Pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.
—-Evelyn Waugh
John Brough Miller, Oblique Sweep, Frisco, Texas
Tag Archives: Texas
Rider
“What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them.”
—-Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Shawnee Trail Sculpture, Central Park, Frisco Texas, bronze by Anita Pauwels
“But there were two things they agreed upon wholly and that were never spoken and that was that God had put horses on earth to work cattle and that other than cattle there was no wealth proper to a man.”
—-Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Shawnee Trail, by Anita Pauwels, Frisco, Texas
“He found he was breathing in rhythm with the horse as if some part of the horse were within him breathing and then he descended into some deeper collusion for which he had not even a name.”
“…and in his sleep he dreamt of horses and the horses in his dream moved gravely among the tilted stones like horses come upon an antique site where some ordering of the world had failed and if anything had been written on the stones the weathers had taken it away again and the horses were wary and moved with great circumspection carrying in their blood as they did the recollection of this and other places where horses once had been and would be again. Finally what he saw in his dream was that the order in the horse’s heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no rain could erase it.”
“He thought the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.”
—-Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Gateway
I find myself working towards an art which includes a spiritual dimension. I have become increasingly aware of art as a dialogue between matter and spirit. In recent works, I have emphasized myth, symbol and dream to evoke an atmosphere in which the sculpture and its environment speak to the subconscious to make the observer aware of the dreamlike nature of life, of which we all are part.
—-Hans Van de Bovenkamp
Not too far, not very far at all, from the pile of steel boxes I wrote about yesterday, is the Arapaho DART station with another sculpture. This is a good one, by a famous sculptor, Hans Van de Bovenkamp, that you have never seen.
I’ve seen it, though. Richardson’s Central Trail – a hike-and-bike strip of concrete that runs through the city, parallel to the DART tracks and Highway 75, now being extended to the south – goes right by it. Otherwise, commuters on the bus or train never get more than a glimpse. It is exposed to the traffic going by on Greenville Avenue – but everyone is driving too fast to notice.
I didn’t look too hard and didn’t see a label or plaque. This is a public sculpture, though, so there is information on the internet. The sculpture is called Gateway, and, as I’ve said is by Hans Van de Bovenkamp. It’s painted aluminum (begining to fade a bit – might need a recoat) and is a variation of a theme of Bovenkamp – there is a bigger version in Oklahoma City.
The sculpture “Gateway” at the Arapaho DART station, Richardson, Texas.
A DART train pulls in. Arapaho Station, Gateway Sculpture
Gateway, by Hans Van de Bovenkamp
Gateway, by Hans Van de Bovenkamp, Richardson, Texas
Gateway sculpture and commuter bike
Steel Boxes
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.
Short Story Day Twenty Four – Red Nails
24 Red Nails (Conan the Barbarian)
Robert E Howard
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32759
This is day Twenty-four of my Month of Short Stories – a story a day for June.
Nearly four years ago, WEIRD TALES published a story called “The Phoenix on the Sword,” built around a barbarian adventurer named Conan, who had become king of a country by sheer force of valor and brute strength. The author of that story was Robert E. Howard, who was already a favorite with the readers of this magazine for his stories of Solomon Kane, the dour English Puritan and redresser of wrongs. The stories about Conan were speedily acclaimed by our readers, and the barbarian’s weird adventures became immensely popular. The story presented herewith is one of the most powerful and eery weird tales yet written about Conan. We commend this story to you, for we know you will enjoy it through and through.
—-From Weird Tales, 1936
A dozen years ago, in February of 2001, I had just finished up a solo camping trip to Big Bend way out in far west Texas. I had a long drive back to the Metroplex, one I had made before. This time, however, I had picked a different route back, one that was slightly longer than usual.
Instead of going north to Interstate 20 and taking it back, I caught 67 through San Angelo and on to Brownwood, then north to the little hamlet of Cross Plains. Once I made it to that small town, I followed a little map that I had scribbled to a tiny house on the west side of town. I stopped, looked at the nondescript wood frame dwelling for a minute, then went back to my car and drove the rest of the way home.
I had wanted to see that house because of the person that lived in it in the 1930s – it was the childhood home, and the place he committed suicide, of Robert E Howard. Even though it looked exactly like a million other old farmhouses all across the Great Plains – I wanted to see this one… to see it, and nothing more.
Like anyone that has been a voracious reader for almost half a century now, I have read my fair share of pulp. Mostly devoured in the form of cheap paperback reprints, I was familiar with Conan, and with Robert E Howard… along with the other writers of depression-era fantastic, gothic, and strange tales – plus their imitators that have continued the tradition still.
But the specific incident that lead me to my stop in Cross Plains had occurred on a cult movie night at the Dallas Museum of Art. I had seen that they were showing a film I had never seen before – The Whole Wide World – an elegiac story of Robert E Howard (played by Vincent D’Onofrio) and his relationship with a girl named Novalyne Price (Renée Zellweger, in one of her first roles).
It was an amazing film and one that almost nobody had seen. It was so representative of the writing life, the desire for creativity and expression, the sad doomed love story, and the insane dreamer pounding out madness for pennies a word. Even the evocation of rural Texas in the depression felt true and fascinating. The representative from the distribution company came out and thanked everyone for seeing it – he said, “We are so proud of this movie and want as many folks as possible to see the film.” Now it’s more available… you should take a look.
I found out that it was based on a memoir by Novalene Price – called One Who Walked Alone – which hadn’t sold many copies. I ordered it from Amazon and (though it really wasn’t particularly well-written) enjoyed it thoroughly.
So here’s a pulp novella from Robert E Howard, Red Nails. Don’t think of Arnold and his movie when you read it… think of the doomed crazy boy hammering away in the back of that little farm house in that little town in Texas… fighting back his demons the only way he can – with a typewriter.
“Five dead dogs!” exclaimed Techotl, his flaming eyes reflecting a ghastly exultation. “Five slain! Five crimson nails for the black pillar! The gods of blood be thanked!”
He lifted quivering hands on high, and then, with the face of a fiend, he spat on the corpses and stamped on their faces, dancing in his ghoulish glee. His recent allies eyed him in amazement, and Conan asked, in the Aquilonian tongue: “Who is this madman?”
Valeria shrugged her shoulders.
“He says his name’s Techotl. From his babblings I gather that his people live at one end of this crazy city, and these others at the other end. Maybe we’d better go with him. He seems friendly, and it’s easy to see that the other clan isn’t.”
—-Red Nails, by Robert E Howard
Short Story day Ten – The Crawling Sky
10 – The Crawling Sky
Joe R Lansdale
http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/spring_2011/fiction_the_crawling_sky_by_joe_r._lansdale/
This is day Ten of my Month of Short Stories – a story a day for June.
And now for something completely different….
After a few days of reading the crème of the postmodern, plotless, postmodern musing crop – we dive headfirst into that dreaded pool of purposeful words – the world of genre fiction.
I have very mixed feelings about the genres. I think it’s a mistake to set out to write a certain genre – especially if you are doing that because you have read somewhere that that is what is selling today. Your work will come out flat and unoriginal, plus I can’t imagine that it will do much to satisfy the ravenous monster in your brain that can only be fed by bleeding heartfelt words out onto the page (and if you don’t have a ravenous monster in your brain – why are you writing? There are better ways to spend your brief span upon this plane).
On the other hand, what if the truthful writing that spills out from your subconscious through your gray matter down your arms and out your fingertips… what if it simply happens to fit a certain genre? Well then, good for you.
When you read the horror fiction spilled out by Joe R. Lansdale, you can’t help but think that he was destined to write this – he has no real choice. I feel for him.
I’m not sure where I first heard of Joe R. Lansdale – though I’m fairly sure I was attracted to his writing because he is a native Texan (East Texas Piney Woods – to be exact). I do remember the first thing I read – an amazingly horrific little tale called, “God of the Razor,” and yes, it was all that.
Now, he doesn’t write only horror – not by a long shot. He is probably best known for his Hap and Leonard series of thriller/mystery/East Texas books. He is a serious student and teacher of the martial arts. One theme that runs through his books is his hatred of racism – I did read an excellent novel called A Fine Dark Line that deals with small town life and a drive in movie theater.
If you would like to try some of his work, his website has a section where he posts a new piece every week.
One of his short novels was adapted into the very entertaining movie Bubba Ho-Tep which finds Elvis alive and living in a retirement home with JFK (after the assassination “attempt” they replaced his brain with a “sack of sand” and dyed him “all over”). The two join forces to fight an evil cowboy mummy that is preying on the residents.
So that brings us to today’s selection, The Crawling Sky. It’s a mashup between a pseudo Western – East Texas Hillbilly Noir (I know there are no “hillbillys” in East Texas – there aren’t even any hills – but you know what I mean) intersecting with a Lovecraftian villian. Its hero is Jebediah Mercer, a preacher that has fallen from the faith and is wandering the west, fighting evil from beyond. The Reverend Mercer finds himself in Wood Tick, Texas – a town where all the women are weak, the men are ugly (the sheriff has a goiter slung in a dirty bag) and all the children are below average. After the world’s worst meal, he rescues a chained down prisoner from being stoned by the kids… and things go downhill from there.
The sky isn’t the only thing that’s crawling.
I love the Lovecraft style evil. It fits with my idea of a membrane between our ordinary life and the horrible void beyond. These stories are a little more literal than most in what can happen when this border is opened and crossed.
“There are monsters on the other side of the veil, Norville. A place you and I can’t see. These things want out. Books like this contain spells to free them, and sometimes the people who possess the book want to set them free for rewards. Someone has already set one of them free.”
“The sucking thing?”
“Correct,” the Reverend said, shaking the book. “Look at the pages. See? The words and images on the pages are hand printed. The pages, feel them.”
Norville used his thumb and finger to feel.
“It’s cloth.”
“Flesh. Human flesh is what the book says.”
—-From The Crawling Sky, by Joe R. Lansdale
Bullsnake
I wanted to get in a (relative… for me) long bike ride today. I took my commuter bike and loaded it up with my Kindle, my camera, notebooks and pens, plus some extra water. My idea was to ride a bit, rest and read and then ride some more. I put together a route that wound through Garland, back across town to the Pearl Cup coffeehouse, then back home.
Nick is home and he rode with me east into Garland, then as we cut our way back he turned off and took the Owens Trail home. I was feeling a little off and decided I was getting overheated. It’s the first day over 90 – which soon won’t be very hot, but I haven’t acclimated to it yet – plus it’s very humid. So I hung out in a shade structure next to the athletic fields – drank some water and read a short story. Within a few minutes I felt a lot better.
I enjoyed talking sports with some guys that showed up with a truck full of coolers and grills that were setting up for an all-African soccer tournament later in the day. I took off, dropped down into the Spring Creek Natural Area and then under the highway to the Canyon Creek neighborhood.
The Pearl Cup has finally put a sign up and built a bike rack in front. Their mocha coffee had some nice latte art and plenty of caffeine and sugar. It was cool inside and I settled in with my Kindle to rest a bit.
A couple nights ago I finished a novel that I had found recommended in an article about the best books of this century – The True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey. It was a very well written, interesting book… and I’m glad I read it, but it didn’t speak to me in any personal way. Now that it is finished, I’m working on a huge collection of Joyce Carol Oates stories I carry on my Kindle – eleven new ones and more than two dozen classic stories from a forty year period. It’s called High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006.
Her writing resonates with me. As I read her harrowing, dark short fiction, my mind fills with ideas that I will have to write out. I fill pages in my Moleskine with short story ideas. Her writing shares with me the desire to explore the too-thin membrane between our illusion-filled world and the horrific void beyond.
So I drank my coffee drink and a dozen glasses of iced water, read some stories, and wrote some pages. Then I took off, riding back to the thick creekbottom woods of the Spring Creek Natural Area, did a lap of the loop trail, and plopped down on a favorite bench to crank through another story.
It happened to be a well-known story that I was familiar with – had read a couple times before. It was “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” (read it here for yourself). I hesitate to call it one of my favorite short stories… though I have to call it that – because there is no other word that fits. It is simply too disturbing to embrace fully. But it is a work of genius.
Though nothing explicitly bad happens in the tale – there is no doubt that the world has ended for poor Connie. So much in the story is ambiguous and subtly horrific. I was reading slowly, carefully, and paying complete attention to the words splashed across the Eink display. In the corner of my eye I saw a jogger going by… then he stopped and I heard a loud “Oh!”
I looked up.
“Don’t you see it?”
“What?”
“There, right there.”
I looked carefully where he was pointing, on the concrete trail right in front of where he was standing. There it was, a snake. A big snake.
I stood up and we looked at it carefully (from a safe distance).
“I think it’s a bullsnake,” I said.
“Here, I’ll Wikipedia it,” the jogger said, pulling out his iPhone. “It looks like the right pattern.”
I have seen bullsnakes before. In seventh grade we had one in biology class. I have no real fear of snakes that I have seen (as opposed to snakes I haven’t seen, which scare me) so I would rush my work and play with the snake. One day I wasn’t paying close enough attention and the thing managed to slip through my collar at the back of my neck, slithering under my shirt and winding around my chest. A friend of mind jumped behind me and managed to grab the tip of its tail – then pull the thing out.
Another day, I moved my hand into its aquarium cage too fast and the bull snake reared back and struck at me. It was harmless, but it scared me – I was a lot more careful after that.
Today, the jogger and I watched the snake crawl through the clearing and across the trail. If I moved too close it would rear like it was going to strike and I’d jump back. It was slender but at least six feet long – reaching pretty much across the concrete trail. The jogger finally decided to move on.
I sat down and started reading again, keeping one eye on the snake as it slowly moved toward the thick woods. A family came across the bridge and saw the snake. The father, riding an expensive, fully suspended mountain bike stopped, and then went after his small son – who was on a little bike with training wheels and went straight for the snake. He had no fear.
The mother followed along behind, walking a small dog. She veered way off the path, walking the dog through the thick knee-high scrub and weeds to stay far away from the snake. So she was afraid of the snake she saw, and then exposed herself to the snakes (that are undoubtedly there) that she couldn’t see.
Finally the snake reached the woods and disappeared in an instant. I finished the story – somehow the presence of the snake added to the darkness and terrible foreboding of the story. The snakes are there, whether you know it or not – sometimes they come out… and remind you of what is waiting, hidden, behind the membrane of illusion.
I think this is a bullsnake.
Bullsnake
Ready Player One
Old School Video game inspired graffiti, Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
I was looking through the READ (that’s as “red” not “reed”) folder on my Kindle and also in my Goodreads list at the books I’ve cranked through recently. After some thought I decided to give a bit of opinion on some of them… in case you might be interested (or interested in avoiding them).
Picking books to read is always a difficult and tricky proposition. I am not a particularly fast reader (especially now that my eyes and brain are getting old and worn out) so to commit to a novel is an investment of a good bit of precious time. That said, I do love the feeling of perusing a list on the Kindle or a shelf of paper and deciding which tome to dive into next.
One feature that is always attractive are those books that have a movie deal done. I always like the read the book first (the book is always better, isn’t it?) and that way, when the film is flickering there in the dark, I can go if I want to – rather than giving the pathetic excuse, “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see that until I get a ’round2 reading the novel.” Sad.
But sometimes it leads me down a good path. If some Hollywood Icon is ready to plop down a few million dollars on a story… doesn’t that mean it might be good? Of course not, but it’s a nice thought.
So somehow I stumbled across a story about a book called Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and the fact that it is about to be filmed. I’m not now and have never been a gamer, but was looking for some lightish fiction – something fun and not too straining – and this one seemed to fit the bill. Plus, it was on sale.
And it was what it promised. A fast moving story – more than a little on the predictable side, but I did care about the characters… and that’s the important part.
I’m late to the party on this book, so bear with me – also, I don’t like to put spoilers in my reviews, so everything I write about will be obvious in the first few pages.
Ready Player One is set in a world that is similar to The Matrix. War and Pollution have pretty much destroyed the planet and the survivors spend most of their time in a virtual world, hooked up to a powerful computer network, living out artificial lives that are usually more pleasant and interesting than their real ones. It is different from The Matrix in that this is voluntary and everyone knows what is going on… though the border between real and virtual does get a little hazy now and then.
One unanswered question is that how much is the dystopian future caused by the presence of this virtual world – in other words… if everyone didn’t have this escape would they get off their butts and make the earth a better place to live?
Within this virtual world the founder of the network has created a fiendishly difficult game – a puzzle – a scavenger hunt – and the first person to solve the riddle through to the end will gain the most valuable prize imaginable – the complete ownership and control of the virtual system. He or she will become a living god.
The plot proceeds from this premise… pretty much in the way you think it does. My biggest complaint is the basic story – which is a classic teenaged fantasy fulfillment tale. I also wasn’t bowled over by the gaming elements of the story… it’s simply not my thing.
What I really did enjoy were the puzzle elements themselves. The game master was only a little younger than me and he based all the games, clues, and Easter Eggs in the virtual world on 1980’s pop culture trivia. A lot of fun and a lot of guilty memories for me.
So, if you are looking for a fun and exciting read, not too deep in philosophy or moral paradox, and steeped in Brat Pack Movie, New Age Music, and early computing trivia… then this is your man.
Now I’m ready for the film.
Dancers MM – Texas Sculpture Park
I had some time and it was a gorgeous Texas spring day. I also had an empty digital memory card and a fully charged camera battery.
Looking around the web I found a link to an office park up in Frisco that had a cool looking sculpture garden in it and a number of other artworks spread around. So off it was up the busy tollroads to see what there was to see.
I’m a sucker for sculpture and there was a lot of it. A couple hours and about two miles of walking later my memory card was full. There were a few sculptures left, so I suppose I’ll have to go back sometime later. In the meantime, I should be able to get a few blog entries out of this.
I’ve been working on photo manipulation with my new Wacom Tablet and a copy of Corel Painter – please indulge my learning curve.
At the entrance was a large sculpture by Jerry Daniel – Dancers MM, 2000 concrete, steel – two enormous dancers welcoming cars off the highway and into the park.
Dancers MM, Jerry Daniel, Frisco, Texas
Dancers MM, Jerry Daniel, Frisco, Texas
Dancers MM, Jerry Daniel, Frisco, Texas
Painting a Mural
Denton, Texas. Denton Arts and Jazz Festival.
The URL on their T-Shirts is www.Cityofdenton/watershed
Bill Chance 