the impac experiment

the latest photo project with marcel: a cheap, dusty old 'impac' camera unearthed from the back of a closet. i wasn't even sure if it worked, much less how it worked.

but it did - and i think it may be a permanent addition to the rotation.

balloons

slim

ambient walkman

you know that old problem with headphones? that when you wear them you tune the rest of the world out?

this obviously isn't a problem when you're on a plane or lying on your bed, but when i lived in new york i frequently heard people criticize headphones because they allowed people to shut out the city. that is, when you're walking down the street you can drift off into your music rather than interact with the world around you (this problem does not arise in LA, as we walk no further than the valet stand). although i suppose this criticism has been around since the walkman, i always associate it with the introduction of the ipod and the white earbud elitism that surrounded it.

well, someone has come up with a solution (sort of). noah vawter, of MIT's media lab, has introduced the ambient walkman. this device records the sounds around you and loops them into music. so instead of tuning the world around you out, you're actually tuning in.

does it really mean solve the problem of interacting with the world around you? who knows? i feel like i'd be so fascinated by this new music that i'd walk in front of a bus.

but it sure is a cool idea.

it came!

as some of you may know, i've been having a minor obsession with dirigibles of late. they have been appearing in my thoughts, my conversations, and especially my dreams. i don't know why. maybe because of this song. but i can't seem to get them out of my head or even the physical world around me. suddenly, they're all i can see and they're everywhere.

so i bought a model building kit. it arrived yesterday. balsa wood and airplane glue. i don't know why, but i think the construction of a model dirigible will cure my obsession. as if by building it i'm taking the idea from my head and putting it into a physical creation. i can then put it on a shelf in my room and reflect on it gently from time to time, but it will no longer haunt me. so, ladies and gentlemen, i give you the USS Los Angeles:


wish me luck!

10 seconds

1

2

3

4

part of me wants to know and part of me really doesn't

last night i dreamt

that all of the freeways in LA had been replaced with giant plastic tube slides, and to get anywhere you just climbed to the top of your house, set the chute configuration for your destination, and hopped in, on your back, feet first, arms clamped to your sides. you'd go flying through plastic tunnels, where the seams of the slide caught at your clothes and the sunlight was filtered through the red and white plastic tubes. at the end you were shot out onto a mountain of red pillows, which you'd climb out of to find yourself at the destination of your choice.

sometimes

i get so worried about graduating, and finding the right job and doing the right thing and how my life will change, that i just want to stay in school forever.

but sometimes, like tonight, i meet people and talk to people and start to realize all the possibilities that are out there, that i just can't wait to get started.

i need to hold onto this feeling, for as long as possible. i think this means stepping out of my usual routine and pattern, and putting myself out there more. its not an option, really, at this point. it's the only way.

haunting

the light at the end of the tunnel is a train - whitey

monday

marcel and i decided to each document a day last week. i did monday.
the photos of me were taken by people i interacted with who i wasn't comfortable asking to photograph...i consider their portrait of me to be, in some ways, a portrait of them.

never quite at home here

i think this opinions piece captures something about the city that i've never quite been able to verbalize. its almost visual in its precision.

What I find myself looking for here in L.A. is a sense of dislocation. And what I’ve come to realize is how closely dislocation and a sense of the ordinary are linked. I’ve discovered that I’m looking for a different topography than mountain and ocean, cactus and palm, landmark and icon. I find myself watching instead for the pattern of ordinary life, which is all the more moving to me here because I do not understand its rhythms.

from the nytimes.

everything's gonna be alright

three little birds - 13ghosts

three little birds - bob marley

oh my god below the stars

silent movies - peter and the wolf

bonsai tree - peter and the wolf

monday

my worst nightmare

this girl has been hiccuping 50 times a minute for over three weeks.

for those of you in the design/build fields (or anyone who's interested and can take 3 hours off in the middle of the day) architecture 2030 is hosting a global teach-in on tuesday, february 20th.

considering the role the built environment plays in climate change (buildings consume 68% of all electricity in the U.S., and emit 36% of all carbon dioxide), the program aims for complete ecological literacy in the design/build fields by 2010.

i'm not sure what the teach-in itself will consist of (i'm hoping for more informational than inspirational), but people are gathering all over the world to attend. at UCLA we'll be in ackerman ballroom.

if you're interested, check out the website.

the best laid plans

i'm in hour 5 of a special 6 hour econ class.

i love economics, and i love this professor, but i'm about to lose it.

i'm so tired.

once you see it

it's everywhere...

happy valentines day

the woman who lives two doors down from me

the woman who lives two doors down from me is either crazy, or an actress.

at least once a day i hear screeching monologues or fights coming from the open door of her apartment. at first i assumed a tumultuous love affair, but on the occasions that i've stopped to listen to what she's actually saying, i hear tirades about "the curse of abstinence" or the "the dust of the thousands dead beneath our feet."

as best i can figure, she's either an actress rehearsing for a part, or totally off her rocker.

i hope for the former, but suspect the latter.

bureau two ways pt 2

after reexamination, i realized that the scanned two photos in yesterday's post do not capture the delicate details of the original photographs.

at all.

they come across kind of pale and washed out and boring. absent a much better scanner, we fiddled with photoshop and did our best to restore their original colors. it's better, but now i think they look "photoshopped" i.e. have colors/shading that do not occur without digital aid.

what do you all think? would you have suspected photoshop if i hadn't mentioned it? or am i just being crazy?

bureau two ways

running circles around my head

+81 - deerhoof

collarbone - fujiya and miyagi

chilling

the homicide report: an latimes blog accounting for every homicide in LA, every day.

that patterns are painfully clear.

i am not a football person

but some of them (including my roommate) took over the house on sunday.

they don't fuck around, these football fans.

my piddling low-def TV just wasn't cutting it, so they projected the superbowl 8 feet high on the living room wall.


the main interest of the day (at least for me) was the culinary battle that erupted between chicago and indiana.

representing chicago:
7 deep dish pizzas, flown in from ginos and giardanos in chicago
3 flavors of cheesecake, also flown in from chi-town
14 cumulative layers of dip
1 ridiculously large gift basket of frango's chocolate
untold sausages

and from indiana:
rotelle (salsa and velveeta mixed together, for the uninitiated)
corn chips
popcorn
bud light
8 boxes of dove bars, which no one touched and are still occupying my freezer

although the colts took the super bowl, i'd have to say that chicago won the culinary wars.

anyone want a dove bar?

tulip mania!

i bought some tulips today.

seeing as punxsutawney phil didn't see his shadow, i figured i'd better prepare for spring.

on an unrelated (but totally nerdy) note - the title of today's post is actually an economic term.

new bookmark

foundtrack posts a new mixtape (mixzip?) every month.

plus you can still download their archives - i'm liking november at the moment.

scarf season

beautiful evidence

i attended a seminar today given by edward tufte. i had lunch with my friend ashish, and ended up describing the course as "how to make really good charts," which doesn't quite do it justice. the course was about the effective visualization of data, something i think we all deal with in one way or another. i should probably make up a graphic or something to demonstrate how cool this seminar was, but instead i'll just rely on my usual text and scans (have i learned nothing?!)

one concept that tufte pioneered is that of sparklines - tiny, work-sized graphics that fit neatly into text and convey more information than a word, in less space than a traditional graphic. tufte is all about high information resolution, and these little "datawords" can increase the informational content of text significantly. or, they can be used in sets of small multiples, to convey large amounts of information in small spaces.

some examples

apparently the sparklines were inspired by galileo's original text describing saturn's rings. galileo incorporated drawings right into the text.

(very) rough translation: saturn looks like this XXXXXX; when saturn is blurry, it looks like this XXXXXXX .

brilliant!

news year's day

vivian in her kitchen

special friends, indeed

but before i go...

why did the


cause i finally got my lazy ass to the lab to pick up some film!

gobble.

sacramento bound

and i'm itchin' to get on the road

see ya!

i just realized why the sudden war between los angeles and chicago

(other than the presence of julie)


it's the olympics!

given that hosting the olympics would be a zoo, and i probably won't even be here in 2000-a-billion (or whenever the games are), i'm still totally rooting for los angeles.

i should also note that its not just LA and chicago in the ring - there's a bunch of international cities (like prague and tokyo) also in contention.

via curbed LA

and on a totally un-olympics (but chicago and LA) related note, the history channel sponsored a really cool design competition to envision the future LA, NYC and chicago. you can check out the winning designs here.

my photo files are all stuck on my old computer and my scanner doesn't work with my new computer and my film isn't back from the lab yet

i'm far less visual lately.

i heard on NPR that today is officially the most depressing day of the year

i'm planning on wallowing, how about you?

if you insist on a good mood, please see the post below.

cute overload!

the fun never stops in economics

my professor assigned this as part of our homework the other day.

never. stops.

not bad to hear when i'm 6 months away from graduating

urban planning is one of fast company's 10 'hot jobs' for 2007.

urban planners: the career of the future

via curbed la

right back at ya, viv

vivian and i have webcams. we can show each other clothes, condition our hair, meet each other's friends.

i've finally found my teleportation device.

reconstructing memory

i joked before that the loss of my old computer was like losing a piece of my brain. the thing is, i wasn't really joking. i have a new computer now, and it's simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. it’s like a blank slate. my old computer was teeming with little bits and pieces of my life from the last three years - music, photos, writings, school assignments, emails...some of them were corrupted, some fractured and some hidden. some things didn't work right, some things had viruses and many had fallen into disarray. but it was mine. i knew how it worked and where to find things and what my limits were.

now i have this new computer, and its really up to me to decide how to compose it - what to bring over from my old computer and what to leave behind. this is good because i can pick and choose the music i actually listen (or want to listen) to, i can wade through the photographs and only bring the ones i truly want to keep and i can leave three-year-old finance assignments on my external hard drive. its a chance to organize and reconstruct my brain, without all the useless bits and corrupt files - to streamline. i'll free up memory and everything will run a bit better.

but its sad, too. there were some great things in that computer that i'll surely forget to bring over, or that won't mesh with my pc to mac transition. my physical brain's amnesia will invade my computer brain. and its the consciousness of this reconstruction that i find terrifying. we all do it, i know, but i don't like the idea of reshaping my memory. as imperfect and wonderful and painful as it is, i like it that way: as it is.

the ballad of katie and amanda

one day katie and amanda were sitting on the couch. they were very good friends.



katie was a little gross sometimes, but amanda loved her anyway.



on this particular day, something strange started to happen.
at first they thought it was funny...



but when katie grew two heads



they got scared!



eventually katie's heads grew back together.
although she never looked quite the same again,



they lived happily ever after.



the end

Tag of Four

via ryan

Four jobs I've had:
1. Sticky bun server
2. Ice cream scooper
3. Speakers Bureau Coordinator
4. Phone bank at a credit card company

Four places I've lived:
1. Wilmington, DE
2. Florence, Italy
3. Claremont, CA
4. Brooklyn, NY

Four favourite foods (at the moment - this is always changing):
1. grilled sandwiches
2. banana bread
4. shrimp
5. seared ahi

Four movies I could watch over and over (actually, I don't tend to watch movies repeatedly, unless lots of time has passed. but if I did):
1. Annie Hall
2. Kicking and Screaming
3. Spirited away
4. One Crazy Summer

Four TV shows I enjoy:
1. Lost
2. Project Runway
3. Heroes
4. Top Chef

Four places I've traveled:
1. Sao Paulo, Brazil
2. Innsbruck, Austria
3. Kiluaea, Kauai
4. Jinotepe, Nicaragua

Four places I'd like to visit:
1. The Sahara Desert
2. Shanghai, China (I guess I've technically been there, but not in the last decade)
3. Buenos Aires, Argentina (in the works!)
4. Reykjavik, Iceland

Four websites I go to daily (not counting blogs/social network sites):
1. Chowhound
2. Epicurious
3. LA Times/New York Times/BBC News
4. Curbed LA

Julie, don't hate me - but this one's all you!

he may be a republican, he may be an actor, and he may be kind of preposterous

but at least he has vision.

the nitty-gritty will inevitably have tons of unforeseen problems, but i love the idea of sweeping change. we need it - we need something.

damn

apparently my car is so well designed, that it is actually more fuel efficient to keep the windows closed and the A/C on than to open the windows and mess with the aerodynamics and wind flow.

damn, car.

5 little-known things about me

tagged for a meme by miss v

1) there exists somewhere in the world a video of my entire family wearing wigs and lip syncing 'groove is in the heart' against a psychedelic green screen background sometimes in the early 90's. it has been lost to the mists of time. it is my holy grail: i must find it. guess who sings lead.

2) i just bought a robot.

3) i recently found out that my dad and i share apocalyptic paranoia fantasies - i've stocked my house with gallons of water, tons of canned foods and a crank radio, and he's planting a subsistence garden in hawaii - 'just in case.'

4) i can only stay awake during scary movies - everything else puts me to sleep.

5) i recently dreamt of being attacked by shapeshifting zombie pillows (i think this may be connected to number 4)

julie, this one is all you!

incommunicado

my computer won't turn on. something happened between hawaii and los angeles and it just won't even talk to me. this is kind of like losing access to part of my brain. i'm not too worried - i think all the memory is still there, i'll probably just need some new hardware. but for now, i'm using an old computer and having a hard time posting regularly on a surrogate digital brain.

never fear, though. i'm still here, all is well and go beav!

oops

we've created a monster!