The Useful and the Beautiful - Meet Here

Once more, Art, meet Wonk...Wonk, meet Art.

See?! HERE’s what I mean about The Municipal Art Society (MAS).

MAS, in conjunction with Brooklyn Speaks , has just reminded us about their June call for Forest City Ratner to revamp its plans for the Atlantic Yards Project (16 skyscrapers, 18,000 seat arena), citing 5 design and planning principles:

1. Respect the character of existing nabes (i.e. reduce the density of the project and don’t build megaskyscrapers).
2. Public streets should not be eliminated (keep 5th Ave open)
3. Create a real public park (don’t pretend that strip of green behind the skycrapers is going to be geographically inviting for locals who don’t have access to proposed skyscrapers)
4. Promote lively streets ( by promoting the small businesses that characterized the area, and not overshadowing them with skyscrapers)
5. Deal with the traffic increase that will be created (by actually coming up with a plan for it, including improving public transit).

Check out the featured Brooklyn Speaks slideshow contrasting the current Ratner “vision” with what is and could be. You can also add your name to those who support the Brooklyn Speaks.

I keep the 2003-04 Annual Report for MAS on my desk, because in addition to being the most useful and beautiful (my two principles for anything) annual report/ advocacy tool combination ever, it quotes, over a photo of the lawn at Bryant Park, their founding members from 1893:

“To make us love our city, we must make our city lovely.”

Volunteerism

I find it interesting and disturbing that when the BBC asks its readers How to Stop School Shootings (in response to the PA Amish killings), virtually all of the responses focus on gun control.

I agree that the U.S. prediliction for guns is a big piece of the puzzle. But what no one seems to acknowledge is that in so many of these cases, the killers turn the guns on themselves. That suggests to me that these acts are about desperate attention seeking, and like more straightforward forms of suicides, when covered by the press in ad nauseum, this post-mortem attention encourages similar acts.

The public has our Right To Know, but i'm not sure we always need to know about things moments after they happen. My First Amendment Fundamentalist status notwithstanding, I propose press organizations voluntarily (no gov't compulsion involved here) simply stop covering school shootings on a breaking news basis. Don't descend en masse, and don't take satellite feeds. Maybe leave it to the local old-fashioned print media to send a few reporters out. Leave the cameras behind. Then, in a few days or a week, put it on page 2 as a post-event analysis. Or don't cover it at all. It seems plain that all that media doesn't prevent these things from happening, and I really think it may be part of what prompts others to act similarly. There are plenty of violent events that don't get any coverage. Why shouldn't school shootings be the same way?

The Polar Bear Post

When I first read about this guy who decided to get really close to a captive panda, I thought the guy gave the Panda a gash that required stitches. Thankfully, it was the other way around. And, the facility (not a zoo, but more like a breeding facility) says it won't punish the perp (i.e., the guy, not the bear).

This interests me because in my long-delayed post about the 1987 polar bear attack on a 12-year old who'd taken a swim in the bear's moat in Brooklyn's Prospect Zoo, the bear was most definitely punished with a swift death by responding emergency services officers (the Gothamist panda bit links to the Times Select articles about that event). The kid *was* killed, mind you, but he was also messing around after dark in a zoo full of wild animals that was off limits, and entered the bear's moat on a dare, suggesting that the 3 kids involved knew they were flirting with danger. Don't think that I'm some animals-should-have-the-same-rights-as-humans type, or that I'm not sympathetic to a terrible result of the oh-so-typical behavior of a 12- year old kid.

But polar bears are easily the largest, most aggressive, most defensive, strongest, toughest mofos among mammalian carnivores. Barry Lopez's chapter on the bear in his book Artic Dreams is highly recommended. It's practically a love letter - a deep appreciation for what is an astounding being. Auugh. He describes the bear from behavior to physiology, including the amazing and efficient hairs that keep in warm in its chilly home, and the reprehensible record of man's interaction with the bear. It's an homage that helps you understand why the Inuit traditionally respect and fear the bear in equal measure, without ever having to visit up north. (Lopez' book is fascinating even if you aren't interested in the Artic).

Most of us don't get drunk or dared and climb into zoo enclosures to, for whatever reason, be nearer the animals. But I still have to wonder what zoos actually teach us about wild animals, and especially what they teach us about our place in relation to them. I grew up with the zoo and wild animal parks in San Diego as my main form of weekend entertainment; my mother has Super-8 footage of me gleefully cavorting with the goats in the petting zoo as a toddler. I had a stuffed raccoon until I was 8 or 9. I got as close as the chainlink fence and 6 inch glasses permitted me to see the tigers (always my favorite) at the wild animal park. I have a natural fear and awe of things that are bigger than I, and owed at least in part to the zoo, an appreciation. But I wonder how much that natural fear - and therefore, appreciation - is diminished when, after watching Gus (pictured here) at Central Park Zoo mellow and swimming, an 8 or 10 or 12 year walks into the gift shop at the zoo to see a dozen cutified and stuffed versions of Gus there for the purchase.

The Impoverished Competition

I've been very good about not pouting that no one else here appreciates the star power of Shahrukh Khan.

But I did notice the other day that around the corner from SRK's billboard sits another billboard with another famous bollywood face for another shi-shi brand of watch - and it's the son of Amitabh, Abhishek Bachchan, pictured here.

I must say, though he might have daddy's classic good looks, as for charisma....he doesn't come close to Khan, and the face on that billboard may as well be of any reasonably handsome mortal walking the streets below. I can't imagine what the ad folks who thought he could vie with SRK had in mind. Sorry, Abhishek. You're no match for Shahrukh.

Art Meets Wonk

The Architectural League is one of those many places in my adopted hometown that so consistently and constantly produces fascinating projects that I’m often overwhelmed by its opportunities. Of all the Don’t Miss exhibitions, competitions, panels, and projects they are always offering, Architecture and Justice: Criminal Justice as Urban Exostructure is Definitely Don’t Miss.


This particular exhibition and program look at mapping incarceration and return rates in different American cities, and the policy implications of those patterns.

But it also reminds me of other policy implications in the relationship between architecture and incarceration. My work sometimes takes me to a small town upstate; the big shiny new high school is built on a site originally meant for a prison. When the town's NIMBY elements managed to block the prision, to save money the municipal authorities used the same blueprints for the prison to build the school, changing key features but also keeping the cellblock system in place. The shape of a building - at least in theory - says everything about its function, and the message to the kids who attend is obvious. That’s some policy implication.

And-
The Architectural League is housed in a gorgeous building at 457 Madison Avenue that is The Urban Center with another of my favorite NYC art-meets-wonk agencies, the Municipal Art Society, which champions urban design and planning and “believes that the physical city -- its light, air, land and open spaces -- and its sensible development are critical to New York's continued economic health and social well-being.” Check it out.

More Rx for Dubya: More Deep Breaths

I am shocked! Simply shocked, I tell you, to learn that
the U.S. may have distorted its report on Iran's nuclear program.

I shouldn't make light....but....eh. At least they didn't send poor Colin Powell out with a Power Point as Exhibit A this time round.

No response yet from DC.....

UPDATE: I'm a bad blogger and posted after reading the BBC report but not reading the U.S. report or the IAEA's reply. Let me start over.....

I am shocked, simply shocked, to learn that the U.S. DID distort its report on Iran's nuclear program. Here's the IAEA reply to the U.S. Report. Read it - it's short, and quite informative.

Do-Gooders

The cynic in me says, "Eh, right, next comes the corporate logo!" But the cule in me says, "I'm so down with Barca's new UNICEF logo!".






Plus, discovery: it's not the action photos that make coach Frank a hottie. It's the suits!

Tee Hee

From the j-school's blog, I wish I had half the attitude and half the aplomb this child sports.

Rx for Dubya: Deep Breaths

Fareed Zakaria is so f&#%ing smart, not to mention
reasonable, especially on Iran.


3 words: Secretary of State. It’s not a new idea, but Senator Obama? Senator Clinton? Are you listening?

Links are working now.

[TK: Da Bears]

stay tuned....by special request from nightgrapefuit

SRK

I can't get away from Shahrukh Khan because he's all over my nabe: most recently he's appeared on a billboard for some shi-shi brand of watch, decked out in black leather, slicked back hair, and familiar brooding pout. He's crouching, I presume to make himself slightly more accessible to the mortals he looks down upon. The ad asks: what are you made of?

Shahrukh Khan is made of about 100% charisma, but my thing for him started as distaste. Not only am I too old for and was never really prone to worshipping superstars (til futbol, that is), but I used to get intermittently and somewhat unwillingly dragged to Bollywood films. These were almost always too long, too musical, and too melodramatic for me to really enjoy. And for melodrama, Shahrukh seemed to me the worst. It's as if he studied all the subtle facial gestures of classical Indian dance forms and interpreted each as impishly, even vulgarly, as possible. Too far away and over the top for me. So relegated to a regular diet of Bollywood, I took a little solace in the more elegant, lowkey, and mature Amitabh Bachan. Classically handsome, understated - Amitabh (who was just in town, kind of) was the opposite of Shahrukh's histrionic prettyboy.

I don't remember when this changed - maybe the black combat pullover worn in Mian Hoon Na did it, or maybe the dancing in the streets of Flushing, from Kal Ho Naa Ho. Whenever. I cringe to admit it, but at some point, all the invisible, cumulative power of SRK finally got to me.

That I would like to think I'm too grown-up and above getting all distracted by some supposed hottie superstar on celluloid makes me all the more appalled when I find myself pretending not to be looking at all the SRK posters in all the video shops down the street. And this recent Guardian interview makes him all the more appealing. Not many other megastars would, in contrast to complaining about sacrificing their privacy or ability to travel in peace, admit to loving that they need 6 bodyguards everywhere they go (but only 2 in most parts of the UK and US), and that they live for the adulation and attention of their one billion fans. Also, evidence of: smarts (Econ degree!), progressive-ness (he's Muslim, married to a Hindu), and generous (contributes a great deal of the ridiculous amounts of money he makes to charitable causes)!

SRK claims there are tons of better-looking Bollywood actors than him. But it's not true: take an already ridiculously handsome or beautiful person, add that much of the invisible, omnipotent ingredient that is charisma, and you've got what gods are made of.

Obit

Everyone's probably heard by now, but Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was killed yesterday by a (usually docile) stingray while shooting a documentary.

When I had cable, his show was don't miss TV. Sure, he seemed to get too close too easily to really dangerous animals a lot of the time, but I loved his dorky and infinite sense of wonder and awe in the face of all those crocs, deadly snakes, and other creatures as only a former wanna-be zoologist, or maybe a child, could.

Proving that there's an obit ready to go for anyone who is anyone, the Beebs' Irwin obit is here, but doesn't mention how he died.

UPDATE: Here's a much better obit/tribute to the man, and it's from one of my least favorite news sources, The New York Times.

More on Prior (Self-) Restraint

About the NYT blocking Brit web access to that terror suspect story yesterday, Poynter's oneliner from Chris Floyd put it better than I did, in less space.

British Due Process v. The American First Amendment

I'm feeling very First Amendment Fundamentalist tonight. Hence, a rant.

Should I not have been surprised to learn, while perusing Foreign Policy's blog, that The New York Times has blocked British users from accessing a story that details evidence against those being prosecuted for the airline bomb plots that resulted in this most recent wave of heightened airport security?

I'm not familiar enough with Brit press law and whatever their equivalent of federal law is, so I could be missing something. But blocking access to information that a few enterprising reporters - or enterprising others - are able to gather just never seems like a good idea to me. While I understand that the Times' explanation basically says the paper is covering its legal arse, FP hints at why it is probably not such a good idea for this sort of thing to be enforced:

"The Internet frequently collides with Britain's phenomenally restrictive press laws. In 1997, Jack Straw's son was busted selling cannabis to an undercover reporter. But because he was a minor, his name could not be revealed in British papers. It was, however, all over the Internet and the London gossip scene."

Yup.....gossip and rumor are likely to fly far too freely in the absence of substantiated facts. And while part of the intent of the Brit restrictions might be to limit prejudice against the defendants, seems to me that rumor is far more likely to taint opinion than reporting that is based in fact.

Since the Times is an American paper, I don't understand how it might be subject to British press law; and I can't ever imagine the Times of the NYT v. Sullivan or the Pentagon Papers cases subjecting itself to what to me amounts to a form of prior restraint. Or, in this case, prior self-restraint.

Barcelonista

Sick cats and vet bills preclude crosscountry travel, so I hadn't yet realized that my vacation, scheduled to start last Sunday, actually started the previous Saturday evening. And it started not in Seattle but New Jersey - a bad sign had I been anywhere but Giants Stadium.

I'd been drawn into Barca unwillingly by Franklin Foer's praise, and no sooner had my newly adopted team won the Champions League than a friend, a regular Virgil of futbol, pointed out they'd be here for this friendly in August against the Red Bulls.

It wasn't Camp Nou, but in our case that was another good thing, because we'd never get 6th row seats there like we had here. I hadn't realized how close the 6th row goalside really is - it's *right there*, and I see could all Puyol's messy locks bouncing up and down as a trainer led him through pre-game warmups (later I figured out he was injured, and as captain, and a Catalan local, he's a crowd favorite, and couldn't not make a showing). Gio looks just as much a little kid in real life as he does on bigscreen bar TV, possessed of the unselfconscious sangfroid of a 10-year-old. Except, that is, when his own team's goalie yelled at him for invading his territory, and Gio tried to pretend he wasn't bothered (as when you didn't want to admit your parents were rightly admonishing you for torturing the neighbor's cat). I finally realized that my soft spot for Gio is not actually a la the hottie kind of soft spot, but because he actually reminds me of a friend's nephew, who is (objectively) the sweetest and most darling 10-year-old ever. Unlike Deco, Gio doesn't sport any haught in his attitude, hence he comes off more 10-year-old than worldly futbol player with athletic charisma to burn.

That said, Deco's slightly haughty athletic charisma suits him well, and Marquez is in the same category. Giuly I just like because it's fun to say his name over and over in my faux French accent, and because he's more than solid. Favored star child Ronaldinho would normally bore me as the overdog, except he smiles too much and has too much fun the whole time - he's all joy, plus all talent. (Towards game's end, when it was time to vote for the player of the game, his name showed up on the board as Ronlahdo de Assisi....eventually fixed). Eto'o - love his compact efficiency, even if he didn't have the greatest of nights. And, while Messi is great fun to watch with his longhair wonderboy partner on the pitch, I was a little annoyed with the ungraciousness of the large Argentinian contingent in the crowd who more or less "Messi-ed" Eto'o off the field. I know that in reality this was coach Frank Rykaard's decision, but Eto'o put up an excellent effort and just ended up having a bit of a crappy night.

I never got a good enough look at Rykaard to see if looks in life, as he does in still photos, a bit shaggy and not very attractive, or looks as dashingly handsome as he does in moving pictures. But in any instance, his exuberance when his team performs beautifully is arresting. When there's any decent reason to explode into a smile, Rykaard easily throws off the serious look that other coaches often envelope themselves in. Better yet, he transforms into Brother of Gio, as he did during what I think was Barca's 2nd and winning goal in the Champions' League game: running 'round with arms out, like a kid who's imagination and ecstasy (natural, not synthetic) transformed him into a airplane on a runway, about to take off. Contrast this with the tight, controlled downward pumping fist and dour face of Arsenal's head coach (I'm not a real futbol fan, so I don't know the guy's name) and it's easy to prefer Rykaard. I also love the noncomittal, everything is everything, zen attitiude about his team that comes across in the few interviews I've read. All that relaxed control equates to something close to mastery.

The evening's 4-1 victory was made all the sweeter by the happy accident of having found the Nevada Smith's Barcelona contingent right above us, next level up, keeping the spirit. Not that more spirit was needed in the sold out crowd that seemed to be about 95% Barca supporters, home turf for the Red Bulls notwithstanding. And when finally we made our way out ensconced between cadres of Brazilian and Argentinian fans trying to out-do each other in post-game chants the bubbling panic in my gut told me that no matter how much fun it might be to squeeze into popular bar matches between sweaty futbol boys, I probably do not have what it takes to get through a match outside the U.S. (So funny that Ronaldihno and Messi compliment one another so well on the field, but their respective national fans haven't found the way to translate that cooperation to their fandoms.) We made it out to the outrageous bus line, and got lucky to find a friend of futbol's virgil to let us cut the line. Hours later back at the Port Authority, I stumbled my way to the E train back to Queens, futbol-star-crossed and half asleep, surrounded (judging from all the jerseys) by lots of other Barca fans.

Also, I make no apologies for naive or ignorant omissions or misstatements above. I'm new at this, and gaffes are permitted and necessary.

Now, which way to Camp Nou?

Detour

I was about to post my big list of Things I'm Going To Do In Seattle, where I was supposed to spend two weeks. However, due to circumstances beyond my control, it looks like I'll be spending my summer vacation right here in NYC.

I'm still adjusting, but it's not a bad place to spend a vacation. Perhaps I will pretend to be a tourist and at last check out the view from the top of the Empire State Building.

Namesake & First Amendment Fundamentalist

Lenny Bruce was found dead 30 years ago last week. I suppose I named the cat after this guy because I could then pretend that the spirit of Lenny Bruce was always near. Not the overdosing, lawsuit-obsessive, betrayer-of-friends part of him, but the part of him that would keep up his routine city after city, knowing he was more likely than not to be hauled away to jail again and again, just for using the f-word. I'm not sure he's a First Amendment martyr, as some would cast him, but he was definitely a First Amendment Fundmentalist (I'm so making the t-shirt), the only kind of fundamentalist I can appreciate.



If I attribute this photo to Getty Images via the BBC, does that make it okay to use here? I hope so.

In the future: fewer photos of people, especially icons.

Speculation & Succession

Oh, the flurry of speculation about whether or not Fidel Castro is dead now that Cuba has announced the handing over of temporary power to his brother Raul! And then there's the flurry of speculation about how Cuba will change with Fidel out of power or dead. Will the Miami exiles return en masse and reclaim their posh homes and sugar cane plantations? Will capitalism overnight quash decades of the red menace that festered in the backyard of the U.S.?

I don't think Castro is dead, and while I'm pretty sure there's lots of talk in Havana today about the (temporary or not?) hand-off, I also don't think it's the shocker for Cubans there that the U.S. government would like it to be. During rallies on Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion the crowd for years has alternated between chants of "Fidel! Fidel! Fidel!" with "Raul! Raul! Raul!"...that's some seriously strategic succession planning.

Addiction or Compulsion?

On Monday I walked into the campus bookstore for file folders and I walked out with file folders and 2 new books:

The Journalist and The Murderer by Janet Malcolm & Public Editor #1, by Daniel Okrent

I don't need any more books.My stack of Books To Read was 41 books high Monday morning. Now there are 43. I've read only 3 books since April. Plus months of barely touched New Yorkers, forsaken for the Paris Review, which I've half-read both issues, but then, that's only quarterly so you see I have a problem. I started in on a collection of Orwell essays on Monday and am still not done with the first.

Some of my lack of reading time can be attributed to a very dense summer session course, the reading for which was the equivalent of at least a few volumes.

But I'm about to start work on my masters project again and I'm not sure how I'll be able to get to any of these books.

Just picking out a few for my impending vacation seems daunting.

I avoid bookstores for this reason. Libraries are also dangerous places, but on my list of things to do while I am in Seattle is to Be In the New Central Library At Least Once Every Day. That's the "Living Room" of the library pictured above. I'm in love with Koolhaas' building, and perhaps I will take many books and curl up in one of the big nerf chairs and read lots and lots.

The Longest To Do List Ever

In lieu of harassing my friends by sending them “we have to eat here” “and here” “and here” e-mails and then forgetting or being overwhelmed by all the great options we have when it’s time to chart new dining out territory - kind of how I used to walk into video rental places pre-Netflix - I’m dedicating this post as the To Do List: Places I Must Eat in NYC Before I Die.

Here's something I came across via gothamist today. There are so many reasons to be in love with this city, and a 24-hour Belarussian deli is one of them:

Belarus II, 495-497 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-373-5595

New Food To Dos will appear (probably very) regularly in the comments here - feel free to share recommendations.

And if you wanna get serious about it, check this out.