A Momentary Synchronization

Tower of Winds, Tokyo

I looked up from my desk this evening to see a handful of blue lights in the neatly stacked windows of the apartment building that sits across the street. Deep blue, as though the world was experiencing a collective computer crash. The color changed and I realized it was the Grammies. For a few hours, the building changed colors to reflect the shared culture of this consumerist happening.

I’m reminded of Toyo Ito’s Tower of Winds and its synesthetic translation of Tokyo’s Hubbub. And I’m reminded of my external hard drives. They have a large blue light on the front that signifies that they are on. So too do blue flickers in windows; they  indicate that the households are turned on as well.

When a concert isn’t just that

reno-concert-1

Last night began week five of this summer’s Fort Reno concerts. The annual series of musical triptychs, which take place in an improvised venue in the Tenleytown park, may be the most urbane happening of any place in DC. Amid the mild yellow-orange light of a summer evening, a small local band plays and a few hundred people of various ages watch while they sit on the grass. But beyond that and behind the stage, those less interested in the concert partake in all kinds of leisurely activity. Really, I’ve never seen the park so well used.