omnibus

Birdcage

2009-11-05T18:22:00.010-03:00

By Shifting the bedrooms to the first floor, we free the second floor of restrictive program, allowing for an open space made notable by the windows that frame the landscape beyond.

A straight stair connects the levels. On the east side of the stair is a narrow kitchen.

Downstairs in the Master Bedroom.
The bedroom opens out to the ground floor patio.
Behind the Master Bedroom a large dressing area that connects the two bedrooms.

Wet room.

Second bedroom is a bit monastic, but works.

HOUSE

2009-03-26T19:25:00.013-03:00

Amazingly it feels like being in the country, birds sing, the grass is tall, the temperature is several degrees cooler than in nearby downtown. its a pretty cool place.

Lot 12,000sf
R-2 (which means we could build more if we want, although because its on an alley this may be not allowed)

House 1200 sf
2 bedroom, 2 bath.

the terrain is great as you can see it sits in this valley surrounded by park and dodger stadium. when there are games we will know it. good news we will have free parking for games. the LA police academy is right next door.

even while the birds chirp in our little valley, when you drive out of the canyon you drive straight into chinatown with downtown about a mile away.

The area is pretty famous in LA for displacing a Hispanic community in the 40's with the construction of Dodger Stadium. The community is still very strong. Still blue collar hispanic and bohemian art and movie industry people. The area is called Chavez Ravine. Ry Cooder made a concept album titled the same a few years ago. Here is my favorite song.
Poor Man's Shangri-La by Ry Cooder

Oscar

2008-04-24T01:25:00.010-03:00

The man just turned 100 last year and the entire country knows it. Quite a fine tribute for a mere architect. We found out that his house in Canaos was open to visitors from a lady at the gift shop of one of his museums in rio. It was a trick to find the address, but eventually a taxi took us there and dropped us off. We rang the bell unannounced and waited. After several minutes we slipped the gate and walked down the driveway. When we encountered the caretaker he wasnt so much upset that we got in but rather just questioned us on Niemeyer. When it seemed that we truly liked the guy he treated us as a best friend.

I sketched this plan. The one that at the top of this blog. It was an incredibly liberating experience; so diffrent from most plans drawn today. It had the feel of the hand to it versus today where so much of the work is so heavily modeled. Such amazing lines, and after seeing the curves of the mountains and beaches all around, the intesity of those hip shaking sambas, the curves found naturally all over this city. Niemeyer's house was a passionate and spiritually wakening.

The sketches do no justice and here are some more photos.

Landed in Rio

2008-04-23T22:49:00.001-03:00

Ouro Preto

2008-04-22T22:22:00.001-03:00

Before they saw us off to Rio they took us to the nearby town of Ouro Preto. Alejandre had gone to college here. They knew the town well. The town is famous for its colonial architecture which Brazilians believe to be more authentically local because it shrugs off some of the templates brought directly from Portugal and embraces a mixology of forms and elements. Hero to the area is was a mixed race bastard child of a famous local architect who despite becoming a cripple early in life was embraced by his father and given the opportunity to built in this booming gold town. I think it is that generosity, that embrace of all races and physical deformities and the mix of it, that is perhaps why Brazilians love this man so much. Who knows. the town is quite beautiful.

We really loved our time with these two. We listened to Bossa Nova the whole way to Ouro Preto and back. I truly hope that we have the opportunity to have them stay with us here in LA. We will see. And before i press on, one of the most astonishing things about Minas Gerais (the country province we are in) is that the food is nearly identical to Southern cooking. God Bless did i eat. Fried Chicken, Gravy, Greens, Corn, a type of homony made from some local plant since wheat is scarce, rice and beans. i mean on and on. It really impressed me how similar in many ways the music, our fat fightin' man with his mandolin in Belo and all of these greens and puddings ii was like being back on the Mississippi Delta foot stompin' and lickin' greasy fingers. This great Mix and how much our cultures have in common.

Belo

2008-04-21T20:13:00.000-03:00

Paula and Alejandre, architects. So much of our love for Brazil is beacause these two were impeccable hosts.

and i drew their house which was a wonderful concrete structure from the 60's.

and they took us to this local bar.Where we heard traditional Brazilian Country music.
Astonishingly toward the end of the show this guy's mistress comes bellowing from the crowd cursing at him knocking over tables and swinging. The owner of the place and guy's wife was pissed, and started yelling. He jumps off the stage and chases her out of the joint waving his mandolin around. A typical night i am told...

They told us to go here.

RIO

Inhotim.2

2008-04-20T19:18:00.001-03:00

The juxtaposition of landscape, architecture and art at times made your vision-mind swirl. All of these senses blended together in new ways and served as a vibrant counterpoint to the quiet banal of the traditional art gallery walls. Like how Sir John Soane had brought his bit of the Grand Journey back to his Brownstone on Lincoln's Inn Fields covering every nook of his tiny house, here the world of art is brought to Brazil and presented with equal intensity married to the landscape of this wild country.

This pavilion features handmade tiles by the artist Adriana Varejão. The building is quite well done so i sketched it.

In another pavilion is artwork by Doris Salcedo where with a heavy pressure machine chainlink is pressed into the sheetrock wall of the gallery space. The affect is astounding, beautiful, minimal and overwhelmingly powerful.

Inhotim

2008-04-18T18:31:00.004-03:00

The contemporary art park Inhotim was the reason for our visit to Belo Horizonte. We had come to meet up with the executive architect for a pavilion that we had designed for an artist who was to be shown there. Set in a lush rainforest, Inhotim has all of these pavilions scattered about each holding artwork from a worldwide array of artists.

Brazil

2008-04-16T22:17:00.007-03:00

Our stay in Argentina has come to an end. We pack up our things leave them at the airport and hop onto a flight to Brazil. We will be going to the countryside, beaches, and concrete jungles of Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janiero and Sao Paulo.

We flew into Brazil and the landscape dramatically changed. For years i had looked in wonder at the beautifully graphic forms of landscape architect Burle Marx and here flying over Brazil immediately his blobs of red and curves of green had context.

The soaring concrete cantilevers of Belo Horizonte airport and we had arrived into Brazil.

Development in Brazil has been moving at an astonishing speed. This city 30 years ago was fields and sparse single family residences. Between then and now the city filled completely with a carpet of single family, then 4-5 story apartments, and now with 20-30 story towers. It is interesting to see Los Angeles make just now a partial conversion from single family and all the trouble that comes with that. Then you see a place like this, a place with serious growth and it is just amazing to see how it has evolved.

I like the lines of the streets, every country does it slightly different. Do not be fooled by the order of the streets, ladies of the night stand under trees...Where ever you go in Brazil there are always several orders working at any given moment or place.

Do you know Xul Solar?

2008-04-14T18:28:00.000-03:00

My newest hero. Very inventive guy, artist created his own language, characters, and dreamscapes for his paintings. Hung out with Duchamp in Paris and Borges in Argentina.

We went to his museum in Palermo which was originally his house but massively renovated by a contemporary Buenos Aires architect. The space was amazing, but completely overkilled, flaunting south america's propensity (and skill) with concrete form in this orgiastic Carlo Scarpa meets California deconstructivism.

But it was a fun and intense space, much like Xul's work. The space and the work ask you to totally immerse yourself and the journey is pretty amazing.

For Xul's bio and work i give credit where credit is due. I did not write this. It is from Giornale Nuovo (check out my links)

Xul Solar (1887-1963) was an Argentine painter, sculptor, writer, and inventor; a visionary utopian; an occultist and astrologer who yet remained catholic; an accomplished musician who was fluent in seven languages, two of which were of his own devising; and a minor character in Borges’s Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. The following images are scans from the catalogue Xul Solar: Visiones y revelaciones, which was published in 2005 to coincide with a major exhibition of his work, staged in Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Mexico City and Houston.

'Palacios en Bría,' watercolour by Xul Solar, 1932.

Xul’s preferred medium was watercolour, although he also sometimes painted with tempera. Kandinsky and Marc’s Der Blaue Reiter almanac was a powerful early influence on his work, and his mature style is somewhat reminiscent of Paul Klee’s. ‘There are paintings of alternative universes, cities floating in the sky or on lakes, creatures that are half man and half airplane, angels, pyramids and whatever else came to him in his reveries’ (source)

'Vuell villa,' watercolour by Xul Solar, 1936.

'Ciudá lagui,' watercolour by Xul Solar, 1939.

Xul was driven by a restless zeal for revision and reform: considering the Spanish language to be ‘several centuries out of date,’ and moreover, ‘a cacophonous language composed of words that were overly long,’ he developed Neo-Criollo (Neo-Creole), whose vocabulary was mostly drawn from Spanish and Portuguese, but which also incorporated elements of French, English, Greek and Sanskrit. He composed texts and even conversed in this invented tongue which, however, was continually changing, with each successive elaboration of it being different than the one before.

The most important works in Neo-criollo are the San Signos (Holy Signs), a collection of sixty-four visionary texts based on the hexagrams of the I Ching. These texts were written at the request of Aleister Crowley, after a series of meetings between the two men in Paris in 1924. In a letter he wrote to Xul five years later, Crowley reminded him that ‘you owe me a complete set of visions for the 64 Yi symbols’ and added ‘your record as the best seer I ever tested still stands today.’ Although Xul had completed a first version of the San Signos by 1930, only a few short excerpts from them were ever published.

'Zodiaco,' watercolour by Xul Solar, 1953.

Pan-tree (front),' mixed media with watercolour by Xul Solar, 1952. Pan-tree (back),' mixed media with watercolour by Xul Solar, 1952.

In the ’40s, Xul devised a second, even more ambitious language-project: Pan-lengua, a proposed universal idiom with numeralogical and astrological underpinnings, utilising an invented script and a duodecimal number-system, whose entire lexicon could be expressed on the board of Panajedrez (Pan-chess), a game meant to be played on a 13x13 board, but which, according to Xul’s friend Jorge Luis Borges, was impossible to learn, owing to frequent and confusing amendments of its rules.

Aside from language reform, Xul conceived architectural projects, proposed changes to musical notation, and rebuilt musical instruments after his own idiosyncratic design. His need to remake and ‘improve’ extended beyond the artistic & intellectual. ‘With ingenuity and a sense of humor, […] he proposed changes in football: “Why play with one only ball, and not with three or four, and divide the field into six or twelve parallel sectors, like in rugby, and that each player wear a shirt with different letters so that words and phrases are formed?”’

Siphon

2008-04-06T22:19:00.003-03:00

Throughout Argentina when you go out to a big beef dinner and you ask for some sparkling water often they will bring to you this fantastic contraption wrapped in metal gauze that will squirt water out of its nozzle by pressing a lever. Last seen in the U.S.A. by the 3 stooges with Moe squirting Larry in the eye, in Argentina they still use them often. And we fell in love. So last week we went to the market in San Telmo and we bought one. A brilliant blue one- oh so gorgeous.

Upon bringing it back we promptly filled it full of soda water, pressed the lever and waited for it to work. Well- it did not work. And after a bit of digging we find these things are basically a dead technology where these bottles were factory filled of water then gas. But its so pretty- and we are not the type to have decorations. It must work to be loved. The shocking thing is that no one on the internet seems to be curious to get these things working. Everyone just wants to look at them- suckers. But after a long talk with my engineer father and a winded discussion of Boyle's Law i think we have a strategy that is only moderately dangerous. It is based on the original patent:

our siphon

Uruguay

2008-03-29T02:00:00.007-03:00

Laid back Uruguay. Seemed as if sand was everywhere. We had gotten there via a ferry from BA to Montevideo. We were curious to go to a church designed by architect/ engineer Eladio Dieste. The church was in a small town called Atlantida. The bus driver's eyebrows raised when we stepped off the bus.

We ate lunch and asked where the church was, figuring that the architectural masterpiece would be the towns main church. The waiter quickly responded that it was not far and we started walking. Of course the church is not the one we want. Now the problem is- is that all we know is that the church is in this city and every architecture book calls it just the Iglesia Atlantida.

We have no idea where it is and no clue what to call it. So we draw pictures. Crazy curvy pictures of plans and a blurry axon. Its not so good, but after talking to a few people and waving our arms around a bit, someone figured out that we were architects and that we wanted to go to the church outside of town. They told us to walk 3 kilometers straight ahead. Past goats and cows for 45 minutes we walked, very unsure if we would ever see it. Quietly musing that it is incredible that we would just head out on this dusty road with really no clue were we were going.

It was nice though- it reminded me of when i was a kid as i walked aimlessly along a country road staring down horses and jumping every time a dog raced the fence.

Obviously by the pictures we make it. You tell me it was worth it. What an amazing structure. All masonry, very simple, but super articulate structure. As we were there they prepared for a baptism.

Part 2. FoA

2008-03-25T19:16:00.015-03:00

(Part of a series constantly evolving, but you can read and happy to hear comments)

There is a lot of room to expand when thinking about the future of architecture through the future of the house. A few days after the last post, Hisako and I sat in a cafe and discussed if we had to re-write 5-10 rules for architecture what they would be. We were careful to not think of concepts, since if done right any concept should be able to incorporate these rules. During his time Corbusier's rules embraced new technologies (steel structure, free plan) and related the results to new ways of living born from these changes in technologies (automobile, the private garden). He represented his interpretations architecturally in his rules. Think of the technological movements today that architecture should be addressing. Below we seek to incorporate what we see into rules. All a bit hazy- but a start of something...

1. 24/7 - A house that operates 24 hours a day
2. East, West, North, South - Conscious of cardinal directions, even Vitruvious paid note
3. Roof Garden - As the residential house gets more urban it must maintain the garden quality found in the suburb
4. Stair/Ramp= Armature - movement through the house should be captured
5. Carbon Zero - is the future
6. Flex/ Multi-use Space - house must adapt to alternative uses as new uses for the house are demanded
7. Un-Private House (1st, 2nd, THIRD PLACE)-Porous - house should function as home/work/play/meet space/place, something that in modern times has been segregated
8. Vertical Ownership - it is not enough just to stack uses, mixed use should promote all of its uses down to the street
9. Invert or Exteriority (Indoor/Outdoor space) - house incorporates natural space either to the side as in the traditional yard or inverted to the courtyard- either way natural space is inclusive to the program and not tangential, even if these space are not physically doable natural space must be brought in
10. Short Street Access - entrance to the house is no further than 5 feet from the street
11. Space in Density - trends toward urban density grow in popularity. How then to make space in density becomes a prime concern for the architect. Without the lawn or the tower view to provide a visual sense of the infinite, the architect must make the most of what they have to create spaces that unfold, exponent, and general make themselves seem bigger than they are
12. Deus Ex Machina - like the literary device which uses dramatic authorial intervention to save a character, in architecture it is a fine opportunity to draw the unexpected, the distant, the phenomenal into the project

Casa de Chorizo

2008-03-24T18:22:00.006-03:00

For the past week i have been loving the houses in Palermo. The reason is that nearly every house has this amazing plan. You are always stepping in off the street, up a few steps, and into an entry vestibule elaborately detailed with a set of iron and wood doors, tile floors, and marble wainscoting before then walking into a front room that generally both connects to other rooms and a great sun lighted courtyard. The greatest thing about these houses is the courtyard. Every house allows for some type of natural light. Very often this is a full courtyard with huge steel windows. Frit, prism, and colored glass filters and gently alters the light as it comes into the rooms surrounding the courtyard. Because all of the rooms face the courtyard and because the courtyard is surrounded by high walls this outdoor space feels very much part of the interior.

After excitedly talking about this with Diego, an architect here in Buenos Aires, he told me with a smile that these houses had a name- Casa de Chorizo. Wow- this country likes beef- they even name their house types after sausages! After pressing him why, Diego explained that when the first families moved in they would get these skinny deep lots from the city and build a room in the front. Then as the family grew, they would build another room, then another, then another. Often they built around a courtyard and kept the kitchen in the back nearest to the alley. Seen over time these domestic houses developed like links of a chorizo. Fantastic!

The truth about dreams

2008-03-22T01:54:00.007-03:00

The truth about dreams is that when you speak of them, people smile skeptically and you wonder if you are not just kidding yourself. Then you fly away. Once you are there- and there may be a completely crazy place- on the tallest peak or the furthest place away from home. You may fly literally or figuratively, but once you are there- you meet people...Lots of people actually. And they are all doing the same thing as you are. Then you realize that what you are doing is actually not unique. It is new for you, but not new to the world. There are tons of people doing the same thing. It is both inspiring or sad depending on your ego.

Palermo Soho

2008-03-21T20:15:00.004-03:00

The buildings are cracked with vines of trees growing atop window cornices hold bits of facade together. Skinny/Tall metal and wooden doors punctuate the low one-story buildings with a showy presence indicative of a prosperous neighborhood, but now betrayed through neglect- rusted and chipped. The streets are still broad though and the trees have grown full. Light filters through the large tree canopies bringing the summer temperature down several degrees. Far from the main boulevards and lush with vegetation the air is free from much of the diesel smog one finds throughout the city.

It is a neighborhood that has gone full circle and now stands poised to take advantage of its obsolescence. Encouraged by low rents and the area's character designers and inventors have been moving into Palermo Soho for the last decade or so. They work in the backrooms and courtyards of these old houses and use their front rooms as showrooms.

One benefit of the 2002 economic meltdown was that for the smaller designers the marketplace was awash in cheap talented labor. With the multinational companies gone, the little guy found his day and Palermo sprang to life with tiny shops each of great creative vision and uniqueness. Today it is a mixture of crumbling buildings and sleek storefronts, each an adventure to look through their wares and to meander through the backrooms and courtyards.

Part 1. FoA

2008-03-18T21:21:00.004-03:00

(Part of a series constantly evolving, but you can read and happy to hear comments)

Throughout the trip we had been discussing our future, the future of architecture, the course of building in Los Angeles as we saw it. I never really think of myself as a modernist, but whenever the thinking gets complex I think about Corbusier. He touched on all aspects of architecture from urban planning and manifestos to some clearly amazing projects that can be very different from one to another. I mean he mixed it up. And he was rigorous- tons and tons of houses pursuing a central idea- his sketchbooks are voluminous, but his drawing skills were really not that good- which is comforting- but he kept tons of them. No idea wasted. The artist Doug Aitken is that way as well, and i really admire both of them for it.

But back to Corb. It is just that he is very clear and diagrammatic. And he is not bothered by being a bit polemic, which makes for some good entertainment. So hell, why not he's a good role model. And when thinking about something like lets say the future of architecture- he's a good brain to have on your side. So what is it? The future, I mean? I mean everything is changing around us. Especially in how people are living. Huge demographics are moving far out into the suburbs, while another huge swath is returning to the city. The city dwellers are yearning for a quality of living that we stopped building 100 years ago. Everyone thinks of San Fransisco and New York or Europe for walkable cities, but thats just a few cities. What do you do in LA or Charlotte? It has got to be invented. And what's getting made? Lets be honest, the good ideas get hogtied by zoning or the results are often plastic looking and contrived (Which is happening for a whole slew of reason's-some controllable and other's not). There are reason's that SF, NYC, and medieval towns had integrity and it goes much further than just stacking uses on transit nodes. They grew organically and even more importantly they were market driven. Its perverse that people clamor for walkable cities and detest traffic, and yet cannot abide to allow commercial zoning within their midst. They want it! Otherwise they would not be driving daily to get it. Small markets would do well in communities and folks often point to it when they have it AS community, but do not be fooled. It is grandfathered. They would never get a variance now. Oddly homeownership leads individuals away from market economics and more down the road of petty dictatorship attempting to maintain property values by freezing the neighborhood from change through NIMBYism (Not In My BackYard). The result is a mall in a greenfield.

Ok- a bit of a rant. But I want to describe the battleground because the future of the cities we love (read: SF, NYC, San Gimignano...) is looking good. Its the future of cities where the city IS what i described above- coincidentally where most of us live- that is in trouble. Cities built by the car, cities built in the boom for the baby-boomers, cities created for property value and not as living communities- This is where the discussion is most important. Once again the future of architecture lies in residential housing. And interestingly as the demographics shift and cities start to reassess if current zoning is helping- the house is being asked to change from the inside out as new technologies are allowing more and more people to create flexible hours and to work from their home. Like in times when those walkable cities were built, the house is being asked to do more than be an investment, a shelter for the family, and an escape from the 9 to 5. The house is being asked to become the center character in peoples lives: A place for family, business, public meeting, playground, and convenience (as it replaces escape). And when the house becomes this, people have more free time- they then escape not in an entropic, hidden way, but rather seek new stimuli in the culture of the city and the city finds new meaning.

The issue is that there is not a vibrant discussion of the future of the house within architecture. There is little reassessment of it in relation to these new demands on its internal programming. I see investigation of form and of technology. Houses are of course being tailor-made by architects for families with these needs mentioned above. Do not get me wrong it is happening- but it is happening in a boutique way and not acknowledged as an opportunity to re-shape architecture.

And now back to Corbusier. When he first mentioned the house as a Machine for Living and he set up his five points for architecture, he said it because he meant it and he was rallying architecture to move forward. You do not have to read "Toward a New Architecture" to get it. While architects at that time are doing or being trained to make lacy Beaux-Arts buildings or tricked out Art Nouveau, Corbusier makes a book full of pictures of steamships, cars, airplanes, and grain silos. All images of engineering. He is like folks-, "Wake up! Stop making boutique. Make a Machine for Living like that dude Henry Ford and give it to the masses!" Ok- That was conjecture...but this is not an academic discussion and neither was Corbusier's. It is a simple point. Technology had allowed for a paradigm shift, the market had followed within other fields, and people were living differently. So if he did not want the engineers to start doing the architects job (or more true to what happened the developers doing our job after post war economics hit the residential mentality); if we want more than boutique we better engage and play with the new landscape and invent a new language.

The same can be said today. It is time to play with a new language. To take a new look at residential architecture that trumps antiquated zoning restrictions and prioritizes the convenience and art of the home over static notions of property value. (Property values will rise because this new architecture will better match demand).

This is all a bit daunting. But let us say "Toward a New Architecture" was a response to a new world. A world of engineering and efficiency. Is not this a good model for addressing our new world? A world that has passed the infatuation of globalization and email and now demands convenience and global service. I mean, I am writing all of this from a wi-fi cafe in Buenos Aires- where my billing for a project under construction in Utah is subsidizing a lifestyle I could never afford in Los Angeles. If trouble comes i can be in Utah within 12 hours and for under a few thousand dollars. Hell- the Japanese just launched a satellite that will provide 1 gig per minute of basically global wi-fi. The kids growing up are not going to be amazed by google earth like we are as we point out delightedly to our collegues, "Look i can see my house!" They are going to say, "Look at that place, it looks cool. Lets go there." Oh, did i mention they will get internet from there- phone free through skype- faxes emailed- pictures sent- video posted- Do i need to go on? If global living is (already has) changed that much, are not they going to expect something more from their home?

So let's start with a name- Machine for Living is out of date. No one even talks of machines-they just want the results. Whatever it is-it is invisible.
Nomad Living
Homeless (joke)
Synesthetic Living
Link Living
Live-Breathe Home

I dont know its all too much. More to come. If you are interested. Comment...

Upsala Glacier

2008-03-16T10:28:00.013-03:00

Who loves glaciers! So we went back. Early in the morning we boarded a boat. We were the last on the boat and the only seats they had available was in the Captains Quarters. No more hiking- we were traveling in style. The largest and most impressive was Upsala which looses something like 200 meters a year. The lake was full of icebergs.

We stopped in a nearby inlet to have lunch. While staring at the fjord, we experimented with many different types of music from my ipod to match the view. This was our result. Strangely guitars sound good in mountain wilderness better than other single instruments, but there is something bigger about Jazz. The music is Krupa and Rich.

The W Trail

2008-03-09T20:42:00.030-02:00

We hiked a trail called the "W". We left from Pudeto (bottom left) and ended in Hostel de Torres (top right). We were 8 days hiking. 85 kilometers.

TO GLACIER GREY
Along a long glacial lake for 11km; It was to our left. Ice drifted along the shore. Everyone carried big packs. And when we arrived at our camp we were tired. We stayed in a lodge that night. It was surrounded by delicate trees and small transparent icebergs.

We had smuggled cheese, salami, sardines, and wine into Chile. You would think that this is a lite comment, but they actually had checked our tire compartment and everything when we crossed, they were serious! Fortunately for us, we were not serious and they never checked our purses. We snacked well. It was the last good eating for a while.

TO CAMPO ITALIANO
The thunder we heard in our campsite was actually avalanches from the peaks surrounding. We camped under a short tree canopy that barely protected us from the howling winds that swept through the Valle Frances.

At night we read from torches strapped to our heads. I was reading this ridiculously thick somewhat bad fiction and had the pleasure of tearing out the pages as i went. Books are typically sacrosanct with me, but on a 8 day hike- everything must remain useful. I thought of burning socks, but Hisako would not let me.

TO CAMPO BRITANICO
The hike up the Valle Frances must be one of the most magnificent day hikes in the world. Up and up, you climb pass a rushing river, over boulders; to your left a massive peak constantly sheds snow in impressive waterfalls of snow. Through brilliant green Patagonian forest you climb until reaching a crest you step onto a very slight dome of granite. The trees, unable to take hold in this stone surface give you a 360 panorama of a new vista. One that surpasses all yet on the climb, for you now stand in a huge bowl of green rimmed with tall rounded peaks all the way around.

The climb up the bowl past Camp Britanico is straight up. Its not quite rock climbing, but its best to have all four limbs touching the ground. After the trees thin out, big clumps of tundra moss- a panoply of greens coat the slope. Tundra eventually gives way to loose mounds of sharp rocks.

The view is large and strange. The mountains are not like mountains. They have this concrete plasticity- parabolic slopes, rounded peaks. Truly strange outcropping teeming with character and personality- it must be amazing to stand on top of these things...

But the best i can do is climb what i can climb. There is only one other couple i see. As they go down they say i am the last one up here and to be careful going up or down. I am way past the last lookout. I take in a long moment.

TO REFUGIO CUERNOS
Everyday held new surprises. After the monumentality of the ring of peaks above Britanico, this cloudy misty day and low green hills beyond was subdued. A light rain turned up the contrast on all the black and white pebbles disappearing into the silty white/blue glacial lake. The subdued turned sublime when we stopped to soak all of this in. The place had this Zen like-no-mindedness about it- a mandala consciousness, the widest range of consciousnesses. In the distance low clouds were moving quickly out of the Valle Frances and dissipating in animate forms over the lake. A saucer, a dragon clawing...

There is a bit by Herman Hesse that takes hold, "The surrender to nature's irrational, strangely confused formations produces in us a feeling of inner harmony with the forces responsible for these phenomena...the boundaries separating us from nature begin to quiver and dissolve...we are unable to decide whether the images on our retina are the result of impressions coming from without or from within...we discover to what extent we are creative, to what extent our soul partakes of the constant creation of the world."

We stayed there for an hour. I skipped rocks, Hisako was picking little rocks and matching them with larger rocks of the same pattern- an experiment in camouflage. The lake was entrancing not only to us. A group of Australians threw down their packs stripped down and jumped in. You should have heard them howl!

There were many river crossings, but the hike was mellow. We talked about what our business should be when we return back to Los Angeles. We joked that we were on a business retreat. The refugio at Cuernos was very nice and many people were there. We sat in the cabin drinking wine and reading, watching the chef make homemade bread. The dinner was delicious and we went to bed very satisfied. The night was strange and ominous, however, with massive wind gusts rushing through the valley. We could hear the wind as it came rolling through the valley like a runaway bus sweeping through clumbs of trees with great ripping sounds getting louder and louder until it hit the tent. Everything shook violently. We slept in fits.

TO LAS TORRES
The last leg of our hike ended with the park's big attraction- the spiring granite Torres (Towers). Our campsite was in a pasture, but the setting was beautiful and the sun shined on us. A day hike up to the torres was mostly a scramble over boulders and talis piles. The vertical hike was pretty substantial, but the reward was magnificent. I hung out on a rock projecting into the small lake at the base of the tower, laid down and just looked at those massive rocks. Wondering who in their right minds would climb that thing. Of course it was an Italian who summited first in 1963.

We have a lot of time on our hands since the hiking is over. We lay on the grass and hang out in our tent thankful for such an amazing journey.

DRIVE BACK TO EL CALAFATE
Since Miho drove the rental car back, we have to take a bus back into Argentina. We did not really tell them where to pick us up, so we were very curious to know if we would have a ride. It worked out. One bus took us to the border and another picked us up. Its a weird crossroads.

Torres Del Paine

2008-03-07T15:57:00.010-02:00

They say you can book the bus ahead, but you have to pay at the store, and they don't reserve your space on the bus until you pay...Something about this doesn't add up. But after a few months in South America, we get used to this circular logic. You try to plan ahead, but down here, you have got to let go if it becomes too much. Just run with it. It generally works out. Its good practice actually for life in the USA. So much of it should just be let go. The bus of course was full by the time we got to the store. We rented from Hertz from Victoria a friend of a friend who had migrated to El Calafate because unlike the rest of Argentina this place is booming and jobs are plentiful.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing. No lone telephone pole; no shard from a broken glass bottle reflecting in the distance. To say Patagonia is a vast desolate landscape is accurate, but too lonely. It is so vast and desolate, so immense and clean it conjures up an expanse of emotions. It is total. I remember once when i was a boy, i went camping in a cave. I closed my eyes to go to sleep and they turned the lights off. I opened my eyes. Sure, it was the darkest thing i had ever seen, but it was different than that; it was pure. There was no red spot remnant of the sun moving around, no twitching of eyelids to distract. The absoluteness of that space enveloped me with both fright and excitement. Patagonia feels similar.

We drive from El Calafate to Torres del Paine. We cross 400 kilometers of dirt road into Chile. Miho learns how to drive stick shift on the way. We see an armadillo.

The peaks of Torres Del Paine are some of the most spectacular on the planet and perhaps the most technical climbing mountains in the world. We drink wine under their shadow, looking for the Southern Cross in the night sky. It sits low on the horizon and points to a pole not so far from here. Somehow you can feel this. This connection to a larger order- the stars- makes us even more aware of our location on the globe. Its far, we are remote, like really out there. When i lived in Florida there were all these dudes who had gotten on the road and just headed south, ending up in Miami. That was one thing, but this! This is something else.

Epiphany Egg

2008-03-06T14:13:00.002-02:00

Is there such a thing as one half of an epiphany?

The author Murakami describes two anteaters he saw at the zoo. It was cold and they were tight together completely intertwined so that they were one ball of fuzz. It was a striking image, but useless.

These marooned images sometimes come back when least expected, summoned by some cosmic attraction. Don't let it go! A new whole is formed. A pure, raw, new thought- it is the best type of thought.

Fingers and Fractals

2008-03-05T15:00:00.000-02:00

I like how the angles of the mountains look like the jagged edges of the ice, look like the edges of a snow flake. Fractals in a scaled line, orders of magnitude connected in sight and process.

Patagonia2

2008-03-05T13:11:00.000-02:00

Here is a bit of an experiment: I want to match music to how we feel at these places we go. There is a such a huge impression when a landscape and a sound match.

I heard once on NPR that Neanderthal language consisted of gutteral grunts, banging with hands, dancing and clicks of the throat. This anthropologist talked about how our instinctive draw to certain pitches, beats, and melodies goes back to our Neanderthals roots (Apparently they did not die in a big cataclysm, our Homo-Sapien ancestors more likely killed the Neanderthal men and ran off with the women- so we share their genes. And perhaps an ear for music). If this is true it means certain melodies contain meaning. Music to soothe a child, to warn of approaching danger, to indicate happiness and sadness; a meaning buried to us now, but the sounds today would evoke a certain distant emotion. If he's correct or not i have no idea, but its interesting that certain melodies do evoke so much emotion and at times it is easy to feel that it is something hardwired in us.

Standing in the desolate and magnificent, jagged and harsh landscape of Patagonia i liked this: (click arrow)
Hot Chocolate by Shonen Knife(Stereolab Remix)

Perito Moreno

2008-03-05T10:17:00.004-02:00

With heavy steel cramp-ons laced to our feet, we hiked across the edge of the glacier. Everything is blue. Different shades of blue running the length of the glacier like ribbons. It is a wholly different landscape than any that i have ever been before.

It is a blue desert that rapidly changes quality depending on the clouds and sun above. Sky and cloud blend with the ice blurring a horizon or blind when the sun breaks free and the ice is like standing on a bright fluorescent bulb.

Perito Moreno2
The ground is soft, a bed of needles and leaves that has never burned, never been raked, slow to rot since it is frozen for most of the year. You comfortably sink as you walk. A wooden path guides you through the wet spots. Light dances on the ground through a thin tree canopy of bright verdant green.

Walking out of the forest and onto the rocky beach, a rock mound shaped by a violent past rests at the foot of the glacier. From this mount with the enormity of this ice flow ominously in front- never sure if it may break loose-surge and gobble you up- the sublimity contrasts dramatically with the delicacy of the forest near. It is an immense moment.

Patagonia

2008-03-05T00:09:00.014-02:00

Away from city lights, we flew south to Patagonia.

You know how the long, acute tip of a piece of pie is the best. Patagonia is something like that.

Cradled between staggering peaks of granite and schist lies a 400 kilometer long ice field that spits out glaciers wherever the cradle gaps. Water laden clouds meet no obstructions in this far southern latitude until here, dumping massive amounts of snow onto Andean mountains warmed by volcanic activity.

The results are fast moving glaciers cracking, splintering, sink holing, disintegrating into deep lakes the color of clouds.

Dynamic fast moving glaciers like Perito Moreno move 2 meters a day. A whine and a crack precede a few chunks of ice giving way before something larger happens. Then a deep boom like quarry dynamite and the whole of this face detaches from the main and slides in the water. Its difficult to figure scale but the face hear is 40 meters tall the plume of water is immense, but in comparison to the rest of the glacier its modest. This trick of scales will become a source of constant bafflement in Patagonia.

Several minutes later a chunk of ice about the same as the one that calved floats up from the bottom of the lake. It must have been attached to the piece that broke away. There is a huge difference in ice though, for this ice is deep blue and dense. It looks ancient.

Rain-Tango-Wa-lee-why-chu

2008-02-29T12:48:00.009-02:00

Thunder claps. Cars trapped. Rain pounds the street in a torrent of swirling water. The wind comes in gusts. You are thrown flat against the glass of darkened shop windows. Water droplets lit by the lights of the signs above move left and right in slow motion- visually peaceful like snow falling seemingly defying gravity. Until, stepping out of the dance-trance, you realize that the heavens have literally opened up above and you are soaked, standing in 10 inches of fast moving water. It was a horrible day to be out. It all occurred in 10 minutes.

This of course occurs when Kozi arrives and so we had to amuse ourselves indoors with a little tango.

The next day we traveled to Gualeguaychu to see Argentina's version of carnival. You know- tall busty amazonian women half naked save for some pasties and lots of feathers shaking to the beat my heart. It was a noble journey. I think the men were supposed to be good looking as well, but lets not talk about them. But that damn rain! It got rained out! We contented ourselves walking around that sleepy town stepping over puddles, eating beef, and drinking beer.

Tourist

2008-02-28T21:30:00.004-02:00

Every time George W Bush says, "Terrorist" in that trained truncated back-of-the-throat folksy accent of his, I like to trick myself into hearing "Tourist". He does'nt talk much about terrorists these days, but if he does: see if you can hear him saying "Tourist". Sometimes these two words seem interchangeable and George actually feels prophetic.

Since moving to Buenos Aires we have tried to blend in, but now that Kozi is here we want to do all of that touristy stuff and blame it to our consciences on him. So off to the Pink House we go. The Pink House is the Argentine version of the White House. And yes its pink. Imagine if ours was pink! Would we still have Manifest Destiny? The Monroe Doctrine- meddling in everyone's business, or would we be a bit more subdued? Ahh...a bit of introspection. I guess that makes me more of a tourist than George's alternative.

But lets talk about the really important stuff. Who in the Argentine tourist circuits seem to be Carlos Gardel, Evita, and Diego Maradona. To really be famous here it seems that you need to die tragically very young, or at least complete your greatness early and then spend the rest of your days debauching. In Boca, home of the Boca Juniors and Diego Maradona we visited the stadium and roamed the multicolored buildings. A Diego look-a-like was on hand for pictures for a few pesos sitting in a lawn chair with a tall-boy-Quilmes. It all is quite fantastic and of course incredibly fun. And out of all the options for Argentine greatness, Diego certainly picked the best one...

River Plate vs. Mexico

2008-02-27T23:38:00.011-02:00

Kozi was on Argentinian soil for no more than 5 hours before we put him in a soccer stadium and we all enjoyed the best team in Argentina (currently) River Plate go toe to toe with the best team in Mexico. We sat in the popular section, known for its hooliganism, but we steered clear of any particular craziness. That section spent the entire game on its feet, on each other's shoulders, shouting and throwing bits of newspaper everywhere. The videotron oddly did not show the time or even highlights of the game, it just focused on cute girls in the stadium for an uncomfortably long time. Dad's with RP tattoos held up little sons high above their head. Everyone sang Vamo, vamo, River Plate!

Despite the support Mexico quickly scored and even though RP had more possession time than Mexico they could never convert. It was like this for the entire game. Great ball handling, but nothing except for the cute girls on the videotron blushing at the attention and the guys next to them beaming with pride. By the time the second half was winding down RP had managed to tie it up, but everyone was tired. Kozi explained that if Mexico ties its good for them because it is an away game and through some other witchcraft cooked up by fifa a tie is good for their continental standing. Nevertheless Mexico is getting cocky with a tie. Tempers start to ignite. The RP coach somehow gets evicted from the game. The fans are getting despondent. Hisako asks if its safer for us if they win or loose. Kozi says definitely win, as he eyes the crowd to see if anything nasty is about to happen. Just then two players get into a fight on the field, some guys even jump off the bench and run onto the field. Its looking like a melee. We are looking side to side if its going to spread to the crowd. The pile up on the field is untangled and two players, one from each team are thrown out. Its looking really bad.

But then with this kind of pissed of vigor turned productive a RP players breaks free, passes to another, a quick fake, then another, a shot and goooooooooool! The whole stadium erupts. Its ballistic. People are everywhere shouting, throwing paper, waving flags, hugging each other. Literally 30 second later the whistle is blown and its over. RP runs the field; Mexico in their yellow jerseys just lay on the ground like crushed dandelions. Its fantastic. So many emotions. Everyone spills out of the stadium. They sing something about the polizia. Which maybe is not the best idea, but what the hell! Blah-blah-blah POLIZIA!!

Living at Arenales

2008-02-26T10:47:00.001-02:00

Before the arrival of the crazy bearded yugo known as Kozi, i thought i would describe a typical day at 2901 Arenales. The day starts late since at night it gets dark at about 10:00 pm and we go to bed around 2:00am. Everyone is out quite late keeping hours typical to Spain. School is still out and everyone makes the most of the summer break, so the cafes are full of families and teenagers well into the night. Open the doors to the balcony- shower-turn on computer-breakfast-coffee. There is a bakery down the street and so we often pick up a few mini sweet glazed croissants, called medialunas, some bread for lunch, and sweeter confections for afternoon tea. In the mornings we work on the Utah project. Currently we are detailing these large 20 foot sliding doors on either side of the dining room. When open the dining room will truly feel as one with the wetland. This goes on for about 4 hours. Phone calls to the manufacturer are made on skype and essentially free.

Lunch is sandwiches. There is a meat and cheese shop with delicious proscuitto; tomatoes and lettuce come from a local supermercado. Hisako makes the sandwiches and we have them with mate tea. Mate, which the locals drink constantly, tastes somewhere between asian green tea and english black tea. It is very nice. Mate is bitter if mixed with very hot water and so the water is tepid. Without the hot requirement you can sip and sip mate all day long adding water when you feel like it. The tea leaf takes a very long time to loose potency. The locals just pour the loose leaf into a gourd of warm water, sipping through a metal straw with a perforated end shaped like a fat spoon. Someone described it as an Argentine iron lung, which i thought was funny and accurate to its shape and importance within the culture. During the afternoon we work on developing our business, which right now means designing and posting things to the website. We are interested in so many things it is difficult to represent them without seeming crazy. But its getting there.

In the late afternoon, when it is not so hot we pick a destination on the map and just start walking through Retiro or along Sante Fe to some place like Puerto Madero or San Telmo. We can cover a pretty large distance and it is good training for our planned camping trip in Patagonia. While Buenos Aires is a huge city, the places that we would want to go are not that far- maybe the size of Manhattan. Along the way we talk and roam occasionally taking a photo (mostly of holes in the ground-Chako's Dimple-Pimples). Buenos Aires has amazing Dimple-Pimples by the way- they must be constantly putting up and and taking out poles (check out Chako's blog).

Before it gets dark we meander back to our house. Sometimes we go out to eat, other times we will make pasta at home. Argentinian wine is very good and i particularly like their pinot noirs from Patagonia, which has a similar microclimate to Oregon and the Burgundy coast. There is a wine shop with a very friendly and talkative owner, who looks lot like Paul Giamatti, and recommends this and that. If we eat at home we will visit him. If we eat out the restaurants begin to fill up around 10:00pm and it is fun to be part of the late night summer dinner rush. The local parilla (grilled/smoked meat restaurant) is always good. Other options include a very cheap pasta place, an expensive pasta place, pizza/empanada's and other parillas. Actually the food options where we live are not so diverse. But they are tasty and nothing is really that expensive. If we eat out then the entire day i described is about $35 for the two of us. Staying in is substantially less.

Maybe around 1:00 am we will go for an ice cream and a cafe before reading some, or studing some Spanish, then going to bed.

Hopscotch

2008-02-25T21:34:00.002-02:00

I am reading a book called, "Hopscotch" by Julio Cortazar. It has this great passage that i am going to write here. I like how it builds a scene full of humanity. It is a bit critical at the end. The character's voice not so much mine, but i agree with his observations and the point he strives to make. It is set in Paris. The scene begins after the main character has witnessed a man being hit by a car and is carried off by an ambulance. A crowd watching the commotion has fled to a cafe after it started to rain.

In the cafe protected by the cold (a matter of going in and having a glass of wine), a group of bricklayers were talking with the man behind the bar. Two students were reading and writing at one table and Oliveira saw them look up and look at the bricklayers, go back to their books or notebooks, look up again. From one glass cage to another, look, withdraw, look: that's all there was to it. Up above the sidewalk section of the cafe, which was closed, a young woman on the second floor seemed to be sewing or cutting out a dress by the window. Her upswept hair was moving in time to what she was doing and Oliveira tried to picture her thoughts, her shears, her children who would be coming back from school any moment now, her husband finishing work in am office or in a bank. The bricklayers, the students, the woman, now a bum turned the corner of the street with a bottle of red wine sticking out of his pocket, pushing a baby carriage filled with old newspapers, tin cans, torn and dirty cloths, a headless doll, a package with a fishtail sticking out. The bricklayers, the students, the woman, the bum, and in a booth looking like someone condemned to the pillory, LOTERIE NATIONALE, an old woman with unrepatriated bits of straggly hair popping out from underneath a kind of gray bonnet, blue mittens on her hands, TIRAGE MERCREDI, waiting but not in wait for customers, a charcoal brazier by her feet, ecased in her vertical coffin, motionless, half-frozen, offering good fortune and God knows what, clots of ideas, senile commonplaces, the teacher who used to give her candy when she was a girl, a husband killed on the Somme, a traveling-salesman son, at night her garret without running water, a three-day soup, beouf bourguignon which is cheaper than a cut of meat, TIRAGE MERCREDI. The bricklayers, the students, the woman, the bum, the lottery woman, every group, everybody in his glass cage, but let an old man fall under a car and right away there is a general running to the scene of the accident, an animated exchange of opinion, of criticism, disparities and coincidences until it starts to rain again and the bricklayers go back to the bar, the students to their table, the X's to X and the Z's to the Z.
"Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of this infinite absurdity," repeated Oliviera. "But Jesus, I'm going to get soaked, I've got to get someplace."

A List of Velocities

2008-02-24T23:10:00.013-02:00

It is true; life seems to have slowed down for us since moving here. But sometimes when you are really moving and satisfied, you find that you are taking really tiny steps. And other times you look down and you realize that you've got someone else's shoes on!

It is not always about speed. Sometimes when i am moving really slow something good creeps up on me from behind and swallows me whole. Other times just getting up a good hard pant and maybe a bit of sweat in the pits is enough to feel all right. There are lots of ways of moving toward something:

Fog moving over the ocean.
Up a down escalator.
Hit by a bus.
Straight.
Without brakes.
Like an Albatross.
On the shoulders of others.
Spinning with eyes wide shut/open.
Holding your breath till stars come dancing.

Villa Curutchet

2008-02-22T18:00:00.009-02:00

But of course we arrived in la plata just fine. After the tall grass and broken down cars- buildings appeared and we rolled into the train station. The last on the line. We had come to La Plata to see a Le Corbusier building- the only one in Argentina. There are not many in the US either and he along with a few other people- Eames, Atelier Bow Wow- Hisako and i constantly refer to because we like the way they work. They strive, they invent, they look like they have a good time. I keep trying to get Hisako to wear that crazy skirt Ray would wear...

So Villa Curutchet was made for a doctor with a pseudo-detached clinic from which he worked. Its got the 5 points.

I got very excited seeing the house. I mean the guy really gets it. He planted the tree back in 1935 when the house was built. The tree and the brise soleils do much in blocking the northern sun. The ramp and stair both give the house and clinic a dignified entry and the sequences of spaces plotted by the circulation are very cinematic. Its very interesting how conscience he is of programming.

-The first floor with the bulk of the massing and house hovering above is very open consisting of mostly ramps, stairs, car park, and entry. While all of that may seem busy its not since the inner courtyard with the tree opens to the sky and a gravel sculpture garden at grade is very peaceful.
-The second floor is dedicated to the living spaces, kitchen, dining, and roof garden which projects out as an extension to the living space. This plan on this level is very open and rectilinear allowing the sun to filtering through the roof garden full access into the living spaces.
-The third floor is solely for sleeping and a private reading area and is interesting because he floats oval shaped bathrooms and large cherry cabinetry blocks in a free plan to divide the spaces. The effect is very organic and fluid feeling, something that perhaps he thought soothes the soul where you sleep and relax.

Taken floor by floor each level has a very specific programmatic function and has a very definite plan diagram attached to it. Ramp-Rectilinear-Organic. No one has more books written about him than Corb, but they all say the same thing- to see his buildings really is something. He is even better than the hype but not for the reasons you think. Its funny- the same thing happened to me at the Barcelona Pavilion.

(for the non architects- the five points- very influential in formalizing modern architecture)
- Pilotis (columns) elevating the mass off the ground
- A free plan, achieved through the separation of the load-bearing columns from the walls subdividing the space
- A free facade, the result of the free plan in the vertical plane,
- A long horizontal sliding window and finally
- A roof garden, restoring, supposedly, the area of ground covered by the house

on the way to la plata

2008-02-21T17:08:00.004-02:00

The train was a metal box with metal seats with tiny windows-names carved into the paint. Only if they removed the seats could it be simpler, but it got us to La Plata. While we were still close to Buenos Aires vendors walked the aisle selling pens, phone cards, superpanchos (hot dogs), musica romantica on shoulder held boom boxes; when the shanties appeared outside the downtrodden walked the aisles asking for money because they had cancer or too many children and no work; when there was nothing out the window no one walked the aisle and we were at peace with the locomotion. When the tall grass and broken down cars arrived outside of the window, I thought someone might board the train and rob us. A great train heist without horses or bandanas or dust- alone in that tin box they would just walk right in and point and we with no cushions to crawl under...

Near Buenos Aires Leo played.

Tigre

2008-02-17T00:58:00.005-02:00

In the stale, humid, hot summer months the residents of Buenos Aires flock en masse to Tigre, a river delta area just north of the city where water the color of dulce de leche laps onto vibrant green, perfectly manicured lawns. The contrast is beautiful. A boat takes you past summer homes standing high above the flood plain, through the lattice work of waterways deep into the delta, the sound of electric fans and the tinkling of ice in glasses mixes with the laughter of friends and family relaxing wherever the breeze is greatest.

We ate at a restaurant in front of the local boat gas station. It provided us with a cross section of the neighborhood. They all got gas, beer/water, and ice.

Doctor in white scrubs in a short tuggish boat
Older man and mistress in a long red cigarette boat
Barge kicking up a ton of deisel bringing tears to your eyes
Ice Cream boat the jingle is always the same
Teenagers fixing up stalled jet ski
Bare chested crew skull (how argentine's love their chest hair!)
Family in a classic wood boat
Teenagers in a tricked out wakeboarding boat argentine metal playing
Landscapers in canoe paddling with a rake

Andy

2008-02-14T21:32:00.013-02:00

I am reading "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)"
What an amazing cat that guy was. At one point in the book he is musing about restaurants in New York whose food gets worse and worse but the prices go up and they get trendy. They don't sell food anymore they sell "atmosphere". Wow thats true! And he loves America so much. No wonder.

For we are the greatest in the world at selling atmosphere and it always amazes me when i leave the US at how that atmosphere so finely crafted back home is everywhere and for every occasion. On Santa Fe a retail mall plays John Mayer in the concourse, but in the jean shop its Q-tip with his hip-hop light. Something for every occasion. I am fine with this. Everyone seems happy with it around here as well. I mean-i am glad that they are not making up some phony mash-up of Argentinian indigenous culture (whatever that is). What do you want- those Peruvian pan flutists you see on street corners all over the world. Those guys!

Even if in Buenos Aires they name their neighborhoods Palermo Soho, Palermo Hollywood, and i heard that Palermo Brooklyn is where all the expat artists are, they are striving for something and i am glad that the US gets it right when they put IT all together and make that THING that everyone wants. It always looks better on the other side of the fence. Everyone needs a passport.

Maybe its better when the most aspirational atmosphere you can dream of is not in your own back yard. Maybe thats why immigrants in the US work so hard, push their kids to read books, and make a grab at the real thing even if its only an atmosphere, an illusion. Barbie, Hello Titty, 100 Marilyns in different Crayola Colors, Campbell Soup- just a wig and a little cosmetic sugery and you're almost there...

More Block

2008-02-11T18:45:00.002-02:00

On the other side of the street is a small ice cream store open till 2 o'clock in the morning. With each cafe they give you a shot of mineral water and a tiny scoop of ice cream- typically creme de leche. Its very civilized. People are in there all day long sitting for a very long time. Older folks quietly talk, teenage girls talk, sputter, and gawk typically in a pack of four, old ladies seem to muse and stare off into space, couples usually consist of the guy watching soccer on the television (which is always on and always showing soccer) and the girl nudging him occasionally with some bit of talk but all in all content to be out and happy to be eating ice cream. Between the kiosk, the plums ice cream store and an empanada shop whose wood stove takes up almost half the store toasting you along with your empanada- our block is quite convenient and pleasant.

Our Block

2008-02-10T20:18:00.013-02:00

Our building enters at 45 degrees onto the street corner and so upon stepping out of the marble lobby you are immediately out, thrust into the hubbub of taxis, people and dogs criss crossing the street. The taxis drive without their lights on and do not heed pedestrians, the people walk indescribably slow and talk side by side gesturing wildly like slow moving windmills, the dogs (all enormous: golden retrievers, labs, shepards, dobermans, and even jesus a great dane or two) come in packs of at least a dozen individually leashed to a dog walker who leads these beasts amazingly well, but cannot be expected to pick up the dog shit. Suffice it to say to walk out of our apartment directly into all of this comes with its fair share of energy and drama.

Despite us being a block away from Santa Fe which is a major thorough fare, our street is fairly quiet after one adjusts to the hazards mentioned before. And on our block we have all the conveniences of urban living. A kiosk on the opposite corner to us sits also at 45 degrees. Its the same guy everyday from early in the morning to about 1 o'clock at night. He must know everything, perched there in the catbird seat and everyone coming and going, like a doorman not satisfied to only watch but helps along 'whatever what may come' by selling you a beer as you pass. Yes, its where i get my beer and when i am finished with my liter of Quilmes. I bring the bottle down, give it to him and he reaches slowly into the frig to pull a fresh cold one out and hands it to me. A nod and 4 pesos ($1.25) later and i am on my way back upstairs. Occasionally in the lobby of our building sitting on the white leather lounge built into the corner two teenagers will be stuck together legs crossing at least twice, toes pointed in some intense pirouette, eyes staring intensely at one anther. Its funny that this space is probably the quietest that they know stuck between the clausterphobia of a small two bedroom apartment upstairs and the taxis, people, and dogs on the street.

Our Building

2008-02-09T21:14:00.004-02:00

We live in a 7 story building at the corner of Arenales and Aguero. There are three apartments to each floor. We see our neighbors rarely, but when we do its typically crammed into an elevator that is 30 inches square. In these brief encounters it is too close to really speak, the reason i believe is as much to do with the fear of spitting on one another as our bad spanish, and so we stand quietly and embrace their aroma. Mostly its some nice but somewhat old fashioned scent, other times you can tell they recently stepped in dog piss.

lightness

2008-02-09T15:49:00.003-02:00

We live on the 6th floor in a one bedroom apartment. It is fully furnished. Once plugged in everything works and we are both distanced and connected to our previous world at all time. This aspect, the connectivity, is shockingly good. Despite our lack of presence in LA it would be difficult to know that we are not there. Our lack of possessions, the thin but stable tether back to where we came from makes us feel very light.

no ceiling

2008-02-05T14:21:00.011-02:00

There is a unique power and excitement in drawing the world with one's own hand. As if you have created it. In some ways you have, for at the end of the day all that you do, did, will do: sight,stories,inventions,geography are what you make of it.

It is this last point-what you make of it- that caused us to draw the map in the first place. We thought of the places we should inhabit. We looked to all of the continents. They all have their charms. We picked Buenos Aires. We packed the house into four 5'x8'x7' boxes. We left at midnight February 5th.

We have:
A backpack with sleeping bag, tent, stove, etc.
Suitcase with clothes, toiletries, stack of books, router, all-in-one printer.
Carry-on with laptop, 330 gig external hardrive, cellphone, camera, bag full of cables.

lines

2007-09-23T16:44:00.017-03:00

The line is drawn in a swift and continuous motion. Starting in the corner the pen moves up and down from left to right charting by instinct a section of land no one would dare to say is inaccurate. A no mans land. A land no one cares for- inaccessible. It’s a cowardly move to start there but to draw a map of the world from memory is a challenge. And the fibrous paper is unforgiving. Hesitation is an ink blot and an ink blot is unintentional new land and this has no place in cartography even in this crude napkin sketch. It is important to be as accurate as possible, for these lines are literally everything. Just stick to one side and you will not get wet!

The line runs long on the Chinese coast giving the drawing that elongated look old maps have when hastily drawn, no North Star to guide and a swift current at the stern pushing the measurements incrementally off. Moving left-back east, up and down around the horn of India, the ink spreads quickly with the slightest touch. Around Arabia, Africa the pen moves quickly on into the familiar contours of the Mediterranean, the Americas, all those islands big and small. Finished.

Its not so accurate but it will do.

point mugu, california

2003-02-06T23:20:00.005-03:00

Standing in the sand looking down the length of the beach, I am overcome with a feeling more instinct than understood. It is an acute awareness of location that i feel, for i know that on this beach i cannot get lost. Tell my friend that i am standing on the edge and they will know where i am, but a little to either side and i may be gone forever. A few steps to the west and i am swimming in an endless Pacific Ocean, a few steps to the east and i enter the grasslands and thickets of the vast American West. Between land and sea, this beach running north and south from here is absolutely known. On this edge charted and refined over centuries herein lies the boundary of our land...and all that is within our grasp.

world map

2003-02-01T11:01:00.000-03:00

Bo's Map

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Hisako's Map

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