Cheap month with a check from the Breck Crest marathon. Spending per mile is now solidly under a dollar. Dublin threatens to blow that out of the water.
September Spending:
1st - To/From Track - $3
6th - Breckenridge Marathon To/From - $40
6th - Breck Crest Winnings - +$150
8th - To/From Track - $3
15th - Ghost Town Registration - $105
16th - To/From Track - $3
19th - To/From Jelm - $20
22nd - To/From Track - $3
29th - To/From Track - $3
30th - Silent Trails Reg - $20
Totals:
Spending .................... $50
Mileage ....................... 309 (39,000')
Spending per mile ...... $0.16
YTD Totals
Dollars:
Jan ......... $456
Feb ......... $284
March ...... $30
April ........ $318
May ......... $498
June ........ $366
July ......... $106
August .... $178
Sept ........ $50
To date .... $2,278
Miles:
Jan ................ 265 (33,000 feet)
Feb ................ 259.5 (40,350 feet)
March ........... 302 (32,050 feet)
April ............. 247.5 (31,300 feet)
May ............... 513 (67,000 feet)
June .............. 268 (46,150 feet)
July ............... 228 (50,650 feet)
August ........... 282 (56,700 feet)
September ..... 309 (39,000 feet)
To Date ......... 2,674 (396,00 feet)
Monthly Ave .. 297 (44,000 feet)
Spending per Mile: $0.85
Cate outside the entrance to the elevator up to the Eagle's Nest. Treading the path travelled by Hitler, Goering, Himmler and all the other nutters of that era.
Annie has asked an interesting question. Why don’t I ask fellow travelers for advice about hotels? Well…..I do.
There are many travel sites which I trawl relentlessly. The main one is TripAdvisor.com.
While it is quite easy to find nice hotels anywhere I have a Set of Rules which I must apply to any accommodation.
These are determined by Cate who has a number of very specific requirements.
The full Set of Rules comprises a number of bound volumes (A DVD will be available early in 2010) and is too extensive to canvass here – but some of the rules are:
It must be in the old part of the city right next to everything and it should be so close to the Cathedral/Castle/Ruins that you can lean out the window and touch them.
It should be very quiet with heavy curtains so that it can be made as dark as the inside of a cow’s stomach in a graveyard at midnight on a moonless night. (This makes for interesting bathroom excursions in unfamiliar surroundings).
It probably won’t be modern but if it is it will not look modern and will have the essential features of an old hotel (but with no rats in the walls).
It must be elegant and no Chintz is allowed. (Chintz is not clearly defined in the Rules but when Cate spots it you can hear her shrieks in Ouagadougou).
The furniture should be elegant and substantial but not Prissy (No precise definition is provided for Prissy but even I know it when I see it).
The bed must be at least Queen size so that our toes don’t hang over the end. It should not be two single beds pushed together. (This is a toughie in Europe).
Breakfast should be Cate’s favourite Muesli and have fresh Orange juice and wholemeal toast.
The coffee should be espresso and not boiled kitty litter that has been left to stand overnight in a vat of Bison urine. (Another toughie).
Overall – it must be nice and she must like it. This is the Catch.
Whatever else it will be it is unlikely to fulfill those last two criteria. Which leads me to write some appropriate (and very bad) Haiku.
Fine hotels are legion
Sadly for me
My choices suck
However, I am nothing if not tenacious and victories like The Grand in Krakow keep me driving forward relentlessly.
As many people who attended my book launch this past weekend in New York will already know, I had on hand a fantastic new publication by architect David Garcia: the Manual of Architectural Possibilities, or M.A.P. 
I had the pleasure of meeting David back in Sweden earlier this month at the ASAE conference; David's presentation and our subsequent conversation – ranging from the architecture of déjà vu and haunted house novels to the possibility of sonic archives and the work of David Gissen – were more than enough to show that he is pushing forward through some incredibly interesting ideas and is already someone worth keeping an eye on now, not just in the future. He's even just completed a cool children's playground in suburban Denmark.
Issue One of M.A.P. – or poster #1, really, as it all unfolds into a double-sided A1 sheet – is about Antarctica. 
Open the poster up and there are habitats excavated directly from the ice, their dimensions and size based on the carving radius of industrial digging machines; there are seed archives entombed throughout the polar glaciers, marked only by GPS; there are abandoned airplanes all hooked together into a grounded megastructure and reused as research labs; there is a catalog of snow crystal geometry; and there is a photo-survey of exploratory housing for visiting scientists.
Look for M.A.P. at an architecture bookstore near you, or get in touch with David Garcia Studio directly to order some copies.
M.A.P. #2 – which is, incidentally, open for suggestions – will be about "Archives." And future M.A.P.s are impossible not to daydream about: a M.A.P. for prisons, gardens, earthquakes, architecture school, the moon...
For nearly four years now, without access to a good library, I've been looking for a poem called "Staines Waterworks" by the English poet Peter Redgrove; it's impossible to Google and, though I knew I'd actually photocopied it for myself nearly a decade ago, I had apparently lost the photocopies.
But, then, amidst the weird rolling peaks of recovery and amnesia that come with cleaning through your old books and papers in the family basement, I found a sheaf of old photocopies in a box about an hour ago – and inside it was "Staines Waterworks" by Peter Redgrove.
The poem is incredible for a variety of reasons; but its most basic impulse is to describe the water purification plant at Staines, west London (the hometown of Ali G), as a kind of previously overlooked alchemical process.
It is water "in its sixth and last purification" that "leaps from your taps like a fish," Redgrove writes.
- Rainwater gross as gravy is filtered from
Its coarse detritus at the intake and piped
To the sedimentation plant like an Egyptian nightmare,
For it is a hall of twenty pyramids upside-down
Balanced on their points each holding two hundred and fifty
Thousand gallons making thus the alchemical sign
For water and the female triangle.
Redgrove describes the movement of water through its various steps of industrial filtration, saying that it "reverberates... like some moon rolling / And thundering underneath [the] floors," passing through a "windowless hall of tides." It is a surrogate astronomy, surging through the replicant gravity of pumps and steel holding tanks.
The processed river water is then decanted, surveilled by automata, and "treated by poison gas, / The verdant chlorine which does not kill it." Beyond life, it is pushed through "anthracite beds," where Water meets Earth in an engineered encounter between the elements.
[Image: A wastewater treatment plant in Macao, via Wikimedia, unrelated to the poem discussed in this post].Later, in what Redgrove might call its fourth purification, the water at Staines flows past an underground structure that resembles "a castle," complete with "turrets / And doors high enough for a mounted knight in armour / To rein in." Dials here are read "as though [they are] the castle library."
- There are very few people in attendance,
All are men and seem very austere
And resemble walking crests of water in their white coats,
Hair white and long in honourable service.
Redgrove's poem – and I refer only to "Staines Waterworks" here, as I am not that familiar with his other work – shows the transformative power of description: give something an unexpected context and whole new, extraordinarily vibrant worlds can be created. This is more important, more lasting, and more interesting than much of what passes for architectural criticism today.
Finally, the baptized liquid at Staines reaches a point of biological and chemical clarity, after which it is re-introduced to the city through a labyrinth of pipework that extends in wild curlicues, a machinic Thames beneath western London. Scalded, filtered, purified, made artificially natural and ready for drinking, it is water born again for future uses.
This time it was somewhat less than average and it was possibly under new management. It was hard to tell – there were few signs of life and that which was apparent lacked motivation.
The receptionist had been trained by the SAS and was not about to put up with any nonsense from guests whose only role was to ruin her otherwise perfect people-free day.
We had reserved parking but were told on checking in that we could not park there on Saturday night as they were full.
“But we have reserved a parking spot” we said. “You can’t reserve parking” we were told (except that obviously a bunch of people had for Saturday night - and we had an email confirming our parking reservation).
So we did the only thing possible under the circumstances and parked there on Saturday night hoping that someone would come along at some stage and thump the receptionist because they could not get in.
Later I asked her for additional pillows but fled when she started reaching for the club she kept behind the counter.
The apartment idea turned out to be not one of my best (what a surprise) as it comprised two “rooms” separated by only 8 steps – and very creaky steps they were indeed. It was very hot so we had to leave the windows open and the bells damn near drove us mad.
What with the bells and us creeping up and down the creaking stairs all night to get to the bathroom Liz and Darryl were quite frazzled for most of the time.
However, on Saturday we all went to the Salzburger Schlosskonzerte. The concerts are held in the Marble Concert Hall of Mirabell Palace, (where the young Mozart himself was a frequent performer).
The concert was delicious. The performers – Luz Leskowitz and Konstantin Maslyuk - were sensational and the music was perfect – Mozart, Schubert and Franck. We clapped so hard they gave us three encores.
Schladming was delightful again and this time we had rooms overlooking the town. We were in adjoining double rooms and had a balcony on which to store the wine and drink it. There were – as usual – no fridges or air conditioning and it must get really hot in Summer.
We had great trouble finding a Vinothek in Schladming but eventually stumbled on a shop that sold local wines – some of which turned out to be very nice indeed - so we drank as much as we could and took some with us.
In Prague I had booked an apartment based on the photos and description on the Internet.
(Yes you can groan all you like but I am nothing if not a slow learner – and apparently I am also incredibly gullible).
The apartment proved to be a Soviet era monstrosity that had probably once been occupied by a very low level apparatchik with a personality disorder, a seriously dysfunctional family life and poor hygiene.
The ‘bathrooms” were in a row and consisted of a single toilet, a bathroom with toilet and shower and another room with a bath and what may have been a washing machine but could also have been a Soviet era motor vehicle with its wheels missing.
The toilet was so small that when I sat down I could press my nose against the door whilst remaining seated. I think it may have been designed by British Airways.
The second bathroom was uninhabitable because an entire family of ferrets had died recently and had been dropped into the adjacent light well to fester.
The walls were very thin and we were kept awake at night by a family of rats in the wall having a knees up – and also by the bloody bells from the church next door.
Late at night hordes of shrieking people exited bars and started throwing rubbish bins and each other through shop windows but – apart from the bells – which went all night – things quieted down about 5:00 AM.
Everyone was very nice and made encouraging noises to me ‘really – it’s not so bad – we can get rabies shots and be disinfected when we get home – and isn’t it good that the rats are having such a nice time!.’
The Grand Hotel in Cracow was a 5 Star hotel which I found at an incredible discount while searching the Internet for my customary disgusting hovel.
I hasten to add that I do not start out looking for disgusting hovels but always manage to gravitate towards these by making compromises about price and location – and of course being sucked in by the photo-shopped images on the websites.
The Grand partially redeemed me for my earlier efforts but the memories will linger with all of us for some time.
The worst part is not the hotel – it’s the look of disappointment on Cate’s face when she sees it for the first time.
“Oh – this is nice" she says and I know I have failed again.
I owe a huge thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday for the event in New York City – in particular, the speakers who added so much to the proceedings. Karen Van Lengen, Jace Clayton, Richard Mosse, Mason White, Patrick McGrath, and Lebbeus Woods all brought enthusiasm and interest to their participation, and Joseph Grima and the staff at Storefront for Art and Architecture were phenomenally generous, patient, and organized with their time – and likely to break-out huge spreads of Syrian food at a moment's notice. Alan Rapp, editor of The BLDGBLOG Book, was also on hand to offer some incredibly appreciated, and economically quite timely, thoughts on publishing, blogs, architectural speculation, and more.
It was also great simply to see so many old friends, going back nearly a decade and a half, and finally to meet people whose work I've written about on BLDGBLOG, in Dwell, and in publications elsewhere.
From future car engines sound-designed by DJ /rupture to a tomb for Albert Einstein, via childhoods lived in the shadows of psychiatric institutions, student "sound lounges," photographic surveys of remote air disasters, and infrastructural ice floes, it was a gigantic Saturday, and I was thrilled to be a part of it.
So thanks for coming out, thanks for participating, and thanks for saying hello!
I suspect it is a simple problem but as the operating system is in German it will still be some time before I know enough to get it working properly – by which time I am sure we will have parted company – and indeed it very nearly ended up going out the fourth floor window of the Templova Apartments in Prague.
Prague incidentally is quite wonderful but needs a good wash. The buildings are very dirty and next time I go there I am going to take a scrubbing brush and a bucket of soapy water.
The city is one of those to which the communists gave the benefit of their planning and organisational skills so large parts of it are pretty well stuffed – but are slowly on the mend.
But the roads! ‘Pedestrian Overpass’ is not something that was ever mentioned in the Roads Department (It would be wrong to call it a ‘Planning Department’ because clearly no planning ever took place).
Consequently you drive for 50 kilometers in and out of Prague along something that purports to be a main road and have to stop every 500 meters for a pedestrian to cross (to where? Are half his goats on the other side of the road?).
Hitler would hate what they have done to the Kehlstein (Eagle’s Nest). The original building is intact but is crawling with people selling tacky tourist stuff – to more tacky tourists than I have ever seen in the one spot before.
There is actually nothing to see apart from the view that Adolf had – and we were disappointed that it does not have the large outdoor area that you often see in documentaries with Adolf and Eva and their hangers on lolling about with Blondie.
This was clearly somewhere else – but where?
Anyway I bought an excellent book ‘History of the Eagle’s Nest’ and now know a lot about how it was built. I can even tell you the number of knives, spoons and forks that were supplied when it was first built. Send me an email if you need to know.
If you do go to Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgarten – don’t in fact go to the town of Berchtesgarten because it is not there. It is bloody miles away in a different place altogether – and is more difficult to find than you could possibly imagine.
We visited the Bone House at Hallstatt. It is in a ‘cave’ which is much smaller than my study. Entry cost €1.50. That is all you need to know.
We visited the Ice Caves outside Salzburg and these were ‘interesting’. You have to walk uphill for miles to get there and then inside the caves climb 900 steps. If you can stop gasping long enough there are some tremendous piles of ice to be seen and admired.
We visited the Salt Mines at Hallstatt. The best part was the wooden slides between levels that you sit astride and whiz down. There is a plastic dummy called ‘Sepp’ who tells you a story about the ‘Salt Man’ who may or may not (probably not) be thousands of years old – no one will ever know because they have lost him.
I am not sure why they need ‘Sepp’ given that the guide tells you everything else. It doesn’t add anything to the experience. There is also a part where they play music and project pictures of ancient animals and men onto the salt walls. There was no explanation of this incomprehensible interlude.
Hallstatt
Coming home we were diverted off the motorway just before Brno by police and ended up on a side road – from which we never recovered. It was the most excruciating trip we have ever had and we ended up coming into Wien on a one lane road – it took ages.
I discovered to day that this was because the Pope was in Brno trying to drum up some business from the Czechs – who are not much interested in that sort of palaver.
The Pope said that – according to the International Herald Tribune – “history had demonstrated the absurdities to which man descends when he excludes God from the horizon of his choices and actions”.
Excuse me? Clearly they did not teach history at Trainee Pope school.
There are obviously more fatuous statements than this made by Popes present and past – but this has to be up there with the best.
Here's an amazing story about a tapestry made from the silk of a million spiders from Madegascar!
The article includes a video, but I had problems viewing it for some reason. I did find the same video on YouTube below.
This is what was happening above my front door late last night before I went to bed. Camo girl and the californica male were still together (and I do mean together this time!) with a limbata male looking for a piece of the action.
8am today: confirmation that, yes, they were actually mating. The curious onlooker was gone.
An hour later, the californica male was gone too. (not eaten, just gone)
Camo girl is now in a mesh container, where I will feed her and keep her until she makes another egg case. If she does, will the second egg case have a different father than the first? One might think so, but how do we know that the sperm from the first mating doesn't block out or invalidate any subsequent sperm? And what about the fact that the first mating was with a male of a different species? It will be interesting to see what the nymphs look like next spring.
Stylized 3D voxel artwork.
More at Sevensheaven.nl
Mon - 6 miles from Soderburg TH to Arthurs TH and back. 45:10. (WCs)
Tues:
noon - 8 miles easy (1,650'). Horsetooth/Audra. No watch. (Vas)
pm - 7.5 miles track. One mile warm-up, then 800 @ 2:59 and 2x (1,200, 800, 400) with 200 rest between reps and 400 between sets: 4:05, 2:40, 1:12, 3:59, 2:36, 1:15. Two-mile warm down. Legs were still sore and fatigued from Jelm, but managed to push through mentally and physically for a solid workout. This was actually a confidence builder, all things considered.
Weds - 9 miles easy (800'). No watch. Soderburg - Arthurs - Overlook - Well Gulch - West Valley - Soderburg. There are still a few sections of trail in Lory that I haven't run, and I hit a pretty sweet 1.5 mile section today. The Overlook trail is totally overgrown and gnarly with some nice little climbers and as the name suggests it offers some great views of the reservoir. Legs are still slow, but should come around with easy miles through the next ten days before Blue Sky. (WCs)
Thurs - 9 miles (1,500'). 1:19. Bobcat Ridge (Ginny - Powerline - Valley). Been a while since I've been out to Bobcat. I was reminded once again that I need to run more often there. The climb up Ginny trail is one of the mellowest around. The sweet, curvy, rocky singletrack is just a pleasure to run. Love it. (Vas)
Fri - 6 easy on Valley loop from Soderburg. No watch. (WCs)
Sat -
am 11 miles (2,000') w/3.4 hard up Towers (30:25). Ran from home with Eric, met Steve and Frank at Soderburg TH, ran hard to Towers then easy back home via Westridge - Horsetooth. (CLs)
pm 5 miles (1,600'). Hiked Horsetooth with Dana and Lisa, and 30lbs of Alistair on my back.
Sun - 13 miles easy (750') on Blue Sky Half course with Dan T and Brian T.
Total : 69.5 miles running & 5 hiking (8,300')
Slightly heavier mileage than planned, but most of it was pretty relaxed. Legs have been feeling good second half of the week. It felt good to hammer a hard run up Towers on Saturday and take over 90 seconds off my PR from June. All systems seem to be go for a good run at Blue Sky next weekend. Track on Tuesday this week and then nothing but super easy runs on the Blue Sky course.
Finally, just before 4:pm, Camo girl and her lover finished mating. I checked on them and found the male on the porch steps. Still in one piece, ready to fly away. I held him for a moment, then let him go.
He took off across the yard and landed on a bush. A mockingbird was nearby and noticed him, but I ran across the yard after him, and shooed the bird away. Then I put Mr. Mantis in a little cage to keep him safe from the birds until after dark.
Meanwhile, within minutes of male #1's departing, #2 (the californica) hopped right aboard for a little snuggling. He couldn't mate with her now, as she carried the sperm of the other, but he held on tight anyway.
Audio
Stephen Hitchell (Echospace, Intrusion, Variant) Live Set for: On The Wire: www.echospacedetroit.com
cv313 "Space" (Unreleased Live Mix) Echospace
Intrusion "Untitled" (Unreleased) Echospace
Intrusion "Untitled" (Unreleased) Echospace
Intrusion "Untitled" (Unreleased) Echospace
Intrusion "Untitled" (Unreleased) Echospace
Echospace "Spatial Dimension" (cv313 Unreleased Live Mix)
Lofi Soundsystem "De Lion's Den" Intrusion
Intrusion "Kingston's Burning Dub"
Kevin Nutt - CaseQuarter Records & Sinners Crossroads (wfmu)
Evangelistic Soul Seekers - What Can I Tell Him Now (Gospel)
Rev Izear Espie - Radio Broadcast excerpt
Mighty Gospel Imperials - I've Got Jesus (Maeberry)
Echoes of Zion - In the Wilderness (Smash)
Hollis Family - Old Zion (Hodgeville)
Elder Billy Hall - There Are Some Folk Out There (radio braodcast excerpt)
Sensational Golden Stars of Chicago - I've Been Born Again (HLF)
Echoes of Glory - You Can't Change Me (Su-Ann)
Kelly Brothers - Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray (Federal)
Isaiah Owens - You Without Sin Cast the First Stone (CaseQuarter)
Rev Izear Espie - Spiritual Workshop (radio broadcast excerpt)
Joseph Johnson and the CBS Trumpeteers - The Mighty Number (HSE)
John Boswell and the True Sounding Boswellettes - The Very Last Mile (radio broadcast excerpt)
Rev Drayton - By and By (C.O.G.I.C.)
Miles Specials - I Won't Have to Cross Jordan Alone (Gospel)
Jubilee Hummingbirds - Will the Lord Be With Me (Designer)
Voices of Jordan - I Found the Lord (ARK)
CaseQuarter: http://www.aumfidelity.com/casequarter.html
WFMU: http://www.wfmu.org/
Chinese contemporary music mix by Yan Jun (Sub Jam)
Li Jianhong - Character of Dog (Bird, 2PI Records)
Punkgod - Revenge for People (Youth, WWRecords)
Xiao He - MTV Play (The Performance of Identity, Maybe Mars)
Wang Fan - Ana-Ray (unrelease)
WANG Changcun - Side One Cut 2 (The Klone Concerts, Post-Concrete)
Li Zenghui - Soprano Saxophone Two Minutes Forty-Two (Noise is Free, Kwanyin Records)
FM3 + Wu Junde + Guo Long + Yan Jun - live at Waterland Kwanyin no.13 (unrelease)
Huan Qing - Moon City Moon Light 1 (A Piece of Copper, Little Bar)
Zafka - Yong@He (Yong@He, Post-Concrete)
web site: http://www.yanjun.org
schedule: http://www.myspace.com/yanjunyanjun
label: http://www.subjam.org
A couple of lookalike bachelors from the other night.
Fuzzy face. Must have just eaten a porch moth.
Yesterday, I pulled Camo Girl out of the rosebush and stuck her on the porch, where she hung out all day, while the males all left. But after dark, some came back...
This morning: Camo girl mating with one of the S. limbata males.
Last time out, there were six of us running Towers in search of a fastest known time. That day, Eric Bergman shot up in an impressive 30:47, setting a mark on the 3.4 mile, 1,800 foot grinder more than four minutes faster than Dan Turk's previous best. I was more than a minute off the pace in 31:56, but had the excuse that I was on the back end of a 500+ mile month (there's always an excuse).
About a week ago I got an email from Steve Folkerts stating that he had shaved 11 seconds of the FKT, posting a new mark of 30:36. As soon as I got that email, I was motivated to get a group together for a shot at 30 minutes.
So this morning Eric was back as was Frank Antonelli and another local speedster, Steve Saleeby. The four of us met at around 8:00 and kind of lingered at the trailhead, procrastinating on the task at hand, knowing that 30 minutes of self-inflicted pain lay ahead. Eventually, we summoned the gumption to get the grind underway and headed out on the short .45 mile connector to Towers from Soderburg, making the turn at 2:40. From there the real work began and much like last time out, Eric assumed the lead. I hit the Stout intersection at 8:30 and the second Herrington intersection at 16:45.
In June, it was evident that Eric was stronger than me and barring a blow up I wasn't going to reel him in; today the gap was a steady five to ten seconds with Eric pulling ahead a bit on the super-steep stuff and me catching back up as the grade eased.
By the Mill Creek intersection at 3 miles or so, the gap was still the same and by the end of the short stretch of slight downhill to the last grind, I was pretty much on Eric's shoulder. The clock read 27:07 as I glanced at it, with maybe .4 of a mile to go. Unfortunately, that last .4 of a mile was straight uphill to the summit. I knew I was going to PR, and possibly break Steve's time, but was unsure if I could overtake Eric or drop under 30. As it turned out, Eric was able to rebuild his cushion on the last grind, topping out in 30:15, shaving another 20 seconds off the FKT, with me 10 seconds back in 30:25.
Both of us went under Steve F's time, but we both also came up short of breaking the 30-minute barrier. Steve Saleeby came in under 32 minutes and Frank at around 33 minutes.
The sub-30 is only a matter of time, the question is who's gonna get it?
So you thought you used to play 2D games. If you had taken a look behind the screen, then you'd have seen this.
The featured game is Space Invaders from Taito and Midway, a classic 8-bit video game for the arcades, released in 1978.
More at Sevensheaven.nl
Sorry, no pictures. It's late and I just don't feel like messing with them, but I just wanted to report that there are 4 male mantids hanging around my porch light right now. 3 green S. Limbata and 1 brown S. californica. No ladies in sight. The californica camo-girl is in the bushes in my yard though. I saw her this morning. No telling where that big wild limbata is, though. I just hope one of these fellows finds her and lives to do the deed so she can lay eggs in my yard.
It's been an extremely eventful month since Edible Geography and BLDGBLOG teamed up to announce "Landscapes of Quarantine," an eight-week, intensive, independent design studio to be hosted this fall in New York City; its brief is to create original and thought-provoking design projects that explore the spatial implications of quarantine. The results of the studio will then be the subject of an exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture in spring 2010.
The practice of quarantine extends far beyond questions of epidemic control and pest containment strategies to touch on urban planning, geopolitics, international trade, ethics, immigration, and more. In the early twentieth century, for example, "quarantine lines in Africa offered a clear and politically useful demarcation for new 'international' borders between Sudan and Egypt," as historian Alison Bashford points out in her book Medicine at the Border.
From Boccaccio's Decameron and disinfected mail protocols to bio-secure airlocks, plant smuggling, and Matt Leacock's Pandemic boardgame, quarantine is a fertile territory for architects and designers to explore.
You can read more about the studio here.
Over the past few weeks, we have been blown away by the quality (and even quantity) of applicants interested in the studio. Indeed, narrowing the pool down to a manageable group of participants has been a very tricky process. We have been concerned all along with achieving a usefully diverse mix of backgrounds, media, and individual strategies of approach, while holding numbers low enough that the studio can still function as a weekly discussion group.
We are now excited to announce a truly amazing list of participants:
- —Joe Alterio — Illustrator, Animator, and Comic Book Artist (http://joealterio.com/)
- Joe Alterio is an illustrator, animator, comic creator, and artist, interested in narrative structure, collective creativity, and the physical manifestations of story-telling. Joe has been at the forefront on using new technology to push forward the graphic narrative medium, from his early 2004 mobile comic The Basic Virus to his most recent work with Robots and Monsters. Alterio's work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, Boing Boing, Drawn!, The BLDGBLOG Book, and many other publications.
[Image: Joe Alterio, from Robots and Monsters].- —Elizabeth Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse – Artists, smudge studio (http://smudgestudio.org/)
- Elizabeth Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse are co-directors of smudge studio, a collaborative, non-profit media arts studio based in Brooklyn. Ellsworth is Associate Provost of Curriculum and Learning and Professor of Media Studies at The New School. Her recent book, Places of Learning: Media, Architecture, Pedagogy is about the aesthetics of mediated learning environments. Kruse is an artist, independent scholar, and freelance graphic designer.
—Scott Geiger — Writer, Architecture Research Office (http://www.aro.net/)
- Scott Geiger is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for fiction. A contributor to magazines such as The Believer and Conjunctions, Geiger also writes for Architecture Research Office, a 2009 Finalist for the National Design Award for Architecture. As a Cleveland native, schemes to rescue America’s postindustrial cities stalk his work.
—Yen Ha and Michi Yanagishita — Architects, Front Studio (http://www.frontstudio.com/) and "ladies who lunch" (http://lunchstudio.blogspot.com/)
- Yen Ha and Michi Yanagishita are principals of Front Studio Architects, named one of the “world’s 50 hottest young architectural practices” by Wallpaper magazine. Their work has been featured internationally in Icon, AD: Cities of Dispersal, and the New York Times, and it was recently featured in the London Yields exhibition at the Building Centre in London. The Invisible Gate, their competition entry in the 2005 Gdansk International Outdoor Art Gallery, is currently under construction.
[Image: Front Studio, Farmadelphia].- —Katie Holten — Artist (http://www.katieholten.com/)
- Katie Holten has exhibited widely in Europe and the United States, and, in 2003, she represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale. She currently has a solo exhibition at The Bronx Museum of the Arts and a public artwork installed in the Bronx, called the Tree Museum. Holten was born in Dublin, Ireland, and is now based in New York City.
—Jeffrey Inaba — Architect, INABA Projects (http://www.inabaprojects.com/), Director, C-LAB (http://c-lab.columbia.edu/), and Editor, Volume Magazine (http://volumeproject.org/)
- Jeffrey Inaba is the Director of C-Lab, an architecture, policy and communications think tank at Columbia University‘s GSAPP, and he is Features Editor of Volume Magazine. With Rem Koolhaas, Inaba co-directed the Harvard Project on the City, a research program investigating contemporary urbanism and planning worldwide. Before starting INABA, he was a principal of AMO, the research consultancy founded by Koolhaas. Inaba has also taught at UCLA, Harvard, and SCI-Arc, and he lectures worldwide.
—Ed Keller — Architect and Filmmaker, AUM Studio (http://www.aumstudio.org/)
- Ed Keller is a designer, professor, writer, “media architect,” and former professional rock climber. He is co-founder with Carla Leitao of AUM Studio, an architecture and new media firm based in New York and Lisbon. Keller is an Associate Professor at Parsons School of Design, and he has taught at Columbia's GSAPP, SCI-Arc, Pratt, the University of Pennsylvania, and more. Keller's work has been featured in ANY, AD, Wired, Metropolis, Assemblage, among others.
—Mimi Lien — Set Designer (http://www.mimilien.com/)
- Mimi Lien is a designer of sets and environments for theater, dance, and opera. After studying architecture at Yale University, she began making paintings, installations, objects, and designs for performance. Her work has been seen at The Joyce and The Kitchen, and she is a recipient of a 2007-2009 NEA/TCG Career Development Program award.
[Image: Mimi Lien, from a set design for Samuel Beckett's Endgame].- —Richard Mosse — Photographer (http://www.richardmosse.com/)
- Richard Mosse is an Irish photographer based in New York. He travels extensively with the assistance of a Leonore Annenberg Fellowship in the Performing and Visual Arts. Recent forays have taken him to Gaza, the Yukon Territories, and Iraq. Mosse has a forthcoming solo show at Jack Shainman Gallery, opening on November 19th, and new video work will be exhibited at Barcelona's Ca L'Arenas, in a year-long exhibition cycle, investigating war and its representations.
[Image: Richard Mosse, ruined swimming pool at the palace of Uday Hussein, Jebel Makhoul, Iraq].- —Daniel Perlin — Sound Designer, Perlin Studios (http://danielperlin.net/)
- Daniel Perlin is a New York-based artist and sound designer. Perlin operates across media, creating video, objects, installations and performances. His work has been heard at Chelsea Art Museum, the Whitney Biennial 2006, D’Amelio Terras, TN Probe Tokyo, Temporary Contemporary Gallery, the Centre Pompidou, and BCA (Beijing), as well as in such films as Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, Errol Morris’s Fog Of War and Phil Morrison’s Junebug.
—Thomas Pollman — Architect, NYC Office of Emergency Management (http://www.nyc.gov/oem and http://www.thomaspollman.com/)
- Thomas Pollman is an architect and amateur cartographer based in New York City. He currently works in the Geographic Information Systems Division at the NYC Office of Emergency Management, where he works to enhance situational awareness for first responders through the deployment of geospatial technologies. Pollman is a registered architect in the State of New York.
—Kevin Slavin — Urban Games Designer, Area/Code (http://areacodeinc.com/)
- Kevin Slavin is managing director and co-founder of Area/Code. Working with media companies, museums, brands, and foundations around the world, Area/Code focuses on games with computers in them. Their work frequently extends game systems into the real world—and the other way around. Prior to founding Area/Code, Slavin was an artist and an advertising executive.
—Brian Slocum — Architect, Polshek Partnership Architects (http://www.polshek.com/)
- Brian Slocum is the recipient of a 2008 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts for ad hoc infrastructures, a design research project focusing on the deployment of scaffolding and alternatives for its spatial exploitation. Slocum was a contributor to Pamphlet Architecture #23 and is currently an Associate at Polshek Partnership Architects.
—Amanda Spielman — Graphic Designer, Graphomanic (http://www.graphomanic.net/) and SpotCo (http://www.spotnyc.com/)
- Amanda Spielman is a graphic designer at SpotCo, a New York-based design studio and ad agency that specializes in creating artwork for Broadway theater. Previously, she spent seven years in editorial design. Her work has appeared in The Design Entrepreneur, Fingerprint, Graphis, STEP, SPD, and metropolismag.com. Spielman graduated from the MFA Design program at the School of Visual Arts, and holds a BA from Vassar College.
[Image: Amanda Spielman, Island of New Ephemera].- —Lebbeus Woods — Architect, Author, and Educator (http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/ and http://lebbeuswoods.net/)
- Lebbeus Woods is an architect and educator. He is co-founder of RIEA.ch, an institute devoted to the advancement of experimental architectural thought and practice, and author of Pamphlet Architecture #6 and #15, among countless other articles and books. His works are held in private and public collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. Woods has received the Progressive Architecture Award for Design Research, the American Institute of Architects Award for Design, and the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design. He is currently Professor of Architecture at The Cooper Union in New York City.
[Image: Lebbeus Woods, from a film treatment for Underground Berlin].It's hard to overstate how honored we are to work with practitioners of this caliber; we look forward to eight solid weeks of inspiring conversations and even more interesting work.
Expect frequent updates throughout the fall – in particular, during the week of October 5th, when we will begin to publish, both on Edible Geography and on BLDGBLOG, a series of original interviews with quarantine historians, public health policy experts, biosafety consultants, and more, placing quarantine into its unpredictably extensive context.
By making the studio discussions and our own research material public, we hope that anyone who has been inspired by the studio brief – and by the subject matter of quarantine – will be inspired to pursue their own projects, outside the necessarily limited walls of the studio.
I clearly have a great many things to say to have reached 100 blog posts.
Two beautiful ladies Lauren and Danielle nominated me for the Honest Scrap Award which I am delighted to accept.
I now need to tell you ten things you may not know about me.
1. I just signed up for bootcamp. I blame Bec entirely for this. I will of course, keep you all posted. My first session is this Friday. If I don't post after this,as in, ever post again, you will know the session didn't go well.
2. I love cooking, but at the moment I have only 3 recipes on permanent rotation. I am determined to use this weekend to get some great new recipes into action.
3. I am a worrywart. I worry people won't enter my first ever giveaway. So you should. To make me stop worrying. Click here and leave a comment. Please
4. I am an awesome declutterer. Deadly, in fact. Everyone around me hates it.
5. I work two evenings a week during term time.
6. I have a crush on Rob Thomas and love his song "Diamonds falling down."Click here to watch the acoustic version. I dare you not to like it. My other favourite song which I play on my iphone when the hill gets too hard is "Hope is rising" by Downhere.
7. I stand in awe of the courage of my friends. I hear many stories and I feel so privileged that people share them. At the moment this family are heavy on my heart. Whether you are religious or not please keep them in your thoughts and/or prayers. And stop by and let them know you are thinking of them. Grief can be so isolating. A simple comment can help people feel connected.
8. I am already planning my Christmas wish list. I, am. that. shallow. If my brothers are reading this, even if you can't come home for Christmas, you can still send me a gift. Thanks ;)
9. I dream of winning the Lottery and spend many happy minutes thinking about how I would share my winnings. So far, no luck. I remain optimistic as ever.
10. At the moment I am in the throes of researching a joint project with my husband. I love having new and exciting things to get my teeth into. Whilst I miss working, I don't miss the stress of getting organised each day to actually get there.
Now my nominees for this award are:
1) Catherine, quite possibly one of the most gifted writers I have ever read.
2. Liz, my friend IRL who also writes book reviews. She's simply wonderful.
3. Bec is one of the first blogs I started reading. I've been with her for all her IVF cycles and I swear this time is going to be successful Raw and honest, she is a special girl. xxx
4. The unproductive one. A fellow Perth girl doing the hard yards, and sharing as she does it.
5. Calliope is a blog I read but don't comment on often. I really enjoy the way she uses words, which sounds weird,but when you read her blog, you'll see what I mean.
6. The Chief, because she is. The Chief I mean.
There were beautiful flowers
There was a radiant bride
There were names written in the sand
Somewhere I know my darling aunt, godmother and mother to the groom was watching the events of this day unfold. We miss her so much. I know she would have been so proud of her children on the day.
And I know she was around, because she organised this:
Thank you so much Carly for coming and capturing some of the many precious moments of this day xxxxx
I had been watching one particular flower bed at the arboretum hoping to find a crab spider, since I found one there last year. It's always good to be familiar with the plants and flowers, and I have learned over many years what bugs to look for where, and when. Still, just because I see a bug somewhere once, there's no guarantee I'll ever see it there again.
But I keep looking anyway.
This afternoon, I got lucky. A beautiful female, poised to grab her next meal: any insect that might land on her flower.
I stopped by to look at her again about an hour later. This time she got lucky, too.
But when you think about it, there was more than just luck in the spider's favor. She is perfectly adapted to the lifestyle of blending in and waiting patiently. A quick grab, a deadly bite, and it's all over for the unlucky skipper.
It's sorta like throwing the baby out with the bath water, except you would never really want to do that with a baby. But I needed to sweep away all the webs from around my mailbox, and in the process, I swept out the spider along with it. I did take a few moments to admire it before I relocated it to another part of the yard.
See 'em there? Under the porch light? Geometer moths. They're practically twins.
thing 1
thing 2
Some things to read on a Monday afternoon:
—Architect Bjarke Ingels of BIG dominates the stage at TED. I was able to walk around BIG's recently completed Mountain Dwellings in Copenhagen the other week, as part of an amazing drive around what felt like all of Denmark with Johan Hybschmann and Nicola Twilley. The building's now-famous parking garage, we suggested only half-jokingly, would make an amazing venue for an architecture conference: its terraced parking decks overlook and focus upon a kind of inadvertent auditorium. Drive-in films, drive-in lectures, drive-in pirate radio concerts – it's too fantastic a space not to try.
—Lebbeus Woods offers a glimpse of a film he outlined, designed, and later co-wrote with Olive Brown, called Underground Berlin. It involves a disillusioned architect, a missing twin brother, neo-Nazi activities in the divided city, metallic underground tunnels connecting east to west, and "a top-secret underground research station rumored to be somewhere beneath the very center of Berlin." There are even rogue planetary scientists investigating "the tremendous, limitless geological forces active in the earth." Woods's graphic presentation of the idea is incredible, and absolutely worth a very long look. Over on his own blog, Mark Lamster responds to the sight with an appreciation.
—Meanwhile, farmers in the UK have been asked "to implement measures which would reverse the UK-wide decline in skylark numbers." This means shaving small rectangular plots into the midst of productive cropland, because "rectangular uncropped patches in cereal fields allow skylarks to forage when crops become too dense for them." We will prepare our landscapes for other species.
—Is your iPod maxing out the U.S. electrical grid? Perhaps it doesn't matter: New Scientist looks at how to short-circuit the grid altogether – and would-be saboteurs the world over are still taking furious notes. Alternatively, just follow the fantastic On The Grid series by Adam Ryder and Brian Rosa to see where the electrical network really goes.
—New Scientist also scanned beneath the south polar glaciers to find "Antarctica's hidden plumbing" – and, as it happens, "the continent's secret water network is far more dynamic than we thought."
—Ruairi Glynn's new book, Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands is now out; it documents Glynn's related exhibition.
—Moving online, New York's Architectural League has redesigned its website – joining the Canadian Centre for Architecture, who also redesigned their own site earlier this summer.
—Back in England, the BBC reports that pigs are being used "to help restore" parts of Worcestershire's historic Wyre Forest. This comes at the same time that Cairo has realized that its absurd slaughter of every pig in the city last spring in order to guard against swine flu has led to an extraordinary garbage crisis. "The pigs used to eat tons of organic waste," the New York Times reports. "Now the pigs are gone and the rotting food piles up on the streets of middle-class neighborhoods like Heliopolis and in the poor streets of communities like Imbaba." Meanwhile, Edible Geography points our attention to the fascinating labyrinth of subsidiary products made from the bodies of dead pigs; welcome to "Pig Futures."
—On io9 Matt Jones suggests that "the city is a battlesuit for surviving the future," and he cites Archigram, Kevin Slavin, Dan Hill, Warren Ellis, Adam Greenfield, the architecture of sci-fi, William Gibson, and much more to make his point. Speaking of Warren Ellis, Icon magazine recently published a long conversation between Warren, Francois Roche, and myself; you can check it out on Flickr.
—Were artificial hills, henges, and monumental earthworks a kind of "prehistoric sat nav" installed across the British landscape? And does this same question seem to be asked at least once every few years?
—The 2009 Solar Decathlon approaches.
—Gramazio & Kohler's Mobile Fabrication Unit will arrive soon at New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture. Between October 5 and October 27, it will be busy assembling "the first temporary public installation to be built on site by an industrial robot in New York." Then, however, on Halloween, it will become possessed by incomprehensible forces from the Precambrian depths of the city, and, in a horrifying night of thunderous brickwork, it will wall off the island of Manhattan forever... Necessitating a script for Ghostbusters III as written by Lebbeus Woods.
More links soon.
After nearly three years and efforts by more than 51,000 people worldwide, Netflix today awarded the Netflix Prize and $1 million to a team of seven engineers, statisticians and researchers from Austria, Canada, Israel and the U.S.
The team "BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos" leaderboard met face-to-face for the first time this morning before a news conference at which Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt named them winners, draped Olympic-size "gold" medals around their necks and handed them a check for $1 million. Their collaborative entry had taken place entirely over the net.
Moments later Neil announced details about Netflix Prize 2.
The contest ended in July with moments of real drama. Engineers at Netflix watched in amazement as the contest came down to the last few minutes when the winning team just edged out "The Ensemble," many of whose members were present at the New York award ceremony.
Netflix Prizemasters Stan Lanning and Jon Sanders have been extremely pleased how participants openly offered advice, information, ideas, and even libraries of code on the Prize Forum pages. The final result is a benefit to Netflix members as the movie predictions we make for you will be twice as good as before.
While the final curtain has come down on the Prize, Neil lifted the curtain a bit on the upcoming new Netflix Prize 2 contest. It will focus more on helping customers early in their experience with Netflix, drawing on many more sources of data to try to find just the right movies.
For more information on the winning entry for the original Prize and the new Netflix Prize 2 contest check out http://www.netflixprize.com.
Mon - 8 miles easy (1,650'). No watch. Felt ridiculously tired on this run.
Tues:
- Noon. 6 miles easy. No watch. Soderburg to Arthurs and back. (Vas)
- PM. 6 miles track. Two mile warm-up, then 6x800 (2:43, 2:35, 2:40, 2:41, 2:40, 2:37) and one mile warm down. Still feeling pretty tired, but managed to put in a decent effort.
Weds - 10.5 miles easy. 1:28. From Soderburg to Lory Visitor Center and back. Still feeling tired, but better 20 minutes in. (Vas)
Thurs:
- Noon. 8 miles easy (1,650'). No watch. Finally feeling like the fatigue fog is starting to lift ... for now. (Vas).
- PM. 6 miles easy. 50:00. Soderburg to Arthur's and back. (WCs)
Fri - 11 miles easy. Soderburg to Lory Visitor's Center and back. No watch. (WCs)
Sat - 13 miles (2,500'). 2.5 mile warm up, then 10.5 up and down Jelm. (CLs)
Sun - 6 miles recovery.
Total: 75 miles (5,800')
Running a hard downhill hurts - the next day. My original plan for Sunday was to get up early and knock out 20 miles on Blue Sky before the family was out of bed, but I woke up to my alarm feeling very stiff, so promptly turned it off and rolled over. The rest of the day I was running errands/doing chores thinking about maybe getting the run done 'later'. With an hour of sunlight left, I finally found some motivation and got out for a six-mile recovery run. A bit disappointing, but I really don't think I would have gotten much out of going long, other than the need for more recovery time through the week.
So with three races that I want to run hard coming up over the next five weeks (Blue Sky, Silent Trails, Dublin) I have decided to start my taper for Dublin this week, which means I'll be focused on recovery and key workouts and not sweating the mileage. Highly unconventional to start a marathon taper five weeks out, but with this crazy run of races that I have set up for myself, I see no other option.
Blue Sky is shaping up to be quite the race, and out of the three is the one I am most focused on. However, at Silent Trails I would really like to give Michael Huntington a good race in our tie-breaker in the Laramie Triple Crown (unless someone else shows up and beats us both). I'm still planning on giving the sub-2:40 a go at Dublin, but at this stage think it's a long shot, with 2:42/43 being a more realistic goal.
However things play out over the next five weeks, it's already been a great season for me and if I can eek out a win at BS or ST, or meet time goals at Dublin, it will be gravy.
First thing tomorrow morning, I will be presenting at Ruairi Glynn's Digital Architecture London conference, alongside Neil Spiller, Murray Fraser, and Alan Penn. Our topic is "Digital Architecture & Space."
Anticipating a day filled with formal discussions, I'll be speaking – albeit briefly – about what might be called the psychiatric effects of simulated environments. Specifically referring to the U.S. military's Virtual Iraq project, I want to bring into the discussion the idea that "digital space" can be used for therapeutic purposes. 
To quote at length from a fascinating article in The New Yorker about the use of virtual reality as a treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder:
- P.T.S.D. is precipitated by a terrifying event or situation—war, a car accident, rape, planes crashing into the World Trade Center—and is characterized by nightmares, flashbacks, and intrusive and uncontrollable thoughts, as well as by emotional detachment, numbness, jumpiness, anger, and avoidance. [A recently returned soldier from Iraq's] doctor prescribed medicine for his insomnia and encouraged him to seek out psychotherapy, telling him about an experimental treatment option called Virtual Iraq, in which patients worked through their combat trauma in a computer-simulated environment. The portal was a head-mounted display (a helmet with a pair of video goggles), earphones, a scent-producing machine, and a modified version of Full Spectrum Warrior, a popular video game.
Put another way, what if your renderings cured Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
With only a slight shift in emphasis, could you produce a building project that used the techniques of digital architecture to create an elaborate spatial memory system – a kind of RHINO mnemonics – that neurologically stimulated the act of remembering?
Of course, the use of architectural space as a road toward mental self-improvement, so to speak, is not at all new. A memory palace, for instance, is the art of remembering something by associating it with specific spatial details in a fantasy architectural structure, and this idea goes back at least to Cicero.
So is there a way to discuss the impact of digital design on architecture, with all of its implications of cinematic immersion and real-time animation, without getting stuck on questions of form? How might we discuss digital architecture's impacts on things like memory – and can we do so in the context of experimental psychiatry and so-called exposure therapy?
I should add that each speaker will only be presenting for about five minutes – so the above remarks will be quite short, before turning into a much more general panel discussion.
Today is International Rock Flipping Day, and I was out early in search of some good "look-unders" but I wasn't too thrilled with what I found.
A colony of ants, suddenly exposed, scurries to protect their babies (the little white things). I can't tell you how many rocks have ants under them, or how uninterested I am in them. These are Argentine ants, and they are everywhere, all year long. There was a nice little video someone took of what appears to be a similar frenzy of exposed ants. You have, maybe, 5 seconds before you have ants running up your legs. Time to put the rock back and move on.
A few isopods.
This sowbug killer spider has good "ick" value, but still nothing I haven't seen a bunch of times over.
I don't know if I'll get a chance to do any more look-unders today. It's too hot out right now.
In the meantime, check out other peoples' findings on Flickr, and also on the Wanderin' Weeta Blog