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A great three-minute account of a meeting with Borges.
About the life of an artist, he says: “The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory ... as the years go by, if the stars are on your side, you may discover that you are at the center of a vast circle of invisible friends whom you will never get to know but who love you. And that is an immense reward.”
Say what you will about the Soviets, but you can’t argue with this reasoning for sending dogs, rather than monkeys, into space. If there’s one universal truth of dogs, it is that they are “suited to endure long periods of inactivity.” Lynne brought the subject of these Soviet cosmonaut dog-heroes to my attention, including those pictured at right — Belka (which “most likely means ‘Whitey,’” according to Wikipedia’s “Soviet space dogs” entry) and Strelka (“Arrow”). They were the first animals to go into orbit and return alive, spending August 19, 1960 in space before returning to Earth. Wikipedia helpfully adds that they were accompanied by some friends from the animal kingdom: “a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plants and fungi.”
All passengers survived.
(Thanks to Dan Mogford, who grabbed the image off a commemorative Soviet matchbox).
I could use one of these right about now. Via these geniuses.
Last night, I saw architect Teddy Cruz deliver a fast-paced, idea-rich presentation at the San Francisco Art Institute. In a little over an hour, he tore through a slide show covering his recent work on the social, cultural, political, and economic forces at work in communities along the US-Mexico border. The slide show itself was pretty impressive — a blend of research photography, simple PowerPoint animation, and photo collages (like the ones shown in this post, courtesy of UCSD, where Cruz teaches) that looked somewhat like maps but also somewhat like actual photos of urban density.
I’d first heard of Cruz in the NYT Magazine feature from last spring, Shantytowns as a New Suburban Ideal. It details “Living Rooms at the Border,” his proposed project to turn a lot in the border community of San Ysidro into a multi-use dwelling/community center/market. He discusses it in more detail in “Urban acupuncture”, an article he wrote for Residential Architect Online:
Housing and density need to be seen not as an amount of units but as dwelling in relationship to the larger infrastructure of the city, which includes transportation, ecological networks, the politics and economics of land use, and particular cultural idiosyncrasies of place ... In a parcel where existing zoning allows only three units of housing, the project proposes (through negotiated density bonuses and by sharing kitchens) 12 affordable housing units, a community center resulting from the adaptive reuse of an existing 1927 church, offices for Casa Familiar in the church’s new attic, and a garden underpinning the community’s nonconforming micro-economies, such as street markets and kiosks. In a place where current regulation allows only one use, we propose five different uses that support each other.
Cruz discusses his architectural mission in this article at the American Institute of Architecture’s site: Border Postcard: Chronicles from the Edge.
Once upon a time, a San Francisco resident strolling around these chilly city streets could brush by Chris Johanson pretty often. Even before I knew who he was, I’d seen him around the Mission a lot; when I finally connected the dots, I realized that he was the guy who had drawn little signs and bits that I’d been loving for years. As I recall, he drew a little guy above the urinal at the Uptown (or somewhere I peed a lot); either way, his simple figures and their cryptically expressed thoughts would be burned into my brain for hours after I saw them. He moved to Portland a while ago, and San Francisco has been a little less visually exciting ever since. For one thing, his beard is an inspiration to any aspiring beardo, and his leadership in this regard will be sorely missed.
More: A cool profile of Chris from Spark, a local PBS art show.
Two winters ago, I traveled to London for work. It was cold as hell, as a witch’s tit, as the blood that runs in Dwyane Wade’s veins during the fourth quarter. The sky was deep gray, hard, heavy and forbidding, and it felt as if it wasn’t more than 10 or 12 feet above my head, ready to come crashing down at any moment.
One afternoon, in a jet-lagged haze, I wandered over to the Tate Modern, where it seems they always have some thought-provoking installation (for instance, Anish Kapoor’s gigantic levitating horn which blew my mind for a while), and as I descended the ramp into the museum, I was struck by the absolute inversion of wintry, outdoor London. I took lots of photos, but none could really communicate the immersive aspect of Olafur Eliasson’s work, called “The Weather Project.” It was all reds and oranges, all warmth and mist, enveloping you in a happy, gauzy glow. Cynthia Zarin recently profiled Eliasson for the New Yorker, and she comments that the Weather Project cemented Eliasson’s reputation in the art world ... (Unfortunately, I can’t find a link to the article online, but by all means dig through back issues of the magazine at the laundromat, if you get a chance. The article provides interesting insight into Eliasson’s process, and includes some funny anecdotes relating to his impulse to immerse the viewer in an environment. For instance, in mid-long-distance-phone-conversation with Cynthia Zarin, he places his cell phone on the luggage conveyer belt at the airport, lets it go around the carousel once, then picks it up and asks her what the experience was like. Hmm.).
Being car-less keeps me (mostly) around the southeastern neighborhoods of San Francisco, but every once in a while I’ll venture out to the frontiers. Last Friday, we went out to Mollusk, the arty surf shop on 46th-ish Avenue and Irving, (i.e. WAY Outer Sunset), for an art opening and a performance by Peggy Honeywell, i.e. local art star and beautiful loser Clare Rojas. The surf shop setting was informal and cozy; the acoustics actually weren’t bad; there were dogs walking around; all in all, it makes me wish that I got out there more. This intimate setting was lots better than the cavernous, loud, obnoxious-people-filled place I saw her perform last, Barry McGee’s opening in Melbourne, Australia a couple of years ago.
From the Cooper Journal
