What happened was
that the owner of the15-year old "fuck luxury" T-shirt (aka, the state-recognized roommate) said, most uncharacteristically, "hey! Let's go to that Indian wedding sari fashion show at Madison Square Garden! So we paid our money to the ticket vendor ("who's getting married?" "we're already married." "then why you going to look at some damn dresses? You're crazy!")
And lo, the shiny madness.
posted by LauraB 1:19 PM
posted by LauraB 1:10 PM
Overdue Folly:
At first it seemed The Cyclist would be a silly read,
written straight through, in couplet form, was a thing no one would need.
'Tis a book about a terrorist, riding on his on a bike;
Despite more than a few pecadillos, he's a rather comic type,
with a gustatory penchant for falafel, and the like.
It's ambitious and mysterious, and written pretty tight.
That Viken Berberian is clever's really not in doubt.
This his first novel's good, and his chops've got clout.
posted by LauraB 12:56 PM
The tower of Babel has long interested me in its confluence of architecture, language, culture, and archeology (my 4 favorites after J-Bru, (mi esposo). But I was unprepared for the weebol-wobble stylings of the good - or goofy - Reverend. God is especially nicely portrayed.
posted by LauraB 2:34 PM
Phoenixish
God bless architecture, color, the future, possibility, art, invention, collaboration, and genius. It is a tonic to linger at the NY Times Magazine article that Hubert Muschamp put together with the usual suspects of American contemporary architecture. But the thing is, it's great. It's perfect. The idea is to sink the West Street Highway and create a residential / commercial corridor instead of that godawful "promenade" that Bayer Blinder put out. This is an extraordinarily simple and elegant planning move: it frees up the pressure to build on ground zero, because you create a cover over the highway that can be built on. You ease congestion downtown. You link downtown with midtown. You get a better mix of typology with new housing, schools, senior centers, hotels, etc - which will help mitigate the inevitable reality that the financial services industry will not continue to support Lower Manhattan (as the exchange leaves and brokers set up shop in Westchester, Connecticut, and Europe). It's just the right thing to do.
Oh, okay, go ahead and say it: well, how much is all that gonna cost, then. Dammit! Maybe 2bil. You know it'll be ultimately cost more - my guess is 4.5 billion. Much cheaper than the Pyramids, adjusting for inflation.
And the designs for the individual buildings - dammit, they're fantastic! Believe me, I was prepared to be all cynical and critical when I saw Muschamp's list - I've worked for or studied under a few of the architects on the list, and have often thought "oh, that person's all washed up." But they put their hearts and intellects into it, fully, and it shows. Of course any architect with a conscience and a scintilla of talent would do the same, but they're not in the article so hey. It's just great to have a bounty of richness of imagination for a change.
Okay then, since it's my blog, here's my faves: Rem Koolhaus and David Wood's inverted skyscrapers, all weird and beautiful and structurally amazing. Amazingly timeless and elegant. Harry Cobb's (!) broadcast tower - it would be the tallest structure in the world (we could use that) but unoccupied (good for the security nuts who, and the new building regulations that will prevent occupants in buildings over a certain height.) It would climb up, lacy-like, along crooked axes and converge in a sort of reversal of entasis. Nice work, Harry! Or should I credit Guy Nordenson? Anyway, what else is good: TEN/Arquetectos' crazy housing scheme is totally flexible and cool - love those colorful balconies. Richard Meier's school leaves me cold, but it's tasteful and classy, and a school is a good idea there.
Oh sure, the critics are all like "WTF?" when they look at Eisenmann's crumply bits, and Muschamp didn't do such a great job of defending it, and the new towers look like bowling pins, but I regard these as schematic placeholders that stand mean "really kick-ass bold structural proposition here, suitably architected and planned."
My only criticism of the whole thing is that Muschamp didn't ask either Santiago Calatrava or my own fine self to design a pedestrian bridge - yes, an aggresively, ambitiously long bridge across the whole harbor! - from New Jersey to the West Side. Not like that flimsy little piece of eye candy they built in London, I mean a seriously Italo Calvino-esque ribbon of landscape that connects Lower Manhattan - and the world - with Mainland USA. Let the mountain come to Mohammed.
posted by LauraB 6:56 PM