Wayfinding with Waxman

YesNoYesNo

2011-02-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

http://yesnoyesno.net/

"is beauty ever bad? and is ugly ever good?

my first of two notes about architecture in the 1st issue of the curated, interactive journal... take link to respond to this and others....

1. Beauty and Circulation

ordered, hierarchical, heterarchical, emergent, field, rhizome, pinwheel, labyrinth, linear, enfilade, enjambment, transparency, centralized, decentralized, raumplan, free plan, structuration, metaphorical, narrative, cinematic, programmed, serial, versioned, aggregated, parameters, kinetic, chaotic... it all boils down to clear versus unclear.

two different notes on what architecture is about

2011-02-05T14:34:00.000-08:00

1. Architecture is about the experience of represented ideas.

2. On meaning:

On my recent trip to the Salk Institute with my girlfriend Maria, I met my good friend David who had worked on the project with Kahn and designed the Salk's Administration Buildings. A deeply meaningful experience to me in many ways, I was struck by David's description of the architecture as being all about meaning. I discovered meaning in the Salk with regard to the co-presence of different materials and elements. Before I continue I must bring up a frequently quoted phrase of Kahn, that to build with brick, for instance, one must ask the brick what it wants to be.

And now I will proceed: in reflecting on the Salk and meaning, I noticed that two materials were particularly dominant, though not equal, in their expression and use, concrete and wood. On the exterior one finds most of the building as an aesthetic experience of concrete, made porous through its ingenious deployment into elements that enable the movement of light, air, human use, sights, and with joints created by the concrete's constructive process with formwork, and a process of site-casting. And wood, which on the exterior is located when viewing the building from the side of the theater of the ocean -- what I term the central plaza -- looking toward the complex's entrance. The wood fills on alternating levels the space of the walls in the offices of the towers framing the sides of the plaza. While small, in a cumulative aggregation, in comparison to the material of concrete, the wood stands out in its application of its warm, textured bars that enable windows nested in them. These two materials and elements -- wood and concrete -- are in a relationship with one another on the exterior.

On the interior of the administrative floor of the library of the north side of the complex, which is where we went inside, wood had enveloped almost the entire interior, swelling and expanding as a surface coat on almost all of the walls. As we approach a window, from the interior, I noticed the corner between the floor -- covered in wood -- and the wall -- covered in wood -- and in this small crevice, extending briefly outward in both axes (on floor and wall) for about a half inch, a sliver of concrete lay bare, thus exposing the layer below. Here on the interior the was a different relationship between the wood and the concrete, though one not any less important than the one on the outside.

In these two instances I realized meaning. Wood and Concrete met, much like two people in an intimate relationship must at first meet. And much like an intimate human relationship, these two partners explore and develop their relationship through the different encounters -- different experiences -- that as parts to the whole of their relationship -- as meetings, as interactive experiences, as dates or dinners, conversations, traveling, and more -- characterize that whole, and give it meaning. The wood and concrete encounter with each other in one way on the exterior and on another way on the interior. Theirs is not but one encounter of wood and concrete but many. If we return to the question of asking a brick what it wants to be, and reflect: what is it that wood wants to be, or concrete? The question must be answered with meditation on a bit of Hegelian logic. There is no a priori of the brick, concrete or wood. While the material does know very well what it wants to be -- it does not know until it encounters another. To ask Wood what it wants to be in the scope of the Salk is to give an opportunity to meet Concrete, in many ways. And the whole of what it wants to be is expressed through the differentiated parts, the experiences of encounter, that shape its knowing of being. In this sense while there is no a priori, the material does simultaneously assert itself, and express its own identity through these moments -- this is the "essential" found within Kahn's work. There is meaning created in both instances of events of encounter between wood and concrete. And in the simultaneous temporal and spatial presence and observation of these different material encounters, meaning is created within the interaction of the materials and elements.

ownership of self, the commodification of being

2010-08-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

The foundation of self value, value of others, value of life, evaluation of being, and jealously all lies in what seems to be a fact that people are always in a state of desiring to own themselves (and working to convince themselves that they do). Though really, that is impossible because we don't actually OWN ourselves -- we are ourselves. (We are in actuality not objects, one would argue.) The body and mind are both in the prior case objectified as a package, sometimes separated, but both objectified. As we struggle to grasp the reality that it is impossible to literally own ourselves, and yet at the same time we do try, and we desire to do so; we gain different senses of satisfaction when we learn that what we think we own is validated as being a good purchase and something worthy to own as deemed by the desire of other potential owners (other people). In other words, through the perception of the desire to own the bodies and minds of other people as objects that can be re-appropriated into potential selves for our self through ownership, one simultaneously recognizes that oneself as a body and mind can be objectified by others, entering into the same wager. Through this we desire to evaluate our own objectified being through the evaluations of potential owners, thus giving it value. It seems none other than supply and demand economics. When the product is rare -- as we are all rare, unless we objectify large quantities of people (such as slaves, races, through epithets, abuse, etc.) -- and the demand is high, the value goes up. When product is non-rare the value goes down. The same can be said for the products of people, the objects associated with those objectified. And thus goes the cycle of objectification of self and others -- a commodification of being.

representation

2009-12-13T15:02:00.000-08:00

art is representation. that is, representation of ideas.

architecture is also representation.

architecture as representation takes two forms. one, representation of ideas that are architectural, or manifest architectural intent, or are about things we imagine as architecture. and two, the work that constitutes architecture is composed solely of that which represents the work. a building as built represents the architecture that is later made into a building. an architectural representation -- a drawing, a section, a plan, a perspective, a rendering, a movie, a narrative, a model , etc. -- are not only indicative of an architectural idea but they emobody the idea itself and thus constitute the idea both prior to the actual construction of a physical object and after the physical object is made. representation, as art, as architecture, is our sole contact with the immaterial condition of ideation that expresses something, whether of two dimensions, three, four or more. representation is all that we have. even ourselves, our bodies, and how we communicate, our facial expressions, hand gestures, habits and the trail we leave through our work and relationships, are all representations of the self, something essentially invisible were it not for these other things. of course, there is an interesting problem that arises when we factor in the digital sphere. there are nonreal objects that are virtual but their virtuality is their existence as being real. this underscores the dominating importance of representation -- for these nonreal objects could be in some cases constructed in the real, physical world. hence, that which is finalized or assumed to be finalized within the digital or another medium, but can be re-presented within the physical, or for that matter, in any other means of cognition or interpretation, any other media, is an object of representation. representation is not only the vessel that carries a projection of something to somewhere else, but representation is both what is moved and the vessel that moves it. this text is both the meaning tha is embedded within it, as well as a representation of the meaning. it is an object within itself but also a representation of that object. put another way, we can use Marshall McLuhan's famous phrase, "the medium is message." representation is surface and content, medium and the message.

To shape change into relationships

2008-06-16T10:58:00.000-07:00

One of the great abilities of people is our ability to see and build relationships between things. Whether abstractly -- crossing through immateriality, referencing the invisible -- or concretely -- touching the material world, felt and interacting formally with the air -- our ability for relationships is one of our greatest skills. We are still learning this art, slowly. We can building relationships with other people, with places, with objects, with ideas, with memories... these are the things of the landscape of life. To get to know the landscape, one doesn't need to exploit it.

The element of a relationship is never lost, it is never won, but rather it is a process of 'how,' much like the question of 'change.' For change is a dynamic static. And a relationship is never beyond its finish, nor permanently before its commencement. But these states are also always present, like an idea forged in the mind and manifested with skill into reality, thus ideally expressing in the next stage a deeper immateriality. People mold change into relationships; this is our human genius. Change being our material, with relationships the most primal and potent of our sculpture.

2008-06-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

One of the most important things I've learned is learning the importance of re-learning, and re-learning how to learn.

2008-05-08T01:05:00.000-07:00

Density of time and space is activated by narratives: the interaction of people and their movements overlaid on top of the material nature of space and time. This is a spark to ignite the beauty of living.

perception deception

2008-01-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

Do pay close attention to the media during our electoral process. I've found it particularly fascinating how the media as turned the Democratic race into a race between Obama and Clinton. It is very, very clear that there is a bias being expressed in the big news media. John Edwards' campaign recently put together an advertisement pointing this out. If anyone in our nation has a question for our potential national leaders, it should be about the art of perception deception. Why is Edwards basically ignored? It isn't an accident.

Here's the Edwards' ad:

"Generational Dimensions" are the parallel dimensions

2008-01-09T17:19:00.000-08:00

Sometimes people speak of "parallel dimensions:" universes where another world exists, similar to our own, possibly with even the same people, but at the same time completely different and divergent. These parallel dimensions exist, to some degree. Okay, I know that sounds kooky but just hold on a second, I'll explain. When I speak of parallel dimensions I'm not talking about physics, string theory, or new age mysticism, but rather the condition of large scale groups of human generations separated by time -- I call these groups "generational dimensions."

At this very moment there is a large population of people living on the planet Earth. A large segment of this group of roughly 6.7 billion people was here yesterday and will be here tomorrow. And other segments of the population were here yesterday but not today (they have died), and are not here today but will be here tomorrow (they will be born). This population is constantly shifting as people come and go but at any given moment the bulk of people remains the same. But what happens when we look at this global population in 200 years? It is most likely that all of today's population will have died and a new population, shifting into place gradually, will have emerged. The differences between these two global populations -- between the one today in contrast to the one 200 years from now -- can be described as generational differences separated by a large amount of time, as each population is an entirely different generation of humans. The same situation exists in the past: 200 years ago there was an entirely different group of people living on Earth than there is now.

But how is this related to "parallel dimensions?" If we recognize that by most logical accounts there will certainly be that new generation 200 years from now as there was also a different generation 200 years ago, we can assume the future generation with an entirely different population will exist and that entirely different populations existed in the past. Each of these generations, which are entirely different when compared to one another over time, can be likened to the idea of parallel dimensions. The people of the future are a group of completely different living organisms that will share a likeness with us today and live -- paradoxically -- in the same world and an entirely different one. And like the idea of parallel dimensions, each "generational dimension" -- the large scale group of human generations that is distinctly unique from another -- is always in existence running parallel to our own generational dimension due to its due existence in its own time. Parallel worlds do exist, separated by time.

Each dimension is also cut off from other dimensions by the type of communication taken for granted within the life of a single generational dimension. The different dimensions can communicate with one another but only in a non-horizontal fashion (unless there is a way for instantaneous time-travel). Communication can occur vertically or diagonally across parallel generational dimensions through interpretations of the past, human record, archaeological remains, and the biological threads of genetics. And we can leave bread crumbs for the future in time-capsules, human record, our archaeological remains and genes, and the ability for future generations to interact with our present and near future generations through recorded and algorithmic, interactive media, environments, and the virtual domain of narratives, fiction, lore and their freshly minted adaptations.

teaching

2007-12-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

Louis Kahn, the great architect, wrote that the birth of education came when a boy and an old man were sitting under a tree, both sharing experiences and stories with one another. Neither boy nor old man knew what they were doing; their act created the institution of education out of the implicit desire to share, learn, and live together.

Kahn had noted that, in his opinion, most institutions had strayed from this original being. The work of a good architect and teacher is to return to this collaborative vision.

Education is about bringing together teacher and student, the young and the old, the tried and the fresh, together.

Teaching is about having faith and the long-term. To teach one must have a faith in the student’s own mind, abilities and future. One must respect the student’s ability to connect things together, and their ability to do so as an individual person. When a student takes a class, it has the potential to effect them for the rest of their life and any of their own teaching and work, friends and family. Knowledge has the potential to unravel new worlds of insight, spreading deep and far into the future.

2007-11-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

The future is that which, paradoxically, is permanently both the untied threads of the living, a world yet to be creatively woven and made into anything at all, and a firmly pressed garment, an item of fashion, existing in a form as truthful and real as the world of today.

vision across the depth of a canyon's breadth

2007-11-11T20:17:00.000-08:00

One's Vision must not be clouded by the sands of a desert storm, the winds of Poseidon, the fog of swamps, or the depth between a canyon's breadth.

Vision must shade from the pain of a storm, and push through the bite of cutting desert sand balding the skin. The swells of the land may swirl and move but the body can still track the topography below and the stars above.

Vision must hold forth when the fate of God turns His hand onto you. The wind and wet of rough seas can be survived.

Vision must be within one, seen and known, where no fog rising from swamps of darkness can blur.

Vision must peer across the canyon. Cut by water and time, the rupture in path is but another vision running perpendicular, deep and cut, rough and old, set and inhabited.

Vision can cut new path into old soil.

The Problem of Models for Sustainability

2007-10-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I attended a regional transportation summit for the bay area looking toward 2035.

The keynote speaker, over our catered lunch, was San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom. In Newsom's clever and talented performance he spoke about how San Francisco and the bay area can become a great model of sustainability for cities around the world. This was how he ended his half-hour show. The speaker following Newsom expressed his excitement about the Chinese. He had just been in Beijing the week before to attend meetings about the nation's next five year plan, and to continue Newsom's thread, he said the Chinese took him and other bay area civic leaders aside and wanted to specifically learn from their achievements.

From my experience in participating in the campus sustainability movement at universities in California to my fairly-wide understanding of the contemporary, evolving sustainability movement as a whole, the wish to make one's city, campus, project, anything, a model for others to use, is commonly expressed.

But there is a problem with speaking of one's city to be a model.

To speak of making a city -- or anything for that matter -- great with the vision of it becoming a model in which others may use dilutes the value of one's city, and it bothers me greatly. (This problem resonates also with another idea I have seen in sustainability circles: that the best models work across every scale. This is a dangerous assumption.)

I understand many use the term with the desire others will learn from their city and achievements. I know models are very useful, especially within the process of creating something. But I am still bothered about the use of the term in this context, a context where "gathering best practices" can be lauded as innovative research. And while best practices can be learned from and are valuable, they tend to be sifted through like a bag of sweet candy jelly beans. One digs for the tasty flavor in the bag that makes the mouth water most.

To speak of making a city to be a model -- as the goal -- means one really desires others to copy from it. ...Picking and choosing, photographing and copying, digitally simulating, mass-producing a bag of city jelly beans.

To wish a city to be a model for others means that any purported greatness achieved will be many other cities with a likeness of one's own. Great cities have no cities of likeness. Great cities, of past, present and future, speak of their own identity, their own individuality. There is only one Kyoto, for example.

A great city can inspire, and it is a great process when it occurs. But inspiration, through the process of synthesis and abstraction, can produce the genesis anew and carry forth the building of greatness elsewhere that is imbued with its own distinct identity.

I am bothered by the desire to make something of our world simply in the end be a model -- it is a very post-modern thing to wish -- to wish many will copy you and become a likeness of you.

man of city and sea

2007-10-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem in February 2007. I had gone to Santa Cruz to say goodbye to a friend and attend a fun going-away party. The next morning I went down to the promenade along West Cliff Drive and stood outside in the brisk, cold, wet, windy air. Breathing in the smell of the sea and gazing forever into the rolling swells toward the vast horizon of the water I love so much, I was swept up into memories of sailing and the greatness of what I saw before me. In love with the giant clouds of volume and blurred white grain and rushing in the air, I wrote this poem:

A man of the city and the sea,
It’s the land in-between that makes me.
I can be with you for eternity,
As a man of the city, with the sea.

Always we are alone, you and me – I and the beautiful sea.

The smells and my pearls,
My winds’ guiding grace,
My clouds’ breaking; great beauty, perfect pace.
You shall come spinning, dancing with the gulls above,
You and I, I will take you for eternity.

I will never rest but I will never leave,
Look into my eyes and we will dance endlessly
My hands will carry you, dear man of the city, now of the sea

Ah yes, I am a man of the city in love with the sea!
I am listening – your rain and great thunder:

From the clouds above -- light breaks upon you
I will grab it with my palms and roll it under
Where only my shadows will see it through
Come stay with me, says the sea, to me.

Come stay with me!
I will never leave you and I will never break – ah, maybe in the surface it’s true
But deep within I’m only calm,
Stretching from land to land – a bridge just for you.

Let me fall into your hands!
It will have been the journey that had made me!
As thus, I am a man of the city, now forever fallen with the sea.

the nature of a 'likeness'

2007-10-25T12:42:00.000-07:00

The nature of a 'likeness' is such that when upon viewing a photograph or a painting or other faithfully provocative depiction of a human being (or for that matter scene of anything assumed to have a real counterpart), the person doing the seeing is caught up with the relationship between them and the person in the picture and notices, or is at least affected by, the identity of that person being a real, lived life somewhere else in the world and captured here so still. But then, when around the corner the actual living human depicted in the frame arrives in front of the gazer, this person greets them anew and is curious as to why the other looks at them with a hint of curiosity, the kind of curiosity reflecting a likeness of wonder about why the person in the picture now seen for real doesn't know of their own image, or think of it now, or the relationship already budding on the other end.

2007-10-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

Global Warming is teaching us that Nature is not "just" natural nor determined, but that it too, like us humans, adapts -- its future something created and yet to be made!

'beyond'

2007-08-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a story of the beyond. See that field? Past the house and the road, beyond the porticoed shed, that open field. It is always there, you notice it when you walk by on the road, you see it from the front porch in the distance. That continuous channel of space between your body and its own, pulling you ever so slightly and cleverly forward. The desire to place one's own body within the field and to sense and feel its scale anew, its space, volume, and openness... of such a swath, a tapestry of carpeted grasses rolling up and down as it sinks and swells, sown to the land itself, a mass below the surface harken through terraform! And is it the field itself that pulls you, is that the beyond? The field is the suggestion, the deliverance of a prompted question sometimes seen through the rising heat inhabiting the distance before us, rippling the green and yellow grasses into the air. For one knows that once one breathes the air held within those rolling cupped hands, there is still a beyond spoken by the edge of the forest which defines it. The forest edge, a tangible mass of trees moving up into the hills, stirred together into its own distinct image characterized by a dominant pattern of varying, shapeshifting, meshed fractal-like changes in color, detail, and shadow and light of bushes and trees seen from a distance. Such a pattern-image lingers, asking one to look deeper and to make a guess -- educated by what we see and know -- about the deeper beyond assumed to be spatially persistent and dense like the volume of the field stretching before us. The forest, in contrast to and also much alike the field, must be a massive being! A presence full of continuation from what we assume to grow beyond the edge. And now move into the field, and into the forest. Does this change? From our position, the pattern shifts but the image remains, adjusted to a new view of the beyond.

Immaterial Labor + il Mercato

2007-08-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

In response to the critiques on "immaterial labor" in the sociable web on the Institute for Distributed Creativity listserve:

This morning I went with some new friends to the Saturday morning mercato in our neighboring town of San Giovanni in the Valdarno valley, south of Firenze, Italy. The market -- similar to markets and flea markets experienced within larger Italian cities, and more so sharing a likeness with the market of the town in which I currently live, Montevarchi, as well as the Greek market within the forest of apartment complexes along the Faleron coast of Athens where I have spent time with my grandparents -- was pulsating with the blood of Mediterranean public life: people, many people, trying on clothes, lots of clothes, pressing bathing suits, undergarments, shirts, pants, underpants, up against their bodies, asking their friends and family what they think, all right there in the street amid tons of other people all doing the same thing. Clothing vendors dominated this market. Clothes were cheap. Sometimes fashion gems could even be uncovered in mounds of clothes, like a second-hand store in the USA. The friends I was with were actively shopping for clothes. I joined them and bought some underwear and socks.

I was very struck by how very public this shopping experience was, more public than shopping in the Ipercoop (Italian Walmart) where the market-like variety of clothes, electronics, and food is enclosed in effectively a giant industrial hanger. It was far more public than shopping along a street of stores embedded within buildings where the near-purchase experience happens between window-shopping and trying on clothes within private changing-rooms. And it was way more public than shopping in a mall where the giant industrial hanger has eaten the street space and stuffed the stores and their changing-rooms far deep into its privatized belly.

I felt a tad uneasy this morning, standing next to girls my same age who were trying on shoes and shirts, heading into the back of vans to change into dresses and then coming back out again to look at themselves in full-body mirrors held up by young men who are also selling the clothes. I felt a tad uneasy, I realized, because I was used to a much more private shopping experience! And like sitting at a dinner table with many wonderful, kind, loquacious people, and all of them speaking a language you don't speak that well, I didn't quite know how to enter the conversation without feeling awkwardly bold and out of context. I stood in the market this morning, mezmerized by this culturally-saturated Mediterranean shopping extravaganza in the street.

For the ancient Romans there were two words for the city, "urbs" and "civitas." Urbs evoked the urban form, the built fabric. Civitas, or citizenship, evoked the life of the city and its politics, the human fabric. Urbs and civitas are not always together. An ugly town can have a lively civitas, and a beautiful built form can lack civitas.

What I experienced this morning at the mercato, a highly dynamic shopping experience outdoors in public, was an expression of civitas. Shopping this morning was not just the transaction of money nor the commercial act of shopping, it was a social energy, a means of communicating. The market experience works like a language one must learn to speak for living a certain way of life in that city. The Ipercoop and Western malls, by contrast, are more of a container for the shopping function, an urban form or urbs. Ipercoop and malls lack civitas.

And the civitas, citizenship, and socio-political life-juice, as we know, has been emerging in new public-like "spaces" online. The "free labor," "immaterial labor," "life time," "performance" or "work" put into one's presence and communications in the sociable web is an expression of civitas.

From Trebor's essay: "People take their life to the web and this activity; this labor is driven by affect, which Michael Hardt thinks of as central form of "immaterial labor" today. He writes that "this labor is immaterial, [and] its products are intangible: a feeling of ease, well-being, satisfaction, excitement, passion—even a sense of connectedness or community." It is exactly this satisfaction that people get out of laboring in the sociable web."

Experiencing the market is the same satisfying feeling. Updating a social network profile and messaging a friend is like the trying on of clothes and asking others how it looks amid tons of other people all doing the same thing, all in the street of the public outdoor market.

"Free labor" or "immaterial labor" is not produced because people are thinking about doing it for money, or because it can generate money for others. The sharing -- expression -- of personal information on Facebook and MySpace by my peers and I (and likely you, too) may be done without a conscious reflection on the presence of a commercial and institution network that allows it to occur. These networks are like urbs and may not necessarily impact or drive the work of the civitas.

The urbs of Facebook or MySpace, YouTube or EyeSpot have access to the personal information shared and communicated within their legal frameworks, just as I have access to evesdropping or staring at people trying on clothes in the public market, or drawing or recording something I come across. And like the streets swelling with market stalls, or the forums and piazzas of ancient and modern Italy, the urbs of the sociable web have been founded by corporation and institution with enough power or clout to establish a significantly voluminous public space for a meaningful community. There is, though, a striking contrast between the level of access a digital versus physical institution of power has to the civitas it fosters. In the urbs of social networks versus the urbs of the real city: Social networks are digital and thus data information can be easily recorded and used for other purposes in other contexts. In the urbs of the city "data" is more ephemeral like spoken words, images remembered or air breathed, unless manifested in a physical or recordable way.

Of course, one would hope, the presence of urbs controlled by powerful institutions would not destroy accompanying civitas. Unfortunately this is still occuring with the Ipercoop and mall and its surrounding auto infrastructure, they are eating away at the mercato.

to design an efficiency tree

2007-07-01T23:43:00.000-07:00

To design an efficiency tree -- to design a tree that functions the best and most efficiently -- what would it look like?

Yet there are also so many different types of trees -- the purpose of a tree is not to simply, in a one-dimensional sense, to breathe co2 and emit oxygen for other organisms to breathe; just as the purpose of a human life is not to simply to breathe oxygen and emit co2. The purpose of a tree is far more multidimensional, as is the purpose of a human. Contemporaneously there are 6.7 billion people on this planet and far more trees than that -- not even to mention the other lifeforms! To examine the tree, many purposes can be seen and discovered. An airplane was engineered to fly, and its purpose is visible in its form. Was a bird engineered with the purpose of flight? But a bird is not simply a flying object.

Built structures, furniture also -- and cities -- have no "nature" given counterparts of which the human-constructed seek to imitate, other than biomimicry. I may be kidding myself here, for there is a lot to learn from the natural world, for sure. Yet all of these, biomimicry included, can be purpose driven. Biomimicry is design and engineering purposefully imitating, learning from, natural systems and emulating them to achieve particular, sometimes emulated, results. Nature can also be purpose driven, cultivated, articulated, arranged, or let loose to grow on its own where purpose can appear to our human eyes and ears and fingers and walks as emanating from the ecosystem, as "natural," "organic" or even "chaotic" and with a purpose like a "higher power" or engendered by some other set of species. "Progress," as a concept, can also be purpose driven. Although more superficial progress, where progress is more of an aesthetic appropriated to make a conscious image of progress -- a "postmodern" progress -- can also lack a more meaningful, arranged purpose.

What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? What the heck are we doing here? I like to say the meaning of life is the meaning of life. That's the meaning of life is, is as in within, life, is the meaning of life. The purpose is the purpose. I'm talking about perspective, perception, views, and ways of seeing the world. What do you think? What do I think? What do they think? What is believed to be manifested can be and also not be and partially be what is manifested. Look at your feet and ask questions about where you stand. But beyond imaginary and cultural superstitions -- purpose can really, quite frankly, be ambiguous and multiplicitous and hybrid and awkward and clear and obvious and distinct and everywhere. Material like a rock, or wind beating your ears, or yourself, and consequences. Immaterial like the real words and images of a thought in your head, an emotional attachment to a cat, or butterflies in the stomach. There are no purpose to these and one can create purposes. One could also say validly: life has no purpose. And what a contentious statement that is!

And following from all this, I feel the "pleasure pavilion" is a very important concept. When I studied architecture in Florence with Syracuse University, our class had a seemingly-simple design project located at the Medici Villa in Fiesole. We were designing a pavilion for the lower partere of the villa's garden. With a small selection of materials and shapes we could use, our designs could fill a 10 by 10 meters site and achieve a height of 5 meters. During the week the project was assigned I remember asking my teacher what the program of the pavilion was supposed to be. Her response: there is no program, you decide. I felt it was wasteful to concieve of spending money (here imaginary) on something with potentially frivoulous purpose. To contextualize my comment, I must note that I had just come from involvement in activities where I had picked up an apparent bias and became a bit unaware of the idea of unprescribed program. The more I took on this strange, ironic artifact of no assigned purpose, I found the challenge to deepen and widen, to become ever-more intriguing, and to transform my appreciate of architecture and life.

No program was not 'bad,' nor strictly 'good,' it was -- like, I think, pretty much all contradictory problems and themes -- a question of 'how.' The pleasure pavilion has no purpose, it has no reason for being born other than to make something great to experience, to catch water, to look out of, to look at, to wander around, to contemplate, to hold dinner parties in, to age, to design, to feel, to experience, to pleasure.

And purpose? The purpose of the pleasure pavilion is there, there are lots of purposes within it. Of course, in here comes the role of the architect, he or she can design purpose, with "complexity and contradiction," as Robert Venturi also likes and enjoys. I feel my project created a complex, contradictory, experience. I'd love to see it built, frankly. An internal reflection and external recognition of the site's context. There are lots of different experiences for people I concretely see in the project, and more than may be composed, I think. The pleasure pavilion, all complex and contradictory, all wound up like a character who collects rubber-bands to make a huge rubber-band ball, a conundrum of life. It simply lives and, in its own natural order, it is seriously pleasureful and in some cases is ironic and humorous, like a tree or a bird, or water.

Water also makes a good example (as are all the elements) because it can have applied purpose, value, vitality, yet its fundamental existence has no reason.... one supposes...

And the Kyoto train station by Hiroshi Hara is worth studying in this regard -- it has purpose apparent and purpose discoverable -- the architect can design such purposes and give meaning to life, can give reason to believe in spirit, God(s), Earth, life, elements, time, Universe, beyond. The train station has so many meanings. Elsewhere in Kyoto I spotted a large sign on the outside of a Buddhist Temple saying "Let us discover the significance of birth and the joy of living."

2007-07-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

Full moon. bright light. shadows long. silver moonshadow.

brush stroke on the bushes.

foggy clouds hurling past.

the moon is close. you, the trees, the moon, then the clouds, and then the darkness.

trees parting, enclosing.

the moon. it's always there. it makes a good friend.

to look at the moon as if you will never see it again.

(c) M. Waxman 2007.

what's daily life in iraq like?

2007-06-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

I highly recommend the NYT's Q&A with its reporters in Iraq about daily "Life in Iraq" -- it's very telling and discusses a wide spectrum of problems and topics... from the realities of reconstruction, what it's like to work in the Red Zone, to comments by an Iraqi reporter about life for children, and reflections on an exchange with a group of female Iraqi architecture students -- this is life on Earth, now.

http://questions.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/qa-life-in-iraq/

Mochi-land

2007-06-20T23:47:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year, in March, I traveled to Japan to see my brother. It was phenomenal!

Japan shares a likeness to the west, but is another world. It was my first non-western experience. I loved the architecture, the mix of the old and new, and so much more. Japan has such a distinct smell, a sweet smell. On my first night my brother Alan took me to a traditional Japanese tea ceremony in Kyoto -- a perfect way to begin the trip, as so much in Japan is tied to or somehow related to the tea ceremony and its environs and practices. The tea was a rich, bright green; thick in flavor, consistency, and hue.

Before I left, I had read that the tatami mat has played an important role in shaping the scale of Japanese architecture. Turns out that it's true: the room where we had tea ceremony, for example, was totally scaled to the tatami mat! The floor had eight tatami mats creating a square, and each of the walls was scaled to four tatami mats standing upright in width and one and a third tatami mats in height. What amazed me further was that the subdivided detailing on the walls -- the wooden framing and bars on the screens and the space between them -- was also broken down in smaller scale based on the mat's original size. Japan is a lesson in scale.

My brother lives in Hirakata, which is right between Osaka and Kyoto. Hirakata, a city of 400,000, is considered countryside but by my American eyes looked like a city. I was struck by the many farms and garden-plots located throughout the residential neighborhoods of Hirakata. Such an arrangement would make a pretty good planning model: designing neighborhoods with small garden and farmland plots every five or so blocks. And then, why not have the homeowners, upon purchasing or renting a neighborhood property, also automatically purchase or rent a parcel of the garden and farmland, and even place this in homeownership contracts?

I learned that most of the homes in the new developments are also purchased prior to their completion; the result is neighborhoods of people who know each other even before they move in. Extended families all move in near each other, and people buy into a community. My brother said many of the elderly tend the gardens -- where they grow the ubiquitous but varied "mountain vegetables" among other things. The grandfather of the family whom my brother lives with (who lives just a block away) grew many of the vegetables we ate for dinner.

My brother and I were in Kyoto for a few nights, then took the shinkansen bullet train to Matsumoto (Nagano Prefecture), then went by bus through the Japanese Alps (a snowy fantasy landscape more beautiful than a dream can render) to the small mountain town of Takyama (where we slept at a Buddhist temple youth hostel and ate at a 200 year old restaurant with amazing food, among other things), then took trains to Toyota to visit my brother's friend who is a Mormon missionary (and made friends with other missionaries from Brazil and Hawaii; one of the Brazilians grew up in a squatter city and we had very interesting conversations), and then traveled back to Hirakata, and took day trips to Osaka and Kobe -- each extremely fascinating -- and spent the last night in Kyoto.

We stayed at Ryokans in Kyoto and explored various parts of the city. The new downtown and entertainment district, Gion (the old entertainment district) and Kiyomizudera (absolutely fantastic temple complex!) at night, and Arashiyama, a beautiful part of north-western Kyoto with a river and hills of maple and cherry blossom trees, and a bamboo forest adjacent to cemeteries that we wandered through. When we were in Gion on my second night, there was a pre- Sakura (cherry blossom) festival where the entire old town was lit up -- stunning old alleyways, pagoda temples with many roofs, many people, beautiful arrangements of flowers -- animated existence. We also saw various other temples, jinjas, and gardens in the city that we discovered and stumbled upon. During the pre- Sakura festival with Gion lit up, we wandered through alleyways where many people, mostly men, had set up their cameras on tripods and stood photographing the alleyway from one angle over and over again. We also stumbled across a "noh" play being performed during the festival. As my brother described, a "noh" play recants over about five hours an experience that took about five minutes.

In Osaka there are covered streets full of shops and restaurants. (Such streets are also in Kyoto but not as large, and they are apparently even larger in Tokyo). These malls, or rather, gargantuan arcades, made me think of Italian arcades, yet they are an entirely distinct form and function under their own rules. Extending for miles, to look into one of these streets flooded with thousands of people, stores, lights, sounds, colors, smells, is to peer into the depth of a perspectival vanishing point. We wandered around the "namba walk" area (which is an enormous underground mall) and outside on many streets packed with a bewildering array of high-rises, neon signs, electronics shops, and girls and boys with eccentric fashion tastes.

Alan I went to Kobe with a couple of his American friends (one who was travelling with us from that point on) and two gorgeous and really friendly Japanese girls. I could sense the western planning, post-earthquake influence: the downtown area by the waterfront felt like San Francisco in scale and street-to-building proportions. As monumental reminder, there's a chunk of earthquake-destroyed harbor still resting by the water nearby the "Harborland" development; it really hits home the intensity of the quake: horribly huge and disastrous. Post-disaster reconstruction strategy was also evident, it appeared, in commercial development. I suspect it was used as a mechanism to pay for reconstruction: Harborland is a fascinating complex of very large malls and hotels, connected by walkways that span over streets, many fancy stores, and even an ironic protestant church (with tennis courts next to it) placed in between it all. The same night we were in Kobe we trekked into Osaka for Kareoke and caught a very packed, very last train on our way back to Hirakata.

Food definitely had an impact on my experience in Japan -- a story in itself. There are so many kinds. I tried "nato" over breakfast in Matsumoto while the family of my brothers' friend looked on. Nato is fermenting soybeans. Can't say I enjoyed nato, but glad I tried it. Matsumoto is amazing by the way, with mountains that fill half the sky and sit on either side of a long valley. My brother and I also were taken to a wasabi farm in Matsumoto -- Shinsyu azumino daio wasabi farm -- gorgeous, a blue-sky day, light twinkling on the surface of water streaming through rows of green wasabi roots planted in grey gravel, set within what was like a river -- it was like something out of an anime! We tried wasabi ice-cream and wasabi juice! Matsumoto also has an amazing 400 year old, original castle that's spectacular in beauty and might.

While we were in Takayama, we ate breakfast at a little Japanese restaurant recommended to us by the Buddhist monk who ran the youth hostel. Traditional breakfasts are usually composed of a little egg (a block of scrambled-egg-like substance called Tamago), a little fish, mountain vegetables, pickled vegetables, a bowl of rice, miso soup, and green tea. When my brother gave our order, the middle-aged stout woman at the restaurant smiled and asked us if we wanted to have raw egg over our rice -- this was translated by my brother. (my brother did all the translating!) I said no way, I did not want raw egg! But my brother decided he wanted it. Alan ate raw egg over raw beef once before about a year ago, so he figured he could do it again... well... so, Alan is eating the raw egg poured over his rice, and he cringes and I ask him, how it was. "Horrible," he replied but he continued to eat the whole bowl of rice.

After seeing some amazing traditional Japanese architecture later that day, we were about to miss our train to Nagoya (to head to Toyota) because we had spent so much time exploring the architecture. Alan ran to the train station while I simply walked fast. When we arrived at the station we had missed the train and Alan was complaining of aches all of his body and a sense of dizzyness.

In Toyota we stayed with an English student of Alan's friend who is a Mormon missionary (they teach English). Over an amazing dinner prepared for us and the Mormons, Alan let's us know that he thinks he's going to pass-out and heads to the bathroom. To make a long-story short, he's in terrible shape, and once we finally get back to Hirakata a day and a half later, we go to the hospital (another story) and Alan learns that he has contracted an intestinal virus! He gets medicine and isn't supposed to eat anything other than rice (and Sake), and that day we also head out for a day trip to Kobe.

I should note that I might have picked something up from him, or something else, because from the point on after Alan got sick, I ate almost nothing. I lost my appetite completely. This had some consequences... more stories... it was really something and strange. I'd never lost my appetite like that before. By the way, the next morning after Alan became sick, we met up with the Mormons at the train station and went with them to get lunch... at a donut shop called Mr. Donut. Not only was I not hungry but the donuts really turned me off... and I couldn't muster the appetite... there were a lot of wild donut flavors, such as curry-filled donuts!

And there was also the gates of Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, which pose the fundamental questions of existence: What is space? What is time? What is the purpose of life? A gate means a change in space, it is a threshold and a boundary. What is inside/outside? What is before/after? In Shinto, a sacred space could be on either side of the gate. The gates, when lined up in repetition, one after the other, create a path.

One comes to ask, what is this path? As each gate is paid for by different companies (their names engraved on the pillars in Japanese), a great irony emerges in light of the religious context: it appears as if the religion wants you to think there is only one path, as this is so with the gates. And as long as people keep sponsoring and paying for the gates, there will be one path for us to walk within!

My brother and I walked within the gates' path for quite some time, halfway up the mountain. Light slid in-between the pillars of the gated passage. Looking out from within the passage, there is a forested landscape, visible but inacessible. What is outside the gates' path? What is the space beyond? Visible but unknown, real but untouchable, assumed but unclear. Each gate alone is one moment. Each gate is one frame. Each gate frames the moment. Time does not exist from within a single gate. A path gains the element of time. The procession of gates transforms the space of the gates into a path. When the procession of gates is long enough to arouse time in space, then space flows, and is animated, into the path. The path -- articulated at Fushimi Inari -- is a manifestation of time itself rendered in space.

I love the main train station in Kyoto -- Kyoto station is a brilliant design with a soaring atrium at its heart, pulsating with the rhythms of people pattering across many patterns of paths from trains to shops within the station, a giant mall, up and down escalators, stairs and walkways, and out into the street. One of the most beautiful things about the atrium is that you can climb either side of it, sending your body into a fantastic state, one caught between a consciousness of being in physical reality and a perplexing sense of unreality -- a virtuality -- brought on be the sheer scale and animation of everything within!

I fell in love with the structure as it hurled me through architectural contortions in depth and density, form and reflections, light and color, and movement up into the heavens. On one side there's a very long staircase that climbs to the top of the grand building. Upon arriving at the zenith, one finds a "happy terrace" (a play on words because of the literal translation from Japanese) with magnificent views sending radiance throughout Kyoto, a city of age, power, transformation, and landscape. By the windows there are also plaques featuring architect Hiroshi Hara's statement for the building. At the top, one finds a reflection back upon the landscape in which we came.

There were many things that I couldn't have predicted, nor did I have expectations about. There is a huge abundance of traditional-style architectural elements applied to residential buildings -- this I did not anticipate and took me by surprise -- comparable to the dominance of ranch-style single-family homes in the USA.

Japan is animated, as in brought to life! So many things I truly loved, and a fair amount of things that repelled me. It is an absolutely amazing world. My brother's sensai says that Japan is the dumping ground of Asia for cultural influence -- new things, such as architecture, are brought there and integrated, absorbed, but they do not dissolve the traditions and that which is Japanese. The simultaneity of difference in the world -- across here and there -- is like the simultaneity of many places, of many people, and of night and day.

On my last night I watched a "shadow of light" cast itself on a wall within our room at the Kyoto ryokan we stayed in. A "light shadow" cast upon a canvas of darkness, the opposite of a shadow of darkness cast out of light during the day -- it was beautiful. I would like to return.

If it were not for being with my brother who is mostly fluent in Japanese, I'd have been completely lost. A great bonding experience between me and my brother. My brother went to great lengths to immerse me in the culture -- it was lifechanging!

(c) M. Waxman, May 2007

delicious things politicians read

2007-06-17T23:31:00.001-07:00

In my recent May, 28, 2007 post on "MySpace Impact" I described the production quality of Democratic Candidate Chris Dodd's video message. "While I think he has an admirable message in his video, on the one hand, it's poorly produced with bad lighting and sound. His video is very jarring when contrasted to the fancy, fast-paced media of music videos or even Richardson's video. On the other hand, the poor quality of the video and the self-consciousness of his addressing the camera shares a lot of common ground with the quick-and-dirty work of casual video-bloggers on YouTube."

In response, Tim of the Chris Dodd campaign commented:

"That was the point when we created Dodd's video ... especially since we asked people to respond with their own. How many youtube users creating original content do twenty-seven takes and use Final Cut Pro and all kinds of special effects with $3,000 worth of lighting?

Tim
Chris Dodd for President"

My response to Tim:

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the comment! Excellent point. I did a quick search on YouTube and wasn't successful in finding responses. Although I did browse Dodd's MySpace blog posts and noticed a few videos posted, some seemingly authored by Dodd's staff and some authored by Dodd supporters. The most common theme I observed is a review of Dodd's stance on issues and a promotion and celebration of campaign fervor.

The Sunday, June 3, 2007 MySpace blog post features a YouTube video with Dodd responding to questions from various undisclosed websites. This is probably a great example of the YouTube-like, low-production quality video you're describing.

About two-thirds into the video, Dodd commented on the difficulty to answer complex questions in under one minute in Presidential debates. The question was: "What kind of practice do you do for the debate? Do you do any drills of any kind?" Dodd responded by saying that, with the help of his staff, he's working to "get tighter on these answers" but that it is nonetheless a major challenge to condense complexity because of time requirements for (presumably) televised debate.

I'm straying from the topic of production quality, but I think here the question of content quality arises. And while the video gives a bit more expanded answers, it only goes so deep in giving us a picture of Dodd.

The challenge of conveying complexity when confronted with time limits is an important skill and a challenge, and I totally understand what he's saying.

Last week I was brought onto KZSC, my alma mater UC Santa Cruz's radio station, to be interviewed by journalist Bruce Bratton on his show "University Grapevine" about long-range campus planning, university growth and student housing issues. We had a great live conversation over the course of a half hour. I think both Bruce and I came away feeling we could go deeper and that we only began to scratch the surface of these issues. Having done interviews and lectures on the same subjects before, I've found it to be both problematic and important to pack an overview or analysis of a very complex issue into a brief span of time. You want to give it clear and concisely but you also don't want to lose the meat. I found myself commenting near the end of the interview about the subject's complexity and remarking that noting its complexity is not to gloss over things but instead an invitation for listeners to get out there, do research, and learn more.

Reviewing Dodd's website may have keyed me into a partial answer to this challenge of packing big information into little packages, and the sociable web is part of the answer...

Dodd's MySpace blog posts are titled as "blog round-ups." At first I thought these posts were a round-up of blog posts Dodd read from around the blogosphere. Then I realized the round-up was of blog posts from the main Dodd website. It's great to follow the campaign trail and see reviews of Dodd's political stance, but I was actually hoping to have a peek into Dodd's favorite blog posts or news articles he reads!

What if this was the case? What if Dodd actually had a blog round-up of news stories and articles, websites and information? I really like this concept and think it could be pretty influential. It'd make a great complement to the video messages.

One of my favorite blogs, Ethan Zuckerman's "I left my heart in Accra", which has a heavy theme of Africa and social-tech activism, runs a regular del.icio.us links round-up with commentary. Akin to the del.icio.us lists found on websites around the net (see mine to the right), what's great about Ethan's links and commentary is that they give us a view into what Ethan's reading and allows his internet research and inquiry to reach us easily.

Reading Ethan's links (or mine) also gives the reader an unusual backdoor to ongoing thought processes. The reader can peer into the internet-connected-mind's non-linear gathering of information, web surfing, blog browsing, life and world puzzle jumbling and reorganizing, and appreciation of knowledge, research and thoughts of others.

A challenge for politicians is connecting with constituents on a meaningful level. Sometimes the politician-constituent connection happens on an aesthetic branding-like level dependent on heavy framing (think GW Bush) and sometimes it happens because of heart-felt messages and well-crafted, honest communication work (think Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth). Getting a politician's character across is key, but I'll add to this that helping constituents gain a sense of transparency when it comes to the politicians own accumulation of knowledge is also important -- here those del.icio.us links come into play.

When the reader gains a perspective onto the mind of the politician (or, frankly, whomever is collecting the del.icio.us links), the reader feels more comfortable with that individual. And even if one disagrees with a politician's party or political standpoint, the ability to see what a politician is reading enables both the politician and the reader-constituent to see the influencing information, the factual or opinion-based content, directly and make their own decision based on the same sources of information instead of a diluted filter such as a television ad, brief interview, or debate dominated by buzzwords and rhetoric.

Where does the politician get his or her information? With what frequency does the politician read information and from what sources? What are they reading, what fascinates them, and what publications, authors and subjects do they like to check out? Might the politician care to influence me with their recommendations of great articles, books, websites, or even, say organizations, businesses, and places to see and visit? Can the Presidential candidates compete to influence me, to compete to share with me their thoughts? Can they work hard to not only influence me by TV ads, but also do so by sharing with me their influences and inspiration? I want in on their own, personal research process inquiring about the world!

Reading a politician's del.icio.us links list would help answer these questions. (I'd also like for honest authenticity to be established, and a way for me to know if the list is actually coming from the politicians.)

Candidate Chris Dodd's prompt for v-bloggers to post responses does somewhat move in this direction by establishing an added communication link. Dodd's website even advertises that a "DTV" is in the works (I imagine it will have even more frequent video messages from the man himself?).

Dodd should keep up his plan to video-blog -- they are great practice for live debate and give us a virtual in-the-flesh experience -- but they should be complemented by a del.icio.us links blog round-up.

Now Dodd needs to make his blog news expand beyond the campaign website and show us what he's been reading.

body: internal and external stimulation

2007-06-16T23:29:00.001-07:00

In the Spring of 2006, before graduating from college, I took a modern dance class. Learning (and struggling with) dance -- something I knew I would enjoy and knew I must try -- was quite beautiful and very fun. Sketched on March 6, 2006, what follows is reflection on internal and external stimulation, the interior of the body and its relation to architecture:

In modern dance class my teacher spoke about the difference between "internal stimulation" and "external stimulation". Laying on the ground, flattening our backs to the floor, and then arching our spine up and down, she spoke of how most people, everyday, expose themselves to continuous external stimulation.

The first image of external stimulation that came to my mind was myself sitting at the computer screen: engrossed, and totally stimulated through the external image in front of me. My body, aside from my hands typing (as I am doing now), or my head geared forward and focused on an area of the screen, is not stimulated and is disconnected. I also imagined my apartment mates who spend the majority of their waking hours sitting in front of the television, or the people I would observe at parties who never seemed to be doing anything but the social ritual of heavy drinking, shouting at each other, and being driven (it seemed) entirely by lust and hormonal desire... the folks I'm thinking of always appeared distracted and not aware of themselves in their surroundings.

My teacher said people need to turn inward and focus on the internal of the body and learn to be tuned to and give internal stimulation. As she said this, I turned my head and saw her lying on her back. Her legs were beginning to arch upward in an outward curve bent at the knees. Her body was totally set within the space around it. Set within the space between the floor and the ceiling, the mirror behind her and the reflections of opposite windows, the entire scene was truly beautiful form.

Thus to consider internal stimulation, I observed, is to sense and be with the internal of the body. And as I turned away from her and looked upward, I saw the building around us in much the same light: we were inside the building, and the structure of the building, like our skin, is separation between the internal and the external. On the scale of the body, past the skin, there are muscle, organs, bone, and water, all interacting dynamically as a fluid presence yet solid mass. I believe (and I know this is true for myself prior to that moment) most people, most of the time, forget about their internal fluid mass. A very important part of one's life, it is the body of space within the body whose presence is very sacred and yet vitally invisible.

The building is then, like the skin, a membrane, a separation between internal and external realms. It is always through the building that we see the external. Yet it is always in the external that humans situate one's mind to engage life within a concept of greater context. The body is the same: we see through our eyes and live through the presence and function of our internal organs, but in our senses we peer through our bodies and situate ourselves beyond our skin and into the world, never looking and only knowing of the other half of life's lived space, that which is embedded inside of us forever.

As I write, I am now realizing that this body of space, the body's interior, is permanent and timeless. We cannot live without it. We cannot experience without it. We cannot grow or change, or be, without it. But this raises a very interesting question: is that always so? Lived life only knows a perspective whose origin is from the body. (Not to forget human beings are born from the bodies of their mothers'.) But can one transcend the body, step away from the body, exist as pure spirit, or be a ghost of sorts?

This is dipping into a heavily treaded domain, but I am not sure I can answer. I consider myself spiritual, but my spiritual moments have come from not inward focus to leave the body, but rather from moments of placeness and contextualization across time and space. Spirituality and experiences that have been critical to me, above all, engage my body within the space it is part of. Why would one want to leave the body? Leave the world and space? Essence and spirit, I suspect, does not leave the world, but embeds itself within it. If humans hold within them spirits and if they can transcend the body past the body's death, it is the spirit-mind-body-context relation but an inversion of order: spirit inhabits context of which then peers outward to look back at the body, spirit-context-body-mind.

2007-06-05T15:24:00.001-07:00

We live with the assumption of performing factual lives.

Actions taken or not taken are factual objects; they are cause for statistical bias.

Though, to live inside a solely factual life is a canard.

Life stories are told and sometimes become objects of recollection memorized and repeated, transformed into a facsimile with the quintessential purity of a Compact Disc.

But if they linger within the imagination before regurgitation, might their repetition make their existence open to interpretation? Why accept one's history as simply a matrix of simple objects whose depth is left characterized at surface level? Why abnegate anything further?

Might fiction be open to enjoyment? An ever-capricious later portion of one's life always hovers in semi-fictional future-tense. The scenario must be respected for its respect to trends and past and sustaining factual basis, but the scenario is also built with imagination, conjecture, and perceptive observation. Is it not salubrious to exercise the ability to mould the world -- and the telling of its stories? Such is done in books, movies, art, architecture, and the oratory... media of representation and materialization... and it may also be embedded in lived, physically-real livelihoods.

2007-05-28T23:24:00.000-07:00

The world is a warped virtuality, such that it stretches, bends, folds, tears, and ripples into a construction known as reality.

The "subterranean void" in Mars' surface that has an unknown and undetectable depth -- what unknowns there are, what perplexing unrealities are hidden but ripe within the true fabric of the universe!

It's kind of late, about 11:51pm and I'm sitting at the computer. My nose is starting to run and the portion of my hand closest to my pinky-finger feels warm and stingy-like. My right knee feels a little tight somewhere inside underneath the knee-cap towards the right side. I'm thinking about my body. I don't really understand my body. I'm thinking about my mind, I can control how my body moves and what I put inside of it and how I maintain it. I think in English and can think in other abstractions. I can think in multiple layers of thought and imagine imagery of various three-dimensional contortions that represent or warp my understandings of reality outside of me, but I don't really understand my mind. That's easier to consider than to admit, but so very true. How does the body and mind work beyond what I know?

-5/28/2007

2007-05-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

MySpace has a website featuring pages for most of the 2008 presidential candidates -- impact.myspace.com

I've been browsing some of the pages and it's really fascinating to see how the candidates appear when recontextualized within the MySpace page layouts and YouTube video. Gov. Bill Richardson's featured video includes a couple of TV ads that characterize him as very "down to earth" or "real" and someone whom young people frequenting myspace could relate to.

Contrast Richardson with the likes of Hillary Clinton or John McCain, and the later two come across as incredibly stuffy and self-centered. The favorite friends Hillary displays on her page are all "I love hillary" or "hillary2008fanclub" type of groups or pages... and McCain's layout aesthetic plays on a very stiff and formal, military-style branding (Likely, I guess, to appeal to some youngsters).

And then there's the video by Chris Dodd. Dodd is a Democratic candidate. While I think he has an admirable message in his video, on the one hand, it's poorly produced with bad lighting and sound. His video is very jarring when contrasted to the fancy, fast-paced media of music videos or even Richardson's video. On the other hand, the poor quality of the video and the self-consciousness of his addressing the camera shares a lot of common ground with the quick-and-dirty work of casual video-bloggers on YouTube.

Sam Brownback also features a speech-to-the-internet video. The 50 year-old, conservative candidate repeatedly states that he's running "for the future" because he's concerned about preserving and improving all the nations culture, safety, and family values. His page includes a picture of his big family in their living room. As I live in a staged house on the real estate market, I know what a staged house without family-personality looks like -- and his living room gives just that staged, plastic impression. And I shouldn't forget to note that MySpace Impact has him currently highlighted as the "presidential focus" with an extra-big image.

Brownback is also very stuffy sounding. He begins the video by saying "Hello MySpace!" and explains that he's running for president. While I'm sure he wants to be seen as a respectable and notable figure with just the right chutzpah to be president, the video message pulls the cloudy clout right out from under him and makes him no more special than the average Joe, or Sam... might this mean any video-blogger could run for President? At the end of his message he says, "Please spend some time exploring my page, and this space, and thanks for visiting the site." Well he's got "page," "space," and "site" covered; it isn't clear to me that he's spent much time on MySpace, social-networking sites, or has much of any idea where today's world is actually heading in the future given this page, space, and site.

MySpace Impact also features sections on various real-world issues ("impact awards"), voter registration, and an "our planet" section with a "go zero featured tip" for reducing one's carbon footprint, among other things.

2007-05-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

The rate of suicide among Chinese women is very high: one commits suicide every four minutes. Think about that. Let four minutes pass. Someone has murdered themselves for a reason in which they feel they had a cause.

We are nothing but growth

2007-05-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

Growth is extremely noble. Growth is extremely selfless. Growth is more than an extension, an aggrandizement, a push, an increase, a change in current proportions, dynamics, feeling, and form.

Growth is to go beyond the life that had been emballmed in previous ideas, cast from previous lives. Growth is to pump the veins of this moment's capacities with fresh blood, to enliven the limbs of life and let them dance.

Growth is to have the utmost respect and adoration for time. Growth is to selfessly admit to history and time's permanence, a clever smirk ever gazing over the channels upon channels of growing things stuck and floating in space.

Growth is to admit to the reality of the moment, to look existence right in the eyes and to see that we -- as human beings -- are nothing but growth... and decay, rot, death, birth... For nothing changes except that which is changed, and with change a demarcation of the moment is exercised, and with the recognition of a moment's presence one recognizes change between then, now, and potential change.

Growth is to throw away the fears of death and to embrace a reality of freedom. Growth is to be open to maturation.

Like a "Clock of the Long Now," a Building of the Long Now, a City of the Long Now.

To design a building and a city with -- built into the design -- the intentional capacity for continuous regrowth, growth, and for continuous rearticulation and fabrication, continuous articulation and change, and to design it with a capacity for temporal and spatial expression, both within the original vision -- the seeding germ -- and the contemporary ideals -- the stone beams, broken desires, and careful reflections.

This is what man's presence accounts for! It is a dream. It is a reality. It is a phantasy. It is a fiction. It is a fact of dreams, realities, phantasies, and fictions imagined in the past. Our current state of growths is a current state of growths within many growths.

Such growth is long-range planning. Such growth is the institutions of man. Such growth is the Earth. Such growth is the mind. Such growth is the Universe.

We are a long presence! We -- and extend the word beyond our simple connotations -- are growth! Lives as only bubbles on the surface of the ocean. Bubbles of air both critical to and consequential from life within. Bubbles ever bubbling, gurggling, sucked into the waves and gushed out again.

(c) M. Waxman 2007.

Life Programming

2007-05-08T16:15:00.000-07:00

The minds of children -- of the young -- are supple and fragile.

The minds of adults -- those with deeper accrued age -- are congealed and brittle.

The mind of a human is like a puzzle whose pieces come together to represent a map.

The mind is born jumbled and confused, all the pieces mixed-up and with many, many, many missing.

Life experiences -- daily actions and lessons, thoughts and gestures, places and assumptions -- add new pieces that always fit into the puzzle.

But the puzzle isn't always coherent. One piece may fit into another but the path running from the existing piece may be led by the new piece into an abyss, a tunnel, a valley, or a hidden no-man's-land. Yet the pieces always connect. And sometimes the pieces can lead to coherence. Another piece may add an alternate route connecting paths into oceans of opportunity, a mountain range, a nebulous city, or even an entirely new world.

To teach is to give away the gifts of such puzzle pieces. To teach is to hand these puzzle pieces out, bags of them, sacks full of different options.

The best is when a puzzle piece fits and connects the landscape -- the map represented, printed and carved -- into and from the other pieces' material bodies -- to develop new meaningful landscape.

The best is when that landscape then grows new forms, new landscapes, and upon which young minds -- or even the old -- find themselves lost within -- lost within the landscape now emerging within their mind.

And the mind then realizes the detail within this landscape so rich, so rich it is as detailed as the real world itself -- the world of the mind is the real world.

And lost within this landscape composed by the puzzle pieces of knowledge and experience, one discovers they may transcribe new topographies into the surface. The landscape is theirs to make, they learn. The landscape, they find, is their life; theirs to discover, to build, to husband and birth.

2007-04-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

life is virtual cocooned within the real, as we all transcend the physical and tangible through the senses of perception.

a beautiful city is a place that imbues the actions of many real people who have wanted and desired to create a beautiful city; a natural environment void of man has no such human spirit.

-3/14/07

2007-04-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

experiencing great architecture is and should be like living a dream, a phantasy, having a virtual experience with media, an emotional journey -- the architect uses all of the elements and their hybrids as construction building blocks to create a structure of experience.

great quest of future architects -- to meld the great responsibilities and consequences with great experiences , emotion, and clever tricks.

we are bound by the biological sameness of ourselves but we are able to detect the fine grain nuances that identify us.

- 4/17/07

suburban street structure

2007-04-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

At first glance some may not like the residential, suburban pattern of streets, serpentine strokes of car-dependence. Look deep, and read a city through its streets.

Yet the grande views down the street, from curb toward the hills, from front door looking across, and on one street peering around a corner, are all views determined in the street structure, coded by the street width, the setback distance of house from curb, the space of the yards, the height of the building, the variety of built topographical forms, the color and textures of each fixture, the natural environment intermix of trees, garden, shrubs, hills, forest, sky, air, and of utmost importance, people, feeling, life.

Car dependence may be derided but beauty we may treasure has arisen from the form of the streets.

What challenges does this offer to us to play? What responsibilities and what opportunities? What histories and what futures?

(c) M. Waxman 2007.

2007-04-05T22:16:00.000-07:00

the meaning of life is the meaning of life.

-4/5/07

2007-04-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

one's life is always uncharted territory.

-4/2/07

machine

2007-03-10T23:57:00.000-08:00

"the machine" is a metaphor.

the machine is highly useful.

the machine existed before we created machines.

the machine can also be described as the ecology of the organism.

the Earth is a machine.

a human, for example, is a machine.

we are the machine.

but without the machine of our make, we know less of the machine to be a part.

whether it be infrastructure, food, happiness, government, city, home, body, religion, idol, language, image, time, space.

our gift to make the machine, in return makes us.

we can "program" or "direct" the machine.

but we cannot be free of the "program" or "direction" of the machine.

it is our existence, it is our reality.

but machines do break.

and so do we.

but does the machine of which we are a part, and in which we may make, break if we do?

(c) M. Waxman 2007

we need a new paradigm for development.

2007-03-10T22:37:00.000-08:00

we need a new paradigm for development.

what will it look like? what form will it take? what will its history be? what will its consequence lead?

who will live there? people? other animals? plants? bugs? fungii?

what will those inhabitants sustain their lives on -- in the ways of fundamental basics, and in more enhanced ways?

what will people listen to? how will they communicate? how will they see? how will they see each other?

will the people love themselves? will they love their families? how about their neighbors... within the boundaries of their life? within the boundaries of their world, their city, their village, their quartier of life, their context?

how will they feel good about life? how will they hate life? what will make them smile? what will make them cry?

what will the people vision -- what will they see for their hopes and dreams?

when will they crumble and fall? when will they falter and repeat mistakes from the past?

what will make people, people? what will make life, life? what will make the birth of a child special? what will make the death of a living creature special?

what will the sound of rain be? what will the feeling of falling in love be like? what will the touch of sun on the skin be?

will I be alive to see this world?

will I be around to contribute?

will the past have led to the future?

or will the future be determined by changes in its past?

who is my grandson?

will he know me, know my name, know the world? will he desire to know? how will he envision a new paradigm for development?

(c) M. Waxman 2007

Watch Second Life fantasies from Real Life!

2007-03-02T12:02:00.000-08:00

Watch Second Life fantasies from Real Life!

What glory and freedom money can buy! THIS is the American Dream!

I want to be a sports star. AT&T HomeTurf's "See How They Live" shows me what real living is -- seehowtheylive.com

Why would most people want to create something new in SL when the best of life is totally real, just waiting to be imitated? ...only a dream away?

HIGHLIGHTS...
see your fav players' homes, and "See How They Live" --

Watch football star Deion Sanders keep an eye on his kids (who are somewhere in his sprawling mega-mansion) via bedside CCTV monitors, and go from room to room using a motorized mobility scooter (the kind usually used by elderly and the handicapped)! And with so many cars, it's not like the point is for him to drive them anyway!

Watch Camilo Villegas mix and match beautiful and bright colored golf-clothes outfits with the assistance of an ever-present old-man caddy!

See Deion kick-it with football star A.J. Hawk in his beautiful kitchen, where his model-esque wife "Mrs. Hawk" smiles and bakes cookies! A.J. lives at a golf course, so when a golfer is caught lining up for a putt on A.J.'s deck, it's only natural for A.J. to literally pick the guy up and throw him over the railing!

And there's nothing like spraying fake snow in front of your house just to kick a football, and take a pic of the snowy action with a RAZR camera-phone -- Adam Vinatieri shows us how it's done!

And of course, AT&T makes the best of life -- chillin' and watchin' AT&T Dish Network on the giant flatscreen, browsin' the internet in bed, snappin' shots of you and fav sports stars with a RAZR -- possible.

it's been good and it's been real. First-rate living isn't only for second-order reality.

As AT&T says, "you need speed to score!" (hey, that's true for SL, too!)

(c) M. Waxman 2007

2007-02-25T20:04:00.000-08:00

congratulations to Al Gore and the team behind "An Inconvenient Truth" for winning an Oscar!!!!

2007-02-25T17:55:00.000-08:00

let the rain fall

jubilee pearls

dew bead to come

cracked tree

ant's path

swollen buds

gristled soft, dark red soil

rifted light, cuts of powder sand

ensuing blood, pollen, water

my beckon cry

warmth of darkness sound

gift of life

(c) M. Waxman 2007

The Challenge

2007-02-25T01:01:00.000-08:00

The Challenge: How do we make a better world? How do we create the type of infrastructure for a growing population and changing demands, changing needs, and desire and pleasure in creativity, innovation, and research progress? How do we situate this in a world context with real and serious consequences of many kinds? How do we value the challenge and blessing of problems and work towards diverse, multifacted, interconnected solutions to them? How do we negotiate life in existence?

Let's appreciate contradiction, complexity, diversity, difference and the unknown in the world. Let's work towards solutions and many scales that take on the challenge of the worlds problems in many contexts. Let's celebrate play, pleasure, comedy, human vices, chaos and our human nature. Let's celebrate order, constraints, civil society and rules, limitations. Let's seek to globalize information access, technological access, educational access, human rights, civil liberties, freedom, peace, and opportunities for finding wealth.

Let's globalize the value of the localized, and remember that maybe some people would rather not globalize that, too. Let's develop our personal and community wishes for manifested development, monuments, and identity. Let's develop our personal and community wishes for preserving that which is not manifested development. Let's teach and honor the future the way history is taught to be valued. Let's each try to wrap our minds around the idea of extended intergenerational families -- if you're twenty years old, imagine what would it be like to be a great-great-great grandparent!

Let's do the math and science of art and spirituality, and let's do the art and spirituality of math and science. Let us each live a life full of decisions, of love, of pleasure, of celebration, of community, of place, of relationship to our eternal context, this planet Earth. Let us savor the density of a single time-less moment, and savor the blistering swiftness of time. Let us know great places are made by our relationship to it, but that great places can and do exist without our knowledge or relation to them. Let us love our imminent death and permenant existence made by our birth -- both the definition of truth and fact.

Let us look change straight in the eye and see it in the mirror, from day to day, year to year, decade to decade. Let us imagine fantasies, wish for the unattainable, and work in all our abilities to create it and make it real. Let us make things beautiful and look long to seek beauty in that which is ugly, and let us recognize that not all is beautiful and that there is a purpose and place for the profane. Let us save ourselves from decay, war, and destruction, and let us save ourselves from the vanity of eternal preservation of everything and a disdane for destruction, regeneration, and that which will replace what is before it.

Let us speak many languages, teach many languages, communicate to each other, and write many rosetta stones, and let us keep talking in many ways. And let us see in as many ways as there are languages. And let us understand, deeply, that there is a different perspective upon the world through everyones' eyes and that each is valid and can have a vision. Let us know that it is not about being right and it is not about being wrong.

Such a challenge is bestowed upon the world. Such a challenge is the world.

(c) M. Waxman 2007

a place is like a person

2007-02-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

A place is like a person; it is something that can be visited, it has an immaterial presence or spirit (a sense of place), a memory and history, a life, and can be formed by time and care, dressed up or torn down, mobilized, and can flex its parts to make new contours, experiences, and attitudes.

A great place can stand alone in its beauty; holistic strength stressing pride, confidence, and presence for all to wonder. Or a place can be defeated and destroyed, made weak and timid; put into hiding, fears awaiting the opportune moment to strike out from the shadows.

Multiple places, when they come together, can be likened to a family. The links between each place may be tight bonds forged through relationship, aged and tried over time; or, like siblings, together in love since birth.

To travel from a place to a place is an act of communication, a journey. And much to the similarity of conversation, as we look at each other while debating or cajoling, we each may have – as do adjoining places – our own perspectives, grand views, and passages of many words or silence, and trails of thought… a distant vista running off into the beyond, questions left unanswered, a gift for the future and our dreams.

Ideally, we will meet places we love, need, enjoy and savor; places we can dream to be with forever. Great places bringing people together are about the greatness of people. And while a human experience in a place is fundamentally about the human relationship to the place, a place is also more than something like a person – it is something we inhabit amongst a context. Great places need not just be about us.

Savoring a moment through parallax made real by a grand tree or light fluctuating between the mass of buildings marking a piazza: both are about those objects and their freedom, identity, and relationship to context and differentiations within space.

People share much in common with the world, the Earth, and place. A bond between us and our environs – like that between two old friends – must not be forgotten.

(c) M. Waxman 2007

stasis or mobile : place and human context

2007-02-14T16:48:00.000-08:00

Some people elect to stay living in one place forever. If this is the case, the people conform to their context in entirety, thus becoming sown into its immaterial systemic network of flows and connections, like a nervous system woven deep into a body, or the entwined roots of many trees becoming one gigantic system underground. Thus, if there is proposed great change, it will be limited because the human context woven into the landscape context will react as fiercely as it would be if the proposed changed was upon its own human body. Alternatively, the human context may also respond to the change with inclusion, inviting it in as part of its own.

Some people elect to move across many places, and live as nomads. If this is the case, their contexts change frequently, and the people become dipped in the flavors and set in the ways of each place passed through, as well as learn to find a skin to comprise the individual, a selective identity influenced brick by brick, footstep by footstep. Much like ants crawling across a landscape of striations, danger, and difference, the nomad with deep reciprocity to the changing context, is at once bound and mobile, like the finite freedoms of a leaf floating endlessly on the surface of the sea. Thus, if there is proposed great change, the human context may find it an opportune moment to make of new travels, to go or stay, or to create new places set layered within the contexts of current, or reminiscent of past days. Alternatively, the nomadic human context may observe the change as divergent from their own paths and flows, and strike response by demanding a reprise to make present what once was but is no longer.

(c) M. Waxman 2007

space/time code = math minus # computation

2007-02-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

Math is the code of space/time that tells how it works, much like zeros and ones are computed as on/off in computers to make computer environments work. Yet the environment of space and time is such that it requires no represented numerical computation -- there is no crunching of zeros and ones -- instead the environment, the context that some call "nature," is such that the system works on its own accord and syncopation.

Geometry, a sub-set of math, is special because it is a means of translating our understanding of the math code to space/time, and from space/time to the code of math. Trigonometry, calculus, basic arithmetic, and other forms of math, are all means of reading and writing the code. Math is logical because our understanding of the code must be computed by reason; people have still much to discover in the logic of math. Math can also become illogical and it is in this capacity that people also have much to discover. The majesty of our computational ability is to construct mathematics -- as well as translate them into space/time -- that utilize the code and model algorithms observed in space/time but might not exist in space/time without human-assisted computation and construction.

2007-02-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

Whether you think you can't do it, or you think you can, you're right! -- Henry Ford

the patron

2007-02-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

The patron in architecture has historically been an important part of the profession; this importance should be revisited.

Fluor Engineering Corporation has contracts around the world in various sectors. This is wonderful. Tonight, though, I was watching Iraq Reconstruction contract hearings on C-SPAN, and one of the companies under question at the hearing was Fluor. Sitting next to two men of equal stature and occupational focus, the Fluor representative worked in security and had been previously a member of the Armed Forces.

Fluor has water and electrical infrastructure development contracts in Iraq.

Why would a corporation seek to bid on contracts in Iraq? Why would someone seek to bid on a contract anywhere? Various reasons... a good work opportunity, a means to generate revenue, a means to extend the reach of the company's work and relationship with hiring bodies. More than likely it was a good opportunity, work-wise and in terms of generating revenue. But isn't Iraq a terribly dangerous place? Yes, I'd say it is -- and so did the Fluor security representative.

Maybe Fluor sees it also as a good opportunity to help the people of Iraq. Maybe Fluor sees it as civic and public duty both to the United States and to the people and government of Iraq; such is a noble and meaningful cause. But -- and I am mostly ignorant on the complexities of this matter -- I must admit I am a tad skeptical. It is true that, for example, when I first heard about the destruction in Lebanon and Iraq, one of my initial reactions is to say -- they need help in reconstruction! they need help in infrastructure! they need help in planning! And I still hold this opinion. But questions remain....

Why didn't Fluor agressively bid for contracts in water and electrical infrastructure in New Orleans? Well, the contracts were not really there... at least not on the scale of Iraq.

The patron is the person or body who provides the financial means for the fruition of a project.

There are different kinds of patrons, and each patron can serve different roles in the site, in the design, and in the institutional effect on place and time.

Louis Kahn, for example when designing the Salk Institute and the Capital of Banglesdesh, had a deep relationship to the site and the patron.

Michelangelo, Bernini, and Vasari, as well, for example, also had complex ties to their patrons, whether the Medici Family or the Papacy.

Architecture for Humanity and still-developing nations also can serve as interesting patrons with interesting needs, such as TunaHAKI in Tanzania.

And UC Santa Cruz and the University of California system has been the appreciative patron to EHDD Architecture.

Whatever you do, wherever it is done. Think of the patron. Think of your service and think of their role and your relationship to them. What is the context; patron is a vital part of this. Pride in patron, pride in expressing the icon of time and labor. Value the institution and the human, together. Be at the site and be in the place. Patron -- who are the people, what do they need, what are their values, how can you deliver vision and manifestation?

(c) M. Waxman 2007

the marshall's

2007-02-06T22:35:00.000-08:00

Tonight I took a few moments to surf blogs on Blogger via the "next blog" button. What came next was "The Marshall's," a blog apparently written by someone (who I guess, by reading every entry is a man) recanting in bullet-point style the main events of each day since December 23rd, 2006. It's extremely fascinating just reading these simple details written by this person from Arizona... he went to sleep, watched 24, played monopoly with his son, got through work, watched football, spent time with his wife, ate dinner and desert... I wonder if he wonders anyone is reading his story: marshallfamilyaz.blogspot.com

Spending time reading other people’s blogs is very interesting and telling about the human condition, that deep inside we all have passions, for instance. Each passion is different for each person, just as are our differences in body and identity. Along the same lines, at work today, during my lunch break while taking a walk, I saw a gym teacher running alone around the field on her prep period – her passion is to be active and to run, I presumed. She has a great job and must be very happy!

Tokyo Sky City

2007-02-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

The Discovery Channel website has a great interactive feature about a theoretical "Sky City" proposed for Tokyo. The project is at gargantuan scale and changes the invisible dynamics of a city's relationship to the land around it. The project could also reduce the temperature of the city -- being a partial (and grand scale) solution to climate change adaptation. With people moving to the towers, the site notes, more vegitated spaces could exist around the structure (but what about historical districts and existing city structures? Demolish to preserve that which is yet to be planted?).

The structure would stand at about three times the height of the Eiffel tower and would have three enormous legs and two connecting platforms stretched between them. I imagine such a structure would change the entire landscape of architecture for the city and region of its context. (The site notes that engineers would have to find a way to stabilize Tokyo’s unstable soil before the structure could be built.)

Architecture in a city of the sky would change the relationship of architecture to the land, to standing on the Earth, and relationship and value of Earth topography in human life. Such changes also speak to the multiplicity in human civilization -- from Babylon to Athens to Rome to cave dwellings to Sky Scrapers to a climate-adapted future – Civilization is changing.

Visit the interactive feature now. Shall this challenge the human tie to the land, or bond us closer to it by way of sending us into the air?

(image from Discovery Channel website)

sensing the future

2007-02-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

Imagining the future is a watching and listening activity, a sensory activity different from the present.

This can mean more than one thing, and it's very true that in any kind of collaborative activity (like making, developing, fostering, participating in a large scale development or system) it is vitally important to listen and pay attention to all parties involved. And it is very true that in future visioning and scenario planning it is very important to study trends over-time and watch and listen to their movements.

But what I'm referring to is a little different.

We humans all live in the present; it's where we inhabit in the most literal sense. Think of living in the present as a first layer to our being. Our bodies and minds don't, of course, solely inhabit the "present" but also remember and feel the past and anticipate, vision, and imagine the future. Yet the reality of our being is that we forever sustain within a lived moment.

To examining the future, I want to first talk about the past.

Inhabiting the past can be a fun activity, whether completed by pondering past experiences, reading nonfiction or fictional history, examining documents and artifacts of the past, by participating in historical reenactments, or by strategically or randomly re-experiencing past events or circumstances. This act of connection from present to past is always made possible by using a medium of some sort: memory, book, movie, object, environmental experience, likeness or similarity. I term these media "conduits of transfer" because they facilitate the transfer of human awareness and thought from present to past and past to presence.

In this case, consider the "present" our real, lived, existence -- this is the first layer of our being. And then consider the "past" a real, lived, existence that no longer exists in tangible, material form. (It is true that the past exists all around us, but as the elements and objects and conditions change, so does the ever-interconnected material form and presence of the elements and objects under question.) The past, if the present is our first layer of being, is an added layer, wrapped over the first layer. What bonds the past and present together are "conduits of transfer" from one layer to another. (It could also be theorized that the past is not wrapped outside the present but inhabits the space inside the present.)

The past is thus no longer real in the same way the present is. The past is immaterial, while the present is material. The past is virtual and the present is real.

The future's presence persists the same way. No human in physical, commonplace, experiential existence can inhabit the future in the same capacity as they can inhabit the present. Just as the layer of the past coats the lived present, the layer of the future coats the present, and is bonded to it by way of a "conduit of transfer." (It can also be argued that we always inhabit the future (and past) as there is only one lived moment, and therefore the present is always in a state of being the future and potentially becoming the future.)

Human experience of the future, in a parallel capacity as to experiencing the past, thus occurs by way of some medium. The future therefore, while being imagined, is something that must be listened to and watched, felt, observed, and experienced, from a second order position in relation to the first order, "present" activity experience. The future, like the past, is immaterial while the present is material. The future, like the past, is virtual and the present is real.

To experience an imagined future, one might consider listening to music, reading a book, watching a movie or play, having a conversation, having sex in a virtual environment... or remembering the past, or participating in a creative act building the future.

The last two methods of experiencing the future taken one to a recognition of the future's existence and the change between the present and a future relative to one's own lived age. Remembering the past is also passive, while a creative act is active. Remembering the past allows one to be aware of a duration of continuous change between a point in one's past and the present state of one's present existence; thus being aware of change and the fact that the present one is currently in is in the future of the past. Participating in a creative act is, by default, an act of building the future because it alters the state of the world. Whether giving birth to a child, an art object, environment, experience, composition, or idea, the creative process experienced leads to a modified and new future; thus also making apparent a change between the past and the augmented future.

(c) M. Waxman 2007

"family future lives past"

2007-02-01T20:55:00.000-08:00

little girl, i'm your son.
you don't know me, and won't now meet me.
little girl, i'm your love.
you're my mother and your future awaits me.

young man, i'm your grandson.
you look handsome, just like me.
young man, you haven't yet met me.
you're my grandad and your smiles await me.

old man, we won't ever meet.
i'm your great grandson, you can't ever know.
old man, i recognize your feet.
you tap 'em like your son, and i tap 'em like you.

we're lost in the middle of time.
we're part of so much and yet only ourselves.
if it weren't for so many, i wouldn't be here.
there are so many family - of the past - maybe the future
and yet i know they're so near.

(c) M.Waxman 2007

The Paradigm of Movement, Perceived

2007-01-22T20:37:00.002-08:00

what is movement in the real world?

what is movement in physical architecture?

metaphor? allusions to fluidity emedded in solid structure?

a sense of feeling for how it makes one move? ...inside... and out.

observed shift -- change -- in elemental state contrasted against stasis?

movement in the real world is slow, and / or erratic.

winds rolling through grass on the plain.

ruffled clothe, shape-shifting, between the fabric of our pants and the cushion of a couch.

water pushing into the air, a tower of wet crystal, a liquid feeling, the sound of water. a beautiful fountain.

the shadows of light cast upon a wall, lit down through the turns of a lambrequin arch. light through materials, through form, and space, over time, climate and season.

...looking long becomes looking slow.

movement in the virtual world is fast, and / or controlled.

refresh rates, scan-lines, televised imagery.

rapid colors. rapid change. rapid shape-shifting, pre-programmed into narrativized sequence.

animated billboards of bright lights.

LEDs and LCDs drawing our attention. sceens which capture the imagination. onieric immerision in vivid vivacity.

a pornography empoying jump-cut scenes to push our emotions into states of omnipresent movement and dynacism.

...looking long becomes looking fast.

The human mind and body is caught between both worlds -- the virtual and real.

Thus is movement in our real worlds. between freedom and control. between illusion and tangibility. between peace and war. between war and peace. between forever having lived to forever having yet to be born.

Embedded between is our permant state of mobility.

From within, our bodies move faster than the world around us.

From outside, the world moves faster than our bodies appear to us.

Diagramming Sensation

2006-12-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

How do you diagram a sensation?

It can be done via expression through alternative sensations.

By way of articulation in other media than the one of focus.

It can be done with music, with a collage, with a photograph, with a sketch.

I have seen numerous times when architects, in an attempt to say what their project is going to express -- feel like -- they will present their initial ideas with a board or two of photographs of the site (selecting images that focus on the elements they find relevant and important) and photographs of other sites (that either contain elements they would like to bring to the site, or elements that express a rendering and combination of site elements forging a desired sensation).

It can be done with models, diagrams, paintings, sculpture, words, events...

It could be done with a video, from an Eisenstein "montage" or narrative sequence. (I cite my course "City within a City" as a beginning departure into this... suggesting that architectural principles can be related to cinematic sensation-making.)

It can be done with a poem or with verbose, descriptive musings... as a touch to conflagrate meaning.

Using analogy, metaphor, fable or fiction, prediction or curse. To the highlight of one or many.

It can be done with a sign, such as historical referencing to something else we recognize. It may be integrated into any of the above media or exist as its own media ornament affixed to the media of focus.

All of these may produce their effect directly through an intensity in exposure quick and fast, or subtly through suggestion... leaving unanswered questions later raised by the affected subject.

One may use personal experience as motivation. One may use heresay. Or well-known verse, or historical and contemporary news items.

A method of attack: isolation | contextualization. A yin-yang of sorts?

Isolation: reduction, subtractive, selective, elimination of all other sensations, detailing of focus and pushing others out of focus, Not unlike watching a little girl walk her dog across the street. Portraiture, Crisp. Piece.

Contextualization: extension, additive, indiscriminating, integrative, hybrid merge across sensations. Not unlike comprehending the events of day while lying in bed. Collage. Blur. Pieces.

and to what... to sell a message worth feeling. Clarity of a complex idea.

Like observing an amazing painting, we look for ever and desire nothing less than to keep looking and returning to look. The artist has run threads of conductive material spun from the fibers of the painting and crossing into the observers body like strings of a harp -- taut and capable of carrying the vibrations. And as we look, the vibrations cross from that painting to our skin and into us. The clarity of transfer is firm and stable and we know we have recieved the message... only thing is that we may not immediately understand the message. The vibrations sent across the wires cary a tune vibrating our frequency and making us move. And only maybe, until later, we will make sense of the message -- or maybe even right then and there. The body moves in response quicker than we know to tell it to do so. As is producing a replication of sensation, the transfer of spirit, essense.

gazprom/otion city

2006-11-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

Mega-architecture with thumping statements vibrating like the presence of a triumphal-arch.

Gazprom City, a new business complex likely to be built in Saint Petersberg, Russia. It has much local opposition (including the local architects' union and the director of the Hermitage Museum). Some say its innappropriate. Some say it will even ruin the skyline. But Gazprom, the state energy company, has connections and support from up top.

A very interesting case of development, and a very interesting case of opposition.

The New York Times reports on it here: "Russian Window on the West Reaches for the Sky"

See more images here on the Gazprom website: http://www.gazprom-city.info/competition/projects

Personally, I really like Jean Nouvell's design. Makes me think of a climbing tower of babel mixed with Russion constructivism (hence reminiscent of the Tatlin Tower), and an air of transparency and elemental exposure relevant to the developing cultural narratives and themes of our time.

how to build an African middle-class

2006-11-27T17:24:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it can be hard to appreciate knowledge one has already gained. If we look back at ourselves and our experiences, over time we find that whom we've become is inextricably linked to those experiences, those thoughts in our minds, those activities we've been engaged with, those people we have met, and those landscapes we have been part of.

If you have a college degree, like myself, let's try a little experiment. Try imagining what you'd be like if you hadn't gone to college. Would you be where you are today? I'm not simply asking if you would have had the same amount of opportunities presented (although that is also very relevant), but rather asking if you think that, as a thinking human being, you would be thinking and contemplating things the same way... would you?

I do not think I would be the same. It is comforting to say, "yeah, I could think (think as a verb) myself to where I am now", but consider all those classes you took, those projects and papers, and of course we can't forget those experiences where we become ever more aware of ourselves and of the world. Education has given me access to new ideas, to new views, to an appreciation of the diversity and complexity of views... and to the ability to question, revise, and rethink my own views and the views of others.

Education is power. Education is power to change, mature, evolve, take action, make new connections, and advance the mind into new realms of thought. Education comes in many different forms and is all around us in the world. One educates themselves, or allows others to educate. One can be educated consciously, subconsciously, spiritually, and physically. School, as a paradigm, does not necessarily equate education; but as an institution, it renders an environment where the formation of knowledge advancement through formalized education is paramount. But in all cases of education, it takes an investment from the student and the teacher, whomever they may be. And in most cases, formalized education costs money.

It is with all this said, that I am really impressed and awed by Martin Fisher, social entrepreneur, who produces the "Super-MoneyMaker" (a "one-person, leg-powered irrigation pump") and founded the non-profit ApproTEC. I read about Fisher today via a link on Chris Coldewey's blog to an SF Chronicle article written in 2002.

"The pump and other mechanical devices designed by Fisher have made 26,000
desperately poor Africans rich entrepreneurs, by the standards of their
homeland. Farmers whose annual income was less than $120 have increased it to an
average of $1,400. It has opened up their lives the way it would alter that of
an American who started making $110,000 a year instead of $10,000."

It is not simply the advent of the pump that is so amazing -- as one will find by reading the San Francisco Chronicle article about Fisher and ApproTEC -- but its application and where it has been applied.

Fisher has been interested in creating an African middle-class, and his work is a key. First employed in Kenya, the pump is a virtual money-generator and is bringing people out of poverty, and giving them the ability to shape their futures and afford education for their children. This is amazing -- a true investment and gift in the future of people.

"With Kenyan Solomon Mwangi, who is now their operations director, Fisher
and Moon worked on their new low-tech devices: a building-block machine that
uses soil and a bit of cement; a sunflower oilseed press badly needed in a
country that imports 80 percent of its cooking oil. But 90 percent of their
business comes from the micro-irrigation pumps based on a design by IDE, a
Denver nonprofit. IDE has used an approach similar to ApproTEC's to sell 1.3
million pumps in Bangladesh. Fisher redesigned the pumps to be portable for
storing inside at night (Kenyan farmers worry about thieves), to spray water
(Kenyan farmers -don't use ditch irrigation) and to have a shorter treadle
stroke (most Kenyan farmers are women who wear long garments and -don't want to
appear to dance provocatively on the machines).

"But anyone who focuses only on ApproTEC's gee-whiz low-tech machines
will miss the main reason for the nonprofit's startling success: Fisher and Moon
ask poor Africans what they want and need. They analyze the limitations under
which 90 percent of Kenyans live, in extreme poverty in areas with poor roads,
little transportation, no electricity and no telecommunication. They fashion
devices that are inexpensive to produce, buy and move around. They work with
factories to mass-produce high-quality devices. They use mass marketing and
distribution methods more characteristic of business than traditional foreign
aid. Then they closely monitor the results.

"And the system works. Today, ApproTEC has 65 permanent and 60
part-time staff, five offices in Kenya and Tanzania and a $2 million annual
budget. Janet Ondiak, Jane Mathendu and 20,000 others can hardly believe they're
living their dreams.

"When Ondiak's husband died, she barely kept her family alive on the
food she managed to grow on 1/8th acre of land. She owned 2 acres, but even with
all six children lugging buckets of water, they were able to irrigate no more
than a small area.

"One afternoon, she saw a demonstration of the Super-MoneyMaker
irrigation pump in her local village. She worked for six months to scrape
together $75 and bought the pump. Today, she has three full-time workers who
irrigate her entire 2 acres. Last year, she made $2,500 in profit from selling
vegetables grown on her land. She recently opened a small shop from which to
sell her food. She can now pay for all six children to attend school."

Read the full article: "Martin Makes a Middle Class: Stanford grad Martin Fisher has gone low-tech in search of solutions for Kenyan farmers". San Francisco Chonicle, 2002.

"walking in the city", images, wayfinding, and perception

2006-11-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

Geoff Manaugh at Worldchanging writes an article "Walking the in the City" about Shanghai revising a vast amount of its street names and signs, and an architecture exhibition in London recommending the city standardize its sign-system to help people get walking.

I've been interested in wayfinding for a long time. I highly recommend the book "Wayfinding in Architecture" by Romedi Passini. I also highly recommend Kevin Lynch's "The Image of the City" in regard to thinking about how people compose cognitive maps of cities through experience.

I agree that mystery in a city is beautiful. There is nothing I love more than to be dropped in a new city by way of train or bus and then to find my way and whereabouts. And even if one has a map, the process of aligning the physical and real landscape with the coordinates and presumed organization of the map is an exciting experience.

Organizing a wayfinding system as a means to get people out into the streets is a good idea, with a kind and conscious social motive.

The discussion of wayfinding should expand to include new media mapping technologies, such as Google Maps and Google Earth, both of which, through use, augment the process by which we psychologically perceive the world.

Has anyone explored a city by way of Google Maps and Google Earth and then attempted to explore the same city in the real by way of 'memory'? It is a fascinating experience. I did it this past August with San Jose, California, a city I've always been geographically close to but quite far away from in my knowledge of its composition. I must admit, I was afraid at first that my exposure to mapping software might have corrupted my ability to wander into the unknown... but I was wrong, it simply added another layer to the experience... instead, I was confronted with assumptions based on an aerial and plan-aligned view. An interesting part of the experience was then how my mind -- with a rendering of the city from an aerial photograph -- imagined what it would be like to zoom-out from where I was standing in the urban fabric and see the city from above. Eventually, though, I find myself wandering 'off-map' and into areas not drawn to by visual cues in the aerial photography.

It is also fascinating to revisit locales discovered in the real world in mapping software. I was in the little village of Vytina in Greece a little over a year ago and hadn't known the place existed until my visit. A wonderous experience it is to then find the location in Google Earth, become lost beyond the known landmark, and then lost a-wandering into the periphery of one's memory.

A similar affect occurs when reading a city first through photographic images, artworks, and literature depicting particular views. One is exposed to an image of a place and is then placed in a position to position oneself within the image when experiencing the site in reality.

After having studied in Firenze, Italia last fall, and then returning home, my memories of my apartment and the streets of Firenze are very real in my mind. I can literally navigate and explore my kitchen via thoughts. But I have noticed an interesting situation when I situate my mind in the space: when passing my eyes across the counter top, the table, the floor, the ceiling, the cabinets, opening the refrigerator and seeing my cheese, and then turning to look out the window, at the moment of looking right out of the window, the experiential memory snaps to a photograph I had taken of the view out of the window. From the fluid and exploratory memory space to the rigid and flat image-rendered space. It is as if I am in a 3D environment and a life-size 2D image -- immersive in its own right -- has been stuck right before me, stitched to the ethers of air holding it in place.

It will be quite fascinating then to watch Photosynth develop as a tool for seeing the world. Photosynth compiles batches of digital photography (they could be collated from a site like Flickr) and then organizes them into a 3D environment where the exact coordinates of objects in each image are aligned with the coordinates of the environment; thus allowing one to explore a 3D world composed of 2D images! One also has the option to turn on identifiers which show exactly where within the space each photo was taken. Developed by Microsoft Live Labs and the University of Washington, Photosynth aspires to blend the real and virtual to a point of tangible convergence.

EastSouthWestNorth reporting on Friedman's China visit

2006-11-26T17:29:00.000-08:00

EastSouthWestNorth blogs a partial translation of an article about Thomas Friedman's visit to China from the Chinese-language "Observe East Weekly Magazine". Apparently Friedman was received with mixed results. The author also comments on Friedman's ability to simplify very complex topics to the point of obscuring the real core of the issue.

Excerpts from the translation:

"While Friedman's trip to market his book has raised his name recognition in the Chinese-language world, he was criticized by many commentators. China Daily writer Raymond Zhou thought that the book was repetitious because a single idea was being repeated a dozen times over two or three pages, and that Friedman's understanding about China was inaccurate...

"Friedman is a focused person. While chatting with him in the car, all the themes were driven by him -- he is not a reporter filled with curiosity. He seemed only to want the answer to the question, or even the answer that fits his globalization theory version 3.0. I have no right to speak about India, but if the Chinese were to read carefully the section about China in "The World is Flat," they would think that Friedman's China is really completely unrelated to the China that we are familiar with."

About a year and a half ago I attended the Institute of Reverential Ecology's 2005 retreat, "Creating a Sustainable Future: Ecology, Ethics and Design", outside Santa Barbara, and heard Vandana Shiva comment on Friedman's book "The World is Flat". Shiva, a published author, environmental scientist, and community activist in India, explained how the world is not flat as Friedman claims. Instead, global consequences actually are round. While a playing field of competiveness on a global-scale is flattening, American Corporations hiring the booming business of call centers in Mumbai can actually negatively impact other areas of Indian society and economy. To this she pointed to Indian farmers moving from rural countryside to urban cities to claim new, "better" jobs; Shiva expressed that the lives of city dwellers arn't as holistic as farmers and that once moving away they give up their ability to self-sustain in a localized community.

While I have to admit I don't agree with what came across as a "rural is better" sentiment, I think she has hit the nail on the head when it comes to inspecting some of the overlooked wrinkles caught inside the argument for a flattening world. Globalization does have global -- and thus interconnected and systemic -- consequences that can come full circle.

What I think of the Iraq War.

2006-11-26T13:19:00.000-08:00

I do not support the Iraq War, or any war or any militant actions.

I do support the lives of American youth troops (our generation, our peers).

I know this is a simple message, but it needs to be said. What are your views?

Watch these videos...
"soldier crying for their life in iraq" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPYmIQXZ-nk
"war crime in Iraq war Irak mosque cami ırak america mosque" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21rH_o5hsG0
"Iraqi People Speak - iraq the oil factor" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KvqRKZhZIY
"The Denial Machine", a CBC Canada Documentary - http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/769

Read these blogs written by people living there...
Lists of local blogs and blog portals: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/wiki/article/Iraq
The same blogs are accessible inside the Global Voices Online blog aggregator under 'iraq': http://www.bloglines.com/public/globalvoicesonline

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." - Yoda... someone whom I think we can all agree had a good head on his shoulders.

Worldchanging.com local: San Francisco bay area

2006-11-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

I've just signed on as a writer for the SF bay area local edition of worldchanging.com. We are writing about tools, methods, resources, events, orgs, businesses, art, and people in the bay area that are changing the world to make it a more sustainable place.

Know of anything going on in the bay area region that is newsworthy and worldchanging? Please feel free let me know and I'd like to see if we can write about it.

Visit the blog at www.worldchanging.com/local/sanfrancisco

My first article is about the UNESCO DigiArts "Scenes and Sounds of My City" project observed at the ZeroOne San Jose /ISEA 2006 electronic arts festival and symposium. The project is really cool and had international youth using new media to record reflections of their home cities! Read it here.

2006-11-14T14:18:00.000-08:00

I have an idea for Gmail that I'd like to see implemented.

Tags.

Yes, those simple things that have become so popular. I'd like a text field under the message body text box where I can enter tags (words, phrases, links to other emails and sites, etc.) associated with that particular email.

I'd like this to be a separate text field outside of the main message body because sometimes I'd like to add tags that include words not include in my email; plus it's an easy and organized way to keep track of the data in my Gmail account. A tags feature also works well with Gmail's use of a searcheable archive.

You could access this text field by using a link-button similar to the new "Reply on top" link-button available for written messages.

What does our sustained participation in Facebook mean?

2006-10-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

Given the state of social-network communities today, the nature of sustained adult friendship, contact and communication between people in the future will be different from the friendships observed in our parents' generations.

Friends, social cliques, groups, organizations, companies, cohorts, and neighborhoods will be woven together not only by their physical associations and shared interests but also by those social networks, such as Facebook, that the users were already part of and have been participating in for a large portion of their lives.

Assuming we all stay involved, the Facebook users today who will also be users in the future will be able to keep in touch with their past friends, aquaintances, and associates with much more ease than in the past.

College friend networks will run deep as we all age.

Travelling to a new part of the world? See who you know or whom others might know already living there.

Changing occupations? Maybe you know someone with a shared interest.

Looking to reconnect after paths went different ways? Social-networking communities provide a crucially sustainable link.

The future of habitat and living will be augmented by the presence of existing social-network systems. Access to a gated country-club community, your new apartment complex, the local farmer's market, or even a low-income housing project will be accompanied by an interest by those desiring participation to establish 'friend' status with those on the inside. These connections may be free and friendly, or they may be a commodity or even a stimulus for hostility.

Of course, not everyone will participate in the networks. Some may cut themselves off from the networks in attempts to shape power structures, institute new forms of network-observation, or even as a way to construct their own "autonomous" communes.

Our physical lives will evolve in proximity to social-network lives. We will be able to observe our physical lives from our social-network perspective (as we can do now in uploaded photographs), and we will be able to observe our social-network lives from our physical perspective (such as in-person communication outside the network's known grid).

Our children will belong to social-networks just as we do. But unlike us, it is likely our children will inhabit the networks adjacent to their parents, as well as with their parents' social-network data histories (our photos, bio-stats, notes, blog entries, connections).

The presence of these intergenerational data histories in intergenerationally co-inhabited networks will alter how youth, born in the future, think about history, their ancestors and the stories and images of the past.

What else does our sustained participation in Facebook mean?

How many friends do your parents have from long-ago? How have they kept in contact? If many of the connections could have been sustained through Facebook, what do you think the world would look like?

limits to growth and equity in social network communities?

2006-10-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

An urban planning problem emerging in social-networking sites?

Social networking researcher dana boyd suggests in her recent blog entry that facebook opening its doors to everyone is problematic, that social networking sites can't sustain "conflicting social contexts": http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archive...

Facebook used to be only available to those with .edu, high school, and corporate email addresses; now it's open to all.

So I ask:

If an all-access facebook will ruin its sacred purity, does this propose that a limits to growth exists in social networking communities?

Does exclusivity define place?

Do borders define contexts?

If different and "conflicting social contexts" (students, non-students, and as danah puts it, those "obsessed with youth - parents, authorities, pedophiles, commercial enterprises") are able to live within the same networked community, do they have to be separated into different (virtual) neighborhood quartiers?

Is it okay for everyone to potentially mingle like in a real city or ideal agora? or, are enclaves the answer?

And are population levels, and one's origins, related to the "quality of life" for a real urban or virtual cyberspace place?

Computer Labs have a future in k-12 environments

2006-09-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

I currently work at a high school where one of my main responsibilities is to manage the school's computer labs. The school is aware that mobile technology would prove to be very helpful in education... there are some schools now with mobile laptop labs, there are wifi enabled campuses, and then there is the ability to give all the students in a classroom Palm pilots and networked them together. There are rich benefits when computing becomes further situated in the classroom... untethered computing arises new opportunities for tethering computing to a particular class context and the teacher's needs and wants...

But an interesting architectural problem arises, too: with computers more able to become part of actual classrooms, there might be less reason to have an actual "computer lab" in the high school. Does this suggest that a room for computers only exists because of the size of old computer hardware? Will networked, situated technologies mean the demise of rooms meant for computer use, particular contexts dedicated to (and with meaning attached to) computing?

On the other hand, computer labs, as a distinct space, can function like an internet cafe and spawn discussion and physical interaction in situ with computing. But in an internet cafe space anything is game and, for a school setting, this isn't always appropriate.

But if we open the school up to various new 'web 2.0' and situated technology applications, there is bound to be another problem arising, that of the educational setting's need to monitor and regulate the use of the software in order to maintain standards of safety. The issue of monitoring these new technology applications is definitely a hot topic in the realm of educational technology as ca be seen in the recent blog article in TechLearning. Educators and administrators really should take on the challenge of learning how to effectively apply these extra-institutional tools inside the institution. Schools have an opportunity to also instruct the foundations of appropriate use of these new technologies.

What if the relationship of technology and educational spaces is reorganized: rather than seeing situated technologies as mostly tools for helping users (say, the students) become more context-aware (outside of class), how about also using situated technologies to help situate an architectural context for computing itself? In other words, one solution is to make a place where situated technologies and social software can be monitoried and appropriately used at school... thus justifying the presence of a "computer lab" and the use of new technology applications and uses.

In a mobile lab setting with internet-enabled laptops or Palm pilots, teachers run the risk of students surfing away from the curriculum and there becomes an increasing need to impose restrictions and regulations on technology use. It becomes a battle between use-cultures: those in charge know one way of using technology but the students are fluent and engaged in another.

But by locating the students into the architecturally-defined, computer lab space, students can use the technology they are fluent in and teachers can learn how to administer these technologies into their curriculum in a controlled environment. Plus, the technology doesn't have to compete with what some teachers might consider learning experiences best befitting analog curriculum (like "books" and non-mediated discussions).

2006-08-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

I work afternoons in a high school library and can surf the shelves for interesting reads... I just opened the book "Natural Capitalism", and to my pleasant surpise, discovered this brilliant and relevant poem...

"Loaves and Fishes"

This is not the age of information.
This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

--David Whyte

The spoils, or rather spills, of War.

2006-08-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

I just read the San Francisco Chronicle's cover article on the massive oil spill along the coast of Lebanon, stretching from the Jiyeh power station (see map) south of Beirut on upwards--and coating in black oil--the coast to fishing towns such as Byblos. A UNESCO heritage site and 7,000 years old, Byblos is seen by some scholars as the oldest "continuously inhabited city in the world". This town, as is remarked in the article, has become a tourist destination with a quaint, old 13th-century Crusader Castle and depends on local fishing for survival. Now the town (and others like it) will have some trouble keeping its head above the (oil-soaked) water because of the spill.

How did this catastrophe come about? Upon bombing the Lebanese power station in Jiyeh on July 15th, the work of Israeli forces lead to "between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of heavy fuel oil" spilling into the eastern Mediterranean Sea. This was about six weeks ago, and now "the slick has spread an estimated 90 miles north and now could threaten the coastal waters of Syria and Turkey."

Hailed as " 'the biggest environmental disaster in the history of the eastern Mediterranean' ", this is amazingly horrific and causes likely-irreparable damage to the coastal ecosystem, the towns and human life supported by it, and the economic aspirations of a region that was hoping to continue to grow its tourist industry.

The spoils, or rather spills, of war. Very sad; so delicate a world torn by aggressive, emotional hands. It's not kind to mankind to say this but it's true: it's one thing for people to destroy people, as people can create people; but it is another thing when people destroy non-human life in the course of destroying people... irresponsible and senseless destruction. I sincerely hope this serves as a lesson to mankind now and in the future.

It is so easy to destroy life through the emotions in our voices, so difficult to call it back again when we have strained our throats and can no longer speak.

Further Information (listed by date, oldest to newest):

Aljazeera News (English version): "Lebanon oil spill crisis" (July 29, 2006)

NationalGeographic.com: "Lebanon Oil Spill Makes Animals Casualties of War" (July 31, 2006)

BBC News: "Environmental 'crisis' in Lebanon" (July 31, 2006)

UN News Centre: "Oil spill caused by Israeli attack hits Syrian coastline" (August 2, 2006)

BBC News: "'Damage is done' to Lebanon coast" (August 8, 2006)

About.com: "Lebanese Oil Spill May Rival Exxon Valdez Disaster" (August 8, 2006)

Jersualem Post, Online Edition: "Israel asked to help clean up coastal oil spill near Beirut" (August 14, 2006)

Greenpeace: "Oil spills - Philippines, Indian Ocean and Lebanon" (August 18, 2006)

Watch a video with footage of the oil spill on Greenpeace.com

UN Environment Programme Press Release: "Aerial Surveillance of Lebanese Oil Spill Takes Off" (August 21, 2006)

San Francisco Chronicle: "An environmental disaster emerges on Lebanon coast" (August 28, 2006)

(source of map graphic: BBC News)

What is AMERICA? As seen by a Wal-Mart calendar

2006-08-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

(click to view larger image)

Discovered this "AMERICA" calendar in Wal-Mart during my first visit to a Wal-Mart (went down in Walla Walla, WA a week ago; I was 23 years a virgin!)... 12 images to summarize America...

cingular at the embarcadero and solar glow

2006-07-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

Cingular wireless is currently inhabiting all of the advertising space at the Embarcadero BART station in San Francisco. They've done a really great job and have been very creative. The square-panels of advertising billboard space on the walls, which are arranged in groups of six panels, are transformed into clever statements about the wireless carrier, and they also take advantage of the billboard arrangement. For example, the statement, "commu nicate wit hout so m any interr uptions" is nicely broken up (notice the spacing) to relate the message with the square-panels. Really cool. Cingular has also installed very large floor advertisements at both ends of the escalators used for accessing the BART platform.

I encountered the Cingular ads while waiting at the Embarcadero station to head home. Today was the fourth spare-the-air day (the state is picking up the tab because the air quality is quite horrible) in the Bay Area, and I decided to head into the city. The ads nicely wrap the station into the world of the advertisement's message.

Before heading into the BART station, I walked by the pier terminal building and turned to see a very interesting solar reflection in the highrises behind me. As is visible in the photo below (taken with cellphone Razr camera), the sun, which is the bright spot in the second building to the right, is actually right behind that building in about that same place. The sun is being reflected off of the building in front of that building (the building farthest to the right) back onto the building where we see the sun's reflection. The effect was quite magnificent: the sun's presence placed where it is in the sky in front of the building, while the real sun's glow in the sky comes up around the edges of the second building to the right and provides it with the contrast of a wonderful backlit, white glow (the image doesn't capture this)!

sustainability and gettin' freaky

2006-07-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

I'm planning on attending a party tonight, which I hope to be a great deal of fun. Of course, it makes me think of relations between the sexes and that funky social dance that happens between people ("with eyes locked, love was found" or "with eyes locked, it was time to grind dem hips").

When I first got a car three years ago, I was excited to drive around. There is a thrill in having the windows down, wind blazing by, sitting low in the seat with music so loud the bass rumbles through my body. "Cars, man, they are hot and cool."

But then there is the reality of the situation: cars are destroying the world in many ways (oil consumption, urban sprawl, detached lifestyles, less dependence on public transportation), and people need to shift away from them as much as possible. With a gallon of gas at $3.15 and higher and co2 spewing-out, cruising down the street to check out (and impress) the ladies isn't cost-effective or globally-responsible, it's pretty ignorant and reckless.

So when I go to this party, I don't think I will be cruising around like an animal. But when I'm at this party, how might I attempt to "party like an animal", not take myself too seriously, have some fun and smiles, and engage in the party event in a sustainable and responsible way?

Then again, partying might be a form of sustainability itself; isn't it participating in relationships, socializing, human development, learning the ropes of life, and engaging in the process of mating?

We need some theories on the intersections of sustainability and debauchery, sustainability and drinking, sustainability and beer-pong, sustainability and humor, sustainability and acting silly, sustainability and gettin' freaky!

On Blogging

2006-07-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

Okay, so it's been a while since I've posted a real post here, and I'm excited about getting back into this. I recently graduated UC Santa Cruz this spring, and have been spending the summer researching and conceptualizing for an airport/airspace experiences collaborative art project, touring San Francisco (I grew up in the bay area and yet only now, coming home after college, am I realizing how amazing the city is! A nice touch of irony), researching architecture schools, and browsing volunteer and work opportunities. There's been a lot of time spent at home, sitting at the computer, hanging with my family and friends, and bicycling around my town (although, in contrast to my indoor computer usage, getting more time outdoors would be great).

I forsee my use of the blog as being an opportunity for me to share insights, ideas, and weblinks I've discovered and find interesting. I hope to also use the blog as a place for sharing stories and experiences from my adventures and travels. ...and, of course, I hope readers will write back for some nice e-conversation. I began this blog Fall 2005 as a way to document and share my study abroad experience in Firenze, Italy, where I studied in the pre-architecture program of Syracuse University Florence (a great school). I'll be honest, my blog posts from last Fall are pretty interesting!

I highly recommend reading blogs. They're hot stuff, and a great way to learn about all kinds of things written by all kinds of people. I ussually frequent on a daily basis an increasing amount of blogs, but over the past year my favorite has been Worldchanging.com. With various news and information about technology changing the world for better (or for worse), Worldchanging is a web-experience worth delving into; heck, it might change you! There are posts on technology, projects, people, ideas, and movements that have been, are, or will change the world. The site's authors strive for a green and sustainable future.

Worldchanging.com posts range from megacities in China and their futures, to emerging concepts such as the participatory panopticon (a personal favorite) and "g/local" (danah boyd's term), to solutions for climate change problems, to urban augmentation systems like denCity and Cabspotting (hello, SF!), to insightful interviews with folks like Adam Greenfield (author of "Everyware", a new book on ubiquitous computing), to creative attempts at economically-efficent green, collaborative architecture. So the site, basically, covers a lot of ground, and is worth browsing often. (The interests of architecture, media and sustainability tend to be reflected in the selection above).

Yesterday I discovered the blog Resarch, written by Brett Steele, director of the Architectural Association in London, and have been enjoying the many fascinating links Brett has posted. Through the Resarch site, I also learned of Infoaesthetics, a terribly interesting blog about information and communication graphics. As tied to my research with the airport/airspace experience project, I discovered these very interesting global mapping projects using images from around the world:

Geograph - http://infosthetics.com/archives/2005/06/geograph.html

Degree Confluence - http://infosthetics.com/archives/2004/12/degree_confluen.html

PLEIX's Netlag World Webcam Map video - http://infosthetics.com/archives/2006/01/netlag_world_webcam_map.html

LIFE24 Picture Mosaic, world view - http://infosthetics.com/archives/2006/06/life_24_world_view.html

World Processor - http://infosthetics.com/archives/2005/05/world_processor.html

Time Graphs on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/krazydad/sets/140323/

USA Air Traffic- http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?id=222&ind...

Google Search Activity Map - http://infosthetics.com/archives/2005/11/google_search_activity_map.html

And three more interesting sites:

Visualcomplexity.com, which is another great resource with tons of interesting and catagorized visualizations - http://www.visualcomplexity.com/

A visualization of the universe, a project which created an simulated image of the universe. astounding! This was found on the visual complexity site. - http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/galform/millennium/

Generic Mapping Tools, a program for use with Gimp to construct maps with complex data - http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/

More on my research and explorations soon!

Reflecting on UCSC's LRDP as the start of a process for creating the future

2006-06-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

An opinion-editorial about the UCSC 2005 LRDP and graduation that I wrote for the Santa Cruz Sentinel that wasn't published. An earlier version of this essay is included in a forthcoming book about the 2005 LRDP process by fellow alum and photographer, Lucas Barth (for details contact lucas_barth at hotmail dot com):

As a student at UC Santa Cruz, I was involved in the 2005 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) process, and participated in the design of the planning framework for UC Santa Cruz’s future. Throughout the 2005 LRDP process, my fellow student representatives and I learned that many diverse perspectives on the campus and city exist. We learned how valuable it is for the entire community to be listen to each other, stay involved in the planning process, understand what the 2005 LRDP is, and have a sense of where things are going.

The 2005 LRDP planning framework points the campus in a direction using a collaboratively produced land-use map, principles, and recommendations for how potential growth can relate to the existing campus and city contexts.

As a departure point, the path we take from the 2005 LRDP has not already been defined by the 2005 LRDP itself (or the Environmental Impact Report (EIR)) but will literally be created by participation in what happens after the long-range development planning process: implementation.

Being a graduating senior I’m thinking about the future again. Understanding the value of the 2005 LRDP process has taught me a lot. My fellow seniors and I are moving on. And yet, as our time here is ending, UC Santa Cruz is also a beginning.

And in regard to the 2005 LRDP, there is much planning still to do. Like college commencement, the 2005 LRDP and EIR should just be the beginning.

The UC Santa Cruz community must not jump into projects, but first insist on planning them, and be part of the implementation of the 2005 LRDP. Get involved in the process of growth and change, and be there to engage others! As my peers and I discovered while giving input into the 2005 LRDP Committee: we have a rare and awesome opportunity to guide the course of the future.

How will campus community be involved in historic academic planning to guide enrollment numbers and academic access? How will we be involved in the projects attached to the 2005 LRDP EIR (they’ll be the first to be implemented)? How will we be involved in future area planning looking closely at how new projects will relate to their contexts? How will we find ways to tie our academic work and volunteering to collaboration between the campus and community? How will faculty collaborate with their students, and inspire them to be active campus stewards and civic participants (and thus mitigation measures in themselves, making the campus and city a better place)? How will we foster community, help develop the living and breathing places of UC Santa Cruz, shape lives departing into the future of the world?

In consideration of the proposed increase of 6,000 students, there is real concern the growth will affect the quality of student life. How will UC Santa Cruz treat its students? This is a question about the nature of UC Santa Cruz as a place, and whether or not it will be a place kindling of the values and experiential opportunities sacred and relevant to the campus and its context.

The college system at UC Santa Cruz has been a very important part of my campus experience. I believe the colleges are important to the quality of student life and are meaningful places on our city on a hill. In years to come, new students will live where I once did at Porter College.

Throughout the 2005-2020 LRDP planning process the value of the college system was repeatedly discussed. The 2005 LRDP Committee and those who provided comments during the process explored the future of the college system. 6,000 more students will change the scale of relations; it will change the campus, the community, how people interact with the campus and each other, and potentially also the college system. Yet it is important to remember, change is not a question of ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but a question of ‘how’.

UC Santa Cruz is greatly shaped by the college system; with it the campus feels smaller and more intimate. Each college creates an important sense of close-knit community. Personally, I believe the college system is a vital part of UC Santa Cruz and respects the need for supportive community woven into the campus’ built-natural interweave. I’m going to miss the college community, the smell of the redwoods, the winding paths, the light in the trees, the views, the air, the people! So, how will growing the student population affect the campus and the college system?

Some potential changes (of which participation in the implementation process of campus planning can shape): colleges size may grow, college programming may change and administration may be centralized; or to accommodate the growth, new colleges will be added or alternative housing models will be used to meet diverse preferences. More students might gain access to a University education with expanding resources, and students can see and meet more fellow students when walking across campus. Or, the change in numbers will lead to new ideas on the role of the colleges in the academic experience and restructure programming and housing costs, and as a result more students may prefer to live on campus (or conversely, off-campus). These are all potential futures…

The question of how student life and the college system will be affected by campus growth interconnects all elements of the 2005 LRDP, and requires much more discussion. The 2005 LRDP respects the importance of the college system, and as a planning framework, will be used in coming years to guide interpretations of the college system and its future. The future of the college system—and thus the nature of student life and its quality—will depend on how the 2005 LRDP is implemented.

As the community now waits to see the EIR revised, we should consider the 2005 LRDP’s flexibility as allowing us to embark on a journey to define our collective future. We must examine the campus’ transition and planning processes and get inside of them. We must ask ourselves, in any scenario, how will the campus and city function as a place? Akin to the question of impacts to student life and the college system, we need to ask: How will we participate in the implementation process making this place, this university?

My fellow seniors and I are now contemplating the world beyond UC Santa Cruz, where we might go, and what that future might look like. We need to take the risk and opportunity to shape the future. The 2005 LRDP as a departure point can help the campus do the same; it is about long-range planning. It is now up to the campus community to use it as a guide, and participate in the practice of making places for the future with respect to the past.

(Matt Waxman, a graduating senior from Porter College, served as Primary Contact Student Union Assembly Representative to the 2005-2020 Long Range Development Plan Committee.)

growing into web 2.0

2006-05-28T18:21:00.000-07:00

My response to web 2.0 discussions on the Institute for Distributed Creativity (IDC) listserve, an ethnography and critical commentary about my web usage:

Hi, my name is Matt Waxman. I am a fifth year senior at UC Santa Cruz and will be 23 years old this Summer. I'd like to take a stab at this whole web 2.0 thing, participation in it, and maybe ground the newness and it's ideas in personal experience and the world around me.

From my experience, it seems my generation of youth grew up during the internet's grand explosion into cultural consciousness and any transition from an "old" to "new" kind of web-usage. By tracing my own history of using the internet and social networking sites, and observing internet use by people in similar ages to me, I believe the idea and relevance of a web "2.0" can be observed.

I started using the internet in Middle School. At that time, many people were already using the internet, but for many of my peers and I, we only used the internet from school computers. My family got the internet for the first time on a 56k modem (my parents were waiting for that technology to be more economical with monthly rates) during my sophomore year in High School (1998-1999), and it was a very big deal to have access from home (and the phone line being occupied was always a constant issue). I should add, from Middle School on, I grew up in the town of Moraga, middle class suburbia in the San Francisco Bay Area.

For my peers and I, at 15 years old at the end of the 1990s, the internet was very new. Personally I loved to explore the internet and became very fascinated by online design communities coming from forum/portal sites like k10k.net. I also became very fascinated with web design and web programming and taught myself mostly by looking at other people's source code (plus Wired tutorials and code archives always helped). Other things people the same age used the internet for: other forms of creative expression, research, porn, and communicating with other people (this includes email, early social networking forums, and building personal homepages).

The internet and my fascination for web design ate up a lot of my time during high school. When I wasn't using the computer--which I'll stress again, because of the internet was less than healthy in retrospect--I would sometimes be outside, go over to a friend's house, go skateboarding, or go back to doing some of the activities I would do a lot before the internet, such as Legos and drawing.

It wasn't until freshman year in college (2001-2002) that I first learned about AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), and it was from a girl on my dorm hall (who I'd later talk to on AIM even though she lived three doors down). Now, I think I knew a lot about the "cutting edge" in online design, but social communication came a little slow to me. Nonetheless, I think this in itself is quite relevant, as most people don't participate in these communication infrastructures right off the bat, it takes time to catch on. I should add that I quit using AIM at the end of my sophomore year in college because it had become an addiction and it was eating up time which I could use for extra-curriculars and studying. I have only met a few other people in college who have also quit AIM, most students still use it, and it still remains a very large part of their social and personal lives.

I should also add that at this time (in fact I think it was all the way through my junior year in college) there was no massive, campus-wide (and national) addiction to sites like Facebook and MySpace on any scale like we have now. I did have a few friends who used Friendster; but in contrast to the permeating, everyday social-consciousness and colloquial referencing emanating from Facebook and MySpace, Friendster cannot compete. I don't think Facebook and MySpace even existed as they do now either--and if they did, most people didn't know about them yet.

In June of 2004 I first received an email from the collegefacebook.com website (which seems to be the less-popular and parallel version of the popular Facebook.com), and assumed it was spam. It took a couple of months and talk with friends and my brother to learn that it wasn't spam, and was actually worth joining. At first I was skeptical and found the idea of adding "friends" bizarre, but loved the idea of connecting with friends and loved even more the ability to read profiles and look at pictures of people (the voyeuristic and self-showcasing is great). A few months later, at the end of 2004, I added myself to thefacebook.com (which is now just facebook.com) because "everybody" was on that network.

I've remained on Facebook ever since; I can't say I'm addicted but I do have my binge runs now and then. In the single year of 2005, Facebook really exploded with intense campus-wide and nation-wide networking. One of the most interesting experiences I remember with Facebook occurred at the beginning of Summer 2005 when I received a facebook message from a girl who was going to attend UC Santa Cruz in the Fall. I just so happened to be the first person listed in her "social network" (a list of people connected to people you're connected to), and she had decided to message me asking about college. I responded with a lot of tips and info. Amazingly, for that girl, college has had and will always have Facebook as an important part of the college experience. For her, college does not exist without Facebook and online social networking. A few weeks ago I was speaking with a different freshman who had been using Facebook all year and uses the site constantly. She was very surprised to learn that when I began college, Facebook didn't exist... she said she hadn't really thought about it, and assumed it had always been here.

I believe it was in 2005 fellow students really started to join MySpace en-mass. I have a MySpace account but only use it to view people's photos on MySpace when necessary (you can view MySpace profile pages without login). In contrast to Facebook, I believe MySpace has attracted many more people because anyone can join (not just college kids like Facebook), you can really modify (sort-of) the look of your page, and there are many special features. I have to admit, as I don't use MySpace, I can't really speak from "personal experience" but only from observation. Students use MySpace everywhere and all the time. I've seen students using it while sitting in class, doing nothing but looking at the messages people have left for them and looking at photos of their friends and themselves. (...might this be a downside of having wireless internet in classrooms?) References to both Facebook and MySpace also seem to frequently pop-up in dining-hall, party, and meeting conversations.

A few weeks ago I entered upon a group of students discussing the injustice of University officials using photographs and text on Facebook as proof that some students had consumed alcohol and drugs when cited. Most of the students at that meeting seemed visibly upset, and they spoke of drafting a petition on Facebook to try and ban authorities from entering Facebook. To be honest, I find this ridiculous, and it seems to me these students are still learning the consequences of engaging in new social spaces: if you don't want to get in trouble when a photo gets posted, it is really your responsibility to not be in those photos. Facebook also has a "Flyer" function where you can pay to advertise with "flyers" (small banner-ad sized announcements) across a school's network. The "flyering" and the events announcements on Facebook work well, and in some cases, seem to be more effective than physical flyering when people spend an increasing amount time in front of the computer.

It's almost halfway through the year 2006 and these websites continue to thrive with activity. We now also have sites like Flickr, YouTube, GoogleMaps, etc., which are quite different but very much related and in the same vein of internet experience. Facebook continues to grow as well. Fall 2005 they added the ability for students to add unlimited photos, and last week they added connectability to Facebook via cellphone text messages (just type "FBOOK"!) and the ability for users to post "status" messages saying what one is doing at the very moment (in response, I've heard students ask each other why Facebook is trying to be like AIM). Also (I think it was Summer or Fall 2005) Facebook extended their networks into High Schools, and very recently into some USA business and regional network categories (I'm part of the UCSC network and the San Francisco network... and can thus surf profiles of people from different Universities also connected to the San Francisco network, and also find people on the San Francisco network who are connected because their office network is, such as Google.) I think Facebook should add more international networks, they now only have London, Paris, and a few locations in Canada.

What is going on? Due to the internet and online social networking, High School and college experiences--and I'll add, Youth experiences in general--of youth today (right now!) are very different from my High School and part of my college experiences... and I graduated from High School only five years ago! It is important to note that the internet existed while I was in High School and was a younger youth, but that internet experience greatly contrasts the internet experience of current younger youth.

It is the very fast, visible shift in the consciousness of what-is-the-internet, and hence what-is-the-world, among young internet users that tells this tale. In many ways this story can be compared to the story of television's evolution: the television I grew up with (and felt like always existed because it always existed in my world) was very different from the television my parents grew up with. Web "2.0", I'll gather, is one way of expressing a recognition of this new kind of world people inhabit, a physical world constructed by a new version of mediated experience.

And calling it a "2.0" is in some ways relevant, as well. As experienced by the college freshman at UC Santa Cruz, the new version of living with the internet is assumed to be the only way of living with the internet; a consciousness of only a web "1.0" no longer exists.

(Read Trebor Scholz' post which my post was initially written in response to.)

City within a City

2006-01-31T15:45:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a lot about how the Airport is a City within a City. Cities are always in relationship to their contextual environments. A truly effective city is a dense heart of efficient and complex, spirited and contradictory, human habitat. Cities may recycle and reuse their energies and products, but they continue to draw the vast majority of their energy from the natural resources which surround them. Non-renewable energy sources and renewable energy sources yielding power and life to sustain the city and it's people come from the hills, the forests, the lakes, the mountains, the ocean, the desert, the sun, and the wind; water for life, and coal, oil, photovoltaic cells, wind turbines, to name a few for electricity, transport, and industry. The Airport, the globally distributed City within a City, as a functioning city, also feeds off its surroundings, the city of its outer context. The people, energy, financial support, products and shipping orders, all fuel and support the purpose for the Airport's existence and sustenance.

So, the Airport really is like a contemporary city in its internal habitat provisions (shelter, food, mobility, commerce, even space for arts), and also in its patterns of external resource consumption. The Airport, as a City within a City, looks towards the cities around it as consumption resources.

The Airport, the City within a City, is like an interiorized city, bubbled into a container whose own structure is that of a city. But to disembark from the destructive paradigm of continuous "natural capital" consumption furthered in urbanized locales around the world, the Airport City within a City could be seen as more progressive, even more sustainable in theory, as in a more directly symbiotic, interconnected relationship with its "natural environment", the surrounding city, than the original city is itself. In consideration of the modern city, the modern Airport city gives back more to the original city of its context than the original city gives back to its natural environmental context. Of course, the Airport pollutes like crazy and consumes like crazy, draining natural capital from the natural environment right through the city of its context. But as a paradigm, the Airport City within a City is a fascinating model for how a massive mechanistic and industrial system can be within a "natural" and symbiotic relationship to its mechanistic and industrial urban context.

In this sense, the Airport City within a City is an ironic paradigm of contradictions. The Airport City within a City is a model of postmodernity (industrial and mechanistic functions, forms, flows) and sustainability (interrelationships, context responsiveness, and a system of sustenance). The Airport City within a City is continued, infinite growth and limited, contained space; speed and globalization and locally-based rhythms; draining resource consumption and contextual recognition and responsiveness; and respect for the needs and wants of the passenger's human scale and the industry's global scale. I'd say this mix makes the City within a City a critical paradigm of our twenty-first century global-local human lifestyle.

Noise produced by airflight, for example, becomes what I'll call a "context impact", which is (by the way) one of the impacts considered by Environmental Impact Reports under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). (Within CEQA there are also special guidelines for development within airport plans.) These "context impacts" are the most perceived impacts between the Airport City within a City and the Airport's context city (as can be observed with Amsterdam as Schiphol Airport's context city). They build sociological and environmental relationships which, in a modern perspective of environmental analysis, means impacts to quality of life and environment that are calculateable by contingent valuation, evaluateable by cost benefit analysis, and are mitigateable by use of measures that dampen the problem. Interestingly, the "context impacts" of the Airport, while being therefore within the realms of economics, equity, and ecology (which by the way, make the tri-fold framework of "cradle-to-cradle" analysis professed by William McDonough and Michael Braungart), impact most directly the city's human quality of life issues. And even more interestingly, the “context impacts” monitored by airports are basically limited to noise (the sound of jets in the air), safety concerns (such as crashes and need for emergency landing space), overflight (flight patterns and visibility), and airspace protection (potential hazards to flight such as tall builds and areas where birds may collect); all impacts that are initially more perceptual than tangible in the same way as a visual image. (See California Airport Landuse Planning Handbook, pp summary-8) In short, City within a City context impacts are from man-made to the made-made. City context impacts are more from the man-made to the environmental.

McDonough and Braungart's "cradle-to-cradle" methodology (the most level-headed and progressive "eco-effective" model for design) recommends designing systems, products, processes that treat waste as food in the interconnected arenas of economics, equity, and ecology. Technically speaking, this can be quite complex. The rubber within a shoe sole contains countless different chemicals and to break it down, and to remove the harmful ones, and produce a shoe (as Nike is prototyping) whose rubber is actually beneficial to the environment, is quite complex. On a larger urban planning scale, McDonough's "Huangbaiyu Cradle to Cradle Village Master Plan" in Benxi, Liaoning Province, China, will attempt to implement the cradle-to-cradle concept for a new, developing community.

But to jump back to existing urban centers, and look at the Airport City within a City, we already have a cradle-to-cradle "closed-loop" system (although horribly dirty) in place: the Airport City in relationship to its context city. The Airport, looped into a vital give-and-take relationship to the context city, is then the principle place for revitalizing the city and transforming existing cities into having healthier relationships with their context (host?) cities. From within the City, the Airport City within a City can guide healthier environmental relationship from its existing web of contextual recognition and responsiveness. The Airport, the City within a City. is the gateway to transforming the global-local lifestyle, just as it was the product of modernity that transformed the city of today into what it is.

Natural Air - Port Cities

2006-01-24T15:53:00.000-08:00

Foster and Partner’s new Philology Library, at the Free University in Berlin, helps to create an interior reading environment that emulates the sense of the ambient environment for reading outside—one can sense the clouds moving above—but the environment is not virtual, it is rather reflective of the environment’s conditions and responsive to them. Behling, Foster’s sustainability leader, “compares it to sitting with a white umbrella under a tree and watching leaves cast shadows to create a beautiful play of light and pattern”. Ironically this makes me think of interior thematized environments that have been constructed to simulate elsewhere or external localities and their ambient effects... such as the interior external environments in Las Vegas' Venetian, Paris, New York New York, and Caesars' Palace hotels... and Disneyland and World, too. Yet it is part of the architect’s job to satisfy needs and wants, including those of a satisfying experience felt while mingling with nature's elements.

As I sat outside today in front of the Science Library going through my notes for my research, I was greatly enjoying the blinding sunlight coming across the red brick tiles, and the heat of the rays, and the light breeze, and the sway of the shadows through the trees, and the light sounds of chatter and leaves and birds—all that ambient stuff. Is it wrong for architecture to replicate feelings of these things, whether intentionally simulated, or in their distilled essence?

The other day during Political Economy and the Environment class I appreciated the benefit of biomimicry. Water, the subject of our current discussion, is really an amazing thing; useful in both a biological and metaphorical capacity. Professor Haddad talked about how plants are able to use water. Because of the way water molecules are designed, the plants can then suck them up through their roots, and the water flows upward! This is amazing. Water treatment plants, by the way, use a distilled and strengthended natural process: they do the same things as wetlands, but process and clean the water at just a faster rate. So if we look at nature and its processes, designs, systems, we can find some useful ideas on how to solve design problems of our own.

So, Foster and Partners’ library uses some ideas of biomimicry in both its aesthetic and technical design—“green”-wise, it apparently is a product from years of research, as well—to create an experience that is satisfying and healthy.

Anyway, back to airports. If airports are interior spaces (aside from the post-modern connotation, “interior” really doesn’t say much just yet) that people pass through like external environments (they contain destinations and gates inside of them that are connected by routes) like streets, alleys, paths of any sort, then it would make sense for airport spaces to reflect things people like in satisfying and healthy external environments.

But since airports are not simply external environment passage spaces (spaces, for the most part, used strictly for the movement of people or goods), they are more like external environment places of destination that can contain passages and destinations, gates, inside of them: like parks, piazzas, malls, forests, and a city’s downtown district, to name a few.

So an airport is similar to a park, piazza, or downtown because it is relatively “public” and used to connect people to other places but also is a destination in its self. Although, unlike a park, piazza, or downtown, people generally do not go to airports specifically to relax or enjoy oneself. In that sense, then, airports are more like malls because their purpose is more functionally rooted in facilitating a type of commercial transaction. But then again, many people go to malls to just hang-out… but maybe that’s because the mall has replaced the park, piazza, or downtown in postmodern life…

But rather than trying to draw analogies with other types of spaces to the airport, I think an airport is rather something quite unique. Airports have “airport-ness”; that’s what 1950s architecture critic G.E. Kidder-Smith said in his book The New Architecture of Europe (pp 170, Gordon). But I have to content I think his “airport-ness” was supposed to reflect a different ideal, one rather obsessively modern, functional, pure, sleek, fast, and all that 20th century Industrial-Age fashion. But at the same time, his eye was right about the meaning of the airport: that its heart and soul, purpose and life, was totally different from any space, environment, facility, ever before. An architecture of airports wasn’t meant to have neo-classical columns or Spanish architectural flair of the regional ilk; airports were doing their own thing, and their bodies were meant to reflect the growing muscles and bones inside of them.

So, if airports aren’t really anything but airports, like a seaport isn’t really anything but a seaport, then how does it still function and feel like an external environment of sorts? Maybe that’s because, also like a seaport, you can place all kinds of non-seaport stuff inside of a seaport and extend it way beyond a simple seaport… like the way Barcelona’s waterfront is so many amazing things, from restaurants, to museums, to exhibition space, to beaches, to clubs, to apartments, to promenades, to road- and transit-ways, and also that thing called a harbor.

Then maybe an airport is an airport and nothing else, but it grows like an external environment (and people move through it like one), and can be developed like a seaport. That would make the airport strikingly close to a real city, especially given the fact that airports have hotels, businesses, insanely consumptive infrastructure systems, and all the other living, modern city components… some airports even market themselves like cities, a destination for tourists in themselves…

The Frankfurt Airport City in Germany is like that. There are over 500 companies employing over 65,000 people at the Frankfurt Airport City. The “City” gets over 50 million international passengers a year. The city’s website also boasts that the its location in Germany makes it a good place to shop and sell because there are “35 million well-heeled consumers [living] within a catchment area extending 200 km from the airport in all directions — that is equivalent to about 43 percent of Germany's population”.

But, wait, did you catch that? Frankfurt Airport City, because of its geographic location (“heart” of Europe, they tell the traveler), is also a city because of the cities around it. The cities around the airport city feed off of the airport, and the airport city feeds off of them; a symbiotic relationship between “real” cities (note the plural) and “airport city” (note the singular).

But an airport city can be “real”, it’s not fake, it just looks a little different and people use it a bit differently. So maybe the question of what an airport is—what type of environment it is—is a question of how real is a landscape, or nature, or any kind of pure ideal that can be doctored and regrown, manicured and planted, or left alone to “organically” become old, wizen, haggard, diverse, multifaceted, and “natural”?

New Views

2006-01-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

Architecture gives people new views that could not have been attained without the built structure. My apartment room window looking out into the trees could only have been imagined by the architect before having been created by the building or some other structure that augmented the human view by relocating the body in space (such as a very high ladder).

Cars, mobile vehicles, even bicycles, give also a new view of perspective on the landscape that is unattainable without them. Airplanes also give a new view, but theirs’ is particular. Objects totally detached from the Earth’s topography, airplanes have a very different continuity to ground-based perspectives.

Looking out of an airplane window, one’s body position has no real fluid continuity to the contextual topography of its surrounding landscape. Looking out of my apartment window into the campus forest feels normal, natural, and the fact this view could not have been seen before does not immediately strike anyone—there is a fluid sense of mobile continuity between the new view position and the surrounding landscape, that of which is part of the view. View and viewer-location share a common context. Airplanes dislocate this, taking the body and the view to unattainable heights.

The closest ground-rooted experience to this airplane dislocation in physical architecture is the skyscraper. Looking out into the city from high above, the view’s vertical projection and height above the Earth’s topography surpasses the immediate sense of contextual normality for the body; but still continuity is reached: the building is touching the ground, fluid movement between the skyscraper office high above on the 365th floor and the ground can take place, and the city seen within the view shares a lasting contextual relationship to the skyscraper’s space. A grander example of the tree-top view I see from my apartment window.

Coordinate(d) Airspace

2006-01-24T15:48:00.000-08:00

The idea of COORDINATES is really fascinating me for our research project on international airports. in the airport history book I’ve read, “Naked Airport”, there is talk about how postmodern architecture of airports attempted to resettle the "older coordinates" that had been disrupted by the post-war decentralized airport structures.

What precisely were the old coordinates? flat Cartesian space? the broad expanses of land and openness Le Corbusier saw as seminal in his 'naked airport' concept, a vision seen from the plane to the port yet aligned in elevation not plan?

The coordinate(d) space of the old was aligned primarily from the view upon land as seen in elevation, but with aircraft and the repositioning of the body into the craft's own air-space, the new view upon the land became aligned from above, as if in plan not elevation. What did this do to cartographic and 2D projections of space, to notions of perspective, to the whole concept of the 3rd dimension as depicted through non-3D measures (i.e. image based representation instead of literal, physical architecture)?

Did the coordinates of visually represented space, as known in the post-renaissance world, become realigned upon a new axis? Is there a new evolution of visual representation--the next step after Brunelleschi's discovery of perspective--underway? Must humans now grapple with a new sense of space as projected from another kind of 'perspective'? Does this perspective also manipulate the convention of the 3rd dimension of depth, and of time that can move within it's limits and bounds? And is this process of experiencing this difference experienced in the dislocation of the "older" coordinates...

I'd say yes. And that in fact, cinema and the visually projected cinematic narrative are in part manifestations of this newly coordinate(d) space. Cinema in particular relocates the human experiencer to position of 'viewer' upon the cinematic landscape. The coordinates of perspectival space become re-projected in motion before the eyes; depth is not only seen in the 2D but read in the image's oneiric immersion. A new space--cinematic spatial coordinates--wrap around the 'viewer', a viewer's perspectival position is relocated into the cinematic space while their body remains sedentary, stable, motionless. Motion of the cinematic order--images of a physically far away world passing by--slide the coordinates of the new across the coordinates of the old; interstices dislocate the body to new planes of perception, position, and place.

AIRSPACE - viewer-ship; dislocation in between the places and times; realigned orientation to Earth-bound perspective; priority of plan where before we saw elevation and section; priority of elevation and section where before we imagined plan; a new coordination of coordinates inside context, place, experience.

Coordinates themselves also function as the limiting figures connecting vectors into shapes, diagrams, maps, and particular spaces. Coordinates are a mapping and form-making tool. Coordinates can be applied to any surface to make it manipulatable. In 3D computer graphics technology, a sphere can be coated in a matrix of points for extrusion, etc. Surfaces simply become transformable into the third dimension with coordinates. The flat image can now exist in the 3rd dimension with coordinate mapping; an act not simply of perception but technological manipulation.

Edges of coordinate space may define the plausible limits to its own spatial existence, and can infer further spaces beyond the visible. The negotiated boundaries of Nations are coordinated to align to regulatory coordinates. Space above the surface of the Earth, extending into the air, is also regulated by coordinate domains. Movement across, between, inside all coordinated space is defined by the whereabouts of the object within the coordinate structure and its position relative to the absolute position of the regulatory coordinates. Airflight is in its very nature subjected to physically coordinate(d) space, as noted by David Pascoe in his introductory “Airspace” musings on regulation air spaces.

The beauty of coordinate(d) airspace is that it is assumed to be Cartesian in all dimensions: the ultimate mobile utopian freedom.

Movement can plausibly transpose things at any level or orientation. “Air”-space prioritizes air’s substance, its imperceptible materiality. We can feel wind in our hair and the smell of a sea breeze, or sense lack of oxygen but in representation air only takes form through the characterizations of its edges and limiting factors. Coordinates become opportunities for defining materiality to the space in-between the matrix’s points. Renaissance Raffaello and Botticelli understood this. Raffaello added corporeality to space and imbued it’s essence; he would emphasize color around the air, began to manipulate the perspectival depth, and characterized movement and light passing through what is empty by touching what is around the emptiness. (See Raffaello’s “Madonna of Foligno”) Botticelli, master of the line, drew each figure in concrete shapes by the out-line, the painting’s spatial divisions coordinated by the line’s positioning. (See Botticelli’s “The Annunciation”) Spaces of air or non materiality were made just as relevant to the eye as the substances of material bodies. Voids were materialized by clarifying the limits to it; coordinating its relations, giving the space—the air—substance.

Firenze & 60th anniversary of UNESCO & the 57th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights

2005-12-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

Firenze, Italia:

For the 60th anniversary of UNESCO & the 57th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights

Giornata di studio sul tema

"Il Diritto a conoscere il patrimonio culturale"

7 Decembre 2005, Firenze,
Palazzo Vecchio, Sala de' Dugento

- - -

Il Sindaco di Firenze e il Presidente dell'Centro UNESCO di Firenze hanno il piacere di invitarLa alla celebrazione del 60º Anniversario della creazione dell'UNESCO e del 57º Anniversario della Dichiarazione universale dei Diritte Umani

Il 7 Dicembre, in Palazzo Vecchio
"Il Diritto a conoscere il patrimonio culturale"

Mattina:
Ore 9,30, Sala de' Dugento

Programma:
Saluti: Leonardo Domenici, Sindaco di Firenze

Marialuisa Stringa, Presidente Centro UNESCO di Firenze

Giovanni Puglisi, Presidente della Commissione Italiana UNESCO

Interverranno:
Simone Siliani, Assessore alla Cultura Comune di Firenze
Adele Cesi, Architetto Ufficio Lista Patrimonio Mondiale UNESCO, Ministero per Beni e le Attività Culturali
"Conoscere i siti italiani del patrimonio mondiale"

Rosa Maria Di Giorgi, CNR Coordinatrice della Rete Telematica Regione Toscana
"Le nuove tecnologie per la conoscenza del patrimonio culturale"

Giovanni Robbiano, docente Università di Genova e IULM
"Il cinema: una via per conoscere il patrimonio"

Ore 11,30
Attribuzione del premio del Centro UNESCO di Firenze per la comprensione internazionale a
Sergio Zavoli

e ai giovani "ambasciatori di pace"
Saluto del coro del Centro UNESCO di Firenze e del Liceo Machiavelli Capponi

Pomeriggio:
Ore 15,30, Sala de' Dugento

Moderatore: Carlo Francini, Responsabile Ufficio Centro Storico Patrimonio Mondiale UNESCO

Interverranno:
Giorgio Luti, Professore emerito dell'Università di Firenze
"Conoscere il patrimonio letterario"

Marialuisa Stringa, già docente nell'Università di Lecce
"Tradurre, perché? L'impegno dell'UNESCO"

Ernestina Pellegrini, docente Università di Firenze
"Trapianti: riflessioni sull'importanza delle traduzioni"

Un esempio di traduzione:
Plinio Perilli, direttore di collana editoriale
introduce la prima antologia poetica italiana della poetessa americana Djuna Barnes

Discanto, Roma, Ianua Editrice, 2005
a cura e traduzione di Maura Del Serra

Lettura di pagine a cura dell'attrice Monica Menchi.

- - -

Questo progetto cominciava per...

"Progetto Fiorenza"

La giornata di studio é prevista nel quadro del programma organizzato dal Centro UNESCO di Firenze in collaborazione con l'Ufficio Centro storico Patrimonio Mondiale UNESCO dell'Assessorato alla Cultura del Comune di Firenze e si articolerà nella seguenti iniziative:

• un Corso di Formazione,
• un Concorso per elaborazione di una sceneggiatura,
• Costruzione di una bibliografia sui tema

L'iniziativa é volta a difendere i tesori inestimabili del patrimonio dell'arte, della natura, della cultura, sensibilizzando i giovani in particolare, ma anche i cittadini tutti. Sfondo e protagonista del lavoro che si propone dovrá essere la cittá di Firenze, ritratta in tutti i suoi aspetti, diffondendone il messaggio universale che Firenze patrimonio dell'umanità sa trasmettere al mondo.

Calendario Incontri

Il corso proseguirà nelle date sotto indicate presso la Syracuse University, Piazza Savonarola, Firenze, dalle 16,00 alle 18,00

Gennaio 19: "il Patrimonio Mondiale UNESCO attraverso il piano di gestione di Firenze"

Febbraio 2: "Comunicare il patrimonio attraverso l'immagine"

(Diviso in due sessioni):
"Alla scoperta del centro storico di Firenze"
Febbraio 16, Prima Sessione

Marzo 2, Seconda Sessione

Maggio in data da stabilire

Lavoro per gli Studenti

Elaborazione di una sceneggiatura dal titolo: "Scrivi una storia di finzione che ti piacerebbe veder realizzata sul grande schermo, che abbia come sfondo e ambientazione Firenze e il suo patrimonio."

Costruzione di una bibliografia sul tema a cura dei giovani, di ogni ordine di scuole e studenti universitari, che sarà inserita nel data base "Progetto Fiorenza" e nei data base del Centro UNESCO di Firenze e del Comune di Firenze.

- - -

Per maggiori informazioni/ For more information:

Segreteria Generale,
Gerardo Gallace
tel: 055/6810895

Coordinatrice,
Dott.ssa Silvia Intini
cell: 347/5830285
silviaintini@yahoo.it

Presidente
Centro UNESCO di Firenze,
Dott.ssa Marialuisa Stringa
tel: 055/572676
fax: 055/583454
centrounescofi@iol.it

(information may be subject to change and rights belong to UNESCO Firenze, Comune di Firenze, UNESCO)

Prospettiva dal cielo

2005-11-28T09:38:00.001-08:00

Oggi ho fatto una linea di molti cose io dovero’ fare alla prima ritornero’ negli Stati Uniti… andro’ molto piu’ chiese e musei; studiaro’ piazze, palazzi, strade, viste, arte e architettura; e leggero’ molto piu’ storia di Firenze, Toscana, Italia; mangiero’ molti cose da mangiare tipi dal’Italia; ero’ molto italiano!… Ci sono molti cose fare!

Firenze e molto interessante, e’ mi faro’ volere vedere tutti! Io amo qui molto! Adesso, mentre facevo il mio compiti per italiano e guardavo la luce—a fuori la mia finestra c’e’ il lampo—e pioggia faceva la passeggiata gui’ la vetrata, io pensevo di il mio tempo a qui. Molto volte, molto bene volte; uno tempo come la distanza infinita della cielo.

Mi piache’ molto il cielo di Firenze. Ma, il cielo? Perche lo spazio fra i palazzi e il cielo e’ una volume specifica con la geometria su la geometria dalla citta’ facevo in totale un spazio concrete e con dividere dalla prospettiva. Sono la prima persona ho visto questo? …e’ molto, molto interessante… ambiente e geometra hanno messo insieme.

Che cose il cielo? Tuttigiorno, se le nuvole come pane fresca ha aperto a mezzo, o se la sole e’ andata con grande fuochi, o se la luna da solo come la cuore, o—come adesso—il lampo ha fatto la luce per qualcuna leggevano; il cielo sempre toccava la citta’ fra la collina e la collina. Il cielo e’ uno solido volume; il cielo fa lo spazio geometria come prospettiva dalla citta’ di Firenze.

In facto, oggi, sono andato galleria Uffizi ancorra. Io ho seduto a davanti un lavoro di Sandro Botticelli per lungo tempo. Con linea, Botticelli e’ diventato maestro di pittura. Il suo pittura con Annunziata e molto importante. Mi piache’ questa pittura molto. Il suoi altri lovoro anche molto importante, ma voglio dire questo pitture perche ha geometria dalla prospettiva come architettura—il chiave per lo spazio e l’umanita a dentro e’.

Questo tutti posti a dentro Firenze. Il chiave per vita dalla Rennaissance di Firenze: Italia hanno fatto scoperta per disegnare lo spazio come tuttigiorno vita.

Allora, pittura Annunziata di Botticelli potera’ dividere in pezzi equale con assi longitudine e latitudine. Questi pezzi potera’ dividere in piu piccolo pezzi per costruiva uno immagino equilibrata. Prospettiva in Firenze e non nuovo ma questo e solo uno esempo. la Rennaissance ha fatto la prospettiva sempre molto importante. Prospettiva, in uso dal 1425, ha fatto la possibilita’ di controllare razionalmente lo spazio in disegnare e realta’. Anche, lo spazio in prospettiva fa lo spazio totale e olistico.

Prospettiva: geometria ha dividuto definire lo spazio tra.

Ma Annunziata di Botticelli e piccolo esempio in confronto di altro esempo. Ma, prima, se tu sei in galleria Uffizi, e ha visto Botticelli, poi andrai a fuori la galleria. Quando tu andrai a fuori galleria Uffizi, e poi entrero’ un spazio di Giorgio Vasari a centrale della lungo galleria, e poi andrai a dietro questo spazio, vedero’ una prospettiva come una geometria. Galleria Uffizi, e poi Palazzo Vecchio, e poi piazza della Signoria, e poi molti palazzi, e poi una cupola dal Duomo di Brunelleschi… tutti importante per prospettiva.

Uno dopo ancorra, spazio strati su spazio. Questo strati possano essere rompere con geometria per prospettiva con dividere. E poi che cose noi abbiamo con questo? Lo spazio ha fatto con prospettiva per linea di vista come la prostettiva ha usato per disegnavo architettura—noi sensiamo lo spazio come loro hanno disegnato per l’umanita.

Anche, e questo molto importante per ricordare, piazza della Signoria molto importante per prospettiva… come tanto in Firenze… come quello cupola dal Duomo di Brunelleschi! Entrambi usanno geometria perfecto per faceva lo spazio fra i palazzi e le piazze. Entrambi anche possono essere disegnera con prospettiva. In facto, Brunelleschi molto importante per prospettiva. E poi, c’e’ anche la pittura di Trinita’ di masaccio in Santa Maria Novella quest’e’ una delle prime di prospettiva: una pittura con architettura di profondita’ dentro il muro.

Come il cielo su Firenze, a dentro la citta’, prospettiva molto importante e ha fatto questo posto, e poi tutto dal mondo… il mondo olistico dalla prospettiva.

The Magic Fountain

2005-11-26T18:43:00.000-08:00

On being alone and importance of Place

Sometimes one must go into the depths of one’s self to come back out again refreshed.

Since writing and posting the entry “a dark room with no walls”, I’ve had time to reflect and consider my words, thoughts, experience, and the world they fit into. I must admit, that entry was very personal, and some may consider it too personal for this space; but I’ll contest that as part of my “wayfinding” journey it has been quite helpful.

In reflection, I was writing mostly about the feeling of loneliness and my personal acceptances of it—or rather, my process of becoming comfortable with being an individual in a very big world. It happened for me while I was at the Magic Fountain in Barcelona, surrounded by people I didn’t know. I realized in that moment that I was entirely alone, but surrounded by so many people. And it was this irony of being one amongst others that struck me. The experience freed me from anxieties about alienation and loneliness and brought me further into the world.

While I was no longer scared of being alone, the recognition of my self as an equal self among the immense and vast number of selves in the world (each respectively as individual and particular as my own), led me to separate my self from my thoughts of others. While I sat on the steps of Montjuic and watched the changing lights and water dance to classical music, I thought: “you’re here by yourself, enjoy this great moment, and stop feeling sorry that others can’t experience this! Take no photos! Take a look around, you’re actually alone!” But when I looked around I found that I was alone but surrounded by people. I was alone, but then again, in that Place, I was not really alone.

I believe the sense of comfort from being alone—that transformation of “loneliness” to “comfort” that I experienced in my last night in Barcelona—was actually due to the Place I was at. I was alone but surrounded by many unknown people. And the Place became the “transistor” of human support.

In that moment I knew I no longer needed to worry about becoming alone because I realized that no matter where I am in the world I am not alone. I am separate as an individual but will always be surrounded by people. (To put it bluntly, we all live on the same planet.) And it was a successful Place—for me, the Magic Fountain in Barcelona—that was the “transistor” (the transferring medium of humanness) that connected me to the unknown people I was surrounded by. I no longer needed to worry about alienation and loneliness, about wishing friends and family back home could experience this with me. I no longer needed to comfort myself with these thoughts because the Place set me in rhythm with my human environs.

In further reflection, when I walked away from the Magic Fountain in Barcelona, I not only walked away with a revised sense of independence, but also a little bit of cynicism. I walked away without a fear of being alone. But I also walked away thinking I didn’t need to care about what anybody though about me, or anything. “Whatever, ‘bo’”, I thought to myself. I was alone and therefore so was everybody else... so who cares...

Coming into comfort with being physically alone is a two-way street. One can find comfort in themselves within a big world. One can also find one’s being alone to mean there actually is no responsibility between oneself and that big world.

And the later is which I feel—in combination with places in communities that don't act as “transistors” of humanness—breeds alienation, loneliness, and cynicism in many of today’s Western Youth.

I came away from my experience at the Magic Fountain experiencing both independence and cynicism. And in considering my last major blog entry, they both reflect. But it is important to move beyond the cynicism and acknowledge the places we live in and experience, their powers to change us, and the nature of human relationships that are formed through places.

What I had felt and called “loneliness” became the emotion of “comfort” because it was in my state of being alone that I found comfort. And it was the Place around me that took the form of, like what one uses the architecture of a church and temple for, connection, freedom, sustenance, and evolution of the human spirit.

. . .
Apathy and America

One of the benefits of studying abroad with Syracuse University in Florence (and there are many) is being able to meet students from many different American universities. Studying abroad here is like having graduated, gone to a new school, a new life, and getting a chance to see what life is like for many different people. I’ve met many amazing people from all around the world, and many with views that have challenged me.

Two months ago I had a conversation with two students who had a very different view of the world than I. To them, in order to have “people at the top” there must always be “people at the bottom”. They told me that children must always be dying, people must always be starving, and wars must happen in order to allow other people to have success, great lives, and be happy.

I’m stubbornly optimistic and utopian, so to hear such a (in my opinion) pessimistic, cynical outlook really bothered me. I held my breath, swallowed, and asked them to tell me more about their perspectives. “That’s just the way it is”, they told me. “You can’t change the world, and why would you want to? People must always suffer for others to be successful.”

“But that’s not true,” I responded. “Why can’t we strive to help everybody in the world to feel happy and good about themselves, their communities, and their lives?”

While working as Primary Contact Student Representative on the UCSC 2005 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) Committee, I encountered a wide variety of views on the future of UCSC, Santa Cruz, community, environment, place, people, life, and the world; many contrasting, many diverse, and all very interesting. My approach as student representative was to always bring the diverse opinions into dialogue.

But, if there was any view that bothered me, it was apathy. Like a pimple that just won’t go away, it is bothersome. A view that the world, the future, everything, is “just the way it is” and that it is “pointless” to even consider trying to change things.

I must admit, the sense of being alone without connection to others experienced in-part at the Magic Fountain reminds me of this American apathy... the idea that as independent, one has no connection to others and the world.

(An aside: At UC Santa Cruz, I encountered apathy sometimes when trying to discuss the importance of understanding that things, people, systems, places, the University of California as a matter of fact, all take a long time to change. And that one must respect time and plan with the long-view... that the long-range part of the Long Range Development Plan is really important… that real change does not happen over-night… that real change is a process involving many complex factors.

Apathy is also a very real problem within the University of California system among a fair amount of students, especially whites and middle to upper classes. See the University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey and SERU21 Project for more information. Both these projects were presented at the UC symposium on "Civic and Academic Engagement in the Multiversity", of which I participated, in June 2005.)

. . .
Global Guide

Americans (including myself) have an interesting relationship to this whole “apathy” and “cynicism” thing.

Time and time again, here in Italia, I am struck by the commonness and causualness of American pop music, brands, sports, technology, food, etc. within the marketplace and consciousness.

While riding the Eurostar down to Rome last weekend I happened to sit next to a very nice Italian man, a professor and an activist with WWF. We conversed in Italian about many issues, sustainability, the environment, globalization, national parks in Italia (in particular an amazing park in Sardegna, outside Cagliari), Italian cities, differences and similarities between the USA and Italia, and popular culture.

He said that many Italian youth prefer to listen to their pop-music, prefer to just go out and have fun… bob their heads to the beats and go, “bo.” I had in my lap my little portable radio; he smiled and pointed to it—“you, too?” No, I use the radio to listen to Italian music, to try and pick up as much Italian language and culture as I can. Not an ipod, “a portable radio!”, I joked.

I asked him about the predominance of American and English-language pop music on the radio. To me it all seems so strange to hear so much of it when sifting through radio stations. In the USA, aside from the Spanish-language radio stations—which are a minority compared to the rest—everything is in English. It is difficult to imagine what it would be like to be Italian, think and know Italian, but to hear so much pop music in a foreign language. My new friend said it’s always been that way: for him it was the Beatles.

America and the English-language produces the most played-out, globalized, popular culture. And this is just the surface, but a surface people like to look at. While the global relations between nations are shifting, America is still a source of guidance to other countries.

This past week I attended a lecture on the trans-Altantic relationship of the USA and EU Nations. History Professor Federico Romero of the University of Florence noted that while anti-American sentiment is extremely high (especially in Western European nations), EU nations politically, economically, and strategically still look towards the United States for advice and as an example to follow. Generalizations (though rooted in real actions) such as: Americans are “war-mongers”, “fabricated the war-on-terror to take control of oil and power”, “are egotistical”, “are anti-Islamic”, “don’t give a rat’s ass about Europe”, can still be followed with, “...well, USA is still very, very powerful, so we need to look towards them for guidance.”

And that’s the reality. Despite changing global relations and the stupid things the current American government says and does, the USA is still very powerful and influential. Europe looks to the USA for advice, and so does China, and India, and many other nations... why? Because people in China say "I want music, cars, and houses like those Americans". And China is trying to satisfy those desires, trying to give its population what Americans have had.

(An aside: China's interests have repercussions economically around the world. Currently Africa is being hit very badly, but soon it is likely to be Europe. This has to do with local/national industries not being able to compete with the cheapness of Chinese products that are produced with such a small labor cost.)

. . .

With many Youth growing-up and choosing their recognition of independence in the world to mean a disconnection from others and the world (via apathy and cynicism), America needs to recognize its own Place and set an example.

And with nations looking towards the USA for guidance on how to live, Americans should share with the world places, people, policy, products, and ideas that help people gain independence, and an understanding of our global togetherness.

Like my personal experience at the Magic Fountain in Barcelona, we are all alone--all individuals--yet all sitting together, on Earth.

Neve adesso!

2005-11-23T09:04:00.000-08:00

It's lightly snowing in Firenze right now! :) I am very happy.

A dark room with no walls

2005-11-21T19:20:00.000-08:00

[Edited, Nov. 24, 2005; please note addition]

Now, though, I'm sitting in the computer lab. Next to me is a girl writing a paper and talking to her friends back home on AIM. I used to use AIM but haven't in three years. Sitting here is stressful; the connection is so slow. I swear to God you can feel stress in rooms. The tension in here builds up in my back muscles and my neck. My legs are shaking in axiousness so much that it makes me feel like I have to take a shit.

There is wireless, but I'm stubborn and haven't connected my laptop. I don't really want to have wireless. I want to stay away from here. I need fresh air, it's stuffy in here.

Ligh's fade to black. silence. It's cold. I can see my breath. The room is dark and I'm alone. I'm writing in the dark again.

I write: "Da solo? Da solo, ancora?"
A voice responds: "Si, ancora. Tu sei pazzo, si?"
I respond: "No, sono non pazzo."
I write in response: "Sei molto strano, pazzo moltissimo."
"Da solo? No, no voglio essere pazzo."
"Si devi essere pazzo -- sempre."

Molto triste. Camera pans from a close-up from under my chin and tracks back to a long shot of me sitting, lit by the blue hum of my laptop screen, alone in darkness.

"Aiuto! Aiuto! Aiuto!" I scream! Suddenly the darkness falls down: The dark room's walls fall down, clouds of dust rise, and I'm sitting in a misty Tuscan field with a few sheep. The dew-wet grass smells of grass; a light wind rolls over it, rippling it in green waves. I can see far in the distance more grass, more hills, more mist, more, more, more, more, more, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta...

My mind is like a road that keeps going on forever. My thoughts keep coming like the world that keeps turning. I'm having trouble catching up with my feet. No worries, I'll just walk along, right? Maybe I'll see someone I know along the way.

Sometimes I look out in the distance, far away into the distant land that I see from that countryside road. I see buildings, apartment complexes, forests, trees, mountains, hills, birds, fields, cities, and more distance. There is a lot of trash by the side of the road mixed in with overgrown weeds. I contemplate picking some of it up or inspecting it, but there is too much of it.

Sometimes when I walk by myself I say things like "life's not really worth living". I'll then say "and what if I wrote that in my blog?" I think in response, "I'd like that; sounds like a kinda' crazy thing to say ...but what would people think? They'll think I'm crazy?!" Oh well, as Italians say, "bo".

[But you know, "bo" is the wrong answer. In my Italian Cinema class we recently watched "Cento Passi" (100 Steps). Cento Passi is about Peppino Impastato, the young man of a small Mafia-run town in Sicily who becomes a leader of youth to speak out against the Mafia and the ways they have been destructive to the city's environment, social freedoms, and politics. Peppino was also born within a Mafia family. Cento Passi is a true story.

After Peppino's father is murdered, Peppino discovers that his father kept all of Peppino's belongings: his Communist articles, his papers, his notes. One of the notes says that he no-longer has the will to live and wants to give up life and politics. Peppino waves this note in his younger brother's face and says he had written it a couple years before... only a random note he rationalized, a non-important emotional outcry of the past. After Peppino is tragically tortured and murdered, after his friends cry in agony and pain, the police find that same piece of paper and use it as evidence to say that Peppino committed suicide, that Peppino--the young man who critically spoke out against the problems within his local community--had problems and decided to silence himself.

"Bo" is the wrong answer. "Bo" means in Italian a combination of "I don't know/whatever" and is to wave life under-the-bridge, to say I can scream and cry now and that the what happens in the future isn't important. Peppino didn't commit suicide, he was murdered. But his ego in the past was used against him at his death.

I have felt lonely abroad, I have been learning how to find comfort and happiness as a human being, and make mistakes. Sometimes when I walk down that countryside road I say things... but sometimes, when we walk down those roads, it is important to look at where we are, look at the big picture and see the other people walking down that same road. It can be important to stop walking and reflect. Important to recognize that life is worth living, that what we say or do one day has consequences for ourselves, our communities, and our world. And that "bo" simply doesn't cut-it.]

In Barcelona, on my last night there, I went and watched the Magic Fountain at the bottom of Montjuic. I love fountains, especially musical ones that dance and change lights using their original art-deco pipes and decorations. I was entirely alone but surrounded by many people. It was hillarious, all of a sudden I then realized that I've always been alone. And I love it, especially when surrounded by tons of people I don't know. I gave a light chuckle under my breath and smiled. I walked over to the Caixaforum museum and went to a free classical music concert. It was blissful to listen to the cacophony of all the instruments playing, tuning, warming up, at the same time. Ah, so many memories! I was a 'band nerd' from elementary school to my senior year in high school. I heard this every single day. And then the first clarinet tuned. Beautiful!

I haven't composed any music since the UCSC Long Range Development Plan project began and consumed a lot of my time and passion. Composing music is a major passion of mine, and I haven't composed any music in 2 years! The symphonic band was wonderful, and the conductor so proud! I was also attracted to the show by the fact there was video projected in the theater that changed based on the music. The summer after my freshman year of college I participated in an amazing music festival in Santa Cruz. My music piece had a gloomy and scary looking tree dance to my strange song. It was a great moment for me.

That night I found myself comfortable sleeping on my left side. I always felt uncomfortable sleeping that way before, like it scared me.

At the beginning of my trip to Spain, at the train station in Pisa, there was a group of American girls and a couple American guys. I was really shy and scared to introduce myself. They all seemed so smooth. They asked each other, "where you from..." Simple stuff. I choked on my spit and bit my lip. I told myself "I can't be so damn shy, this won't work!" I kept wondering how I looked to everyone. Kept peering out from the periphery of my vision like a spy.

By the end of my trip in Spain the emotion of "loneliness" had entirely transformed into the emotion of "comfort". I relish every moment alone, breath it in with desire and glamour. Dance with myself like a fool in love with his shadow. Travelling alone was one of the best things I have ever done. Unfortunately this description doesn't say anything about the process that led to the change in me. That's another story that's worth telling.

In the elevator going up to my hostal in Barcelona, there were two huge guys from Poland. They thought me being from California to be laughable, "so far away" they said. Yeah, I guess so. But for me Poland seems really far away, even when in Spain or Italy. Memory is situated in places and geographics. My head is starting to become rooted in Italy... and I've only three weeks left before going back to the 'states'!

This weekend I went to Roma. In Firenze, I feel like it has dropped at least ten degrees since when I left for Roma and then returned. Outside, for Natale, the city has strung up lights in the streets and piazzas like lace. It is really freezing outside. I see my breath when I breath; I blow hot breathe in the cold air like smoke-rings.

In Roma I walked by the Ferrari store. I almost walked right past it but caught myself and walked in. The display I saw outside had a cut portion of a Ferrari hood, heavily waxed, standing-in as the frontis-piece for a display of Ferrari logo-adorned products. Inside you could buy a Ferrari vest, a Ferrari hat, a Ferrari shirt, a Ferrari mug, Ferrari Puma shoes, photos of Ferrari Formula-1 race cars, a Ferrari digital camera, even a Ferrari laptop. None of the things in the store had anything to do with a Ferrari car. Playing in the background was really smooth, beat-ladden music. The type of thing you'd play in the car to feel like James Bond driving fast. I asked myself, "Why do people find cars sexy?" I've lost my appetite for the car's aesthetics. I used to get googly-eyed at cars. When a young boy I had a yellow Lamborghini model and my brother a red Ferrari model. You could open the doors and the engine hood. I can't seem to bring myself back into seeing cars the way young boys still see them: reminiscent of a barely naked woman in a red skin-tight bikini. "Damn!" It's a shame, I guess; but all I see now is a metal case bent into a shape to contain bodies and an engine that shits fumes and rainbow-tinted oil.

I took some photos in the store and felt like a spy again. The store attendants were dressed in Ferrari race-car jumpsuits and watched customers try on Ferrari shoes in the mirror. Upstairs there were pieces of Ferrari engines, chunks of the auto body and underbody sprayed with sponsoring logos like "Shell". The pieces were clean but looked "used". A lot like the armor and weapons, and even art, displayed in the Palazzo Ducale of Venice. The things that made Venice rich and powerful a long time ago. Things that allowed them to fund such great art, architecture, and culture.

It's really sad that I have to go back to California. "Molto Triste" I keep thinking. I'd rather not go, to be honest. I like it here. I'm really scared. Not sure when I'll return. Frightened that everybody and everything will be the same back home as when I was there last. Afraid that world will be a carbon copy of some of my memories of it. I'm not the same. I don't want to go back to the same world. Maybe nobody will notice me. Maybe nobody will know that I'm nolonger gone. That would probably be even sadder. I do miss people, too; hopefully those folks will remember me as much as I do them.

Ever been in that place where if you're honest you sound pointed and jaded, but if you don't say anything you know your being dishonest? That's where I'm sitting. Lights fade to black, sound fades to silence.

I think it's the mind that puts up walls. If I were a doctor I'd prescribe to everybody: "Let your spirit soar, be free! Get the heck outside and take a really long walk!" But then again, I'm not a doctor, just a student. Everything to me looks like a big question mark.

"Aiuto!"

News: Worldchanging.com on "ZEDstandards"

2005-11-20T19:43:00.000-08:00

I like this a lot. Worldchanging.com recently posted an article about the "ZEDstandards" by the architecture/development firm ZEDFactory in the UK. And it's community-oriented.

Writes worldchanging.com:

"Like LEED, the ZEDstandards presents a checklist of various sustainability criteria. These criteria are based on the group's experience with the BedZED project, and hit many of the important points about Bright Green cities we've identified here over the past two years, including product-service systems, sustainable transit, and high density development; the only real missing element is a recognition of the value of "smart" environments. The most recent version of the ZEDstandards checklist can be found here (PDF). Details on the process can be found in the 2004 introductory document "Operation Step Change" (PDF), and the "Roadmap to 2050" document (PDF). The rules have less to do with how the homes are built (although that's there, too) than with how the communities are built."

Read article: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003762.html

Olive Harvesting in Nugola

2005-11-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

This past Venerdi (11-11-2005), I went with some schoolmates to a villa in Nugola, outside Livorno (southwest of Florence, near Pisa) to go olive harvesting. I documented my day and uploaded the photos. You can also see it as a slideshow.

The whole journey was rediculously beautiful. The view looking out from the villa was unreal, as if painted or pulled from a fantasy book. After we were greeted by the very nice family living there, we went to work. Picking olives isn't easy, but someone has to do it. While working we were offered a snack of toasted bread with olive oil--oil from last year's harvest. The family, who inherited the villa, doesn't have enough olive trees to sell their oil commercially. The olives picked are only enough for the family and their friends.

To pick olives, you simply pull off every single olive, ripe or not. Olives that will be used for olive oil get crushed entirely and it isn't important whether they are fully dark. Some of the olives, though, were darker, and these generally were from the tops of the trees we were picking. As we could feel with the increasing heat in the morning's brisk, cold air, the sun was coming up over the eastern ridge of trees; these trees were preventing the lower parts of the olive trees from getting sun. We used ladders and little rakes to pull off the higher olives. Olive trees are very durable and one can climb all over them. And if one tastes an olive from the tree, it is bitter and tart; remember, an olive one buys has been cured through a process.

We placed large nets down on the dew-wet grass to catch the olives that fell. When a tree was finished as much as we could manage, we would roll the nets to collect the olives, then pick up the olives and place them in buckets. The day's harvest was then dumped into a cellar room. The family was waiting to harvest all the olives before taking them to the press.

We joined the family for a beautiful lunch of pastas, salad, wine, pies, and gelato. The dining room had large animal heads on every wall below the ceiling; this was cool, but also quite unsettling. It is something to be eating and talking, and then to look up and notice a giant boar head or elk head peering over me. All the animals had been shot before 1900. While heading up the tower to use a bathroom, one might also notice some of the other old heads around the villa.

After lunch we travelled about forty-five minutes through the rolling countryside to the olive pressing plant. A very small facility, the whole operation was managed by one man. He had a kind sense of humor and his friends liked to point things out to us. We watched as olives went in, were washed, crushed, turned, spun, and were released as oil. Olio nuovo is very clowdy; the little bits of olive have yet to settle. To have olives pressed here, one needs an appointment. The facility also sold olio nuovo; and we bought some. The bottles filled, capped, and labelled right before us.

We said goodbye, climbed back into the chartered bus, and headed back via the autostrada for Firenze. From our windows we could see the Tuscan sun kiss the green hills of Nugola as it set behind them.

view my day...

An Update about Me

2005-11-09T22:20:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend I returned from a week trip in Spain travelling alone. I hope to write an entry on it in the near future (I'm very busy), but for now, I'd just like to give a brief update on what I've been up to (as opposed to purely those little moments and key awakenings that breathe life into experience). My trip in Spain deeply changed me and my life, and is un molto importante punto in un grande linea di punti. If you think you know me, guess again; because, for one, I'm just starting to barely figure that out myself.

Aside from the few integral moments of my make that I've shared, I have been doing things such as travelling (such as to Venice and experiencing the Contemporary Art Biennale, Paladio, Scarpa), taking classes (italian, italian cinema, and my central focus of architecture), and working (interning with UNESCO Firenze). Each experience, and in fact, each moment of my time here, has been infinitely valuable and important. I have four and a half weeks left, the clock is ticking, and I have much to see and do!

So, I've been interning with UNESCO Firenze. Our last major project was a film short about the cultural heritage of Firenze. I helped work as a production assistant, and then I did post-production promotional design for the film. This project was great fun, and working with the director, project manager, UNESCO, Commune di Firenze (the local city government), and the friends I've made along the way, have all been truly amazing. The next part of the project is really cool: I'm working on an accredited training course about the cultural heritage of Firenze, to be offered (decembre through mid-2006) by UNESCO Firenze and the Commune di Firenze. If you will be (or are) studying or living in Florence, whether Italian or anyone else, you can take this course. In fact, the course is also designed for teachers, and will be an awesome way to learn about and then share Firenze's rich cultural heritage and history.

A key component of this course about the cultural heritage of Firenze is a screenplay contest. Yes, UNESCO Firenze and Commune di Firenze will be asking italian and foriegn students to submit screenplays about Firenze. The winning entry will then be produced into a feature length film. This is very exciting.

Now for a short jaunt over into one of my academic adventures--architecture. More than anything, I have been enjoying my studies of architecture. The other day we had our first serious crit, and I loved it and learned a lot from the critics. We have two main projects: a garden villa project that is sited in the Medici Villa of Fiesole, and a "biography" project where we focus on authors who have written about Firenze and then bring to life--by reading their books and studying and drawing sites focused within them--the experience of Firenze captured in their time, their moments, their expressions. Nel futuro, puoi fare una domande particulare di Piazza della Repubblica and Piazza Santa Croce, EM Forester e DH Lawrence. I passionately believe in drawing as a process of learning and something everyone must do, enjoy working in studio, have a great amount of respect for studio life, and am deeply interested with architectural and urban problems (problems are postive things).

While I was waiting for my flight in the Girona airport outside Barcelona, I picked up a copy of "Newsweek".

Given that I hadn't seriously read American news-media in about a month, this was a very interesting experience. America appears to be falling apart, fragmenting, and aloof. I first read the cover story on "Cheney's Cheney". The article, surprisingly liberal and full of Bush-admin bashing, also was thick-through-and-through with American-Nationalist Rhetoric. This was so bizarre: to see these "liberal" expressions and ideas parsed through such crass Islam-hating, masculine, militant, nationalistic, competitive phrases. (And to consider the current US-obsession with "framing": it's like people have become so obsessed and hyper-sensitive to framing that 1) they forget their only speaking in English, and 2) it has gotten to the point where the frames you look through are not out of whack, but you have a vision problem yourself!)

From my quasi-European, quasi-American perspective, I see the United States with a crumbling governmental face and a populace that thinks they know everything. Hell, if you think you know something feel free to do a double take in the mirror, because there is a friggin' huge world out there that is very deep and very complex and it is safe to say you don't know jack. I'd suggest this assumption of knowing something has occured because most US citizens haven't ever left their country and seen some of the world, experienced different languages, different ways of existing, thinking, and being... which in return breeds ignorance and isolationist sentiment in the mouths of both liberals, conservatives, and everybody in-between. In short, reading this "Cheney's Cheney" article reminded me of some I have encountered in the US... per esempio, militant liberals with good intentions but poor actions and experiential educations.

Even if you think you're doing the "right" (or wrong, or whatever) thing--right for culture, the environment, the economy, society, humanity, the world, your local community--please, for a moment, pull your head away from the camera obscura and take a look around... you might find that the you haven't even left the room.

News: "Environmental Studies Waived in Oil Push"

2005-10-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

Environmental Studies Waived in Oil Push

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Oct 18, 7:49 PM ET
WASHINGTON - In an aggressive push by the Bush administration to open more public land to oil and gas production, the Interior Department has quit conducting environmental reviews and seeking comments from local residents every time drilling companies propose new wells. Read article...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051018/ap_on_go_pr_wh/drilling_public_lands

Mangiare Firenze

2005-10-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

Tonight, while eating dinner, I was flipping through the channels on my little portable radio trying to find some Italian music. From the bottom to the top of the dial, I was getting one American pop song after another. Ricky Martin, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, contemporary rap, rock and pop, 70s and 80s, and “classic hits”.

All of a sudden I broke into a state of deranged laughter and tears: Dio mio, what a big world we have! How ironic this is, how right it is, how different it is, how it is just such--just the way it is. If you have ever lived abroad you likely know what I’m talking about; if not, you will have to live abroad to understand.

I finished my pasta and drank my frizzante; the little earbuds I never use plugged into me. In an embarrassing display I finished off the bottom of the Nutella bottle I was savoring. I tried to get every last drop so as to not waste any of the commercial product I have become so addicted to. Nutella is very good, and very addictive.

Last night I had the biggest pang of a longing to stay here. I decided in that moment that I didn’t want to leave. I was sitting with my Italian friends, speaking my semi-broken, nicely improving Italian, drinking a mixed drink, eating free buffet in the locali right at the edge-corner of Piazza Beccaria, slowly becoming more attached to my seat.

We spoke about food in Italy and the USA; we spoke about the culture around it. We spoke about politics and culture and Italy and the USA. I was asked what the typical American cose da mangiare is. Immediately I laughed and thought of the hamburger. If they wanted to see the garbage of American cuisine look no farther than McDonalds. “We don’t really like American cose da mangiare. I can’t see the hamburger being the only thing people eat,” I heard. But I then caught myself and mentioned that USA is much more of a melting pot and its diversity is something quite special and important to remember. I love Asian food and Mexican food, for example, I said. “We love to eat sushi, and lots of it! But our Italian cose da mangiare is important to us.” Italians are lucky, I heard, to have such a beautiful flavor in their own living.

My Italian friends are very nice.

We had a very good time. After wandering the streets and getting gelato, we went to their apartment (with a truly stunning balcony view of the flood-lit Palazzo Vecchio), and socialized. I got nostalgic about my early college years. I was served a small glass of Martini. Two of my friends had very small glasses of Martini after having some apricot juice. All of them shared one beer. And before we left the apartment we had some water. This was really something, so different from the USA, such an opposite! I couldn’t help but comment on this difference, it was really quite funny. I enjoyed myself a lot.

I’m just this simple American guy abroad, the foreigner learning new ways of seeing, new ways of learning, new ways of listening, new ways of talking, new ways of walking, new ways of breathing and laughing. And to think: this is only Florence, this is only Italy, only one of the world’s infinite worlds.

This morning I went with some schoolmates on a hike into the hills behind Boboli Garden and Piazzale Michelangelo. It was not a hike in the same sense as what one would think in California; there was only a small wooded area we walked through. The walk, the roads, the views, and the air were all truly spectacular! We ended up by San Miniato, then walked to Piazzale Michelangelo, and then down to the centro.

Because of the way history has taken its course, the hills around Florence are mostly private. There are apparently more traditional-like trails up by Fiesole.

After the hike, after crossing the Arno and emerging back into the centro near Santa Croce, I asked our hike guide if she could recommend any places that are worth going to beyond the centro. She smiled and pointed out a museum to my left, a free museum we had just passed before crossing the Arno, and a garden that we had walked by on our hike… the places are here in the centro… all one must do is open one’s eyes and pay attention. Look beyond the literal and into the center of Firenze. What appears isn’t always just so.

After studying today at my university I came home and took a nap. Maybe it’s just one of those days? I should have studied more, or taken a walk instead, or at least sketched. Nonetheless, today I learned a lot in many ways. I also found much Italian music to listen to... one just has to tune into the right stations.

Centro della Citta e molto interessante problema

2005-10-01T04:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend I've been in my head a lot; too much thinking in English.

Last night when I was walking back from my day at the Boboli Gardens I did something silly. I deliberately went and found a not-so-great gelateria in tourist territory between Piazza della Signoria and the Duomo and bought a two euro cone of two scoops of half-decent, thin and sugary gelato. My motivation: I was craving gelato but was tired of the truly fabulous gelato at Vivoli by Santa Croce. I know it sounds ridiculous (and it was) but I needed to eat bad gelato to make me want to eat the better stuff again--and lo-and-behold, it worked! After seeing the two small scoops and tasting it, I was thrilled once again of the idea to eat some of the best gelato in Firenze!

One of the beautiful things about being in a foreign country is hearing the language all around me; it's different from what I think in, but is purely natural. To hear the sound of a country in its native voice is not foreign. But, if you go to the center of the city, towards where all those gelato shops are, whether on the main side with the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi and the Duomo, or the far side with Palazzo Piti and the Boboli Gardens, if you're in the center and walking through throngs of crowds, the jumble of sounds is closer to tedesco, giaponese, inglese, with a dash of spagnolo, olandese, svedese, francese, and a pinwheel of other lingue del mondo. Am I in Italy or just something that sure as hell looks like it? (The same question that Forester's book "Room With a View" begins with...)

The shape of italiano does appear, don't get me wrong! Yet usually comes either as a passing glance or very slowly from the Americano tourist asking for "cioc-co-la-to gel-a-to, gra-zi... per fa-vor-e?" The stunning Italian ragazza with an apathetic brow and perfect dark features and smiling, romantic eyes responds to his words, "what would you like?" and "three-fifty, please... thank you." This can sometimes be avoided if the day-tripping, bus-travelling, camera-swinging tourist manages his or her sounds correctly, and is able to put on a show--whether thinking he or she is convincing, or actually pulling off the magic--of looking and talking a bit more like what one came to find.

But the gelati, in my opinion, generally are overpriced for what you get if you go to places with bright florescent lights declaring themselves a "festival" or "very good!" (in english, you see it?). Vivoli, so far rated the best, in contrast, is a nice experience to find: go towards Santa Croce, it's somewhat hiding. (There is supposed to be another benissimo gelateria that’s new, but I haven’t found it yet.) Look for the circular road that's actually the foundation of the ancient Roman coliseum. The longevity of streets and infrastructure remains. Read the city through its streets...

The center of the city, in fact, the most touristy part, was actually the Roman city. If you look on a map you can see the square boarder with cut-corners, where the streets inside are composed of a tight grid. When you are inside the city fabric, and leave the grid, you can feel the difference: beyond the border streets diverge and converge at different angles, remnants of roads bend away from the city, future urban grids, and organic (in other words, not really planned) development evolve. Roman cities all followed the square-grid pattern; it was to allow Romans to easily make themselves at home while abroad (literally). Inside the city walls it was deemed to be part of Rome, outside was elsewhere. In fact, part of the ceremony of colonization was to take some Roman soil and plant it inside the new city. The Piazza della Repubblica was where the old Roman forum was, and it still contains the feeling!

You do hear Italian in the center, it's true; but in the heat of mid-day at the awe-inspiring hot-spots and their connecting streets it has thinned out, it's functionality becoming less efficient from the streets.

The center of Firenze, in many ways, has been hollowed out. What one sees in passing is a shell--a shell on the inside of the city--carved for a popoli del stranieri. I've become increasing fascinated by this phenomenon, and its resultant form and effect. The center of Firenze is a virtual space within a real, physical landscape. In fact, the image of Firenze has been preserved--from the planning codes that dictate the color of window shutters, to the type of stone used in paving, to the arguments made for pointlessly lengthening processes for inserting necessary modern communication wiring, to the placement of replica statues--to match that view so desired by the foreign imagination. ...a romantic city of beauty, art, architecture, dining, gardens, Tuscan air, and festive, glamorous Italian life!! Firenze actually is all this, but it really is quite a lot more, too. What the tourist sees is a lacquered image of plasticity held in place by its own vanity. The center of Firenze is much like Oscar Wilde's story of Dorian Grey... he fell in love with his painted image so much that he turned into its ageless visage, his painted-self aging away instead. The center of Firenze is preserved in the image of its past; a controlled picture replayed daily for the passing glance and determined stare.

Maybe the Roman obsession with control and conquering places (the Empire did it with war; the Papacy did it with religion) is part of the reason why the center of Firenze finds itself so comfortable catering to a love of its own face? Lingering architect ghosts appearing through the grid-weave of streets? Tourists captured in the contained spaces of piazzas... conquered into buying Gucci and Prada, postcards and leather totes... Of course, the center is also where some of the really hot, hot-spots are (that are most definitely worth visiting), where the guidebooks say you should go, and where the day-tripping, bus-traveling, camera-swinging tourist is led by the upheld umbrella... but maybe the center's virtuality is also generated from the structure of its urban history... in the streets, its fabric, its history, its purpose, its business. Florence is a mercantile town, you know!

The center of Firenze might sometimes be likened to Disneyland. I've heard it referred to as Disneyland in two different contexts. The second time I heard it was from a professor I was discussing the city with. We agreed that its virtuality is much like a Disneyland, an image-conscious place, controlled for the context-hungry traveler hoping to escape his or her adult elsewhere for a fun time of innocent, romantic, fantasy. The first time I heard the word Disneyland used with Firenze was from a police officer. Despite its theme-parkification, the center of Firenze is still part of a real city. Unlike the real Disneyland whose environment is made safe and managed (and whose entirety is closed for cleaning a few hours every day), the police officer in our program's orientation took care to warn us that Florence's fantasy image doesn't prevent real urban and human consequences. The only reported rapes in Florence last year happened to drunk American women.

But remember that what the tourist sees is literal... And I haven't yet said anything about the city's periphery, hill-towns, the parts farther away from the center... or for that matter what happens when really interesting cultural events happen in the city's center... there is also a pride in tourism, in being a place of such desire ...it can be good to share culture and business, too!

[Author's note: It was brought to my attention that the last sentence of the second to last paragraph can be seen to contain an extra meaning that was not intended: that it was the American woman's fault these rapes occured--this is never the case. Due to the nature of this subject, I would like to take this opportunity to explain that the problem and danger for women drinking at night in Firenze stems principally from dangerous Italian men that prowl the streets looking for American women as easy targets. (American women are perceived as easy because of assumptions about American cultural norms for drinking and social behavior that are different from those in Italy.) Unfortunately these individuals do exist, and therefore Firenze (as most cities) can be less safe than at first assumed to be. This is why the police officer told us the above mentioned statistic, to advise against an activity that may heighten a danger. --16-10-2005]

Boboli Gardens

2005-09-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

Venerdi sono andato Giardino di Boboli--amo questo il posto!

Boboli Gardens reminded me of my childhood. The sights, the sounds, the smells. The rustling of the leaves, the children running and playing, the smell of the grass and trees. The light simply splayed on the grass threaded through the trees--strands from in-between, dancing as if a green zebra running in a dream! The heat on my face as I lie on the grass. The cool of the grass to the palms of my hands. The vistas and the little bambini running and exploring, finding new paths, investigating rocks and statues, playing ball and learning to walk with Daddy. Mothers chitchatting away while carefully guardano alla tutti bambini.

I was alone today in Boboli gardens. But as I lay on the grass thinking of those of whom I care for and have done the same for me, I realized they are all here inside me.

I really love watching the leaves flutter on the grass. There are so many of them! A million or two, maybe three or four thousand more; how ever many your imagination sees scattered on the garden's floor. ...and there are those little bugs that float in the air, swimming above the grass!!

Back in Moraga, the town where I grew up, down the street from where I live, there is a little park called Rancho Laguna. There is a large lawn there; in the evenings there are dogs and children, in the midday mothers. In the summer mornings you'll see a wonderful daycamp where I used to work. On the grass, if you ever look closely, you'll find the same leaves rolling up and around, sprinkling to the sound of the tall trees. Each dried leaf with its own unique imperfections. At Boboli I smelled one: it was pepper and pine.

This morning when I left the apartment to go to Mercato San Ambrogio, the world was different. Firenze no longer was a new place for me. This is not a bad thing, as it might seem; for it meant this place has accepted me and that I am now welcome to stay as I please. The texture of the pavement, the color of the air, the way the world looked from within me was different from before.

Boboli Gardens also made me think of UC Santa Cruz--the forest and feel of moving through such a beautiful space. In-between the ecotone, across the vista and into the forest. Boboli is very articulated but vast and complex--truth that wayfinding challenges can arise for beautiful, inspiring journeys even in highly structured space--like Villa D'Este! Make sure you take the two main axis; think about a section.

UC Santa Cruz could learn from Boboli: consider science hill, consider its axis. Think about the grace of making a north campus!

Also, one last little thing... the other night I did an interview with UCSC’s City on a Hill Press regarding the UCSC 2005 Long Range Development Plan. If you're interested in thinking about some of the things I think are important to think about on this topic: importance of academic planning and relationship to physical planning (research Strategic Futures Committee, Master Plan for Higher Education, changes in proposed populations), the campus site and environment (research Thomas D. Church), the college system and student-life community (research Kerr and McHenry), the feel of the campus' form (compositions, decentralized centers, wayfinding, natural-built interweave), the irony of comparing today's idea of "sustainability" with the "original vision" (research 1963, 1971, 1978, 1988, 2005 LRDP land-use program, concepts, and principles), architectural diversity (research each UCSC college), the importance of planning principles for design (research 1963, 1988, and 2005 LRDP principles, 1993 LRDP implementation program, consultant, admin, staff interpretations), context and city (research the City of Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay, and the University of California), the importance of flexibility within the LRDP as a planning framework, and tracing continuity, evolution, assumptions, and interpretations. Also pay attention to the paths of infrastructure (all kinds) and how they structure the order of things to come.

How do you make Tirimisu?

2005-09-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

19-9-2005

Lunedi: Tonight I had my Italian cooking class! It was amazing. We made from scratch Ravioli di spinaci al burro e salvia, Tagliolini al pomodoro e basilico, Tagliatelle ai peperoni, e Tiramisu!!

I was in the group that made Tirimisu, then the Tagliolini and Tagliatelle. The group next to us first made the dough, and then we all cranked it through a small hand-crank pasta machine (Imperia is the brand of the machine; excellente). Our dough was egg dough made with simply eggs, flour, salt and olive oil. In fact, the flour used was half white flour and half hard wheat flour called semola.

To process the dough into the pasta, we used the hand-crank machine to flatten it. First we ran it through ten cranks at setting one, then put it successively through settings two through five, then floured both sides, cut it in half, and cranked each dough half through setting six. We then let the dough sit for a little bit, then placed on the attachment for turning the flat, long and silky soft dough into pasta noodles. Taking turns we fed the pasta dough into the machine while cranking… and out came beautiful noodles!! We first made the taglionini, then the tagliatelle. The tagliatelle noodles are smaller, like angel hair, quite graceful and delicate looking! When making pasta it is very important to separate and toss lightly the noodles with a bit of flour to keep them from sticking to one another. (If you wish to cut the pasta with a knife, put a lot of extra flour over each side of the flattened dough and roll it up loosely; then cut the roll into the desired thickness and unroll into noodles!) Separate and spread the noodles out on your marble table-top. (Use marble because it is porous (has small holes) and thus can be easily washed. The only thing you should keep away from marble are foods such as lemons and lemon juice because the citrus is corrosive to the marble and eats it away.) Lucky for me, the table-top in my apartment here in Firenze is marble, so I can use it to cook!

Making Tirimisu is incredibly easy and fun, and requires no baking. The simple ingredients needed: eggs, mascarpone cheese (this is from cows and is probably one of the fattiest and heaviest cheeses), sugar, Savoiardi biscuits (or any simple, plain cookie), coffee (or whatever you prefer, you can use cherry sauce, chocolate, etc; it's is what the biscuits are to be dipped in), and cocoa powder (to dress the dessert). If you're curious, a recipe that serves otto: cinque uovi, cinquecento grammo formaggio di mascarpone, centocinquanta gramma zucchero, duecentocinquanta gramma biscotti, tre decilitro caffe, e dieci gramma polvere di cacao.

First take your eggs (usually roughly one egg for two people) and crack them over a large bowl. The game is to make sure to let the egg whites go into the bowl but not the egg yolks: toss the egg yolks back and forth in the split shell halves to shake out the whites; then toss the yolks in a second bowl. Add the sugar into the egg yolks (don't be bashful, add really heaping spoonfuls!) and beat lightly so to make sure it becomes soft and smooth; do so until it becomes light yellow (actually you can beat this as long as you want). Once at the desired color and consistency, carefully add the mascarpone cheese to create cream. Don't whip this new combination too fast or too long, or else the result will be full of chunks of butter that have formed! On the other hand, for the egg whites, it's okay to whip them into fluffy clouds! Then slowly and delicately pour the whipped egg whites into your cheese, sugar and egg yolk mix... do this slowly in order to keep the egg whites fluffy; we want to retain the air-filled pockets. Whip carefully by taking your spatula and running it under the mix and then bringing it to the side and out to the top--this method helps to retain the air and volume.

Next is the construction stage: take out a fairly deep dish (preferably a clear one so you can see your layered formation from the sides; but we used foil tins which work, too!) and splat down and spread out a little bit of our creamy egg and cheese fluff to keep the final structure from sticking to the bottom of the dish. Now get to those biscuit cookies and dip each one into a bowl of coffee (or whatever you'd like) till soaked well but not falling apart. Place the biscuits down in your dish as a neatly-laid foundation. When finished, pour in a nice layer of egg and cheese cream mixture to neatly cover the biscuits. Layer this with another spread of the coffee-soaked biscuits, this time in a perpendicular pattern from what you laid down at the bottom. It is important to place this biscuit layer in a perpendicular pattern not for taste but for presentation: it keeps the tirimisu from falling apart when served!! Pour over the second layer of biscuits another layer of egg and cheese cream mixture, again generously covering the entire level. At this point you can call it quits or add some chocolate chips or something else for fun and add more layers. We let it chill with our four layers, and placed our fresh Tirimisu in the fridge for a couple hours. Usually you'd want to leave it in the fridge for at least three… heck, even leaving it overnight to eat the next day works well, too! (In fact, you can save the Tirimisu (covered, of course) in the fridge for a couple days and it will keep. Tirimisu also freezes very well for keeping longer.) In any case, after leaving in the fridge for a few hours, take it out and sprinkle the top with your cocoa powder... now it's ready to be devoured with delicate grace at the end of a long and filling Italian meal! :)

While slowly and consciously eating the pasta we made, something occurred to me. It first came to me while I was turning the pasta around, looking at the sauce's colors and the texture seen from the light. I was savoring the bell pepper fragments sprinkled over its orange-reddish hue layered above its egg-yellow pasta. I'm sure you've heard of the phrase "the joy of cooking"? Cooking is promoted for all and should be embraced by all... so why not think of architecture and space the same way? Why not, "the joy of architecture"? "The joy of space and place?" Why isn't architecture appreciation promoted as much as food? It should be!! Architecture, like food, is something experienced, used, and needed by all. Fall in love with architecture's delectable tastes; savor, satisfy and share... just like cooking.

...And on the same note, at the beginning of my program here in Firenze, one of the professors in the welcome reception spoke of "SLOW LOOKING": like Slow Food, look and inquire about what ingredients went into the artwork and architecture!

Roma con classe di Architettura

2005-09-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

18-9-2005

Io gli amici!

Mi sono divertito in Roma questa fine-settimana nonostante ho nostalgia di casa e stanco. Il scorso notte a viaggio, sono andato dormire in anticipo. Oggi, domenica, sono meglio di prima venerdi sono andato a Roma di primo mattino. Siamo viaggato in treno. (Allora, scivo adesso questo in il treno! Andiamo le case in Firenze da Roma.) In Roma a venerdi siamo andato a il Pantheon, Forum Romanus, il Campodeglio, San Ivo (ma cuiso), e Trastevere per la cena. A sabato siamo andato Tivoli per vedere Villa D'Este (anche siamo mangiato il pranzo a villa D'Este) e Villa Adrianna. Due molto favorito posti a mondo! Villa D'Este, e specialmente Villa Adrianna faccio abitare! Ambiente e molti belli!! Siamo viaggiato a piedi a l'autobus in grande il piove da Villa Adrianna. Il temporale con il tuono e il lampo! Il viaggiare l'autobus molto interrestante. Molti ragazzi con aspetto interrestante!

A domenica, oggi, siamo andato a la chiesta San Carlo alle Quattro Fontaine di Borromini. Sono amore questa chiesta e l'architettura di Borromini. Oggi, sono avuto mesa in San Carlo alle Quattro Fontaine! Anche sono andato il pranzo con solo a la piccola piazzeria adjacente il Pantheon. Sono andato quello la pizzeria scorso estate in 2004. Le Pizzi e economica e molti beni! Anche sono andato mangiare bennissimo gelato a Giolitti's (a vicino Piazza di Monte Citorio.) Sono mangiato il pistaccio, la muca, e il caffe. Scorso estate sono abitato in Piazza di Monte Citorio.

fountain at villa d'este

san carlo alla quattro fontane

Adesso questo e fine scrivo me casa in Firenze con la cena! La cena e Nutella, tofu, un'aqua--ho poco cose da mangiare, ma bene! Scrivo in l'italiano e sfida e divertimento! Grazie per legge questo! Ciao! -Matteo

Studio Vino… il perfecto!

2005-09-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Lunedi, 12-9-05

On Lunedi I had wine and olive oil tasting class. Really amazing! (I'll write soon about my past fine-settimana and settimana in a little bit). We walked from the Villa Rossa (mio scuola) at 17:00 to a fine wine shop on the via near the Duomo between its northern side and Piazza Santasissima Annunziatta.

To hold a wine glass, always hold its stem never the cup. The reason to not hold or touch the cup is two-fold: for one, touching the cup leaves fingerprints and this isn't pretty looking, and secondly, your fingers heat the wine if touching the cup. Heating the wine with your hand is usually unwanted but can sometimes be positive if your wine is too cold. And speaking of temperature: white wines go in the fridge, while reds should be kept at room temperature.

Roll the wines in the glass in front of something white so you can see the color best. Roll it in the glass to the light. Smell the wine. Look for different smells. In the first wine we had it smelled like pears and apples along with grapes. There are pears and apples grown in the region where these grapes are from, but the wine is pure grapes. One of the reds had a very woody and smokey smell and taste--the grapes for this wine were fermented in a particular region's oak barrels. The reason why cheese goes well with wine is because cheese has a lot of fat and wine contains alcohol. The fat coats the inside of the mouth and the alcohol washes it down. We had cheese with our white wine, and salami (Chianti salami and another variety) and raw bacon with our two red wines. Chianti is the region between Firenze and Siena. Chianti Classico is actually the name of the northern part of this region.

The term Chianti Classico refers to a specific recipe for wine, the region, and, of course, a feeling! The best wine holds the special light purple banner label with the DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita) on it. True Chianti Classico has the black label of the black rooster. Why is there a black rooster on Chianti Classico wine? Florence and Siena have a fierce rivalry and in order to settle the dispute of where the boundary between the province of Florence and the province of Siena was going to be after the reunification of Italy, the decision was made to have a horseback rider from Florence and Siena ride from each city and where they met the boundary would be. To make sure each rider started at the same time, the riders would leave when a rooster cried at the break of dawn in each city. Of course, as I was told, Florentines are clever and smart, and they decided to starve their black rooster for three days prior to the race. And what happened? The rooster didn't cry at dawn, it cried four hours before dawn! And this is why, we are told, that the boundary between the provinces of Florence and Siena is closer to Siena than to Florence!

How does wine get its different colors? Does red wine come from light or dark grapes? Red only comes from dark grapes, but white wine can come from both dark and light grapes; reason being that the color in the wine actually comes from the colored skin of the grape. Ever peeled back the skin of a grape? What is underneath is light, mostly colorless grape flesh. By stripping away flesh from the grapes, varieties of wine colors can be achieved, including white from dark grapes.

I also learned a little about olive oil production. Olives, when picked off the trees are spicy and mostly unpalatable. To create the olives one buys that are soft and juicy, the olives are set in brine. Extra Virgin olive oil comes from olives that have been pressed just once--highest quality with the thickest consistency. Virgin olive oil has been pressed twice. And third press olive oil is even lesser quality. The reason people would even consider to press the olives more than once (when it lowers the quality) is that by doing so it can double the production. Fresh pressed olive oil contains all the stems and pits and skins; these then come out through filtration.

I highly recommend you come out to Firenze and Tuscana and taste some wines! I'm hoping to go wine tasting around Tuscana and Chianti! You can join me if you're in the area!

Anche, Lunedi notte I met up with my friend Tony Laidig from Santa Cruz (whom I also met up with on Sabato notte) and we went out to dinner. Mangiamo bene!! After quite a bit of wandering in an attempt to find a restaurant recommended to me, we finally found it and wow was it worth the curious, winding turns between Piazza della Signoria e Piazza Santa Croce!! We went to All'Aqua Alla 2 (grazie, Frank!) We shared Assaggio primi (sampler of five awe-inspiring, amazing pastas), e assaggio insalate (sampler of three incredible, mouth watering dream salads), e Florentine steak with orange on foccacia... oh my God, so amazing. While I'm a vegitariano in Stati Uniti, I told myself I could break rules while abroad... a very good idea... the steak was so tender and the orange and soaked to perfection, soft foccacia was a perfect meal! :) Bene!!

All'Aqua Alla 2's interior was also extremely beautiful; a nice aesthetic of clean and sharp with a touch of eclectic fun made from many plates hung on the walls, each with a different drawing or piece of writing scribbled onto it. While waiting in line the owner gave everyone a shot glass of wine to enjoy. And once we were finished, Tony and were kindly given a shot glass of Limonata to drink.

While we were finishing our meal a trio of special polizia sat down at a table near to us. The owner of the restaurant then offered to pay for their meal; and they accepted. The owner seemed like a wonderful man who works extremely hard to maintain his excellent restaurant.... a restaurant to inspire the senses and imagination… a restaurant for a future of food and relationships!

Since this was the first time eating out after the wine tasting class I had earlier that day, I took every moment to enjoy the wine, to swirl the glass, to smell the Chianti, to taste its sensual dark cherry-red touch, and to slowly eat with its refreshing zest down the sides and back of my palette. When walking back home from the restaurant with Tony, I remarked that I felt perfect after that meal. I wasn’t full as if bloated or that I couldn’t eat anymore. I was full in a naturally satisfied sense. Satisfied in the sense that I just felt excellent, and was where I wanted to be. Mangiare in Italia e tutto bene!

Sustainable Communication for building a New, New Orleans

2005-09-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

I just read the TIME Magazine report on Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. I've been in Firenze, Italia for the past two weeks and have been doing things like learning Italian, exploring Firenze, pondering the beauty of life, visiting places like Assisi, Pisa, Lucca, eating amazing foods, and in some ways being very disconnected from the US. I was planning to write tonight about my past week, about the things I did and learned about, the lectures I went to, and the experiences I had. But, I've changed my mind (don't worry I'll write it in here soon). Instead I have a request to whomever reads this: Learn about sustainability.

"Sustainability" is a complex catchphrase that is really about taking an active, empathetic interest in the serious issues composing and affecting your community and environment. If you are practicing "sustainability" you are collaborating to help and create a positive world, you are listening to different views and bringing people together, you are building relationships and inclusive community, you are taking a long view and planning for the future.

But if you are instead focused on your own needs as if in a bubble, you're basically letting the world go to shit and not helping anybody, not even yourself (because you need your community, even if you think you don't). I usually don't slap down such harsh words, but it's time to step outside and meet your neighbors and be concerned about their issues. So, like a parent telling a teenager to focus on his or her studies instead of the glamor magazines and MTV: it's now time to be interested in reality, not how you look in the mirror.

With Hurricane Katrina having basically destroyed New Orleans, our Federal Administration picking its nose with greed and self interest, and effects of poor communication and human resource infrastructure spewing, now is another opportunity to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, as is too often and predicable, a crisis situation is the calling for our American response. But since today is today and not a few months ago (or preferably years ago), it's time to get out of bed and start living.

Let's make New Orleans sustainable. This means a healthy, thriving city. Let's rebuild it with response and care to its environmental context, it's cultural heritage, serious social problems, and economic needs. Maybe we can even build coalitions across youth and adults that can turn into enriching friendships for decades to come. Let's get sustainability to New Orleans before President Bush's reconstruction plan gets there.

But how do we do this, or for that matter how might any situation be approached to manifest "sustainable" future visions? Reading the TIME report, it sounds like things have already fallen apart, people have turned to anarchy and quarrel, and suffering abounds... How the heck do we communicate sustainably for a sustainable future? ...Maybe these suggestions can help constructively organize people...

Here is my advice about how to go about it...
(as figured out through my involvement in the UCSC 2005 LRDP process)

PRINCIPLES FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNICATION:

APPROACH: In working in any situation, one's approach can set the tone; keep it always positive, constructive, collaborative, and cooperative language. And be honest.

GETTING ATTENTION AND SUPPORT: Repetition and consistency is key for communication and appreciation. Have a message for the future that is passionate and inclusive every day. You can't try to please somebody one day and then say something else to another person the next.

LISTENING: If you ever want to accomplish something where the community involved feels included and appreciated (don't we all wish for this?), listen hard and long to everyone. Wow, listening is probably the most critical. Always listen as a non-biased facilitator, it will get the most support from the broadest range of folks.

CONVERSATIONS: In order to gain support from diverse groups that probably disagree about how the future should look, it is important to promote conversations that are inviting to all.

DIFFERENT VIEWS: And what do you do once you've opened up the conversation? Bring different folks together, of course! Put diverse and seemingly contrasting opinions into dialogue. Accomplishing progress does not happen by taking sides. And remember, the irony of our differences is that we share them--conversations and listening helps people to find common ground and see interrelationships with one another!

COLLABORATION: Despite what most high school history textbooks say, history wasn't created by single powerful men or women... it was created collaboratively by many people. Work as a group, consult one another on problems, share ideas, put thought into what you say before you say it; speak up and encourage speaking up in public, and most importantly look for interrelationships to broaden collaboration.

RESPECT TIME: Rome wasn't built in a day. Have patience and be able to respond in a responsible manner as demanded. Calma, Calma! Think of the future as not just tomorrow but an infinite expanse of opportunities: take the long view.

THE QUESTION OF "HOW": Change in the world is never a question of "good" or "bad", it is always a question of "how". When dealing with any controversial or important subject, such as development or the future of a place, there is always the proposal of some kind of change to the status-quo. Usually people prefer things to stay the way they have been, mostly because there is a fear that the unknown will be detract from the "quality of life" that has over time made one comfortable.

Instead of fearing change and jumping to a conclusion of "good" or "bad", think about what opportunities "change" can provide. In fact, all systems--natural or man-made--change, it's just the way world is. Sometimes folks may not want a city to change, but think of a forest: the forest's natural ecosystem is constantly changing and evolving to the dynamic conditions of nature’s complexity. The question the future is a question of how something will change, because it is already changing as we speak.

And remember, since the future can be anything we work together to create, don’t be afraid to be innovative in your visions… bring them to the conversation!

THE RELATIONSHIP: As I've been learning in Italia, a customer-business relationship is not either just a friendship or a business deal; in fact, it doesn't matter... What does matter is that you're developing a relationship with another person! It all comes down to the relationships; that's it!

YOUR ATTITUDE: Be your self, and don't forget to smile and be optimistic!

fyi: If you know students at Tulane University...

2005-09-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

Syracuse University is offering to host Tulane University students this semester at no cost because of Hurricane Katrina. If you know any students at Tulane, or know people that do, please share this info with them:

"SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor has decided to offer Tulane University students an opportunity to study on the SU campus or at the Dipa overseas centers, including Florence, as these students cannot return to their home campus for the fall semester. As a good-will gesture the University is underwriting the tuition costs.

"If you have friends from Tulane, please make sure to pass on this message. For further information, please see the SU website at: http://sunews.syr.edu/8300510.asp "

Settimana uno in Firenze

2005-09-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

22:45; 9/4/05

Va bene? Sono bene! I'm here, sitting in mio appartmento camera da letto, typing, going over notes and thinking; I've had quite a giorno... it's notte di domenica, septembre quattro. I've been in Firenze for uno settimana and I love it here, heck, I could move here! Firenze e molto bello! I've been enjoying wandering around the city, exploring, watching things and life, talking with people, considering what it means to be an Italian or be in Italy or anywhere in the world, and have been doing much walking, almost stumbling, as I attempt to breathe in everything I see, hear, and feel as it moves about me. A good friend of mine once told me, "a theater has one stage, but a city has a million" ...so true of Firenze. Centro di citte e splendido! Every piazza has a purpose, a momento. And Firenze is amazingly huge; so much bigger than what I was expecting having only previously looked at maps and guide books. None the less, it is a very accessible city and easy to get around. My apartment is very close to the centro di citte on Via Degli Artiste (and the same block as the Villa Rossa, the Syracuse University center). Allora, I'll be honest with you, I desperately want to share questo momento!

After flying in and being placed in a molte bella hotel for due notte, we had orientation for the next few days at the Villa Rossa. I met other students (meshed better with some and not so much with others) listened to welcome talks, spoke to really cool professors, and signed up for classes. There are about tre cento studente and it's mostly ragazze. Classes begin questo lunedi. I'm taking beginning Italiano, Cinema Italiano, e the pre-architecture program. I'm very excited!!!

Oggi io left the appartmento a little late from having been up till about due last notte. Oggie io wanted to see some sights, churches and just wander. While walking down uno via I suddenly saw a Hasidic Jew and without thinking asked him where the synagogue was (I had read about it and was intending to go). Jacob turned out to be a really nice man from New York and we walked over to the synagogue together. Turns out that questo oggi, septembre quattro, all across the E.U. it is a holiday celebrating European Jewish culture and food!! There was a festival going on! I went inside the gate to the synagogue and after spending time inside the temple (truly amazing, the complex repeating painted interior design is a pinkish-maroon; a very important place), I bought a commemorative bicchiere e biglietto per cibo. The cibo was excellente and I tasted kosher wines. The cibo was nothing like I ever had before... soft bread, pasta, hard boiled egg, pate, and a lot of well cooked ground beef. I felt bad throwing most of my beef out, but I couldn't eat it even though I tried. (I've decided to stretch my eating spectrum while abroad and not stick to my American quasi-vegitarian diet). It is very interesting having attended this festival, as I am half-Jewish... it is part of me, yet so is Greece, and in some interesting ways also Italy, and elsewhere. Being here, I am believing more and more every momento that anyone can become any culture and anybody. As one can become an American, one can become an Italian. (Remember that a foreign country is a foreign country because one's self is the foreigner.)

After eating and taking photos at the synagogue, I wandered around to the Duomo (magnificent in scale and in jade color; it's exterior proportions make me feel its body is of folded Firenze paper) and then went to the Medici chapel and tomb by Michelangelo--astounding. I sat in there for about tre ora sketching. Michelangelo's sculptures are amazing. The face of the virgin mary is the epitome of purity; so soft and comforting, I looked into her eyes as if my mother looked back. Tre ora is not nearly enough time to be there; one could spend a life time--or rather, eternity--resting and watching within the capella of the Medici tombs.

Ieri mattina (sabato) io walked to Mercato Centrale and gathered enough guts to buy cibo (It was very, very intimidating at first)! Quite an experience!! I am very happy that I did this and I plan to go back to the market for mio fresco cibo. I'd like to try other mercato as well (bella uno di piazza santissima annunziata) , and hopefully not depend on the supermercato piccolo that is literally across the street from uno porta di mio appartmento edificio! Inside of Mercato Centrale--grande edificio--primo piano e mostly carne e pasta, e secondo piano e mostly frutta e vegetables. Tutto bello! I bought first spinach, then tomatoes and carrots and cucumber and olives and oregano on the secondo piano. It was challenging but well worth it. Only one seller responded to my Italiano demande in Inglese--tutti italiano! I went back down to primo piano and found the other items I was searching for: fresh gnocci pasta (it wasn't called gnocci, by the way) and fresh pesto sauce! Ieri notte io made dinner and it was eccellente e molto bello! My roommates and guest enjoyed it, too... I very much want to learn how to cook many Italian meals. (I also made insalata, but as everyone was full last night, I ate that as tonight's dinner.)

Before returning back to mio appartmento to create that wonderful meal (I did receive some cooking tips from my roommates... I'm very much a novice), I spent the day at first with friends and then by myself wandering in the sera. I have to be honest with you, it appears there are a lot of ditsy kids in the program. Fortunately I've found a wonderful group of bella ragazze who are very nice, fun, and very intelligent; they appreciate Firenze and the complexities of life--for this I feel lucky. (Others, I've noticed, prefer to quickly transport themselves back to the USA by way of alcohol and Americano behavior.)

I spent yesterday's evening (bella sera!) sitting in piazza della signoria, a wonderfully exquisite space, sketching and contemplating. Piazza della signoria is where Galleria Uffizi and Palazzo Vecchio are, where the outdoor sculpture garden awaits, and where the copy of Michelangelo's massive David stands. It is vast and multidimensional; corners erect but not cut, offset and displaced; its space bending. Firenze e curva.

One other thing-- yesterday it rained. And not only did it rain on Sabato, but there was thunder and lighting... and a lot of it. Truly amazing to walk around the city in the damp heat, raindrops and lightning, thunderous cracks bellowing from the snaps of light that cover tutti in citte!!

The lightning struck down from the clouds in-between the two towers in the north-east of my view while in piazza della signoria. I sat below the sculpture of three twisted, contorted bodies (part of the piazza's sculpture garden), and watched the clouds shapeshift. A bella juxtaposition of the towers, the lightning, and the light striking down behind the crowned giant statue whose head--layered against the buildings in the background--touches the sky. They move; undoubtedly it is the passing of white and grey rain clouds to soft blue. The light is caught painted inside the cloud-mass' crevices where the cloudiness buckles and slowly bends again and again, and again and stretches. Piazza della signoria is a whole space, open and soft. It is hugely public yet private in a way that transforms the presence of all--so many people unique and not known, touching together across the openness, blending to a comfortable stride--as if the space and the space's presence holds our hands together with a great comforting smile. I really enjoy looking at the open windows... the interiors are dark, absolutely black. Before I headed back to make the gnocci, the sun set. The edges of the layered storm clouds lit up in pink alpine-glow. This I watched from the bank of the arno (green tinted in the milky soft light).

I will write soon. Last night was also amazing for another reason: my friends and I went to a bar where there were only Italians (near piazza della liberta; don't bother with the American tourist bars near the centro). We practiced Italian with each other (yeah, I was too shy to start a conversation with Italians... practicing together was fun, though) and had a blast!! I came home exhausted and really happy. I had a huge smile on my face. My friends here are great. Being here I appreciate my friends back home so much more. Amazing that you're all such wonderful, honest, real people. You know who you are. Ciao!!

down the rabbit hole...

2005-07-20T23:26:00.000-07:00

So here I am, starting this blog, about to travel abroad to Florence to study architecture (beginning in September). I hope to log and converse about my travels as I wayfind Firenze and Italia... this blog might in some ways be a wayfinding journey itself! Enjoy!

(P.S. I first became involved with planning, architecture, future visioning much through the exploration of "wayfinding". Wayfinding -- the act of journeying and wandering to learn one's environs -- is of course an apt, romantic metaphor for life, and a very elegant one especially given the landscape of the UCSC campus in which I've spent much time pondering. (The book that first influenced me about wayfinding is Wayfinding in Architecture by Romedi Passini. The book is out of print but hunt libraries and interlibary loan; it is a critically important work... and a lot of fun to read!))