So, I applied to this marketing manager position at a largish firm about 13 months ago. I shit you not I just got a "we don't think you're a right fit for this position at this time." While I appreciate a reply, 13 months— seriously, over a year. I forgot I even applied to it.
Though I'd like to work in planning and architecture, making internet banner ads is a bit more lucrative.
So now there are Pro-Russia groups ousting governments in Ukraine? Do we like Ukraine? I'm trying hard to see the indignities of it all, but can't seem to get myself to care. Are people going to get hurt if Russia takes over? Will they be better/worse off? Will the US be invaded? Will we have to start practicing bomb drills along with the fire/bad weather/lockdown drills we already?
I don't think US really has a huge stake. russia has a lot of oil, and they send it through ukraine to get to europe, so in that sense europe has a pretty big stake.
as i understand it, some Ukrainians want to join the EU and work out more of a 'western' style government. other Ukrainians want to remain closer to russia, as they were during the old days of the soviet union. there are a lot of russians living in the ukraine.
so the people who want to join the EU kicked the pro-russia president out of kiev (their capital). russia didn't want to lose their black fleet, so they took over crimea. they already had their military there, so it wasn't that hard, and i expect it wasn't really that surprising to anyone.
now it seems russia, or the russian sympathizers who live in the east of the ukrain (i don't know how much external influence there is) are trying to take over their local governments in solidarity with russia. kind of pointless, as the country is supposed to have elections next month to keep up the appearance of democracy and all that. if they want different political leaders, they can vote for different leaders. about half of donetsk is russian, so i doubt their local politicians like mayor or governor aren't already pro-russian. that wouldn't change if they were members of the EU or not. as long as there isn't a war where a bunch of kids shoot at each other and die for no good reason, i don't think things will change in most people's day to day lives either way.
if russia were to overtly invade eastern ukrain in order to expand the territory they have influence over (send in the troops they have lined up rather than relying on covert or paramilitary manipulation), that might be seen as a bad thing. war to expand territory or political influence is frowned upon in the international community. you have to have an excuse, such as weapons of mass destruction. nato could get involved. we could have ww3, which would ultimately involve the countries with the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. mutually assured destruction and all that.
i like to follow the doomsday clock at http://thebulletin.org to decide how worried i should be. it's 5 minutes to midnight. plenty of time.
Both economies are tied relatively closely together, so an escalation can be of concern (if say you have anything invested in the market -via 401k, pension, IRA) and there could be a general rise in costs of goods coming out of Europe if their NG costs increase due to Russian interventions. Ukraine is a powerful economy in that region (it was the engine of the USSR), so the impact could be great, one way or the other. Ukraine joining the EU is worse for Russia than them not is for the US, the stakes favor the Russians.
The threat of escalation is more a concern if Putin's claims to Crimea are expanded - he is not recognizing any 'land grants' post-WWII, if I'm understanding his statements correctly (one of which was ceding Crimea to Ukraine). The memory of the last major conflict in Crimea is not so great either, despite the advances in medical aid, battlefield photography, and some nice literature. If Putin expands the former claims, Alaska along with the Oregon Country states might not want to sit so comfortably (Oregon Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) - though very unlikely we're going to be in Red Dawn scenario.
I learned on Saturday a boycott of Russia might play havoc with our NASA Space program. It has kind of been a USA/ Russia joint program. Turns out the Russians build the Rockets which are going into our American Vessels. When I heard that I had to scratch my head. Seems like we might want to be building our own rocket engines.
Just heard on the news that Synthetic LSD is killing kids in area schools. I know I was SUPPOSED to focus on the killing kids part, but I just thought 'isn't LSD synthetic anyway?'
Nam....I'm in more of a NCCA Basket Ball Frame of Mind! One National Championship Team and have fingers and toes Crossed the Lady Huskies can pull off the other National Championship this evening. One thing for sure we have good basketball and lots of Taxes here in the Nutmeg State.
Well, the lady huskies are a 8 pt favorite, though at this level it doesn't matter much - nice to see the boys that stayed through the academic sanction got a title. What is up with the taxes here, you'd think the big corps being around would help with this...
This article wherein Libeskind compares himself to Beethoven (WTF?!?) makes me literally sick to my stomach and viscerally angry and figuratively ready to explode. But even if I literally exploded the resulting mess would be aesthetically more beautiful than his buildings.
I don't think he's comparing himself to Beethoven - it seems like he's saying that sometimes things take a long time to gain public acceptance - and that he doesn't care what the critics think.
and there's this quote:
Hey, you know something? Today everyone can compose Beethoven's Fifth. We don't live in the era of the old fashioned idea of masterpieces done by the masters, everybody isn't powered to be creative and in a democratic society, it is freedom that creates the beauty, it's not authorities. I think that is the era of change. Everybody has the impetus to be an artist, to create their own house environment. To do something which is beautiful that is desirable by them and not just put to them through the market, through the power of systems, through ideology.
toast, I absolutely and completely disagree that "everyone can compose Beethoven's Fifth". It's lunacy to even say that.
I just re-visited Taliesin West. FLW was a GENIUS. His level of talent and intellect about his chosen field was extremely atypical. Libeskind is atypical, in that most people aren't doing buildings as shitty as his, but that doesn't mean he's a genius. I don't think we have any practicing geniuses in the field of architecture at all right now.
And as per usual Libeskind's statements broken down sentence-by-sentence are just self-contradictory meaningless word salad. There is little to no "democracy" in his projects: he's saying that "authority" shouldn't say whether or not something is beautiful, yet EVERY ONE of his projects has been commissioned by "authority" while joe-on-the-street tends to hate them.
He's a classic emperor with no clothes, and appears to be deeply narcissistic. Psychopathic narcissists also don't care what anyone thinks of them ( I'm not saying he's psychopathic, or even a narcissist, but it certainly appears that way as he's represented in the press.). It baffles me that so many people have fallen for his utter bullshit.
I don't really care for his buildings either... but he's definitely not a psychopath - and I'm pretty sure he's being sincere in his belief everyone has the capacity to produce great works of art. I don't know if I agree with that either, but I think if you actually met him you'd have a different opinion.
I do not believe everyone has the capacity to create great works of art. I could train for the next decade and still not be able to sing a heart-wrenching aria, or even create a great work of art, for that matter, even though I'm a significantly better artist than singer. It's a common situation that among a group of people some of them will excel at some skills better than others; there's no shame in that. There is no randomly selected group of humans that would all have equal capacity to do or learn any one skill. That's what makes us humans not machines.
Maybe Libeskind is a very nice guy - I've heard from people who used to work for him that he's fun to be around, at least. But I sincerely listened to his TED talk twice through just to make sure it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. It's horrible word salad. Lots of catch-phrasey and admittedly cool insights that are then followed by non-sequiturs that contradict or reframe the things he's previously said.
And I'd like to say that I wouldn't dislike his work so much if he'd just not talk about it, but that Canadian museum project is just atrocious. It's laughable yet irredeemable. Poor Ontario.
I don't think they've announced the winner of the Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa yet. I really hope they don't pick Libeskind (not just because my firm is one of the other finalists or because I don't like pointy objects)...
He came to lecture in CPH once while I was there. I left after 5 minutes because his lecture was so discursively obtuse that I couldn't bring myself to keep listening.
But hey. It's Friday and I'm drinking wine out of a work mug!
Donna, I haven't listened to the TED, but I read that quote from Toast as saying Even people who haven't been formally trained by great masters can create something amazing, think that Susan Boyle lady, or maybe that austic guy that draws those amazing cityscapes.
Today I am hating my job. Hating it. I am so tired of students getting the "Access Denied; your search preferences need to be set to filter explicit results" page on the internet, and then saying "I can't search. It won't let me!" WTF Read the box. The 14pt text under the 18pt blue text. It has instructions. And even a link! GRRRRRR. From now on, it will be a prerequisite that you must be able and willing to read to be in my class. And I am forever blocking youtube, mini clip, poptropica, and all fun sites. Maybe I'll just get rid of internet access altogether. Need to research a country to create a travel poster? I have national geographic mags and encyclopedias right here.
Stephanie I think "discursively obtuse" is spot on. But I also think many of our best archispeakers can be opaque and long-winded but if you break it down they *are* actually stating a position. I don't think Libeskind has an actual position under all that rambling.
Who is this Stephanie, and why aren't we partying with her? My type of humor. Danny hasn't produced anything worth talking about since Berlin, and I hear that he is adding to that? Well, that'll certainly fuck that up.
on another note, I just finished an interview in publication by Pin-Up magazine, with Peter Marino, and I loved it, and him. He is someone I used to think was a joke, but after reading this, I find him, refreshingly vulgar/brash. His disdain for gobbledygook in architecture, and asshole architects, was definitely speaking to me. He even had a few choice words for the AIA, and their inability to be a force for change, the way that the AMA is...
Too lazy to google right now, but Public Work is a firm name and also an action, yes? An action noun, if that makes sense? What other firm names are actions? Synthesis is one local firm.
MoMA-rt is beginning the demolition of the Folk Art Building today. It has lost all credibility, as has DS + R; welcome to your plunge into mediocrity.
I'm wondering if there's anything in this building worth salvaging. yeah - it's pretty sad that it's being cannibalized, but it's not like really old buildings where people will want to save some of the ornament - I'm looking around at interior pictures and the only thing aside from furniture is maybe hand-rails and flooring... maybe some of the lighting... the facade has the most interesting individual components - and that's being kept.
You know how the Smithsons would talk about how modern buildings would look like in ruin - maybe for moments like these, we should be asking how bits of our buildings can be salvaged and re-purposed into other buildings or gardens... that there's something there worth saving that goes beyond valuable raw materials. how can our buildings be atomized...
the best thing about the folk art museum for me was the progression of spaces in a tight space and the sectional quality. the stair piece was nice but not too much ornament' it's mostly all or nothing (which is probably why it's going away). so sad. still haven't renewed my membership (though i'll probably give in).
You a fan of Old Scout? picked some 7 yr aged last week. Delicious and so smooth. Didn't realize it as 99 proof till the other day, when my buddy dropped by and poured us both a shot.
he was like dam! but super smooth for 99 proof nonetheless.
Another sad moment was the per-demolition yard sale at one of my father's projects. People went in with sledgehammers and crowbars and came out with whatever they could carry.
The once-nice wood house (admittedly large for it's day) was replaced with a humongonormous marble-sided oceanfront mausoleum. That's a 5 acre lot, and the house on the left is another Jaffe (only doubled in size with an later addition). For reference, the tennis court is 60' by 120'.
Normally Art, especially sculpture, is just 'cool' looking to me. I don't typically get a deeper message. If it's realistic, like Rodin or Michaelangelo, I'm impressed by the skill. I it's abstract, like all those giant steal plate structures we have in DFW, I say neat. But the one in this article made me want to cry. The message was immediately apparent, and I 'got it' so to speak. Anybody else feel that way? Am I just uncultured?
Sarah, I personally respond very strongly to most figurative art. In architecture I'm always talking about bodily empathy between our physical bodies and the physical materials of construction, but in art I have the empathetic reaction to an expression. What's that called? is it anthropomorphizing if it's already a human/facial representation?
I can't not feel empathy to anything with a face, including vegetables and houses.
Nam - how's the rye in that bourbon? I'm still working on a triple smoke by corsair (sitting among the scotch at this point), but do like a decent bottle of rye or a high rye bourbon.
Thread Central
So, I applied to this marketing manager position at a largish firm about 13 months ago. I shit you not I just got a "we don't think you're a right fit for this position at this time." While I appreciate a reply, 13 months— seriously, over a year. I forgot I even applied to it.
Though I'd like to work in planning and architecture, making internet banner ads is a bit more lucrative.
jjr....so your the guy who keeps messing with my computer...lol banner adds!
Hey now, a freelancer in an agency makes more than a project architect and you really don't have to know very much.
i love kentucky, but...
Hawaii is a great place to be homeless.
j.james r.....send me the agency name....we do banners all the time.
We are keeping our fingers and toes crossed for two national championships....go Connecticut Huskies!
I stopped following when the Crimson was eliminated.
I don't think US really has a huge stake. russia has a lot of oil, and they send it through ukraine to get to europe, so in that sense europe has a pretty big stake.
as i understand it, some Ukrainians want to join the EU and work out more of a 'western' style government. other Ukrainians want to remain closer to russia, as they were during the old days of the soviet union. there are a lot of russians living in the ukraine.
so the people who want to join the EU kicked the pro-russia president out of kiev (their capital). russia didn't want to lose their black fleet, so they took over crimea. they already had their military there, so it wasn't that hard, and i expect it wasn't really that surprising to anyone.
now it seems russia, or the russian sympathizers who live in the east of the ukrain (i don't know how much external influence there is) are trying to take over their local governments in solidarity with russia. kind of pointless, as the country is supposed to have elections next month to keep up the appearance of democracy and all that. if they want different political leaders, they can vote for different leaders. about half of donetsk is russian, so i doubt their local politicians like mayor or governor aren't already pro-russian. that wouldn't change if they were members of the EU or not. as long as there isn't a war where a bunch of kids shoot at each other and die for no good reason, i don't think things will change in most people's day to day lives either way.
if russia were to overtly invade eastern ukrain in order to expand the territory they have influence over (send in the troops they have lined up rather than relying on covert or paramilitary manipulation), that might be seen as a bad thing. war to expand territory or political influence is frowned upon in the international community. you have to have an excuse, such as weapons of mass destruction. nato could get involved. we could have ww3, which would ultimately involve the countries with the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. mutually assured destruction and all that.
i like to follow the doomsday clock at http://thebulletin.org to decide how worried i should be. it's 5 minutes to midnight. plenty of time.
Both economies are tied relatively closely together, so an escalation can be of concern (if say you have anything invested in the market -via 401k, pension, IRA) and there could be a general rise in costs of goods coming out of Europe if their NG costs increase due to Russian interventions. Ukraine is a powerful economy in that region (it was the engine of the USSR), so the impact could be great, one way or the other. Ukraine joining the EU is worse for Russia than them not is for the US, the stakes favor the Russians.
The threat of escalation is more a concern if Putin's claims to Crimea are expanded - he is not recognizing any 'land grants' post-WWII, if I'm understanding his statements correctly (one of which was ceding Crimea to Ukraine). The memory of the last major conflict in Crimea is not so great either, despite the advances in medical aid, battlefield photography, and some nice literature. If Putin expands the former claims, Alaska along with the Oregon Country states might not want to sit so comfortably (Oregon Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) - though very unlikely we're going to be in Red Dawn scenario.
I learned on Saturday a boycott of Russia might play havoc with our NASA Space program. It has kind of been a USA/ Russia joint program. Turns out the Russians build the Rockets which are going into our American Vessels. When I heard that I had to scratch my head. Seems like we might want to be building our own rocket engines.
hey TC!
regarding this new school-blog, wasn't there a longtime poster named PsyArch?
also
@snooker at least NASA might be diversifying a bit more now with SpaceX
Nam....I'm in more of a NCCA Basket Ball Frame of Mind! One National Championship Team and have fingers and toes Crossed the Lady Huskies can pull off the other National Championship this evening. One thing for sure we have good basketball and lots of Taxes here in the Nutmeg State.
well after Gators got beat i am not sure who I am cheering on...
Well, the lady huskies are a 8 pt favorite, though at this level it doesn't matter much - nice to see the boys that stayed through the academic sanction got a title. What is up with the taxes here, you'd think the big corps being around would help with this...
This article wherein Libeskind compares himself to Beethoven (WTF?!?) makes me literally sick to my stomach and viscerally angry and figuratively ready to explode. But even if I literally exploded the resulting mess would be aesthetically more beautiful than his buildings.
When it comes to starchitects it's difficult to decide who the biggest asswipe is. The competition is fierce.
I don't think he's comparing himself to Beethoven - it seems like he's saying that sometimes things take a long time to gain public acceptance - and that he doesn't care what the critics think.
and there's this quote:
Hey, you know something? Today everyone can compose Beethoven's Fifth. We don't live in the era of the old fashioned idea of masterpieces done by the masters, everybody isn't powered to be creative and in a democratic society, it is freedom that creates the beauty, it's not authorities. I think that is the era of change. Everybody has the impetus to be an artist, to create their own house environment. To do something which is beautiful that is desirable by them and not just put to them through the market, through the power of systems, through ideology.
toast, I absolutely and completely disagree that "everyone can compose Beethoven's Fifth". It's lunacy to even say that.
I just re-visited Taliesin West. FLW was a GENIUS. His level of talent and intellect about his chosen field was extremely atypical. Libeskind is atypical, in that most people aren't doing buildings as shitty as his, but that doesn't mean he's a genius. I don't think we have any practicing geniuses in the field of architecture at all right now.
And as per usual Libeskind's statements broken down sentence-by-sentence are just self-contradictory meaningless word salad. There is little to no "democracy" in his projects: he's saying that "authority" shouldn't say whether or not something is beautiful, yet EVERY ONE of his projects has been commissioned by "authority" while joe-on-the-street tends to hate them.
He's a classic emperor with no clothes, and appears to be deeply narcissistic. Psychopathic narcissists also don't care what anyone thinks of them ( I'm not saying he's psychopathic, or even a narcissist, but it certainly appears that way as he's represented in the press.). It baffles me that so many people have fallen for his utter bullshit.
you don't like pointy stuff?
I don't really care for his buildings either... but he's definitely not a psychopath - and I'm pretty sure he's being sincere in his belief everyone has the capacity to produce great works of art. I don't know if I agree with that either, but I think if you actually met him you'd have a different opinion.
I do not believe everyone has the capacity to create great works of art. I could train for the next decade and still not be able to sing a heart-wrenching aria, or even create a great work of art, for that matter, even though I'm a significantly better artist than singer. It's a common situation that among a group of people some of them will excel at some skills better than others; there's no shame in that. There is no randomly selected group of humans that would all have equal capacity to do or learn any one skill. That's what makes us humans not machines.
Maybe Libeskind is a very nice guy - I've heard from people who used to work for him that he's fun to be around, at least. But I sincerely listened to his TED talk twice through just to make sure it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. It's horrible word salad. Lots of catch-phrasey and admittedly cool insights that are then followed by non-sequiturs that contradict or reframe the things he's previously said.
And I'd like to say that I wouldn't dislike his work so much if he'd just not talk about it, but that Canadian museum project is just atrocious. It's laughable yet irredeemable. Poor Ontario.
I don't think they've announced the winner of the Holocaust Memorial in Ottawa yet. I really hope they don't pick Libeskind (not just because my firm is one of the other finalists or because I don't like pointy objects)...
He came to lecture in CPH once while I was there. I left after 5 minutes because his lecture was so discursively obtuse that I couldn't bring myself to keep listening.
But hey. It's Friday and I'm drinking wine out of a work mug!
now THAT'S genius!
Maybe the best company work mug ever?
Donna, I haven't listened to the TED, but I read that quote from Toast as saying Even people who haven't been formally trained by great masters can create something amazing, think that Susan Boyle lady, or maybe that austic guy that draws those amazing cityscapes.
Today I am hating my job. Hating it. I am so tired of students getting the "Access Denied; your search preferences need to be set to filter explicit results" page on the internet, and then saying "I can't search. It won't let me!" WTF Read the box. The 14pt text under the 18pt blue text. It has instructions. And even a link! GRRRRRR. From now on, it will be a prerequisite that you must be able and willing to read to be in my class. And I am forever blocking youtube, mini clip, poptropica, and all fun sites. Maybe I'll just get rid of internet access altogether. Need to research a country to create a travel poster? I have national geographic mags and encyclopedias right here.
Libeskind is a carnival all to himself.
Who is this Stephanie, and why aren't we partying with her? My type of humor. Danny hasn't produced anything worth talking about since Berlin, and I hear that he is adding to that? Well, that'll certainly fuck that up.
on another note, I just finished an interview in publication by Pin-Up magazine, with Peter Marino, and I loved it, and him. He is someone I used to think was a joke, but after reading this, I find him, refreshingly vulgar/brash. His disdain for gobbledygook in architecture, and asshole architects, was definitely speaking to me. He even had a few choice words for the AIA, and their inability to be a force for change, the way that the AMA is...
MoMA-rt is beginning the demolition of the Folk Art Building today. It has lost all credibility, as has DS + R; welcome to your plunge into mediocrity.
I'm wondering if there's anything in this building worth salvaging. yeah - it's pretty sad that it's being cannibalized, but it's not like really old buildings where people will want to save some of the ornament - I'm looking around at interior pictures and the only thing aside from furniture is maybe hand-rails and flooring... maybe some of the lighting... the facade has the most interesting individual components - and that's being kept.
You know how the Smithsons would talk about how modern buildings would look like in ruin - maybe for moments like these, we should be asking how bits of our buildings can be salvaged and re-purposed into other buildings or gardens... that there's something there worth saving that goes beyond valuable raw materials. how can our buildings be atomized...
anyone else think the lede image for this article looks like an ad for a hair salon?
probably unintentional because architects in general are just so damn sexy... nice projects in there though.
the best thing about the folk art museum for me was the progression of spaces in a tight space and the sectional quality. the stair piece was nice but not too much ornament' it's mostly all or nothing (which is probably why it's going away). so sad. still haven't renewed my membership (though i'll probably give in).
calling Steven Ward and other TC bourbon lovers,
You a fan of Old Scout? picked some 7 yr aged last week. Delicious and so smooth. Didn't realize it as 99 proof till the other day, when my buddy dropped by and poured us both a shot.
he was like dam! but super smooth for 99 proof nonetheless.
also any fans of the book Five North American Architects / Kenneth Frampton ? looks like a book a might enjoy..
Another sad moment was the per-demolition yard sale at one of my father's projects. People went in with sledgehammers and crowbars and came out with whatever they could carry.
The once-nice wood house (admittedly large for it's day) was replaced with a humongonormous marble-sided oceanfront mausoleum. That's a 5 acre lot, and the house on the left is another Jaffe (only doubled in size with an later addition). For reference, the tennis court is 60' by 120'.
Is that Ralph Lauren's house?
Donna, I think it is Bernie's Weekend House. One of my all time favorite silly movies with modern architecture in it.
I bet the firm I used to work for built that mausoleum, assuming you weren't being sarcastic.
http://www.coolhunting.com/culture/avec-motifs-apparents.php
If you're looking for art on coolhunting.com you should be disappointed.
I wasn't. The article came up in my flipboard feed.
happy vishu
Sarah, I personally respond very strongly to most figurative art. In architecture I'm always talking about bodily empathy between our physical bodies and the physical materials of construction, but in art I have the empathetic reaction to an expression. What's that called? is it anthropomorphizing if it's already a human/facial representation?
I can't not feel empathy to anything with a face, including vegetables and houses.
Nam - how's the rye in that bourbon? I'm still working on a triple smoke by corsair (sitting among the scotch at this point), but do like a decent bottle of rye or a high rye bourbon.
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