How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Architect

     

     I'm not exactly a design expert, engineer, or architect, but I am a self-proclaimed tree-hugger and lover of aesthetically pleasing architecture.  I ran across this article recently that got my excited, instead of  depressed, about the future.  I always joke with my brother about wanting to live deep in the woods away from much of civilization but with a lightening-fast internet connection.  After living in L.A. for 7 years, the polluted, industrial, purchase-driven milieu starts to wear on you.  You end up fantasizing about "roughing it" in the wilderness, living off the land, or some similar romantic visage of the way we never were.  Truth is, there is a temptation to want to go back and capture something that was lost before the industrial revolution...a mystery or holiness ascribed to nature and the elements.  The forest, the desert, the sea - they all occupy iconic places in classical literature as places of magic, spirits, and the gods.  Before the modern era, they were untouchable and sacrosanct...wholly beyond our ability to understand or change.  And yet today they're something to be pitied...a monument to our failure to live in the garden without eating the fruit, cutting down the tree, and using the wood to refinish our souls.

     And yet, in the midst of my melodrama, there is hope to be found from a variety of sources.  A wise man once said to me "The way forward is not in the past," and I think I finally understand what he means.  We can't go back to a sun-energy alone society...for one that would require exterminating roughly 5 billion people.  And most people (including this writer) would be loathe to forego their Iphones, Youtube, and Wii's.  On a separate note, when will start with the "3rd person" devices like the She-max, He-flix, or It-pad?  Where was I?  Oh right, "the way forward is not the past;" don't take me to say that we have nothing to learn from the past, or that the great minds that have shaped our culture are lacking a goldmine of wisdom.  What I mean is that we need forward-thinkers, exploring new ways to integrate what it means to be human in the 21st century with our environment and our future.  Connecting our buildings to the land, using sustainable products, and approaching the field of design with a mind to simplicity and function are central concepts in this day and age.  And knowing there are those out there doing this and more excites me.

20 things I hate

I'm in a bad mood, so I thought I'd spread some negative feelings around.

I absolutely hate:

20. when people rant and rave about random crap
19. environmental disasters without new environmental policy
18. car registration, parking fines, and the DMV
17. blindly worshipping  __________________ (fill in the blank)
16. all the idiots who drive too slow and the maniacs who drive too fast
15. Washington Mutual
14. growing older, but not wiser
13. grading papers where students didn't even try
12. any movie written, produced, or acted in by the Wayans Brothers
11. holidays that were invented by hallmark
10. pretentious vocabulary
9. calling something "retarded"
8. Kate Perry's music
7. when someone tells someone else to "shut-up"
6. scotch hangovers
5. homogeneity
4. paying over 10 dollars to see a movie
3. holidays that celebrate war
2. politics
1. white guys with dreads

Buy More

I find my tech-desires get more ridiculous now that I no longer have a job.  Of course I need an upgraded 360, a new phone, or the Ipad...and why shouldn't I have one?  Possessing the latest and greatest seems so worthwhile as an end in itself - luckily my common sense (and limited bank account) quickly return to mind and I don't press "Check-Out Now."  The pursuit of possessions just doesn't fuel me anymore, and when I see a posting like this one from gizmodo it makes me smile.  Whether it's Steve Jobs, the prophet of hip, delivering some device in his all-black priestly garb to an excited cathedral of tech-junkies or the scientific "utopia" of the modernist project, it all seems so fleeting to me.  Yes, I'm sure one day we'll all live to be 500, with flawless skin, enormous penises, and robotic maids, but what does that have to do with living my life now?  Sometimes I think Technology has replaced Magic, Religion, and most recently Science as the seller of salvation.  And while I wouldn't mind a cold pint from the fountain of youth, I'm not planning on finding it on tap anytime soon.  I'm worried that our futurist outlook as a society keeps us from living in the present, experiencing connections around us, and celebrating the beauty and tragedy of life as is.  Then again, I really want a new phone.

Apocalypse How

       The End is Nigh!  Perhaps I have the book of Revelation on the brain, or maybe the fact that visions of doom are superfluous in our media maelstrom, but I've been dwelling on the concept of "the apocalypse" the last few days.  While the subject of our fascination with our own demise is a worthy topic for another day, I am more interested in what type of cataclysm we're speaking of.  Are we speaking of some God-ordained cleansing of the earth he once loved?  I guess I never much liked this option.  And it doesn't seem to fit with the oft-misquoted opus of Christian apocalyptic literature: the book of Revelation.  That book seems much more concerned with portraying a symbolic world of good and evil where its readers can be offered some camaraderie and hope through their persecution and ostracism at the hands of the Roman Empire.  So if God isn't behind the end of everything, the answer lies elsewhere.
       Perhaps in light of the BP oil catastrophe it's more likely that we will author our own demise.  Let's say we further advance climate change and thoroughly fuck up our planet beyond repair.  What real end will come of it?  The end of all biological life?  This I find highly unlikely, considering the tenacity of carbon-based life, and our planet's ability to give the finger over geological time to the creatures who attempt to master it.  Perhaps its the end of ourselves that we fear.  The end of sentient life,  the end of our systems of order and hierarchy, the end of a reality that was never quite real...it's all quite scary to beings that want to retain the illusory concept of "control" over our lives.  All good (and bad) things must come to an end, and perhaps letting go is something we (me specifically) need to do more often.  Letting go of the way we want things reminds me of the works of Norbert Kox.  We have this tendency to make a golden calf of a system, a way of living, or even our concept of the divine.  That's what I love about Kox's mash-up of Sallman's Head of Christ and Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe: it's so irreverent to the idol.  I'm left wondering what things I have worshipped that were just the iconic Beast masked by a rosy exterior.  Technology?  Religion?  Music?  The Academy?  My particular vision of messiah?  As I transition to a new stage in life I feel as though i must hasten the apocalypse of those imaginary worlds and begin to start anew.  I must both mourn and celebrate the demise of my peculiar deities if I long for a new heaven and earth to emerge.

Bon Iver and the Modern Man

So I discovered "For Emma, Forever Ago" later than most.  And by later I mean 11pm last Sunday, almost 3 years after its release.  Is it profound or pathetic when a piece of music resonates with the spirit of a chunk of the population.  I'm gonna go with profound...although pathetic is never far off.  The chunk I'm referring to is the postmodern white, children of middle-class, 20-30 somethings whose souls have been eroded by the apathy and hegemony of "normal."  Are our thumbs in our assholes for stimulation or pacification?  Or are they one and the same?  When I started this blog 4 years ago I had intended for it to be a place where I could voice both my pretentious and populist interests with a bit of humor and cultural critique thrown in.  The truth I've discovered about myself is ironic considering this post's condemnation of apathy and normalcy.  First, I was just a little too indifferent about my interests and second, I was worried about being considered "out there."  The post-Bon Iver writer says, "Fuck that!" while wondering if anyone will actually read these rants.  This album opened a spot inside of me, a spot that wants to both mourn the death of passion in the modern man, and burn down the false monuments to our culturally normative past.  In this writer's opinion "For Emma, Forever Ago," and the desires of our compartmentalized hearts, might deserve another listen.