Arts & Architecture
The iconic Arts & Architecture magazine, creators of the Case Study House Program, have put their entire archives online in pdf format. This is big news for arch.headz! [via Land+Living]
Archive for July, 2007
Shameless Plug
Paul turned me on to the 2007 Photoblog Awards. I don’t usually go for this kinda thing, but I’m trying to get more into the photo community thing, so I submitted this site. So if you’re a member of that community, go vote for me, or not.
Croton-On-Hudson, NY
One of our days in New York, Marcia and I decided to drive up to Croton-On-Hudson. A tiny little commuter town, in Westchester County, about an hour north of the city. The place where I grew up.
In Croton, I took Marcia on a mini-tour of the spots where I used to hang as a kid: The center of town, my skating hangout, a series of curbs that my skateboard ravaged for years. My good friend Phil’s house near the catholic church. My elementary and middle schools. The Croton Dam, a gorgeous piece of mid-19th century engineering and architecture and one of the tallest dams in the US. Silver Lake, the local swimming hole down stream from the dam where the lifeguard supervisor yells at you for even walking close to the area of unsupervised river, where out-of-towners and those unwilling to pay the 7 buck day-pass fee go to swim. E/T Cycle Center, the place I spent half my childhood in, perusing dirt bikes, skateboards, magazines, etc… My favorite pizza restaurant, growing up, on where I ate pizza every day for lunch for years. The piece of rock I used to sit on, waiting for the school bus at the end of my street. And last but not least, the house that I grew up in, 7 King Street.
Marcia was so amazed by Croton. She couldn’t quite relate to my experience as a child. Being mexican, her childhood was so different. She couldn’t believe how small (and provincial) Croton is (and imagine it 15 years ago). How the houses are spread out and green is everywhere as opposed to concrete. and the history of the buildings, my house for instance, around 300 years old.
She amazed and I reminisced. We took a dip in the cool water of the croton river and for one day I got to relive a hundred memories stored away in a shoe box in the back of my mind. We pulled out on to 9a, headed south and said goodbye to Croton, for another 15 years or so…
pushingtide
pushingtide. surf blog. excellent photos. fellow mellow watermen. [via 70%]
Made in Santa Barbara
Danielle Rubi’s photography is featured in the Made in Santa Barbara exhibit at the SB Museum of Art. If you’re in the SB, check it on out! ends Oct 7th.
RIP Photography in NYC?
Bloomberg is considering requiring permits and expensive insurance for casual photography in NYC. NYCLU’s take on it. Do something important today, sign a petition. [via JM Colberg]
Inspired Mistakes
Sometimes, most of the time, inspired art is created through mistakes in the process.
On the second subway ride out to Coney Island (the first rained out), we stopped at the Sheepshead Bay station to switch from the ‘B’ to the ‘Q’ and as I was taking a picture of the station sign above, the mirror on my Canon 5D came unglued. I took the lens off, to reveal the mirror sliding around loose inside the camera. Ouch! The next day we went to the only shop that repairs Canon DSLRs in New York City. It was a Friday and we were leaving, for Mexico, the following day. The one guy who repairs Canons at the shop (the one guy who repairs Canons in all of NYC) was taking the day off. 2x Ouch. I eventually had to send my camera off to Canon Repair Services and they can’t ship outside the US, so I had to have them send it to my Tim’s house and have him send it to me. Oh and it’s out of warranty, $215 for the work and $150 for DHL service. 3x ouch!
studiomake
Speaking of David and Im Schafer, here’s their work: studiomake. great stuff. and I see they are going to Cranbrook in the fall. good for them!
DxO Labs
DxO Labs puts out two great software packages: DxO Optics and DxO FilmPack. The first is for correcting lens distortions, the second is for recreating film looks with digital files. They have a new plugin for Lightroom. Apple, help a brother out, puleaze.
XRAY
XRAY is wicked cool.
XRAY is the first in hopefully a suite of free cross browser tools for helping web designers and developers better visualize what their code is doing in a browser. XRAY is designed to help you get beneath the skin of your web page.
[via SI]
Dwellt
Land+Living ponders Has Dwell jumped the shark?. my opinion? most def.
No real numbers on architecture costs, material costs, construction costs etc… and if there are, they are certainly not honest numbers. This is the single most problematic thing about Dwell, in my opinion. Dwell used to be more then just another arch.mag. There was always a utilitarian, common-man thread in the mag. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of this spirit like the David and Im Shafer’s One Space apartment piece (inspired). The articles, architecture and photos are always top-notch, I love Dwell. They feature projects that no one else is covering. Reading Dwell is always a treat, but there’s something missing. Could you afford any of the houses in this mag? probably not.
Dwell doesn’t ask the tough questions, like: why does prefab still cost more then building your own custom house, why does most well-designed green tech cost 3 times more then conventional (green tax?). Why does that featured kitchen cost 300k but the article even attempts to mention the word ‘affordable’ (Poggenpohl - with no price mentioned)? There are a million other questions that go unanswered.
The ads are relentless, current issues are 2 and almost 3 times the size of issues from 5 years ago (i call this the “wired” syndrome). I’d love to do the “Noam Chomsky New York Times ad cutout experiment” on Dwell. And ads for Hummers, who exactly is the target market?
What happened? i’d say it’s the money.
I’m heated about Dwell, because I like it so much. It’s hard to let it go. And the editors have expressed these same sentiments in brief glimpses. Dwell is on a trajectory, like it or not. How long you stay with the current incarnation of the mag, is most likely inversely related to how strongly you felt about it back when you first started reading Dwell. It’s still a great architecture and design showcase, but without real facts accompanying the articles, they just end up being semi-matte puff pieces. If you’re fine with that, then great, enjoy the luxury eye-candy. I do. But… where’s the teeth? My definition of ‘Nice Modernism’ isn’t contrary to ‘Luxury’ but it has a slightly tenuous relationship with it. It keeps a watchful eye over ‘Luxury’, occasionally has fun with it. But in the end “Nice Modernism” is a movement and doesn’t get caught up in the insular, narcissistic world that Luxury often creates.
Let’s Hope that Dwell’s editors keep her “Nice”.
Minarc
well presented slideshow of Minarc’s Greenfield Residence. a house with no “paint, chemicals, carpet or tiles”. nice. [via TH]
Timbo
It was wonderful staying with uncle Tim, as he is not only my uncle but a serious art/life mentor of mine. Tim is a renaissance man, trained in the beaux arts. Painter, Master Carpenter, Architect, Photographer, Draftsmen, Poet, Film Historian and dedicated Iyengar student (i’m sure i’m forgetting more things he does incredibly well). Spending time with him is fun, enlightening and challenging. At his most pure, Tim is one of the most inquisitive people I have ever known and at the same time, an unending source of knowledge. The consummate student, Tim has spent his entire life learning, seeking, seeing. But status quo he is not. Tim is a revolutionary in the truest sense. “All revolutions start underground” and Tim lives and breathes this philosophy and you can see it in his work and his words.
Thank you, Tim.
New York State Of Mind
Our trip to NY was a much needed break from the merciless heat and humidity of Puerto Vallarta summers. The first two days in NY were even cold, after which a blistering heat wave hit and we almost felt like we were back in PV, ‘cept without the constant dripping sweat.
We ended up spending most of the time staying with my uncle Timbo in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Tim was a total champ, putting up with us for almost two solid weeks. Our first week was spent going to museums: MOMA, PS1 and seeing family: cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Marcia had never met my grandad ‘Grumpy’, so we took a quick overnight trip out to Haddam, Connecticut, to spend a little time with the man, a total character and sweetest guy in the world. Our Second week was spent going to museums: Dia:Beacon, Brooklyn Museum, The Noguchi Museum and doing more ‘tourist’ style NYC things: Coney Island, Empire State Building, Central Park Zoo etc… Incidentally, the shopping experience in NY was almost a total bust, it’s just such a pain-in-the-ass to have to go down to SoHo and schlep all your crap around with you on the subway. We tried to do a wee bit of shopping, but just couldn’t hack the “NYC Shopping Protocols”, only lasting long enought to get the essentials: underwear, tshirts, shorts and bikinis.
We took a day trip to Croton-On-Hudson, a tiny little suburban commuter town an hour north of NYC and the place where I grew up. I’ll post a separate set for those images, so you can choose or not to choose to sit through a reminiscence on my childhood.
2 days before the end of our trip, we were going to out to Coney Island, when the mirror on my camera broke, unceremoniously ending the picture fun. Imagine wandering around an off-day at Coney Island at dusk with no camera. I was despondent. The trip was a much needed dose of city life, art/culture and family connectedness. After almost two solids weeks of living the high life, we packed up our gear and headed back to steamy Vallarta.
wan.der.lust.ag.ra.phy
currently really diggin’ on the photographic explorations of wan.der.lust.ag.ra.phy
Bush is on Crack
US to sell $20bn of arms to the Gulf. Yeah, good idea, sell massive amounts of arms to an area of the world that you’ve already totally destabilized.
What the Shizz?
ok, so I’m messing around with SEO crapola and I’ve reintroduced adsense into the mix. This probably doesn’t effect 90% of you guys, as you’re smart enough to be reading the rss feed (hint hint). I tried adsense awhile back, and over a 6 month period, I earned enough money to buy myself a coke and a smile. Now, I’m trying it again, with some SEO tips and things. I know I know, adsense on personal blogs makes, well, um, no sense. This is usually because personal blogs have a tendency to be all over the place topic-wise and thus adsense puts in dumb, low cpm links. so if someone clicks on them, they don’t earn dink. Well, this blog is slightly different, I talk about a handful of subjects pretty regularly and Vallarta is a pretty hot destination, so there should be local businesses using Adwords.
So, I’ll leave the adsense up for a little while, again, and see how it goes. don’t be annoyed with me, everyone gotta eat and my future kids need a college edumacation. If anyone has a better way to get ads that better compliment the content on this blog, please feel free to drop the 411 in the comments.
Sita Festival Fanatiks
The Sita Festival is a once yearly ritual. People born in Varanasi are devoted to Sita, one of the three main Hindu gods. Local community groups make their own versions of Sita statues from water soluble materials. The statue stays on display until the 3rd night, then the statue is brought to the Ganges with a huge caravan of partying people accompanied by a huge sound system. The statue is then pushed out into the river. This festival is 3 solid days and nights of partying. Hundreds of dueling sound systems clash at all hours of the night. It’s bananas. We were in Varanasi for all three days.
One night, we were out for a walk near Gondulia Chowk, the main commercial area, when we came upon a group of young men who were celebrating the festival. They were walking their statue down to the Ganges, accompanied by a huge sound system carried by a flat bed pick-up truck. The young men were dancing in the street and partying it up. Booze isn’t allowed in Varanasi, but these guys were so hopped up on the spirit of Sita, when we got thrown in the mix there were a few seconds where I thought this whole ‘revelry’ thing could get out of hand quickly. These dudes were amp’d. We danced with the kids as the older folks looked on in slight horror and I got doused with magenta powder on the forehead, as is customary for males. Marcia tried her best to dance with the kids and I took a bunch of pics. everyone wanted their photo with the statue.
It was an experience.
