Third Floor, Corner Unit

haircut

2010-09-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

unemployed, i went downtown
for a thirty-two dollar haircut
stopped into nordstrom to use the men's room
my former boss was there, browsing, waiting for a table at the cafe
he looked right through me then waved at a shirt-folding clerk

dream

2009-10-14T22:08:00.001-07:00

had a dream about my ex-boss: his gray hair was grown out to a fashionable length and dyed mostly black; he had big muscles. he was making everyone fill out a scantron form that would determine who would be in the next round of layoffs; during the assessment i left the room to get some water and there he was sleeping peacefully in a huge bed...

All the action is elsewhere...

2009-06-15T01:26:00.001-07:00

I've been pouring my blogging energy into the People's Parking Lot these days so sorry I haven't been updating this dead zone. Real quick though, I'm almost done with David Foster Wallace's first novel, The Broom of the System. I believe this is book 245 for the year but who's counting, right?

I'm also neck deep in Bachelard's The Poetics of Space and Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence, the latter of which everyone with an interest in cultural history should read. It's a 900 or so page tome but it's worth it, at least from my vantage point (about 200 pages in).

But, seriously, the real action is on the People's Parking Lot

Another Video

2009-05-27T15:25:00.001-07:00

Muckraking

2009-04-29T06:46:00.000-07:00

Books 10-12

2009-04-16T01:08:00.000-07:00

I just realized that I shorted myself a book...

Book 10 should have been number 8. The title is Cradle to Cradle and it's a sort of "pop" environmentalism/consumerism book that I read for class. I consider it "pop" as opposed to academic because it is meant for the general reader, which is, in this case, a good thing. The book itself is waterproof and made from a synthetic material (no trees!) that can be recycled as a plastic. The content of the book pushes for a sort of harmony between industry and the environment that could lead to eco-friendly consumers' paradise. And while I don't necessarily condone such a result, I do agree with many of their assertions. For example, they urge manufacturers to consider not only what goes into a product but how the used product is disposed/recycled/returned to the earth. Seems easy enough, right?

Books 11 and 12 were Maurice Merleau-Ponty's The World of Perception and Saul Bellow's first novel, Dangling Man. The former is a transcript of a series of M-P's lectures that were broadcast on French radio in 1948. He's a phenomenologist and argues for a return to understanding the world through our senses rather than depending on science to describe the essence of things. Bellow's book relates to M-P in that it is written as a journal of a man who is out of work and waiting to be drafted into the army during WWII (hence the use of the word "dangling"). The protagonist, Joseph, is very much aware of the world around him and is constantly searching out the meaning of his existence, much like Roquentin in Sartre's Nausea.

I previously wrote that these sorts of tales don't sit well when one is in my current state of "waiting," but I take it back after reading Bellow. As always, he connects to a world that I know and don't know; a time and place (early mid-century Chicago) that I miss even having never experienced it. The feelings of his 28 year-old narrator are familiar and the depth of his (protagonist/author) knowledge make me envious.

At this pace I may get back on track by the end of the month. As always, we'll see.

Wild Man!

2009-04-09T13:18:00.001-07:00

So, when my son asks how he responded to changing out of his hospital clothes and into civilian attire, I'm going to show him this photo.

As you probably know if you're reading my site, this is Saul William; he was born on Monday, 4/6/09, at 8:46 PM, and tipped the scale at almost 9 lbs. He trimmed down to 8 lbs, 11 oz by day two but is currently eating about every hour and a half, in an attempt to pack the pounds on. We'll get him in the gym next week to pack on some lean muscle.

So far his likes include mama and sleeping; he doesn't care to be swaddled -- he responds via kicking and punching -- nor does he like to be changed. His first night, he seemed enamored with the strip of light coming from the hospital bathroom and I feel like he's always looking at he pictures on the wall; of course this means that he is fascinated with light and color and will therefore be a painter. Similarly, his hand movements evoke images of Leonard Bernstein, so maybe conducting will be the avenue he pursues?

Regardless of his career path, I'm going to do all I can to make sure he's caring and open-minded, critical and well-rounded, friendly, loving, well-mannered, gentle, strong, honest, fun-loving, interested, passionate, idealistic, and that he likes good music. On that note, his first CD is lullaby versions of Radiohead.

No baby yet

2009-04-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

He's due today but I doubt he'll be on time...

More as developments develop.

I finished book nine: Sartre's Nausea. I don't recommend reading this when you're bored and don't have much to do. Questions about existence and boredom and life don't sit so well when you're just, um, waiting.

On that (waiting) note, I do have a job of sorts, that starts in October. Along with my admission to PhD in the Built Environment program, I will be working as a TA for the architectural history sequence that three-year architecture grad students take. Currently, I have no substantial knowledge on the subject but do have ample time to learn it. Wish me luck.

In preparation for my new life as a student, I have many books to read. Visit my new Amazon wish list here.

18 more people from my previous office were laid off yesterday. I believe that brings the 2009 total to 41, which is about a third of the 2008 workforce. It has been almost three months since I was laid off but for some reason I still care.

Neglect

2009-03-15T21:11:00.001-07:00

Man, I've let this blog go to shit...

But now that my class is over maybe I can resurrect it. My term paper is here for all of those interested in mass production and sense of place.

On to books: I've managed to finish three others in the last few weeks.

Le Corbusier, The Decorative Art of Today
Christian Norberg-Schulz, Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture
Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden

That brings me to eight for the year. Right now I'm reading Murakami's Underground and The Organization Man. It's doubtful that I'll be taking a class during the spring quarter so I'll finish these two and probably get in to some baby books. I've got some other big plans though, like Gore Vidal and David Foster Wallace (did you read that article about him in the last New Yorker? You should.)

Watchin' movies too. Just saw "Down by Law" and "To Die For."

Listening to the new Animal Collective.

Volunteered at the Seattle Rep the other night and have two tickets to see Harold Pinter's "Betrayal." My volunteering at Seattle Arts and Lectures has been going alright too. I may go see Scott Simon Wednesday night, gratis.

49-50/365

2009-02-18T23:42:00.000-08:00

Calder's Flamingo in Chicago (with the Sears Tower in the background). I took this in November, 2007 and was reminded by my post of his work a few days ago.

Also from Chicago on that same trip, my attempt to reproduce Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album cover, with a photo of Marina City.

45-48/365

2009-02-18T23:24:00.000-08:00

For our two-year anniversary, we picked up a cake from Morfey's, the same bakery that made our wedding cake. We went with the Champagne Champagne option, that is, champagne cake with champagne frosting. It was delicious. And if you need an economic incentive, get this: if you buy a wedding cake from them, you get a significant discount on cakes that you buy later.

A pair of tulips from Risa's baby shower.

Risa at the beginning of week 33, in front of bookshelves #1 and #2 (#3, #4 and #5 are hidden from view).

Olympic Sculpture Park. For all you Rocky fans, I believe Calder's Eagle statue in the background used to stand atop the Philadelphia Art Museum steps before it came west.

Losing My Edge

2009-02-17T21:04:00.001-08:00

I've never really listened to LCD Soundsystem but I heard this song today and thought it was pretty cool.

Losing My Edge

Yeah, I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
The kids are coming up from behind.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids from France and from London.
But I was there.

I was there in 1968.
I was there at the first Can show in Cologne.
I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps I hear when they get on the decks.
I'm losing my edge to the Internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1962 to 1978.
I'm losing my edge.

To all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin.
I'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.

But I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge, but I was there.
I was there.
But I was there.

I'm losing my edge.
I'm losing my edge.
I can hear the footsteps every night on the decks.
But I was there.
I was there in 1974 at the first Suicide practices in a loft in New York City.
I was working on the organ sounds with much patience.
I was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band.
I told him, "Don't do it that way. You'll never make a dime."
I was there.
I was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids.
I played it at CBGB's.
Everybody thought I was crazy.
We all know.
I was there.
I was there.
I've never been wrong.

I used to work in the record store.
I had everything before anyone.
I was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan.
I was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes.
I woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988.

But I'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent.
And they're actually really, really nice.

I'm losing my edge.

I heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody. Every great song by the Beach Boys. All the underground hits. All the Modern Lovers tracks. I heard you have a vinyl of every Niagra record on German import. I heard that you have a white label of every seminal Detroit techno hit - 1985, '86, '87. I heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s.

I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record.

I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables.
I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.

I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know.

But have you seen my records? This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, the Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra,

Joy Division, Lower 48, the Association, Sun Ra,
Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc,

Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force ("just hit me"!), Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil! Scott! Heron!, the Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines, the Swans, the Soft Cell, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics.

You don't know what you really want. (x15)

39-44/365

2009-02-13T23:42:00.000-08:00

I thought a little red would be appropriate for both my color search and the upcoming "holiday."

38/365

2009-02-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

I tried to post this Saturday but evidently my site has the characteristics of a "spam blog," and was shut down for review by the blogger crew. I'm guessing it's all the photos that are often accompanied by not much more than a link.

Catch-up photos and book number six coming soon.

37/365

2009-02-06T22:41:00.000-08:00

36/365

2009-02-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

35/365

2009-02-04T22:11:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to post these side by side but the blog template is not really conducive to such a layout. I always snicker at the Ferrari and Maserati dealership at 12th and Madison but, upon biking past it tonight, I thought of the Hopper painting below (he has a show at SAM that runs until March 1, 2009).

I believe it's worth thinking about the difference between the 2009 photo and the 1942 painting, keeping in mind for whom/what we build cities. Do we build for people or cars?

Though Seattle kowtows to drivers 99% of the time, some headway is being made for those moving about the city by their own power. For example, I used one of the new bike corrals this morning in front of Cafe Presse. Where before only one car could park, there is now room for eight or nine bikes.

34/365

2009-02-04T22:09:00.000-08:00

Here's Risa at almost 32 weeks!

32 and 33/365

2009-02-03T23:30:00.000-08:00

Slipping

2009-02-02T22:34:00.000-08:00

I know, I'm slipping with the photos. I've received scores of emails from infuriated readers. I apologize: this weekend was spent learning about babies and then today I was penning my latest masterpiece, soon to be posted here. I'll attempt to catch up with a beautiful trifecta tomorrow.

As for other developments, there are a few.

1. I am still unemployed but am occupying myself with my classwork, puppy-sitting once a week and looking for volunteer gigs. I have already ushered at On the Boards once and have another assignment there later this month, as well as two at the Seattle Rep in the coming months. I also applied to be an office assistant at Seattle Arts and Lectures. We'll see how that goes.

2. I have recently submitted five applications to PhD programs around the country. The schools, listed in descending order of what I consider to be my odds of admission, are:

-- University of Washington (70-30)
-- University of Wisconsin (50-50)
-- University of Illinois (50-50)
-- Temple (50-50)
-- Columbia (10-90)

3. Economic stimulus? How about forgiving student loans. Click here to sign the petition.

31/365

2009-01-31T22:18:00.000-08:00

The moon and Venus at twilight, as seen earlier this evening from Bremerton, WA.

30/365

2009-01-30T22:48:00.001-08:00

29/365

2009-01-29T21:58:00.000-08:00

Pedestrian trail through the Olmsted-designed Interlaken Park on Capitol Hill, where people ignore greetings of "hello" and "good morning." The Seattle Freeze is, evidently, in full effect.

28/365

2009-01-29T00:13:00.000-08:00

27/365

2009-01-27T21:24:00.000-08:00

Back in 2003 or 2004, I picked up this book and read the back cover in the Barnes and Noble on Colorado Boulevard in Denver. I had just moved there and had lots of spare time (read: no friends) so I'd go to the bookstore to get a cup of coffee and read The New Yorker. I didn't buy the book but every once in a while the cover pops into my head and I try to remember the title.

Then, today, my professor recommended I read something by Edward Casey. I typed his name into the online library catalog and up this popped, a good five years later, with the same lonesome cover drawing me in. If you're looking for me, I'll be in the Architecture library at UW tomorrow morning, picking this gem up.

26/365

2009-01-26T22:25:00.001-08:00

A simple twenty-dollar bill: who knew it could make for such an interesting evening.

As I posted yesterday, we have switched to a cash system. In keeping with that decision, I ran over to Madison Market tonight to pick up a few items for dinner and Risa's lunch tomorrow, and paid with cash (a twenty and two ones). A few hours later, while considering doing laundry and lamenting over the fact that we are burning through our cash, I reached into my wallet to find that I only had one twenty remaining! I knew that last night I had three and actually had photographic proof. What happened?

I thought and though about where I may have spent it but knew I didn't. I thought that maybe it stuck to that other one at the grocery store; I knew it was a long shot but, in this economy, I had to ask. I went over to the store and they said they'd call when they closed out that register. We all kind of laughed at the prospect of their finding my bill.

Lo and behold, about twenty minutes ago the call came. Sure enough, that drawer was twenty bucks over.

Book Five

2009-01-26T01:30:00.000-08:00

As I've begun to read much more academic writing, I'm developing the "active reading" habit of commenting on the pages, making it interactive. Often, and probably because I don't know any better, I tend to agree with the author so most of my marks are underlines, circles, or even exclamation points. I pen little notes in the margins so that when I come back, I can see what I was thinking at a particular time. However, whilst reading Le Corbusier's The City of To-Morrow and its Planning, which I just finished, I found myself writing things like "jackass", "fool" and "no!!"

I'd often heard his ideas for urban planning described as "skyscrapers in the park," which, in itself, didn't sound all that horrific to me. In fact, when thinking about density and open space in urban areas, it actually sounds okay (even though I became a dissenter after realizing that this would be death of the vibrant urban streetscape that makes cities exciting). But when this idea is coupled with arterial roads that are 400 feet wide and slice through existing cities, moving car traffic rapidly throughout, I lose all interest and start looking for rotten tomatoes to hurl.

Sure, his infrastructure plan calls for subways and commuter rail -- which sound a little better -- but this focus on cars as the future turns my stomach (and reminds me of a ridiculous fucking decision on the future of auto traffic in Seattle). In Corbu's defense, he did write his book 1925, when cars seemed like a pretty good idea, but the damage his ideas have done seems irreparable (Aurora Boulevard and I-5 slicing through Seattle both appear to be inspired by his writing).

The wonderful Jane Jacobs blames him (and Ebenzer Howard, the father of the 'burbs) for the destruction wrought on American cities and, so far, I think she's right.

I do agree with one of Corbu's ideas though: that people should live in buildings that are at a human scale and leave the skyscrapers for office space (if we're going to build them at all). He envisions housing blocks of six stories that are surrounded by open space, with trees aplenty, and towering skyscrapers spaced out in the distance beyond...I wouldn't say this is the answer, but the human scale part and the access to some open space sounds good.

I'll be writing a more academic version of this criticism tomorrow. I'll post it on my other site when it is finished.

See below for Corbu's vision of a modern Paris.

25/365

2009-01-25T23:09:00.001-08:00

Here you see our Sunday night dinner (homemade veggie pizzas and salad) alongside the remainder of our budget for the week ($71 and change). As of today we are operating on a cash-only system in an effort to curb superfluous spending. Though we can afford to spend a little more, the goal for this week is $100 (though we did have a $30 brunch this morning, which was delicious and bacon-y, and went on a debit card).

This challenge is a little more daunting since we mostly shop at the Madison Market (a community-owned natural foods joint), which is a bit more expensive than Safeway. I'm holding strong to this store but the budget may force some of the shopping elsewhere.

Book #4

2009-01-24T22:32:00.001-08:00

I just finished Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for book four of the the year. It's part sci-fi-comic-nerd, part Gabriel Garcia Marquez mystical realism, part Bildungsroman, all viewed from the point of view of a Dominican living in Jersey. Much narrator's dialogue will soon come across as dated (it's already distant for me) but he's learned and sincere and pulls you in to the story. Footnotes abound in the historical chapters and give you a sense for what kind of the place the DR was (how long ago, I'm not sure; I plead utter ignorance beyond what I have read in the last few days).

Diaz will be in Seattle a month from today for a lecture through Seattle Arts and Lectures. Maybe if I can scrape a few dollars together I'll be in attendance.

24/365

2009-01-24T19:07:00.000-08:00

A tangle of power lines for the electric buses that serve much of Seattle.

23/365

2009-01-23T21:35:00.000-08:00

As much as I dislike these Obama as Lincoln posters, or Obama as Washington on the cover of the January 26th New Yorker, I thought this stood out.

Bike Ride

2009-01-23T21:29:00.000-08:00

All you fitness nuts* out there, check out Map My Run. It's a pretty cool application that uses google maps to determine the distance one walks, runs, bikes, rollerblades, or whatever.

Those of you who know Seattle will understand why I went around Queen Anne rather than over top.

(* I am not a fitness nut but do enjoy a nice bike ride)

01/23/2009 Route
Find more Runs in Seattle, Washington

22/365

2009-01-22T21:29:00.000-08:00

21/365

2009-01-21T21:01:00.000-08:00

Technological Sublime

Books

2009-01-20T01:14:00.000-08:00

I have completed book three for year, which keeps me on pace for my goal of fifty. Number four will be another for my class but will keep me on pace for January.

3) Refabricating Architecture by Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake

This book is basically a call for architecture to adapt mass production techniques used for airplanes, cars and ships. Rather than typical mass production, they envision a system much like Dell computers where people "order" custom houses that are assembled mostly in warehouses then erected on site. According to the authors, a concentration on the process of fabrication and communication between the architect -- who acts as a facilitator for all dimensions of the construction process -- and the rest of the designers and builders is key to this development. It's interesting, especially the scenario at the end where the Boeing factory in Everett serves as the hub for these operations.

Book four will be The City of Tomorrow and its Planning by Le Corbusier.

Oh, and Wayne just informed me that our soon to be ex-president is quite the reader when he puts his *mind* to it...

18,19,20/365

2009-01-19T15:37:00.000-08:00

Staying true to my quest for color in Seattle and in honor of our newfound patriotism:

17/365

2009-01-17T21:58:00.000-08:00

This goes to show that the good people of Texas aren't all fans of George W.

16/365

2009-01-16T16:35:00.000-08:00

Behold the new Four Seasons Hotel and Residences in Seattle.

For me, The "Liberty" signage on the Seattle Art Museum, expresses the freedom of well-heeled developers to build this citadel of a building that refuses to engage the sidewalk at street level (you can't see it here but it's just a solid wall and an outlet for overpriced chocolate).

Despite this fact, the building itself is growing on me. I like the color, the glass, and the height. It has a tactile quality that makes me want to touch it.

Click here for other/older thoughts and an exchange with Charles Mudede.

A sound a day

2009-01-15T22:20:00.000-08:00

Check out this blog, by Taylor Deupree. Last year he took a Polaroid photo everyday and has since moved to daily digital field recordings.

15/365

2009-01-15T19:27:00.000-08:00

There's a deal going on at the University Book Store...

If I had a job, I'd have some more good books.

14/365

2009-01-14T15:31:00.000-08:00

Finally, after two weeks, we have a working refrigerator.

Reading is Fundamental

2009-01-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I'm trying to read fifty books again this year. At the end of last year, I said I was going to start off the year with Gore Vidal but that has been pushed back a little. It's still on my list though.

Anyway, I've finished two books so far.

1) The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon.

I'm considering writing a real review for this (synopsis: it's okay, he can do better, his essay that precedes this book is more interesting than the book itself, he has this kind of youth group attendee sort of sense of humor (farting, mooning people) that bothers me) but, alas, unemployment (read: reading, waiting on the refrigerator repairman, looking for jobs, writing blog posts, walking the dog, cleaning, hanging out at the co-op, going to the UW library, hopefully starting to work out more, etc.) is taking up an awful lot of my time...

2) The New Architecture and the Bahaus by Walter Gropius

This one was for the class I'm taking entitled The Contemporary Built Environment. Check out my reading response here.

13/365

2009-01-13T16:20:00.000-08:00

Ever since seeing Helvetica, the font is haunting me.

12/365

2009-01-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

Still looking for color and noticed these flowers downtown. Lo and behold, the reflection in the bird bath is the Minoru Yamasaki building in which I used to work.

11/365

2009-01-11T21:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, so maybe I have a thing about bricks.

Unfortunately, the newspaper that printed that piece (as well as this one, more recently) has fallen on really hard times and is up for sale.

(I still haven't figured out the clipping issue I'm having here. The nozzle that serves as the highlight of this photo is thus bisected.)*

*fixed!

10/365

2009-01-10T17:11:00.000-08:00

Just some bricks. I like to see the color of the Southwest under these gray skies.

9/365

2009-01-09T19:16:00.000-08:00

Risa took this one of me and Sammy at about 6 am on my first day as part of the 7.2% of the unemployed population. We slept until about 10:00 then went for a walk and got some coffee.

Oh you efficient laying-off machine!

2009-01-08T23:53:00.000-08:00

Hardly any phones were ringing but tears and handshakes flourished in a few isolated corners. I arrived late and could have sworn I heard an employee a few years my junior telling the receptionist that she was no longer employed. I wanted to look back but, as a five-year veteran of corporate America, I knew that would be bad form.

As I approached my desk I noticed a flattened cardboard box adjacent to a coworkers’ desk. This particular gentleman had flirted with outright termination only a few months prior, so his potential dismissal was unsurprising. I saw another young man enter the Chief Operating Officer’s lair and became fully aware of what was happening.

Rather than the old-fashioned In/Out board, we had a computer application where everyone could indicate whether they were in the office, out to lunch, or sick, and when they would return. As I changed my status to “in,” I noticed that some names had already been removed from the employee list. “That’s pretty quick,” I thought and settled in with a strange anxiety in my gut.

I’ll have you know my heart was never in the job, or even the industry for that matter. I accepted my first job when what I really wanted was to play the drums, read, and wander across the country like a faux-hemian Jack Kerouac wannabe. I was essentially a square, no doubt, but still, I thought a little wandering would be good for my blood. Unfortunately, I hadn’t the courage to follow this “dream” and ended up in my first cubicle. I did, however, purchase a condo only a few blocks from where Kerouac did much of his drinking in Denver, as if to hold on to a small part of my previous lifestyle as an “outsider.”

This attitude had stuck with me through that job, the next, and the one at which I was working that fateful morning. I routinely came in late, dressed in jeans, and spent half a day per week at the university studying the work of idealists and neomarxists, but I was still a good employee: efficient, organized, etc. Therefore, I felt as if my anxiety was justified. I thought if they were cutting out people, they would probably take the opportunity to cut out those that didn’t quite fit.

So I worked for about two hours and felt okay. I’d stand up and look to the chopping block and see an employee with far less experience than myself, and somewhat embarrassingly, feel okay.

An interesting thing about our office phone system is that each desk phone has two rings: a stuttered short ring for calls from outside lines and a longer, continuous drone for calls from within the office. Right after noon my phone started ringing, my stomach dropped, and then it stuttered, indicating a call from outside.

I told my wife nothing about what was going on since she’s pregnant and I didn’t want to stress her out.

Then it was back to work, kind of. Whispers floated across the low partition walls; my immediate supervisor looked happy enough. I got a glass of water and made a lap around the office to see who was in the big boss’s office, and who had moved on to station two, the office manager’s office. A youngster was in the latter but the former was occupied by a guy about my age.

“No surprise that he’s getting the axe,” said a coworker. I had no idea that the guy was that kind of employee, but I guess the truth comes out at times like this.

Regardless, this indicated that the boss was working his way up the ladder; that it wasn’t only going to be newbies.

About fifteen long minutes later my phone rang that long continuous drone.

More than anything, I’m impressed by the efficiency of the laying-off process. Your phone rings and you go in to hear the whole story. You are given the chance to ask questions which the boss answers sincerely. Next, like a widget on an assembly line, you are a transported to the office manager’s space where she explains the benefits and is ready to counsel if necessary. She reminds you to pack up your valuables and hit the road, and lets you know that the rest of your stuff will be coming in the mail. After that, it’s back to your desk to find that your connection to the office network has been terminated, that your email is nonexistent, and that you are indeed deleted from the sign in/out program that runs on the computer.

A few perfunctory goodbyes ensue. “I can’t believe it” and “now I’m scared” and “well, we should have a beer.” Your immediate boss is out to lunch and, shortly thereafter, so are you. A handshake with the cool office assistant and a few last minutes with the receptionist and it’s down the elevator, carrying a load that’s a little too heavy, and back on to the street.

It feels a little like freedom and a little like disgrace.

8/365

2009-01-08T23:49:00.000-08:00

When you're outta work, you drink PBR.

7/375

2009-01-07T18:41:00.000-08:00

Looking for color in a dreary locale.

6/365

2009-01-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

Concrete core of a new Seattle skyscraper. It looks like construction work has stopped for now, so we might be looking at this for a while.

Consumption '09

2009-01-05T22:13:00.001-08:00

On second thought, rather than tracing back through all the books, music, and movies I consumed last year, I'm going to keep track as I go in '09 (a la Obsessive Consumption over on the sidebar). This will likely give me fodder for my photography project as well.

I have yet to see a movie or purchase a book in this new year, but I've already found some new music.

Music (purchased):

1) Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Ease Down the Road
2) DJ/Rupture -- Uproot

Music (gifted):

1) Cut Copy -- In Ghost Colours
2) No Age -- Nouns

5/365

2009-01-05T20:29:00.001-08:00

4/365

2009-01-04T19:01:00.001-08:00

Broken fridge...at least it's cold outside.

3/365

2009-01-03T18:17:00.000-08:00

Risa at 27 weeks and a day..

2/365

2009-01-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

This photo is actually wider but is being truncated (I'm not sure why); click on the image to see the whole thing.*

*fixed!

1/365

2009-01-01T23:38:00.000-08:00

Borrowing an idea from a friend of a friend, I'm sharing my first photo of 365 for 2009.

True 40

2008-12-30T00:51:00.000-08:00

Finished:

38) McCarthy's The Crossing
39) Zot!
40) n+1, #7

Consumption '08

2008-12-29T00:35:00.000-08:00

As the year comes to a close, let's look back at my personal consumption. This blog has served as an accurate archive of the books I've read (most of which I've purchased...though I've bought others that are still sitting on my shelf) but what about other "culture" and "experience"? I'll do my best to recount the movies, music (live and recorded), plays that have entertained and taught me, as well as the trips I've taken for both work and pleasure.

Let's start with air travel since it is one of the popular luxuries to which we've grown accustomed.

1 trip to Honolulu (work), 5400 miles
2 trips to Berkeley (work), 2800 miles
3 trips to Tucson (work), 5000 miles
1 trip to Denver (personal), 2000 miles
1 trip to Albuquerque (personal), 2600 miles
2 trips to Texas (personal), 3500 miles

For a grand total of about 21,500 miles, just a few thousand miles short of the circumference of the Earth (24,900 miles at the Equator). At an average of about 0.21 kg of carbon dioxide per mile that makes my output 4515 kgs (9933 pounds). Through the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, I could offset this using seven wind and solar green tags, which would cost me $189.

Though I hardly ever drive, we did take two trips by car this summer. One from Seattle to Denver and the other down to the Oregon Coast. Call the first round trip about 3000 miles and the second 400 miles for a total of 3400 miles, half of which were moving me, so 1700 miles. To get to an even number, let's say I drove another 300 miles throughout the year (around Seattle, Denver, and on work-related trips) for a total of 2000 miles. According the BEF calculator, this is only about 800 lbs of carbon (we have a Prius) so one more green tag would take care of that.

So the grand total to offset my transportation costs is $216. Not too bad. Maybe that will be my birthday gift to myself in a few weeks. And, of course, while the whole idea of offsetting -- one of capitalism's solutions to excessive consumption -- can be seen as a license to galavant around the globe freely, it is at least a step in the right direction. A real step would be if my office would pay to offset my work-related travel miles (which are about 60% of my total) and I would take care of my own personal carbon emissions. It could be a great marketing tool but I don't think that's enough to convince 'em. How about a law?

Socialist!

While this seems like quite a bit of traveling, I can take some solace in the fact that it is less than in the last two years, where I managed to go to Hawaii a few more times, Chicago, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Florida, as well as Texas multiple times. I guess it's no coincidence that we have drastically reduced our credit card debt in '08.

But, I digress. I've been a very good consumer. Up next, culture in general (music, movies, theater).

Gift

2008-12-25T10:40:00.000-08:00

Last week I mentioned in passing that I wanted a shirt that said "Grow," like Christopher Lydon. Risa drew this and had it made for me at B-BAM.

39 and 40

2008-12-21T19:15:00.001-08:00

Two by Jean Baudrillard:

America
Simulacra and Simulation

But, looking back to a previous post where I counted Pelham and the remainder of McCarthy's Border Trilogy as done, this actually brings me to 37 finished. My strategy for the next ten days is basically a bender:

Real 38 and 39: Finish McCarthy
Real 40: Finish n+1 #7
41: Finish Zot!, a collection comics by Scott McCloud
42: If available from the library, finish Pelham
43: I read about half of Watchmen early this year; I can knock that out for number 43.

So, that leaves me with 7 fewer books than my goal but it cleans up all these loose ends...maybe I'll get snowed in and can devote all my time to finishing these.

Alinsky (Book #38)

2008-11-23T00:33:00.000-08:00

In preparation for my research paper on technology as a basis for participatory and "healthy" urban design, I picked up one of the classics on community participation and organizing: Reveille for Radicals, by the late, great Saul Alinsky.

Those of you that first heard the term "community organizer" in reference to President-Elect Obama, as I did, should be happy to know that Alinsky was one of the most successful organizers as well as a model for Mr. Obama. Whether Obama has what it takes to push a real progressive agenda has been questioned but, if this book is any indication, I would say I think it's more likely than I did last week.

Alinsky defines the radical as someone who truly loves and cares for the great masses of people and is so identified with them that he shares their injustices and sufferings (at this point, I was thinking that I'm definitely too judgemental to be a radical). Alinsky continues to say that the radical is "completely concerned with fundamental causes rather than current manifestations" (I believe I fit into this category, so maybe I'm half radical?).

As the book progresses he asserts that the real problem with democracy is the focus on the form and structure rather than the content, i.e. the people. He continues with tactics to organize people, form a social program, involve natural leaders from established groups, and so on. Many case studies are related that show the true details of bottom-up, or grass-roots, social action.

Two of the most poignant points he makes are that true change come from an active and informed base and that all problems are interrelated. The former leads the reader into methods of involving and educating and the public by doing things with them, rather than for them, and encouraging personal "discovery" as education; the latter idea is especially useful when trying to organize groups that were formed to address smaller issues, such as labor, religion, public health, etc.

I've never thought of myself as radical and this volume has not convinced me otherwise. I think I lack the faith in the common man and the patience to ever fit within the parameters Alinsky has set. But, at the same time, I can identify with what he is saying and know that he is describing the apotheosis of a radical, rather than one you might find living on your block. After reading this book I can look back at the excitement surrounding Obama, and the grassroots movements that helped him win the presidency, in a new light. Maybe there really is something special about these community organizers from the windy city...

And in closing, I suspect that Norman Mailer read Alinsky and that's one why he hated to be referred to as a liberal (Alisnky says "Liberals dream dreams; radicals build the world of men's dreams.")

Equal Rights March

2008-11-15T18:56:00.000-08:00

A Book, A Real Book!

2008-11-10T00:27:00.000-08:00

In the past 48 hours I managed to make my way through a real book, The Image of the City. It is a seminal work in the field of urban planning and was written in 1960 by Kevin Lynch. The whole premise is to understand how people "read" the city, visually. He and his team studied Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angeles with the help of residents who participated in interviews and drew mental maps (a map drawn of your city from memory). From all this information, he breaks cities down into constituent elements that designers can focus on to create more "imageable" (or "visually legible") cities. It's a classic and even though it was written almost 50 years ago, it would serve the design community, especially the developers, well to read it in earnest.

So, since someone at the library has Pelham on hold, I'm going to return it tomorrow, unfinished, and call Lynch's book number 36. Issue 7 of n+1 comes out next week so that will likely be 37. And if I can get to the final book in McCarthy's trilogy, Cities of the Plain, that will be 38. Maybe I'll get to 40 by years end...especially if I can find another copy of Pelham.

I've already committed myself to a fresh start on new years day. On the recommendation of Jabiz, I've decided that I'll start 2009 with a new author: Gore Vidal. His Narrative of Empires is a collection of seven historical novels which span from the dawn of our nation to 1950, and then with a final chapter at the start of the 21st century. Think I can make to fifty books in '09? I doubt it too.

Famous

2008-11-05T22:59:00.001-08:00

I made it to the website of Ebony and Jet Magazines. I'm serious.

Scroll down to Seattle to see my youtube video from Tuesday night, after the election.

Or you can watch it below (but I recommend Ebony's version).

McCain "Party"

2008-11-04T23:11:00.001-08:00

Did anyone else notice the parade of primped up white frat boys at McCain's concession speech, as opposed to the diverse crowd at Obama's speech in Chicago? I wish I could find some photos online but I don't think anyone really cared what was going on at the Biltmore in Phoenix.

Reading Update

2008-10-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

Well, fifty books probably won't happen this year but fear not, I'm still laying pages to waste. Over the past few months I've read the majority of all six issues of n+1, as well as most of three books for my class:

The Green Imperative, Victor Papanek
Green Screen, David Ingram
Ecosystems and Human Well-Being, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Plus I'm almost through with Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing and Edward Lytton's Pelham.

So, my own original rules be damned, I'm counting these eleven as done to bring myself to a respectable 36 books at the end of October.

Daily Show Clip

2008-09-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

If I knew how to embed videos I would but, since I don't, you're going to have to click here to see one of the funniest things I've seen recently.

Thanks, Jabiz

El Libro Veinte y Seis

2008-09-11T21:06:00.001-07:00

Just finished Machiavelli's The Prince and I'm thinking that anyone who considers themselves even the slightest bit tough should probably go ahead and read this. I'm not purporting to be tough but I certainly recognize toughness when I see it or read it. There is lots of talk of crushing the opposition and being cruel when necessary (make it quick, he says). He reminds the reader than fortune is a woman and can only be made submissive if you beat and coerce her. Damn, I can't imagine someone saying that today, except for maybe John McCain.

All toughness aside, this treatise is credited as a predecessor of the realist political theory. I know that I tend to lean more to the idealist side of this theoretical coin, but I think it's valuable to be reminded that it's important to remember how things are when forming ideas about how they should be. Reading this I'm also reminded how uncivilized we really are, despite what I'd like to believe.

Palin

2008-08-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

John McCain's pick for his VP makes me think two things:

1) He's (rightfully) scared of Obama/Biden.
2) I wish Tina Fey were still on Saturday Night Live because she'd probably do a great impression.

Halfway there

2008-08-27T22:21:00.001-07:00

Today at lunch I finally finished the elusive book number twenty-five, which I should have finished at the end of June to be on pace for fifty this year. Alas, my chances of success are slim but we'll see how close I get.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract has the honor of being my halfway point or, rather, I have the honor of having read it. I believe it was Abe Ravelstein that was always referencing the philosopher and inspired me to look him up. As soon as I read the famous first lines of this treatise -- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains" -- I was certain that this endeavor would be worthwhile.

Rousseau tackles natural rights vs. civil rights, freedom and slavery, religion and how it fits into the social order, political systems from monarchy to democracy, quite a bit of Roman history, etc; basically a bunch of subjects alien to my middle-class Texas upbringing and technical education. The focus on politics was a little more than I expected but was enlightening; it also inspired me to move on to Machiavelli's The Prince (another in the Penguin Great Ideas series), which is, evidently, a cornerstone of the political philosphy realpolitik (a philosophy to which "Obama the Christ," as my boy Wayne calls him, supposedly subscribes). I'm waging my war on ignorance at full tilt; the effectiveness of my efforts may vary.

Better Top Books

2008-08-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

Jabiz sent me this link to a list of Random Houses's top books, which seems to be better than the Great Reads list.

Same "codes" as below.

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
11. UNDER THE VOLCANO by Malcolm Lowry
12. THE WAY OF ALL FLESH by Samuel Butler
13. 1984 by George Orwell
14. I, CLAUDIUS by Robert Graves
15. TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
16. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY by Theodore Dreiser
17. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
18. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut
19. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
20. NATIVE SON by Richard Wright
21. HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
22. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA by John O'Hara
23. U.S.A. (trilogy) by John Dos Passos
24. WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
25. A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
26. THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
27. THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
28. TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. THE STUDS LONIGAN TRILOGY by James T. Farrell
30. THE GOOD SOLDIER by Ford Madox Ford
31. ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell
32. THE GOLDEN BOWL by Henry James
33. SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser
34. A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
35. AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
36. ALL THE KING'S MEN by Robert Penn Warren
37. THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder
38. HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
39. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN by James Baldwin
40. THE HEART OF THE MATTER by Graham Greene
41. LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding
42. DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
43. A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME (series) by Anthony Powell
44. POINT COUNTER POINT by Aldous Huxley
45. THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway
46. THE SECRET AGENT by Joseph Conrad
47. NOSTROMO by Joseph Conrad
48. THE RAINBOW by D.H. Lawrence
49. WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
50. TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
51. THE NAKED AND THE DEAD by Norman Mailer
52. PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT by Philip Roth
53. PALE FIRE by Vladimir Nabokov
54. LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
55. ON THE ROAD by Jack Kerouac
56. THE MALTESE FALCON by Dashiell Hammett
57. PARADE'S END by Ford Madox Ford
58. THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by Edith Wharton
59. ZULEIKA DOBSON by Max Beerbohm
60. THE MOVIEGOER by Walker Percy
61. DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather
62. FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones
63. THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
64. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger
65. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
66. OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
67. HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
68. MAIN STREET by Sinclair Lewis
69. THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
70. THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET by Lawrence Durell
71. A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
72. A HOUSE FOR MR BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul
73. THE DAY OF THE LOCUST by Nathanael West
74. A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
75. SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh
76. THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
77. FINNEGANS WAKE by James Joyce
78. KIM by Rudyard Kipling
79. A ROOM WITH A VIEW by E.M. Forster
80. BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh
81. THE ADVENTURES OF AUGIE MARCH by Saul Bellow
82. ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
83. A BEND IN THE RIVER by V.S. Naipaul
84. THE DEATH OF THE HEART by Elizabeth Bowen
85. LORD JIM by Joseph Conrad
86. RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow
87. THE OLD WIVES' TALE by Arnold Bennett
88. THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London
89. LOVING by Henry Green
90. MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN by Salman Rushdie
91. TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell
92. IRONWEED by William Kennedy
93. THE MAGUS by John Fowles
94. WIDE SARGASSO SEA by Jean Rhys
95. UNDER THE NET by Iris Murdoch
96. SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
97. THE SHELTERING SKY by Paul Bowles
98. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain
99. THE GINGER MAN by J.P. Donleavy
100. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS by Booth Tarkington

I've read nineteen of these which is still a poor showing, but I can respect the list much more. So yeah, look at me: I talk about reading a lot but haven't read that much at all. Blah.

Top books

2008-08-23T01:32:00.000-07:00

I ran into this exercise on a friend of a friend's blog and thought I'd see how I stack up.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (on my shelf; will hopefully start soon!!)
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

I may have read Tess Of The D'Urbervilles in high school and possibly Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre but I'm not sure. Anyway, I'm not very impressed with this list -- where is Saul Bellow?? or Richard Wright? Camus? -- but I managed to have read fourteen of these.

Stream

2008-08-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

There were many disturbing aspects of the dream that woke me: one was the lack of food and seeing all my neighbors together trying to grow lettuce and vegetables in the park; watching a friend sitting at a bar after a soccer game saying, "we played on the field where that girl was killed and I got a little blood on my hand" was frightening, but what startled me the most was when the man sitting next to her sniffed at her hand. And finally, there was a spy who had been dismembered by another spy; the television reenactment was a homo-erotic affair with two muscular handsome men playing the parts of the spies. After the last limb was cut the television station flashed to a still photo of the real aftermath for a few seconds before flashing the sponsor's avatar and name on the screen, "This program has been brought to you by Hasty kitchen cabinets." I don't know if that is a real brand but the insignia was a light blue cabinet on a white background, with HASTY written below. I woke up, disgusted, and think that subconsciously I don't feel very good about the world.

Stream

2008-08-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, so Flaubert was an aesthete and I can relate, but only at certain times: Like in '04 when I was drunk and saw Wilco and everything was beautiful, or this weekend when I walked over a dune and through the fog on the Oregon beach, and saw the glow of a bonfire reflecting off the sky and it looked like Kuwait burning in the first gulf war: violent and beautiful. I need to read Walter Benjamin's 'On Hashish' and finish that Biography of William James because they are both interested in "experience." And then there is Thoreau, who was evidently a Perfectionist (in the philospohical sense, not the silly everyday sense); he tried to extract an example of how to be (ever-changing but moving toward the real self) from everything around him in nature...Damn, I've only read part of 'Walden' but this is all tied together and Emerson used to hang out with William James' father and I think Walt Whitman lived in Brooklyn and could look out over what is now the Brooklyn Bridge, just like one of the Roeblings (probably the younger) did after having his foot crushed by a boat coming in to dock

"Now, I'm going to perform"

2008-08-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

I took a walk down to the Egyptian Theater today to see Man on Wire, and I suggest you do the same. That is, if you are at all interested in tightrope walking between the World Trade Center towers.

Border Bildungsroman

2008-08-07T22:55:00.000-07:00

I purchased All The Pretty Horses and The Worst Hard Time for my dad as Christmas presents this year. He's an on and off reader but I thought these two stories might appeal to him. He plowed through each of them and sent Horses to me. My only previous exposure to Cormac McCarthy was my reading of No Country For Old Men right before I saw the movie. I thought the story was interesting but not captivating; it seemed to me like nothing much more than a dialogue. A reviewer at Salon summed it best when he said that if someone decided to write a screenplay of the novel, they would have a fairly straightforward task ahead of them.

Anyway, I had heard good things about the Border Trilogy from Wayne so I started Horses with high expectations (I also had a hankering for fiction since I'd been spending much of my time with Rousseau and William Whyte, both of whom are extremely interesting but a little dry). It started out a little slow and the accents irritated me somewhat, as did the terse broken, but grammatically correct, Spanish. But soon after the boys crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico, I was embroiled. I think it was during Blevins' account of his family history of being struck by lightning that I really started paying attention. All of a sudden the book was elevated to mythological proportions. Themes of life and love and morality continued throughout the remainder of the novel. If I were writing bylines, I'd say something like "they crossed the river as boys; they returned as men."

I'm going to Elliott Bay tomorrow to sell back this copy and use the credit to by the Trilogy in one volume. When I finish it, my count for the year will be to 26 books.

A Smile and a Shoeshine

2008-07-28T22:49:00.001-07:00

Not me; I don't smile nor do I wear shoes that require shining...I do read though and Death of a Salesman brings me one book closer to my goal. This is the first play I've read this year and probably the first since I was in high school. I actually think I read this one in high school but am wondering why; how could a teenager possibly understand this story?

I found myself generally loathing Willy Loman but at the same time pitying him, even though he is a pathetic simpleton. Maybe this characteristic warrants some sympathy but, more than that, it awakens the Texan in me that just wants to shake him until he wakes up. His confidence, stubbornness, and tendency to exaggerate are completely off-putting but I have to admit that his innocence and naivete stir up a hint of emotion, though I can't say if it is jealousy, romanticism, or rage -- I'm sure I felt each of these at some point while reading the play. Anyhow, I guess that's part of what makes Arthur Miller great.

Book 22

2008-07-27T21:55:00.000-07:00

Just finished Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities after quite a while. It's very interesting though pretty dry and academic at times, but her insight and honesty shines bright throughout. I plan on trying to integrate some of what I read into my posts at the Green Housing Collaborative so, if you're interested, take a peek over there from time to time.

That brings me to a paltry 22 books at the beginning of the last week of July. It's doubtful that I can get back on pace this week but maybe if I concentrate on getting caught up by the end of August, and before my next class starts, I can make it.

Not that it counts...

2008-07-20T22:19:00.000-07:00

...toward my fifty books, but I've been spending an awful lot of reading time with the Spring 2008 issue of Dissent.

No new completed books to report but the next one down will be Jane Jacobs, finally.

Book 21

2008-07-09T20:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem, on the way to work this morning. I've wanted read Fortress of Solitude for quite some time but stumbled across this volume in the used section of Elliott Bay a few weeks ago. If I were ranking books instead of giving them faux-reviews, I'd probably give it a five out of ten. I was not captivated like I was by my previous New York books, which were written by Paul Auster. I could identify with pop culture references but they turned me off, possibly because I read this article, which attacks the "Brooklyn Books of Wonder," last year, even though Bukiet says the Lethem is one of the better authors in the borough.

I failed to get to my 25 book goal by the end of June but I'm blaming the two weddings I attended and the week long vacation in Denver, where we were booked solid. I'm working my way through Jane Jacobs and will hopefully make progress toward my goal this month.

A Book and a Restaurant

2008-06-18T21:16:00.000-07:00

We'll go with the good before the poor...

This was a book of which I read the majority for my class. As you can tell by the title, it's about the everyday life: the cooking, cleaning, and leisure time that takes up much of our time. For example, the section on food examines everything from the way we choose and prepare food, to the sensuality of food, and on to the historical cultural connections that influence what we consider edible.

And speaking of food.

I made the mistake of wandering into Seattle's oldest restaurant, The Merchant's Cafe, for lunch yesterday. The smell of barbecue Lays potato chips that came with my turkey melt has finally dissipated but was the inspiration for this post. I was lured in by the history but should have turned away when I saw only two occupied tables. I brushed off the lack of diners and remembered an interview with August Wilson that I read which supposedly took place over coffee here and thought, "if it's good enough for him, it should be good enough for me." Well, that wasn't the case on Tuesday: in addition to the chips and the strange-tasting sandwich, the diet coke was flat and even the pickle was bad.

Two-week Plan

2008-06-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

The small plan that follows will bring me to my reading goal by the end of the month:

1) Finish The Practice of Everyday Life (20)

Then, in staying with the Death/New York theme that has randomly appeared (although the aforementioned book would be better classified as Life/Paris -- good enough though, as some sort of opposite) I'm planning on reading:

2) The Death of Ivan Ilyich (21)
3) Death of a Salesman (22)
4) Motherless Brooklyn (23)
5) Finish Plato's Five Dialogues (24) (account of Socrates' trial and execution)
6) My finale will be either to finish Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (NYC specifically) or Haruki Murakami's Underground (account of Tokyo subway gas attacks). (25)

Don't run and call the psychiatrists, I'm feeling just fine. This theme emerged as I was reading the past few books that were chosen, I think, at random: Ravelstein, New York Trilogy, Brooklyn Follies, and The Intuitionist.

Brooklyn Zoo

2008-06-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

Actually it was Paul Auster's Brooklyn Follies rather than ODB's Brooklyn Zoo that occupied most of my day (other than the eleven mile bike ride I took). That brings my total to nineteen. If I can keep up this pace for the next two weeks, I should get to twenty five by the end of the month, and thus be on track for fifty this year.

SIFF

2008-06-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

Well I've been so wrapped up in other activities that SIFF has kind of fallen by the wayside this year. I've managed to see three movies so far:

1) Milky Way
2) American Teen
3) Mysteries of Pittsburgh

I had a ticket to see Choke but I missed it.

Milky Way was an experimental film from Hungary that played at the Northwest Film Forum. Many people were falling asleep and, at times, I was on the verge. However, as I understand it, this is part of the experience of some art forms like Opera and certain south pacific island folk performances -- I'm not joking. Whether or not Milky Way was meant to be enjoyed in a dreamy haze isn't for me to say. Did I enjoy it? Sort of.

American Teen was great. High school senior year documentary with the typical cast: jock, go-getter, nerd, artsy girl, etc. It sounds trite but was really well done, I thought.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh -- I just saw this about an hour ago. I had high hopes: I like what I've read by Michael Chabon and I liked Wonder Boys on screen. Unfortunately, this didn't really captivate me. I felt like it was trying to mimick True Romance and Fight Club, with the southern belle eating pie in the diner and Cleveland, the Tyler Durden-esque wildman. Oh and Goodfellas too: at one point Nick Nolte, playing the father of the main character said something like, "are you trying to embarass me?" and I immediately thought of Joe Pesci and his, "I'm funny, how am I funny?" spiel. It just plodded along and didn't really take me, or the people sitting near me, with it. Failure to launch would appropiately describe this movie.

There was a JFK documentary that I wanted to see but will have to wait. We're going to see Jolene tomorrow and I have one ticket left in my sixer; hopefully I can find something for Sunday, which is the last day of the festival.

On the reading scene, I started Plato's Five Dialogues last night and Paul Auster's Brooklyn Follies today (I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate on Plato while waiting in line for a movie...).

Development Updates

2008-06-12T19:26:00.000-07:00

Saul Bellow's Ravelstein makes eighteen. I got my paper back with a bunch of positive feedback and nice "A". Awww yeah.

Tonight I'm either going to start on something new, maybe Cormac McCarthy's border trilogy or the last hundred pages of de Certeau, which Ravelstein would have hated; he had no interest in the study of society or the everyday. He was more into thought (Plato, Rousseau, and Celine, none of which have ever fallen into my gaze, but should, I suppose) and people's personalities and habits. He liked the wild ones, the gamblers, the addicts.

But first, dinner is in order. Chicken salad pitas will be served.

Interesting Developments

2008-06-09T01:50:00.000-07:00

1) I just finished my research paper for my class. It's the longest paper I've ever written, weighing in at 21 pages (I'm an engineer remember, I never took those classes where long papers were required). Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about it. It's called "Webs of Consumption" and traces connections between various phenomena like religion, art, family, environment, architecture, etc. using consumerism as the common thread. Look for it in a fothcoming issue of Dissent...yeah, right. Anyway, it's an important accomplishment because it will determine my grade for my first course as a nonmatriculated student in the PhD in the Built Environment program at UW. Assuming I do well on this paper, and in the class I'm taking in the fall, I may have a chance to be admitted as a "real" student. We'll see about that. Meanwhile...

2) I managed to finish the third of Auster's New York Trilogy; that brings me to seventeen for the year (I need to be at twenty five by the end of this month to be on track). I'm planning on finishing two other books from my class of which we only read portions (The Production of Space by Lefebvre and The Practice of Everyday Life by Michel de Certau and friends). I've also started Saul Bellow's Ravelstein in order to get myself pumped up for my summer project: setting up an outline and reading list for the book I want to write about all the historical references in The Adventures of Augie March. I finished that book last summer on a train between Madrid and Granada and decided that not knowing what the hell Saul Bellow was referencing most of the time was annoying and made me feel like a yokel.

3) While this blog remains somewhat scattered, the real focused action is over at the Green Housing Collaborative. I actually don't post over there as much as I should but I'm still getting lots of hits. I just passed a thousand page views yesterday!

Quickie

2008-06-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

Finished Auster's Ghosts and am about halfway through The Locked Room. I'm doing what I can to keep up but my class paper and my other site are usurping all my time. I met Charles Mudede the same day that I wrote an email to him about his assessment of the new Four Seasons building (follow think to other site to see it). Plus, I just had to put my condo in Denver up for rent again because my tenant broke the lease and moved out. Oh, and my mom was in town this weekend. Ah, and her aunt has an orchard down in Oregon; want to go down there and pick some fruit? I was thinking that would be a good way to 'get back in touch with nature.' I'm trying to talk my brother into learning how to farm so we can provide the Portland farmer's markets with organic peaches, pears, cherries, and apples. A man can dream, can't he?

First of Three by Paul Auster

2008-05-28T07:40:00.000-07:00

I've been threatening to read this trilogy to pad my numbers and I've finally made good with the completion of City of Glass, which brings me to fifteen books (one short of where I should have been last month at this time). Daniel Quinn is the main character: his initials are the same as Don Quixote, he goes on an adventure, like Don Quixote, and me might be a little off his rocker, like Don Quixote. Did he write the story? Did the Paul Auster that is in the story write it or is he like Cervantes' Cid Hamete Benengeli? There is a conversation between Quinn and Auster in the book that steers the reader into this train of thought, as does the closing, but it isn't resolved, thankfully.

I needed something that was short and fun for Memorial Day and this story did the trick. I'm hoping to get through the next two soon but I'm not sure I have the time. Rather than start Ghosts last night, I read Norman Mailer's 1957 essay, The White Negro, for my research paper.

The Intuitionist

2008-05-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Just finished The Intuitionist and I suggest you add it to your list of to-reads. I pulled it off the shelf because I was in need of some lighter reading than the Lefebvre and Baudrillard I'm reading for class; it was lighter, in a way -- it was funny at times -- but it was still pretty serious. Though the setting is obviously New York in what seems to be the mid-twentieth century, neither is stated explicitly (pay phone calls cost a dime and there are racist minstrel shows). I read this as an assertion that the existence of racism transcends time. This marks the second book by Colson Whitehead that I've read this year; I also listen to his Colossus of New York recording often.

Late night sore throat

2008-05-15T01:52:00.000-07:00

I fell asleep about three hours ago, after starting Colson Whitehead's The Intuitionist; I was dreaming about having a gardening conversation with an architect I work with down in Berkeley when was slumber was interrupted. I swallowed and felt those pins in the back of my throat that pop up every once in a while, usually after a long stretch of hard work or a seasonal change. The timing is odd though: I'm right in the middle of a few projects at work, not to mention my research paper for my class and especially my self-imposed reading list, and the weather isn't even changing. I took a handful of advil with a large glass of orange juice and sat down at the computer to find that my formerly incredibly literary and verbose blog had degenerated into a gallery of pirated pictures and not-even-book-reviews. The question is, do I attempt to remedy the situation of this site at 2 am (with maybe a short review on the newly re-opened Virginia Inn) or do I return to my bed and pick up with the tale of opposing factions of elevator repair people (The Empiricists and the Intuitionists)? If it were any other book, I may have expounded on the virtues and disappointments of the "new" Virginia Inn (the soup and the 'kinda going upscale - well, not really upscale but just not as dingy as what I fell in love with' atmosphere, respectively) but that book is calling me from the other room.

Lucky 13

2008-05-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Gary Cross's An All-Consuming Century brings my 2008 count up to thirteen. This book reflected a more critical point of view on American Consumerism than Twitchell (whom was referred to as a celebrant of consumer culture by Cross) but remained fair and objective. I admire that he can critique popular culture without coming across as a crazed molotov cocktail-tossing rebel.

Freire calls those that let emotion overcome rational thought and criticism "sectarians." According to him, sectarianism is "predominantly emotional and uncritical" and "a reactionary stance" that often leads to "activism" which he defines as "action without vigilance or reflection." I'm personally working on not judging others' actions and beliefs from a purely emotional level so this is all very important to me.

Twitchell is Twelve

2008-05-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

Picked up this book via the UW library system to get me started on my research project. The scope of the project is still unfolding (and I have five weeks from Tuesday to complete it) but the gist is trying to follow the influence of western consumption through the other fields it has influenced or by which it has been influenced: religion, art, architecture, economics, community, etc. It was an interesting read that I'd recommend to anyone that is critical of "mass consumption."

Speaking of consumption (of "high-culture"), we made it over to the Seattle Rep last night to see the final production of Seamus Heaney's The Cure at Troy. It was outstanding; I'd never the production of a "classic" on stage (it even had a chrous). Next up on the theater scene is hopefully Autobahn.

Now, for your listening pleasure, I give you Dark Meat. They are playing down the street so I'm going to see what the fuss is all about (supposedly they have 13 to 23 people on stage).

Christo

2008-05-04T00:15:00.000-07:00

Enough said.

Make it 11

2008-05-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

Just finished the aforementioned All The Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen. Need to commiserate with other overeducated lost young souls? Need to feel better (or at least not alone) about all that overpriced beer you used to enjoy, all too often? Girls? These guys can't do that right either. There's something real and familiar here, even if you didn't go to Harvard, and especially if you feel like you're around 30 and just starting to figure things out (also known as wishing you knew what you know now back then).

An evening with (another) Keith

2008-04-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

It seems I'm drawn to writers with whom I share a name. A couple of years ago, I found myself in the Hugo House, listening to Keith Knight. This evening, I was in the stuffy basement of Elliott Bay listening to Keith Gessen -- a founding editor of the journal n+1, to which I refer at times -- read from his debut novel All the Sad Young Literary Men. I agree, that is a great title.

The portions he read centered around a sad young literary man finding his way in New York. It was funny but at the same time remained serious, similar to his journal. A woman in the crowd referred to an article that mentioned his "seriousness that could misconstrued as irony" style; he replied that, the small jokes aside, it was meant to be taken earnestly, that many people unfortunately resort to irony when our current situation is serious. And speaking of serious: during the Q&A session he mentioned Theodor Adorno, a sociologist and cultural critic, of whom I have read a little for a history of consumer course. Gessen came across as bunny rabbit in comparison but I can see why he holds Adorno in high esteem.

Needless to say I bought his book and am falling behind on my reading goals...

Nonlinear History, what?

2008-04-23T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'm breaking a rule here and calling this book read when I still have thirty pages to go; I'm going to finish it before I go to bed though. And, really, I'm going above and beyond what was assigned as reading for my class since only portions of the book were assigned. Anyway, it's one of the most fascinating works I've ever read and you eggheads out there would dig it. The text is small and the author is a genius so be aware. My professor has refrained from giving us a long lecture on "complexity theory," which is, as I understand it, De Landa's field, but I think it can perhaps be summed up as "a unified theory of everything" (are those song lyrics?).

Another reason I'm making this post pre-completion is that I need to detach myself from the computer but have the urge to stay in front it. Why? Because I've been working pretty hard on my other site and am becoming obsessed with the number of hits I get (330 as of this writing). A lot of the "work" that goes into it involves finding other blogs/sites that have common interests and trying to network with them. It has worked though; I've had about 130 unique visitors this week!

So De Landa is book 10. I need to be at 16 by the end of April to be on pace. I'll hopefully finish The Watchmen this week and maybe some other reading for class. Read. Eat. Sleep. And blog, I guess.

Daydream

2008-04-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

Right now I’m sitting in a small cottage in Austin, with the windows open and the warm breeze rustling the leaves of the surrounding trees. Birds are chirping intermittently and the whir of a far-off lawn mower ebbs and flows as it carves lanes in someone’s American dream. The room is dark and the fan is buzzing; the glass next to my foot sweats as does my brow. My books are piled high but I’m in no rush to finish them. It’s a weekday, maybe a Wednesday, maybe a Thursday, but that hardly matters. The dog, lying on his back, exhales the heavy air and the next door neighbor is learning to play the harmonica. A phone rings, a real phone that is mounted on the kitchen wall, but it’s too hot outside to talk so the ring persists unrelentingly. Einstein said that time slows down as velocity increases but I’m of the opinion that temperature is an important variable that he must have neglected. Night will fall, eventually, and everyone will slowly emerge from their caves. Bicycles will rattle down to the corner store and barbecues will begin.

Nice binding, nice book

2008-04-17T20:12:00.000-07:00

Just finished Yannick Murphy's Here They Come. I bought it during McSweeney's big sale last summer even though I'd never heard of he author. In fact, I just realized about two minutes ago that it was written by a woman, not a man. True, the protagonist was a thirteen year-old girl but I just thought he was a good writer.

The narrative unfolds in a sort of unorthodox methods, like a series of vignettes. It drew me in quickly and I couldn't put it down (reading this review it seems that the author wrote it fast as well). And, to top it off, the binding is spectacular and I felt distinguished carrying it.

Up next:

The Watchmen (on loan from Phil)

Science

2008-04-13T01:45:00.001-07:00

Weighing in at a mere 257 pages, you'd think Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent would be a quick read. Well, it wasn't quick but it was good. I'm sure the English majors out there can expound on many themes but the one that caught my attention was the focus on science.

Bear with me for a quick philosophical diversion.

The qualitative research methods class I'm taking now is taught by a philosopher. On the first day he threw out Aristotle's five modes of knowledge:

1. techne - artistic/technical knowledge
2. episteme - scientific knowledge
3. phronesis - practical wisdom
4. sophia - philosophic wisdom
5. nous - intuitive reason

He went on to explain that episteme has come to be the only truly accepted mode of knowledge; quantitative data, statistics, and measurement have come to dominate research and business. As an engineer I can say confidently that the "art" of "old-time" construction has been replaced by a rigorous understanding of the behavior of materials and statisical models give us expeced loads on structures. My professor's argument was that people are sensitive; we exist in a qualitative world full of experiences better described with words than numbers. Thus, qualitative methods are necessary for understanding the world.

Back to Conrad.

Mr. Vladimir, the official at the embassy, recognizes this dominance of science and recommends that the anarchist agent, Mr. Verloc, direct his hosilities toward science itself. He says that attacking heads of state or churches is expected and that an attack on an observatory at the prime meridian will stir things up. Anyway, reading the book for the first time while hearing this philosophical angle was interesting.

Furthermore, while we're discussing science as god, I had another interesting experience today. As you may know, this weekend is the first ever Green Festival in Seattle. We went to hear Amory Lovins, the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute speak this afternoon. I'd rank him up there with the smartest people that I've ever encountered but I left his lecture with some questions. He is all about sustainability and sustainable capitalism; as I understand it, he believes that the America's energy/security woes can be solved by the practical application of science and R&D, by the private sector. While he makes an incredibly strong argument for this case, backed up graphs, dollar amounts, and prestige, I was left wondering about everything else. By this I mean that, sure, a safe, lighter car that gets incredible gas mileage is great but that doesn't solve the problems urban sprawl and traffic congestion; the fact that Wal-Mart is pushing the trucking industry to use fuel-efficient trucks is good but it fails to address the fact that unchecked consumption of goods made in sweatshops isn't so good. Maybe I'm overanalyzing it but I saw this faith in science that seemed to be ignoring the qualitative elements like quality of life or social justice.

Anyway, that gets me through book number nine.