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GOODBYE, CRUEL WORLD.-  or – THERE IS LIFE AFTER FACEBOOK

I don’t know how I got sucked into Facebook in the first place, but Joy is assisting me to extricate myself out of this mess. I don’t have time or the interest  to know what everyone is doing!  However, I will stay in touch with the cyber-world via e-Mail. No, I do not Text either!  I have let go of FAXing, unless my scanner is down.

LES HALLES                                               

 Or better known as ”Le Catastrophe!”. An area in central Paris where all fresh food was handled that consisted of several huge, steel structures that were built in early 1800’s. How such a great project was built in the first place is a miracle in itself, but the destruction of it in the 1970.s is even a greater enigma.   Understandably, by the early 1900’s it was too much activity to contain it so it was moved to another outer place in Paris. The food scene was taken care of elsewhere but then the Parisians didn’t know what to do with these huge Le  Halles. So they demolished them. But not before an American businessman was able to buy one and have it moved to another area in Paris.  Now, as everyone looks back, they concur that  “Golley, these would make really cool market area for all kinds of shops, etc.” I would like to see some of the controversy, pros and cons, regarding the destruction of them. This is a good lesson for all of us. But let’s not get hung up on saving structures that are only old, but not great. 

YOU’VE HEARD OF THE SANDANISTAS?

AUGUSTO SANDINO  1895-1934  Now here was a real revolutionary kind of guy. He declared war on the United States when his army probably consisted of no more than about 600 malcontents. To Castro, Che, and other later leaders, he was a real role model.  He led a rebellion in Nicaragua against the U.S occupation  until 1933, when General Samoza  seized power in a coup d’etat.  Samoza killed Sandino then  ruled as a dictatorship for 40 years, with the help of the United States (Why do we always do that?).  Sandino is still a national hero in Nicaragua. I guess the U.S. doesn’t really think of him in that light. The Sandinistas (FSLN) overthrew the Samoza regime in 1979. Other South American rebels still use the term “Sandinista”.

 

TIME FOR FUN                               

   In my early days of architecting in California, I frequented the first Coffeehouse in the West, Portofino in Malibu. This was in  the ‘60’s and a coffeehouse was a far cry from Starbucks as it was a funky building where the customers generally provided the entertainment . Poetry, (Ginsburg was there), reading of  plays by the  Avant Guarde & Shakespeare, etc. Then, as I have done for all my professional days, I traded part of my fee for food & drink. The owners wanted to add an outdoor area with a stage and some protection from the elements. I came up with a tensile structure that was efficient, minimal and inexpensive. It was never built and I have lost the drawings.

  Although I’ve renovated several small auditoriums (The Cinnabar Theatre being one, Polly Klass Theater also) only recently have I had the opportunity to design a major auditorium , and this one for several thousand people.  Instead of doing the project for food & Drink, I am trading for a few points in a future lifetime. (This is taking the long view).

Anyway, the program is fairly involved as the first phase will be designed  for about a thousand seats, while a second phase will add another 1500 seats, and with an ultimate build-out of about 7000 seats, the later to be on sloped lawns with a canvas cover to ward off the rain and sun of the Wisconsin summers.   I began with a floor plan of a 90 degree angle with the apex at the speakers small platform, but soon realized that expanding the arc to 120 degrees we could add another one fourth of audience (Several thousand). Of course, the problem becomes that some people will be 250 to 300 feet from the speaker, (That’s the length of a football field) so Auditory and Visual augmentation will have to be installed every 50 feet or so. I built a crude model as the roof was getting a little complex You will notice the red roof is the roof of the building, while the tent structures are the tan color. 

There are other smaller aspects of this project (for ISHA, The Institute for Human Awareness),  and one is a small domed structure for about 400 seat auditorium. I initially began with a Lamella type structure but it developed into a modified Fuller Type of roof, using wood timbers and steel connectors . This dome will be fabricated in Portland, Oregon, and delivered to our site in central Wisconsin for final assembly.  This dome project is about a million dollar project, while the cost of the  large auditorium will be around  three million dollars, built in stages.  Currently, I’m looking at various roof framing systems (Steel, Glu-Lam, etc.) I’m using fold-up walls for moveable walls similar to airplane hanger doors due to 40 foot spans..

Of course, there are other aspects of such a project that we have to consider such as: Dining Halls & kitchen, toilet pavilions, parking and maybe some housing.

        Thus endeth todays’ talk on Architecture.

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WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?

            What happened was that  Nina Simone was in the middle of the Black Revolution, writing songs that reflected the terrible times around her. “Strange Fruit” (black boys hanging on trees), four little girls killed in a church,” Mississippi, Goddamn !!” etc. In those days, they couldn’t sell her record because you couldn’t swear on a record cover.  Her early days of classical piano segued into a most interesting Jazz vocalist/Musician. She always wanted to play in Carnegie Hall (Bach/Mozart) but finally played there as a foremost Jazz Lady. I had always loved her work but didn’t know until the movie that most of  her songs were drawn from her actual life.  She did some wonderful songs in French later as she lived there for many years after a few years in Liberia, the small country in West Africa that was established for the blacks ‘to come home to’. That didn’t work.

LE TOILET

I’ve been studying the history of the toilet (to be more specific, the Water Closet) which led me to the Japanese company that is the leader of innovation in such matters, Toto.

As an architect we have to research all aspects of our work. And also, I am a consultant to the Graton Sewer Plant, my building, Atelier One, being one of the larger depositors of the system.  I’ve always noticed that women seem to use too much TP. Also, Japanese females flush about three times while taking a leak. (Or leaving one). (Sqeemish readers can skip the rest of this paragraph). And why do they do this? They want to cover up the noise they are making!  Now on the other end of these things, that is 3 times the amount of water we have to process in order to make it drinkable, which is called Tertiary Treatment, the current California standard for Sewage Treatment Plants, although it’s against the law to drink it. But let’s not go there. When Toto found that out (It took years of research!) the added an audio to the toilet that is a sound of water running , I  never did find out what. Also, some public restrooms now have a noisy water fountain in them as an Art Object. My next question is: Do American women do “cover up flushes” also? Those of us on the other end of this flow need to know these things in order to get up a campaign of education to alleviate the high cost of processing  this water.

     UNALASKA                                      In the hey-day of my Modular building days, (1970),  I traveled to Fairbanks, Alaska to talk to a group  of Eskimos who were interested in buying my modulars for housing in Kodiak, on the Island of Unalaska, about 1500 miles East of Alaska. In those days, a huge ship would tie up at the quai, hire hundreds of Esquimos to process the fish that was brought there. I met the group at a dinner at one of the better  restaurants in Fairbanks. One of their group was a young woman, very beautiful, except she was had a deformed finger, probably from an accident that didn’t get her to a doctor in order to get it straightened.  I was unable to find out why it happened. I didn’t know they made them that beautiful, though.  I had investigated shipping to them  by sea before the meeting,  and had revised my system from a 3 D  to a panel type in order to fit into a container, which were just beginning to become in use.  They needed some decent housing as there were a lot of jobs for workers on the large ships that were used as floating factories., tied up more or less permanently.  Before I got too far in the negotiations, though, our partner, Ford Motor Co. opted to get out of the modular housing industry.

 CHOCOLATE

After a frustrating search in Belgium,  we finally found Waterloo, where Napoleon final met it. Across from our hotel we spied a Greek looking store called “Leonidas” and found it to be a Chocolate Shop. We bought a few pieces and afterward, always looked for the same name. We did find one near Harry’s Bar in Paris, Medina bought a full box of one of each type of candy. I was too embarrassed by that and bought at least two pieces of each type.   Chocolate didn’t appear in Europe until about 1500 (Let’s give Columbus credit for something, for God’s sake!).  It was a far cry from what you  & I eat but in 1815, a Dutch chemist Van Houten introduced Alkaline salts into the mix which made it cheaper to make. Later, in1879, Rudolphe Lindt (Swiss) invented a Conching machine, this made the chocolate finer and able to cast into bars. It was used as a drink prior to that.  Interestingly, animals can’t eat it ( as it contains Theobromine) and is toxic to them. So that’s why you look for Belgian or Swiss chocolateers.

   Meanwhile, Leonidas Kestekides, a Greek-American,  founded the largest chocolate company in Europe in 1916. Beginning in Brussels, there are hundreds of shops all over now.  His logo is a Sparten Greek God. (He should have used the dollar symbol $$$).

COCAINE PROBLEM

Whenever this comes up, someone says , “Well, Coca Cola got it’s name from the Cocaine that was in it.”.  In a way, true.  In 1884 the original recipe for it did contain some of the drug, but by 1906 the Food & Drug folks managed to get that out of the hands of little old ladies who were consuming it by the case, Joy’s aunt, for one. However, that kind of put the brakes on Pope Leo 13, who carried a hip-flask of Mariani Wine , awarded a Gold Medal to Angelo Mariani, the owner of Mariani Wines, which contained enough cocaine to be commendable and award winning, and make Catholic dogma palatable to the brother. (And to think drinkers now-a-days complain about a little sulfates!).

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL YOU CATTLE        

              

Ever since I found the plethora of padlocks on the ARTISTS’ BRIDGE in Paris, I have been ranting to you about the mindless effort the hordes of thousands or misguided lovers who believe that if they buy a padlock and throw away the key (Into the Seine, can you imagine the thousands of keys under the bridge?), your love will be everlasting. Listen up, idiots! Love is not connected in any way with your overloading  the most beautiful bridge in Paris with a heavy padlock that has gotten to be  such a big problem that the guardrails were collapsing, even endangering the whole bridge, as you can imagine( only if you have a functioning brain) the huge weight that is endangering the structure.  Fortunately, someone in the gigantic beaurocracy of Paris ordered all this hardware cut off before the entire bridge collapsed. This malignancy of Love has spread to other venues of tourist areas , for example , to the balcony mentioned in Shakespeares’ Romeo & Juliet.  We visited (under duress, mind you) the site last year and found every possible place around this had been maligned with a Love Lock. Aaaagh! Naturally, this disease was conceived by some simple minded American Tourist in Paris a few years ago. We’re at a point where we tell folks we are Canadians if they ask if we are American.  It’s sooo embarrassing.

THIS CALL IS MONITERED

“Talk about things I hate”! Look, as I tell the operator whenever I hear this phrase,” I don’t give a rats’ ass if this call is monitored. By who, the NSA? It means I am wasting a few precious seconds, trying to struggle through this fucking maze to find someone to talk to because I have a problem.

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SORRY

If you are offended by my intellectual Pot- Porie, please let me know and I’ll not bother you with a notice of any of my new blogs.  Believe it or not, my selection of friends from all over the world,  is sometimes mis-directed. 

 ROBIN WILLIAMS REPLACEMENT?

Maybe I have led a sheltered life, but I just came across a British comedienne, Eddie Izzard  -  With a name like that, he has to be a comedian.  He thinks a lot like me but so much more cleverly.  His story of Noah & his Ark may be better even  than Cosby’s classic. But don’t let his dressing up as a woman deter you.

CHERNOBLE!

I have mentioned years ago about the great shed they were going to build over the destroyed hulk of Chernoble Nuclear Power plant in Russia. Well, a world-wide consortium is in the middle of actually constructing the thing. May be the largest movable object on earth. Go to Novarka and find the site that has the computer graphics of the whole project.  Then go to Borgues or Mammoet to see how they skidded the mammoth roof.  While you’re doing all that see the National Geographics short  “0 seconds from Disaster!”, showing why the whole thing exploded and the dangers involved. My son (Zaidi) was at the San Francisco Airport heading for Russia with a small theater group  when they heard about it. They chanced it (The show must go on!) and were not in the area near Kiev where the problem  was. 

SELF PUBLISHING                      

     

  In case you are unaware that I have self-published four books,  I want you to have a chance at any of them .  However, the first one HILLSIDE HOMES may not be available at a price you can afford, as It became some kind of a cult classic and sold for a couple of hundred dollars on ebay for a while.  I published 1,000 copies in 1980 the hard way, writing it, designing the layout, getting the photos made in some weird format, getting the color copies of the cover made, etc. etc., and putting it all together to give to a print shop. But then I was faced with what to do with all these books.  This was all a lot of fun as I could get the page size right, with a square format and a blank spot on right edge for your thumb to capture the page (You just wouldn’t believe how many design decisions go into something like this. Anyway, I ended up selling thru Amazon, paying $8 to print each book and selling to them for $6.  If you do the math you’ll see why I’m not driving a BMW. 

  Later on, after that, I managed to decypt on-line publishing. This is all done on line with no actual contact with another human .  The real benefit is you can virtually order & print one at a time.  I managed to publish ATELIER (the story of renovating an old apple processing plant into Artists Studios) and THE LITTLE BOOK OF BIG TRUCKS (I just LOVE European big rigs!), as well as THE EDUCATION OF AN ARCHIITECT (Kind of a bio on getting into the design business, but a little bit dirty).  You can get most of them on LULU direct or give me a call.

LAMONT'S SUICIDE HOT LINE!

How to kill yourself cleanly, not the Heming-way(Swallow the shotgun, probably the worse  case scenario for you’re  miserable relatives and friends).  Most, if not all of these so-called suicide hot lines are set up to talk you out of killing yourself. We, @ my Hotline, have a different program, convincing you to kill yourself without leaving a terrible, disgusting mess for others. I just can’t imagine what people like Hemingway were thinking when they put a shotgun in their mouth to blow their brains, skull all over a room. What does that say about how he had no concern or respect for the poor bastards (family?) who had to clean up this whole, disgusting mess? Now, I’m no expert, but I’ve found a couple of folks who exited this miserable life cleanly. I found a guy hanging in a Berkeley apartment once who had tied a ceiling light fixture cord around his neck, then kicked the chair out. Now you would think this was OK, but he had bloody ooze hanging out of his nose, in a long disgusting string. Yuck! But now, my recommendation is to pull up a nice comfortable chair in your garage (a Barka Lounger is perfect),  Close up any vents to the outside, Start your inefficient car, set down and sleep right on off this planet. This results in a minimum mess. However, I do understand that when your body dies, it releases your bowels & bladder so be aware to wear Depends or equal. This assumes of course, you have left the inevitable suicide Note. Now, as an added service, I have several Suicide Notes already written, just pick out one that corresponds to your miserable state of affairs’.

NOTE #1

Goodby, cruel  world. It wasn’t my idea to be born here (Don’t be so sure, Buster). 

NOTE #2

I really don’t know if I should really do this. They have made it so hard to die these days. I had planned to leap out into space off the Golden Gate Bridge, but, damn! They just put a net that would prevent me from my last sally forth.

NOTE #3

Aw, FUCK IT !!

BIG THREE

During WW2 Roosevelt, Churchill and General de Gaulle had a conference in Casablanca to discuss the liberation of Europe. Churchill suffered acutely from the absence of alcohol at the insistence of Roosevelts deference to the Sultan’s religion.  Churchill’s program in a note to H. Hopkins for the day was; “Diner at the white House (dry, alas!) with the Sultan. After dinner; recovery from the above”.

VIDEO ALERT

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CASABLANCA

  I came across some interesting notes regarding the great cult movie ‘Casablanca’ while I was reading a book about the Allies invasion of North Africa in 1942.

            ‘Casablanca, city of hope and despair located in French Morocco in North Africa – the meeting place of adventurers, fugitives, criminals, refugees lured into the dangerous oasis by hope of escape to the Americas.’              (Liner notes from trailer)

A play called ‘Everybody comes to Rick’s’ was picked up by  Hal Wallis (Warner Bros.) the day after Pearl Harbor. Rick Blaines’ (The author) attitude corresponded to Walliss’ ideas of the probable involvement of the U.S. in the war.  What is mind boggling is that Ronald Reagan was initially considered for the part. Can you imagine what that would of done to the movie?  Ingrid Bergman was perfect but even she didn’t know how the movie would end a month before shooting was completed.  The original play ended with Ilsa  staying behind with Rick, but Hal fortunately had Rick develop a case of selflessness and got her and Lazlo Letters of Transit to Lisbon and on their way to America (or back into the underground). What a guy!

ON THE BEACH, THE MOVIE

  Near the beginning of the cold war, Nevil Shute wrote a book in 1957 about the death of all people on Earth due to an Atomic war between China and Russia. The resulting movies deviated a bit from the book (Why do they do that?). but still engaging enough that all politicians should have seen or read it. But, that’s just wishful thinking, as not many wanted to think of a scenario that could be so disastrous as all that. Here we are yet able to destroy the entire world with just a few of the thousands of missiles, but, we really don’t want to consider what we are really doing.  Yikes!  The story focuses on the last folks alive, in Southern Australia, detailing some pretty gritty concepts, like, you were going to die in a couple of days, yet, your year old baby would probably live for a few more days, dying alone, un-aided in her last miserable days. Would you give her the free government drug so it wouldn’t happen that way? 

FORSYTES’ SURPRISE

The serial ‘The Forsyte Sagas’ are right up my alley, showing how love manages to draw the maximum amount of pain from all those involved with such shenanigans.  However, on an up-beat note, one of he characters, Bosinny , the far sighted Architect, is hired by Saomes (an up-tight lawyer) to design his country house and forthwith runs off with the clients’ wife (Shades of F. Lloyd Wright), we are treated to a very fine example of contemporary architecture, a huge surprise to me in this Soap opera.  I was so surprised in fact, I had to find out how this design managed to manifest on this series. Turns out the production designer cobbled together four architects, Frank Lord Wright, Rennie Mackintosh (Scotland) and a couple of Brits, Volsey and Godwin, who supplied inspiration for the interiors.  These last  two were influenced by Japanese designs, as the Japs had just come out of the closet after hundreds of years.  Check the series out if for no other reason than to see the house called ‘Robin Hill’ and the interiors were well done also, considering the time in England of 1870’s. 

UPGRADE TIME!

I received an Apple ipod Nano , the smallest thing they make except the watch, for one of my incessant birthdays that seem to come around about every month. The Nano comes with some great ear pods but no directions at all. Since I had no six year old kid around to help me, I went to old Google and found a 30 page document I could download in order to turn the thing on.  I only printed out about half of it as the rest was all about the Podcasts (What the fuck is that?), Videos (I just want music!), Fitness (I’m already doing Tai Chi, leave me alone!), Radio (No! I don’t listen to radios with their constant advertising), and Photos (No! I just want Music !). This is not going to be easy, as I had up-loaded (What’s the difference between up-load & down-loading?)  all my CD’s onto my computer (itunes) so I could transfer them to Joy’s ipod (The bigger one). However, somewhere most of all that got dumped by Apple or someone (I get blamed mostly for this kind of stuff).  However, meanwhile, I gave all my CD’s away as we had them on digital, right?  So now I am running around, asking my friends if I can borrow my CD back for a short time. That doesn’t help a whole lot as now I have to figure how to organize these tunes on Playlists, Songs, Artists, Albums, Genres, even composers (Bach, Ray Charles, etc.). Once I get all this shit unraveled, all I have to do is find a Dock/Speaker/Radio combo (They don’t come without Radio) so I can listen to my swell tunes of Thelonious Monk or Alirio Diaz, guitar. These ’Docks’ cost about $60 but there seems to be a problem. The Nano has downsized the charger from the ipod and they don’t make them yet in the small size for Nanos!  And to think I gave away my turntable with my vinyl recordings!