Isnt the layout of this blog ridiculous? Jesus christ, what was i thinking.

I've started school and i'm waiting to start work again. I miss London, and the people i worked with. I hope the people at this new place are as welcoming.

Note To Self:

Read up on Robert A.M. Stern, Zaha Hadid,

THE GRAFFITI RESEARCH LAB (from a Tropolis post)

The things these guys do are like the epitome of "detournment" (as in Guy Debord). See, you can be politically subversive and make beautiful things at the same time. It's as easy as an HD projector and some christmas lights.

slice der republik

Ok this project right here has really amazing conceptual value to me. I see it, i get it, it inspires me. It is a project done by some students in Berlin and it's a conceptual / adaptive re-use / public space thing that, in my mind, could really work. The building is called Palast Der Republik.

I think it could work because it has great symbolic meaning, but it is a simple physical manifestation, so the meaning is always very close to the surface of the thing. I think urban design (moreso than architecture) has to balance the conceptual with what's on the ground and that's why it is a difficult process. I was reading this article in the Harvard review about how concepts in architecture and concepts in art have to remain separate, because architecture has to itself be a usable, logical piece of built beform, while also being a conceptual piece of art. Architecture can never split itself from that.

I think urban design faces the same challenge of balancing concept and "usability", as a public space is democratic, and given to the people as free space. The Agora is a forum before it is a piece of art.

These students found inspiration in the works of the archtect/artist Gordon Matta-Clark, who seemed to believe that a physical deconstruction of a built form could reap a sort of interesting newness, and a new meaning. I'm pretty fond of this idea.

Since i know very few people read this, I am just gonna come out and say whats on my mind right now because i have to let it out. If you are a person that i know and you do happen to stumble upon this, please know that I am not normally a person who folds under the pressures of life into self-doubt.

I just want to vent, because i feel like my heart is in a vice buried in my chest, and it beats and beats, and screams, but i can't do anything about it because i've never ventured far enough into myself to understand whats going on inside of me. It feels like my mind has already decided that i'm doomed, and that i wont ever succeed, and i'm constantly trying to convince it otherwise, but the negativity always wins in the end.

I have an interview. The interview. The one you wait for your whole life and never expect to get. And i am terrified. Im terrified about everything. I dont think im ready, I dont think i can handle it. The key to getting jobs is being confident in yourself. Thats it. Thats what people tell me. But it really isn't that easy. Some people have that confidence, some people dont. I dont wanna say that i dont, because then im just fucking myself over. Maybe i have it. I hope i have it.

I've been going through all these practice questions and talking to everyone i know for advice, and my brain is about to explode. I blank under pressure sometimes. I honestly, black out. Sometimes i think my mouth is acting independently of what my brain is thinking, like i go on autopilot and at the end, it leaves me in a place where i cant possibly continue without some awkward pause. I can hardly express myself coherently now. My brain is dysfunctional.

I dont want to give myself up to the pressure.

Jonathan Friedman is the kinda guy who is always in the best of spirits. How can you not love a Jewish dude who thinks and acts like every day is Christmas?

One day when im married to a beautiful half-Jewish, half-Japanese yoga instructor, it will all be thanks to Jonathan Friedman, J-date, and the High Holiday circuit.

Today i walked down to yorkville to check out holt renfrew, dont ask me why. lets just say my denim fetish has made me irrational. You see, an overpriced, over classed department store like this can be detrimental to one's sense of self worth. In the city, it is a reminder of how monetarily insignificant you are. Big business, big luxury, and big status is difficult to ignore, no matter how grounded you are. Is there really any place in this city where someone can be totally free of that?

On the other hand, the spectacular may never be denied because it is built into us like second nature. I think Nietzsche talked about "the second nature", and Guy Debord definately touched on this in "comments on the society of the spectacle". This commodified lifestyle is built into our being and it's so much so that we don't even see it. It's like the spectacle is in our DNA. i think he also says that the spectacle is beyond human comprehension, or was that God? At any rate, i also saw a lady get freaked out by a shadowfighting junky.

Sure the world isn't meant to be an easy place. "nobody said it would be easy". there is no fair, no real godly justice. im sure we would all like to believe that there is something cosmologically evening out the playing field for us and the next guy in one way or another. like for example, the beautiful supermodel girl/guy has some sort of nagging internal pain, a little piece of bone in her skull that pokes her brain and makes her life just a little bit more difficult. or s\he's incapable of tapping into feelings or emotions that i can access easily. like something as simple as sympathy. maybe i feel it more than he does. or maybe i enjoy biting into an apple more than he can possibly dream of.

dang girl, whatchu some kinda supahero or sumpin. you got eyes like the chula mambro vapour knowmsayin, dang. I just wanna spit in yo mouth girl.