-bronze sculptures, Williams carves alabaster, marble, and wood. This work and his monumental installation in Galveston are from his Birth series.
It’s cool to finally know something about this sculpture – will have to look for its twin the next time I’m in Galveston.
Birth II, Arthur Williams, Dallas, Texas
“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 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
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.
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
“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
Bill Chance 