March 2008 – RectorSite

CUT: Revealing the Section

An exhibition at SF MOMA
Exhibit curator Henry Urbach, the head of SFMOMA’s Architecture and Design Department assembled architectural section drawings of a number of buildings including the Castro Theater and the SFMOMA building itself for a current exhibit at the museum. Art works dealing with the third dimension of buildings were included, as well.

The most thought provoking, for me, was a work by Peter Wegner entitled Buildings Made of Sky.

All these pictures are upside down.
What’s up with that?

Mr. Wegner is interested in the solid of Manhattan skyscrapers only as a creator of the void. When the image is turned upside down, the void becomes a skyscraper of sky. Continue reading “CUT: Revealing the Section” →

[ology]

Who is David and Who is Goliath? Last year Greg Oden helped pound the Buckeye’s basketball team into the paint of the NCAA tournament; this year the Oden-less OSU hoopsters will be watching at home. Therefore I would understand if there is much less enthusiasm for this group going head-to-head on brackets as we did last year thanks to the NY Times new-fangled and easy to use tool that lets us compete as a group, as well as to measure ourselves against the larger world, including their own sports writers. The Times is offering this feature again this year, and I thought I’d roll out the ball again to see who picks it up.

I should be more interested in this year’s tournament because the hated Tar Heels are the top-ranked team, while Duke has beaten them once, and been highly ranked during the regular season, but then lost to the upstart Clemson Tigers in the ACC Tourney, so they do not have the highly regarded “MO” going into this thing. Luckily they will be playing near-by (in Washington DC) so should have little to distract them through the first round, but that’s no guarantee that their very young and very small team won’t get bounced early as has unfortunately happened in the past few years. I also wonder if Coach K has been distracted a bit lately by his USA Basketball responsibilities. I know little else about the rest of the tournament teams, having only watch portions of a few games in the last few weeks, though I did get to glimpse the much hyped Mayo kid at USC, playing the Twin Towers of Stanford (USC won comfortably). I look forward to finding out what the Beasley wonderkind has done to deserve his hype; and I’m glad that I won’t have to watch Joakim Noahs public paroxysms of pleasure after every layup…

Here is the link to the game site.

Our Group Name is “RectorSite” (how original…)

Our Group Code is “991ec2a2278MwfK007sLrp3M7l1EE23yA” which you enter into “Enter Group Code” field on the “Groups and Top Scorers” page. Needless to say, you must be a registered reader of the NYT website to play — there shouldn’t be any problem there.

It’s a simple process; perhaps I’ll see you there.

Big City Food

Alison and I had a nice time in NYC last week, overlapping for Thursday night through Saturday morning. In between we had a lot of good food — expensive and cheap. As an East Coast Guy I am always aware of NYC’s boast about serving the nations best food. But having lived in SF and now returning there periodically, it’s hard for me to not counter that the Bay Area is truly America’s melting pot of culinary excellence. And recently London has begun to challenge both of these cities on it’s culinary merits in my and Alison’s world…I was very mindful of these ideas on this trip because we planned to visit Babbo which has achieved a great deal attention lately. But we had other experiences that were just as thought provoking. Ultimately we ate well, which is always the goal, but following are my notes on the specifics.
Continue reading “Big City Food” →

“Quote Wall”

“You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”

David Lloyd George, as recalled by Nikita Khrushchev in Secret Tapes 1968

“Too often we relied on administrative means rather than permitting events to develop in a creative direction.”

Nikita Khrushchev, Secret Tapes 1968

“Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.”

John Houston, playing the role of Noah Cross, a down-home, wealthy old tycoon, in the film, Chinatown, 1974

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker, 1980

“You can’t get what you want,
Until you know what you want…”

Joe Jackson, from the album Body and Soul, 1984 Continue reading ““Quote Wall”” →

One Thing & Another

One thing leads to another.

1. Wendell, contemplating a trip to Israel, asked me for info on Jerusalem.
2. Got out my Jerusalem Journals.
3. Got interested.
4. Found what was on the computer incomplete. (During my two periods between jobs, I transcribed many of the Journals into the computer.)
5. Looked for originals.
6. Found Allied Van Lines boxes undisturbed since our move 15 years ago.
7. Found hundreds of snapshots, Olan Mills photos, stuff.

8. Sorted, keep, send, toss.
9. Sent packs of photos to Eric, Brian, Matt.

(ain’t Eric cute?)

10. Yesterday, I found more photos.
11. Still haven”t found the Journal originals.

Month: March 2008