A remake of a song by James, some corny Manchester band that's making it's second wave. I love how this 1991 cover sounds so totally nineties, and the original is as eighties as you can get. James really knows how to date their sound. I had never heard this before until it popped up on a mix CD from Ariel, an acquaintance from Fukui who moved back home right after I got here.
I decided to do a little slideshow for my Post-Materialist slot in the Times this week -- basically, these are all the chairs I photographed this year, crammed into a short YouTube video with a somewhat rushed commentary.
Judging by the comments, while some found 5000 Years of Chairs in 5 Minutes "very interesting", others were mystified. "What’s the point?" demanded Steve, apparently some kind of academic, "If I received this presentation from a student, I would fail him/her." Jared's jab was more sly: "The anticipation of a conclusion or insightful comment kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time!"
I figured people wouldn't want a ton of editorializing in a little slideshow of chairs, but for the record here's the thinking behind the piece.
1. Things are just as valid and interesting when they're in use out in the world as they are when they're new and standing in a showroom, and possibly more so.
2. This is what Rem Koolhaas called (in a recent edition of Domus D'Autore magazine) "post-occupancy design" -- the stuff that happens to design after it's left the designer's workshop (and architecture after it's left the studio) is the real test of its quality and character. Occupancy and use shouldn't see the designer and the architect melting away. They should stick around, take notes, and take photos. The processes of time and decay can be beautiful. The way people use stuff and adapt it can be instructive.
3. You don't have to buy stuff to be smitten with it -- public furniture that we just see on our travels (and maybe photograph) is worth writing about too. That's one of the things The Post-Materialist is all about.
4. There's also the idea that things come full circle: the slideshow takes us from paleolithic stone benches on the island of Orkney to modern concrete benches in the same place. There's a "before industrial design" and an "after industrial design", and they look remarkably similar. That's something I think Jan Lindenberg's Sweatshop 2.0 project was about -- coming up with chair design that deconstructs the distinction between amateur and professional, between the past and the present, between new and secondhand... and between shelves and chairs!
5. One word: recycle!
Finally, though, the slideshow is a little tribute to the dizzying diversity of forms out there, and about the kind of beauty -- or ugliness, or oddness -- that compels you to turn your camera on an inanimate object. Do I get to graduate from your course now, Steve, whatever the hell it is?
What was your first internet handle? Mine was (the screamingly embarrassing!) "Vampyress," created in 1994, in Mrs Butterfield's 7th grade computer lab at Albuquerque Academy, where Lily Maase and I would occupy illicit chatrooms that someone, somehow, had showed her how to access. The entertainment value of chatrooms definitely trumped Mrs Butterfield's lab's other charms, including Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing and Life and Death. Our favorite chat was called "UK Surfers," and Vampyress enjoyed looking on as Lily Maase carried on a cyb3r-intensive flirtation with a UK Surfer called "ScrewboyT." "I check my email every day," sighed the twelve-year-old Lily, "If I'm really bored, sometimes every hour." Vampyress was duly impressed.
So the garden has represented quite a challenge, several challenges.
Challenge 1: Seems like the sprinkler system (of which there are 3 valves for three different systems) is faulty. I think I have a leak in one of them.
Challenge 2: Grass on the sidewalk public side of things just isn't going to work and is already dead.
Challenge 3: Dogs. My dogs are tearing apart the back yard, grass is not an option, many of the existing plants are being ripped apart.
Challenge 4: Front yard has partial design and random groupings of weird plants, sprinklers here are only partially working, needs new grass in patches.
So, in an effort to address these, I am devising a Phased Plan of Attack....Gooooo PPA!
Phase 1: Secure gardener for maintenance and implementation of Garden Phases of Attack
Phase 2: Existing garden cleanup and assessment
Phase 3: Remove grass and replace with gravel
Phase 4: Build gate
Phase 5: Remove plants along perimeter of walls and replant to allow for dogs to have pathways (dogs like to walk along the perimeter of things so plants against the walls mean that the dog will trample the plants down)
Phase 6: Begin Container-Garden phase: building out plants in wine casks and barrels (can't be overturned by dogs, create shade, and encourage birds, bees, butterflies)
Phase 7: Hanging plants on trees, off the gate, perhaps other means.
I am not addressing the sprinkler system issues nor the re-sod of the front yard nor the sidewalk areas. I have vague notions. I basically want to get the dog area fixed up and ready, then I think I should probably tackle the sprinklers, the grass, and then the sidewalk areas in that order.
With regard to the sidewalk extra turf area, I have an existing Oak tree in one portion of it and some sycamore trees along the other side. I am thinking that I should move forward with Rosemary or Jasmine bushes to fill in the sidewalk area: my thoughts are, no grass so less water easier maintenance and it will smell nice.
Here's an image I liked as a container garden which lended itself some inspiration about the density of plants around the gravel garden:
One of the more unusual things that I noticed in Sicily, particularly Siracusa, is the practice of posting public posters to commemorate deaths or anniversaries of deaths. These were pasted across the city, for a wide variety of people. I was quite surprised to see commemorations for Mussolini among them. But, in general, the more that I traveled in Sicily the more that I saw various Mussolini souvenirs, tee-shirts. Even, as you can see in the cut below--
Hi -- a million moving questions have been asked, but mine of course is "different'. [isn't everyone's?]
i have no furniture, just a suitcase or two and like 5 or 6 boxes. i'm moving within manhattan; chinatown to flatiron. i know this sounds stupid to hire someone, but i am a girl and i get frustrated easily and its hot and i work a lot and don't have a ton of time to carry one box at a time on the subway. i've been considering lots of options . . man w/a van, filling up a taxi or calling a car service . . . . any great ideas? the place i am moving TO has a shit ton of stairs and i mainly want to hire movers so that they can run it all up the stairs for me.
anyone have a boyfriend or brother or something that has a van and is in shape and would run up my stairs 5 times with all my crap? this would be during the first week of august sometime; i'm flexible. any words of wisdom are greatly appreciated! thanks.
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2. This is what Rem Koolhaas called (in a recent edition of Domus D'Autore magazine) "post-occupancy design" -- the stuff that happens to design after it's left the designer's workshop (and architecture after it's left the studio) is the real test of its quality and character. Occupancy and use shouldn't see the designer and the architect melting away. They should stick around, take notes, and take photos. The processes of time and decay can be beautiful. The way people use stuff and adapt it can be instructive.
