can i borrow a dollar?

2007-09-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

Isnt the layout of this blog retarded? 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.

2007-02-17T16:39:00.000-08:00

Note To Self:

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

2007-02-17T16:32:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-17T15:22:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-12-17T07:35:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-09-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-08-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-08-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-08-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

You know those days when you wake up before your alarm clock goes off because you can hear your next-door neighbor screaming unmentionables at the belligerent young hooligans who’ve knocked over her trash can. Yeah, those days are destined to suck. I woke up pretty early, but half drunk and my mind and body were in complete disharmony. Tequila does that. So, Right now i am a slug in catharsis, red-eyed and perpetually chilly. I floated to work.

I have really weird dreams when i go to bed tipsy. They're vivid but quick. This one took place at the old theatre on college street. I was there alone watching the 42nd run of antitrust starring ryan philipe and tim robbins. Just as Ryan Philipe is on the cusp of uncovering the unsavory actions of the capitalist extremist (Tim Robbins), the screen goes up in flames; the projector has overheated. We all know what that looks like, i dont know why, but we do. As a disgruntled bunch of moviegoers filters out of the theatre, i engage in an argument with a large boxer type fellow, not tall like lennox lewis, but a solid mike tysonish man. We are arguing about some spilled Dr. Pepper that has trickled down from a few rows back and has "ruined" his dunks. As the argument gets physical, the setting has changed to something of a circular arena, not unlike that of bloodsport. Anyways for some reason he has concrete fists and my hands are made out of wicker. He punches me in the face and then i wake up.

What a worthless dream, i know, but more real than most.

Anyways, so Orly and her twin sister Ariella, had a fun little bday celebration and those are a few pictures. It was an interestesting night, to say the least. It was at Sweaty Bettys over on Ossington, which is alot like Ronnie's Local, doesn't try too hard, very casual, lawn chairs on the patio, etc etc. I met this hispanic dude who had a few interesting stories about meeting a mr. sean puffy combs in New York. He was some sort of pro runner who had attended an event with diddy, one in which diddy had basically thrown a trunk full of really expensive jewellry out to random people. When asked why he was so "fuckin generous about shit?"

Sean Combs replied, "because you never know when your time is gonna run out. Tomorrow, Sean John, could be a target brand." Not a groundbreaking revelation, but something that stuck in my mind.

So the night was good, rachelle had a blind date with an individual named dobby. I tried to be a good friend and like give him the business and everything, but he just seemed too damn nice that i didn't feel right being intimidating. Not that im a very intimidating person. That went well i guess. Aside from that, it was just good alcoholic downtown fun. And did i ever mention how fond i am of the Jewish community in Toronto. And Jewish ladies are quite attractive to me. i dunno, thats all.

2006-08-09T20:26:00.000-07:00

I got to thinking about Henri Lefebvre and the Urban Revolution today and how what he's talking about might mean really to an individual like myself. His basic (its actually not very basic at all) argument is that the socio-political structure that governs the production of urban space hasn't yet evolved into something that really attacks the problems of "urbanism". Rather, the structure is still stuck in this mode of industrialization and production.

I think we can all agree that this postmodern world is far more evolved than that of the industrial era. Industry is no longer the driving force of cities. Because what is really building the city now? When i look at development in Toronto, i see the public good being put on the backburner by the city. The city is becoming an entrepeneur, selling itself, marketting it's "discovery districts" and gentrifying, gentrifying, gentrifying, because thats what builds commerce. And when did public space become non-democratic?

But the city is really only giving us what we want. Perhaps this is what the problem of urbanism boils down to. We, the people, too busy swallowing the neon lights to realize whats going on.

2006-08-09T16:23:00.000-07:00

UPDATE!!!: it seems now that the loud eastern european couple is friends with the chinatown outfit girl and they are now having tulip picking party. life is grand.

2006-08-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

check 1-2 who got more style than son do?

So im sitting here in the hart house courtyard after a most violent cardiovascular workout, contemplating the conversational engagement occurring to my immediate right - two E.S.L. undergrad europeans, polish maybe, science or math majors i reckon, but speaking at a volume of +10. This i find to be unnecessary. i'm not annoyed, just displeased i guess. A girl just walked out from the heart house wearing a royal blue spandex 'exercise outfit' and on the waistband it says 'sport'. Very china-town-ish. Also displeasing to the senses.

Anyways i gotta get workin on my portfolio. If anyone ever reads this, i hope this post was as enriching to you as it was for me.

2006-08-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

hello