If you scroll back through this archive of architectural Eyesores of the Month you will find many of them are fronted by flags. The author, in his cynical wisdom, will say things like “Note the large American flag, planted in front of the mall to ward off criticism.” Goring the sacred cow is a necessary evil if we are to bore down to the truth behind the things that are slowly crushing us. Not just the soul-stealing architecture of suburbia, by the equally draining toil of going to work in places like hospitals, where doctors and nurses are expected to …
One of the 2% of Bowen Islanders who blog just sent me an email with a really crisp late summer definition of blogging vs. traditional website maintenance: BLOGs are like ferry conversations – just happens, a website is like a barbecue – gotta organize it. Thanks to Markus Roemer at Stinky Cat.
Fused glass button From a collection of glass buttons, this one stood out. Buttons as fastners, connectors, things that draw two other things together and hold them there echoed in the plug and wire, the implied connection, the plugging into power. Gertrude Stein wrote Tender Buttons, a collection of still life sketches, tiny portraits of objects, food and rooms, which critic Norman Weinstein called “a mirror for our nonsense, a dictionary for our daily distraction�.” Buttons as connectors, tender buttons as blogs.
From an email from the Plexus Institute, comes this piece, an interview with Birute Regine and Roger Lewin on complexity in organizations: Complexity theorists argue that managers should allow creativity and efficiency to emerge naturally within organizations rather than imposing their own solutions on their employees. They can do this by setting some basic ground rules and then encouraging interactions or relationships among their employees so that solutions emerge from the bottom up. Managers can’t predict what the solutions will be. But just as a flock of birds can achieve more than a bird flying solo, it’s likely that the …
Just perusing my little collection of poems by Jorie Graham… Mind The slow overture of rain, each drop breaking without breaking into the next, describes the unrelenting, syncopated mind. Not unlike the hummingbirds imagining their wings to be their heart, and swallows believing the horizon to be a line they lift and drop. What is it they cast for? The poplars, advancing or retreating, lose their stature equally, and yet stand firm, making arrangements in order to become imaginary. The city draws the mind in streets, and streets compel it from their intersections where a little belongs to no one. …