Nº. 75 of  580

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lifeserial:

tesslynch:

I’ve been crazy about two neighborhoods in my life. The first is where I grew up, a little 6-block radius of Greenwich Village. It’s hard to know if I could have been crazy about the neighborhood at the time, as kids don’t generally show enthusiasm about things like neighborhoods, but as soon as I left I remembered the diner where I knew all the waiters, many of whom were drag queens, and the blooming magnolia trees outside a church I’d pass on the way to school. It seemed to me I’d never grow attached to a place like I was then, and maybe that’s still true, as I can’t imagine anything like looking out of my bedroom window from my seat on the sputtering radiator and seeing four feet of pristine snow and hearing two dozen pigeons making a racket. When I was reading Portnoy’s Complaint I was struck by a line: Portnoy’s mother holds the very young protagonist up to a window and says, “Look, baby, a real fall day.” Your first experiences of beauty, of anything, can’t be overwritten; no matter how many pretty winter vistas I will see, my favorite will always be the first one. It was as if winter had never happened before, because it had never happened for me in any other way than it did on west 11th street.
That being said, of course, I moved away and new things presented themselves to me as an adult, new beautiful things that I could appreciate in a way that I couldn’t have as a child. The idea of being on a walk and grabbing an orange off a tree and munching it as you amble around will always seem novel to me, because as an adult I am struck with wonder at the things nature can offer us for free (limes are $.50, which is absurd, because if you take a walk on Laurel Terrace in Studio City you can snatch as many limes as your purse or hands will allow. I know that this makes me sound like I have four dollars in my bank account and all I want to do is eat citrus fruit, but it’s more that I have a kind of awe for the weird nature of California, which will always feel alien to me as a New Englander and a New Yorker and a Greedy Gus Who Loves Limeade).
Neighborhoods in Los Angeles are so different from each other, climate-wise and people-wise and things-to-do-wise, that if you end up in the wrong place you could end up hating the entire city. Van Nuys can easily make you wonder why we’re all bothering to stay alive. When Molly moved to Silver Lake after we came back post-college, I had never been east of Hollywood. Ten years ago, there was nothing east of Hollywood that would have appealed to me then. Nobody I knew lived there, it was far from my home and from school, and I didn’t drive on freeways because I kept knocking off my side-view mirror while attempting to squeeze my wide load of a car into our tiny garage.
I took the 101 to Molly’s house and boom: there was a huge sparkling lake with seagulls and rows of giant cypress trees, millions of taco stands, dazzling hillsides with wildflowers and 100-year-old craftsman houses painted pink and red and dark green. It completely changed my love for Los Angeles in a way that is embarrassing to admit, because it had been there all along without my knowing it. It’s strange to be out of your element while at the same time in your element: of all the places I’ve lived, LA is the place I know the best, and yet I still got lost all the time on steep and narrow winding streets as soon as I found myself east of Vermont. My west-side friends get prickly. I have picked up the phone and heard “I don’t know where I am!” as if I had picked them up and dropped them on Mars. I understand. Nobody likes to feel lost. I ask them if they see the reservoir, but they’re looking for freeway signs. I feel as though I’ve claimed my spot here: I have the drive I take when I’m upset, the place I know I can park myself for three hours and I’ll run into someone I know, someone familiar I’ve seen around or one of the people I already knew who ended up as a neighbor. I’m working on my Spanish. I am beginning to recognize the individual crazy people who push carts on Glendale and who rant at Sunset Junction.
Maybe as an adult we find different comforts in the familiar than we did as children, when so little was familiar to us anyway. To live in a place where you feel like you can stick a root in the ground if you had to and you’d be happy is something that some people never find. A friend of mine discovered, later in her life, that she had a brother. He had been living with his mother (the two shared a father) and didn’t know the other half of his family. My friend’s mother told her that they should make every effort to include him, telling my friend that this boy was “a man without a country.” It seemed both sad and vague, like not having a passport or a sense of smell, something which, lacking it, would not seem necessary until you have occasion to really miss it, to know what exactly you’re missing. What a wonderful thing it is to look out on something as simple and stupid as a man-made reservoir and identify yourself with it, stare at it and walk around it and learn its borders and the surrounding map of its dusty city blocks, its bodegas and postal centers, and to take part of it for yourself.

lifeserial:

tesslynch:

I’ve been crazy about two neighborhoods in my life. The first is where I grew up, a little 6-block radius of Greenwich Village. It’s hard to know if I could have been crazy about the neighborhood at the time, as kids don’t generally show enthusiasm about things like neighborhoods, but as soon as I left I remembered the diner where I knew all the waiters, many of whom were drag queens, and the blooming magnolia trees outside a church I’d pass on the way to school. It seemed to me I’d never grow attached to a place like I was then, and maybe that’s still true, as I can’t imagine anything like looking out of my bedroom window from my seat on the sputtering radiator and seeing four feet of pristine snow and hearing two dozen pigeons making a racket. When I was reading Portnoy’s Complaint I was struck by a line: Portnoy’s mother holds the very young protagonist up to a window and says, “Look, baby, a real fall day.” Your first experiences of beauty, of anything, can’t be overwritten; no matter how many pretty winter vistas I will see, my favorite will always be the first one. It was as if winter had never happened before, because it had never happened for me in any other way than it did on west 11th street.

That being said, of course, I moved away and new things presented themselves to me as an adult, new beautiful things that I could appreciate in a way that I couldn’t have as a child. The idea of being on a walk and grabbing an orange off a tree and munching it as you amble around will always seem novel to me, because as an adult I am struck with wonder at the things nature can offer us for free (limes are $.50, which is absurd, because if you take a walk on Laurel Terrace in Studio City you can snatch as many limes as your purse or hands will allow. I know that this makes me sound like I have four dollars in my bank account and all I want to do is eat citrus fruit, but it’s more that I have a kind of awe for the weird nature of California, which will always feel alien to me as a New Englander and a New Yorker and a Greedy Gus Who Loves Limeade).

Neighborhoods in Los Angeles are so different from each other, climate-wise and people-wise and things-to-do-wise, that if you end up in the wrong place you could end up hating the entire city. Van Nuys can easily make you wonder why we’re all bothering to stay alive. When Molly moved to Silver Lake after we came back post-college, I had never been east of Hollywood. Ten years ago, there was nothing east of Hollywood that would have appealed to me then. Nobody I knew lived there, it was far from my home and from school, and I didn’t drive on freeways because I kept knocking off my side-view mirror while attempting to squeeze my wide load of a car into our tiny garage.

I took the 101 to Molly’s house and boom: there was a huge sparkling lake with seagulls and rows of giant cypress trees, millions of taco stands, dazzling hillsides with wildflowers and 100-year-old craftsman houses painted pink and red and dark green. It completely changed my love for Los Angeles in a way that is embarrassing to admit, because it had been there all along without my knowing it. It’s strange to be out of your element while at the same time in your element: of all the places I’ve lived, LA is the place I know the best, and yet I still got lost all the time on steep and narrow winding streets as soon as I found myself east of Vermont. My west-side friends get prickly. I have picked up the phone and heard “I don’t know where I am!” as if I had picked them up and dropped them on Mars. I understand. Nobody likes to feel lost. I ask them if they see the reservoir, but they’re looking for freeway signs. I feel as though I’ve claimed my spot here: I have the drive I take when I’m upset, the place I know I can park myself for three hours and I’ll run into someone I know, someone familiar I’ve seen around or one of the people I already knew who ended up as a neighbor. I’m working on my Spanish. I am beginning to recognize the individual crazy people who push carts on Glendale and who rant at Sunset Junction.

Maybe as an adult we find different comforts in the familiar than we did as children, when so little was familiar to us anyway. To live in a place where you feel like you can stick a root in the ground if you had to and you’d be happy is something that some people never find. A friend of mine discovered, later in her life, that she had a brother. He had been living with his mother (the two shared a father) and didn’t know the other half of his family. My friend’s mother told her that they should make every effort to include him, telling my friend that this boy was “a man without a country.” It seemed both sad and vague, like not having a passport or a sense of smell, something which, lacking it, would not seem necessary until you have occasion to really miss it, to know what exactly you’re missing. What a wonderful thing it is to look out on something as simple and stupid as a man-made reservoir and identify yourself with it, stare at it and walk around it and learn its borders and the surrounding map of its dusty city blocks, its bodegas and postal centers, and to take part of it for yourself.

today

sinabear:

today they asked me to come in and make a physical model for them. yay! itll be the first model ive made in like 5 months. side note: i didnt realize it i got to work, but im the most mismatched person today…turqoise shoes, yellow socks, dark blue jeans, a brown and orange shirt with a white button up over it, and red rimmed sun glasses.

I guess someone forgot to tell you: rainbow is the best colour scheme.

i have decided that i should end the search and do a competition for the quarter. i, however, do not have a place in cincinnati anymore, so i am going to do most of my work from three locations: cincinnati, centerville, and columbus. hopefully ill be able to just use the architecture library at…

I like that Johnny Cash is suggested as a music-related research material.

lauraoz:

sabastooge:

pt. 1 of maggie and me on spring break!

you guys are my FAVORITE

1) Watching this with no sound at work while nobody is looking

2) I miss you guys a lot

3) This should be on Vimeo

WELP

nattle:

I was gunna take a picture of the badass shoes I bought today, but my camera has gone MIA. I really hope it turns up, can’t afford a new one right before this trip abroad.

Well if you cannot find it f’real after a while, then let me know and I’ll send you my point-n-shoot.  It’s nice and newer too… i just don’t use it as much now that I have the Nikon.

capucha:

Surprise, surprise : we’re in NYC ! Stay tuned for our adventures in the Big Apple :)

You’re HERE!!!  I cannot wait to see you :)

capucha:

Surprise, surprise : we’re in NYC ! Stay tuned for our adventures in the Big Apple :)

You’re HERE!!!  I cannot wait to see you :)

Im trying to calm myself and advertise who’s fault it is when I haven’t printed documents.

Im trying to calm myself and advertise who’s fault it is when I haven’t printed documents.

karenabad:

Andrea and I thought we should  contribute to  this.
Go  ahead and mash up any of our pictures. 

yesss

karenabad:

Andrea and I thought we should contribute to this.

Go ahead and mash up any of our pictures.

yesss

Kathy Salchow : Final Lecture on Friday

Whatever kind of artist or designer or simply enthusiest you are, if you’re in the area you need to make it out to College of Mount Saint Joseph on Friday the 9th at 7:00, room “Art 106” (I think) for her final lecture.  The best teacher I’ve ever had, relative to what she was trying to teach us.  Reguardless of how some of you feel about her husband, you should go to this and talk to her afterwards. 

Also, somebody tell her I said hi… she has a hard time with remembering names but David and I have had quite a few encounters with her recently so I may get lucky.

From a write-up on MSJ’s website:

There will also be a featured “Final Lecture” with Kathy Salchow, retired adjunct professor, on Friday, April 9, 7 p.m. Beth Belknap Brann, long-time graphic design colleague at the Mount, said: “Kathy Salchow taught at the Mount for 28 years, teaching at least two classes per semester during her tenure with the College. She is often cited as being the most influential instructor that both art and design majors have had. Her lively critique style, her design expertise, her wry humor, and straight-forward manner of teaching were challenging and endearing to her students. She is considered by colleagues to be a ‘master teacher’ who will be remembered for many years.”

Really cincinnati.. arent there any cute little “hipster esque” girls around? or at last girls with good taste in fashion and hairstyles.

jameszanoni:

so sick of the average college slutty looking girl.

Tried DAAP lately?

there goes the job neighborhood

sabastooge:

baltimore wanted to hire me but lost its work

london said they were looking for a different kind of experience, as mine did not line up with what they were doing in office right now

alaska just hired someone else yesterday…

and that is how things go.

Goddamnit.  Don’t blame yourself, at least; everyone in our class knows you’re great.  Baltimore = Big Red Rooster, and it felt good to be wanted but not so great to be let down still.

Do awesome things this quarter and just stay really happy for the next 9 or 10 weeks.  Visit NYC… eh!?  Who needs co-ops anyhow.  Mine’s not the best thing in the world, and not somewhere I’d want to end up.

Sorry dude.  I’ma call you this week sometime and see what you’ve been up to.

My desk is already ridiculous

My desk is already ridiculous

nickoleptic:

lately, i feel a lot like my entire life could be narrated by arnold lobel.  though i’ve yet to enjoy being alone together with someone specifically by reading a book in a tree, i feel positively about the possibility that it could happen.  especially due to the pertinence of so many of his other stories.  frog and toad were the best.

My sister and I used to read books in our tree.  We had specific seats.  Mine was based on a branch that was eventually cut off :(

nickoleptic:

lately, i feel a lot like my entire life could be narrated by arnold lobel. though i’ve yet to enjoy being alone together with someone specifically by reading a book in a tree, i feel positively about the possibility that it could happen. especially due to the pertinence of so many of his other stories. frog and toad were the best.

My sister and I used to read books in our tree.  We had specific seats.  Mine was based on a branch that was eventually cut off :(

let your love grow tall.

(via misterdan)

Dan, I read this as let your love trail grow.

Nº. 75 of  580