08 November 2006
31 October 2006
Design in a Small Town 9: Proximity
(I am in storytelling mode tonight, forgive me)
My father teaches Entomology at the university and his department, which houses an insect museum, shares the building with the Food Science and Human Nutrition department.
Many entomology researchers rear insects in effort to keep live samples to study. Apparently someone had been rearing Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches only to have them...um, escape. Needless to say, they have begun to appear throughout the building. Without invitation, I might add.
There is nothing more that needs to be said. You put two and two together. Food and cockroaches.
What does this have to do with design, you ask? Well, who on earth thought it was a great idea to put the entomologists and the food science people together? This was bound to happen, I suppose.
BONUS: Roach Cam! (from South Carolina)
About this Time
When I was an undergraduate I was at the mercy of my fellow classmates when it came time to find rides home for the holidays. Precious few friends, it seemed, were making that 300 mile trek across the state. One year, I happened to finish early and was very fortunate to catch a ride with a friend who lived 80 miles from my hometown and who was gracious enough to drive me to my front door before turning around and continuing on for another hour and a half.
I remember it was a cold November evening and my friend had decided to leave the major highways and take a back road in an attempt to cut time. We had to pass through several small towns on the way. Without warning the crystal clear night turned into a thick fog and as we entered the first town it was as if we had entered a dream. The town was completely deserted and apart from the one or two street lights the town was unlit - not a single house was illuminated from within.
It really bothered us. I remember we drove a little faster to get past this place. The fog lifted and the second small town we passed through was bright and full of life. It was very strange.
When I got to my parent's home, it was late and I was greeted by my sister, who was also visiting, and after getting settled I told about the creepy little town and she replied, "I have something really scary to tell you."
I am not a brave soul and the tone my sister set with those words really got to me. I sat down on the couch and grabbed a pillow for security.
My sister went on to explain how earlier in the evening my dad had casually admitted that, while we lived in our previous home (a creaky old Dutch colonial job a block or so away), he had had reoccurring nightmares about someone falling into a well. This was the first time he had admitted this to anyone and my mother, who had researched the history of the home, remarked that there had been a well that sat where the back porch was now. To take it further my mother now felt it safe to admit that she too had had strange experiences: a number of times she had seen out of the corner of her eye someone standing near her only to turn quickly to see nothing. This was beyond the usual sense that we often get at times.
My sister's confession, however, was beyond belief and to this day still makes me uncomfortable. She revealed that on more than one occasion she had awoken to find a young woman standing at the foot of her bed. She has since told me that, unable to speak or scream out of sheer terror, she would squeeze her eyes shut until she knew the girl had gone. Mind you these encounters happened not when my sister was a child but when she was teenager.
I had a hard time sleeping that night. In my mind I thought back to all the strange things I had experienced such as the times my cat would hiss and growl at things that weren't there or the time my sister's friend came to spend the night and pulled the blinds down and up again only to return to the living room later to find the blinds down again. I remember this because I took the blame for it and it seemed unusual that the blinds would be pulled down (they never were used at all in the room).
I don't know how much of these stories is embellishment and distortion over time. But I do know that when I recently revisited the house (a friend lives there now) that I felt nothing. The only awkward vibe I felt was when I remarked to my friend that I'd forgotten how small the bathrooms were.
But maybe he is not telling me something. Maybe, just maybe, he has inherited the nightmares and lonely little girl at the foot of the bed.
Happy Halloween.
21 October 2006
18 October 2006
17 October 2006
Dubai as Metaphor
image: © 2005 Harry Lambert
My sisters-in-law have vacationed in Dubai for a decade now and have remarked on what an utter and complete transformation has happened there. Once desert, the city is now home to some new and visionary architectural projects.
The money it must take to create, say, what will be the world's tallest building or to do massive terra forming is mind-boggling. No wonder architects and engineers are lining up to strut their stuff in Dubai.
The problem is that as forward-looking as the work is and as seductive the visual forms are, the power use to keep those structures functioning (cooling for instance) is very old world. I haven't seen many proposals (not that I have looked very hard) that, for instance, use solar as an integrated element - one that would make the buildings sustainable. The focus then seems to be on extravagant form.
Dubai then becomes symbolic of our time. With money comes the potential for something truly great that could be used as a model throughout the world. Instead it is used for an investment in surface.
12 October 2006
Thinking outside the box
Yesterday it was reported that Muslims were offended by the shape of an Apple store in New York City because of its vague similarity to the Ka'ba, a holy site in Mecca. Needless to say, the story played up to stereotypes about Muslims as irrationally fastiduous to the point of militancy regarding anything even moderately resembling religious symbols and artifacts. Well, the story appears to be a pitiful extrapolation from one person's statement.
However, reading the comments today on a site dedicated to fanatic mac users is really very interesting and does so much to destroy many stereotypes about Muslims . It shows how light and entertaining things can be when we don't fall into prejudice and, instead, embrace our techno-fetishes.
Old School Collision Control
I don't know if it is the time of day or what but I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this:
09 October 2006
Rosa Parks (Her Chevy?)
Slate has a good article criticizing a new Chevy commercial. The commercial uses a number of images that, because of their juxtaposition to inane imagery and music, make the commercial...well, kind of "icky".
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