10.27.2005 

calatrava at the met


Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture
October 18, 2005–March 5, 2006
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Santiago Calatrava (b. 1951), the author of some of the most beautiful structures of our epoch, spends much of his time drawing and conceiving sculptures. This exhibition shows how many of the forms of his celebrated buildings originated in independent works of art. It includes approximately two dozen sculptures in marble and bronze, many drawings, and 12 architectural models, including work related to the Path Terminal at the World Trade Center site.

10.25.2005 

shakespeare and company


Shakespeare and Company, is a bookstore located in the 5th arrondissement of Paris's Left Bank. Shakespeare and Company serves as a bookstore and also a lending library, specializing in English-language literature. The upstairs also serves as a makeshift dormitory for travelers, known as "tumbleweeds," who earn their keep by working in the shop for a couple of hours each day.

The bookstore's most famous proprietor was Sylvia Beach, who ran the shop at 12 rue de l'Odon, from 1919 to 1941. During this era, the store was considered to be a center of Anglo/American literary culture in Paris. The shop was often visited by authors belonging to the "lost generation" such as Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce. The contents of the store were considered high quality and reflected Beach's own literary taste. Shakespeare and Company, as well as its literary denizens, was repeatedly mentioned in Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Patrons could buy or rent books like D. H. Lawrence's controversial Lady Chatterley's Lover, which had been banned in England and the United States.

It was Beach who published Joyce's book, Ulysses, in 1922. The book was subsequently banned in the United States and United Kingdom. Shakespeare and Company published several other editions of Ulysses under its imprint in later years.

The original Shakespeare and Company was closed in December 1941, due to the occupation of France by the axis powers during World War II. The store at rue de l'Odon never re-opened.

In 1951, another English-language bookstore was opened in Paris' left bank by American George Whitman, under the name of Le Mistral. Much like its predecessor (which was at a different location), the store served as a focal point for literary culture in bohemian, left-bank Paris. Upon Sylvia Beach's death, the store's name was changed to Shakespeare and Company. In the 1950's, the shop served as a base for many of the writers of the beat generation like Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs. Whitman's daughter, Sylvia, now assists in the running of the shop. This store continues to operate into the present at 37 rue de la Bcherie, near Place St. Michel and steps from the Seine River.

10.24.2005 

f.y.i.


Wilma Knocks 'Today' Show's Al Roker Off His Feet
Weatherman Not Hurt In Fall

NAPLES, Fla. -- "Today" show weatherman Al Roker knows the power of Hurricane Wilma all too well. As a crew member held his ankles, Roker began to do a live report from Naples, Fla.
He had just started when a gust of wind suddenly blew him off his feet. Roker was not hurt in the fall and was able to crawl to safety.

admiral dewy sez:
"maybe that dumb bastard shouldn't be standing outside in a hurricane, so that little bobby and sue don't get the same idea?"

 

genius of the week


john mayall

Born 29 November 1933, Macclesfield, Cheshire, England. The career of England's premier white blues exponent and father of British blues has now spanned six decades and much of that time has been unintentionally spent acting as a musical catalyst. Mayall formed his first band in 1955 while at college, and as the Powerhouse Four the group worked mostly locally. Soon afterwards, Mayall enlisted for National Service. He then became a commercial artist and finally moved to London to form his Blues Syndicate, the forerunner to his legendary Bluesbreakers. Along with Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies and Graham Bond, Mayall pioneered British R&B. The astonishing number of musicians who have passed through his bands reads like a who's who. Even more remarkable is the number of names who have gone on to eclipse Mayall with either their own bands or as members of highly successful groups.

His roster of musicians included John McVie, Hughie Flint, Mick Fleetwood, Roger Dean, Davey Graham, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar, Peter Green, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Keef Hartley, Andy Fraser, Mick Taylor, Henry Lowther, Tony Reeves, Chris Mercer, Jon Hiseman, Steve Thompson, Colin Allen, Jon Mark, Johnny Almond, Harvey Mandel, Larry Taylor, and Don "Sugercane" Harris.

10.20.2005 

album of the week



David Axelrod is a classic album, blending the past and the present, featuring one of David's longest standing collaborators Lou Rawls and the street poetry of LA rapper Ras Kass. Recorded last year in the famous Capitol B studio (which David made his home in the 60s), over rhythm tracks originally laid down by Carol Kaye, Earl Palmer, Howard Roberts and Joe Sample in 1968.

 

the pi roundup


3.
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history
how to
the movie
pi & music
celebrate
pie?

10.14.2005 

genius of the week


lewis mumford
1895-1990

Internationally renowned for his writings on cities, architecture, technology, literature, and modern life, Lewis Mumford was called by Malcolm Cowley, "the last of the great humanists." His contributions to literary criticism, architectural criticism, American studies, the history of cities, civilization, and technology, as well as to regional planning, environmentalism, and public life in America, mark him as one of the most original voices of the twentieth-century.

Born in Flushing on October 19, 1895, Mumford lived much of his life in New York, settling in Dutchess County in 1936 with his wife Sophia, in Amenia, where he died over a half-century later, on January 26, 1990. His first book, The Story of Utopia, was published in 1922, and his last book, his autobiography Sketches from Life, was published sixty years later in 1982.

Mumford preferred to call himself a writer, not a scholar, architectural critic, historian or philosopher. His writing ranged freely and brought him into contact with a wide variety of people, including writers, artists, city planners, architects, philosophers, historians, and archaeologists. Throughout his life, Mumford sketched and painted his surroundings, visualizing his impressions of people and places in image, as his ever-present notepad visualized them in words.

He was architectural critic for The New Yorker magazine for over thirty years, and his 1961 book, The City in History, received the National Book Award. In 1923 Mumford was a cofounder with Clarence Stein, Benton MacKaye, Henry Wright and others, of the Regional Planning Association of America, which advocated limited-scale development and the region as significant for city planning.

lewis mumford center
megathinker and master of the metaphor
bibliography

 

lite brite


lite brite was where it was at

10.12.2005 

architect of books


le corbusier: architect of books 1912-1965
Cathérine de Smet
2005

Essay by Cathérine de Smet:
Meet Le Corbusier--book designer. Coined the "Architect of the Twentieth Century," Le Corbusier’s buildings have long been a part of the canon of modern architecture. He was a challenging figure who mainly designed based on his "five points of new architecture," in order to bring man’s living up to speed with the technology, aesthetics, and politics of his age. He is infamous for his design of the capital at Chandigarh, India, and well-loved for his the concrete Chapel of Notre Dame-du-Haut in Ronchamp, France. In fact, Le Corbusier is so loved, disliked, or revered for his architecture that his work as a book designer and author is scarcely known and even-more-scarcely documented. Yet, in his lifetime (1887-1965) he meticulously planned and realized over 40 books. And in this publication, Le Corbusier: Architect of Books, these works are thoroughly and comprehensively presented in order to familiarize viewers with the lesser-known book designer. Cathérine de Smet, an art historian and critic with profound knowledge on this aspect of Le Corbusier’s work, is our guide through photographs of the books and previously unpublished archive material. At the end of this book, we come to understand the process through which Le Corbusier’s books first came into being, and the significance that he accorded to books as an essential medium within his output.

10.11.2005 

where is the admiral?


i have been busy here at the lab. i shall begin posting again soon...i think....

10.05.2005 

album of the week


"exile on main street"
the rolling stones
1972

not one disappointing track on this album......

Rocks Off
Rip This Joint
Shake Your Hips
Casino Boogie
Tumbling Dice
Sweet Virginia
Torn and Frayed
Sweet Black Angel
Loving Cup
Happy
Turd on the Run
Ventilator Blues
I Just Want to See His Face
Let It Loose
All Down the Line
Stop Breaking Down
Shine a Light
Soul Survivor

10.04.2005 

most disappointing


it seems to me that yet another interesting, maybe the most interesting piece of the world trade center redevelopmet plan has been removed. the international freedom center, schematically designed by snohetta, has got the shit can. score another one for mindless political input and decision making

 

rest in peace


nipsey russell
1924-2005

Nipsey Russell was a comedian, most known for being a guest panelist on many 1970s game shows, such as Match Game and To Tell the Truth. In addition to his sharp game-playing skills, Russell also delighted audiences with short poems, earning him the nickname "the poet laureate of television."

He got his start in the 1940s as a car hop at the Atlanta drive-in The Varsity, where he would earn his tips by making his customers laugh. He moved his act to nightclubs in the 1950s, when he was discovered and subsequently made many "party albums", which were essentially a compilation of his stand-up routines, not unlike what Redd Foxx was doing at the very same time.

In the late 1950s, he was featured on The Ed Sullivan Show, which led to a small part in the comedy Car 54, Where Are You? in 1960. Scattered appearances on television series followed, as well as performing guest host duties on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

In 1971, he started as a featured panelist on To Tell the Truth, which led to him being hired for Match Game two years later. Today, he is most known for these game show appearances, and has become somewhat of a B-list celebrity icon in that respect.

He was also a trained dancer, and appeared in the 1978 film The Wiz as the Tin Man.

10.03.2005 

the great coffee experiment of 2002 letter 2


so my friends, i now present to you the second and most unfortunate last letter in the saga of the great coffee experiment of 2002. unfortunately i did not invest the kind of energy i had wanted to into this venture. i shall now look to 2006 for new inspiration.