Along the street that ran through the center of the Cedars West Arts festival, out in front of the new fencing around OKON Metals, sat the chopped off cockpit of some unknown aircraft. I guess it was out there to show the variety of materials that a metal recycler can deal with – or maybe it was out there simply because it was way cool.
I couldn’t help but hang around the severed snout. One guy looked at it and said to his buddy, “Look at all the bullet holes.” Now I knew better – those puncture wounds weren’t from ballistic ammunition, they were pierce marks from forklift forks (how do you think they move that massive chunk of aircraft aluminum around?) – but I didn’t want to disappoint the guy’s martial imagination, so I stayed silent.
Off to the side, an artist stood with a pad on an easel. His name was Joshua Boulet and I chatted with him for a bit. He had a portfolio of his line-drawings on a stand. I looked over his work done at Occupy Wall Street. “Did you go to New York for these?” I asked.
“Yeah, I set up right there just like I did today and drew these live,” he said with a hint of excitement in his voice.
There was a high step up into the cockpit, but I took a breath, grabbed some loose aluminum and pulled myself in. There are few things as cool as the complex destruction in old, junked aerospace detritus.
I did not feel like going home after work on Friday so I caught a DART train downtown. Tonight was one of the Arts District’s Block Parties – with a whole bunch of activities going on in and between the three museums along Flora Street. I caught a train quickly and arrived early so I found a bench, sat down with my Kindle, and read while the organizers organized and the crowd slowly began to grow.
Food trucks at the Arts District Block Party. There were two lines like this.
The line of food trucks grows as they pull in and set up.
The Museum Tower Death Ray strikes.
I found a nice shady spot under the cypress trees along Flora and then I was struck by the solar death ray beamed down from the Museum Tower. I swear that thing raises the temperature ten degrees.
I ate some rolls from my favorite sushi food truck and then wandered around a bit, visiting the Nasher. The Nasher isn’t too much fun during these events – an invading horde of families charge down early and take over the whole garden, marking off their own private little Balkan squares of territory with blankets. The adults then plop down and proceed to get hammered on cheap bottles of wine concealed in Crate and Barrel wicker baskets received as gifts while their precious hell-spawn run around screaming and climbing on the Henry Moore sculpture until the museum guards shoo them away.
There was a band and later a movie but the scene was too depressing so I moved on.
I listened to a lecture in the Crow’s Jade Room on meditation and creativity which was interesting.
I headed out into the crowd again and was contemplating giving it all up and catching a train home when a woman walked by that looked familiar. It took a second for me to remember, but the sock-monkey tattoo on her right bicep gave it away – it was Madison King, a singer that I had heard perform at the first Patio Session earlier this year.
She must be scheduled on the outdoor plaza by the Museum of Art. I was up to staying for her performance, so I stuck around. Wandering down there, I found a band setting up. You don’t see this every day… a trombone quartet.
They called themselves The Maniacal 4… and I enjoyed them. Their between-song patter was the worst I have ever heard, but they could play the trombone. They played a number of their own compositions, which were a little sophisticated for that crowd and venue – but they pulled it off.
Then they brought out a rhythm section and launched into playing some 1970’s rock on the trombone. It worked better than it sounds – even though they picked some tunes that should not be brought into the future (Jane by Starship and Carry On my Wayward Son by Kansas… for example). All in all, they were by far the most entertaining trombone quartet I have heard at an Arts District evening show in a while.
It didn’t take them long to pack up and Madison King took over at ten. As before, I enjoyed hearing her and the crowd seemed into it. You can hear some of her work at this site.
I took some photos, but it’s tough under those lighting conditions (it’s way too dark). I have to use long exposures and brace my camera on a wall or something to minimize shaking. White balance is a bitch under the weird lighting color combinations and my camera isn’t as new as it used to be – it isn’t as fast as they make them nowadays. Still, it gives me something to do.
Went down to Deep Ellum for a while today to check out Filipino Fest. It was terribly hot, so I was only able to hang around for awhile. I took a few photos and then bailed – there was a recording studio that had a pop-up bar set up inside. The sign said, “A/C, Full Bar, Bathrooms,” which was hard to resist. Inside I found an old couch, some good music, comedians doing short sets, and Deep Ellum Wheat Beer on tap. This truly is the best of all possible worlds.
We all hate wasting the ketchup that sticks in the bottle. Finally, at MIT, scientists have designed an FDA-approved, nonstick coating called InstaGlide that solves the problem. This is truly the best of all possible worlds.
It seems like there is nothing on to watch… so all you have to do is check another one off of this list:
There are a lot of people working on this… and the suburbs are better than Dallas itself… (I live in Richardson and it was chosen locally the best Dallas neighborhood for bicycling) but there is still the heat and all those giant pickup trucks. The problem isn’t that, though – it’s the beauracracy.
Conversely, Dallas was cited as one of America’s worst cycling cities for the second time since 2008 for creating almost no new cycling infrastructure even after its adoption of a bicycle master plan. Cycling advocates in Dallas, who were vocal in their frustration with the city’s progression, expressed hope that the “worst” designation will serve as a catalyst for a faster, more concentrated bike-friendly movement.
Everywhere I go there are crowds of people with cameras pointed at grinning subjects. From Canyon Creek to The Nasher, from the Arts District to New Orleans to the Farmer’s Market to the reflecting pool people are out posing while the photographer contorts with a huge hunk of semiconductors, injection molded plastic, and optical glass plastered to his eye.
Fashion, weddings, or engagements, there they are preserving the moment for posterity and relatives’ mantel pieces. The most common, in Texas, right now, is the Quinceañera.
Dallas has never been seen as a city that is amenable to mass transit. Unlike an east coast megalopolis it was created in the age of the automobile – vast suburban tracts vomited out across the endless cotton fields along the pulsing arteries of constantly rebuilt freeways. But, for fifteen years now, we have had the DART rail. Always controversial, overly expensive, oft-reviled – the colored lines – Red, Blue, Green, Orange – crawled out inexorably across the map like vines on a brick wall.
Two tattooed guys – one skinny, one not – the skinny guy stands holding his skateboard, the other one sits hunched over a single speed bicycle – like a low slung bike for a kid a third his size. I am used to bicycles used as transport – this would be useless for that. It’s a bike used as a lifestyle statement. He rocks and stares at the chain like he’s afraid it will leap off the cogs if he lets it. Tired middle aged men slumped in seats, a guy playing a game on a smartphone, and a young couple standing in the door holding hands.
These are the people I live a lot of my life with. They are the same people you live a lot of your life with. Perfect strangers. Strangers on a train. I want to know these people and I want their stories.
The two guys, the skateboard and the inefficient but cool bicycle – they may be gutterpunks but they look like they are having fun. The guy on the bike moves back and forth at each stop to let folks get to the door or their seats. When their stop comes (one before mine) he shouts, “Off to another adventure” and shoots out the open door.
Looking at the young couple makes me ache. They may be poor and doomed… but together, today, right now, they are a thing of beauty. Beauty is so rare and so fleeting.
The others… all forgettable. But I know that the forgotten folks all have stories that will raise the hairs on the back of your necks. But we all sit and sway, look around, adjust our headphones, and get off at our stops.
I went for a bit of a walk in the very picturesque Prairie Creek Park here in Richardson. The place was crawling with photographers – most of them pros, lugging huge lenses, and carefully posing children, couples, or recent graduates along the rocks of the waterfall or in the fading patches of bluebonnets and other wildflowers.
Off to the side, a man was sitting on a metal park bench playing an ancient metal clarinet. He had a bag of sheet music at his feet and he’d select a piece, clip it into his music holder, and then play. Nobody was paying any attention to him.
Bill Chance 