Near Lee Harvey’s, Cedars, Dallas, Texas
“Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.”
—-Ronald Reagan
“All anyone really needs to know about barbed wire is that it can tear the arse out of your trousers, give a cow a good fright, entangle a Yorkshire terrier for life, and is nasty stuff made by greedy men.”
― Billy Connolly
One of the nice things about being a fan of sculpture is that you run into it all the time – if you are able to keep moving and your eyes open.
On a bike ride the other day, I pulled over for a minute to look at a sculpture I spotted in an unexpected place. It was off of Arapaho Road, not far from the DART station – in a stretch of very unartistic industrial buildings.
The Richardson Factory that belonged to General Packaging Corporation had a steel sculpture (probably welded of Cor-Ten) in a grassy spot next to the main entrance. You would never spot this from a car – but it’s obvious from the cockpit of a bicycle. I turned in (it was a holiday and the place was closed) and took a good look.
I was not able to find a label or plate, so I don’t know the sculpture’s name or artist. The only thing that turned up on a web search is a sculpture called Strange Romance by a sculptor from Taos named Ted Egri (he passed away a couple of years ago). I’m not sure if this is the sculpture – it doesn’t look like a Strange Romance… and the style is a little different from the rest of Ted Egri’s work.
But, the thing was obviously commissioned for the spot – the factory makes cardboard cartons and wooden boxes – the sculpture was made to commemorate the products.
At any rate – for any reason and by any artist – I liked the thing. I sipped from my water bottle and took a rest before riding on. I tipped my helmet to the folks at General Packaging for spending the money and having the thing built and installed in front of their otherwise nondescript factory. They made my day a little more pleasant… for a few minutes at least.
Sculpture at General Packaging.
200 East Arapaho Road, Richardson, TX
Sculpture and Commuter Bike. All Steel.
Graffiti, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
“The Guide says there is an art to flying”, said Ford, “or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything
“When we started the show, ‘Dallas’ was known as the city where JFK was assassinated. By the end it was known as JR’s home town.”
—-Larry Hagman
“But there is so much more to do for the city we love… a Dallas with roads as strong as our businesses, parks as beautiful as our children, a downtown as tall as our imagination.”
—-Laura Miller
“Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?’
No,’ I said.
People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroys or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it’s not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl
—————————–
“i made myself a snowball
As perfect as can be.
I thought I’d keep it as a pet,
And let it sleep with me.
I made it some pajamas
And a pillow for it’s head.
Then last night it ran away,
But first – It wet the bed.”
― Shel Silverstein
Deep Ellum Arts Festival Pet Parade, Dallas, Texas
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
“If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail.”
― Fran Lebowitz
—————————–
“Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.”
― Jerry Seinfeld
—————————–
“The strangest thing has happened. I really missed my dog. That’s never happened to me before. You know, on a long tour you do hear people saying they miss their pets. I never have. But last night I started really missing my dog.
It’s very odd, ’cause I don’t have a dog.”
― Bono
Somewhere near Fair Park… Dallas, Texas
“The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It’s over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam…”
― J.G. Ballard
Loving Oil and Gas, Dallas, Texas
Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands across my engines
—-Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run
We sat in the car
& the night dropped
down until the
only sounds were
the crickets &
the dance of our voices& for a moment
the world became
small enough to
roll back & forth
between us.”
― Brian Andreas, Hearing Voices – Collected Stories & Drawings
“I come to a red light, tempted to go through it, then stop once I see a billboard sign that I don’t remember seeing and I look up at it. All it says is ‘Disappear Here’ and even though it’s probably an ad for some resort, it still freaks me out a little and I step on the gas really hard and the car screeches as I leave the light.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, Less Than Zero
“[And there was the matter of Dick Turpin. It looked like the same car, except that forever afterwards it seemed able to do 250 miles on a gallon of petrol, ran so quietly that you practically had to put your mouth over the exhaust pipe to see if the engine was firing , and issued its voice-synthesized warnings in a series of exquisite and perfectly-phrased haikus, each one original and apt…
Late frost burns the bloom
Would a fool not let the belt
Restrain the body?
…it would say. And,
The cherry blossom
Tumbles from the highest tree
One needs more petrol]”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Trammel and Abrams, East Dallas
Big Boy in a Dallas Backyard
The statue was in the front yard, until the man made him move
Kip’s Big Boy Statue Gone From Abrams Road Lawn, Thanks to City Code Enforcers
…now he’s in the back yard, but sort of visible from the road.
Still, what a great backyard – imagine the picnics you could have with the Big Boy looking over your spread. You would be the coolest dude in the ‘hood.
I have such great memories of sitting around a table in a Kip’s Big Boy (or Shoney’s Big Boy, or Bob’s Big Boy – depending on the state I was living in) late at night… or early in the morning. Sitting around eating some greasy food, tired, talking – especially with people I knew really well, or people I had just met… or best of all, a mixture of both.
Where did the waitresses working in Big Boys at three in the morning come from? They were all the same – middle aged, rode hard and put up wet, brutally efficient. They were their own breed. Imagine the stories they could tell.
Late Night breakfast after three at a Big Boy, or any cheap diner in any town – that is an existence in an entirely separate dimension from the real world. As long as everyone at the table can cough up enough to cover the check – it’s impossible to imagine any troubles from the other hours of the day or the other places in your life being bad enough to intrude on that calm tired orgy of comfort food.
Painted on a wooden fence in Denton, Texas
This one had been defaced by someone that used white paint to add crude breasts. I photoshopped that out.
You are welcome.
This one had only been started. I posed my bicycle where the one in the image will be. It looks cool, I hope the artist finishes it.
November Devil, David Iles, on The Square, Denton Texas
November Devil, David Iles, Denton, Texas
November Devil, David Iles, Denton, Texas
“A dust devil flew up on the porch between us, fill my mouth with dirt. The dirt say, Anything you do to me already done to you.”
—-Alice Walker, The Color Purple
I was digging around some directories of old and not-so-old photos and came across some I liked.
These were taken of my newest favorite band, Home by Hovercraft. I had taken some pictures of them at the Setlist on the Green, but between my poor camera and poorer skills, it was tough to get decent shots at night. This set was in the daylight at the Deep Ellum Arts Festival – they played before Brave Combo.
I really like their theatrical and playful, yet musical style. Any band using an Irish Dancer on a piece of gym floor for rhythm has to be good.
Their album, Are We Chameleons? is firmly entrenched in my current listening selections – Amazon Link.
Home by Hovercraft in Deep Ellum
Irish dancer with Home by Hovercraft
Home by Hovercraft in Deep Ellum
Home by Hovercraft
Home by Hovercraft, Dallas
“An Airstream is a lot like a first love: you are lured by her charm, seduced by her beauty, and once bitten, you are forever chasing after her mystique.”
― Bruce Littlefield, Airstream Living
Bill Chance 