“She couldn’t stop watching his eyes. They were bright black, surrounded by an incredible network of lines, like a laboratory maze for studying intelligence in tears. They seemed to know what she wanted, even if she didn’t.”
― Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Dallas, Texas
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
― Albert Einstein
Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas
“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
Commerce Street Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas
“Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can’t fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
This weekend I was spending the day wandering around the city on my bicycle. I started out by riding to the DART station with the intention of getting on the first train and riding it until I felt like getting off.
As can happen on days like that, later in the afternoon I found my self wanting to take a little rest. I was riding through Oak Cliff, a little west and a little south of the Bishop Arts District, and spotted a tiny bit of shade graced by a collection of round concrete picnic tables with benches next to a Christian School.
It looked inviting – to sit, polish off a water bottle and listen to some music on headphones. So I swerved off the street and rode the sidewalk under the trees.
The only thing that was there was a wine bottle sticking up on one of the tables. I assumed someone had been there before me – probably the night before – and used the spot for a little public intoxication. Not liking litter – I went over to fetch the bottle so I could find a trash can somewhere.
As I approached the bottle I realized I was wrong. It wasn’t a cheap empty. Someone had replaced the label with a handwritten sign that said “Message In A Bottle,” with a lightning bolt and a couple of stars. There was a missive wadded up in the neck of the bottle. It was wet and torn, but I extracted it and carefully unfolded it on the concrete top of the picnic table.
The message was a Xeroxed mysterious crazy rant ending with Shazam! and a crude picture of Andy Kaufman.
The message bottle on the shady picnic table.
Message in a Bottle
Here’s what the message said:
You are Now! Yes. Is this real? This moment, that you have chosen to co-create? I know not. What I do know is that everything in your life has led you to this exact moment in space and time. Yes your fantastic being of molecular vibrations slipping into the NOW. You, co-creating the awakening of your inner Shazam-Samurai! You, catapulting your nitro-burnin’, fuel-injected, Hootenany, Howlin’ Wolf, Love dance into the future of NOW! Yes! Yes! Yes!
Shazam!
Now, what was so odd about all this is that I had seen that exact same message before. I had photographed it and written a blog entry. Over a year ago, I came across another exact copy of this glued to a boarded-up window in Deep Ellum. I wrote about it here: Text on the Streets.
Stuck on a plywood-covered window. Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
So there is someone that for at least over a year has been going around Dallas putting out these little nutjob manifestos. I found two about six miles apart. I did a search on the text and found nothing (other than my own blog entry).
I carefully folded and rolled the worn paper and stuck it back in the bottle. Now I want to keep my eyes open – see if I find it again.
Goodbye Joe me gotta go me oh my oh
Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou
My Yvonne the sweetest one me oh my oh
Son of a gun we’ll have big fun on the bayou
Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and fillet gumbo
Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio
Pick guitar fill fruit jar and be gay-o
Son of a gun we’ll have big fun on the bayou
—-Jambalaya (On The Bayou), Hank Williams
Bayou St. John
New Orleans, Louisiana
During the Bayou Boogaloo festival
Bayou St. John,
New Orleans, La
Bayou St. John,
New Orleans, La
Bayou St. John,
New Orleans, La
Banjo Player, Farmer’s Market, Dallas, Texas
(click to enlarge)
I seem to always be taking pictures of banjo players.
John Pedigo of the O’s. From a photograph taken at a beer festival, Fair Park, Dallas, Texas.
(click to enlarge)
and there is my favorite – the banjo playing woman singing on Royal Street in the French Quarter, in New Orleans
Banjo Player on Royal Street in the French Quarter, New Orleans
Banjo Player on Royal Street, French Quarter, New Orleans
A while back I went on a fun, educational, and very cool bike ride that explored some murals in the Design District and West Dallas that had been commissioned by the Dallas Contemporary gallery. At the time, they had a new project going, Inside Out – The People’s Art Project, where they set up a series of photo booths and had people come by to get their photo done. These were then printed bigger than life size and put up at various locations around the city.
I wanted to participate in it, but never was able to put it together – when I could get down to a booth and get my photo shot. I should have tried harder, but time slips.
Anyway, last weekend, on our Stop and Photograph the Roses bike ride, we ran across one of the Inside Out installations. It’s been up a while and it getting long in the tooth, the paper tearing and falling off the wall, the photos fading, time is taking its toll.
Somehow, I liked it even better that way.
Amanda Popken of Dallas Cycle Style
Chris Curnutt of Biking in Dallas
Photo taken during the Stop and Photograph the Roses bicycle ride.
Magnolia Hotel Building (Pegasus) and Joule Hotel (pool)
Dallas, Texas
Magnolia Hotel (Pegasus) and Joule Hotel (pool)
Dallas, Texas
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
Water Tower Mural
Deep Ellum
Dallas, Texas
You could see the real water tower from the mural. It’s the little thing in the bottom right of the photo. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the light – or the space to use a telephoto – so you can’t see both very well.
No matter, here’s the real thing, from a blog entry almost three years old.
An old water tower rises above Deep Ellum.
Clover Street, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
This looks like a back alley somewhere, but it is actually a street – with a name and signs and everything. It is Clover Street, in Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas.
Although it is little known outside Dallas, Deep Ellum has a long and illustrious, often infamous, history. The rise and development of today’s music owes as much to Deep Ellum as it does to New Orleans, Chicago, California, or Nashville.
Riding my bicycle down Clover Street I see these old steel rails rise up for a couple blocks before disappearing back below the tarmac and concrete. What story do they tell? Was there a streetcar line running down a narrow lane? Or were the buildings factories and the rail line built to bring in raw materials and to haul out product?
That was probably it. Looking at Googlemaps, Clover starts at Trunk Avenue (a railroad name, of course), runs down and ends behind the Adams Hats Lofts. These are urban living spaces converted from an old hat company. But the building’s original use, built in 1914, was one of Henry Ford’s original assembly plants for the Model T.
So you can imagine trainloads of parts going down that line a hundred years ago, and completed automobiles rolling back out to all over everywhere. These would be any color you wanted… as long as it was black.
Bill Chance 