*walking next door to get coffee, unkempt man approaches*
“Hey man, you know what Wolfgang means?”
Is this is a riddle? Do I ignore him? Do I have a sign on me that says “I need your special insights”?
“Sir, I’m afraid I don’t.” But by all means, please tell me!
“I’ve been across the street at the cleaners talking to that big son-of-a-gun, What’s-his-name. He’s all Native American. And then he says to me, ‘I oughtta Wolfgang you!’”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, and then I said, ‘Wolfgang this!’, and walked out of there!!” *laughs and then walks away…*
May 20th, 2003
By now, you’ve heard about the Jayson Blair story, so I won’t write a thorough summary of this extraordinary debacle at The New York Times. But here’s a brief overview: a young reporter for the The Times committed unparalled acts of plagiarism, fabrication, and deceit. The paper reports that it is “a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper.” If you have about ten hours to spare, read this fascinating, disturbing 7,000 word beast of a mea culpa in last Sunday’s edition. Or maybe “mea culpa” isn’t quite accurate, as the core of the story is that the paper was bamboozled by Blair–it was a victim. It occasionally touches down on management failure, but largely just chronicles this guy’s mind-boggling, almost comical, ability to get away with just about anything. For a few choice incidents, read this story in The Washington Post (which incidentally has just catapaulted miles past The Times in the prestige department–it is now the best paper in America).
Everyone who has followed this story knows (deep down anyway) the crux of the issue: race. It is, as a friend pointed out to me today, “the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.” Jayson Blair is African-American. It wasn’t his skin color that caused his serious lapses in judgment of course. But The Times is guilty of swapping its own integrity for a more diverse staff. Blair did not graduate from college, yet got a job at the nation’s most reputable (cough, gasp) newspaper. OK, cool. Maybe he was a hungry young man and impressed his interviewers with his energy, drive, and ambition. Once on board he was put on probation more than once. In fact, at a pivotal moment, the Metro editor fired off an email to a colleague mandating that Blair should “never again write for the paper.” Yet rather than demoting him, he sailed up the ranks, lying, plagiarizing, and distorting events (in at least 36 articles) the whole way. Finally, The New York Times, the paper of record, has come to a crossroads. It can acknowledge that race played a role in Blair’s advancement, knowingly selling out accuracy and excellence in its well-intentioned goal of promoting diversity in the newsroom. Or, it can say race had nothing to do with his hiring and promotion, thus leading all of us to believe that this incredible tale is not unique–that other writers, past and present, have pulled similar stunts.
I’m looking forward to the day when race is not the elephant in the living room. One of my most memorable, rewarding classes in college centered on slavery-related literature. The racial makeup of the class was close to half black, half white. After a few classroom discussions, it was clear that almost the entire class was opinionated, thoughtful, and ready to question their peers’ assumptions and attitudes. As the weeks progressed, a neat thing happened: we started to bond and really let our guards down. I remember the occasional awkward moment, when someone would make an assertion, or ask a clumsy question, or not use the right language– but instead of being smeared a racist, or made to be a fool, they were allowed some breathing room. It was an intellectually stimulating, soul-searching roller coaster ride, with race taking center stage. Everyone knew it was special–if we could just recreate this environment outside the classroom, significant progress might be achieved in the sensitive world of race relations…
May 15th, 2003
Andres Duany submitted The following piece to the Congress for the New Urbanism listserv:
Within the last half-century, some 30 million buildings have degraded cities and destroyed landscapes. Must we tolerate this comprehensive disaster in exchange for the (perhaps) three thousand masterpieces that rampant architects have produced? This dismal win-loss ratio in architecture is as unacceptable to society as it would be in any other field. We have been called to intervene and have discovered that codes are the most powerful tools available to affect this reform.
We must code because the default setting in contemporary design is mediocrity and kitsch. Those who object to codes imagine that they constrain architectural masterpieces (their own, usually). But masterpieces are few; the more likely outcome is kitsch. Codes can assure a minimum level of competence, even if in so doing they must constrain certain possibilities.
We must code because those who are charged with designing, supervising and building urbanism tend to avoid education, and exhortation, but they are accustomed to following codes. It was the achievement to the mid-century generation of planners to have embedded codes in the political and legal process. We should take advantage of this.
We code because ours is a nation of laws. Designers should prefer to work within known rules rather than be subject to the opinion of individual boards, politicians and bureaucrats.
We code because bureaucracies cannot be (have never been) dismantled. They will however, willingly administer whatever codes are in hand. This has a potential to carry reform greater than education.
We code because codes already exist. Replacing them with a void is legally unsustainable. It is for us to reconceive the codes so that they result in better places to live.
We must code so that the various professions that affect urbanism can act with unity of purpose. Without integrated codes, architects design buildings that ignore the streets of the civil engineer, landscape architects ignore both the roads and the buildings. Without codes, there is nothing but the unassembled collection of urban potential.
We must code because, if we do not, buildings are shaped by fire marshals, civil engineers, poverty advocates, market experts, the accessibility police, materials suppliers and liability attorneys. Codes written by architects clear a field of action for typological and syntactic concerns.
We code because unguided towns and cities tend, not to vitality, but to socioeconomic monocultures. The wealthy gather in their enclaves, the middle-class in their neighborhoods, and the poor get the residue. Shops and restaurants cluster around certain price-points, offices find their prestige addresses and sweatshops their squalid ones. Artists pioneer gentrification en masse while vast tracts of once-mixed places self-segregate and decay. This process occurs ineluctably in traditional cities, no less than in new suburban sprawl. Codes can secure that measure of diversity without which urbanism withers and dies.
We make use of codes as the means to distribute building design to others. Authentic urbanism requires the intervention of the many in a sequential manner. Those who would design all the buildings produce only architectural projects ? monocultures of design ? they are not involved in urbanism.
We must code so that buildings by disparate architects cooperate towards the creation of a spatially defined public realm. This no longer occurs as a matter of course. The demands of parking, no less than the arbitrary singularity of architects, tend to create vague, sociofugal places. Geographies of nowhere undermine the possibility of community.
We must code so that private buildings achieve a modicum of formal control; otherwise there would be no urban fabric. By code, we protect the prerogative of civic buildings to express the aspirations of the institutions they accommodate and also the inspiration of their architects. This is the dialectic or urbanism.
We must code in order to protect the diversity of urbanism. Otherwise, wary neighbors tend to reject difference when in proximity to their dwellings.
We code to protect the character of a locale against the universalizing tendencies of modern real estate development. Codes apply general principles to specific places.
We code because the location of the urban and the rural is of a fundamental importance that cannot be left to the vicissitudes of ownership. Codes require the preparation of maps that address the “where” no less than the ?what?.
We must code in order to assure that urban places can be truly urban and that rural places remain truly rural, and that there be a specific transect in between. Otherwise, misconceived environmentalism tends to the partial greening of all places. The result being neither one nor the other, but the monstrous garden city of sprawl.
We must code so that buildings incorporate a higher degree of environmental response than is otherwise called for by economic analysis.
We must code so buildings are built to be both durable and mutable in proper measure. Such things that are nevertheless crucial to the longevity required of urbanism.
Without codes urban municipalities tend to suffer from disinvestment. The market seeks stable investment environments. The competing private codes of the homeowners associations, the guidelines of office parks, and the rules of shopping centers create predictable outcomes that lure investment away from older cities and towns. Codes level the playing field for the inevitable competition.
We must also prepare the private association codes of developers, because it is they who have built our cities and more than ever continue to do so. The profit motive, was capable of building the best places that we still have. Codes can assist in the restoration of this standard.
We code in defiance of an architectural culture that incapacitates architects by presenting only the extremes of unfettered genius and servility to the zeitgeist. We have discovered that there are positions between. We reject the limits set by being subject to the realities of our time — we know that it is also possible to affect the reality. We refuse to be powerless, and we accept the responsibility of action.
We code because we are not relativists. We observe that there are urbanisms that allow for a self-defined pursuit of happiness (the stated right of Americans). We also observe there are other urbanisms that tend to undermine that pursuit. Through codes we attempt to make choice a reality.
We design codes because it is the most abstract, rigorous and intellectually refined practice available to a designer. But it is also verifiable: by being projected into the world, the codes engage a reality that can lead to resounding defeat. In comparison, theoretical writing is a delicacy that can survive only under the protection of the academy.
The evidence of centuries shows that codes are an emergency measure. While coding, we must also work to restore the underlying condition in which the common good is the attainable ideal for those who build.
We code because codes can compensate for deficient professional training. We will continue to code, so long as the schools continue to educate architects towards self-expression rather than towards context, to theory rather than practice, towards the individual building rather than to urbanism. We look forward to the day when we will no longer have to code, but the schools must change first.
May 13th, 2003
In March 1999, I resided at 222 Clay Avenue in Lexington. I lived with three buddies in a two story campus-ghetto style house. It was located across the street from campus/downtown’s living room– Woodland Park. I could get on my skateboard and hook up with everyone at the volleyball courts (now a cement skatepark) in less than 30 seconds. After a long session you could hop the pool’s fence and go for a swim. Chevy Chase, campus, downtown–everything worth doing from my point of view–was a short walk away. 222 Clay’s porch was buckling and probably collapsed at some point. 
Sarah likes to provide this illustration to demonstrate our quality-of-life: early one morning she walked into the bathroom and something white, and cone-shaped caught her eye. Upon closer inspection, she was horrified to learn that a large mushroom had somehow pushed through the tiles and was growing on the bathroom floor. A mushroom, dude. You can only imagine the state of the refrigerator. Despite our filth, the house was very comfortable. And in March, the windows would be open, of course, and much time was spent chilling on the front porch. Everyone had little projects going on. I was into my Fisher Price Pxl 2000 and super 8 cameras. My roommates were doing art, photography, record label, and everything else. The soundtrack to this era was Wilco’s “Summerteeth,” which had just been released. Like everyone else, we thought it was the best thing since… Pet Sounds.
Yo La Tengo’s latest effort, Summer Sun is certainly not as brilliant as Summerteeth but it is the pre-summer release that should be in heavy rotation in our nation’s finer campus-ghetto bungalows, Victorians, and other ramshackle dwellings not up-to-code. Calling an album “background music” should ordinarily be an insult. If it’s background music, than there is nothing distinctive or interesting enough to distract you from conversation or whatever it is you’re doing. But in this case, like Stereolab’s Dots and Loops, the songs bubble along, just below surface, but have a remarkable quality to go hand-in-hand with super pleasant springtime, hanging-out-on-the-porch, kind of evenings. Or another scenario… Finals is over and college is now behind you. In a month you will take off for 4 weeks of backpacking in Europe. You’re running errands, tying up loose ends and stressing over life upon returning to the states–job market is tough. In the meantime, Yo La’s new record is playing and you’re daydreaming about meeting some hot Viennese chick and riding trains around Europe, like Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise.
Other stuff I’ve been listening to…
Radio Frank. In Winamp, Real, or similar app, go this location: 24.93.51.132:8000
More eclectic than all the different ways John Aielli annoys me.
I’m still pscyched about Broken Social Scene. In BSS news, they will have several songs featured on Showtime’s “Queer as Folk” show. Also, they’re now shipping limited edition vinyl copies (two records) of You Forgot it in People. I think I have a new favorite song of the record: “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl”. See what you think (note: it hardly resembles their other songs).
May 12th, 2003
I hate reading something interesting and then a few hours or days later I see a link about to the story posted to Fark. Damn that Drew Curtis! Anyway, I didn’t rip Fark off on this one… According to the Christian Science Monitor, theologians, sci-fi fans, evangelical Christians, movie critics, and others have been debating the spiritual themes woven throughout “The Matrix”. And the forthcoming sequel will likely intensify the debate. I would agree with those that argue the film’s religious overtones most closely identify with Gnostism. The author writes, “In the Gnostic philosophy, the physical world is not part of God’s creation, but a manifestation of a lower god - a nightmarish reality that imprisons mankind, say religious experts. Gnostics believed they could achieve salvation, not by overcoming evil and sin with God’s grace, but by learning the ‘higher knowledge’ about reality.”
Samples from CS Monitor’s Matrix Glossary
Evil: Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the original Matrix world was “designed to be a perfect human world.” No one accepted the program, he explains, because “human beings define their reality through misery and suffering.” By drawing on parts of Genesis and comparing humans to a virus, Smith establishes evil as a natural, intrinsic state of human nature.
Matrix: Literally, a computer program used to imprison mankind. According to Webster’s, “matrix” means: 1) orig., the womb; uterus 2) that within which, or within and from which, something originates, takes form, or develops. At its heart, The Matrix is a story about birth and creation.
Nebuchadnezzar: Morpheus’s ship. This figure referenced in the Book of Daniel was the powerful king of ancient Babylon who suffered from troubling dreams. The name literally means “Nebo, protect the crown.”
Postmodernism: Neo hides his illicit software within a chapter titled “On Nihilism” within a volume called “Simulacra and Simulation,” by Jean Baudrillard. This seminal work of postmodernism advances the idea of a copy without an original. The Wachowski brothers assigned Keanu Reeves to read this book before filming began.
Logos: The altered studio logo at the opening of the film may be highly significant. The Matrix-coded WB letters could simply be the Wachowski brothers thumbing their nose at the Warner Bros. But by altering the logo - from the Greek term “logos,” for word - the film’s opening does two things. First, it corrupts the Gospel of John, which begins with “In the beginning was the Word…”. Second, it asserts that metaphysical meaning can be gleaned by mining deep into words, or code.
Ready for a real life Matrix? Charles T. Rubin tackles the mother of all esoteric subjects: transhumanism– championed by “extinctionists” like Hans Moravec and Gregory Paul, in his recent piece in The New Atlantis. These guys see a role for technology when it comes to “natural” selection: “human extinction will result from some combination of transforming ourselves voluntarily into machines and losing out in the evolutionary competition with machines.” What may be most scary is that these two authors are not kooks. Apparently Mr. Moravec’s work is supported by government agencies as NASA and the Office of Naval Research.
Rubin writes:
With such faith in evolutionary progress, any constraints on the utopian elements that already exist in Bacon and Descartes disappear. Human beings are envisioned simply as a link in the chain that stretches from our chance beginnings with the Big Bang to a new age of intelligent life. If Moravec is right, eventually the robotic future will almost literally be able to redeem the past. Insofar as intelligence remains human, such a reconciliation cannot take place, because human beings are the result of chance. But as ?mind, all conquering mind? comes into its own?embodied in ways that it creates for itself?the universe will at last become purposeful.
May 10th, 2003
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