optimk - you work for Pizza Luce? I'm down at the warehouse dist. restaurant almost every sunday evening.
I'm surprised at all the props people are giving to Minneapolis. Seemed that not too long ago if I mentioned the Twin Cities on this forum people would laugh and say we designed "brick igloos" up here. Ha ha, there's better architecture up here than in most of the warmer climate states.
Another thing to note about a good city is access to a decent international airport. Again, kudos to Minneapolis as you can get direct flights to Asia and Europe out of our airport. As well as my personal favorite - Iceland.
I said to choose one place because really you can only live in one place at a time. And because at some point you have to make a decision (I find people have difficulty making real, definitive, conscious decisions these days).
Does anyone else feels a pull of place because you want to build there? Personally, I love NYC, but the difficulty of making new buildings turns me off. I don't want to do interior renovations. I really want to build where I live and feel how building can contribute to a cummunity.
Conor Oberst ditched Omaha for the cosmic cultural pull of New York. I'm sure the city feeds his creativity in a way Omaha never could.
there's a type of artist that a 'secondary' city like, say, minneapolis, or manchester england tends to nurture that big thriving cosmoploitan cities seem unable to do: the weirdo outsider.
perhaps the hothouse of clashing perspectives with its concommitant daily, or hourly, competition for attention of places like la or nyc prevent a frail seedling from getting enough nutrients from the soil or enough sunlight.
maybe, sometimes, lack of conflict in fact allows some character types to thrive. and this mix of a relative lack of conflict mixed with just enough tolerance for bohemians only exists in these secondary cities.
you don't believe me? consider: mould (minneapolis); westerberg (minneapolis); mackaye (wash dc); d boon (san pedro); cobain (seattle).
also consider: thurston moore (nyc); xcene cervesa (la); richard hell (nyc); buster poindexter (nyc).
the latter gaggle of punkers has neither the orginiality of the former group, nor their ability to goad empathy out of raw anger.
i think to get this done sometimes you need to be the outsider most of your young life. but one that is not perpetually prodded by the overwhelming complexity of a thousand competing perspectives.
pedro's right. NYC doesn't need me and I don't need it except for my crazy wild NYC shopping spree every few years. Butt-fuck nowhere needs me and it needs more people like me.
The thing about pedro's pov is that architects aren't like musicians or artists, there is no sole worker or inspiration. It is irresponsible for architects to operate in such a bubble. Architecture needs an audience and a collection of people to be designed, built and inhabited. For this you need other people, you need a culture of place.
palladio had stone masons and woodworkers he relied on. michelangelo the same. true as well of course with kahn, corb, wright. even murcutt can't claim true isolation. certaily chareau didn't.
but each of those above built staggering works which portray a singleminded determination to portray a signature quality. none of their works can be understood to have been possible creations of anyone else. their ego demanded this.
in this sense their 'collaborations' are merely instrumental. they are not meaningful. someone like rem koolhas who harps on and on about the essential collaborative process produces some of the most peculiar, personal, signature-riddled buildings in the world. he might refine his vision through collaboration but the product is his. and his alone. you take him out of the process and 98.5% of what makes oma's buildings what they are will be gone.
great architecture might require individual creative assertiveness than efficient organizational methods of communal input.
Pixel, are you serious about Poughkeepsie? I went to Vassar as an undergrad and am quite fond of Potown, but I didn't think it ever showed up on anyone else's radar. But now that Beacon is the new Soho, I imagine Poughkeepsie will one day become Tribeca. You can still buy a nice rowhouse in Poughkeepsie for next to nothing.
Speaking of music, the best band to ever come out of Poughkeepsie was The Golden Anniversary. They were amazing.
Also, Northampton is a wonderful town where I spent much of my youth. A fantastic music scene. Several members of Sonic Youth now live there, and Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. both hail from the Amherst/Northampton area.
I definitely think that great architecture requires individual creative assertiveness, even Piano, but that the place in which people work is an incredible driver in their work. I'm not even talking about collaboration, but a culture to support, critique and to respond to. Kahn was a singular genius, but he made commentaries on/built/was informed by the city. Corb on modern urban living. Their thoughts on architecture were based on fundamentals of the making of cities and of living in cities. Who has rocked the architectural boat from outside a thriving city/urban situation? Give me a rocker, not a mod, not just good looking refined work. Vincent James is good, but his built work is more pretty than profound. Rick Joy might be an example, but is he really doing anything we haven't seen before. He is doing it well, but is it new?
Antoine Predock does some great work from New Mexico of all places. Albuquerque is no bastion of cultural dominance. But the isolation and depth of horizon here is almost unmatched anywhere else in the U.S.
While I was working at the firm we won the National Palace Museum competition in Taiwan, beating the likes of Leibeskin and others. So, I wouldn't think that Antoine's distance from an L.A. or New York hurt him...actually it may well have helped him.
That said, he did spend early years in both LA and New York (attended grad school at Columbia) but also from New Mexico where he did his undergrad. And, he returned to New Mexico of all places...not LA or New York.
I find it odd that someone would choose a town to live based on a musician having been brought up in that town, or lived in that town, I don't find that a music scene is / or should be the sole reason that defines the complete experience of a place is live. I think think if your asking about livability the list might be pretty small when you take in different factors....including one's age and the issues that become of relevance when you are single, when you have young kids or when you retire. It is a much more comprehensive list of criteria for me.
whistler, i don't think i'd choose a city based on what musicians came from there. instead i'd base my choice of city on what baseball team the cirt has. its hard to argue that any other factors matter.
Albuquerque is beautiful. I woud love to move back, but the art/architecture scene is way too limited (in general). And while we are throwing out bands, The Shins rock and they are from Abq.
Other cities I have lived in from best to worst:
San Francisco (unbeatable except for insane cost of buying a house)
New York (far off second - too crowded and then there is that attitude thing, but still, it's NY)
Albuquerque (beautiful, easy life)
Washington DC (nice, but you might as well just move to NY)
Saint Louis (arch and budweiser tour, that's about it)
dc and myc are 2 totally different places indeed. may charbroil is speak of the fact that dc is a rather expensive place to live so why not move to nyc. don't know. just hypothesizing.
A: I'm the Marketing Director (Which means I do everything from design to brand management to media buying to copy writing) for Pizza Luce. I'm also going to U of M for architecuture.
Pedro: I wouldn't call WMass schizo, but more along the lines of confused.
MM: yeah, I'm serious about Poughkeepsie. I spent some time there over the past summer and the area is quite beautiful. Got to see my first Gehry building at Bard College so I can validate my bitching about his work. Its just so amazingly close to NYC that I could see it being a great place. The scene around Vassar seems kinda small, but the area has a lot of potential. The downside is that it all depends on Vassar to uphold it, without the influence of the school and students the area would be pretty lack-luster.
Some people (not myself) like to be away from everything while creating. For those types places like Poughkeepsie and Northampton/Amherst are ideal.
That's right. I like DC, but if I were going to live on the northeast coast, I would choose NY over DC any day (especially as an architect). They are definately different, but if you are happy living in DC, then (I think) you will be even happier living in NY.
Are you an architect? If so I would like to ask you questions about what kinds of marketing firms do. I might be applying for a marketing position at RSP. If you help me out with some info, I'll mail you a gift certificate for 20 bucks.
Pedro, I only wish I could say that I saw Dinosaur Jr. back when they were just Dinosaur... but alas, I wasn't that cool when I was in my early teens...
Several friends, however, had J. Mascis's father as their dentist. He would often wear his Dinosaur Sr. t-shirt to his office.
My one claim to fame is that I was once at the same party as Lou Barlow. Rumor had it that J. Mascis was at the party too earlier that night but left when he heard Lou was there.
yeah i read only much much later that not only did j and lou hate each other they really violently loathed each other. and all those bile-ridden sebadoh hate songs are for, you guessed it, j mascis. i love it.
i saw d jr live (they were already jr by then) when i was a sophomore in college in 1988. they played in our school's dining hall. still the loudest act i ever saw. i probably permanently lost some hearing from that night. completely messy noise. stoopid feedback all night. they had just released 'you're living all over me' and seemed in a bad mood about it.
a zitty dirty frail looking mascis at one point broke three strings and just kept playing. when a roadie presented him with a new guitar hejust released the broken guitar by just unlatching the strap and letting it fall to his feet. then he just stood there until the new one was carfelly draped over his shoulder by the unimpressed roadie.
just completely utterly catatonic yet just generating amplified noise the likes of which an airplane engine couldn't achieve. this was the new thing: the first time ever that the extreme slacker pose was presented with such incredible careless meaningless musical violence.
so much of british punk from then on stole so much from living all over me and bug as well as this disinterested confusion they so carefully portrayed live.
unfortunately when i next saw them in 1992 in charlottesville you could actually hear songs beginning and ending and you could actually make out disctinct words that mascis at this point sand instead of screamed out.
Minneapolis is ultra liberal, so maybe that's what folks mean by us being the "red star state". The Star and Tribune (one of our two large daily newspapers) used to be a communist newspaper in the 20's called the minnesota star. Although crazy liberals abound, I am a liberatarian and I enjoy the diversity that a liberal city brings.
Pedro: I study a lot of science and philosophy in my spare time. There are some huge parallels between science and economics and science and politics. Not in a evil hitler or nietsze way, but in a more human race kind of way. Systems that are hierarchical become slow and after time fail to innovate. Modern socialist movements (democratic socialism) in western europe are based on Marx's (and his subsiquent followers the fabians and the frankfurt school) materialist notion that progress is purely chronological. Thus many assume the democratic socialism is a superior system to liberal capitalism. The failings of democratic socialism are those that descend from Marx's materialism. Marx fails to realize that wealth comes from the power of ideas rather than the brute force of laborers or the value of resources. Resources and labor can only be valuable if ideas make them so; however, that is not for long because someone else can invent a new way to do business.
Capitalism offers the most progress of any other economic system and thus the greatest amount of innovation, and unlike the material economies of the last 2 centuries, our creative economy will grow as new ideas spread.
i do find the clarity and logic of libertarianism attractive. i do have some major issues though.
for instance, when you say 'such and such a worldview promotes the most innovation' or that 'wealth (whatever that means) is a condition worth achieveing as a goal in and of itself' there are two conslusions to be drawn from these kinds of arguments:
1. conditions, such as 'innovation' or 'wealth' are desirable ones to be achieved. in other words in this case wealth and innovation become not conditions but values. and values of course need to be defended or else values remain private inclination as opposed to public purpose.
2. science is often confused with 'instrumental logic'. and herein, for me, lies the essence of the problem with technology, comfort, individuation, and unreflective reliance on logic.
do you mind discussing this further?
i need to go int a meeting for a bit. i''ll be back in an hour or so.
i talked to lou barlow for an hour and a half after he played a folk implosion show a couple of years ago. he gave me his address to send him a mixed cd.
"1. conditions, such as 'innovation' or 'wealth' are desirable ones to be achieved. in other words in this case wealth and innovation become not conditions but values. and values of course need to be defended or else values remain private inclination as opposed to public purpose."
Progress is a value, but not only a value. As biological organisims we are FORCED to progress both organicall and technological. Our capacity to create is the result of millions of years of evolution. If we erect social structures that defy this, we damage ourselves. Progress, both human and animal (or economically, sociall etc) occurs when a small number of entities break off from the status qou (in humans this is society and in animals it is the large population) and find a new way to do something. In humans we measure this by determining how much more we are able to accomplish (we have progresses further technologically than 100 years ago) and in animals progess is decided by how diverse a population is (less able to go extinct).
"2. science is often confused with 'instrumental logic'. and herein, for me, lies the essence of the problem with technology, comfort, individuation, and unreflective reliance on logic."
Science is a combination of emprical observations tested with experiment and then logical analysis to determine what the observations might mean. Science ultimatly defies logic by being creative enough to find a new way of looking at the world. (ie copernicus, newton, franklin, eddison etc)
This thread reminded me of a conversation I once had with a few fellow students and our professional advisor while in grad school working on an urban design competition. We were discussing how city form relates creativity. (We had this discussion shortly after Richard Florida's book came out and his ideas were still a hot topic.) I've always been particularly curious about how city form and indie rock relate. (Yes, I often try to merge my central interests.)
Our professional advisor for the competition (an architect turned developer) suggested that bad urban design (or more likely short sided infrastructure projects) is often necessary to make creativity possible. That's to say, big highways that cut through cities creating the "bad side of town" and other urban design follies often provides cheap real estate for artists and musicians. He was arguing that the Big Dig in Boston was a costly mistake because it will drive out artists from the less expensive parts of the city. While he's certainly correct (a large part of the reason the big dig was done was to provide better access from the financial district to the waterfront), I don't necessarily think that planners and urban designer should strive for making "mistakes."
That said, now that I live in New York, I'm disappointed to see that so much of the active artists scene is so dispersed throughout the city (and even the whole metro region, at this point.) Now there is no one single, strong artists neighborhood, but rather sub-neighborhoods in all the boros and even out in the 'burbs. The density of artists makes a place more exciting and now that isn't really happening.
I was once considering trying to map the locations of where bands practice and/or live in various cities and see if there's any spacial similarities.
it is the individual which has shaped the world, singularity of thought and inovation that has lead civilization to our current state of affluents and progress (standard of living, mortality rate) the individaul is held supreme by the libertarians.
democrats: mish mash of fringe groups who hope to consolidate our health care, education, etc....think the govt. is the solution to societies ills.."just tax them more"
republicans: while acknowledging the power of free markets and capitalism, revert to social conforming attitudes based predomenantly on the "protestant work ethic"....thus not receptive to alt. lifestyles. will replace "politically correct" w/ "religously correct"
libertarians take the best of both, accepting capitalism and free markets as the best most effecient exchange between people (capitalism is an emergent science) and does not pollitisize from the pulpit (seperation of church and state)
i'm asking that we step outside of the distinctions we make between democrats and republicans, because when we do we are able to see the motivations behind why a particular world view exists. there's nothing inherent to anyone's fundamental beliefs that, for example, links being a christian moralist to nonregulation of the economy or limited federal powers. stated differently, being a democrat or being republican is nearly meaningless. its serves to lubrictae the legislative process, but that is it. as an identity, that d versus r distinction has almost zero import.
moving on, to say we should as humans value progress because biological determinism suggests darwinistic evolution is the way of the natural world, while very interesting, is merely incidental. a condition of extreme economic competition, minimally regulated or completely unregulated, depicts no causal relationship to biological progress. the laissez faire condition has as much causal root in the biochemical enactment of dna variation as it has in the process of the making of sausage.
i would posit that the desire to essentialize and minimize the right of the state to inflict as little regulation as possible on the rights of the individual to his or her property is not an essential, timless, unaltering and necessary human trait. instead it is an accident of history.
and its attractiveness derives from the lucidity of argument that, say, a basic geometric proof portrays.
people like ayn rand, who base some or most of their individuation argument on nietzsche's notion of the overman have not undertaken a close reading of nietzsche. nietzsche fervently and consistently advocated the postition that reason alone is incapable of allowing man to achieve a true picture of nature (ie the world).
in which case we need to look at studying the bahavior of ants...ants are social insects...constructing cities with highly regulated jobs/positions for individual ants which determines the sucess of the colony....we are social animals who construct cities...what is it that we do as individuals which ensure our sucess?
what is your definition of progress? would you define progress as an increase in life expectancy, longer life?
according to most evolution theories accidents are the name of the game, we mutate, morph.
i don't care about genetic mutation. i mean i do in that its interesting. but so is sushi.
i am more interested in what a city is. why man live in cities. yes its a happy coincidence that ants are wired to behave communally. unfortunately, though, ants are not aware that they have made a choice to live communally. so therefore i cannot derive any deeper insight into the nature of man from the biological study of ants.
i think that historical progress is (or the consciousness that one is progressing toward a more desirable condition) a relatively new concept. it is resultant from a scientifically based pursuasiveness of argument which hegel formulated. now i'm not ready to deny its validity as a way of understanding the unfolding of the world in time and space but, just as well, i'm not sure valuing the notion of historical unfolding is the natural state of mankind.
is the desire to prolong our stay on this earth a good goal? is the hippocratic call for the primacy of human comfort something that is natural? is the prioritizing of individual 'rights' over communal cohesion a good thing?
if heartless cruelty is a defining trait of nature with a small n (we are mortal, we cannot live forever and every child realizes this horrible reality when an elder relative dies) is the Nature of man inextricably entwined with the one means to which we can take recourse to which gives our lives meaning? is the Nature of man in otherwords essentially the ability which we possess to communicate a meaningful coexistence?
this is what dwelling is. and as such this commonly accepted definition of existentially conscious dwelling assumes as a precondtition the prioritizing of the public good over individual expression.
this ultimately is the shortcoming of libertarianism's claims to be anything more than merely a socio-economic thesis. a great one mind you, but so particular in its legitimate scope to be but historical.
optimk - I agree with you that Minneapolis is a very liberal city but I would also argue that the state as a whole is very balanced politically. We are by no means a politically lop sided state like a California or a Utah. Personally I think the vibrant political dialouge here is another asset I'd include for a reason Minneapolis is a great city.
"moving on, to say we should as humans value progress because biological determinism suggests darwinistic evolution is the way of the natural world, while very interesting, is merely incidental. a condition of extreme economic competition, minimally regulated or completely unregulated, depicts no causal relationship to biological progress. the laissez faire condition has as much causal root in the biochemical enactment of dna variation as it has in the process of the making of sausage."
Whether or not we (as a society) value progress is irrellevant. Individuals value progress, because they have a biological instinct to progress, advance and full fill their goals, both biologically (sex) and materialistically. Capitalism is proven to be the most favorable system for innovation, progress, and advancement of the standard of liviing. This is important, if we force ourselves to live in a sysmem that conflicts with how we are biologically and psycologicall wired it will end in conflict, violnce, and poverty.
"i would posit that the desire to essentialize and minimize the right of the state to inflict as little regulation as possible on the rights of the individual to his or her property is not an essential, timless, unaltering and necessary human trait. instead it is an accident of history."
The state was viewed as a burden to individual accomplishment, and that is what inspired liberal philosophers to develop the notions of indivdual rights and economic rights (capitalism). To argue that this is a historical accident is to argue that our own biological evolution from apes is just as much as an accident and thus not important. This is very important and should not be discarded.
"people like ayn rand, who base some or most of their individuation argument on nietzsche's notion of the overman have not undertaken a close reading of nietzsche. nietzsche fervently and consistently advocated the postition that reason alone is incapable of allowing man to achieve a true picture of nature (ie the world)."
Rand has never argued of an overman. You are right about nietzche; however rand argued that the individual should be free to do what he/she pleases, but yet suboordinate to a government that protects indivduals rights. An overman in the niezceian sense ends goverment and rules in a tyannical manner. There is a distinct difference. To nieche there are no principles worth preserving.
Pedro: "i think that historical progress is (or the consciousness that one is progressing toward a more desirable condition) a relatively new concept. it is resultant from a scientifically based pursuasiveness of argument which hegel formulated. now i'm not ready to deny its validity as a way of understanding the unfolding of the world in time and space but, just as well, i'm not sure valuing the notion of historical unfolding is the natural state of mankind."
Hegel didn't believe in a right or wrong set of moral values, he argued that conflict led to progress. I do not advocate this. I argue that progress comes from allowing the maximum amount of freedom to the individual that is possible while still preserving a republican form of governement. Hegel's ideas fit in with the 18th century in that Materialism dictated economics; however, in contemporary times this does not jive. Innovation is the driving force of our economy and as such is dependent not on conflict (in the hegelian sense) but innovation.
One American City...
bothands / optimk:
Minutemen - San Pedro, CA
Nice to see RunWestyRun get a mention (underrated),
but then there's Soul Asylum (overrated), IMHO.
I was in Fort Collins, CO over the weekend - a great town, Denver and Boulder nearby, mountains, a college town with many restuarants and shops.
optimk - you work for Pizza Luce? I'm down at the warehouse dist. restaurant almost every sunday evening.
I'm surprised at all the props people are giving to Minneapolis. Seemed that not too long ago if I mentioned the Twin Cities on this forum people would laugh and say we designed "brick igloos" up here. Ha ha, there's better architecture up here than in most of the warmer climate states.
Another thing to note about a good city is access to a decent international airport. Again, kudos to Minneapolis as you can get direct flights to Asia and Europe out of our airport. As well as my personal favorite - Iceland.
No doubt, Boulder CO. Or San Diego...La Jolla, Del Mar, etc.
I said to choose one place because really you can only live in one place at a time. And because at some point you have to make a decision (I find people have difficulty making real, definitive, conscious decisions these days).
Does anyone else feels a pull of place because you want to build there? Personally, I love NYC, but the difficulty of making new buildings turns me off. I don't want to do interior renovations. I really want to build where I live and feel how building can contribute to a cummunity.
Conor Oberst ditched Omaha for the cosmic cultural pull of New York. I'm sure the city feeds his creativity in a way Omaha never could.
there's a type of artist that a 'secondary' city like, say, minneapolis, or manchester england tends to nurture that big thriving cosmoploitan cities seem unable to do: the weirdo outsider.
perhaps the hothouse of clashing perspectives with its concommitant daily, or hourly, competition for attention of places like la or nyc prevent a frail seedling from getting enough nutrients from the soil or enough sunlight.
maybe, sometimes, lack of conflict in fact allows some character types to thrive. and this mix of a relative lack of conflict mixed with just enough tolerance for bohemians only exists in these secondary cities.
you don't believe me? consider: mould (minneapolis); westerberg (minneapolis); mackaye (wash dc); d boon (san pedro); cobain (seattle).
also consider: thurston moore (nyc); xcene cervesa (la); richard hell (nyc); buster poindexter (nyc).
the latter gaggle of punkers has neither the orginiality of the former group, nor their ability to goad empathy out of raw anger.
i think to get this done sometimes you need to be the outsider most of your young life. but one that is not perpetually prodded by the overwhelming complexity of a thousand competing perspectives.
pedro's right. NYC doesn't need me and I don't need it except for my crazy wild NYC shopping spree every few years. Butt-fuck nowhere needs me and it needs more people like me.
pedro for president.
The thing about pedro's pov is that architects aren't like musicians or artists, there is no sole worker or inspiration. It is irresponsible for architects to operate in such a bubble. Architecture needs an audience and a collection of people to be designed, built and inhabited. For this you need other people, you need a culture of place.
my home.zoom in. you'll love it too, when you get it.
Conner may have ditched, but his label is still there and his songs ring of Omaha...
palladio had stone masons and woodworkers he relied on. michelangelo the same. true as well of course with kahn, corb, wright. even murcutt can't claim true isolation. certaily chareau didn't.
but each of those above built staggering works which portray a singleminded determination to portray a signature quality. none of their works can be understood to have been possible creations of anyone else. their ego demanded this.
in this sense their 'collaborations' are merely instrumental. they are not meaningful. someone like rem koolhas who harps on and on about the essential collaborative process produces some of the most peculiar, personal, signature-riddled buildings in the world. he might refine his vision through collaboration but the product is his. and his alone. you take him out of the process and 98.5% of what makes oma's buildings what they are will be gone.
great architecture might require individual creative assertiveness than efficient organizational methods of communal input.
piano might be an exception....but i digress.
Pixel, are you serious about Poughkeepsie? I went to Vassar as an undergrad and am quite fond of Potown, but I didn't think it ever showed up on anyone else's radar. But now that Beacon is the new Soho, I imagine Poughkeepsie will one day become Tribeca. You can still buy a nice rowhouse in Poughkeepsie for next to nothing.
Speaking of music, the best band to ever come out of Poughkeepsie was The Golden Anniversary. They were amazing.
Also, Northampton is a wonderful town where I spent much of my youth. A fantastic music scene. Several members of Sonic Youth now live there, and Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr. both hail from the Amherst/Northampton area.
I definitely think that great architecture requires individual creative assertiveness, even Piano, but that the place in which people work is an incredible driver in their work. I'm not even talking about collaboration, but a culture to support, critique and to respond to. Kahn was a singular genius, but he made commentaries on/built/was informed by the city. Corb on modern urban living. Their thoughts on architecture were based on fundamentals of the making of cities and of living in cities. Who has rocked the architectural boat from outside a thriving city/urban situation? Give me a rocker, not a mod, not just good looking refined work. Vincent James is good, but his built work is more pretty than profound. Rick Joy might be an example, but is he really doing anything we haven't seen before. He is doing it well, but is it new?
Antoine Predock does some great work from New Mexico of all places. Albuquerque is no bastion of cultural dominance. But the isolation and depth of horizon here is almost unmatched anywhere else in the U.S.
While I was working at the firm we won the National Palace Museum competition in Taiwan, beating the likes of Leibeskin and others. So, I wouldn't think that Antoine's distance from an L.A. or New York hurt him...actually it may well have helped him.
That said, he did spend early years in both LA and New York (attended grad school at Columbia) but also from New Mexico where he did his undergrad. And, he returned to New Mexico of all places...not LA or New York.
mm, you're right: d jr and sebadoh could have only happened in the schizophrenia of western mass. mascis and barlow were a mess.
I find it odd that someone would choose a town to live based on a musician having been brought up in that town, or lived in that town, I don't find that a music scene is / or should be the sole reason that defines the complete experience of a place is live. I think think if your asking about livability the list might be pretty small when you take in different factors....including one's age and the issues that become of relevance when you are single, when you have young kids or when you retire. It is a much more comprehensive list of criteria for me.
whistler, i don't think i'd choose a city based on what musicians came from there. instead i'd base my choice of city on what baseball team the cirt has. its hard to argue that any other factors matter.
Albuquerque is beautiful. I woud love to move back, but the art/architecture scene is way too limited (in general). And while we are throwing out bands, The Shins rock and they are from Abq.
Other cities I have lived in from best to worst:
San Francisco (unbeatable except for insane cost of buying a house)
New York (far off second - too crowded and then there is that attitude thing, but still, it's NY)
Albuquerque (beautiful, easy life)
Washington DC (nice, but you might as well just move to NY)
Saint Louis (arch and budweiser tour, that's about it)
charbroil, do you really consider DC and NY that similar?
how the ramones sprang from nyc i'll never know. but then again is queens even nyc?
dc and myc are 2 totally different places indeed. may charbroil is speak of the fact that dc is a rather expensive place to live so why not move to nyc. don't know. just hypothesizing.
A: I'm the Marketing Director (Which means I do everything from design to brand management to media buying to copy writing) for Pizza Luce. I'm also going to U of M for architecuture.
Pedro: I wouldn't call WMass schizo, but more along the lines of confused.
MM: yeah, I'm serious about Poughkeepsie. I spent some time there over the past summer and the area is quite beautiful. Got to see my first Gehry building at Bard College so I can validate my bitching about his work. Its just so amazingly close to NYC that I could see it being a great place. The scene around Vassar seems kinda small, but the area has a lot of potential. The downside is that it all depends on Vassar to uphold it, without the influence of the school and students the area would be pretty lack-luster.
Some people (not myself) like to be away from everything while creating. For those types places like Poughkeepsie and Northampton/Amherst are ideal.
That's right. I like DC, but if I were going to live on the northeast coast, I would choose NY over DC any day (especially as an architect). They are definately different, but if you are happy living in DC, then (I think) you will be even happier living in NY.
optimk - any chance you can score me a free pizza? God knows I've spent enough on beers at Luce.
Are you an architect? If so I would like to ask you questions about what kinds of marketing firms do. I might be applying for a marketing position at RSP. If you help me out with some info, I'll mail you a gift certificate for 20 bucks.
emai me at [email protected]
optimk, what is all this I keep hearing about Minnisota being the "red star state". is there any truth to that? what is your take?
pixelwhore did you get to catch d jr live before they "made it big"?
Pedro, I only wish I could say that I saw Dinosaur Jr. back when they were just Dinosaur... but alas, I wasn't that cool when I was in my early teens...
Several friends, however, had J. Mascis's father as their dentist. He would often wear his Dinosaur Sr. t-shirt to his office.
My one claim to fame is that I was once at the same party as Lou Barlow. Rumor had it that J. Mascis was at the party too earlier that night but left when he heard Lou was there.
I'm in the same boat as mm, I wasn't very hip as a teen/pre-teen. But I have witnessed several Thurston Moore sighting in Northampton.
yeah i read only much much later that not only did j and lou hate each other they really violently loathed each other. and all those bile-ridden sebadoh hate songs are for, you guessed it, j mascis. i love it.
i saw d jr live (they were already jr by then) when i was a sophomore in college in 1988. they played in our school's dining hall. still the loudest act i ever saw. i probably permanently lost some hearing from that night. completely messy noise. stoopid feedback all night. they had just released 'you're living all over me' and seemed in a bad mood about it.
a zitty dirty frail looking mascis at one point broke three strings and just kept playing. when a roadie presented him with a new guitar hejust released the broken guitar by just unlatching the strap and letting it fall to his feet. then he just stood there until the new one was carfelly draped over his shoulder by the unimpressed roadie.
just completely utterly catatonic yet just generating amplified noise the likes of which an airplane engine couldn't achieve. this was the new thing: the first time ever that the extreme slacker pose was presented with such incredible careless meaningless musical violence.
so much of british punk from then on stole so much from living all over me and bug as well as this disinterested confusion they so carefully portrayed live.
unfortunately when i next saw them in 1992 in charlottesville you could actually hear songs beginning and ending and you could actually make out disctinct words that mascis at this point sand instead of screamed out.
Minneapolis is ultra liberal, so maybe that's what folks mean by us being the "red star state". The Star and Tribune (one of our two large daily newspapers) used to be a communist newspaper in the 20's called the minnesota star. Although crazy liberals abound, I am a liberatarian and I enjoy the diversity that a liberal city brings.
optimk what brought you to libertarianism as a world view?
they did elect ventura, thats cool...isn't today the opening of wall eye (fish) season
Pedro: I study a lot of science and philosophy in my spare time. There are some huge parallels between science and economics and science and politics. Not in a evil hitler or nietsze way, but in a more human race kind of way. Systems that are hierarchical become slow and after time fail to innovate. Modern socialist movements (democratic socialism) in western europe are based on Marx's (and his subsiquent followers the fabians and the frankfurt school) materialist notion that progress is purely chronological. Thus many assume the democratic socialism is a superior system to liberal capitalism. The failings of democratic socialism are those that descend from Marx's materialism. Marx fails to realize that wealth comes from the power of ideas rather than the brute force of laborers or the value of resources. Resources and labor can only be valuable if ideas make them so; however, that is not for long because someone else can invent a new way to do business.
Capitalism offers the most progress of any other economic system and thus the greatest amount of innovation, and unlike the material economies of the last 2 centuries, our creative economy will grow as new ideas spread.
that is why I am a libertarian.
optimk,
can i play devil's advocate for a moment?
i do find the clarity and logic of libertarianism attractive. i do have some major issues though.
for instance, when you say 'such and such a worldview promotes the most innovation' or that 'wealth (whatever that means) is a condition worth achieveing as a goal in and of itself' there are two conslusions to be drawn from these kinds of arguments:
1. conditions, such as 'innovation' or 'wealth' are desirable ones to be achieved. in other words in this case wealth and innovation become not conditions but values. and values of course need to be defended or else values remain private inclination as opposed to public purpose.
2. science is often confused with 'instrumental logic'. and herein, for me, lies the essence of the problem with technology, comfort, individuation, and unreflective reliance on logic.
do you mind discussing this further?
i need to go int a meeting for a bit. i''ll be back in an hour or so.
I LIKE THIS THREAD!
cities, indie rock, libertarianism!
i talked to lou barlow for an hour and a half after he played a folk implosion show a couple of years ago. he gave me his address to send him a mixed cd.
we've sort of lost touch in the last year.
"1. conditions, such as 'innovation' or 'wealth' are desirable ones to be achieved. in other words in this case wealth and innovation become not conditions but values. and values of course need to be defended or else values remain private inclination as opposed to public purpose."
Progress is a value, but not only a value. As biological organisims we are FORCED to progress both organicall and technological. Our capacity to create is the result of millions of years of evolution. If we erect social structures that defy this, we damage ourselves. Progress, both human and animal (or economically, sociall etc) occurs when a small number of entities break off from the status qou (in humans this is society and in animals it is the large population) and find a new way to do something. In humans we measure this by determining how much more we are able to accomplish (we have progresses further technologically than 100 years ago) and in animals progess is decided by how diverse a population is (less able to go extinct).
"2. science is often confused with 'instrumental logic'. and herein, for me, lies the essence of the problem with technology, comfort, individuation, and unreflective reliance on logic."
Science is a combination of emprical observations tested with experiment and then logical analysis to determine what the observations might mean. Science ultimatly defies logic by being creative enough to find a new way of looking at the world. (ie copernicus, newton, franklin, eddison etc)
This thread reminded me of a conversation I once had with a few fellow students and our professional advisor while in grad school working on an urban design competition. We were discussing how city form relates creativity. (We had this discussion shortly after Richard Florida's book came out and his ideas were still a hot topic.) I've always been particularly curious about how city form and indie rock relate. (Yes, I often try to merge my central interests.)
Our professional advisor for the competition (an architect turned developer) suggested that bad urban design (or more likely short sided infrastructure projects) is often necessary to make creativity possible. That's to say, big highways that cut through cities creating the "bad side of town" and other urban design follies often provides cheap real estate for artists and musicians. He was arguing that the Big Dig in Boston was a costly mistake because it will drive out artists from the less expensive parts of the city. While he's certainly correct (a large part of the reason the big dig was done was to provide better access from the financial district to the waterfront), I don't necessarily think that planners and urban designer should strive for making "mistakes."
That said, now that I live in New York, I'm disappointed to see that so much of the active artists scene is so dispersed throughout the city (and even the whole metro region, at this point.) Now there is no one single, strong artists neighborhood, but rather sub-neighborhoods in all the boros and even out in the 'burbs. The density of artists makes a place more exciting and now that isn't really happening.
I was once considering trying to map the locations of where bands practice and/or live in various cities and see if there's any spacial similarities.
"(ie copernicus, newton, franklin, eddison etc)"
it is the individual which has shaped the world, singularity of thought and inovation that has lead civilization to our current state of affluents and progress (standard of living, mortality rate) the individaul is held supreme by the libertarians.
democrats: mish mash of fringe groups who hope to consolidate our health care, education, etc....think the govt. is the solution to societies ills.."just tax them more"
republicans: while acknowledging the power of free markets and capitalism, revert to social conforming attitudes based predomenantly on the "protestant work ethic"....thus not receptive to alt. lifestyles. will replace "politically correct" w/ "religously correct"
libertarians take the best of both, accepting capitalism and free markets as the best most effecient exchange between people (capitalism is an emergent science) and does not pollitisize from the pulpit (seperation of church and state)
optimk, calecrichrs,
i'm asking that we step outside of the distinctions we make between democrats and republicans, because when we do we are able to see the motivations behind why a particular world view exists. there's nothing inherent to anyone's fundamental beliefs that, for example, links being a christian moralist to nonregulation of the economy or limited federal powers. stated differently, being a democrat or being republican is nearly meaningless. its serves to lubrictae the legislative process, but that is it. as an identity, that d versus r distinction has almost zero import.
moving on, to say we should as humans value progress because biological determinism suggests darwinistic evolution is the way of the natural world, while very interesting, is merely incidental. a condition of extreme economic competition, minimally regulated or completely unregulated, depicts no causal relationship to biological progress. the laissez faire condition has as much causal root in the biochemical enactment of dna variation as it has in the process of the making of sausage.
i would posit that the desire to essentialize and minimize the right of the state to inflict as little regulation as possible on the rights of the individual to his or her property is not an essential, timless, unaltering and necessary human trait. instead it is an accident of history.
and its attractiveness derives from the lucidity of argument that, say, a basic geometric proof portrays.
people like ayn rand, who base some or most of their individuation argument on nietzsche's notion of the overman have not undertaken a close reading of nietzsche. nietzsche fervently and consistently advocated the postition that reason alone is incapable of allowing man to achieve a true picture of nature (ie the world).
in which case we need to look at studying the bahavior of ants...ants are social insects...constructing cities with highly regulated jobs/positions for individual ants which determines the sucess of the colony....we are social animals who construct cities...what is it that we do as individuals which ensure our sucess?
what is your definition of progress? would you define progress as an increase in life expectancy, longer life?
according to most evolution theories accidents are the name of the game, we mutate, morph.
i don't care about genetic mutation. i mean i do in that its interesting. but so is sushi.
i am more interested in what a city is. why man live in cities. yes its a happy coincidence that ants are wired to behave communally. unfortunately, though, ants are not aware that they have made a choice to live communally. so therefore i cannot derive any deeper insight into the nature of man from the biological study of ants.
i think that historical progress is (or the consciousness that one is progressing toward a more desirable condition) a relatively new concept. it is resultant from a scientifically based pursuasiveness of argument which hegel formulated. now i'm not ready to deny its validity as a way of understanding the unfolding of the world in time and space but, just as well, i'm not sure valuing the notion of historical unfolding is the natural state of mankind.
is the desire to prolong our stay on this earth a good goal? is the hippocratic call for the primacy of human comfort something that is natural? is the prioritizing of individual 'rights' over communal cohesion a good thing?
if heartless cruelty is a defining trait of nature with a small n (we are mortal, we cannot live forever and every child realizes this horrible reality when an elder relative dies) is the Nature of man inextricably entwined with the one means to which we can take recourse to which gives our lives meaning? is the Nature of man in otherwords essentially the ability which we possess to communicate a meaningful coexistence?
this is what dwelling is. and as such this commonly accepted definition of existentially conscious dwelling assumes as a precondtition the prioritizing of the public good over individual expression.
this ultimately is the shortcoming of libertarianism's claims to be anything more than merely a socio-economic thesis. a great one mind you, but so particular in its legitimate scope to be but historical.
optimk - I agree with you that Minneapolis is a very liberal city but I would also argue that the state as a whole is very balanced politically. We are by no means a politically lop sided state like a California or a Utah. Personally I think the vibrant political dialouge here is another asset I'd include for a reason Minneapolis is a great city.
"moving on, to say we should as humans value progress because biological determinism suggests darwinistic evolution is the way of the natural world, while very interesting, is merely incidental. a condition of extreme economic competition, minimally regulated or completely unregulated, depicts no causal relationship to biological progress. the laissez faire condition has as much causal root in the biochemical enactment of dna variation as it has in the process of the making of sausage."
Whether or not we (as a society) value progress is irrellevant. Individuals value progress, because they have a biological instinct to progress, advance and full fill their goals, both biologically (sex) and materialistically. Capitalism is proven to be the most favorable system for innovation, progress, and advancement of the standard of liviing. This is important, if we force ourselves to live in a sysmem that conflicts with how we are biologically and psycologicall wired it will end in conflict, violnce, and poverty.
"i would posit that the desire to essentialize and minimize the right of the state to inflict as little regulation as possible on the rights of the individual to his or her property is not an essential, timless, unaltering and necessary human trait. instead it is an accident of history."
The state was viewed as a burden to individual accomplishment, and that is what inspired liberal philosophers to develop the notions of indivdual rights and economic rights (capitalism). To argue that this is a historical accident is to argue that our own biological evolution from apes is just as much as an accident and thus not important. This is very important and should not be discarded.
"people like ayn rand, who base some or most of their individuation argument on nietzsche's notion of the overman have not undertaken a close reading of nietzsche. nietzsche fervently and consistently advocated the postition that reason alone is incapable of allowing man to achieve a true picture of nature (ie the world)."
Rand has never argued of an overman. You are right about nietzche; however rand argued that the individual should be free to do what he/she pleases, but yet suboordinate to a government that protects indivduals rights. An overman in the niezceian sense ends goverment and rules in a tyannical manner. There is a distinct difference. To nieche there are no principles worth preserving.
A: I agree completlely.
Pedro: "i think that historical progress is (or the consciousness that one is progressing toward a more desirable condition) a relatively new concept. it is resultant from a scientifically based pursuasiveness of argument which hegel formulated. now i'm not ready to deny its validity as a way of understanding the unfolding of the world in time and space but, just as well, i'm not sure valuing the notion of historical unfolding is the natural state of mankind."
Hegel didn't believe in a right or wrong set of moral values, he argued that conflict led to progress. I do not advocate this. I argue that progress comes from allowing the maximum amount of freedom to the individual that is possible while still preserving a republican form of governement. Hegel's ideas fit in with the 18th century in that Materialism dictated economics; however, in contemporary times this does not jive. Innovation is the driving force of our economy and as such is dependent not on conflict (in the hegelian sense) but innovation.
"Capitalism is proven to be the most favorable system for innovation, progress, and advancement of the standard of liviing."
it has been proven? how? by whom?
"The state was viewed as a burden to individual accomplishment"
who view the state this way? you? its news to me.
nietzsche has one principle which is his overarching concern: that of achieving as accurate and truthful portrayal of nature as possible.
optimk,
lets talk about this statement you made:
"Hegel's ideas fit in with the 18th century in that Materialism dictated economics".
there's so much here. can you elaborate what you mean? what is materialism?
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