Flags, Football, & Dragons

My brothers-in-law have been glued to the TV, like many Britons, watching the World Cup. As it seemed the appropriately testosterony thing to do, I've joined them for many a game and have really enjoyed it.

Between games yesterday, I walked to the nearby village. Lipi remarked to me how strange it was to see St. George's Cross all over the place and proceeded to explain that the flag (see above) is for England only. Now that the Welsh and the Scots have their own parliaments, Lipi argued, they've had to deconstruct the Union Jack somewhat. I hated to tell her that they've always used the Red cross on a white field for the national team.

Regardless, it got me to thinking about the Union Jack and it's composition and how silly flags are. Slap down some colored stripes on field of primary color and you've got yourself a shared national identity. I love Rem Koolhaas' EU flag proposal. I find it a statement on this very point and something really beautiful to regard as well.

If you are going to make a flag, I think it helps to have some crazy mythical creatures on it (humped zebra, perhaps?). If I made a flag, I'd put Bigfoot on it. Anyway, forget St. George's Cross. We want to see Dragons!! The Welsh have got it right.

(the english crest does sport dragons. the americans need bigfoots, I tell you!)

UPDATE: I am an idiot. The crest shows three LIONS not dragons. Lions are pretty cool though. But still not as cool as a bigfoot.

Driving in Britain

We've been in England for almost a week and have been sticking near Reading as we haven't found the desire to go into London. Next weekend we'll travel to the Isle of Wight (if it's not too dear).

Anyway, just driving around here I've noticed some strange things . First, I saw a sign that said "Queues Likely". It's a bit of an understatement when traffic is stacked up and when there is no traffic what-so-ever it seems a bit too general. I expected to see a sign saying "Cloudy skies possible".

Near Reading is a town called Winnersh. Among British place names this one is not the most exciting but it is remarkably difficult to say. Are you supposed to pronounce it "Winner" and then make the archetypical librarian sound? Or is it pronounced "Winnerish"? I prefer the latter.

"Did I win the race?"
"Well, not exactly, but you were winnerish."

My favorite road sign is this:



It's to warn drivers of speed humps (a possible outcome of speed dating?). But it always strikes me as a body left in the roadway. There is also the "humped zebra crossings" (translation: raised crosswalks/speed bumps). I love the thought that mythical creatures could magically come out of the Tesco supermarket to cross at this point in the road.

I have yet to see a humped zebra.

(Queues Likely photo courtesy of UKStudentlife.com - a funny read in itself)

Visiting Little Britain

I've been frantically trying to tie up loose ends and prepare for our semi-annual trip to the UK. I am now at that point when I am like a giant emotional candy bar: stressed on the inside blended with a chunky nervousness nougat and a sweet utterly gleeful candy coating.

The in-laws moved out of London to Reading (not pronounced REEDING but instead rhymes with "Sausage"). Reading will be a new adventure (hopefully one less expensive) so I've been doing my research. Already it looks promising. Check out the Wikitravel page. You've got to love a town that has a religious building called St. Mary's butts and church. Second only to St. Peter's coccyx and rectory, I suppose. I will have to do some investigation when I get there.

Usually by the time I get there I am so exhausted that everything seems to deliriously humourous. The fact that you have to pass the exit to Dorking and Leatherhead on the way out of Heathrow doesn't help. But I think it is something more. In fact, the British tend to naturally mock themselves. For proof watch the video below. Anyway, stay tuned to this site for more updates and travel notes.

Illustration Friday: Portrait

Saturday Lovin': Apocalypse Pony

Crooks, Liars, and Love

My daily routine usually begins with a quick look at the news and then a tour of few blogs. This before I have even brushed my teeth. Pitiful (but I know you probably do it too!)

Crooks and Liars is currently my favorite political blog (man, there are a lot of good left-leaning blogs these days). I like C&L for three simple reasons:

• the entries are concise roundups of other stuff from all over the web

• many entries include video (in both wmp and quicktime formats) that really often makes the point

and most importantly

• John Amato, C&L's creator, posts an eclectic mix of music videos at the end of each evening

The night before last, Amato put up a link to George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps from the infamous Concert for Bangladesh. He also posted an alternative version performed by Tom Petty, Dhani Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Prince that really is good.

I prefer Harrison's acoustic version (see embedded video below). The video is both heart-tugging tribute to Harrison as well as a reminder of all that we've lost since the 60s (although I am certainly glad fashion has changed).



The music embedded in C&L is a nice respite from the complete disintegration documented in the other posts. But somehow While My Guitar really struck accord and forced a lump in my throat.

Harrison's message is painfully simple and dead on: Love. In the era of grandly stupid and selfish control and violence, reinvesting in love is the only way out. The paradox is (and I think the Beatles got a lot of shit for this) it is hard to turn love into political action. Fear and anger are better motivators perhaps.

Needless to say, Amato's music choices recently have grounded me and got me to think about the bigger picture. As Kurt Vonnegut explained (in describing his epitaph):

The only proof he needed for the existence of god was music

Better than Snails!

Incredible balloon creations.

You thought you had a rough day...

I just got back from California and a visit with my Grandmother. One of my jobs was to pack her numerous lawn ornaments (you'll be happy to know that the Frog and the Cow made the journey to Washington safely). While doing so I found a veritable platoon of snails. I couldn't help but watch them in fascination - there were so many.

It is not like snails are exciting. But I couldn't get over how many were just hanging out. So, I did what any PhD would do: I pried them from their locations and set up a giant snail traffic jam so that when they had settled and figured the coast was clear they'd start moving and peak out of their shells only to find they were smack dab in bumper-to-bumper, er, shell-to-shell mega-traffic.

Anyway, here is my homage to those snails still trying to find their way home after my exploits.

Topographical Typologies and the Porcelain Future

Back in March, the renewed College of Art and Architecture at the University of Idaho presented a lecture series with a number of well-known architects as guest speakers. Of those architects, Ali Rahim seemed to inspire my students the most.

Students and faculty alike found Rahim's work to be the perfect symbol of progress and of technological possibility. Rahim's gift to architecture, I think, is his compartmentalization of structure. With the aid of the computer he creates forms that can be broken down into smaller components and manufactured offsite. The architects role, under the guidance of the machine, becomes one more akin to industrial designer. This often affords spectacular forms but what results in Rahim's work, I feel, is form that gives too much to the computer-aided process and manufacturing and not to the scale and human dimensions of good architectural space.

Rahim, at one point in the lecture, claimed that this methodological approach removes his work from existing architectural typologies but that is pure bunk. If anything Rahim is well entrenched in the language of computer-generated aesthetics. The work also references not only space-race high modernism and even the virtual architecture of the early 90s (see the earlier work of Marcos Novak for instance) but it also plays with the current visual dialogue of technological devices.

Rahim's use of white comes from the long history of shorthand for the technology-driven form that is often uber-sterile and, well, cold and inhuman. George Lucas' first sci-fi filmTHX 1138 uses white in this way but perhaps the best example is the iPod. The stainless, highly polished silver and porcelain-like white of the iPod speak of cleanliness by referencing, believe it or not, bathrooms. The tub, tiles, and fixtures - everything comes across as clean and somewhat sterile. Rahim takes this to exaggeration. The undulating forms of his spaces also read as bathroom fixtures that have grown to such a scale they have consumed the building.

What is more interesting perhaps is that the blob, arguably the preeminent form both referencing and derived from the technological apparatus, is now an obstacle and human memory and scale are sacrificed. The phenomenological aspects of being in space often overrule any system to derive form. But Rahim's work puts up a good fight. The vacuum molded forms create a bloblike topography that makes the spaces hard to personalize and even decorate. The topography also forces the space to be not about the persons within but about the building itself. It is techno-scenography. It is a technological topographical typology.

Illustration Friday: Sorry

sorry.gif

(Click on image for larger - more readable - version.)

1 Year Anniversary

I almost let it pass. Metasurface, the silly blog with the serious name, is now officially 1 year old.

The Eye of the Beholder

The My Heritage site offers a test run of a nifty tool that scans your uploaded photos with a bazillion microderm doubleflux modulators in order to compare your facial features with well-known personalities and celebrities.

I tried it yesterday morning and think it might have been on the fritz because my results (on numerous tries with different photos) came back with the following celebrities:

- Sean Lennon
- Elvis Costello
- Larry King
- Rin Tin Tin

I actually made up that last one (does anyone even know who Rin Tin Tin was anymore?) but it doesn't matter.

My wife supposedly looks like Toni Morrison or Spike Lee. My offspring look like Whitney Houston and David Beckham.

Anyway, it was sort of fun (in a self-deprecating way). For those who want to know, I really look like this:



(from Gizmodo)