Basswood model of Los Clubes, Cuadra San Cristobal, Mexico City by Luis Barragan. The site is a combination residence and horse paddock with accompanying horse-scaled swimming pool used to train thoroughbreds.

We have some big deadlines this week, this model included. The final will include pieces of cut up loofah sponge along the walls to mimic climbing vegetation. Believe it or not, this model cost about $150 to build.


Analytique to supplement the model.

Plants, funeral, woodshop, ethics

Thursday was a whirlwind of highly diverse occurances and events.

First, starting at 8:30am, I had three hours of class for plants identification. We learned about 8 shrubs and 3 trees. It is still very much winter based on the temperatures we experienced during our field walk. When is it going to finally rain so we can get closer to spring?


This is called Rhus ovata, or Sugar Bush.


This is called Schinus molle, or California Pepper Tree.

Next, at 12:30pm, I went to the funeral of a great woman who happened to suddenly pass away last week. She had been the graduate assistant and resident mom for all graduate students in city planning for the last 20 years. The funeral was held in a modest church in Richmond, CA. The church was jammed packed to the rafters, mostly students and people from Berkeley. It was amazing to see how many people's lives Kaye had impacted in her role as both administrator and confidant. As an example of how wide Kaye's reach was within the University, I recognized someone there who I would have never guessed knew Kaye - a man who drives the night door-to-door shuttle for students needing rides home between 9pm and 3am. This guy happens to drive me home 2-3 nights a week; never for one minute I expected we knew anyone in common. I saw him at Kaye's funeral today. Students who graduated 10 years ago came all the way from Los Angeles to pay their respects. It was astounding.

I returned to school and from 6-9pm I attended an architecture woodshop orientation. I learned to cut things with the band saw, radial saw, table saw, panel saw, drill press, and spindle saw. It was a very strange thing to do after having just returned from a funeral.

Now I am doing the GSI teaching ethics course online. I am taking a break between the sections on student disability accomodation and sexual harrassment.

All at once it has been a very odd and touching day.

Alter ego

Today I created a much-inferior web site in order to fulfill requirements for my LA 132 course, Computer Applications in Environmental Design.

Don't get too excited, this site is pretty much a snoozer. Hopefully, as the term progresses, I will have some interesting images of environmental analysis for your viewing pleasure.

In other news, my studio is very busy figuring out how to build some models. It is our first real non-cardboard scaled model, so we are a bit frightened. Tomorrow I will do the wood shop orientation and will soon be ready to saw, plane and sand things.

People line up for this shit

This morning, around 10:45 a.m. I found myself across town near the intersection of University and Shattuck. I had gone on a run and needed to buy something at the art supply store along the way. At this particular intersection is a McDonald's. It's kind of a grungy McDonald's....the outside facade of the structure is shabby and it's on a very busy corner where a lot of street people tend to congregate. However, it is always busy in there and serves a purpose to feed and provide bathrooms for customers in Berkeley.

This morning, the place was a madhouse. I noticed the mayhem from outside on the sidewalk no less. There must have been 30 people in line! I immediately wondered what the hell must be going on. It's not like McDonald's is new or anything. Did someone fall from a heart attack? Did someone start a fight? What could the draw be?

Then I saw a poster in the window which read:

"Filet-O-Fish $1.00 Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays"

Wow! All these people were there for a damn greasy fish sandwich. I really couldn't believe it. You'd think people in Berkeley wouldn't be such suckers for this kind of ridiculous advertising scheme. In my eyes, it's not even that great of a deal. First, you have to eat the Filet-O-Fish which is probably not too healthy or even filling. Second, to get in on the special you have to go inside the McDonald's and wait in line for 20 minutes while everyone else orders the same damn sandwich. Third, quality (if such a term applies) is likely to suffer: because the demand for the FOF is sky high these three days of the week it is likely that production standards fall along the wayside. Filets get forgotten in the fry daddy, some get dropped on the floor, lettuce is sparse, tartar sauce is forgotten, and sandwiches are hastilly crumpled up in their signature blue wax paper.

All that for $1.00.

Day one, spring semester 07

Day one back in the saddle and things are already off to a fast start.

Depending on how I play my cards this week, I might only have to take three courses this term on top of being a Graduate Student Instructor for an introductory landscape architecture course. Right now I am in four courses plus the teaching gig and things look extremely tight.

Let's hope the dealer gives me a good hand on Friday allowing me to finagle one or two course wavers and get something called "blank" credits. Sounds like a scheme to me - I'm in all the way. Blank credits are essentially a professor's ability to say you took an individually designed course to fulfill a requirement when in actuality you do squat. Blank credits sound downright suspicious, but they are needed in certain situations like one I currently find myself in. Here's to the nuances of higher education.

Tomorrow is the first day I assist in the teaching of a course at Berkeley. I have to operate a slide projector (two actually, side by side). I have never done this but I had a class last term in which this apparatus was used. I have a good sense for the rhythm of the operation. Hopefully this will be enough to get me through without really screwing up.

All the Mexico photos

This is me on top of the Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan. This is a pre-Aztec city abandoned mysteriously in 750 AD.


In the same position from left to right is our professor Walter Hood and classmates Elizabeth and Sara.


At five o'clock the Mexican flag at Zocalo Square is lowered with the help of about 200 military personnel. Overkill?


Yummies for the tummies at a place called Pasteleria Ideal near Zocalo. You enter the store, grab an enormous tray and a pair of metal tongs and get to business!


Right after coming out of the pasteleria, we saw a curious truck at the stop light...


A good portion of the trip was spent trying to get people to let us into the homes designed by Mexican architect/landscape architect Luis Barragan. Here is one of the homes he designed in the El Pedregal subdivision. El Pedregal was the first occaision Barragan entered into the speculative real estate biz....apparently a success, too. This house was an amazingly intact example of his modernist design (exterior and interior) from the period 1945-1950.


This is the musical amphitheater-grotto of Chapultepec Park. There are interesting benches to lounge on while you listen to a strange selection of music play from mounted speakers. Mexican park police hang out in here, so it's safe. When we got there I think Vivaldi was playing, but soon was interrupted by what I can guess were Mexican show tunes.


Here I am at Luis Barragan's Los Torres de Satelite, or the Satellite Towers. These things are located in the middle of a freeway median. The towers were meant to be a visual gateway to the growing subdivisions of Mexico City in the mid-1950s. It was very polluted despite the sky looking so clear. Stinky!!!


Worm's eye of the towers.


This is the library at the Universidad Nacional Autonomous de Mexico. The entire campus uses a variety of modernist styles embedded with cultural markers, such as this mosaic tiled main library building.


We went to a famous lava flow on the campus of UNAM. Artists built a large ring of concrete right triangles around it.


Me and my shadow...

Being sick in DF

I ate a bad taco or something last night and ended up getting sick at a Luche Libre (Mexican masked wrestling) event. As a result, I missed the group trip to Coyoacan today. I got up around 1:00 pm, and managed to drag myself to Coyaocan to look at the weekend market. It was kind of a waste of time because I ended up leaving after an hour due to still feeling sick. Now I am back at the hotel watching Fox News.

So the day has not noticably improved.

Otherwise, the trip has been awesome. I will try to get photos up soon.

Besos,
Miss E

Happy belated, Alyssa

Alyssa joined the 29 crowd this past Saturday! Hope it was a fun one. I'll eat a celebratory taco for you in DF.

Me get on plane, me go see pretty things

My flight to DF boards at 7:40 am tomorrow. It's 9:39 pm and, of course, I have yet to pack.

Packing has got to be the most boring things ever. I do this everytime, I resist packing for trips. At least I am well fed and rested. One time I had to pack for a month away in SE Asia having not slept for 3 days. The flight left at 10am. I waited until 2:30 am to begin packing. It wasn't fun, it was no picnic.

We have a very loose itinerary proposed by our professor. Here are some images from the Interweb of some of those things we will visit.

This is our hotel, the Maria Cristina. We are located near the U.S. Embassy. Good thing?

Here is something called Los Torres de Satelite. Translation: The Satelite Towers. Built by Luis Barragan, one of Mexico's most prolific modernist architects.

The floating canal gardens of Xochimilco promise us wide-eyed landscape architects-in-training untold sights and wonders.

The urban "Grasshopper" Chapultepec Park houses the world famous Anthropogy Museum.

We will experience the immense demonstration of power and space at Zocalo Square, the heart of the city.

The trip will culminate with a visit to the past at Teotihuacan's Aztec ruins.

Photos will be posted at earliest convenience, but most likely not until week after next.

Vaya con Dios, amigos!

Raquel

Movie count

The last few days while I have been at home sorting and organizing paperwork has been filled watching some movies and films.

Here is the list:

Cool Hand Luke (1967) Paul Newman
My Architect( 2003)
A Prairie Home Companion (2006) Meryll Streep
Kinsey(2004) Liam Neeson

Cool Hand Luke is an interesting prison genre film and I recognized quite a few faces in it, including a young George Kennedy and Dennis Hopper. I'm rather intrigued with the films of the late 1960s, and hope to see a couple more before the end of the week.

I was a tad disappointed by A Prairie Home Companion. I am an AVID listener of the weekend radio program and I kind of anticipated it to highlight and discuss the comedic genius of the series - but no such luck at all. The movie is essentially a behind the scenes look at the cast of the program who are reminiscing about their last 20 years together. There is a weird sub-story going on about a woman in a white trench coat who happens to be a ghost...I found that kind of silly. I shall stick to the radio series...

My favorite movie of all these is My Architect, the story of the life of architect Louis Kahn as told by his distant son. What a fascinating film. In my landscape architecture history course, we learned a little a teeny bit about Kahn in his work on the Salk Institute. The son tells the story through a carefully chosen melange of mixed recovered video of Kahn at work, pictures, drawings, and by methodically visiting each of Kahn's commissioned structures and interviews with family and professional associates. You learn about the very torn man that Kahn was, and at the same time you learn why he was so important to so many people around the world completely outside of his personal sphere.

Purchase

At midnight, I made this purchase. This item will hopefully resolve the problem I have been having with my testy bicycle tires. Soon enough, I will be on the road whizzing by all you car bound schmucks.

New Year's Even

A few things:

1. I have to have a gum graft on one of my lower central incisors next time I am home. My addiction to brushing my teeth has taken a toll. My mother suggested I do this and also said she would set up an appointment for me.

I wonder if this means she will also volunteer to arrange payment for such a procedure?

2. My auto repair shop still hasn't called me back. I fear that the Fox has been looted during its 12 day and nights stay in the bowels of West Berkeley, and the employees are hesitant to share the sad news with me.

3. There are many errands and chores to run the day after returning from 12 days away from home.

4. Looking back on 2006, I don't have any glaring regrets, but I do wish I would have been a little more bold with the designs I did for school. I think 2007 will be a year of remarkable boldness.

He's gone

Saddam is gone. I don't really know if this is good news or not.

Trip concludes

Tonight is the last night I am in Portland.

My brother Matt is having a show at 7pm at some coffee/bar place. Matt's music is sounding really superb these days. He was upstairs practicing for tonight's performance last night when my friend Alexa came to pick me up. She thought it was the radio or cd player going. Even when rehearsing, Matt is impressing people.

Yesterday's luncheon went very well, a great time. It is nice to have new friends to visit when I visit Stumptown. It is even more convenient when they live near my sister's new place.

My step dad Bruce got a wide screen computer monitor for Christmas. But it isn't one of those cool Apple display units. Rather, it is a Samsung. I have no idea why my step dad needs this thing. I guess it might be useful for him when he has large spreadsheets open in Excel. I am not so impressed with the product. The screen basically stretches your view, so previously rounded features, such as words, come out all pixelated and long. I think the screen is actually supposed to be used for HDTV.

Update from Karmakanix. The Fox is still undriveable. The expansion the shop was doing this week apparently prevented them from squeezing in the repair of my vehicle. I hope it will be ready on Monday. They've had my car since 12/20.

Four things. Wait, five!

1. The smoking allowed in bars law in Portland must be changed. The last two nights I've come home and my hair smells. Normally it smells wonderful, but now it smells rather awful.

2. I used a Foreman Grill today. Do those even sell anymore? I was just cooking vegetables on it.

3. Visiting Pier One Imports the day after Christmas with your mother, who is on a mission for the last of the marked down red glass water goblets in existence, is a recipe for a meltdown on the daughter's end.

4. Lunch on Thursday with some guy I've been trying to meet up with for nearly one year. Persistance pays off? Hrmmm.

5. I forgot probably the BEST of the upcoming musical acts on its way through the Bay Area very, very soon. What a dolt I am. Anyway, it's gonna be a pretty amazing show, I hope.

Who: Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
When: January 5, 2007
Where: Bimbo's 365 Club
Whadda it cost me?: $20

Live tunes

Jan. 6, 2007, Sat, The Devil Makes Three, The Independent
Jan. 24, 2007, Wed, Pirate Radio, The Makeout Room
Jan. 30, 2007, Tues, Deerhoof, The Great American Music Hall
Feb. 4, 2007, Sunday, Ray's Vast Basement, The Makeout Room
Mar. 2, 2007, Friday, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, The Great American Music Hall
Mar. 3, 2007, Sat, Clinic, The Independent
Mar. 7-8, 2007, Wed & Thu, The Mountain Goats, The Independent
Mar. 9, 2007, The Mountain Goats, Bottom of the Hill

P.S. Merry Christmas. My family is watching Talledega Nights and I snuck upstairs to see what secrets of music the internet held...

Bob Sagat would make this a little more tolerable

Tonight, Christmas Eve, is the first night I've stayed at my parents' house since I arrived in Portland on Thursday. They live in Murrayhill, a subdivision in Beaverton, Oregon. Murrayhill is a virtual outpost in terms of being located near things, places, people or amenities I like to visit. The place has a nice view, I guess, and enjoys the benefits of existing within a homogenous community (low crime and neat yards).

Tonight I volunteered to make my parents dinner. The materials were already purchased. All that was required of me was to slice and cook the stuff. The dinner was stir fry, and like the neighborhood, the meal was sterile and predictable.

During the meal my parents turned on "AFV", which is a version of the series Bob Sagat used to host in the 1990s, "America's Funniest Home Videos." I thought it was a joke that we were watching it, but I soon realized that my parents actually adore this program. At one point, they were laughing and pointing at the TV monitor when someone sitting down on a bench made it collapse. I wish I was kidding about this.

Anyway, the host of this program isn't half as dynamic as Bob Sagat, who despite his reputation of being "America's Favorite Dad" possesses a certain brand of vulgar humor that makes him admirable.



Finally, after many long minutes of agony, AFV ended. Now my mother is watching Ocean's Eleven. So the cycle of madness and bad TV continues...

Oh, yesterday I saw "For Your Consideration", the newest Christopher Guest feature film. While it's no "Best in Show" it's quite good and worth at least a cost of a matinee ticket.

Flash back

This is my mother in 1972.

Chanteuse

This is the beautiful and talented Joanna Newsom. She played three sold out shows in the city this week. Mon-Tues-Wed shows at that.


Here is another.

And on quite a different note, here is a photo of my chipboard model from studio.

Waiting for my tow

Yesterday I consulted with Nino at Karmakanix about the sorrowful state of my VW Fox. He advised me to arrange for a tow to the shop and they would take car of the problem over the next ten days while they are expanding the shop. I will be out of town after tomorrow, so the idea of having a fixed vehicle upon arrival home is appealing. On the other hand, leaving my car parked on the curb of an industrial and transient neighborhood for such a long period of time, where Karmakanix happens to be, is not so appealing. I suppose I will take all the precautions I can against theft - remove the CD faceplate and stow all my loose cds in the glovebox and activate my crappy alarm system.

I called AAA at 9:00 and customer service rep "Dee" readily handled my tow request. I am covered for 5 miles of tow (lucky me, Karmakanix is about 2-3 miles from here). Perfect! The process to request a tow is altogether too easy. It's pretty awesome. So I am just waiting for him/her to arrive with the truck. Should be here before 9:50.

The Fox shall be reformed!