But back wen DB were just getting started, a depraved genius named Zak Smith managed to produce illustrations of each page of the book Gravity’s Rainbow. Somehow, he managed to sit down and produce 760 works of art, in multiple media, depicting pretty much everything that happens in the book, in some way or another. I haven’t had a look at the whole thing, but the sheer amount of creativity would make an edition of Thomas Pynchon’s book with these drawings a worthwhile purchase.
And also terms of good (early) works, Metropolis has nicely been hosting blog posts about Yale’s First-year house project, where they also design-build a house for a local rent-to-own program.
The Fojol Brothers of Merlindia, a quartet of locally grown twentysomethings with a secret indian chef, are out to revolutionize the street food scene in DC. Along with Ali Baba’s, and the upcoming Sweetflow truck, they’re up against DC’s longstanding tradition of awful, awful street vendors. As one (I think it was Ababa-Du) told me, “All you get in DC is hot dogs and soda … yeah and awful pretzels.” Awful pretzels indeed, and without dijon. Running only on Fridays and Saturdays, all of the members do this in addition to regular jobs and apparently are willing to sacrifice their weekends to bring their traveling culinary carnival to DC.
Their total aesthetic is a retro fusion of Indian with hip green techno, employing fake mustaches and turbans while they cruise around in a 1960s bread truck. Their trays are made out of sugar cane fibers, their sporks from corn resin, and they compost just about everything else. All of this half-ironic campiness and doo-goodery could be a pretty lame excuse for attention, were it not executed with such batty genius – and more importantly, if their food wasn’t so good.
It can’t be stressed enough that the food is delicious, basic Indian food. Fretting about authenticity of cuisine is always a bit misplaced, but with complex food from a made-up place, you should just shut up and eat. I had the chicken masala, a pumpkin side, and some sweet sticks. The chicken was a moderately spicy dish that satisfies like any indian food with sauce, while the pumpkin was soft and delicious, with a heavy dose of cardamom that balanced the sweetness of the fruit itself. The sweet sticks were not so much sweet as they were flavored with cumin and maybe allspice, which made them pretty good for cleaning out the lingering masala spices.
As I sat there eating, I watched the stream of buttoned-down passers-by giving long, curious looks and other people lingering and plenty eating. It’s never going to be like New York, with its hour-long waits at 53rd & 6th chicken and rice, the ultimate drunk food that is Roti Roll, or the Vendy awards, but this little performance-food experiment is definitely a good thing, and hopefully a sign of things to come.
Follow them on twitter and get to eating.
In the meantime, I’ve changed to a theme that displays text better and loads more quickly. I’ve also revised a number of posts for clarity:
I’ll also be updating the blogroll to be more local soon. So czech that out.
And I’ll leave you with a quotation about the New Art Institute of Chicago building, by Nicky O:
It’s hard to know how these qualities will play out amid the gloom and doom of the new economy. In some ways Mr. Piano’s refined, risk-averse architecture may be more appealing than ever. He is not out to start a revolution. His designs are about tranquillity, not conflict. The serenity of his best buildings can almost make you believe that we live in a civilized world.
A calm, comfortable building that uses modern materials in a rational, humane way. Sounds good to me.
I would appreciate it if anyone who knows anything about CSS and PHP could tell me what is up.
Did you know that the United States has signed bicycle routes? You didn’t? Yeah… don’t feel bad, nobody else seems to know about them, and I only stumbled upon them trying to do this month’s Wikiglean. Obscurity notwithstanding, two bike routes do exist and the legal framework is still around – and right now is just the time to breathe life back into the system and make them serious transit.
Back in the 1970s, after the shock of the Oil Crisis, planners – AASHTO even – had the forward idea of determining and assigning interstate bike routes. Primarily meant for low-traffic roads or dedicated trails, the routes were to connect cities for touring purposes. However, by 1982, only two routes had ever come into being, and so the system went the way of the DMC-12. But conveniently for Washingtonians, the two existing trails currently run through Virginia and one is poised to benefit the Washington Metropolitan area.
Of course, he is some jerk kid who was running to represent a backwater district of St. Petersburg (think ANC 4a), but it can’t be emphasized enough how exciting this whole event is. He was running against not only other United Russia candidates, but also against a Yabloko candidate and a few indies who were opposed to the gigantic Marine Façade project on Vasilievsky Island. The project, meant to be the equivalent of Moskva-Citi in Moscow, or La Defense in Paris is probably too dense, considering it won’t get transit for years and also includes a gargantuan highway. But that was not his issue; he was just looking to represent his area and took the easy route of joining the safest party.
So I can’t be shaken from my cynicism completely. This is a guy who formerly was a member of the Young Guard of United Russia, so is either a shrewd opportunist soon to be obliterated or someone who is swiftly being disabused of belief in his political allies. I can’t be sure, but it’s not a bad thing to hope for this. The election in his raion garnered an unusual 35% electoral turnout, a 250% increase from the last election. The world will be hearing more about him for sure.
For a better project on Vasilievsky Island, have a look at Norman Foster’s humane combination of sculptural modernism, regionalism, and preservation at New Holland Island, originally designed by Vallin, the architect of the Little Hermitage.
After the fold, there are other, cooler maps that show height using shading.
