cause of the week

the good critic

2010-05-16T18:23:00.000-07:00

For several weeks I've been trying to write a blog entry about criticism, criticality, what it means to be a critic. As final reviews approached at architecture programs around the country in the beginning of May, and I prepared for the last visit as the outside thesis critic for the graduate students in the school of architecture at UNCC, I was considering both my responsibilities as a critic and the students' responsibilities to be critical -- or, more broadly, architectural criticism and critical architecture.

The first delay in writing this piece came from a possibly misguided attempt to combine concepts that may or may not actually fall under the same umbrella. Early research for the piece led me to Reinhold Martin and George Baird's published cry and response circa 2005 on what was identified at the time as a disciplinary movement into a post-critical era.[1] Referencing primarily the texts of Peter Eisenman (the poster child for critical architecture), Michael Hayes, and Rem Koolhaas (the self-proclaimed poster child for post-critical architecture), their arguments seemed to me to intentionally obscure the delineation. This quote from Koolhaas supports that notion: "The problem with the prevailing discourse of architectural criticism is [the] inability to recognize there is in the deepest motivations of architecture something that cannot be critical..." And to continue, "if it turns out that 'criticality' constrains efficacy, then to that extent 'criticality' must give way."[2] Koolhaas, arguing for an architecture that is first and foremost an effective product, can still hardly be identified as an acritical producer either in his weighty (literally) books or his influential constructions. In the end, the divide between the Martin/Baird argument that resides in the realms of high academic discourse and top tier critical architectural production (if that's not an oxymoron in itself) and grad student end of year design reviews seemed vast and unbridgeable -- perhaps even unrelated -- so I let it slide. Sort of.

At the reviews, an energetic and rigorous faculty member referred to me at some point as the 'thesis police'. My job throughout the course of the semester had been to remind the students that these are not simply design projects -- which certainly have their own degrees of complexity and demands -- but are thesis projects which should be, by definition, critical. A thesis, unlike a project, asks a larger question which must then be interrogated, tested, and substantiated. In the case of the UNCC program, the given structure of the thesis year demands that the student first produce a text that outlines the theoretical framework of the 'hypothesis', research relevant precedents, initiate a quick 'test' case, develop longer partial 'experiments', and then frame a larger and more extensive test case that can lead to some set of conclusions. Spelling this out, it sounds rather social sciencey, but in reality the hypothesis, experiments, tests, and conclusions range from the rather empirically (and sometimes quantitatively) based acoustic, light, or material experiments, to very abstract, even experiential, 'experiments' in drawing, design charrettes, site research, cultural explorations, etc etc etc.

My use of the terms question, hypothesis, test, and experiment are in no way literal or rigid, but are broad methodological categories of interrogation. For example, one of the more fascinating projects of this year studied the spatial relationships of break dancers and break dancing, using youtube videos as 'data' for design research, analyzed through diagrams and models. Her final 'test' was to interrogate the relationship between such radical street use and sites of resistance by designing a break dancing space, based on her extensive research, at the site of a Harlem Starbucks. Design, in this case, remains the strategy by which the hypothesis of a relationship is tested. For another thesis, three personas -- archeologist, architect, and artist -- were adopted for experiments in site analysis. The methods utilized were the multi-disciplinary tools of the accumulated trades -- collecting, categorizing, archiving, measuring, mapping, photographing, filming, drawing. The final test case was an ensemble site analysis of a particular location in southend Charlotte. These kinds of theses are not about proof per se, but about critical interrogation and response, with rigorous analysis, that is not limited in applicability to a single set of site and programmatic parameters the way a design project typically is. The 'hypothesis' may fail if the tested strategies and experiments are unable to be applied to a larger test case or if no conclusions are able to be drawn, but the thesis student only fails, in my mind, if he or she fails to push the design question to its larger potential ramifications. One way to fail is a lack of rigor, another is to allow the thesis to revert to a project. If we expect architecture to be possible as a form of critical practice, then some combination of rigor and knowledge must be leveraged for deep inquiry.

Yet architecture as a critical practice and architecture as a form of criticism are not inherently equivalent. As an organizer of the WPA 2.0 competition, those projects overwhelmingly related data to design solutions. The flexibility of the competition -- no given site or program -- demanded that each team substantiate their problem statement before they could even begin to solve it. The best projects developed a clear response to a data-supported, often environmental, need, yet in no way did the solutions come across as inevitable or predetermined. In other words, between the data and the solution was our disciplinary expertise -- design. And design, I believe, is never quantifiable. Even in this age of supposedly technologically-generated answers (parametrics, mass customization, infinite degrees of measurability), someone is making informed decisions behind the curtain and someone, if an effort is being made for good design rather than merely efficient solution-making, is still transforming the mechanical to the meaningful. This is probably why the most empirical theses are the least successful -- they often rely on data for solutions, when data are actually most useful in the defining of the question. The tricky -- and interesting -- part of the Border Wall as Infrastructure project, one of the WPA 2.0 finalists, was its conflicted relationship with its own proposition. The project was both a form of research about energy use, habitat, water, risk and culture and a conflicted need to be critical of the border and the building of the wall. What the Border Wall team came up against, as Koolhaas identified, is the difficulty in being simultaneously critical and productive. This difficulty, I would argue, is exactly where the firm of Diller, Scofidio + Renfro find themselves today.

In the above mentioned George Baird article, "'Criticality' and Its Discontents', he identifies Diller and Scofidio (before Renfro was added) as "a 'late' triumph of 'criticality'". Their early work, which dominated the Whitney retrospective of the firm (2003) that Baird refers to in the article, landed heavily in the blurry space between art and architecture, between exhibition and commentary. Their 42nd Street installation, where they placed enticing videos in the windows of old Times Square movie theaters, was a commentary both on the gentrification (truly a Disneyfication) of an area previously known for its edgy, semi-lovable grunge and issues of buying and selling as related to gender and power. Baird wonders in his essay if their built work (just beginning to be substantial at that time) will "meet the more difficult test of being critical 'in the street'."

And now we have the lovely, poetic, scenic, peaceful and spotless High Line, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro's (along with Field Operations) renovation project of the previously abandoned elevated rail in Manhattan's meat packing district into a linear urban park. Is the High Line critical architecture? Does the High Line, as Koolhaas called for, prioritize its own efficacy over its potential for commentary? Is that a good thing, a bad thing, does it matter? It's hard to not notice the controlled and limited messiness of the place preserved originally for its beautiful roughness and miraculous urban wilderness. Aesthetically, they have recreated both Joel Sternfeld's phenomenal photos and their exact competition-winning renderings, which makes the High Line a kind of themetazation as art and a simulacrum all at the same time. Yet, in humble Liz Diller fashion, it is done with not a trace of irony. In that sense, it may be post-critical, but it is also post-pessimistic, which is something else entirely. Landscape urbanism, the emerging field of design (born from the cross-breeding of landscape architecture, urban design, ecology, and architecture), is also a self-proclaimed response to the pessimism of postmodernism -- both the regressive period of architectural design and the militaristic and privatized period of urbanism. The other irony, then, is the boon to economic development the High Line has since generated. Started as a preservation movement by a couple of guys who saw the value in the history and beauty of the relic, that has long been overshadowed by the uber-expensive peep show that is The Standard Hotel, the explosion of architectural icons along the path of the old rail, and the hours-long wait at the bars and restaurants in the immediate vicinity.

The icing on this ironic cake, though, is the restaging of Mr. Brainwash's 2006 LA show, Life Is Beautiful, just about to open in the shadow of the new High Line. If you have no idea what I'm referring to, don't worry. I didn't either. And then I saw Banksy's new movie, Exit Through the Gift Shop. Life is Beautiful was a 500 piece extravaganza of works produced by Mr. Brainwash, the obsessive filmmaker, adoring fan, and accidental protégé of the mega and anonymous British graffiti artist, Banksy. Mr. Brainwash, a kind of modern day Andy Warhol, is an appropriator, an opportunist, and an accidental artist with a payroll of graphic designers, production assistants, and promoters. The 2010 Life Is Beautiful -- which was closed for mid-run enhancements while I was in New York -- is the gentrified graffiti show, a cleaner, tidier, giganticer, mass-produced art monolith retransplanted back into New York from Los Angeles via the renewed fame of the big screen.

According to the film, Mr. Brainwash learned everything he knows from Banksy and Shepard Fairey (the other graffiti artist who became pop culture famous when his Obama HOPE poster hit it big). Yet even though Banksy is often accused of selling out for fame and fortune, he is critical in a way Mr. Brainwash will never be -- precise, surprising, unique, disciplined, smart and skilled. As proof, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a master work of criticality, a film that is both a highly successful product and a compelling argument that leads the viewer through history, precedent, experiment, test, appropriation, and commentary. What it leaves for the viewer is conclusions. What exactly is being critiqued here, and by whom? Fairey calls the film Banksy's latest 'exploit'; one of the interviewees in the film calls the whole thing a complicated joke, with an uncertain victim and uncertain punch line. Yet, it's more complicated than both of those. I see it as a kind of graffiti thesis project, packed full of data, experiments, and analysis, yet left open for participant interpretation, for experiential conclusions, for intelligent debate not just on the film, but on the state of art, capitalism, cities, interdependency, production, beauty, and criticism itself. In that way, it is what critical architecture might strive to be -- not obtuse or compromised, but full scale intellectual proactivity, produced through a highly refined skill set as an act of social participation.

How is this entry a cause? Well, it started out in an effort to define what a good critic might be in an attempt to be a student advocate. Over the years, I had witnessed so many critics that were not operating in the service of the students, but were grandstanding, self-promoting, or ego-boosting, using the jury format as a platform for their own positions. Happily, though, at least where I've been in the last few years, the necessity for student advocating seems to have dissipated. The reviews I participated in this year and in the last few years have been fully critical, in the best sense -- intelligent, attentive, respectful, informative, and informed. They have not been easy; they have been demanding, but in the best interest of the students -- and of the participating faculty -- in an effort to promote not a thicker skin, but a stronger mind. In that regard, I don't see a post-critical era so much as a post-cynical era. Yippee.

In that spirit, I used my time on the High Line to talk politics, government spending, and the state of architecture education with a former student and to look out at the fabulous view of the river. I call that a pretty good project, one that provides a platform for criticality and plenty of blank surfaces for Banksy-like exploits.

[1] George Baird, "'Criticality' and Its Discontents", Harvard Design Magazine, Fall 2004/Winter 2005, Number 21.

Reinhold Martin, "On Theory: Critical of What? Toward a Utopian Realism", Harvard Design Magazine, Spring/Summer 2005, Number 22.

[2] As quoted in Baird, 2-3.

iLove, iAct, iDo

2010-02-14T21:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Google

I love you. I have loved you from the beginning. You have given without me asking. You have fulfilled my dreams before I dreamt. You are everything I've ever wanted, and everything I did not know I wanted.

Our nation has arrived at a historic moment, where we are reaffirmed as equals, two persons. Now it is time for me to give to you.

Google, will you marry me? For all that you have done for me, please accept my vow to be your loving, faithful and sincere wife.

Forever yours,

Xárene

On February 4th Xárene, a Los Angeles-based media artist, delivered the above marriage proposal to Google. Using "the best of paper from France, black ink from Italy, luscious silk ribbon from India and perfumed wax from England" to craft her written proposal, she created a video reading of it, dressed in all white, her hair adorned with a perfect, giant orchid, then hand-delivered the original artifact to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California. The sealed letter was addressed to the Board of Directors with a carbon copy sent to Mr. Kent Walker, Vice President and General Counsel of Google. As of today, Valentine's Day, lovesick Xárene still awaits a response.

Xárene's piece is simple and beautiful with powerful and complicated implications. Her first real piece of activist art, she describes its intent as follows:

The proposal, sincere in its message of love and commitment, is also a statement on personhood in the United States of America. Will marriage equality extend to legal persons (corporations with personhood)? Can a natural person and a legal person of opposite sexual identities carry the same rights as heterosexual persons?

Ideally, Xárene was seeking a response from Google -- hopefully a YES -- that could then instigate a larger public (perhaps legal) debate on the definition of personhood and the rights afforded individuals within our society. If, after all, the recent ruling by the Supreme Court rolling back hard-won, bi-partisan campaign finance reform grants freedom of speech rights to corporations as if they are individuals under protection of the constitution, then why would we not treat them as individuals in other aspects of law? If corporations are protected by the constitution as equals, then why are homosexuals not? Is it as simple -- and as simply tragic -- as coming down to money and power? Those who have the most have the most rights, and those with less suffer.

The 5-4 decision is full of shocking arguments that attempt to frame corporations as victims of mass silencing, invoking censorship arguments and condemning the McCain-Feingold law of restricting "persons" from "the freedom to think for ourselves." Justice Anthony Kennedy in the majority opinion says "Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy -- it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people -- political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence." In many of the excerpts I have read of this majority opinion, it is "the people's" free speech that demands protection. But who is it, exactly, that our Supreme Court is out to protect? Who are they calling "the people"?

The response has been well-deserved outraged. Said Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as quoted in The Huffington Post, "We are moving to an age where we won't have the senator from Arkansas or the congressman from North Carolina, but the senator from Wal-Mart and the congressman from Bank of America." In defense of the real "people", Anna Burger, treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, was quoted as saying, "Unlimited corporate spending in federal elections threatens to drown out the voices of the people who should really be at the center of the political process, i.e., voters and candidates. Unleashing corporate spending will only serve to distort and ultimately delegitimize the electoral process."

I'm certainly not a legal expert and when I did just the tiniest bit of digging on what I think to be a move of artistic brilliance, my budding lawyer friend explained that Kennedy's argument was based on corporations being considered "associations of individuals". However, according to him, this very premise is false: corporations are actually fictional legal entities with more power than mere individuals or an association of individuals, alternatively generating -- quite the opposite of the ruling -- a public interest to limit free speech of corporations because of their very ability to drown out the voices of the rest of us.

David Corn highlights a few excerpts from Justice John Paul Stevens' dissent:

* Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters.

* The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.

* The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.

Xárene's proposal impresses me in so many ways. First, it ignores the convoluted legal logic and deals directly with common sense and human emotion. Through that common sense, it points to the idiocy of the current high court to interpret the law blatantly in favor of big business and against the rights of individuals. In light of that, the ripples of her artwork bring into question the definition of personhood, the rights of individuals. By this I mean not only the rights of marriage and the protection of freedoms, but also harkening back to the very basic rights of all individuals to exist, in essence bringing in public space rights and, by extension, the rights of the homeless. If taken to fruition, art becomes activism, and what starts as poetic, beautiful and instigative might actually impact social change.

In an opportunity to provide a greater platform for her proposal, I asked Xárene to expand on her intentions. As a guest on cause of the week, here is Xárene's more elaborated explanation of personhood and how she was compelled to become Mrs. Google.

The idea came from a series of snide remarks my boyfriend and I exchanged regarding the Supreme Court ruling, one which was that 'corporations would probably have the right to marry before gays'. My first reaction was "Wow. I can finally marry Google." I have a history of "falling in love" with Google and had written previously about humans falling in love with companies -- basically an exaggerated form of brand loyalty. I tend to find exaggeration an interesting way to get a message across, so I combined my corporate devotion with this strategy of exaggeration as a way to expose the slew of problems emerging from corporations gaining human rights. Why not exaggerate the ramifications of rulings like this and actually prepare a marriage proposal to see what questions then arise?

I took the marriage proposal seriously. In an ideal situation, Google would say 'Yes' and we would begin a battle alongside gays and lesbians for marriage equality. Then it is a race to see who gets a ruling first: human + human or human + thing. Just the absurdity of it all was a good enough place to start.

In doing all this, I did not expect to get a response from Google. The larger problem is not about corporations gaining rights, but about humans being denied their rights. There are numerous historical documents to begin describing the situation at hand. By situation I refer to this: Corporations are persons and citizens, and as "legal persons" they are granted human rights, such as--gasp--freedom of speech. The first is the United States Constitution of 1787, which opens up the problem of property as person. Because slavery was banned in England, America's founders avoided using the term 'slave', and defined, instead, 'slaves' as owned persons--in effect, turning property into person. Second, is the U.S. Bill of Rights, specifically the first amendment -- Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion, and Petition -- meant to protect us from the potential oppressiveness of our Government. Third, is the 14th amendment, which fixes the 'slave' problem by formally defining citizenship and protecting a person's civil and political rights. In reality, as shown in the current case, it becomes a tool for corporations to assert their position as persons.

At the core of this situation is the question: what is a human? What are the "human rights" and "civil liberties" we've shed blood for and, in many cases, are still fighting for? The latest right currently garnering activity and debate is the right to marry whom you love. While gay and lesbian rights advocates are gathering signatures in California to abolish Prop 8 which approved an amendment to the State's constitution defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, the Supreme Court re-affirms the personhood of corporations and the extension of their rights to a right at one time reserved for humans. (Corporations were originally granted free speech rights in 1947. The latest January ruling extends their right to free speech in elections.) It does not matter what that right is or does, what matters is that the corporation has been given a "human" right. A non-living entity, a thing, is given a human right, while concurrently, citizens of this nation, humans by birth, are denied human rights.

Human rights are the qualitative measure of living which human beings carry to the full extent upon their birth (refer to the UN Declaration of Human Rights). These rights are not something bestowed upon a newborn, but come into existence with the birth of that child. However, human-ness is also quantitative, meaning that sadly one person has more, or less, rights than another person because some State has decided to "grant" or "repeal" a portion of their rights. When new definitions of 'person' are introduced, misused and intentionally misinterpreted, this quantitative aspect of carrying rights becomes an issue we need to address. If a slave can go from 'thing' to 'person', is it true in reverse, that a 'person' can become a 'thing' when stripped of rights? If a homosexual person does not carry the same rights as a heterosexual person, does that therefore expel the homosexual person from being a human being? Is s/he in effect an entity of no life value?

The issue of right granting/repealing is a deep problem that goes beyond fearing corporations gaining more rights (or the dilemma of a human marrying a corporation). It is indeed about the larger persecution of the human being, about the limit to which the body is extended or compressed by law. Freedom of reproductive choice is another such question of rights and laws. My fear, if our highest courts continue on such a path of disregard for the rights of select individuals, is that of the unborn fetus gaining personhood separate from the body who produced it. Then my own body could turn against me and perhaps have the law on its side.

For the press release, go here.

To see the marriage proposal video, go here.

WPA 2.0 -- design for the public realm

2010-01-18T12:36:00.000-08:00

"What is remarkable about this moment, and exemplified by the WPA 2.0 work, is the momentum from within the design disciplines and the federal government to begin to challenge the last half of that argument, [that the road is our most extensive and most under-used public space]. Our communication with government officials as both citizens and professionals needs to push forward an agenda for visionary, legacy-building public works...The current crises — economic and infrastructural — together provide a rare opportunity; as the Obama administration continues to invest in infrastructure as a form of financial stimulus and urban recovery, we designers need to be not just creative but also creatively loud."

Read my full reflections on the WPA 2.0 competition and symposium here.

Two Women in Little Rock, 1957-2007

2010-01-10T16:14:00.001-08:00

"We must come to see that the society we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience."[i]

The 170 images in the current Skirball exhibit, Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968 range from images I had never seen before, like the discovery of the bodies of the Mississippi three -- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, one black and two white voting rights volunteers murdered by the KKK, to quintessential images of MLK in Washington, DC and the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery. Bruce Davidson, who I had always associated with a gritty, subway-riding New York gang culture, was there when Viola Liuzzo's car was discovered on the side of US-80 and made a riveting image of her blood-stained seat and discarded shoes.[ii] It's the James 'Spider' Martin image, also in the exhibition, of the standoff at the base of the Edmund Pettis Bridge between marchers led by Hosea Williams and John Lewis in suits and overcoats on one side and troopers in riot gear on the other that has repeatedly reinforced my long-held position on the road's significance as a critical public space ripe for the contestation of civil rights. That moment before the countdown began, before its premature abandonment that resulted in the chasing and beatings now known as Bloody Sunday, seems almost civil.[iii]

These images undoubtedly bear the burden of documentation. Some, particularly those with visible historical notations typed or handwritten across the top or bottom of the image, are more journalistic than artistic, yet are nonetheless driven by the infinite, if nearly immediate, decision-making of the creative eye and mind. I had seen an image before of the first day of desegregation at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. We visited the site on the second Mobile Studio trip where the long sidewalk and imposing steps seem more powerful reminders of the risky distance between segregation and equality than the immobilized commemorative statues of the Little Rock Nine. The picture in Road to Freedom, though, is from a different angle. In the more famous version, Will Counts' image, where the photographer stands to Elizabeth Eckford's right (she's the first of the nine black teens to arrive for class), there is a semi-circle of space between her and the aggressive resistors. Beyond that spatial cushion she is visually connected, almost along a line from waistband to waistband of their slightly cinched dresses, to the vitriolic Hazel Bryan, directly behind Elizabeth, sneering, yelling, virtually spewing racist hatred. In the image in the exhibition taken from Elizabeth's other side, Hazel's mouth is wide open, almost as if she could be singing, and the right arm of the girl behind Eckford is swinging just a bit forward, with a look of determination, as if, perhaps, she's trying to catch up. There is no more than a centimeter in the image between the sunny white arm of that woman and Eckford's smooth black left arm, holding a single notebook, connected to an upright silent body, looking composed, proud, and stylish in comparison.

What if, I thought while standing there, that ring of women in the new image, instead of hurling venomous hatred at an innocent and brave teenager in many ways their peer, were actually stepping forward, grabbing Elizabeth Eckford's arm, and then walking her into her first day at Little Rock Central High School. What if Hazel Bryan, Mary Ann Burleson (carrying a purse to Hazel's left) and Sammie Dean Parker (wearing the dark dress to Hazel's right) had decided that day to be proactive agents of change, leaders in a call to civil action, role models for their peers. I thought this knowing little about those three girls other than feeling the embarrassment of their harassment. Sammie Dean, it turns out, was "one of the ringleaders of the segregationist students" while Mary Ann was "largely along for the ride." In Counts' image, the one that flooded newspapers and archives, Sammie Dean has turned back towards the crowd, thereby granting herself a kind of anonymity and invisibility, and Mary Ann looks forward rather blankly. It is Hazel who stands as a symbol of hatred, anger, and bitterness. Will Counts' image -- quite accurate of the day -- shows a hopeless division between black and white, a segregationist moat bridged only by the acerbic language stabbing Elizabeth Eckford in the back again and again and again like the shove of an unrelenting hand. The other image opens the door to a new possibility, an alternative action, a road that in the end was untaken.

Searching for these images on line I came across a Vanity Fair article that traces the fascinating fifty year history of these inextricably linked protagonists. Hazel Bryan, many years later, tracked down Elizabeth Eckford to apologize for her actions on September 4th, 1957. Both had struggled over the years with the way that single image had defined them -- as individuals and as symbols. In some ways, Eckford felt used by the civil rights movement and spent years dealing with depression. Her high school experience had been an abusive test of endurance, isolated from potentially supportive peers and hiding the extent of the abuse from her mother for fear she would be forced to give up her role in the fight for integration. For years Hazel and Elizabeth became friends. Though trying to make amends, Hazel was also condemned for that image and the role she played in perpetuating the racist stereotypes of the south. It was President Clinton's reference to the inspiration the Little Rock Nine had provided him that encouraged Eckford to begin speaking to school groups about desegregation and equality and when Clinton awarded them the Congressional Gold Medal, both Hazel and Elizabeth were in attendance. By then, though, their friendship had waned, each beginning to accuse the other of various falsities and disingenuousness.

The cover of Will Counts’ book on the Little Rock Central High desegregation is this image of Hazel and Elizabeth from that first day of school in 1957. Its title -- A Life is More Than a Moment. Though that is certainly true, we each have moments that define us and we hope those moments are representative of who we choose to be, what we choose to make of ourselves and our world, and how we choose to be influential. It is unfortunate to be caught at our worst and often a long battle to combat those errant moments. Like that first tattoo, we are often scared that if we commit to something permanent and risky, we may regret it later. I seem to have that fear with my dissertation topic. Is it big enough, bold enough, important enough? I know I am not Hazel in a vitriolic state, but I don't want to be anyone at all in that crowd, trapped behind the moat of even a hint of indifference. We may not be defined by a single moment, but we have only so many moments at our disposal, moments where we can choose action over inaction, right over complacency, and risk over comfort. Yet we are also pawns in the photographer's game, where one image may show us in light, another may show us in shadow, and the best we can do is be poised and ready.

Any exhibit, any single photograph, that can stir such grand emotions is worth a short trip and even a small exhibition price. Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956–1968 runs through March 7, 2010 at the Skirball. More information can be found at their website.

[i] The museum was closing, it was nearly 5:00, so I typed this quote quickly into my phone as the guards checked their watches. I missed recording the credit, but I'm pretty sure it was Martin Luther King Jr.

[ii] Viola Liuzzo was shot by four men driving alongside her as she and another volunteer, a young African-American man named Leroy Moton, were shuttling marchers back to Selma after the completion of the march to Montgomery. One of the men in the vehicle that shot her was an undercover FBI agent.

[iii] The marchers were given a two minute warning by the troopers to abandon their march and disassemble. Roughly a minute and a half into the warning, the troopers began chasing, beating, and spraying the marchers with tear gas.

2009-12-20T18:17:00.000-08:00

Behind every great man is a great woman.

I've always found this aphorism to be irritating and condescending. It's like a conservative uncle patting you on the back with an open pocket knife in his hand -- patronizing, dangerous, and creepy. There are numerous problems with the actual phrase, the most obvious of which are the implications of the word 'behind'. This woman is not only behind geographically, she is likely behind economically, socially, politically, and in every other way that matters. This woman is 'behind' this man as his support system, which means she has likely sacrificed her own needs for his, or at the very least, her own success, notoriety, or status. Being 'behind', she is also blocked from view, cast in shadow by his colossal glow, made invisible.

Luckily, I don't feel this way. Ever. Nor do most of my female friends, those attached in some way to men or not. We are powerhouses in our own right, just as comfortable leading the way as following, and preferring some kind of shared trail blazing. My male friends certainly don't feel this way either, nor would I likely be friends with them if they did.

As a matter of fact, we so infrequently consider gender as a dividing line of equity in our own lives that when it does come up, it tends to be a bit shocking. When the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was passed in January of 2009 (2009!) women were still making 78 cents for every male dollar. Which means we probably still are. The Center for American Progress Action Fund maps the career wage gap between men and women over a 40 year period which, in places like Wyoming, can mean a $700,000 difference. In California the gap between men and women across 40 years of earnings who both have Bachelor's Degrees or higher is $674,000; $277,000 if your education stopped at the end of high school.

But money is only the easiest metric.

On November 18th, Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon died in New York City. Known typically as only Jeanne-Claude, I wondered as I read her obituaries if anywhere near as many people know of her as they do her more famous husband and collaborator, that global wrapping sensation, Christo. The Daily News headline read, "Jeanne-Claude, wife of Central Park Gates artist Christo, dies at age 74." The New York Times did better, though a bit clunky, with "Jeanne-Claude, Artist Who, With Christo, Wrapped Objects Large and Small, Is Dead at 74". According to the Times, "To avoid confusing dealers and the public, and to establish an artistic brand, they used only Christo’s name. In 1994 they retroactively applied the joint name 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude' to all outdoor works and large-scale temporary indoor installations. Other works were credited to Christo alone." According to their website, other than the mildly confusing branding efforts that ended in the 90s, and his production of the drawings and collages, they were fairly equal collaborators for 51 years. Someone let the Daily News know that 'wife of Central Park Gates artist' is not a very accurate description of her official role.

Two weeks before Jeanne-Claude's death, I attended an afternoon symposium at LACMA on the New Topographics exhibit entitled "What's at Stake? New Topographics: Photography and the Man-Altered Landscape" (it's just now that I'm even noticing the odd gender-specificity in that title supported by a day of all male speakers talking about an exhibit of all male artists, with the single exception of half the Becher team). James Venturi, son of Bob Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown, spoke about the documentary he created of his very famous parents, Learning from Bob and Denise. The documentary was quite clear on the fact that Las Vegas as a worthy place of study was all Denise's doing and though Bob became plenty invested in its analysis over the years, he was hooked by seeing the glow of the prosaic through the eyes of his partner. After two decades of collaboration, the Pritzker Prize was given to Bob Venturi alone in 1991, something that stings enough still for James to spend more than a sliver of his 15 minutes discussing.

How often do we perpetuate that disparity of notoriety by leaving out co-conspirators?[i] How much of Frank Lloyd Wrights' Wasmuth Portfolio, or even the conceptualization of the Prairie Style itself, was really Marion Mahoney's work? What of Lilly Reich and her prominent role in designing the Barcelona chair? I've always been amused by the idea that she is the symbolic woman represented by the Kolbe statue at the Barcelona pavilion, embodying some unbalanced light cocktail of inspiration and oppression. Jose Quetglas in "Fear of Glass: The Barcelona Pavilion" says this so compellingly:

From the corridor, at the back of the pavilion, one discovers the Kolbe statue trapped and inundated by an avalanche of light -- a terrible light, more brilliant and clear by virtue of its contrast with the half-light of the corridor at the end of which the statue appears, rudely dislodged from its reticent and protective obscurity. Sunrise, the first light of the day...is approaching the woman, the only solid form in the entire pavilion, the only possible interlocutor for the visitor. But the woman does not radiate this light; rather she is crushed by its weight, oppressed by this corrosive force that melts and dissolves her, and she tries to fend it off with her arms, covering her face to protect it with a precarious shadow. At her back, at her side, at her feet, three mirrors of marble and water double and fragment her presence, with each reflection more tenuous -- but the mirrors themselves are halved again by the reflection of their own pattern. At the feet of the woman who is melting, the darkness of the pool grows, picking up her dissolved form...

Of course many a great Ivy League theorist has made a life of studying the role of gender in architecture.

The Barcelona Pavilion would not be the same piece of architecture without this voluptuous counterpoint. Alba (meaning dawn), is the real linchpin of the pavilion, the anchor that binds the modern grid of infinite space to the luscious greens and rusts of the marble planes; the open sky to the plinth of travertine and water. She is the human presence, but more.

To wrap this all up in some kind of even less tidy package, last night I saw George Clooney's latest film, "Up in the Air". To say it is 'George Clooney's' latest film is both true and not. If "Thelma and Louise" was the first buddy movie with women buddies, as it is known to be, then it's possible that "Up in the Air" is the first completely mainstream movie where George gets out-boyed by his female counterpart. I won't give anything away, but I will say it's kind of a movie about the irrelevance of gender -- which means our entertainment and our health care debate are going in exactly the opposite directions. There is one humorous scene where Natalie Keener, the young and ambitious new hire, has a relationship trauma where she consults Ryan Bingham's (George Clooney's) love interest, Alex (both tidy, androgynous names), and dutifully thanks her for all her generation has done for women's equity. Of course it's a very funny, generationally misplaced, pc-generated gratitude that takes a great comic jab at what it means to be a liberated woman, particularly at 23 and 34 in 2010. An abundance of frequent flyer miles? Independence? Options?

Yes, but more. What we want it to mean is that gender just doesn't matter. That all men and women are varying degrees of both masculine and feminine, and that we all should get paid, recognized, and adulated equally for equal contributions.

We should also all have equal access to legal health care.

No woman should be denied coverage for legal procedures because someone else bargains their moral posturing like a poker chip. That 22 cent difference per dollar - that $125,000 per decade - that men earn over women is partially attributed to their not choosing to leave the work force to start a family. Pregnancy is the great unequalizer, in more ways than one. Only women run the risk of absolutely having to quit their jobs for this reason even when they may not want to. Bart Stupak and Ben Nelson -- two of our anti-choice legislators demanding limitations on women's reproductive rights in health care reform -- make that tragic life course (having to make decisions rather than choosing to) even more likely for women in or near poverty. Their moral chip is that stab of the knife, that heel of the shoe kicking back from higher up the ladder. Would the conversation be different if there was still a Senator Clinton? I don't know. Would she choose to cover 30 million uninsured at the cost of weakening the rights of women to determine their own futures? She must certainly be torn, watching her life's investment in health care reform come down to such a vile bit of bargaining.

If behind every great man is a great woman, then there is also a great woman in front of that man, and a great man behind that last woman, and a man to her left, and a woman to his left, and so on and so on and so on. Sure, clusters form in this giant grid of humanity. They are supposed to. We are not equally spaced apart, nor are we moving in the same direction or at the same pace. Some days we need our partners closer than others, and some days further away. Some days we need to work at our greatness all by ourselves, and some days we really, really need help. Real equity is the right to make all your own choices, and to have the rest of the world respect the choices and the outcomes as your own. It doesn't mean we all aren't connected - the grid disintegrates if broken into a million individual points - but it does mean that each point, every point, in varying versions of Alba, is a powerful anchor in its own right.

Carmen Herrera, a 94-year-old artist who gained recognition for her work only after the death of her husband is quoted today in the New York Times as saying this: "Everybody says Jesse must have orchestrated this from above. Yeah, right, Jesse on a cloud. I worked really hard. Maybe it was me."

[i] Steven Izenour, the third and almost always left off author of Learning from Las Vegas, probably proves that credit is not only an issue of gender.

What dollars and notes can buy

2009-11-08T09:23:00.000-08:00

Someone told me recently that Paul McCartney was busking on the subway not long ago, playing for change. Not because he needs it, but I would imagine it was one way for him to reconnect with what he loved about music in the first place -- the way voices and instruments together explore emotion and make connections that speech simply cannot. Why is it that lyrics are so much more than words and melodies so much more than the sum of their note parts? There is something timeless, primeval, and universal about music. Some of my most intense emotional moments have occurred in small rooms with live electric violins, or large, cold fields with guitars. Perhaps there is something about an upright bass or a bongo or a banjo that refuses to be pessimistic or cynical and playing them requires a degree of openness, generosity, even vulnerability that we are rarely willing to broach in public otherwise. One of the things I miss about Charlotte is the Tosco Music Party. Who can stay doubtful of the world when John Tosco organizes four hours of musicians who each perform one or two songs interspersed with hokey audience sing-a-longs? For those willing to play along, music unites us on ground that is virtually uncontestable.

The 'Playing for Change' videos and mp3s have circulated on the usual digital rounds. In the videos, musicians from all over the world, recorded in their home countries and often in their own languages, perform the same song in virtual collaboration. The mobile recording studio and crew traveled from Santa Monica, where the project started, to New Orleans, Barcelona, Capetown, Tel Aviv, Dublin, on and on to create a montage of global sounds, created live, typically outside, often in rural or poor locations, and compiled via the magic of digital editing. Their objective is "to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music." Regardless of background or birthplace, 'Playing for Change' believes that music has the ability to cross boundaries and break down barriers. What they realized as well is that the popularity of their viral project had an untapped potential to give back to those willing to share the generosity of their musical talents, which led the originators to develop the Playing for Change Foundation. Musicians involved with PFC now perform shows around the world to raise money to build art and music schools in underserved communities "in need of inspiration and hope."

This Friday, November 13th, Playing for Change performs in Los Angeles at Club Nokia. Yes, there's something slightly odd about this intimate, grassroots, heartfelt effort playing in a place like LA LIVE with 2300 of your closest friends. But in the non-cynical spirit, there's also something great about great music, great projects, and great causes supported in great numbers. After LA, there are shows in Anaheim, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. Each one of these twenty plus shows might just equal a new school. You can also donate on their website, if you so choose or add them to your social network page to spread the virtual word about the work and the foundation. In a slightly less global and less overtly activist way, you can also choose to support local live music or tip those poor guys on the street corner trying their best to be musically heard. Both build optimism through beauty and shared experience and value -- through action -- those magical notes and lyrics that say just the thing you could never say without them.

**image borrowed from the documentary Playing For Change: Peace Through Music

PIE is GOOD.

2009-11-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

I can only imagine what trends in Halloween costumes might say about the state of our union. I had heard that the 'Kate kit' (of the over-fertile reality show - John and Kate Plus 8, now sans John) was a sell out. Of the narrow sliver of the 500,000 people wandering West Hollywood last night that I saw, there was only one Kate. Peacock flared hair, sunglasses on her head, Day-Glo white teeth. In the dark and the chaos I couldn't see if she had somehow abstracted the talk show tears, the raging lunacy of her estranged husband and his train of girlfriends, or the little cake-eating 8, but she looked way happier than she ought to.

Halloween in West Hollywood is not so much a rebel rousing holiday as it is a photo shoot. There is no actual 'parade' from what I can tell, but there is a promenade, and it is full of wannabe actors seeking the artificial adoring attention of anyone with a camera. There is more posing than drinking, which says a lot for an all adult street party in Los Angeles.

So, what were the trends and what might they mean? One Kate is a good sign - she's out. KISS is most definitely back, as is Wonder Woman. There were many witty, complicated costumes I had to think twice about . There was an iPod touch and his friend, the Tetras square, in a dialogue about technology. There were the pigs in blankets, who this year also had swine flu. There were amazing twenty foot skeleton puppets with red and blue blinking eyes and creepy, reaching articulated fingers. One guy had half his body sticking through a large white board, and I can only imagine he might be that rat that appeared recently on YouTube stuck in a crack in the sidewalk in New York.

The costume of the year, though, was Kate's replacement - the silver balloon that had no boy inside. Luckily for branding's sake, it was an odd shaped balloon, more like a space ship meets a blimp, oval and bulbous with a tumor balloon attached to its belly in the shape of a basket. This was the Heene family hoax, where teary parents pretended their child had climbed aboard a weather balloon and floated off to 10,000 feet. An emergency personnel search ensued, planes were launched, cameras arrived and rolled, and, like Geraldo's opening of the tomb, the thing turned up empty, the boy in a box in the attic at home the whole time. It's an atrocious story of fame-mongering, and a Halloween costume that I wish I could've seen close up. Clearly, the unique shape of the balloon was a necessity - any plain silver balloon and the costume (and media stunt) would have been unrecognizable. I saw three of them from a distance, two floating and one headpiece of a balloon, but couldn't see the rest of the get up from where I walked. Was there a commentary on the insanity of media coverage? the lengths to which people will go for something that mildly resembles fame? the state of child rearing in America? the gullibility of viewers? This is LA, so I'm going to say there was. We are not shy here about having harsh opinions, and using our bodies and our holidays to broadcast them.

In costuming and otherwise, creativity is a platform. We say something about ourselves and our world whenever we put our creative efforts out for others to experience. Which brings me to pie.

Evan Kleinman, host of KCRW's Good Food radio program, has been baking a pie a day since the beginning of the summer and talks about them and other food-related issues each Saturday on her 11am show. This week, though, she talked about Pie Lab. Pie Lab is a place that combines pies with causes. They recognized the powerful combination of baking and community and started sharing pies to make relationships with their neighbors. As their tagline says, PIE + CONVERSATION = IDEAS ; IDEAS + DESIGN = POSITIVE CHANGE.

According to their website:

PieLab, an initiative of Project M, is focused on community development and engagement in Hale County, AL.

PieLab is a welcoming community space on Greensboro’s Main Street that provides delicious pie and coffee, as well as retail and hospitality job training for local youth through the YouthBuild Program. More than simply a pie shop, PieLab operates as a community design center focusing on community development projects and small business incubation in Greensboro and the surrounding five counties.

If your ears don't automatically perk up at the reference to Hale County, AL, this is Mockbee territory. This is the heart of the Rural Studio. This is one of the poorest counties in the country, where Walker Evans came to photograph for the FSA and William Christenberry captured decades of rotting barns.

At the end of November they will open a permanent location for PieLab in Greensboro. It will be one the first new businesses to open on Greensboro's Main Street in years. I've been to Greensboro, Alabama, and this is a great idea. This would be a great idea anywhere.

Project M, the umbrella organization, describes itself like this:

We just want to change the world.

Sure, we may not be known in the in circles. We may not fill the pages of design annuals. And we may never see our names in lights. But, we do know how to save the rain forest with a waterproof book. We do know how to build a park with a postcard. And we know how to bring water to a community with a few pages of newsprint.

We are part of a design movement. We believe that ability equals responsibility. And we are not the only ones. So, we built a lab where designers like you can make a difference. We are building the tools that will build the future. And this is where you come in.

I believe it too, and it sure beats pretending to lose your child to get on a reality TV show. I might just go there and have me some pie and, while we're eating, help these guys in Southern Alabama continue to change the world.

What if every project we had was an Idea Project?

2009-10-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the space between postings, my inspiration level has dipped in the last few weeks. I've lately been wrapped up in my own to do lists, from hacking away at this dissertation proposal to moving houses to sorting the lingering dust from the playa still white and ripe in my psyche. Between the mundane yet arduous task of packing books and books and more books (thank you to all my friends who came to the book packing party!), I kept getting emails from the ever persistent Cooper Bates. They said things like - and I quote - 16 days away from Idea Project! We're giving away art as a badge! Your life might change in ways unimaginable! And I kept responding with such lame, but true, resistances like: I'm surrounded by boxes, I'm behind in my work, I'm traumatized by moving, I'll come if I can. Until finally he said, Are you coming on Saturday? Tell me you are. You will be oh so happy afterwards, I guarantee it. How can you turn down such sincerity and hope backed with a guarantee of happiness, knowing most certainly that the boxes at home had nothing nearly as good to offer? So, yesterday I attended half - it was the best I could do - of LA Idea Project, and left extremely happy, completely inspired, and an even more committed Cooper groupie.

LAIP is sort of a local version of TED, the global event "where the world's leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration." If you haven't yet started your addiction to the TED website where you can watch any of the exactly 18 minute lectures for a mini-inspirational retreat, get started here and browse. There is no shortage of humor, genius, or mind-blowing inventiveness. LAIP was more intimate a gathering, with an audience I would estimate between 150 and 200. I missed the morning option of yoga, meditation or tai chi and what I'm sure was a great session of speakers entitled "Imagine". But I did catch the three afternoon sessions, and they completely lived up to their titles of Rethink, Envision, and Hope.

Dr. Aditi Shankardass, a neurophysiologist, spoke about her research in charting brain waves to more accurately understand the mental disorders of children diagnosed as autistic. The rising numbers of autistic children, she says, are actually due to inaccurate diagnoses rather than a boom in autism. If looked at more carefully, many may not be autistic at all but may instead be suffering from mini-seizures that cause behavioral activity that mirrors autism symptoms. Looking at the activity of the brain directly rather than the behavior of the child exposes the more precise problem. Sharing three test cases, she showed how the proper diagnosis and then treatment for the seizures allowed the misdiagnosed kids to restart their development at a near normal pace, learning to speak, think, and play in ways they and their parents had thought impossible. This was my first 18 minutes of LAIP.

Carmen Rizzo talked about his musical collaborations with the throat-singing Russian Tuvans and shared phenomenal images of this remote and rugged landscape near Siberia. Patri Freedman prophesized seasteading, the creation of colonies in the ocean (for real) where rather than living by the limits of capitalism, socialism, or communism - the miniscule number of governing ideologies we have actually tried to date - new settlements are encouraged to try alternative and hybrid versions on the tabula rasa of the ocean in the hopes of discovering a real utopia. Ann Johansson showed her phenomenal imagery of Sierra Leone, where the child mortality rate below five years of age is 28%. Bill Shannon demonstrated the Shannon technique of crutch dancing (see image) which takes break dancing, skateboarding, and sheer physical motivation and turns a disability into adept and fluid physical street poetry. Videos and other cool stuff here. Bill Larson touted his company, Simmatec, leaders in automated parking and perhaps the most practical idea shared of the day. According to Bill, if we were willing to get out of our cars and let a machine park them, we could save the planet, reduce violence towards women, eliminate child parking accidents, and save the 1/3 of a year we each lose if we continue to spend 15 minutes per day looking for parking.

Anne Murray Paige, a news reporter who found herself a victim of breast cancer, became the topic of her own documentary, The Breast Cancer Diaries, which she spoke about and shared beautiful, sad, and inspirational pieces of with the audience. Ian Shive is an entertainment industry person turned photographer, which seems a common enough story around LA these days, until about 8 minutes into his talk where he surpassed the aesthetics of national parks and nature images and started discussing conservation advocacy. Not only does he make beautiful images, but he lobbied congress with these images to show evidence of the habitat and ecological damage brought about by the construction of the nonsensical US/Mexico border wall and his since been successful in helping to halt HR 2076, putting a freeze on border wall construction. The day ended with Sekou Andrews and Steve Connell, performing some high energy spoken word tailored to the theme and mood of LA-IP - hope, love, inspiration, action. I also met the guy who first hacked the iphone who seems to have had a million new jobs since then and a new friend who will one day soon break all the electronic boundaries currently keeping the world wide web from being accessible to all the wideness of the world. Imagine the democratic possibilities. When he is on the cover of TIME, I can show everyone the silly photo I took of him for his iphone contact image and say I knew him when and that I met him at LAIP.

The note I wrote to myself at the end of yesterday was this - Hey, me, stop wasting time. The bottom line of it all is that you are what you do. For some it is a trauma or a tragedy that causes an action. For others it is a life change, a passion, a person. Whatever it is, you can't wait until you have more money, more degrees, more family, more reasons. There is now, that's all there is, so do what it is you are meant to do, or what the world means you to do, and do it soon. The LAIP theme this year was 'Suffused with Promise'. It's a bit 'first world' rhetoric, but it's true and thoughtful - we are suffused with promise, the hint (or more) of lime that is adventure or creativity or activism or empathy that runs through our blood and through the blood of our ideas. A good idea is a good thing, but a good action based on that good idea ripples out into the world and hits other shores, raises other tides, and rocks other boats. LAIP rocked my boat this week. Thanks, Cooper, for being so persistent and persuasive and committed to the cause.

The Truth About Burning Man

2009-09-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Burning Man festival is every single stereotype you've heard of and absolutely none of them. Logistically, it's a (seemingly) instant city in the middle of the desert three hours north of Reno inhabited by 45,000 people for the week leading up to Labor Day. Actually, it's a year's worth of prep and months worth of labor, surveying the concentric circle of streets, the chronological spokes, the outer pentagon, the playa, the plazas, center camp and public utilities (toilets, medical stations, ice sales). Participants stream in beginning midnight the Sunday before, with bikes, tents, coolers, shade structures, art cars, every form of IL and LED lighting, lounge chairs, RVs, gourmet bars, tiki torches, geodesic dome parts, giant playing cards, fabric, wire, trampolines, balance beams, saloon doors, solar panels, duct tape, you name it. The unprepared and the insane try to sleep in their cars (hot, cold, hot, dirty, and impossible) and the luxurious lounge in air conditioned airstreams or shower in RVs. Most pitch tents, rig up as much shade as possible, and illuminate at night. On Saturday, the man is burned; on Sunday, the temple is burned; then the vast landscape is scoured for MOOP (Material Out of Place) by all of us and the Burning Man Department of Public Works (wearing my favorite new discovery - the utilikilt!), and it goes back to being a sandy blank canvas until prep time next year.

Hearing stories and glancing at photos, you might think it's Mad Max meets a late 80s rave meets Woodstock without the music (no, there are no musical acts at Burning Man). Burning Man is actually, as the 10 principles proclaim, a radical exercise in self-sufficiency, creativity, consciousness, and generosity. The exchange of money is banned other than their own sales of ice and coffee (one out of necessity, one I imagine out of furthering community and a coffee culture addiction). The primary focus is radical self-expression, which takes the form of art strewn across the 4 1/2 square miles of vast desert playa; art cars - all of which have to have permits from the Department of Mutant Vehicles (DMV) - which roll around the alphabetical streets by day and illuminate the ethereal swirling sands by night; and clothing, or really, costuming, free from all the restraints of conservatism in default world and all the worries of a society emasculated, efeminated and suffocated by the demands of a media driven body image. There is nudity, most certainly, but it is what the nudity - and every variation between it and a polar bear costume - means that is by far the more interesting point. What you wear or don't wear at Burning Man expresses the absence of creative limitation, the body as a form of communication, and an opportunity for personal responsibility and empowerment. Hot pink fishnet hose with LED wire is an art project, a trust exercise, a membership rite, an open door, a sense of confidence and playfulness, and the feeling of gender/body/life freedom that we are not regularly allowed, even in places seemingly as garb-liberal as West Hollywood. Burning Man is trend free, and style full.

I fell in love with the utilikilt (http://www.utilikilts.com/), and the more I know about them, their makers, and their wearers, the more I love them. Founded in 2002 in order to fund a mobile global art project of double-decker buses "putting on an interactive road show of music, dance, video art, and drama, and leaving change in its wake", the utilikilt was one in a series of 'Form Follows Function' products that branched into a phenomenon. The company follows a 'business with a conscience' model, promoting social, environmental, and economical responsibility where profits are measured by community impact as much as financial balance, and where preconceived limitations are unacceptable. Of equal if not greater importance, though, is the sheer quality and functionality of the product - attention to detail, rugged, tool-holding, pocketed, comfortable (or so I hear), and durable. The utilikilt is an amazing garment hybrid of self-expression, liberation, and cultural ritual meets workhorse. Having gone to a LACMA event this week with a man in a utilitkilt, I have to say, they also have an impact in Los Angeles.

The art at Burning Man is not 'high' art or 'low' art, fine art or folk art, not created as an expression of self or ego, but as a contribution, as a gift of interaction or inspiration, and as a way to proactively make community. Many of the hundreds of pieces on the playa - which I only had time to see a fraction of - require user input. These are sound or light pieces, making poetry on a six foot stool and a 1940s typewriter, metal that breathes fire, painting. There are sculptural pieces that are viewable and not overtly interactive, but often those become nodes of the city where gathering occurs, or landmarks that provide direction, or meeting locations for a cell phone-free world. Even the majestic temple is there for writing reflections on, adding notes and remembrances of burns and burners past, getting married (where strangers show up with hand made flowers and gifts and volunteer photographers document).

The complete non-monetary society, as AlexG pointed out during the three hour exodus, shifts the focus of exchange from the object to the relationship. By no longer trading stuff for stuff - money for trinkets, say, or even trinkets for trinkets - the exchange itself becomes the gift, a gift of presence and interaction, a gift of your efforts, a gift of the time, place, and conversation you choose to have with your fellow citizens. The man on the ice cream bike gave out and received a lot of love with each scoop of cookies and cream. All art cars - space permitting - are public transportation. That rolling front porch towing an outhouse took me from Inherit to Evolution, while a woman in an apron cut red peppers in her half a kitchen just like she was home. Dance buses roam the playa playing techno music. Giant fish, a three story reel-to-reel, pirate ships, the Brooklyn Bridge, and hundreds of others all circled the Man at the Burn like a cadre of animated kids at a campfire. In these interactions with strangers, the medium is not the mundane symbol of wealth, but the very non-mundane act of connection.

The other objective which truly shapes the experience of Burning Man is the 'leave no trace' policy. Everything that comes in with you, also goes out. Everything. Not just tents and bikes, not just leftover food and garbage, but whiskers if you shave, soap suds if you shower, toothpaste spit and drops of hand sanitizer. No matter how many times people encourage you to conserve water by turning off the spout while brushing your teeth at home, the degree of waste is far more apparent when you limit yourself to two ounces from the gallon jug, which, once filled with spit and toothpaste, you must drink, evaporate and separate, or take back out in your car. Other than highly significant hydration, your grey water creation very quickly dwindles to near nothingness. You cook what you plan to eat, you pour what you plan to drink, and you save and reuse and recycle and gift as much as you possibly can otherwise.

Formally, as taken from the website, the principles are as follows:

Radical Inclusion
 Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

Gifting
 Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.

Decommodification
 In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Radical Self-reliance
 Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources.

Radical Self-expression 
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.

Communal Effort
 Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

Civic Responsibility 
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.

Leaving No Trace 
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

Immediacy
 Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

I read these before I left, but, like all the proclamations and expectations, they ring a bit hollow and even hokey from the outside. What is truly amazing about being there is what abiding by these principles actually does to the participants, which, in turn, does to the society at large.

They say 'welcome home' when you arrive at the gate, and what they mean is - welcome to a world that is somewhat optimistically utopian, where we are able to shift the values and priorities to those that are human and meaningful, if only for a short time, if only in this place, if only for those who are willing to drink their spit and pee in a portajohn and get filthy and hot and breathe dust for a week. I hope I, and thousands of others, have brought back with us the spirit of generosity, creativity, and responsibility that Burning Man seems to foster, and that it infects our neighbors and friends and everyone we know and everyone they know, and so on. Welcome, welcome, welcome indeed.

the other "10"

2009-07-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

I first wrote about Street Soccer USA on October 12, 2008 when the US team made up of 13 homeless men and women were on their way to the Street Soccer World Cup in Melbourne, Australia. Founder Lawrence Cann now runs Street Soccer USA out of HELP USA in New York, an organization whose primary mission is seeking housing for the homeless, but which recognizes the need to be flexible and responsive to the changing causes of homelessness. In recent years, they have also added early childhood education, after school, and mentoring programs. When research began to show domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness, they created support centers, shelters, and scholarship programs. With rising unemployment rates, HELP USA has begun developing job placement and vocational training programs. And, of course, they are the new home base for Street Soccer USA - "Soccer for social change...ending homelessness through sports."

The US Cup, where the finalists for the team that heads to the World Cup will be chosen, begins in 5 days. According to Lawrence's statistics, the program has an overwhelming success rate. "Since 2005, 28 of our 32 National Team alumni have moved off and stayed off the street since being part of SSUSA. And to date, over seventy-five percent of the participants change their lives for the better including securing full-time jobs, long-term housing, and freedom from addiction and mental health afflictions."

This year the Street Soccer World Cup is in Milan beginning September 6th. It costs $1000 per team member to travel and participate, it's roughly 10,000 miles to get there, and they need $10,000 total to fund the trip for the team. All equipment is donated and most of the programs are run by volunteers. Once the final players are chosen August 2nd at the US Cup, they have two weeks to purchase tickets, meaning the deadline to raise funds is August 15th.

Utilizing the significance of being a "10" on the soccer field - being a leader on the team - and the multiples of 10 listed above, Street Soccer is seeking donations in $10 increments (though more is always welcome) to reach their $10,000 goal. So far they've raised $1,181.

In LA at least, and probably in many towns across the country, you can't even see a movie for $10, get a good glass of wine, or eat a hamburger anymore. For those of you living in a city with a competing team - Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Charlottesville, Chicago, Fort Worth, LA, Minneapolis, Montgomery County, New York, Richmond, Sacramento, San Francisco, St. Louis, Washington DC - $10 is a small gift for someone else doing the hard work of life affirmation, self-esteem reinforcement, socialization, and caring for your neighbors in need. For those who live in cities without a street soccer team, Street Soccer needs your input and support to grow and expand further.

So, here's my idea. Say a group of you and your friends decide to go see the new Harry Potter movie this week. In LA, that's about $12 a person, $20 a person if you want to see it at Grauman's Chinese Theater in the new moving D-box seats. You know pretty much what's going to happen - there's some magic, some special effects, the good guys win and I hear Harry finds a girlfriend. Skip the movie, send $10 each to Street Soccer, and go home and play a game of Scrabble instead. Not only do I guarantee it will be more fun (particularly if you play with Nassau Boulevard rules), but you get to talk to each other, to have quality interactive time, and you can appreciate both friends and home and the qualities each provide that you simply can't imagine living without.

To be a number 10, or to read more about the program, click here.
For information on HELP USA, click here.
To become a fan of Street Soccer USA on facebook, click here.

A brief follow-up on the 826LA fundraiser regatta that I mentioned last week. The winning team, Ink Invasion, raised $2,100.23 in support of literacy programming at 826. The second place team from GOOD magazine raised $2,067.54. I attended the regatta which consisted of costumed paddle boaters circling the Echo Park lake being cheered on by fans and strangers, mostly cutely dressed twenty-something Echohipsters. In sunny LA fashion, it was a perfect afternoon of tanning, crazy sunglasses, and smiles. According to the website, it looks like over $25,000 was raised! Congrats to 826LA and all the participating teams.

2009-07-19T17:36:00.000-07:00

It seems everyone is talking about infrastructure. For someone who has spent decades trying to get people to see the road as something other than a utilitarian space, it's an exciting change of focus.

Robert L. Reid in January 2008's "The Infrastructure Crisis" defines infrastructure as "that vast system of highways, bridges, airports, rail lines, pipelines, power lines, dams, waterways, water treatment plants, parks, schools, and other publicly owned or publicly regulated facilities that make it possible for Americans to enjoy what is widely regarded as the highest standard of living in the world." His "Special Report", published in the online magazine of the Society of Civil Engineers, is a response to the now much-publicized Report Card for America's Infrastructure which graded the "condition and capacity" of our fifteen primary infrastructure systems.* The star student was solid waste (landfills, recycling) with a C+, meaning +/-78% of all engineer-evaluated solid waste systems were in good working order. Bridges were next with a C, Parks and Recreation and Rail each received a grade of C-, and everything else (other than an Incomplete for Security) was D-rated or below.

This less then mediocre status of our national networks typically goes unnoticed until a system failure occurs. At the local level, that can be as small but inconvenient as a downed power line or a traffic detour for road repair. At the regional or larger level that can mean chronic airline delays or the collapse of a major connector bridge. As I say in my recent article in Places magazine, "Infrastructural Optimism", we expect the visible components of our infrastructure to construct our cities formally and symbolically as well as functionally. On roads in particular, "In addition to providing access, streets establish a sense of order and hierarchy, orient us within urban networks, and, at the neighborhood scale, operate as spaces for social connection." The loss of the functional, formal, and symbolic - as in the collapse of levees and flood walls from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - raises the system failure to the level of catastrophe.

New Orleans is most certainly a primary example cited when considering the sorry state of our public works, yet seeing the Gulf disaster as an infrastructural failure is often muddied by the compounded catastrophes of nature, government inaction, media, and human loss. Infrastructure failure was but one slice of that awful pie, one that seemed unfortunately inevitable against the mounting and compounding of odds. Yet a more isolated event like the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis where 13 people died and over 100 were injured can be seen as a direct result of lax standards of maintenance, upkeep, and replacement. As cited in numerous reports, the I-35W bridge was noted as "structurally deficient" since 1990, yet "engineers with the Minnesota Department of Transportation did not believe that the bridge was in danger of imminent failure" (Reid).

Said Patrick J. Natale, ASCE's executive director when addressing the 2007 ASCE Annual Civil Engineering Conference (as quoted in the same article) “Years of deferred infrastructure investments and maintenance and [the] failure of public officials to act on infrastructure needs place the public at risk and hinder our country’s economic growth and competitiveness. It is a true crisis.” According to the ASCE report card, an investment of $1.6 trillion over a five year period is needed (as of 2007) to adequately address the already existing deficits of neglected infrastructure.

Reid makes an explicit argument, category by category, of the growing needs in miles traveled, flights taken, energy used, security demanded, etc. Where China and India spend 9% and 5% of their GDPs respectively on infrastructure, US spending had dropped to a paltry 2% when he wrote his essay in January of 2008.

As Stephen Flynn, author of The Edge of Disaster, argues, "the only way to solve the nation’s infrastructure problems 'is with presidential leadership that uses the bully pulpit to help make the repair and maintenance of our infrastructure a national priority.' In January of 2008 this seemed a near impossibility, and now, just a year and a half later, we have the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, part of which aims to invest $150 billion in new infrastructure, enacting "the largest increase in funding of our nation’s roads, bridges, and mass transit systems since the creation of the national highway system in the 1950s".

The fear, of course, like the TARP and a million other good intentions before it, is that these billions will go to shovel-ready projects without them being truly shovel-worthy. Referred to in the press as the new WPA, it is most certainly the hope of architects, urban designers, landscape urbanists, and planners that what comes from the Recovery Act and the new Infrastructure Bank takes into account a design-consciousness not seen since the WPA combined necessity with creativity to produce a built legacy of projects that were intended to fulfill functional needs and lift the spirits of a suffering and sluggish populace. These ambitions are finding their way to the surface.

The June 14th issue of the New York Times Magazine was entitled "Infrastructure!* (it's more exciting than you think actually)" and is filled with musings on high speed rail, prisons that work, hybrids of power and public space, and datatecture, all illustrated with line drawings by Christoph Niemann that are playful, thought-provoking, and fun.

The kick-off story is on the new I-35W bridge, replacing the one that collapsed in August of 2007.** The new Minneapolis bridge is both good looking and smart, using temperature sensors to control the application of antifreeze and imbedded devices that monitor corrosion, cracking and potential overloading. According to the Times article by Henry Petroski, thse smart additions increased the cost of the bridge less than 1% and will ultimately save money, not to mention possible lives.

Manuel Castells and Laura Burkhalter recently published "Beyond the Crisis: Towards a New Urban Paradigm" which calls for a reconsideration of zoning; a broadened selection of mobility options including layered roads for streets, bikes, and transit; a reinvestment in public space; a reconfiguration of housing prototypes; and - one option that is appearing everywhere - a new look at green space, particularly urban farming and community or home-based agriculture. On that last note, see such great solutions as Fritz Haeg's Edible Estates: Attacks on the Front Lawn, LA's Fallen Fruit, or any number of recent articles on guerrilla gardening. Another of my favorites, a road-garden hybrid, is Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis's truck farm, covered last weekend on KCRW's Good Food. After making the documentary King Corn, they turned their work vehicle into a mobile food provider using green roof technology, soil, and seeds.
Small moves, yes, but so was the first pc.

John King, writing for the San Francisco Gate, is following initiatives that turn inactive lots, often stalled by the current financial crisis, into productive alternatives. Some are home to temporary sculpture exhibitions or parks, farmer's markets, or event locations. One particularly brilliant proposal by Doug Wildmon of Friends of the Urban Forest aims to connect empty lots with youth programs to run urban, profit-generating tree farms. The city loses CO2 and blight and the kids gain profit and experience. Win win.

REBAR, San Francisco based inventors of park(ing) day (coming up in September again!) created "The People's Public Works", a "carnival midway with infrastructure as the theme." Says Rebar's John Bela quoted by John King in "Designers who see more than an empty lot":

The pit would offer an array of ad hoc nooks where people could explore the nuts and bolts of city building. Explorers might encounter a workshop on pothole repairs, celebrations of public servants, participant games and artists-in-residence - all amid surplus piles of such urban arcana as backhoes and orange cones.
Ideas are changing a lot faster than concrete or steel. If we can sponsor a more participatory infrastructure, people might take more ownership in the conditions around them.

Nirvana for people like me. Infrastructure is in -- way, way in.

So, what can YOU contribute? Of course you can follow along at Recovery.gov, where they are fulfilling their commitment to web-based transparency by posting state-by-state and project-by-project funding allocations. You can communicate with state and national officials and be a voice in the debate regarding the prioritization of projects, pushing for quality, sustainability, and creativity over the status quo.

Or, if you're a design professional or a design student, you can enter the WPA 2.0 competition. In full disclosure, I'm working with cityLAB on this competition, but that doesn't make it any less of an exciting opportunity to present your best ideas to a stellar selection of architects, engineers, and landscape architects including Liz Diller (of the newly opened High Line), Walter Hood (the hippest Landscape Architect around), Stan Allen (Princeton Dean), among others. Registration closes this coming Friday - July 24th - and digital design sketchbooks that present schematic proposals are due August 7th. There is also a student competition - WPA 2.0 (SE) with a fall schedule - registration closes October 16th, entries due November 2nd. All finalists will be invited to a symposium in Washington DC on November 16th where jurors, finalists, policy makers and members of the public will join in debate on the most innovative ideas presented for the next generation of infrastructure projects.

So, if you're interested, see our website, join our mailing list, or follow us on Facebook.

The competition has generated global buzz. WPA 2.0 has been on blogs from Japan to Spain to Sweden, and all over the US, geographically and disciplinarily. I can't wait to see what the world's most ingenious minds create.

Until then, I'm hitting the road.

One local note: Next Sunday, 826LA, a non-profit organization that helps students 6 to 18 years old improve their literacy and writing skills, is hosting its annual paddle boat regatta in Echo Park to raise money for its tutoring programs. More information is here.

Infrastructure meets altruism. Hope to see you all there.

*aviation, bridges, dams, drinking water, energy (national power grid), hazardous waste, navigable waterways, public parks and recreation, rail, roads, schools, security, solid waste, transit and wastewater

** This article revises the level of needed funds over 5 years from 1.6 to $2.2 trillion, meaning the billions in the stimulus package still falls far short.

WWMJD?

2009-07-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this entry on and off for three weeks. In that time it has started and stopped and grown, veered, screeched, righted itself and changed direction, but never really gotten anywhere. Near the beginning it took on the theme of 'survival' as I read more and more about General Motors, the growing jobless and homeless, uprisings in Iran over the recent election, and a girl who fell from the sky and lived to tell about it. What does it mean for us to survive (as an economy, a political system, a globalized world, an individual)? And, more importantly, where lies the line when surviving turns to thriving, or vice versa?

Then, amongst these global questions, came a rash of high profile deaths - literally. First David Carradine, under the most exposing of circumstances, then Ed McMahon, who could no longer be saved by the cash rich and taste poor Donald Trump. Then Farrah, who seemed to be resisting her cancer by playing it out in a made for TV movie with the hopes of a happy ending. And then, within hours of her death, the King of Pop.

Unlike the others, Michael Jackson's death is rapidly transforming into a new and greater form of survival. The gaps in his home life are being filled in by previously absent film clips of a near normal dad playing chess with a near normal child -- except this marble and gilded chess set cost nearly $90,000 and the two year old, shockingly blonde child is wearing a white satin tux. His musical life, which was heading down what some people thought was a comeback dead end, has magically and beautifully been resuscitated. What a bittersweet treat it has been these last two weeks to rediscover the sound of his musical innocence in the air all of a sudden like dandelion seeds. Or to remember again the flood of altruism and awareness that "We Are the World" initiated.

Think back. Angelina Jolie, queen of global star causes today, was 10 when those 45 artists led by Michael, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones responded to the famine in Ethiopia with their greatest, creative arsenal. The single sold 7.5 million copies in the US alone, 3 million in album form, and went on to raise over $63 million for African famine relief. The door might have been cracked open by Band Aid and Farm Aid, but "We Are the World" was as much strategy and scheduling miracle as song.

I remember seeing the video for the very first time and recognizing immediately the intentional musical merging of black and white, pop and soul, old stars and new. There is a democracy to the voices through the structure of duets, singles, duets, chorus, and the alternating intensity of crescendos and lightness. No line is completed by a single singer, but started by one, shared in the middle, finished by a second. Stevie Wonder joins Lionel Richie, Paul Simon completes the thought; Kenny Rogers joins in, then takes over. Tina Turner, her usual rowdiness deferred to God's great big family, is paired -- magically, surprisingly, beautifully -- with Billy Joel, channeling a long lost John Lennon perhaps -- you know love is all we neeeeeeeeed.

Then, the chorus starts in quiet, shiny solo -- a toe tapping, glove wearing, angelic sounding Michael Jackson at his not-yet-old and not-still-young best self. We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day so let's start giving. And as he glitters in brocade jacket, eye shadow, perfectly shaped curls and delicate, high pitch voice, you really believe that it makes complete sense - that we ARE the children, that we ARE the world, that we CAN make a brighter day if we just start giving. Jackson's voice is not heavy with intensity or emotion like everyone else's is, he's simply calm, silvery and certain.

His seraphic chorus floats over to Diana Ross, who briefly takes the lead, then Dionne Warwick mixes with Willy Nelson (!), joined next by Al Jarreau, and then the great, gravelly voice of the Boss, who looks 25 years old, fresh from New Jersey, if he's a day. Kenny Loggins meets up with Steve Perry (Steve Perry!?!) who's joined by kiss-on-my-list Daryl Hall, Huey Lewis, and Cyndi Lauper (who supposedly had to redo her part because her clanging jewelry made so much noise). White, black, blonde, red, afroed, mustached, smiling, grimacing, loud, soft, famous. Cyndi Lauper's yeah yeah yeah yeah-s capture perfectly the sense of individuality expressed solely in service of the far more magnificent and significant collective.

Bob Geldof had tried to duplicate his "Do They Know It's Christmas?" fundraising single with US stars, but, much to his frustration, it never materialized. As quoted in a March, 1985 article in the LA Times, reflecting on the "We Are the World" recording, "I shouldn't have had to call them in the first place. After they heard what we did with Band Aid...., they should have been calling me. I don't care what they had to do, even if it meant canceling shows. Lives are at stake."

Somehow, that's just not how we seem to work. Go to central London for any length of time, stand in the ruins of John Soane, and you realize, in cold hard stone, America is an adolescent nation by comparison - not yet old but not quite still young. In some ways, it is a huge relief, just to see how far we have come in so short a time. Perhaps it is our capitalist democratic frontier roots, but we don't flock to the cry of necessity so much as wander slowly towards need like a light, a kind of 'build it and they will come' mentality of altruism. "We Are the World" was a success because it was so good, not because it was such a good idea.

Forty-five artists participated in "We Are the World" and at least 50 others who expressed interest were turned away. Prince never showed up; Pat Benatar and Madonna were otherwise engaged. When Quincy Jones sent out the demo tapes he also included the now famous directive to "check all egos at the front door". The fact that that happened was as much of an accomplishment as simply getting 45 of the most famous singers of the mid1980s in the same room at the same time, happily.

People die all the time, shocking and sad as it may feel, but those who are famous are often displayed - in life and in death - as role models and stereotypes for the rest of us. Who do we want to be like, who do we see as influences, who do we shun? In this media saturated world, we are quick to judge what is given to us shallow, free, and often unfiltered. If the comeback "This Is It" tour would've been a disaster, would we ever have returned to the innocence of "I'll be There"? What is survival for each of us, and how do we make certain that we do our best to not live at that low limit, but to thrive as individuals in support of the larger collective?

Is it true, as a friend of mine recently reminded me, that "every man's death diminishes me" (MVF via Ernest Hemingway via John Donne)? What are we to make, then, of this month of loss, ending not so insignificantly with Dr. George Tiller being gunned down by a hypocritical pro-lifer? What are we to make of the deaths in Iran, the willingness to sacrifice for the cause so much bigger than oneself? Maryam, a 36-year-old woman flashing peace signs to passing cars and yelling for her candidate, says to a TIME magazine reporter, "Let them beat me. My country is going to waste. What am I in comparison?" Or of those in Iraq still, and Afghanistan? Somewhere between Maryam, Dr. Tiller, and Michael Jackson -- but not equivalent to any of them -- lies the balance we are willing, and able, to fight for. No, we are not embarrassed, nor should we be, by our individual successes and accomplishments, but as I've told many aspiring and talented students, it's not what you have, it's what you do with what you have that really matters. It's not where you go (Harvard University or Santa Monica State, New York City or Tulsa), it's what you do once you get there that counts.

We must be the world, without being the whole of the world. We must be the children, without being children. Our better day must be a better day for everyone, large and small, young and old, black and white, gay and straight, disco, pop, blues, country, and techno -- and everything in between. Life all of a sudden seems very short, and simultaneously infinite, beautifully eccentric, and very, very full of possibilities.

See the video here.
Read the LA Times article here.
Read the Wikipedia entry with stories, participants, and disputes here.

The image is my diagram of the first verses and chorus of "We Are the World", the way duets and singles lead, overlap, part, and rejoin. As an architect, it's the way I make sense of things.

Mobile Stories

2009-06-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

My favorite hour of the weekend comes three times in LA. The brand new, non-repeat version of This American Life is played on Saturdays at 10am (on KCRW), again at 1pm (on KPCC) and a third time on Sunday nights at 6 (also on KPCC). Then, if I'm really itching for another good narrative, or I missed it the weekend before, I can listen to last week's show at 11am on Sunday. Of course, you can hear the entire archive on line, but there's something compelling about a compulsory pause in life's regular racket when you have to stop, and just listen. It took all three broadcasts of 'Origins' this weekend for me to really hear parts one through four.

A few weeks ago, my friend Whitney and I got tickets to the sold out live screening of the one hour This American Life television special. Now a half hour Showtime weekly, host Ira Glass was screening the "John Smith" special episode for Emmy consideration at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Presented and discussed by Ira and his fellow producers and writers, the story follows not one man named John Smith, where it would be impossible to document the events of a life span in a month's worth of production, but six John Smiths each at different stages of life to make up a John Smith whole. Baby John, who was expected to be a girl, was 11 weeks old. Young John, minor delinquent turned short order cook, was 23. Yuppie John was a software engineer with a new baby of his own and a taste of mortality, loss, and love through his mother's illness. Middle aged John, 46, was struggling with his son's return from Iraq and his desire to be personal and emotional in a world, both military and small town, where that is at best uncomfortable. Retired John Smith, in his late 70s, volunteered at the airport after a long life of hard work and taking care of his son who had recently succumbed to AIDS. And, finally, John Smith in his 90s in a nursing home, surrounded by his large family, who died while the show was filming.

They showed two other regular length episodes as well. One a visually fascinating time lapse day of senior portraits at a local high school, the other the story of a boy growing up with a degenerative disease who, by the time of the filming, had barely the use of his left thumb, with which he spelled words on the computer as his primary form of communication, and his eyes. Two long blinks for yes. He, Michael I think his name was, had a rebellious personality, streaks of dyed red hair, black painted fingernails and a pierced eyebrow. He had a girlfriend he met on Craigslist and an adventurous personality. That story was as much about his mom and her commitment (often over-bearing in Michael's eyes) to his health and well-being as it was about him and his adaptability.

Ira asked him, semi-jokingly, who should be his voice in the television show if they could get any star at all. Ed Norton or Johnny Depp, Michael typed. Ed Norton never returned their calls, yet Johnny Depp, the larger star, begins reading Michael's words, and his eyebrow piercing and black fingernails are so filled with the cool of a young 21 Jumpstreet undercover cop, that you can't help but admire the tenacity, and the tongue in cheek arrogance of it all.

After the three pieces, the producers and writers chatted and answered questions. Ira's love, obviously, is telling good stories, and telling them in a way that is highly crafted, expertly produced, and strategically orchestrated.

Their more amateur counterpart, I would say, is StoryCorps. StoryCorps, as told on their website, "is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening. . . By recording the stories of our lives with the people we care about, we experience our history, hopes, and humanity." StoryCorps began in 2003 with a StoryBooth in Grand Central Station. A simple concept, two people who have an interesting shared story, one more the interviewer and the other the interviewee, reserve an hour slot for a self-directed, narrative conversation. That conversation is recorded for the StoryCorps archive and also provided in cd form to the participants. Tens of thousands of stories have been recorded, archived, edited, and aired to date.

After the tragedies of September 11th, a second StoryCorps booth was dedicated to collecting the stories of anyone affected by the events in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Included are the stories of firefighters, volunteers, survivors, rescue workers, witnesses and family members of 9/11 victims. In a two day session, over thirty stories were collected from those at the Pentagon. The archive will be included in the 9/11 memorial and held in the Library of Congress.

In July 2006, StoryCorps launched an initiative to capture the stories of those suffering from memory loss. In 2007, they began the Griot Initiative, the largest African American oral history project since the WPA slave narratives of the 1930s. A compilation cd of these interviews is being released some time in June to honor the 100th anniversary of the NAACP.

The objectives of StoryCorps are ambitious:

StoryCorps is a public service... StoryCorps reminds us of the importance of listening to and learning from those around us. It celebrates our shared humanity. It tells people that their lives matter and they won’t be forgotten. Through StoryCorps, we hope to create a kinder, more thoughtful and compassionate nation. . . . We hope to build StoryCorps into an enduring American institution.

Near and dear to my heart was the 2005 launch of two MobileBooths, housed in airstream trailers and traveling from city to city to capture the grassroots, often missed relationship tales from over 100 cities in 48 states. Right now the MobileBooths are in Wenatchee, WA and Berlin, NH. Next they go to Rochester, NY; Erie, PA; Paonia, CO and Akron, OH. In October, a MobileBooth arrives in San Francisco.

Which brings us to the cause of the week this week.

StoryCorps is trying to raise $100,000 to keep the MobileBooths operable in 2009. To date, they've raised $68,000 with another $32,000 to go. You can donate to the fund directly between now and June 30th by clicking here.

You can also buy the book, Listening is an Act of Love, or any of their cds, and all of the royalties benefit the project. You can rent a StoryKit to facilitate your own series of interviews.

Or, you can sponsor an on site recording day for six or more where a trained staff member comes to your site with professional equipment to record for a reasonable fee.

Like all of public radio, you can also listen on line for free.

I have no idea how many of these stories I have heard. Most of them are distilled into only a few minutes, so they seem to sneak in in the cracks between the stories we think we are waiting for. The stories are about adoption, cancer, anniversaries, meetings, love, survival, perseverance, history, family, strangers. It is a great democratizing effort to prize every person as equal, every relationship valuable, and every story worthy of presentation in our national public space via a road quest of American telling.

How shopping for a bathing suit is really studying for my exams

2009-05-31T15:29:00.000-07:00

Lyn H. Lofland, sociologist and scholar, defines the public realm as the place in the city where we interact with strangers. Her definition of the city is intentionally broad and inclusive - "a permanently populous place or settlement" - and her definition of stranger is two prong. There are both "cultural strangers . . . those who occupy symbolic worlds different from our own" and "biographical strangers . . . those we have never met before". In other words, the latter are simply people we don't know, the former are those who somehow see or live in the world differently than we do. Richard Sennett - sociologist, scholar, and Guardian-appointed "public intellectual - discusses in his book The Fall of Public Man the key occupier of this public domain, the cosmopolite. A cosmopolite, as derived from the French usage in the 1730s, "is a man who moves comfortably in diversity" (the gender specificity is an entirely different dissertation).

The public realm was once a realm of necessity, when the world's population was largely illiterate and news traveled via the town crier and passed by word of mouth. The public realm was where all entertainment, if there was time for any, happened and all commerce was conducted. Everyday movements between sustenance collection and waste disposal happened in the streets - the city's most regularly and necessarily occupied public realm.

For the ancient Greeks, the public realm was the realm of freedom. The private realm was weighted with the minutiae of daily living, including the hard work of being in charge. But the public realm was a zone of equals, a place to express opinions freely, of intellectualism, debate, and the development of individuality (again, gender, slavery, and land ownership are their own dissertations). Aristotle as interpreted through Hannah Arendt, philosopher and cultural scholar, differentiates the pre-political from the political public realm in that the former was a place where decisions were made through violence and the latter where decisions were made through speech. The public realm was a place where we learned to negotiate, where we developed what Lofland calls "political maturity" and what Sennett elaborates as a place where "men can act together without the compulsion to be the same."

Much of the literature on the contemporary city discusses the death of public space (here - particularly as architects, urbanists and planners - we are assuming that the public sphere or public realm is geographically grounded in an actual place, public space). Books like Sennett's The Fall of Public Man and Michael Sorkin's edited volume, Variations on a Theme Park: the New American City and the End of Public Space talk about the postmodern city and the militarized, thematized, and commodified versions of pseudo-public space we most commonly find today. Disney theme parks are referred to in nearly every book on the subject, as they are the example in 3/4 scale of the sanitized city where everything - from experience to speed - is branded, polished, duplicated, and sold. Lofland, Sorkin, Ed Soja, Margaret Crawford are all asking some version of the following question - what is public space today? And, is this the public space we are destined to have? Is The Grove (substitute your local mall/waterfront development/downtown revitalization project here) the best we can do?

I was at The Grove/Farmer's Market last night, and it was certainly packed with 'public'. More than a mall with limited entrances, tight boundaries, and an inward focus, it does have places to wander, to sit and talk, to meet strangers even perhaps. Because The Grove is connected to the more economically congenial Farmers Market, it is sort of economically diverse. Sort of. At the Farmer's Market there are movable chairs and benches where groups of various sizes can gather, eat, chat. And though commerce happens there, bartering certainly doesn't. And though conversation happens there, debate certainly doesn't. And though there are strangers, they are most likely to be the biographical rather than the cultural kind. And, even if they are the cultural kind, they tend to be a mere skim off the top of the cultural depths that we know live in LA. And, neither The Grove nor the Farmer's Market is either a grove or a farmer's market. So, among the many, many things that keep The Grove and the Farmer's Market from being real public space - including that it's more theme than market and more mall than not - is that it's not held in common, there are no public rights, and it's not where we learn to be good citizens.

Hannah Arendt likens public space to a great collective table - held in ownership by no individual, shared by all who are seated at it, yet also lasting far beyond any meal, any set of meals, any lifetime of meals. The table connects us, yet separates us at the same time. Without the table, there would be no common ground. yet without the separation, there would be no diversity. And, too, the table outlasts us all. Says Arendt, "If the world is to contain a public space, it cannot be erected for one generation and planned for the living only; it must transcend the life-span of mortal men.. . . Without this transcendence into a potential earthly immortality, no politics, strictly speaking, no common world and no public realm, is possible."

Secondly, public space supports public rights. At a minimum, public rights allow access and occupation. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris - urban planner and expert on public realms such as the sidewalk and bus stop - documents in her co-authored book Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form, the way privatized spaces (particularly shopping malls) were initially court ordered to fulfill the public role they seemed to be hijacking from the plazas and streets of the city. Now, the privatized city is more the norm than not and we can't imagine any mall cop in America that would allow a protest, the distribution of leaflets, picketing, or political solicitations on mall property. As a matter of fact, we've reached a point where plazas and streets have developed strict regulations intended to maintain order and keep out the 'messiness'.

Order and messiness are exactly what Don Mitchell in The Right to the City discusses as the very vitality of urbanity. To Mitchell and Anthony Vidler, who writes the introduction to the text, a sanitized city is not a city worth living in. Mitchell asks very important questions about public space - who can be there, when, and what can they do? In other words, who is the 'public' and what rights do we all share? Mitchell focuses on those who are homeless and argues the very salient point that if you have no private space to return to, you are forced to live out the entirety of your life in public. If, then, you are restricted from public space - either formally (laws, regulations, gates, patrol) or informally (harassment, psychological barriers like intimidation, lighting, the removal of benches or aggressive sprinklering) then your very existence is criminalized. In his words you simply have no place at all to BE. Henri Lefebvre, the originator of the right to the city argument, takes that one step further when he claims that we all have the right to the oeuvre -- the right to be a part of the production of the city itself, the right to active participation, to identity, ownership, investment, even play. Iris Marion Young adds to those the right to self-determination and the right to self-development.

Finally, public space must maintain some form of cosmopolitanism. To be cosmopolitan, to live among difference and to recognize its value, produces tolerance. Says Lofland, a "great city is, in and of itself, a settlement form that generates cosmopolitanism among its citizenry; it is a settlement form that produces - by its very nature - a populace that is far more open to and accepting of human variability, far more inclined to civility and less to fanaticism and smug parochialism than are the residents of more homogeneous and intimate settlement forms like tribe, village or small town." In other words, urbanity makes us a more open civilization, more willing to accept -- even invite -- strangers to sit at our common table.

The loss of all these attributes is blamed on everything from the industrial revolution which first separated living space from work space to the car and the computer. The most interesting theories, though, don't wax nostalgic for a pre-technology era but recognize the value of advancement and call for new ways to be public which, in turn, create new geographies of public space. Urry and Sheller who call for a "civil society of automobility" pose one of my favorites.

Which brings me to the point.

A friend of mine posted a link to a 2006 video that I had never seen (though 43 million other people have). It's a completely hokey, tear-jerker of a story, turned movie, turned movement. The free hugs movement. (Click here to see the movie and read the story) But it's also about free speech rights, breaking gender stereotypes, embracing difference (literally), and the risk of urban messiness. What I love about the movie and the movement and the DOING of it all is that it's about making public space. As Lofland also said, the public realm is ageographical until it HAPPENS somewhere. This is one reason big empty corporate plazas are not all that public - there is no one there doing anything and those who are, according to Loukatai-Sideris's case studies, are mostly white middle class males in business suits. Or they were.

Public space is changing for many reasons, but most importantly, because we want it to. Because those same people who don't want to work in a cubicle and hold out for retirement benefits are also a growing collection of mixed race, emergent entrepreneurs who volunteer in Africa and do reverse graffiti.

Because we're looking in new places, too. Street vendors are hip in LA. Tight money means alternative capitalism and it means being more wise with limited resources - space included. And higher gas prices, even though they've gone down since last summer, mean more walking, more public transit, more bus stop use, more biking - more ways to be in the public realm, to mix with strangers. But to become cosmopolitan, you have to choose to recognize and appreciate difference and the responsibility of the commons. You don't have to hug a stranger - though there is something really joyous about that Juan guy - but you can recognize the value in difference, the importance of conversation with strangers - in every sense - and the significance we gain by being actively intermixed with the messiness of the city.

References:

Arendt, Hannah. (1958) “The Public and the Private Realm,” in The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Lefebvre, Henri. (1991) The Production of Space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Lofland, Lyn. (1998) The Public Realm: Exploring the City’s Quintessential Territory. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter.

Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia and Tridib Banerjee. (1998) Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form. Berkley: University of California Press.

Mitchell, Don. (2003) The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: The Guillford Press.

Sennett, Richard. (1992) The Fall of Public Man. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992.

Sheller, Mimi and John Urry. (2000) “The City and the Car,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol. 24(4). 737-757.

image credit: Damon Winter, The New York Times

Five Dollars a Day

2009-05-24T10:37:00.000-07:00

I spend $1 a day on breakfast, $7 a week. I get 100% of almost every vitamin and mineral in that and I'm basically eating a whole grain, organic brownie. Yumm. I thought I was pretty efficient and frugal until I started following Julie's blog. In honor of Hunger Action Day (May 20th), Julie Flynn is committed to spending only $35 a week on food, the equivalent of the typical food stamp allowance. When I first got her email I ran my food budget quickly through my mind. I thought the $7 breakfast deal was pretty good (a few cents per vitamin?), and add to that about $3 for lunch per day, $21 a week. So, that leaves me about $7 for dinner, snacks, and treats, not including the occasional glass of beer or wine or (forget it!) a $1.75 Diet Mountain Dew. Living in LA, I've seen glasses of wine that cost more than the value of a full week's food stamp allowance. It's certainly a city of extremes.

I went back through my budget over the last three months (yes, being a student again and living in LA, you've got to keep track of every penny) and I spend somewhere between $96 and $112 a week on food, about $15 a day. That's groceries, eating out, caffeine, snacks, and alcohol (including one magical, smoky, heavenly beer float at Golden State Cafe and a highly subsidized set of birthday dinners - thank you everyone). At that rate, which is not so extravagant, those on food stamps could eat for two days, and lunch on a third. What happens the rest of the week?

Julie is also doing this whole experiment as a vegan, and selectively as an organic vegan (she has some great tips on her blog about priorities and resources). She's asking us to just simply read along, offer pointers and suggestions, provide support, think about what we consume, and, most importantly, recognize how difficult it is to be healthy, socially integrated, and low-income (yes, food and alcohol are huge aspects of our social lives and pressures - see the grilled cheese incident of May 19th on Julie's blog). Also, be sure to click on the "Congressional Food Stamp Challenge" and see how Congress members in 2007 - on $21 a week - fared in their own efforts to understand the dire consequences of poverty on health.

Eating on a miniscule budget for a week is hard, for a month is at least four times harder yet brings with it real awareness and activism, but for a lifetime, having to eat on $35 a week is truly tragic, with consequences beyond malnutrition like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease from eating cheaply which often means high carb, high fat, and low nutrition. In addition, we often equate food with love, ritual, celebration, seasonal cycles, not to mention pure joy, sensuality, and sensory stimulation. I can't imagine a life lacking the simple beauty of good, healthy food. Though it happens in this country for millions of people each day.

Here is Julie's original message:

To all my friends, family, and supporters:

Today, May 20th, is Hunger Action Day.

In honor of that, I would like to invite all of you to follow my Blog. For about a week and a half now, I have been living on $35/week for food as a vegan. I am attempting to eat a healthy, environmentally sustainable diet on a budget that represents a typical food stamp benefit allowance. I am only shopping at stores that accept food stamps. Through this experience I am exploring the barriers low-income Americans face in the quest for healthy food by living the challenge myself.

This is a month long experiment, and the Blog will likely continue to explore these issues all summer. For now, I am posting every day. Each post is different - sometimes an article, sometimes a recipe, sometimes a reflection. Here is the link: http://onfoodstamps.blogspot.com/

I would love if you would support me by "Following" this Blog, or by passing it on to friends. A large part of this is about increasing awareness about the intersections between poverty, food, health problems, urban pubic health, and sustainability. The more people that know about this experiment, the better. As you will see in the first post (it gives all the background info- I suggest you start there), there is an interactive/participatory element to this. After reading, let me know if you want to contribute as well.

Have a great day, and thanks for reading.

Best,

Julie

A final note, there are many people trying to be proactive in combating their own limited choices, limited space, and limited access to healthy food. The South Central Farm was the largest community garden in the country and was lost due to a various and shady mix of greed, deals, and development. In June of 2008 a new documentary was released on the South Central Farm called The Garden. It was nominated for a 2009 Academy Award (along with Trouble the Water, one of my very first posts on this blog). It documents an ongoing story of activism and injustice. At the end of May it will play in DC, New York, Telluride, Salt Lake City, and Amherst. In June it will play in Charlotte (at Park Terrace, my old movie theater), Portland, San Diego, Denver, Louisville and Tucson. For updates, specifics, and more locations see their website or their page on Facebook. You can also volunteer or attend the rally to mark the third anniversary of their eviction from the abandoned incinerator site at 41st and Alameda. This is one small way to combine our new awareness with action.

Hope and Loss

2009-05-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

I don't remember who spoke at my commencement - either of them. My best friend's girlfriend was valedictorian, which was a total shock at the time as I had never even noticed that she was all that smart. I might have fallen asleep from complete exhaustion at my grad school graduation. I hope for this next (last?) one, I'm well-rested and old enough to appreciate whatever stellar scholar, statesman, or activist (!) is chosen to impart wisdom on my not so new steps out into a not so new world. That one is still a few years away. As a faculty member, I teared up on more than one occasion at the small, College of Architecture ceremonies where the full faculty and student body march together into the salon space of our building, and we let go of the hands we have held so tightly (see the blog entry three weeks ago) and reward their unique skills and often flamboyant personalities with big name and beautiful book awards. The Randy Beavers award has always been a personal favorite, awarded (if I remember correctly) to the graduating senior who lives life to the fullest and exhibits some form of computer savviness. Almost inevitably, that award is given unanimously and with little debate. The Randy Beavers winners are quirky visionaries - odd, energetic, funky, some would say dancing to the beat of their own drummer, but they sparkle.

Today Barack Obama received an honorary degree and gave the commencement address for the graduating class of 2009 at Notre Dame University. It was controversial for a pro-choice President to be given such a dual honor at a Catholic University. It was controversial, and brilliant. Brilliant for Notre Dame, sure, because they are a University first, a place of learning and a center of knowledge whose faculty and graduates most certainly want to be a part of national debate on important issues. But what was truly brilliant was the speech itself or, rather, the event itself. Today issues of women's rights, reproductive freedom, prevention and wellness, humor, humility and educated options took center stage and close-mindedness, narrow visions, cynicism and condemning rhetoric were rebuked. Today our President recognized the opportunity, like he does on occasion, to take often litigious animosities and daylight them on common ground. There are objectives we can all agree on, he said, and for those where we do not, let us all have the decency and maturity to conduct intelligent and informed debate at the common table of humanity. His is a world free of extremists, and I want to live in that world.

Though Obama received a standing ovation on entry to the ceremony and loud support for his pro-active stance to reduce unwanted pregnancy and support stem cell research, several key figures in Notre Dame administration refused to attend. Notre Dame President Emeritus Theodore Hesburgh was shown regularly on camera with a face blank of any expression (this may or may not have been intentional or negative, but the guy was most definitely not clapping). Obama referred to "Father Ted's" accomplishments several times in his speech, but the most moving was the last. As this date marks the 55th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that integrated our schools, Obama recalled the Civil Rights Committee appointed by President Eisenhower that influenced the 1964 legislation. Father Ted was on that committee. From Obama's speech:

And years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs. And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin, they discovered they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.

The fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history. It's the telling as much as the tale, is it not? Remember that next time you find yourself arguing with an unreasonable zealot.

For those who don't see the world our way, Obama said, that's alright. That's alright, he said, as an abortion protester screamed out during his speech; we do not shy away from discomfort. And we do not do things easily. To me, those are the most significant diversions from the path of the eight years prior. Mediocrity is easy. Sarcasm and cynicism are easy. Compromise for the sake of compromise is easy. Laziness is the path of least resistance. What isn't easy is getting it right, doing the work. What isn't easy is demanding the best case scenario, the best quality, the fairest option, the most thorough information, and an outcome that is good, not just good enough.

In California, we have an election this coming Tuesday. It's astonishing the difference between the values inherent in Obama's speech and those latent in the California initiatives. It's not a big election, so it's not content that I'm comparing so much as approach. As you may or may not know, California is going bankrupt and its legislators submitted their annual budget months and months beyond the official mandatory deadline. This alone led to a financial crisis as government-paid employees were forced to take unpaid days off and reduced pay to help ride out the unknown conclusions. When a budget was finally delivered, California found itself deep in a bad financial hole.

Propositions 1A-F that we will be voting on this coming Tuesday are supposed to help fill in some of that hole. I'm no economic or government expert, but in reading my ballot and my 63 page voter reference guide, my conclusion is that the California legislators are lazy, baffled, and ineffective. This is obviously not news to some, but even a glance at the quick reference guide shows the absolute absurdity of the current measures. Try this one: Voting Yes on 1C means both that "Lottery payments to educational institutions would end, and the state General Fund would increase its payments to education to make up for the loss of those lottery funds" and "Prop 1C guarantees schools get the same level of lottery funding as they do now." These two sentences are in the same column of the same government-produced voter education guide. The summary in the back tells us that it's this very General Fund that is facing a $40 billion shortfall over the two year span from 2008 - 2010. So, if 1C is approved, do schools get the same level of lottery funding they do now, or do they get replacement funding from the already bankrupt General Fund? Both? Neither? Nothing?

Each of these propositions seems to be some form of complicated shell game, where money is borrowed from the future, moved from here to there, and those who lose out are the educators, the children of the poor, and the mentally ill. An LA Weekly article quotes Paul Goodwin, a researcher on how this ballot is being received, as calling it "paralyzing-confusing". Yes, and then some. Again quoting the voter information guide:

"The 2009-10 budget depends on access to about $6 billion related to three propositions on this ballot - $5 billion by borrowing from future lottery profits (Proposition C), up to $608 million by redirecting dedicated childhood development funds to help the General Fund (Proposition 1D), and about $230 million by redirecting dedicated mental health funds to help the General Fund (proposition 1E)".

If these are not passed, "the Legislature and the Governor probably would need to agree to billions of dollars of additional spending cuts, tax increases, and/or other budgetary solutions to bring the budget back into balance. It is unknown what these alternative actions would be, as they would be determined after this election." Probably?

Oh, and it goes on: "Even with the adoption of the 2009-2010 budget package and assuming that all of the propositions on this ballot pass, it is expected that the state would face multibillion-dollar budget shortfalls in the coming years.... Consequently, based on current projections, the state will need to adopt billions of dollars in additional spending reductions, tax increases, or other solutions..."

So, the options are this - we can, on Tuesday, say it's okay to cut K-12 educational spending, children's services, mental health services, and simultaneously raise taxes OR we can refuse to grant consent to our 'leaders' irresponsible treatment of our most vulnerable, most marginalized, and most at-risk and demand that they go back to the drawing board and seek options that are not mediocre, lazy, and abusive.

In light of all that, 1F we should all approve. This initiative prevents pay raises for our legislators in budget deficit years. My gosh, how generous.

For more information, give it your own shot at www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov

Bonus photo of Notre Dame architecture graduates with building models on their mortar boards a la Beaux Arts Ball: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30796091/displaymode/1176/rstry/30782728/

Mail for people who need it most.

2009-05-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

I love mail, which means I love mailmen (mailpeople? letter carriers). These are folks - men and women - who deliver to our doors the gift of words. Sure, this was more common before mail went digital, but I still covet the perfect postcard - that ideal combination of collective image and personal thought, recto and verso as Derrida said, the Kodak-spot image we all share of the world on one side, and the scrawling, hand-written, forcibly succinct personal story on the other. Postcards are a kind of history - of a place, of a relationship, of a person. The lineage of image, caption, selection, notation, address, stamp, receipt, display, save, and rediscover can knit together a life. The Raleigh 2000 project was about this, as was the A to B work I did here in LA last year.

But there's something special about the fact that a person, a live person, hand delivers the mail to you. Oftentimes they are walking from house to house, carrying that big blue mail bag like they have since the mid-1800s. One of the few provisions in the American constitution regarding the form of the country itself requires that the government upkeep routes for the delivery of the US mail. Newspapers and correspondence via horse and stagecoach tied us together long before highways and the internet. The westward expansion is the dual story of population migration and mail delivery.

More so, mail is ritualistic. My mother writes me real letters in her beautiful handwriting. My father sends me articles with my name written at the top - a record of his reading with me and my interests in mind. My friends send me postcards when they travel, particularly postcards of roads.

But this Saturday, May 9th, all of our mail carriers take on some additional weight. For 17 years the NALC (National Association of Letter Carriers) has conducted a nationwide food drive on the second Saturday of May. Members of the 300,000-strong postal union in 10,000 cities across the country will collect non-perishable food items from us, then deliver them to food banks, pantries, and shelters in the neighborhoods where they are collected. In New York and Chicago you can take your donations directly to the post office branch near you between May 4th and May 9th.

Appropriately, Campbell’s' Soup will donate an additional 1,000 pounds of soup to a food bank chosen by each of the ten post office branches that collect the most food. Last year, letter carriers collected a record 71.3 million tons of food; this year, the need is even greater.

Rain, sleet, or snow, they bring you your mail. The bills and junk, yes, but also the surprises and treats, birthday cards, reminders, love notes, books, and memories. And only once a year they ask you for something back, and offer to be the free conduit that delivers your goodness to those who really need it. This Saturday, let's help our letter carriers fill up those big blue bags with food. For more information, go to the NALC website.

Two quick congratulations: Loveswell's opening night got rave reviews. It plays through June 7th (see last week's entry for more information), and my friend and founder of the Street Soccer USA league, Lawrence Cann, is on the f ront page of the NY Times Region section for his work with homeless players - check it out (and see previous blog entries on the Charlotte Street Soccer team, or see Kicking It! now on hulu).

Altruism meets Art

2009-04-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've been lucky enough to meet a lot of really interesting people doing a lot of really great things since I moved to LA. Last summer, in my month of wandering with Whitney, we found not only a great new restaurant and amazing bar, but also my favorite LA bartender and altruistic actor, John Fortson. John's 2005 production of Loveswell was long over by the time we met him, but a new one was in the works and has finally arrived.

Loveswell is a one-man show about love and relationships told through the eyes of the most prevalent of Los Angeles archetypes - the surfer. In addition to being entertaining and, according to reviews, quite illuminating of the mysterious male perspective, the opening night performance this Friday, May 1st, is also a fundraiser for Heal the Bay, an organization devoted to "making Southern California coastal water and watersheds...healthy and clean." When a disappointing and disturbing beach closure due to post-rain contamination kept John from giving his nephew a surf lesson, he was inspired to combine his theatrical talents with his environmental altruism. This special gala night is hosted by actress Alexandra Leighton and pro surfer and “ecowarrior” James Pribram and includes treats from Terroni after the show.

Tickets for the fundraiser and more information about the show can be found on line (click here). If you can't come to the opening night, the show runs Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through June 7th. John will be accepting donations for Heal the Bay throughout the entire run. And we will most certainly be missing him at Terroni until then.

One more quick reminder about the LAPD performance on Saturday night (seeing as you'll all be at Loveswell on Friday). Studios open at 6 and the show,"CPR: a Public Training in Life Saving Skills", starts at 8:30. We're hoping to 'drive' our survival station down Olympic from OPCC before the Saturday show. A big thank you to my new friend Cooper Bates who has volunteered to photograph the event for us. Hope to see you all next weekend.

More information at:

http://lapovertydept.org/

http://www.18thstreet.org/

the haphazard and unpredictable fine art of teaching

2009-04-19T12:38:00.000-07:00

The side effect of teaching is that we often learn things ourselves we didn't even know we needed to learn. When I ran the first Mobile Studio I learned how to live with other people on a constant basis. It made me more tolerant, more flexible, and more empathetic. When I collaborated on the Artpark at the Urban Ministry center I learned about patience, trust, and value. All of these are traits I've tried to internalize, but still regularly consider and often need to re-negotiate.

Sometimes teaching reminds us how little we know, terrorizes us into a state of panic and insecurity, but just as quickly can show us how far we've come and that we know how to know things whether we actually do know them or not. That is a useful and priceless skill.

Sometimes teaching reminds us how much we know about our areas of expertise, and how little others know, and we must learn to uncover the elusive tracks of knowledge past, point them out, and show the way. The trickiest balance, particularly in the arts and design professions, is knowing also when not to show the way, when finding the way is the knowledge itself and one more bread crumb is too many, one fewer is not quite enough. It's been said in one way or another at many a curriculum meeting that in addition to complexity and depth the difference between teaching second year architecture studio and fourth year architecture studio is the degree to which you let go.

Returning to school in the middle of a teaching career is even more destabilizing and, hence, twice as educational. For every bit of content I learn in a course, I learn as much about how to teach and how not to teach, storing up the unconscious lessons of the unintended consequences of one act versus another, one word versus another, one strategy, one method, one task. Having been there, I know more readily where to look. I recommend switching sides of the desk for all teachers, at least for a little while.

We can never see the world through the mind of another person, but teaching - the constant and required interaction with the metamorphosizing minds of others - requires an intellectual vulnerability; a mental giving; regular re-negotiation of self and other; and a weekly psychoanalysis of mood, mind, and emotion that remains invisible and avoidable for much of the non-teaching world. I have never met a good teacher who was a bad person, nor a bad person who was a good teacher. It's too much internal work, too much emotional risk, and way, way too much effort to not do it for bigger reasons.

I am still in the middle of learning for this semester. The one day a week, Integrated Learning course that I am teaching with Dorit Cypis at Otis College of Art and Design, The Right to the Street, is currently a full time array of relationships and expectations, learning and unlearning, lumbering rapidly towards an amazing collaborative conclusion that will be shown publicly in Santa Monica two weeks from yesterday. It is exciting to be engaging with the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) and their theater workshop with OPCC. It has been enlightening and inspiring to work with the old and new members of their troupe - Kevin Michael, Riccarlo, Sheeba, Luis, RW, Rochelle, and others. The day Riccarlo turned a meeting-gone-gripe-session into a mock press conference for a pre-inaugural Obama, my mind began spinning around the opportunities that theater possesses, for those without homes, yes, and for those with them as well. It is amazing that Otis has this program and is willing to explore what it means to put 7 disciplines, a teacher, a mentor, and a partner from different worlds at the same busy, sometime treacherously shaky, table.

Within our Otis class, we are finalizing the three projects being developed in conjunction with the performance in May. My giant bag of current learning certainly revisits flexibility, empathy, tolerance, and patience, but it also includes new visions of multi-disciplinarity, the real skill that is collaboration, and the simple reality that teaching is a moving target, particularly if you are willing to stretch beyond what you think you already know. In the end, though it should seem obvious, good teachers must also be good learners, and by stretching what, when, or where we teach, we stretch what we know and what we are able to do with what we know. In addition to bits and pieces of content and skill, what we pass on to our students is that ever so slightly weighted bag of learning and a hopeful passion for them to continue collecting and filling the bag to over brimming.

This semester, in addition to all we have learned about homelessness, public space, and guerrilla tactics, we've also broken stereotypes, reached out, looked in, juggled, compromised, tried, stretched, improved, opened up, and negotiated.

Join us in two weeks and see how we're doing. (details below)

LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT TO PERFORM
"CPR, A PUBLIC TRAINING IN LIFE SAVING SKILLS"

On May 1 & 2 at 8:30 p.m. at Highways (1651 18th Street, Santa Monica, 90404), the Los Angeles Poverty Department will present a new production, "CPR: a Public Training in Life Saving Skills" to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of Highways Performance Space and 18th Street Arts Center. This performance is developed and performed by members of Santa Monica's OPCC, Ocean Park Community Center and the LAPD All-Stars, directed by John Malpede and Henriëtte Brouwers. Performances are free.

At a time when home foreclosures, job loss, and staggering medical bills are forcing more and more people onto the streets, undercover LAPD (Lost And Presumed Dead) heroes share the extraordinary wisdom that accounts for their return-from-the-edge, against-all-odds survival. "CPR: a Public Training in Life Saving Skills" is the first collaboration between LAPD and Ocean Park Community Center. OPCC is the largest and most comprehensive provider of housing and services on the Westside to low-income and homeless youth, adults and families, battered women and their children, and people living with mental illness, particularly homeless mentally ill women.

LAPD has been making theater with homeless and formerly homeless people for 24 years. Twenty years ago LAPD was invited to perform at Highways Performance Space during its inaugural season. Highways invited LAPD back to celebrate the 20-year anniversary on May 1 and on May 2 the performance will be part of 18th Street Arts Center's Arts Night at the same location.

This project includes visual collaboration with students at Otis College of Art and Design's Integrated Learning program, 'The Right to the Street' class taught by Linda Samuels and mentor Dorit Cypis.

Based in LA's Skid Row, LAPD creates work that connects lived experience of those who live in poverty to the political and social forces that shape their communities and lives. This project with OPCC is funded in part by a grant from The National Endowment for the Arts' Theater program.

For more information visit: http://www.lapovertydept.org

or http://www.18thstreet.org/

The Prison Library Project

2009-04-05T12:05:00.000-07:00

We are an incarceration society, so I've recently heard.

In April of 2008, The New York Times published a world map of comparative incarceration statistics. The larger the circle on the diagram, the larger the number of inmates that country has per 100,000 inhabitants. The US circle is the biggest on that world map, with 751 incarcerations per 100,000; Russia is second with 627. Our neighbors - Mexico and Canada - fall well below our 700-plus with 198 and 108 incarcerations per 100,000 respectively. Shockingly, the US Department of Justice claims that one in ever 131 US residents (regardless of conviction status) is being held in a US prison or jail.

Initiatives like Proposition 6 and 'Education not Incarceration' bring to light the very complicated relationship our society has with crime, arrest, conviction, race, incarceration and equity. Proposition 6 would have shifted state funds away from schools, human services, and housing and towards criminal justice programs - in other words, treating the terminal disease after it has taken root rather than investing in wellness, prevention, and health.

According to the Education not Incarceration website, the following facts illuminate some trends of spending that seem to emphasize our national draw towards punishment and retribution over prevention:

High school dropouts are more than three times more likely than high school graduates to be arrested in their lifetime. (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2003)

During the last two decades of the millennium, corrections’ share of all state and local spending grew by 104%, while higher education’s share of all state and local spending dropped by 21%. (From "Cellblocks or Classrooms” Justice Policy Institute, 2003)

Nearly 80 percent of individuals in prison do not have a high school diploma. (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1995)

Though none of these facts even begin to prove any kind of cause and effect relationship, nor do they do more than scratch the surface of the root causes of crime at large (or non-crime, for that matter), there seems to be little question that sustained education increases opportunities which may then provide alternatives to a criminal form of life sustenance.

What we do know is that 2,310,984 people are incarcerated in the US today, and that we would prefer they leave the prison system, if at all possible, with optimism rather than anger.

I came across The Prison Library Project on my first trip to Claremont, a town on the far, far eastern edge of Los Angeles County (home, by the way, of the amazing Three Forks restaurant, currently under post-fire renovation). According to their flyer, The Prison Library Project was founded in Durham, North Carolina in 1973 and relocated to Claremont in 1986. The PLP is part of the Claremont Forum, "a non-profit organization whose mission is to enrich lives through education, arts, and wellness programs."

Each week, PLP receives close to 300 letters from inmates requesting books. In return, they mail or deliver nearly 30,000 books, magazines, and audiotapes each year to individuals and libraries across 600 prisons nationwide. They are particularly interested in books on growth and development, but also deliver books of poetry, literature, and fiction. They do not take crime, murder mysteries, or romance novels.

There is a large, unmet need for dictionaries in particular. For our cause this week, there are three easy ways to help PLP do their work:

Donate books:

1. Bring books to me (home, Otis, or UCLA - leave a comment if you need the address or locations) and I'll get them to The Thoreau Bookstore, home of the Claremont Forum and the nationwide Prison Library Project.

2. Mail books to or drop books off at the PLP directly, in care of :
The Claremont Forum
586 West 1st Street
Claremont, CA 91711

3. Next time you are on Amazon, go to their wish list and add a dictionary or other book to be sent to the Claremont Forum.

New dictionaries cost as little as $6.50, used ones as little as $3 plus shipping. Most of you are avid readers if not intellectuals by profession. This small gesture, in our book-obsessed lives, is a way to help spread the idea that language, the perfect sentence, and the beautiful word really can be keys to a better life.

The Claremont Forum also accepts donations (just $2.50 sends two books to an inmate) and always needs volunteers to read letters and pack books. Go to their website for more information on ways to get involved or to learn more about the PLP. They can also be reached via email: claremontforum@gmail.com or phone 909-626-3066. If you find yourself in Claremont, you can shop at The Thoreau Bookstore. Proceeds go to the PLP. It's directly across from the Claremont Art Museum in the restored Claremont Packing House.

A big thank you to Mike Manville - the first donor who, while cleaning out his office, came across a dictionary and thesaurus that will make their way to Claremont, and then off into the system via The Prison Library Project.

untitled 09

2009-03-26T00:25:00.000-07:00

untitled 09 (ariana huffington's powder room: self-portrait of iphone with owner)

This post isn't much of a cause or much of an action, but it does fall flat in the middle of what most undergrads lovingly refer to as 'spring break'. Right now, it's a place holder - like Brad Pitt's pink project in New Orleans; it's a promise that I will be back after the ACSA conference in Portland to write more about stats and its relationship in particular to birth control, infrastructure, religious freedoms, and books. Things are most definitely brewing - stay tuned.

The image is merely proof (as images are) that my iphone and I somehow found ourselves in Ariana Huffington's powder room last week (how crazy is that?). A guest of my Obama group friend, Andrew, we had an opportunity to hear Elizabeth Alexander recite her inaugural poem, eat mini grilled cheeses, and marvel over the sheer quantity of personal portraits that surrounded us in the Brentwood-based villa. Want a signed hard copy of the poem itself? I might just have an extra. Leave a comment; let me know.

As a nod to the honorary event, here is the text of the poem. It felt a little bit like being at the inauguration, only smaller, warmer, and unfortunately Obama-free (though he was in LA, and we were kind of hoping he might come by).

You could say, I imagine, that poetry is actually its own kind of cause, and this one, prosaic as the phrases might be, certainly endorses its own call to action.

So, there we have it - the cause this week is poetry, and to 'praise song for the day', this day, this spring, this week.

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; Words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by "first do no harm," or "take no more than you need."

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

a question of significance

2009-03-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

Today is the Sunday before exam week, winter quarter 2009. I'm being explicit with the date because it is more than likely the close of the quarter that signifies not only my last bit of real required coursework in this PhD, but also the end of the first and likely only statistics course I will ever take. By Tuesday, 11:30 am, I will (hopefully) have lodged into my brain the range of quantitative methods that began with the probability of drawing an ace of spades, and ends with multiple regression, bivariate correlations, and the importance of R squared. We've most certainly come a long way.

Our final lab project ('our' here is my fabulous partner Naji and I) utilizes a multi-country global data set from 2000 in an attempt to discern which factors reported (independent variables) ultimately have a significant effect on income inequality (the Gini index). The fact that I can even write that sentence and know what it means is substantial progress for those of us who live primarily in the right side of our brain. On several occasions, I have compared the mental process of taking a math class to the slow turning of a giant freighter in a narrow canal (not so unlike the intended mission of the bailout package on the US economy) or the struggle to crank a wheel that has sat hidden and rusted for years (not so unlike that cartoon of a thing that seems to unhinge the island in time on LOST). Nine and a half weeks in, the gears have loosened and the fallout is at least comprehendible, if not comprehensive. Though I won't hide my excitement that the end of the struggle is near, I also can't help but be just a bit excited about the baby steps of inchoate bridging something like statistics provides. As someone consciously and laboriously building a bridge between the humanities/arts/architecture and social sciences, an awareness of the vocabulary and concepts that form the basis for 'substantiating' quantitative research might very well come in handy.

On the flip side, however, it also reveals itself as a shaky house of cards. If I've learned nothing else, I've most certainly learned that randomness is very important business and is the key to predicting everything (as in you must have random samples) and simultaneously the key to determining just how possible the probable might be (how confident or not you are in your results). Yes, what the 'outside world' (outside of quantitative methods) has been lead to believe is a more precise and exact form of research, is mostly the task of laboriously proving that results do, at best, hold some truthiness (thank you Stephen Colbert). Which is, actually, its own kind of rigor.

What statistics can also do, though, is gauge significance. By using the SPSS computer program (the wizard for us stats adolescents), you can determine the degree to which one factor in a data set influences another factor. (You stats people are laughing out loud at my over simplification. You other people are thinking - why on earth does this matter at all?) Briefly (taken from our current lab project), if we're trying to determine why a country has income inequality, we can test a correlation hypothesis in SPSS and it will tell us that, yes, how much a country spends on health care is significantly correlated to its level of income inequality. And then if we run that same test with other variables - say life expectancy or degree of urbanization - ultimately, we hope, we can find more and more of the factors that relate to income inequality and then, in the long run, work to change those factors to make societies more equal. Ah, if it were only so easy....

Which brings us to the class I am teaching at Otis. Two weeks ago we had an 'intervention' of sorts. Struggling with the students' lack of commitment to the assignments, my astute co-teacher recommended we have an open session within which we could air our concerns, hopefully address them, and move past them to some real progress. It was a fantastic session and one really enlightening issue that emerged was, also, this question of significance. Here we are working with people who are homeless, one student said, and we're talking about making art. What good does art do - shouldn't we be doing something more significant? And, in turn, is promoting 'awareness' - one of our project options - a significant enough concern of art making? (As a short aside, it is interesting to imagine this in statistical terms, to ask if there really is some sort of correlation between an increase in awareness and a reduction in homelessness, or a reduction in the abuse that those living on the streets frequently receive.)

Of course I'm a strong believer in the fact that, in lieu of finding a way to house everyone in a single semester, there are thousands of alternative ways to contribute meaningfully to the lives and plight of people who find themselves marginalized. And, to bring this back to the cause of the week, that doing something with the smallest degree of significance is better than doing nothing at all.

I so often find myself speaking to people who are immobilized by the magnitude of the world's problems. Particularly now, when they seem so huge and so close to home. So, in honor of my stats final and my new found direction with my Otis class, I'm asking everyone to get unstuck, to turn the crank of small possibility, and do something that may seem insignificant, but isn't. And then do it again. And then do something else. Don't worry for now that you're not solving the big problems, not answering the big questions. Don't let the magnitude of need hold you back. Give yourself permission to warm up to greater things, greater risks even.

An easy one that I've noticed is buying a box of Girl Scout cookies. According to USA Today, Girl Scout cookie pre-orders were down 19% this year due to the economy and particularly harsh winter weather. Much of the funds they raise go to scholarships and community projects; one troop in Atlanta has used creative capitalism techniques to get buyers who can't or shouldn't eat the cookies themselves to purchase a box to be given to Operation Sandbox and sent to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It may seem insignificant, it may even be insignificant, but what stats has taught us, is that the most unlikely contributors might also prove to be vital. This week, allow even the smallest of opportunities - picking up trash, recycling something you usually don't bother to wash, giving away the 75 cents in your pocket - to become significant in its own right. Building on the small acts is the very thing that makes them worthwhile.

**thanks to the poster design team in my Otis class for this bit of visual research.

A quick follow-up

2009-03-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

For those who have not already seen this on Archinect, here is a link to their recently completed survey on the state of things in architecture as well as articles on the profession and the economy. It's not particularly optimistic, but near the end of the survey there are several participants who echo the possibility for opportunity this disaster has cracked open. There is one article as well entitled 'Reading material for unemployed architects' which I was hoping was going to be a survey of the most common books we all own but have never had the time to read. Alas, it was just another advice column. So I'm adding my interpretation of that title to the list of things to do during your unrequested vacation. As we turn the corner towards spring, is it those classics you skimmed in high school, Delirious New York, Complexity & Contradiction, Deleuze, Kant, or Lacan that you've never had time to really read? Marshall McLuhan, Richard Sennett, Kerouac (the new version, as written originally, is out in paperback!)?

And on a completely lighter note (isn't humor supposed to be the best medicine?), I wrote a few months back about the Ben & Jerry's flavor, Yes PeCan! that was being sold as part of a pro-Obama fundraising effort for the Common Cause Education Fund. This past week I received a follow up email forwarded from my friend Alex. Here is a selection of the George W Bush alternatives to Yes PeCan! as suggested to Ben & Jerry's by a comic (and fictitous) public. Enjoy:

- Grape Depression
- The Housing Crunch
- Abu Grape
- Nut'n Accomplished
- Iraqi Road
- Chock 'n Awe
- WireTapioca
- Guantanmallow
- imPeachmint
- Heck of a Job, Brownie!
- Neocon Politan
- The Reese's-cession
- Cookie D'oh!
- Nougalar Proliferation
- Death by Chocolate... and Torture
- Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
- Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
- Credit Crunch
- Mission Pecanplished
- Country Pumpkin
- Chunky Monkey in Chief
- WMDelicious
- Chocolate Chimp
- Caramel Preemptive Stripe

Personally, I'm sticking happily with my Yes PeCan!

Finding Opportunity in Catastrophe

2009-03-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

In the last month and a half, cause of the week has expanded somewhat from its initial objective of easy actionable items to a broader set of calls, contextualized in positive ideological frameworks that support larger and more long-lasting evolutions. This is primarily the work of the four invited guests who raise the very valuable points that external change requires a kind of systemic vision of interrelationships (the taco and immigrant rights; health and the planning of sidewalks) and internal change a kind of reinvention of identity and purpose (practice as an activist and you are one step closer to being one). Encouraging everyone to capitalize on the vast value of design and designers has both internal and external implications and, by the day, seems more and more timely. Both small actions and shifting beliefs are valid and valuable, and I hope to continue to balance the small and the large, providing easy opportunities to act now with bigger inspirations for long-range influence.

This week's 'cause' is inspired by an email exchange among friends and former UNCC students. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of unemployed in the US increased an additional 598,000 in January to 11.6 million total. The percentage of unemployed rose from 7.2 to 7.6%. I can't quickly locate the numbers for architects alone, but I can tell you from simple anecdotal experience, reductions in the field are massive and pervasive. Not one person I have spoken to in practice remains unaffected. Everyone is either laying off or being laid off, cutting benefits or cutting jobs all together. As we're all beginning to realize, this is a problem that starts and ends at the banks. The layoffs are not simply from a loss of new work, but also from a freeze in work already awarded or in early stages of development where necessary financing is no longer available to move the project forward. In this instance, trickle down economics is most definitely working - to the detriment of all. Less loans mean less commissions mean less construction; a loss of jobs in architecture firms means the ranks of unemployed construction workers from drywallers to day laborers will be growing exponentially. No wonder the AIA sent lobbyists to DC to fight for a slice of the stimulus pie.

The loss of jobs and the overall downturn of the economy is most certainly disastrous. Yet, as Naomi Klein reminds us in The Shock Doctrine, and Lawrence Vale and Thomas Campanella in The Resilient City, the flip side of every disaster is opportunity.** Not to downplay the direness of the situation, but this email exchange I referred to above and the other conversations I've had with peers in floundering firms, seems to be proving Bryan Bell right and then some. Our training is solid and broad; our ability to be inventive and resilient is inspiring in the face of uncertainty. What the down turn in the economy seems to be doing for architecture and its aspirants is multi-fold, and well worth capitalizing on. Here are several ways to imagine collective optimism rising from the ashes of economic catastrophe:

First, the growth machine has come to a screeching halt. Finally. The neoliberal insistence on growth for the sake of growth has been a prime contributor to a quantity over quality mentality that has left our built environment a collage of steroidal disasters. The opportunity here is to shift the priority from quantity to quality and consider more carefully the what, where, and how of design and building. Or of shopping, for that matter, or of eating, or of our precious leisure time. With less to go around, it's twice as important to make wise decisions rather than simply make decisions. Some of the projects that have been halted are probably better off dead.

Second, we are a profession always short on money and even more short on time. This is the chance to hit a reset button and take back our lives. This is a chance to amend the abusive practices that have become ingrained in the architectural habitus. This is a chance to reconsider the 60 hour work week, the unpaid overtime, the under-paid intern. When firms rebuild post-recession, let's ratchet up the expectations we have of ourselves to be good stewards of our peers, our colleagues, our clients, and our employees. Let's not sell ourselves or our abilities short, but recognize that good work takes time, energy, vision, and commitment, all of which grow more sturdy in healthy individuals. This is not a call to laziness, but a call to some kind of normalcy we have lost. Reset.

At the same time, let's also reset our egos - but not our confidence - and embrace the opportunity to become a less autonomous part of a larger, interrelated world. At the same time, let's make contributing to the people and the places less likely to be served by our expertise a part of the new priorities.

An opportunistic part of these layoffs is also the current luxury of time. What I was most impressed with in these email exchanges among UNCC graduates is how many of them are using new found time to explore things they have had to shelve for years or to move forward on objectives they normally would have had to squeeze in between work and sleep. They are studying for and taking the Architectural Registration Exam (go Fish!), LEED certification tests, and the "NABCEP photovoltaic system design and installer certification" (go Nick!). They are attending workshops on energy and green design and going back to school in record numbers, according to Archinect and the latest stats on grad school enrollment (go Joe and his MBA in Real Estate!); and they are doing design competitions - a freedom of time, energy, and creativity often sucked away by the daily commitment of office work.

These layoffs, awful as they are, also are an opportunity to re-evaluate what you have been doing and what you hope to be doing next. Many, many of the emails and calls I have received start sentences with, "I will never again...." ... work for the man, sell my soul, be trapped inside for 60 hours a week, 'design' another hospital, sacrifice my health. Or, even more simply, will never work at a large firm or for corporate clients. So many of us boarded the train of architecture and followed its trajectory rather than leading it. Now is the chance to take that trajectory into our own hands, or hop this train for another one - even a very related one. My good friend Tim first thought that when his impending layoff came, he would come to California, camp on the coast for a few months and paint. He's an amazing landscape painter and never has had the luxury of time to pursue it fully. Yet, when he did get laid off about a week ago, he fortuitously found himself in conversation with representatives from the state about getting a job documenting and evaluating state park structures, a way to get back in touch with nature and interact with and serve the public - something he's been missing while sitting behind a computer for the last decade.

Finally, there is the question of the architecture that already exists and what's to be done with the market glut of the unsellable and the unleasable. Again, this bursting of the bubble is a form of much-needed market leveling, but that fact doesn't do much for the millions of vacant square feet of leasable space and thousands of unsellable or undervalued homes. Nate brought up this issue, as his property firm alone has 1.5 million square feet of unleased office space, and suggested that there must be alternative adaptation/reuse/reinvention strategies for what's already out there, underutilized. LA Forum ran a design competition in 2004 that sought new uses for dead malls. The conclusion in their case, I would say, was that the market-driven, privatized, single use model of the mall is no longer a naturally sustainable one. The best entries converted the inward focused and locally isolated mall into a region-specific, multi-use, public/private framework that capitalized on large spans, vast areas of flat pavement, and cheap space to invent new, socially-conscious and sustainable models of collectivity and commerce. Nate's question is a good one - and likely to be THE question for the coming generation of designers: what can we do with the underutilized stock we already have? Vertical farming, anyone?

Personally, as always, I'm inspired by the proactive nature of our UNCC grads and, generally, most of the architects I come across who work on a regular basis for long hours and for little money to make a mark on the landscape that elevates the experiences of all who pass by or occupy. It's no easy task, even when times are flush, to do good work. Yet, it seems this latest catastrophe might be the impetus for some reconsideration, and (fingers crossed) this stimulus package might go beyond repair to reinvention. This week, these weeks, how can we use this as a moment of pause on the often too fast road of our career pursuits? Like that sign I found in Biloxi post-Katrina, the house may be gone, but the people and trees are fine, so let's get to work.

And Obama, if you are listening, I know some hard-working experts looking for new opportunities.

**a much greater consideration of disasters and architecture from our PhD colloquium, Uneasy Urbanism: Incidents and Accidents under Dana Cuff, will be published this spring in PLACES magazine.

LA and the Global Warming Diet

2009-02-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

I've met Frances Anderton three times. First, through her monthly radio show on KCRW, DnA (Design and Architecture), which includes discussions with guests from a wide range of design-related fields, both LA-centric and beyond. The second time I met Frances was at an event for GOOD magazine in December called GOOD Design: LA where she was one of roughly ten designers presenting bite-sized versions of single design-based solutions for pressing urban issues (a version of this presentation serves as her guest blog entry that follows below). The third time I met Frances was when she appeared in Dana Cuff's PhD colloquium as a guest judge for our first weekly challenge - a kind of architecture methods meets top chef model for quick, deep research with a dash of competitive angst. That particular challenge asked us to evaluate the LA Times' recently published list of the ten best houses in Southern California. Though my team didn't win that challenge, we did, serendipitously, quote Frances's own incisive list of 'must see' architecture from the Time Out guide to the city. Her critiques that day were insightful, focused, useful, and brilliant. Anyone put on the spot to play judge to the careful and constructed research of ten sensitive and serious PhD students knows what an art it is to absorb, synthesize, evaluate, and return with original commentary that simultaneously expands and critiques what is on the table.

Frances has been in LA since 1991, when she moved here from England to become the editor of LA Architect. Her first taste of Los Angeles came through a special assignment for The Architectural Review, a long-standing and well-regarded monthly magazine where she was an Associate Editor. Before that, she studied architecture at the Bartlett and traveled globally. Her early taste of LA has turned into a career of thinking and writing on her now home city through contributions to dwell magazine and the New York Times, lecturing at REDCAT, the Hammer, and the Skirball among others and, after first volunteering at KCRW, becoming the guest host of DnA and the full-time producer of To The Point and Which Way, LA? both hosted by Warren Olney. Though Frances is not a contributor to the Expanding Architecture publication, she most certainly is expanding architecture through her work in media, public media in particular.

Her entry that follows takes off from the previous three by discussing a single small act with large repercussions that relies not only on the change of human behavior but the adjustment of our built environment to support that change. The shift away from indolence, lethargy, and apathy, is most certainly one of human decision, but is also one of environmental, infrastructural, cultural, and urban support. If we wait for everyone to start walking before we build the sidewalks, we are too late. Our task as designers, visionaries, thinkers, writers, activists, neighborhood members - at whatever scale and in whatever capacity that comes to us - is to produce the city that enables the population to better produce itself.

Thanks to Frances and all of my guests for their brilliant and thoughtful contributions to cause of the week. Reimagine your role, hire an architect, eat a taco, walk your kid to school - they are small, and huge, all at the same time. Here is the final installation to the guest blog series:

LA and the Global Warming Diet
Frances Anderton, host of DnA

There is no question that physical design can solve many problems. But sometimes problems are of our own making and can be tackled through changes in our own behavior.

A huge problem in LA is traffic: congestion, air quality and carbon emissions; another big problem is a large population of children at risk of obesity. I decided to put those two together and look at how we might help alleviate both, simply through ceasing to drive kids to school. Places implementing this plan call it the Global Warming Diet.

I was inspired to focus on this when I happened to see a movie called Strangers When We Meet, made in 1960. The movie is a strange melodrama featuring Kirk Douglas as a “modern” architect having a passionate affair with a housewife played by Kim Novak. What really made an impression on me was the opening scene, which depicted kids in affluent LA walking or cycling to the bus stop in their comfortable, hilly LA neighborhood - the spatial and temporal origins of auto culture - rather than being ferried in cars to their school.

Fast forward almost 50 years: I walk my four year-old daughter, Summer, to her preschool, which is a few blocks from our apartment in Santa Monica. With the exception of a couple people walking dogs, and maybe one or two parents and kids, Summer and I are alone on the streets. Typically, the streets, even in our very safe neighborhood, are empty. I find this distressing. Where are all the kids, and their parents? Even if they live just a few blocks away, Summer’s classmates tend to be driven to school.

In the past 50 years the number of kids who walk or cycle to school has dropped from around 90% to almost 10%. Not only are kids missing out on a basic, healthful, childhood experience -- walking or cycling in the neighborhood with their friends or parents – but many of the children that are not walking or cycling are in cars and that means more cars on the streets, which in turn means more congestion, more bad air, more carbon emissions and, additionally, more children not getting enough exercise.

My solution for LA is to reduce cars simply by encouraging kids to walk or cycle to school or to the school bus. While my focus is on children, and on traffic at a specific time of day, I believe the lessons of this could be applied to other kinds of trips and other demographics.

Here’s a quick look at some stats, provided to me by two national advocacy groups, Environmental Defense and Active Living By Design, as well as the Centers for Disease Control.

CONGESTION:
It is estimated that 25% of morning traffic during the school year is parents driving their kids to school.

That’s a quarter of all cars!!!

CHILDHOOD OBESITY:
Forty years ago, nearly 90% of children who lived within a mile of school walked or biked to school. Today only 13% of all trips to school are made on foot or by bike.

In that same 40 years the number of overweight children has doubled! And 35% of kids do not get regular exercise these days.

The Surgeon General says we should all have 30 minutes of physical activity per day. You can get that walking just half a mile to school and back.

AIR QUALITY
Taking cars off the streets would obviously help improve air quality, but note how driving a child to school specifically worsens their personal air quality:

Moving cars expel VOCs (that’s Volatile Organic Carbons AKA foul air pollutants) but when a car is idling, as when waiting to pick up kids from school -- it puts out 3 times the normal amount of VOCs! And if you are idling behind the tailpipe of another car, your car sucks in the air pollutants, even when you turn off the recycled air. It’s like putting kids in a smoking room. That’s what parents are doing when they sit in an idling car at school.

CARBON EMISSIONS
For each mile you drive, your vehicle creates 1.29 lbs of CO2. Multiply that by 200 days in the school year, and one mile to school (there and back, twice). Add fifteen minutes each way of idling time and you’ve expelled 1872 lbs of CO2 per year.

Multiply this by 700,000 children (the approximate number of kids in the LA School District) and that’s 6,552,000 tons put out into the atmosphere by LA parents per year.

Those are four good arguments for getting kids out of the car and onto foot or pedal. But there’s tremendous resistance from parents, on the grounds of time and distance from school, and fears -- of a child being abducted or hit by a moving car or subject to violence en route to school.
Some of these fears are legitimate, specifically accidents and, in less safe neighborhoods, violence on the street – though it’s worth noting that the most common place for a child to be hit by a car is, guess where, at a school, by another parent.

Some fears border on the paranoid, like abductions.

As one Pasadena mom who cycles with her son to school – and he is the ONLY boy in his school who does -- pointed out: “as rates of child abduction and abuse move down, rates of Type II diabetes, hypertension and other obesity-related ailments in children move up. That means not all the candy is coming from strangers. Which scenario should provoke more panic: the possibility that your child may become one of the approximately 100 children who are kidnapped by strangers each year, or one of the country's 58 million overweight adults?
And some concerns, like distance, have some validity but not enough to warrant the huge drop in kids’ walking and cycling.

CHILD ABDUCTION
Kidnapping makes up less than 2% of all violent crimes against youth and of those only 4% of all kidnappings occur near a school. Of the 800,000 abductions or so that occur annually, only around 100 were by a stranger or non-family member. Stats show that child abductions have been moving downwards over the last 20 years.

DISTANCE FROM SCHOOL
Over the last 40 years the number of schools has decreased relative to numbers of children, meaning that more children are living at a distance from their school.

In 1969, 34% of children lived less than a mile from school, and 33% lived 3 or more miles from school.

By 2001, 21% of children lived less than a mile from school, and 50% lived 3 or more miles from school.

Yes, that is a challenge, but. . .

Active transport to school has also significantly declined among children who still live less than 1 or 2 miles from school.

Not to mention, in the last five years there’s been a turnaround with 76 new schools built in LA alone.

I believe one could alleviate most of the concerns by having the parent or older family member or teacher accompany kids to school, which affords the added benefit of more leisurely time spent with our kids enjoying the neighborhood.
I also believe, following Jane Jacobs' thinking about cities, that the more kids there are on the streets, the more visibility they have and the greater safety in numbers.

This kind of thinking is already being applied elsewhere. In other parts of America – many of them as hostile to walkers and bikers as LA – communities are introducing Kids Walk-to-School programs in which convoys of kids and teachers walk together. Where possible, they are combining them with efforts at traffic calming and the creation of bike and walkable routes. You can get more info about this by clicking here.

But the real challenge here is changing a pattern of behavior and assumptions we’ve become used to.

It’s commonly viewed these days that today’s 30 and 40-something parents are the most overprotective ever, terrified of letting kids experience the big wide world - and that’s an attitude shared by overprotective schools. The Pasadena mom who rides with her son says that the school asks children NOT to cycle. I know of schools on the Westside that prioritize drivers over walkers at drop-off and pick-up.

At the same time, our careers and electronic lives are so consuming that it’s easy for us not to take time out to walk with a child and smell the roses.

But in doing so we’ve lost touch with our bodies and with our neighborhoods. So while we wait for LA to develop its public transit system, while we wait for everyone to drive a low emissions, low gas consumption car, let’s urge parents and policymakers to take a simple step towards minimizing the traffic, cleaning the atmosphere, regaining children’s health, and enlivening our neighborhoods, by getting kids back onto the streets.

Requiem for a Dying Dream?

2009-02-08T09:35:00.000-08:00

This past week I had the good fortune to be invited to the limited LA simulcast of the fantastically-inspiring TED conference. So as not to divert too much space from our third guest, I will mention now just one of the speakers and his serendipitous relevance. The founder of Twitter (which, if you don't know, is basically a free service that allows you to send mass text messages of under 140 characters to your friends/subscribers for an instant update on your current activities) was a surprise guest among the fifteen I heard speak on Friday. Though he told the story of this side project gone viral (his last side project was 'blogger' by the way) its inventive and entrepreneurial applications devised by users themselves are far more intriguing than its original limited intentions of social networking. For example, Twitter was used in the recent LA fires to report spreading flames and property conditions to an entire neighborhood in a matter of seconds. Lately, though, it's been used in LA to send salivating amateur gourmands the most current location of the hottest new meal (yes, it is mobile). Jonathan Gold, our Pulitzer prize winning food columnist, wrote just this week on Kogi, the Korean taco truck that has people lining up for HOURS in vacant parking lots to get a sliver of spicy pork, shredded cabbage, sesame and citrus (according to the expert). By subscribing to their Twitter feed, not only can you find their location, you also feel like one of their friends. Alice sends out short notes with capital 'L's which gives the slight sense that we are all in an anime with pigtails wearing knee-high leather boots (ok, maybe that's just me). The point is, our guest this week is particularly timely and relevant; beyond the objects of interest, he speaks to the deeper content of the battle over public space that mobile culture, and mobile food in particular, instigates. At least in LA, three people with a small refrigerator are combating new legal restrictions with high technology to resist the sound of the requiem.

José L.S. Gámez is an Associate Professor of Architecture, a member of the Latin American Studies faculty, and currently a Research Fellow with the Institute for Social Capital at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I was lucky enough to teach with José at UNCC where he also now serves as the Coordinator of the Design + Society Research Center for the School of Architecture. His research and design practices explore questions of cultural identity in architecture and urban design, the impacts of Latino immigration upon urban space, and critical practices in Chicano Art. In addition to his co-authored introduction in Expanding Architecture, his research is published in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies and Places: A Forum of Environmental Design. A big thank you, thank you to José for spanning space and time in this cause of the week, Requiem for a Dying Dream?

José L.S. Gámez
Requiem for a Dying Dream?

About a year ago, I wrote an essay examining the emergent public realm fostered by Latino immigrants and the mobile architecture of Taco Trucks. My aim was to show how places like Charlotte and Los Angeles are really not very different given the influences that transnational forces have brought upon urban centers across the country. Times change and what a difference a few days (well, weeks and months) can make.

Two things have happened since that essay went to print (forthcoming in a book titled Global Charlotte):

1). The economy tanked—even in recession proof Charlotte. This means that much of the construction labor force in the region, which happens to be about 90% Spanish speaking, has found itself idly biding time—a stark contrast to the Charlotte construction market just 6 months ago.

2). And, the City of Charlotte, in its infinite 21st century wisdom, passed an ordinance that limits the operating hours of Taco Trucks (they must now close up by 9:00pm), forces Taco Trucks to maintain a 400 foot distance between both residential areas and other Taco Trucks, and establishes that activities associated with Taco eating (talking loudly, listening to music, maybe even gathering to eat together with friends) can be a nuisance to local neighbors.

In these two things, Charlotte remains LA’s younger queen sister city. Our economies are, like those across the country, seemingly at a standstill. While each of us feels this in direct ways, the extent of fallout of this economic downturn can sometimes be easily overlooked—my Taco Trucks (objects of research, cultural fueling station, last bastion of public life) are vanishing. This tells me that the public policies created by officials in Charlotte and in LA (yes, LA has had an on-going Taco-based urban drama for quite a while) are putting a final nail into the coffins of some dying dreams.

So, what does this have to do with “something, one thing, that we might each do or one action that we might each take” in order to address social injustice? Last week Gail Peter Borden suggested that we hire an architect—that the value an architect can bring to any scale problem would/can be transformational.

I agree. But, with one caveat. We as designers, architects, planners, civic officials, must see that our role involves creating systems, plans, policies, programs, buildings, spaces, places and actions that are enabling not limiting. Small action with a big point—eat at a Taco Truck.

We are the architects of change and by frequenting these now embattled culinary carts, you can send a message that both supports the micro-economies of newcomers (in the case of Charlotte) or re-affirms the importance of an economy with deep historical roots (as in the case of LA). Charlotte’s Taco-based legislation illustrates how space itself is differentially allocated to various sectors of the public. Tacos have been criminalized while hot dog stands, bar-b-cue carts, and other mobile culinary ventures are allowed to move about the city without impunity. LA’s struggle is portrayed as one framed by property rights and competition in a marketplace. And, yet, for those who have no access to physical space, competition in a place of commerce is already closed. If the right to work, to participate in public culture, to life, liberty and freedom of expression are all basic freedoms to be afforded to all human beings, then those freedoms must be granted access to physical spaces in which they may be pursued.

With these cases, we see, as Ed Soja and Barbara Hooper pointed out a few years ago, processes in which difference is actively created in space not for the purposes of declaring a coalition unified in a common goal but, rather, to specifically deny access to a select group.

Nancy Fraser, the legal scholar, eloquently describes architecture and urban design (and their various collateral forms) to be part and parcel of the processes that help to define acceptable models of the public and the public realm. As such, our disciplines, more often than not, aid in the marginalization of constituent members of the public at large in part by typically promoting the notion of a public that is singular (albeit sometimes diverse). For Frazer, this limits our vision. We should think in plural forms—in terms of multiple publics each with commensurate and equal rights.

We must think differently about space itself (be it urban, rural, suburban, developed, underdeveloped, etc.). While witnessing the plight of Latino immigrants in Charlotte, I have come to see things as fundamentally tied to questions of human rights--not civil rights, which assume a sovereign state and its visible membership (this is, by definition, a limited group), but as a basic freedom to which we are all entitled.

As designers of things spatial, we must define our practice and products in terms of human rights. All people deserve equitable access to shelter, to the “public realm,” to space. And, we should demand that space be made available for those who have none. Eat a taco. Support a local immigrant entrepreneur. But most importantly, through our practices, send the message to policy makers that differential access to local spaces, places, streets, and neighborhoods is unacceptable.

** image courtesy of Izel Vargas

any action people can make?

2009-02-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

If you have been reading at all about the stimulus package currently under debate in our Congress, then you know one of its main contentions is what seems to be a kind of ideological split between 'projects that provide jobs' and 'projects that improve America for the future'. This split is not so unlike the Republican / Democratic divide where the former has a history of rebuking criticism of country as unpatriotic and the latter more typically sees the country as a work in progress. The hot topics right now are education and infrastructure (coincidentally, two of the things most near and dear to my own heart). Teachers, school administrators, parents, and students are cheering the $160 billion the Obama team has allocated to education, though job advocates are asking what short-term relief such funding will offer. The infrastructure argument is also divided between those who believe 'shovel ready' will translate into status quo priorities and results, and those who believe it's simply better to build something and pay someone to do it now for the sake of the economy than to wait, get it right, and begin to shift the very nature of American mobility. We really do find ourselves in a moment of 'disaster capitalism', where we could allow the economic catastrophe to sidetrack our ambitions in a way that is short-sighted OR we could insist on a vision that, in the long run, will catapult the intellectual and literal shape of our country into a global position of leadership. In the meantime, allowing teachers, janitors, principals, nurses, librarians, engineers, designers, concrete suppliers, etc etc to keep their jobs is no minor contribution in combating the country's economic woes. Doing it right, while capitalizing on the skills present and in process to help lead these troubled times, is its own good investment.

For this week's guest spot, Gail Peter Borden proposes such an action. Gail is currently on the faculty at the University of Southern California School of Architecture and taught previously at North Carolina State University, Catholic University, The Boston Architectural Center and Harvard University. He has worked at a host of architectural firms including Gensler and Associates, Frank Harmon Architect, and The Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Paris where he was a designer on the Potzdamerplatz Project and the renovation of the Centre Georges Pompidou. He started the Borden Partnership in 1998 and has since won numerous design awards, been featured in exhibitions from Raleigh to Hong Kong, and is regularly at national ACSA conferences presenting the latest of his prolific writings. His essay in Expanding Architecture is entitled "Propositions for a New Suburbanism" and here is his cause of the week.

any action people can make?
Gail Peter Borden, AIA

The idea of changing the world with a simple action is an inspirational vision. Hire an architect.

We live in an amazing time of change - some for the good some for the bad, some that will hopefully stay with us and some that are bumps in the societal, formal and intellectual road. To help get through these hire an architect.

Architecture and its relationship to the broader conversation of global finance, social interaction, energy, and culture is at the heart of everything and yet seems left out of the conversation. Hire an architect.

If there is one small action I can suggest that people do - it would be to: hire an architect.

The knowledge and passion and ability held by the profession is immeasurable, yet when I look at the world class talent of my designer friends and colleagues they are all underutilized and looking for opportunity with hearts full of hope. Hire an architect.

As a profession that has implications on how we learn, shop, develop our built environments, interact in the public and private realms, impacting how we grow intellectually and physically, helping to determine how we find happiness and comfort in our environments, these are all the realm of an architect. Hire an architect

Whether you want to turn your front yard into a vegetable garden or devise a new city plan. Hire an architect.

Regardless of scale or scope - perceived significance or permanence, hire an architect.

If you are worried about cost, thinking you cannot afford the services, you might be surprised. I am not trying to devalue the services offered by an architect rather promise you the return will be tenfold. Hire an architect.

2009-01-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

Today begins a short series of guest writer appearances for cause of the week, each of whom has a role in the new book Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism. Published by Metropolis Books, they introduce the text as follows:

Expanding Architecture presents a new generation of creative design carried out in the service of the greater public and greater good. Questioning how design can improve daily lives, editors Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford map an emerging geography of architectural activism that is rich in its diversity of approaches. More than thirty essays by practicing architects and designers, urban and community planners, landscape architects, environmental designers, and members of other fields present recent work from around the world that suggests the countless ways that design can address issues of social justice, allow individuals and communities to plan and celebrate their own lives, and serve a much larger percentage of the population than it has in the past.

Azure Magazine calls Expanding Architecture "the Barack Obama of books... a story about the change we need in the fields of architecture and urban design, professions that have lost their way, easily seduced by wealthy clients."

Co-editor Bryan Bell is our first guest to cause of the week. If you haven’t heard of Bryan you're probably not running in architecture circles or reading design magazines. He worked at the Rural Studio with Sambo Mockbee in the mid-80s, and has since led over a dozen of the design/build thesis projects including the Greensboro Children’s Center and the Mason’s Bend Community Center. He founded Design Corps in 1991 with the mission “to provide the benefits of architecture to those traditionally un-served by the profession.” He collaborates annually with a university or non-profit to produce the Structures for Inclusion conference which exposes new professionals to alternative forms of community-based and socially-conscious practice. SFI 9 will be in Dallas this March. (I worked with Bryan on SFI 7 in Charlotte). Finally, an interview with Bryan can be found by clicking here.

In addition to his entry that follows, Bryan suggests two courses of easy action.

1. Go to change.org and vote for his suggestions regarding sustainable policy (and to see a lot of other great activist work in progress).

and

2. Get the latest info on SFI 9 in Dallas and go to the conference to join the chorus of voices discussing progressive forms of conscientious practice.

And I will add a third, taken directly from his text that follows. Consider your vision of yourself, of how you practice in this world and what you hope that practice will contribute (and I mean 'practice' in the largest sense of the word). Lead as an activist and an advocate, regardless of your task at hand.

A big thank you to Bryan for kicking this off. Here is Bryan Bell's entry for cause of the week:

Architecture has so much unrealized potential.

The benefits of design could do so much more for so many more.

Design can play a role in addressing the most critical social, economic and environmental issues that we face.

Architects have been absorbed in what we can accomplish technically, structurally, and aesthetically. We have recently made great progress in what we can accomplish environmentally. Where we have failed, is to show what we can accomplish socially and economically.

The process of creating can allow communities and individuals to define and celebrate their lives. It can also help solve their struggles by reshaping their existence, recovering from disasters as well as meeting day-to-day challenges. This is an exciting time, not just for designers but for everyone who can potentially benefit from our greater role.

The expansion of design is a transformation of our identity, not just our vision of ourselves but a transformation in the collective consciousness of how design can make a positive difference in the world today.

This is not something proposed for the future, a master plan hatched in a few minds. It is already happening with real projects helping real people, face to face encounters on the streets and in the fields. Some are large and many are quite small. We have documented these In 30 essays, capturing a shared spirit and best practices while not limiting the richness of the great diversity of the work.

This expansion is happening in three ways:

• serving more of the public
• taking on a greater scope of issues
• offering a greater range of services

The first expansion –- serving a larger segment of the public -- has gained attention recently: that the current practice of design serves only the few, the elite, the wealthy and the powerful. I have used the statistic that 98% of new home buyers work without architects. Paul Pollack suggested the term the Cooper Hewitt used for it’s show that 90% of the world's designers focus on only 10% of the world’s population. But regardless of the statistic, the point is being made. That design could serve more.

The second expansion is design taking on a greater range of issues. Perhaps the worst limit we currently have is what is seen as design-related issues. We have limited ourselves by this narrow definition and we must ask the question again: what are design issues?

The third way this expansion is happening is in providing a wider range of services and approaches. As we embrace these new roles, we become activists engaging in action for the public good. And as the definition of activism suggests, we take intentional actions to bring about positive change. We can become activists in so many ways. I’d like to highlight a few of these mechanisms from examples in the book.

This work doesn’t have to be in another country, cost a lot, or take a major commitment. It can take place as equally through a guerrilla group of artists in Croatia or in a New York neighborhood. It can be a life-time commitment or a quick weekend project using salvaged materials. Lest anything here seem overwhelming, just remember that helping others through design is the goal and can be simple.

The concept of Expanding Architecture, of expanding all the design professions, is to move from our current limited role and realize our greater potential. We need to change our vision of ourselves first, in the goals we set for ourselves. Only then can we hope to change the public perception of what we can contribute. As these projects show, this is happening. The collective consciousness of designers role is changing, both for the professions and of the public, giving us not just an opportunity to do some good work, but to make a permanent change in our collective future.

We need to fix this idea into the collective consciousness of the general public. This is not going to happen by supernatural forces. It will only happen by many being activists; being advocates.
What we hope is that this is moving from the margins of practice to the mainstream of practice, where the needed resources and energy are available.

Our potential is waiting to be realized.

The need is undeniable.

The only thing stopping us, is us.

Now is the time to show what we can do.

USAService.org - Renew America Together.

2009-01-18T15:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, some people may be sick of Obama hype (is it possible??), but as long as his vision and my vision keep colliding like magnetic balls (and probably even way past that), I'll be here spreading the good word. The latest effort from Obamaland is Monday's Day of Service. Hard to believe it took more than 40 years and a revolutionary election for our country as a whole to be ready to live up to this call in what I imagine will be record numbers. Of course, isn't this exactly why it was a revolutionary election in the first place? Because we have come to our common senses and recognized not just our hope, but our responsibility in creating it? Coretta must be smiling as the day she worked so hard to get on the calendar is finally growing to represent the mission of the man it was intended to remember. Once again, Obama central has used the internet to make it easy for us to both find and post events where we can make individual choices that contribute to the collective call. Click here and choose something within five miles of your house or fifty to devote your time to your choice of posted worthy causes. Thanks, OTeam, for doing the work on this one.

Next week we're staring a guest writer series that I'm super excited about. Stay tuned.

Yes PeCan! and A Good Hard Kick.

2009-01-11T12:31:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a good cause is simply so good that it is effortless to take action. This one was brought to my attention through a facebook post (thanks, Marty!) and wins the creative capitalism prize for do-gooders and ice cream lovers. Reported by the Huffington Post, Ben & Jerry's will donate the proceeds from every scoop of 'Yes PeCan' ice cream sold in the month of January to the Common Cause Education Fund. And if that isn't enough, if you join common cause or donate a dollar to the Common Cause Education Fund, they will match your dollar with a dollar of their own. See the Ben & Jerry's or the Common Cause website for more information.

And even if ice cream isn't your thing, Common Cause is worth checking out. It's a "nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization...committed to honest, open and accountable government, as well as encouraging citizen participation in democracy." In addition to a national coalition, they support 36 state organizations and several city-scale branches that organize local activities devoted to government accountability and ethics. Broadly, their causes include: election reform, government accountability (including 'watchdogging the bailout'!!), ethics in government, and media and democracy. Check out their website for the political cause that fits your personal activism, or just eat more ice cream. (As if I needed another excuse!)

Secondly, I have to mention that this week's People magazine (January 12th - 19th) has a fantastic five page article on Street Soccer USA, the homeless soccer league born in Charlotte by my friend Lawrence Cann. Some of you may know the 'converted soup-kitchen parking lot' they refer to in the article as our very own ARTPARK. If you're waiting in line at the grocery store with your cart full of Yes PeCan, be sure to pick it up and take a look, pages 50 to 54 (sandwiched like Oreo filling between Oprah's weight frustration and women now half their size!).

And, oh my gosh, congratulations to Robby Johnston for being the first of his cohort (and maybe the first of my former students?) to become a registered architect! I know you take into that heady responsibility a commitment to be a conscientious leader in forming a more beautiful, meaningful, and thought-provoking world. As you have always championed, life is too short and our worlds too small for mediocrity.

So much more to come in the next few weeks. Thanks for all the encouragement, and all of your own small actions. Happy 79 degrees and sunny in LA this January.

Design Resolutions

2009-01-04T19:34:00.000-08:00

Last week the common cause was family. Sometimes that's all the work - and joy - we can each handle.

This week I'm acting as easy facilitator and passing on the annual update from one of the few architecture-based organizations borne of the dearth of design activism. An organization that was founded just under a decade ago, Architecture for Humanity continues to grow in size and influence by supporting branch chapters and global initiatives. December 27th - apparently a boxing day tradition - they posted their 'Year in Review'. Take a look at their latest accomplishments by clicking here. They also include the user friendly post 'Ten Ways to Give'. Though many of the ten are variations of a 'donate to AfH now' theme (a worthy cause), my favorite is #5, give your staff a sabbatical. If anything is true about architects, it's that we work too hard for too little money and often in the name of sacrifice and adoration of the art of making. So, regardless of your field, if you have yet to incorporate opportunities for volunteerism into the schedule of your staff, make 2009 the year to do so. If you are the staff, then maybe it's time for a grassroots suggestion. If you're willing to do a short term commitment sans salary, then you may also be donating a small bit to the survival of your own office. From all I have read, the reward in spirit revitalization and gratitude with a side effect of employee loyalty, heightened morale and new knowledge is well worth the perceivable inefficiency. It might be one day a month - time to paint a room or two, clean a park, build a ramp - or the chance to pool those days into weeks, even months, over the life of a single job. Imagine a client/office volunteer collaboration, where the way you really get to know their tastes and needs and earn their trust is through a tangible and shared commitment to a better environment. Six hours, or 6 months, no effort is wasted.

AfH also asks for your Design Resolutions. Reading the list is both inspiring and dispiriting. So many designers are stifled by the limitations of low expectations. I send good karma to everyone who is vowing to inject design back into their lives and the lives of their clients, family, friends, and unsuspecting strangers. The latter is my Design Resolution, to be produced and implemented through my course this semester at Otis College of Art & Design. This week, this year, how do you design a better world?

We don't hire people to make brownies, we make brownies to hire people.

2008-12-21T22:22:00.000-08:00

It's the Sunday before Christmas, and it's the first night of Chanukah, and I have to say just the idea of giving gifts out of necessity is something that has always made me queasy. In our relatively gluttonous society, and in this particular economic uncertainty, the very last thing we all need to be doing is spending money we don't have on things we definitely don't need and very possibly don't even want. Luckily, though, creative capitalism has meant that it is easier than ever for an altruistic company to do good while also doing well (as said by many more famous and prolific than I). The RED campaign is one example, where the Gap and other well-known retailers create a single red product whose profits partially go towards fighting AIDS in Africa. Or Tom's shoes, where for every pair of shoes we buy here, another pair is donated to a needy child. This strategy directly ties profits with philanthropy, making the process cyclical and interdependent. The greater the business's economic success, the greater its ability to do good; the more good it does, the more good it can do.

For some companies, though, they have not just adopted this premise but are founded on it. In other words, they were invented to do good, not the other way around. Greyston Bakery is probably my favorite of those, and it's partially because they make all of the brownies for all the Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Their founding motto is, "We don't hire people to make brownies, we make brownies to hire people." In particular, people who other companies might consider too risky, Greyston hires, mentors, promotes, and supports. Much of their profits go into the Greyston Mandala Foundation, which also goes back into the community through contributions to local needs like low income housing or providing public space for positive social interaction. In addition, they promote their business as a model to be emulated, therefore contributing exponentially to the landscape of good deed capitalism. All that, and you get good brownies, too. At their website you can order 12 or 48 at a time. Click here. Or, buy them locally at these locations (Park Slope Co-op, anyone?)

In a recent email from KCRW, my local NPR station, they mentioned the yellow bird project. Another cool altruism meets consumerism effort, where famous musicians design unique t-shirts sold for $25 each. The profits from each shirt are then donated to the musician's charity of choice, from Bon Iver's selection of a women's shelter in Toronto to The Shins' selection of the Nature Conservancy. Yellow Bird gets to give money to good causes while promoting musical artists they think are both creative and conscientious. All that, and you get a t-shirt too. Click here.

So, don't give people crap they don't want this year. Make something together, give thoughtful deeds, or buy brownies and t-shirts and get a great two for one. Choose well, and choose good, skip the relegation to the attic, and let your gift count twice, and maybe then some.

REPLATE

2008-12-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

First of all, if you missed last week's post, please scroll down and take a look. Coming up on December 20th (this Saturday!), 27th, and 28th, the Los Angles Poverty Department (LAPD) will be presenting a fascinating and free piece of theater written by Ron Allen. I had a brief preview of one of the monologues over some very tasty Chinese food last week, and I can tell you it looks like it will be quite entertaining. I'm planning on going to the show on the 20th if anyone else wants to join me.

What I have learned in the first few months of this adventure in spreading change is that a lot of causes need a lot of money, and particularly right now, forking over our own limited cash is harder than it was even a year ago. In addition, to be honest, it starts to seem like giving money is somehow a substitute for action. Don't get me wrong - sometimes money is the best answer, or the one most appropriate and generous for you or the cause at hand, but what I'm hoping to put into the public eye here are ways we can ACT that will make a difference. Some efforts really are clear actions, some are variations on current actions, and some might be considered 'awarenesses'. I'm still figuring this all out.

This week I heard a story on KCRW's Good Food program about food waste, which we all know, particularly post-Thanksgiving, is rampant in this simultaneously ambitious and generally lazy society (oh, I'll buy greens and squash and fish and make soup and grill and... zzzzzzzzzz). A movement called REPLATE is emerging out of San Francisco. The gist is this: rather than taking home our own leftovers to quite possibly squander them in an already abundant fridge, or dumping them in the trash when you realize you're too lazy to carry them, why not leave them - fully wrapped and ready to be eaten - on TOP of the street table we often call a trash can so someone else might reap the benefits of your much appreciated fullness. REPLATE's catch phrase - you might already be an activist - takes an easy action and makes it matter. So, give it a try yourself (we actually DID pass on a selection of leftovers from that LAPD meeting) and then spread the word.

The Frequently Asked Questions on the REPLATE site contribute also to the conversation about activism (is the bar too low?) as well as health and humanity. I would add, of course this kind of system works best when there are people on both sides who participate. And, please, if you have the flu, stay home in the first place. Here are their FAQs (see you on the corner):

We started this project because we noticed that people in West Coast cities and beyond were leaving their leftovers on top of (or next to) garbage cans when they couldn't find someone to give them to. We thought this behavior was worth talking about, so we gave it a name.

Now that it has a name, there's been a lot of good conversation.

Here are the issues that keep coming up:

Won't the food go bad and make people sick?
People are eating food out of the trash. They are digging into public trash cans, pulling out old, dirty food, and eating it. Surely food that's on top of the trash, and not mixed in with the muck, is less likely to make a person ill. Surely food that's in plain sight and easily accessible will be picked up sooner (and thus in a fresher state) than food that's hidden in the trash.

The idea of food left outdoors feels messy.
Some have worried that food will rot or that rats will get to it before hungry people do. This is a legitimate concern in small towns or sparsely populated areas, but certainly not in a town like San Francisco where, at any given moment, there are many people without enough to eat. [However, I have to add, this is not a mass excuse for litter or laziness. The heart of generosity is giving away something of value, something that you yourself might still want or use. In other words, your discarded pizza crusts are not equivalent to dinner. Keep in mind - litter is evil. More on that another time.]

Why not just eat your own leftovers?
Of course. Many of us do. But sometimes you just don't, for any number of reasons. Rather than toss 'em out, or go traipsing through the city looking for a hungry person, maybe the next best thing is to replate them.

Incompatible trash cans.
Apparently, New York City trash cans don't have hoods or ledges, so there's no horizontal surface on which to replate. This isn't as big a problem as some have suggested. If you want to give someone the food you're not going to eat, simply put it next to the trash can, or on a newspaper dispenser.

Evil people.
There's a strange paranoia in the conversation about evil people poisoning the food. Sure, it could happen. But you could also get pushed in front of the subway train. Or someone could put razor blades in your Halloween candy. People could betray your trust in any number of ways, but if you ride the subway, or eat Halloween candy, you know that the fear far outweighs the actual risk.

The City should officially get involved.
Some have suggested formalizing a leftovers drop-off point like a food bank, free dining room, or some city-sponsored receptacle. We think that's a great idea. Make it happen.

If replating your leftovers counts as activism, then the bar for activism is set way too low.
Maybe that's true, but though the first steps of activism (however you define it) are small ones, they form the foundation for the giant leaps to come. And replate is just the beginning of a conversation that we hope will inspire greater action.

And don't forget that this is an open-source movement. It's yours as much as anybody's, and you can build on it however you want. [I personally LOVE this sentiment, and feel it is the central and overriding cause of 'cause of the week']

So if you don't think it's activism yet. And if you want to make replate bigger and badder and more hardcore, we've got a hunch you'll get all the support you'll need.

If you have more questions or want to expand the conversation, email us at:

leftovers [at] replate [dot] org

To hear the whole show on Good Food, go here.

2008-12-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT PRESENTS
"MY EYES ARE THE CAGE IN MY HEAD"
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY RON ALLEN

"My Eyes Are The Cage In My Head" depicts the reality of a tethered humanity in search of itself through desire and self-destructive relationships. Ron Allen subverts language to teach and deconstruct social models and create visions of new worlds.

'Ron Allen's raw, ultra-poetic examination of the African American experience rips into its targets to locate the true nature of freedom within one archetypal black man's mind.' - LA WEEKLY

Three Performances at three locations
All performances are free!

Saturday Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. at The Box Gallery, 977 Chung King Road in Chinatown
Saturday Dec. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Church of the Nazarene, entrance on the corner of San Pedro and 6th Street, on Skid Row
Sunday Dec. 28, at 6:30 p.m. at the Industry Cafe & Jazz, 6039 Washington Blvd. in Culver City

Ron Allen is a poet, playwright and teacher who lives and works in Los Angeles. This project continues LAPD's relationship with Allen, building on the 2006 production of "Fried Poetry", presented at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center and Skid Row's James Wood Community Center. Allen also taught in LAPD 's 2007 summer changeXchange workshop.

LOS ANGELES POVERTY DEPARTMENT creates performance work that connects lived experience to the social forces that shape the lives and communities of people living in poverty. For more information, www.lapovertydept.org

LAPD's production of "my eyes are the cage in my head" is funded in part by the City of LA Cultural Affairs Department with the National Endowment for the Arts.

My Economic Plan (a cause of a different sort)

2008-12-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

So, my plan is this, and it is two-fold. First, I have always been a fan of the Ben & Jerry's model, and they seemed to make plenty of money. They had a pay ratio where the highest paid employee could only make a factor of what the lowest paid employee made. At one point I think it was a factor of 10. So, obviously, if the lowest paid employee made $30,000 then the top earner would make $300,000. Seems like an empathetic way to run a company.

Second, I'm taking the model of NPR fund raising. Regularly you hear someone call in to offer a matching incentive for donor donations. When you look at Forbes' list of the top 400 US billionaires, nearly all of them are related to the banking/fund management industry. This is but one example of those on the top making extraordinary gains off the hard work of those on the bottom. I propose (and include a retroactive application to the bank bailouts) that those seeking financial assistance from US (tax payers, our government) be required to first put up a matching donation, be it on a one to one basis or as a factor of the overall contribution - before we are willing to take the risk with our own finances. This makes the risk one that is mutually shared, mutually gained and mutually lost. So, again maybe an obvious example (and I will reduce the numbers here for the sake of all of our sanity) if GM asks us to take $1 million away from our other investments that need it (schools, roads, crime prevention, social services) at the very least the individuals responsible for the gains and losses of the company - those who have made so much for so long - will be required to contribute from their personal finances, say, a 50% match, or $500,000. Not only does this make them more invested in the process and makes their risk somewhat equivalent, it also reinvests the process with real VALUES, that the cost of success is sometimes sacrifice, and that you have to work hard and contribute, not ask for hand outs when the storm arrives.

And, finally. Bonuses? I'm a teacher. And a taxpayer. And a student. And an artist. I work very hard, and I work very hard advocating for others and preparing our next generation to be American visionaries. I've never gotten a bonus doing this work. The fact that AIG had to say explicitly that they will not be giving bonuses this year is scandalous. The fact that any of these bloated - and FAILING - companies are giving bonues this year is scandalous. I challenge every executive who has reaped the benefits of high living over the last decades to make this a time of real altruism, to set up a financial services non-profit to help those on the verge of losing their homes, to develop creative loan solutions or find ways to give grants or match funds for those who need it most. If our universities can do it, can't the guys who know even more about money? or supposedly know so much about business?

It's time to end the old ways, and seek change in the way business is done. No more rich getting richer, lets get back to a rising tide and lift all boats. Let's use the expertise at the top not to fly to DC in a private plane panhandling our government, but on the streets, where some people have to live in their cars because it's all they have.

exercising in spirit

2008-11-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is always one of those times of the year when we feel more inclined to be generous. Maybe because there is much to be thankful for in our own lives, or maybe because of the guilt that comes with gluttony. In the Jewish tradition, as in many others, there is an ingrained link between food and love which has led to many hefty, well-loved Jewish children and generations of dieting neuroses. Maybe for this reason, too (the equating food with love, not the neuroses) we find that food-based holidays generate a ritualistic impulse to spread the food, and hence the love. Though the first of the seasonal holidays has come and gone - which means the downhill to the consumer capitalist monster of all holidays is on its way - we know this year that the need at food banks and soup kitchens is higher now than it has been in the last ten years. In 2007, when financial consequences were even less extreme than they are now, 1 in 25 US households reduced their food intake due to a financial shortage, and 1 in 6 households with children could not afford adequate sustenance. (USDA from Time, 12/01/08)

As Thanksgiving comes and goes, and many of us have volunteered to give out a turkey, or a basket, or donate a day to the soup kitchen, remember that there are 364 other days in the year, and we all need to eat on each and every one of those days as well.

I want to reprint an email I got from John Mathews, a quiet guy who works at the front office in the Department of Urban Planning at the School of Public Affairs. It seems he ran a 10k for the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services Center and still needs to raise $70 to reach his total goal of $250. I think his spirit of humor, with a touch of truth, is worth supporting. Let's see if we can put John over his goal, even if it's one yam at a time. I sure wish I had done this instead of that extra five pounds of potatoes!

Look, you know you all hate it, that avalanche of food that overwhelms you during the holidays! What do you do with it all? Well, here's a chance to get rid of that problem once and for all!

Donate some money that would normally go towards a second tray of mashed potatoes, or yams, or some other horrible tragedy of food that would just be piled on more food and smother you in your sleep. Take that money instead and give it to some people on the street who are hungry. Make it their problem!

Click here!

After all, why should you have to deal with too much food for the holidays? You work hard all year. Get rid of that extra food, donate canned goods, and donate some cash so that all that extra food can be someone else's problem! You deserve it!

Happy Holidays!

-John

homeless street soccer at UCLA. Join US!

2008-11-23T16:10:00.001-08:00

On their way to the HOMELESS STREET SOCCER WORLD CUP IN MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA (Nov 24-Dec.8th) the founder of Street Soccer USA (SSUSA), Lawrence Cann, and members of his team, will speak at the School of Public Affairs this Tuesday evening.

Join us to discuss their personal experiences, share the positive effects of sports programs in combating homelessness, see clips from their documentary & play some soccer on the roof.

5391 School of Public Affairs Bldg.

Now headquartered in NY under the umbrella of HELP USA, SSUSA launched its pilot program in 2004 out of the Urban Ministry Center in Charlotte, NC. SSUSA has reached more than 20% of chronically homeless living in Greater Charlotte, and realized a 75% success rate in effecting a positive life change such as addressing a substance abuse problem or mental health issue, securing full-time employment or moving off the streets.

Eight homeless men ranging in age from 19 to 41 and residing in California, Georgia, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, and Texas will constitute Street Soccer USA's 2008 National Team. They will compete with 47 other nations in a 4 versus 4 soccer tournament. Check out these links to learn more:
www.streetsoccerusablog.com; www.helpusa.org; www.homelessworldcup.org

marriage - it's not just for straight masochists!

2008-11-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

LA does everything big. Right now, even two mountain ranges away, I can smell the smoke from the Sayre Fire, one of three major areas still burning outside of Los Angeles. The winds have died down a bit, but the destruction is massive and hundreds of people newly homeless. Some sites estimate up to 40,000 people have been evacuated in the three fires combined. If you're reading this while the news is still happening, check here for the latest fire maps. If you follow the 405 or the 5 south, I live between them in West Hollywood. It's strange to live in a place with almost no rain, humidity hovering in the single digits, and such extreme weather when it does come. This is Santa Ana wind season - hot, fast, dry. It's November and it was nearly 90 degrees yesterday.

Speaking of yesterday... Yesterday a group called Join the Impact helped organize cross-country protests against proposition 8 (and other recent legislation) that is attempting to impose discriminatory and unequal rights eliminating the recently won right to marry for gays and lesbians. In the midst of a historic and awe-inspiring election, it was one giant sour note for Prop 8 to pass here, even if by a slim margin. To imagine the rationale of people willing to remove the constitutional right of fellow humans is beyond my comprehension. So, the cause of the week this week is, generally, equal rights, more specifically gay equal rights, and most specifically the newly developed Join the Impact. Check out their website. Volunteer, join a protest, post your support. And, then, check out this list of supporters of the 'Yes on Prop 8' campaign (Thanks, Tim!) and use the power of your dollars to peacefully choose to go elsewhere.

2008-11-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

What a week! When contemplating driving to downtown LA on Wednesday to hear what I was sure would be a fantastic discussion between Wolf Prix and Sylvia Lavin regarding the brand new tower of a school on Grand Avenue, I told my friend Whitney: This week I have chosen the election over architecture. That, I believe, is a shift of consciousness. Or, at the very least, an overt awareness of a shift long in the making.

To vastly oversimplify, I used to see the world through architecture, but now I see architecture through the world. There will be more on that in the weeks to come.

But now, to bask for one more moment in the glory that is this just-passed election.... wow. wow. wow. And the big wow is that we all did it together, we all focused our energy, gave of our time, joined in the cause. What it represents to me is not only the ground breaking idea of who Obama is as a person - black, mixed race, underdog, young, vital, vibrant, liberal, kind, considerate, prioritizing equity, education and rights; or that we all feel we are part of his family, part of his inner circle; or that the rest of the world is once again on our team. What it represents to me is that one person really can change the world. One person really can make a difference. Whatever he does from here on out may be scrutinized, may be more or less what we hope for in terms of our own political objectives, but there is no question that he has mobilized, energized, and unified - locally to globally - in a way I have not seen in my lifetime. It is that engagement, that excitement, that sense of purpose and generosity that we must absorb, expand, export.

In light of that, I ran across an article on the NPR website that Obamaizes the famous JFK aphorism, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." (click here for a link to the article) Though I find his example of journalism a bit weak, his sentiment is strong. In this week, and the weeks to come, what is it we can each do to bring that sense of generosity, equity, and optimism to our own smaller sphere? And not necessarily where it is easiest - to family and friends - but to your community and to your profession. What is a more equitable and optimistic law firm, architecture practice, university, insurance company, film studio, lower school, retail store? What part can it play, can they play, can you play? What can we learn as individuals, as practitioners of our own art, as citizens and humans from this past campaign and its successes? 'Yes we can' is so resolutely different from 'country first' because it is all inclusive, undeniably optimistic, personal, confident and yet egoless.

Many of us got a bit teary on Tuesday, and again when the newspaper covers appeared on Wednesday. I thought it was over until I got a link to this flikr site. Who but Obama would make us feel like we were in the room with him when it happened? Sitting there, watching the TV returns just like we all were doing across the country, across the world, just another member of this family, our family, all of us.

TOMORROW

2008-11-03T17:31:00.000-08:00

As you may have heard, it's election week. Tomorrow we have a historic opportunity to turn what started out as a long shot grassroots movement into a real opportunity for nation wide change. To me, this election is not only about a vast divide in policy, but a vast difference in ideology. We have the chance to move our country toward equity, opportunity, creativity, and education. What more important ideals are there if not those? If you need one last push, or if you need to know where to vote, take a look at the latest (and last?) video of this election season.

We are all generally less informed about the 15 propositions on the California ballot. Though my research was not exhaustive, I have scoured the for and against positions, the rebuttals, and the press on most of them, and offer the following for anyone who cares to read my conclusions:

1A (Safe, Reliable, High-speed passenger train bond) and R (Traffic Relief, Rail extensions, Reduce Foreign Oil Dependence): These two transit measures are highly controversial as light rail and subway take a much higher up front cost to produce than buses, yet are much less flexible, carry fewer total passengers, and tend to cater to a more affluent ridership. The bus system in LA is a system of necessity for LA's working poor and is often short-changed in the allocation of funds. R in particular is a regressive tax, burdening all who live in LA county an additional 1/2 cent sales tax for the next 30 years. The Bus Riders Union and the Strategy Center are OPPOSED to R. However, I fear we will not be able to get a better option on the table for comprehensive transit planning that includes transit variety and forward-thinking strategies for mobility, so I'm supporting both 1A and R. If you want to read their position, though, here is a link.

2 (Standards for Confining Farm Animals): This seems to be an 'animal rights' bill, but in actuality it also has several implications for health and disease, as well as balancing the opportunities for small farms with the monopolies of their large bossy brothers. I'm voting yes on 2 because of those latter reasons.

4 Waiting period and parental notification before termination of minor's pregnancy, initiative CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT) NO NO NO on 4. By requiring any woman under 18 to seek parental approval and abide by a 48 hour waiting period prior to receiving an abortion, countless teenagers will seek dangerous, possibly life threatening alternatives. In addition, the right to confidential counseling and reproductive choices should be extended to all women, regardless of age. What we really need is accessible and accurate sex education and birth control options so every woman is knowledgeable and prepared - if at all possible - prior to the time of unwanted pregnancy.

5 (nonviolent drug offenses, sentencing, parole, and rehab) I'm voting yes on 5, which invests in treatment programs that help keep those at risk from enacting crimes in the first place.

6 (police and law enforcement funding, criminal penalties and laws) The Strategy Center says it better than I can: Proposition 6 exploits the fear of crime in urban areas in order to position the prison and police system as the one and only solution to the symptoms of urban neglect and structural racism—drugs, crime and violence—and in doing so, further criminalize the youth and communities of the inner city and further take from social welfare programs. No on the 6.

7 (renewable energy generation): This is a hidden agenda initiative which actually does not support the best and most productive environmental policy. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, this and the 10 (alternative fuel vehicles and renewable energy) are misleading and misguided. No on both 7 and 10.

8 (eliminates rights of same-sex couples to marry. initiative CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT) NO NO NO NO on 8. No matter how you feel about gay marriage - which I aggressively support - our constitution (state or federal) is not intended to TAKE AWAY the rights of any individual in our country. Support equal rights for everyone - no no no on 8.

9 (criminal justice system, victim's rights, parole, initiative constitutional amendment and statute) Again, The Strategy Center: Nicholas' Initiative - Weakens the limited rights of parolees. Prop 9 masks its intentions in the concept of “victims rights.” While no one deserves to be the victim of violence and its pain and trauma are not easily reconcilable, it is necessary that we challenge the reactionary nature of the victim’s rights movement that in fact increases the intensity of state violence against Black and Latino communities. In 2007, of the approximately 173,000 California prisoners, 50% are in for technical parole violations (meaning no new “crime” has occurred), and less than 1% of 5,520 scheduled hearings resulted in someone being released from prison. No on 9.

12 ( veteran's bond act of 2008) - Yes on 12, which is a no cost initiative that extends a program of loans for VA home buying.

The three I have not covered I simply don't know enough about. They sound good on paper - more children's hospitals, more school support, safe healthy neighborhoods - but the first especially seems to already have money in the bank unspent. My inclination from my own reading is No on 3 (hospitals), and Yes on J and Q (community colleges and schools).

Whatever side you take, I encourage you to VOTE, and at the end of the day, fingers crossed, to CELEBRATE.

(thanks to Alvaro, my own personal science advisor, for working through these with me in the car to Nevada this weekend! Photo credits from the Henderson rally go to him, with my touch of design. GObama!)

2008-10-29T20:37:00.001-07:00

two weeks two days and four years

2008-10-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

As my millions of readers may have noticed, last week came and went with no 'cause of the week'. There's just so much election on my mind I'm having a hard time letting anything else in (Larry David's weigh in about waiting is spot on). I'm holding my breath as swing states do their swinging thing, talking up the talking points, and sticking stickers on anything not already stuck. I tried to vote early, but found out that the reason my LA County option is an hour away from my house is that by law each county can only have one early voting site. Considering LA County could swallow whole many of the states in this country, I'll have to wait until the 4th. That said, as these final days to the election approach, vote early if you can. Also, take a listen to this week's This American Life if you missed it. The story looks at Pennsylvania, a tricky and important swing state. Part one follows student volunteers who registered 16,000 new voters and part two follows voter activists talking to union members about race, what they've learned about racism and their neighbors, and why bigotry has no place in policy. Click on Ground Game.

In California, there is tremendous controversy over the 15 state, county, and school propositions on the ballot. For example, though Measure R claims to be a comprehensive plan for LA transit, many residents are arguing that it prioritizes high ticket items (light rail, airport links, subway extensions) that serve the affluent to the detriment of investments in new buses, bus routes, and bus lanes (which already have unfilled commitments on the table). Measure R would impose a half cent sales tax across the board for 30 years. Those who need it most, those represented by the Bus Riders Union and its Strategy Center, are against Measure R. There is also prop 10, which seems to support alternative fuel use and pro-eco measures like renewable energy resources, but is also apparently funded by the man who monopolizes the local distribution of same alternative fuel resources and is expected to line his pockets with some prop 10 gold. I'm still in the process of doing the research on these.

There are, however, two I am sure of:

No on Prop 8, and No on Prop 4.

Prop 8 is the discriminatory proposal that initiates a constitutional amendment to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. There are so many arguments against this -- the first being that it is flat out discrimination based on sexual preference and the last being that heteros certainly don't have such great role model marriages yet we still get to do it -- that to even consider not voting against prop 8 should be criminal.

Prop 4 institutes a waiting period and parental notification requirement "before termination of a minor's pregnancy." Not only could this result in the dangerous seeking of illegal options - most detrimental to unprotected minors - but it could also result in notification procedures to parents who might not prioritize the interest of their children's rights and safety foremost. Prop 4 is a dangerous step backwards in the rights of all women to make personal, safe, and confidential decisions about their own family planning options. However, it further emphasizes the need for accurate, thorough, and available sex education to everyone along with prevention and protection measures. See the Planned Parenthood site for further new initiatives to fight the latest administrative plan to allow health care providers to impose their personal morality on the options provided to patients who expect and deserve factually accurate and inclusive medical advice.

Next Sunday will be two days before the election, and I can only imagine that the one cause on my mind will be helping to elect the candidate who looks out for all the causes I believe in - education, equity, rights, opportunity. After that, we'll branch out again and find other things we can do each week to change the world. This week get educated on your options, stand up for the little guy, and VOTE vote vote vote vote.

street soccer usa - just do it.

2008-10-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

This blog was started as a way to turn the desire to help into real action. Few programs do that as well as Homeless Street Soccer. Yes, HOMELESS street soccer. This program, initiated in the US in my former home town of Charlotte, North Carolina, has expanded to more than a dozen cities throughout the country. The Homeless World Cup is similar to the non-homeless version in that it operates as a competitive global sports event with team representation from around the world. The difference, of course, is that these team members have struggled through a range of difficult circumstances including living on the streets, joblessness, hunger, and in some cases abuse and addiction. Soccer gives them the opportunity to find new meaning in their lives, to develop an identity beyond their disadvantages, to learn new physical, emotional, and social skills, and to bond with team members and competitors from weekly practice to the global stage of international competition.

This year's competition will be held in Australia, and the US Team needs your help to fund their trip. You might think this seems extravagant; that spending $2000 on travel, training, lodging, and other expenses couldn't possibly be as useful as spending it on a down-payment for an apartment or a couple months worth of food (of course, if you've seen the documentary on the Homeless World Cup - Kicking It! - you know the magnitude and power of the event). But in the 'teach a man to fish' philosophy, being one of the select few given the honor to represent your country, to hone and show your skills, to be cheered on by strangers, to work as a team, to succeed at this one thing, might very well be the event that turns a life around. And that new life might go on to inspire the lives of others, the optimism of others, the giving of others.

When financial times are hard, you can imagine they are even harder for those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. Already there is buzz about the difficult holiday season to come. Imagine what it can teach your children, who might also be interested in sports, or your relative who played soccer as a child himself or herself, to give a gift in their name. It might cost you less than a new sweater, and mean a whole lot more.

My friend Lawrence Cann started this program (and, yes, this is the same Urban Ministry Center I mentioned in the Artworks auction blog). Below is his letter to you, contact information, and ways you can contribute. The Homeless World Cup is our cause of the week.

US Homeless World Cup Participation

Several years ago we started a soccer team because we thought our homeless clients would benefit from team sports. They literally took the ball and ran with it. Then a bunch of other cities got their own balls and they all started running. Check out our blog to see news of the 11 cities which now run street soccer programs. In the US, it all started here at the Urban Ministry Center.

The prospects for the future are looking fantastic. However, after hosting a great qualifying event this summer, we currently have a gap in our funding for our participation in the Homeless World Cup coming up in December. We must meet our funding goal soon to insure that we can proceed with plans to participate in the competition. Unfortunately we are still $15,000 short. Therefore we are making this grassroots funding plea. Thanks to great support from Corporations and a few individuals, we haven't had to do this in the past. Now we need those of you who value what this program achieves, and are able, to make substantial contributions.

Participation per player in the Homeless World Cup costs $2000. Our USA National team includes 13 people.

The coaches, as well as other staff, and even some of the players have all donated so far. Please join us with a donation of whatever you can - $100 or more would be greatly appreciated. Without exception, the players have taken full advantage of the opportunity and have all made impressive turnarounds. Please let us know if you can join us as a donor. Pay when you can, any time between now and the end of December. But please, please let us know as soon as possible if you do want to make a pledge.

I am available all the time on my cell phone (704 975 5755) to talk about the project and the impact it is having on the players, or email me at the address below. Seventy five percent of team members move off the street within 18 months of sticking with the team!

Donations can be taken online at www.urbanministrycenter.org under the donate tab. Or checks can be mailed to:

Urban Ministry Center
945 N. College Street
Charlotte, NC 28206

Please earmark them "world cup" and add "cause of the week" if you want us to know you read it here!

Thank you so much. All donors will be recognized as Club Members on our site and be sent updates on the team's performance at the Homeless World Cup.

Best,

Lawrence Cann
lawrence@streetsoccerusa.org
www.streetsoccerusa.org

complete this cause, and it boosts all the others... 30 more days

2008-10-05T16:44:00.000-07:00

My personal cause of the week today is the 200 plus pages of reading for Sylvia Lavin's theory class, but that's just me. School has started, and it is a large rolling stone speeding up ever faster for the months to come. I'm doing my best to be on the sunny side, or the mossy side, or even on the shiny cover, but not under the rock itself.

Regardless. Michelle Obama tells me (in a personal email, of course) that tomorrow is the deadline to register to vote in Ohio. Ohio voters can also choose to vote early by tomorrow, which means the very first actual votes will go on record in the next few days! After all the chatter (and some patronizing winks and smirks in the last two weeks) I know we're all ready to get this voting going. The Obama website has a simple way to get involved in encouraging your neighbors - or your emotional neighbors in far away swing states - to register and to vote. By signing up on their website, you can get names, phone numbers, and/or addresses of folks with which you can share your personal Obamalove. For those who aren't into one-on-one political encouragement, head down to your local hq and help sell stickers, assemble yard signs, or fill out paperwork. And for the least physically active and most financially active option, you can always fund a commerical, sponsor a registration trip, pay for someone else to join the team on your behalf. Or, do something creative - make a film, write a song, paint a painting to support voter registreation - and post it here. (I'm going to write a blog entry!) So, let's get Ohio on our team, and North Carolina, and Colorado, and Nevada, and let's win this thing, so we can get back to all the other causes that need us, too.

Let's be huge, together.

2008-10-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

This day in political history: James Meredith became the first black student admitted to the University of Mississippi, accompanied by 16,000 federal troops sent to Oxford (Oct. 1, 1962). (from Ken Rudin's 'political junkie')

There's simply something phenomenal about the smallness of one person and the hugeness it takes to overcome such ingrained discrimination. There have been many steps between those of Meredith and those to the stage of the most recent presidential debate.

one spice girl away from secession and over-population

2008-09-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

The day after the first presidential debate between McCain and Obama, all I truly feel is that the divide between the positions of the two candidates and the parties and people they now represent is cataclysmic. Any illusion of partisan-free progress is dead, and had it not already been dead a month ago, McCain's VP nomination would have killed it. His selection is a gallop towards division, and the country now faces an election divisive at the civil war level. These are not mild disagreements, but divergent cosmologies; these are fundamentally opposed views of the natural world, the responsibilities of government, and the rights of all humans. There is no maybe, there is no grey, there is only I deserve to exist and be bailed out by the government and you do not. So let's return for one minute to Obama's speech at the DNC, where his diplomatic demeanor insisted on providing examples where the approach might be different, but common ground is still possible. He eloquently reminded us of the semantic battle around reproductive rights. Everyone I know is for life, and all support reproductive freedoms for women. What we hope to reduce in this world is not knowledge or access, but unwanted pregnancies and the difficult procedure of abortion. No one wants to have to make that choice, but the choice must be there nonetheless. The fewer who have to make it due to better education and better access to birth control, the better for all of us. So this week I hope you'll take action with Planned Parenthood to not only continue the fight for women's rights across the country, but to also help defeat dangerous state initiatives by protecting teens in California, privacy in Colorado, and rights to access in South Dakota. And while you're at the PP site, be sure to let the woman in the race know that she's not the woman for you.

SCI, TRC, and everything else that matters

2008-09-21T13:57:00.000-07:00

In a continued discussion about who has rights to the city, particularly the street, this week I draw your attention to an event organized by the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN ) to combat an initiative that has further criminalized the homeless population in downtown LA. This email was received from LACAN and the event is scheduled for this Thursday:

The second "anniversary" of the Safer Cities Initiative (SCI) in downtown Los Angeles is coming September 25th. Join downtown residents in calling for the end of SCI and demanding housing and respect for all human rights in our communities!

*Thursday, September 25, 2008*
*10:00 AM - 2:00 PM*
*Skid Row Community 10:00 AM at San Julian Park OR 9:30 AM at LA CAN

As many of you know, SCI was touted as a public safety initiative that would include increased housing and services for homeless residents of downtown. Instead it has consisted entirely of punitive efforts that have damaged our community and residents for the long-term. For example:

v In the first year of SCI, LAPD issued about 12,000 citations, primarily for "walk/don't walk" violations. This is 48 to 69 times the rate of citations given City-wide. Citations given to homeless and other low-income people inevitably lead to warrants and arrest.
v About 750 arrests have been made PER MONTH, in a community that's home to only about 13,000 people. The majority of arrests are drug related and, due to efforts by the District Attorney to escalate charges, most people will be ineligible for Food Stamps and subsidized housing upon their release.
v Law enforcement has not focused on serious crimes. Among the first 1,350 arrests by the SCI task force, only 22 were for serious, violent crimes.
v The cost of the extra police officers alone is $6 million per year, not to mention court and incarceration costs. $6 million per year could provide housing subsidies and services for 350 homeless people. Jail costs $63 per day, housing and services cost $45 per day.

It is unacceptable that the City of Los Angeles has implemented this failed policy for two years already - and it simply cannot continue. Many downtown residents and organizations have opposed this policy since its inception. However, it is time for the entire City of Los Angeles to speak out and demand an end to SCI before it enters its third year.

For additional information please contact Pete White at 213-228-0024

Also, I have many friends who are either displaced or without power - or both - in the wake of hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The Red Cross is seeking replenishment to its currently over-tapped Disaster Relief Fund. Money in this fund goes to support shelters, counseling, and emergency supplies for disaster victims. You can donate by going to their website; calling 800-REDCROSS; or mailing in a contribution to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013.

Finally, this entry is an effort on my part to not talk about the upcoming election. No matter what cause of the week I was considering earlier today, they all seemed somehow affected by who will take over in the white house come January. The environment, the economy, social services, reproductive rights - all will change, for the better or for the much worse, depending on the votes cast in 44 days. So for now I'll just remind you to register, read, and be ready to act. And consider what Anne Lamott said in her piece in Salon this week - let's not let our energy be sucked into the vortex of the evil possibilities that have been put before us, but let's continue to promote the virtues of the positive and the possibilities of positions we believe are equitable, just, and forward-thinking.

post-parking 3.1b

2008-09-20T12:59:00.001-07:00

Here is an image from our park(ing) spot yesterday. What a wonderful sunny day to hang out on the street with cool people and distribute information about the state of public space in America. Of course, actions speak louder than words, and in the end I think many of us are more concerned than ever that public space is only vaguely public in this neoliberal city. Though we successfully negotiated with the parking patrol (who turned out to be a very nice woman who made a phone call to her supervisor on our behalf) we were not so lucky with the woman who owns the knitting shop down the street. Because we didn't have an official permit (isn't that part of the point?) and she had called in a formal complaint, the policeman had to insist we disassemble. Who knew that parking spaces and sidewalks really are not public space. Prior to that, though, we had a fun full day of truck driving, measuring, gluing, griding, eating, and laughing. Big apologies to the band and all their musical friends who were willing to play for our event that died an early death due to the crankiness of a crazy knitter. But big thanks for the semi-private performance post-parking. Let's do it again soon everyone.

3.2 the power of sharing

2008-09-14T15:56:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago I found myself at the opening of the new Los Angeles headquarters for the Obama campaign. They had expected a couple hundred supporters to show up and see the office, but nearly 1000 people came so they moved the activities into the parking lot and street. I snuck upstairs and there were already 30 or 40 people crammed into the office, trying to buy buttons and bumper stickers, shirts, yard signs. It was chaotic and exciting and I found myself at one point on the other side of the counter, assembling signs and handing out forms and before I knew it, I was a volunteer by default. This was the day after McCain's announcement of a running mate. I was already an Obama fan before that announcement, thanks to my very thorough and persuasive Obama support group here in WeHo as well as my natural alignment with his platform. After that announcement, though, the race took on a whole new meaning for me and for every woman - no, every person - who believes in equal rights of all sorts, in the importance of things like good education for everyone, and in the core tenets of the American constitution. By this point, everyone knows the appalling statistics, including an anti-choice position so strong that it trumps health, the law, and basic human morality; an anti-education position so strong that no knowledge is preferred over real knowledge which means all our children, not just hers, would suffer the consequences of not knowing the consequences. It is too important to not act, even if the actions are small.

When I left the Obama headquarters I had in my bag a stack of small stickers made from the now famous Shepard Fairey HOPE poster. What I love about Fairey's design is that it is equal parts art and politics and has generated a viral string of creative expressions spawning energy in the grassroots support of the election - not so unlike Rock the Vote linked young musical groups with voter registration. (This LA weekly article does a good job telling the Fairey/Obama/Sergant story.) My goal last week was to hand out those phone-sized stickers, get people to put them on their phones (we all know how many backs of cell phones we see every day!) and talk to everyone I could about the election, voting, and the facts of the platform. Remember that commercial - you'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on and so on and so on. For those of you who know someone who is undecided or more shocking yet, not registered to vote, this is the week for the small steps to happen, for those who don't know the candidate's positions on the things they might find to be most important, to go to a website and get as informed as possible, then they can tell two friends, and so on and so on. So, yes, regardless of who you might be for in this campaign (though if you're willing to listen, I can certainly tell you what I think!) the cause of this week is to get everyone registered, get everyone talking, and make your own support VISIBLE.

These are the newly committed phones of my two new friends from Terroni, John and Trusty (photo credits to Whitney and her iphone, also bearing Obama sticker). John is my new favorite bartender, playwright, and actor. His one man show about surfing as a metaphor for love that is also a benefit for cancer might just be coming up as a cause of the week. Trusty is a gang member turned good. Not an ex-gang member, as he was clear to remind us, but a gang member working from the inside to help kids choose school over drugs and violence. He was in our neighborhood serving as a consultant for a new film called Capture. Be on the look out for his name in the credits.

Finally, happy one year anniversary to Islands of LA, founded by my friend and new art school student, Ari. Way to be an activist in your own right, whether you want to be one or not.

3.1 Park(ing) day LA

2008-09-14T15:37:00.001-07:00

Park(ing) Day LA 2007 happened just after I arrived last year. It was one of those remarkable events that made me realize I am literally surrounded by people who are interested in some of the same things I am and who devote time and energy to creative ways to generate awareness, discussion, and action. Over 180 of these mini-parks in parking spaces were created last year in 47 cities worldwide. Park(ing) Day 2008 is this coming Friday - September 19th - and anyone, anywhere can put quarters in a meter and claim that space as their own. This year a team of PhD students, spouses, friends, and our new favorite musicians have staked out a spot on 3rd street where we will show each person who drives by or walks in the size space that is theirs to claim.

Here is our description of our project, 'the drive-by walk in':

The road is America's largest public space. There are 3,981,512 miles of public road in the US, roughly 69 feet (.0132 miles) for each person in the country. Yet, we rarely treat the road as a public space, occupying it more as a collective of spatially isolated mobile individuals than an interactive citizenry. In celebration of Park(ing) Day 2008, the 'drive-by, walk-in' hopes to capitalize on this untapped social infrastructure, linking the public space of the road with the public space of the sidewalk, encouraging greater exploitation of the multi-scalar, multi-speed, ubiquitous yet under-utilized communal space that surrounds us.
In 2005, the Rebar group, a creative collective out of San Francisco, started Park(ing) Day by transforming a single metered parking spot into a park-for-a-day in an effort to make a public comment on the lack of quality open space in American cities. Now a global one day event, the goal still is to reprogram the urban surface by reclaiming streets for people to rest, relax and play and to:

* Promote a critical dialogue regarding the need for urban open space and the way in which streets are currently used.
* Energize civic life by questioning basic assumptions about urban space while offering provocative and meaningful alternatives.
* Connect artists, designers, and activists with ways to permanently reclaim the street for people.
On September 19th, numerous Park(ing) Day LA spots will be located throughout the city. Join us for 'the drive-by walk-in' in the 8000 block of West 3rd street from 2 to 8 pm to stake your claim on public space. Music by My Hawaii and Bird and Moon begins at 6:00. An after party at the A+D Museum will follow.

http://www.parkingdayla.com/index.html

3.0 - public space and why we need it

2008-09-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

Some causes will certainly be more serious than others, and some more long-term. I have two this week. One is fun and playful with potential urban repercussions, the other is a cause that partially defines us as a society. Both are about capitalizing on 'publicness', which is defined by urban scholars as not just the right but the necessity for diversity and the forum within which that diversity can come together in all its glorious messiness; the idea of that forum is our public sphere and the physical manifestation is our public space. Our expression of equity and democracy is ideally grounded there. In the last thirty years, the over-sanitization, privatization, and militarization of those physical spaces has made them more and more exclusionary rather than more and more diverse. Who can do what, what they can do, and where they can do it has become more and more restricted. Typically these are 'public' places like malls and corporate squares, but more and more this also includes sidewalks and parks that exclude marginalized populations through restrictive laws or the use of so-called 'protest zones' which actually deny the constitutional right to assemble and speak when and where it is most effective. The first cause encourages us to look at all of our public spaces - particularly the sidewalk and road - and consider how it is we each use our own 69.25 feet. The second is to remind us how important the public sphere is through making our voice heard in the democratic process.

my favorite place to buy art

2008-09-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

Some of you are familiar with Community Works 945, the umbrella name for the art, street soccer, and gardening program located at the Urban Ministry Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. These programs have affected the lives of hundreds of homeless participants by providing opportunities for creative expression, skill-building, regrouping, opening doors, making relationships, and uncovering new passions. I had the great fortune of collaborating with UM staff and volunteers, UNCC faculty, and UNCC students to build the ARTPARK last spring next to the UM train station, a public space that incorporates all three components of Community Works while also providing lockers for storage, benches for relaxation, and quiet corners for time alone. I had been to the Art Works auction before, but spending time at UM daily showed me how much talent is there waiting to be seen and how much pride is taken in the work the UM artists create.

Last year I bought Vanessa/Batgirl at the auction, and regardless of my current distance from Charlotte, I feel she is one thing that ties me back to the city and to the great vision of the Community Works programs. So, for those of you within driving distance, here is this year's information on not just the auction, but a pre-auction exhibit that allows a peek at what will be available on the 13th. If you can't make it in person, you can always donate to Art Works 945 (check out the website at http://urbanministrycenter.org/) and help sponsor the long walk between unearthing creative passion and getting it out for the rest of the world to see.

Below is the official announcement. Please support the artists and the program by attending the auction, purchasing work, or making a donation. Or, shift your consciousness and the consciousness of others - find a group or an individual in your own corner of the world who could benefit from being seen for their talents and potentials rather than their difficulties, and make it happen.

Annual Art Works 945 Auction: 5-7pm Sept. 13^th

Art Works 945 of the Urban Ministry Center is proud to announce its annual auction, a unique event where the homeless are able to be seen for the talents and humanity that they posses and not for what they lack. Art Works 945 was recently included in a nation directory of self –taught and outsider art centers. The programmatic value of the Art Works 945 aside, the auction features authentic, inspiring artwork of real value at great prices. Please come and support the homeless with your attendance, and if you see something you like, please purchase it. Photographs, paintings, carvings, and ceramics at all price ranges are for sale. Proceeds are split between the artist and the cost of supplies for the program.

Gallery Three Pre-Sale We are also proud to announce that Wachovia is hosting a current exhibit at Gallery Three [401 S. Tryon Street, Suite 145 Charlotte, NC 28202] until Sept.10. The show features highlights of 2008 from Art Works 945. Link here for a quick peak at the show. Paintings are available for outright purchase before the auction from Gallery Three.

http://www.communityworks945.org/Artworks945/blog/2008/08/arte-homeless-who-you-think-they-are.html

08.30.08 - It's not about a hurricane. It's about America.

2008-08-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

Mayor Ray Nagin is calling the coming hurricane "the storm of the century" and it is nearly impossible to believe that he's talking about Gustav rather than the Katrina/Rita combo that hit the Gulf Coast starting exactly three years ago this week. Right now Gustav is moving over western Cuba after already taking more than 50 lives in Haiti. As residents again evacuate the coast, in what looks like a much more prepared and organized series of events than the sister storms that took over 1500 lives in the state of Louisiana alone, I'm still thinking about the previous damage and destruction and how far we have to go to right those decades-old wrongs made evident in New Orleans and places close. When I can figure out how to post pdf links here, I'll include some essays I have been working on about the rights to the city and problems and opportunities held in infrastructure. For now, though, the cause of the week is this: Trouble the Water.

Last night my friend Deirdre and I went to see this film followed by a Q&A with Danny Glover who is one of the executive producers. It was not well publicized so sadly there were less than about 50 folks in attendance and very little press. The film, produced by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, who also produced Fahrenehit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, is a phenomenal collage of amateur footage and expert documentary made from inside the ninth ward both pre- and post hurricane. Kimberly Rivers Roberts bought a $20 video camera a few days before Katrina to record family occasions and ended up stuck in New Orleans with no transportation and no money to evacuate, taping the locals' view of the disaster. She and her husband, Scott Roberts - dead broke as Mr.Glover explained it - spotted Tia and Carl and their professional film-making equipment on the side of the road as they were trying to leave the city and approached them about selling their footage to make some cash. The collaboration starts then, and the team together show a side to the ninth ward and to the hurricane disaster that is more intimate, moving, and real than anything I have seen so far. The small crowd with us applauded, cried, and yelled in turn.

If you are in LA, we saw it at the Sunset 5 down the street from my house - go quick, as movies seem to last there only a week. The website - http://troublethewaterfilm.com/ - not only has a page that shows all the openings in all the states where it will be showing, it also has a very comprehensive "Learn what you can do" tab with numerous links to organizations that are still working to rebuild and promote the larger cause of equity. The film was shown this past week at the Democratic National Convention and will be shown next week at the Republican National Convention. They have also screened it for numerous non-profits and faith-based initiatives and seem to be keen on sharing it with other interested organizations. Please go see the movie, do what you can, and report back. That's this week. Thanks.

cause of the week, take 1

2008-08-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

For years I've been sending out regular emails directing people to this or that cause, this or that event, this or that thing that most surely will change the world if only I can get enough people to attend. Well, now I've decided to go a bit more formal. It's been a while since I've blogged. For those of you who knew me during my time in London, I tried my best to write at least weekly once my blogmaster left the scene, but then for a long time there just wasn't much urban for my urban blog. Well, now it's urban all over again, and there's lots going on, and lots for you and me to do to make this world an even better place to live. I'll try not to be so Los Angeles-centric, but - wow - it sure is an interesting place to live. I'll do my best to be here weekly, to post not only interesting happenings in my life, but real causes that you can all be a part of, real events that you all can attend, real actions that you all can take. I welcome guest contributors, as I am most certain that as a team we can be more effective than any of us are alone. There is so much for us to do, let's get out there and change the world - one cause at a time.