I suck at video games. The only shoot em' up I was ever any good at was Mega Man 3 and maybe, Time Bandits at the video arcade. But, I love Will Wright and Maxis games. The appeal of games like Civilization and The Sims is that they engage your imagination in the same way reading a book does. In Civ, I would imagine my Babylonians, who had lived in isolation on an island continent for a thousand years, responding to the arrival of the first English explorer by saying "Well, they're going to have to go" and then waging a war of extinction to serve as an example to the rest of the world. In The Sims, I would create characters inspired by my friends that would all hit on our neighbors, The Goths.
Now, Maxis and Will Wright are releasing the ultimate "god game", called Spore. Coming in September, the game is actually five-in-one. You start with single cell organisms and wind-up as a spacefaring terraforming super society. In anticipation, Maxis has released a free demo of the Spore character creator. It's a fascinating system that allows you to create a huge diversity of creatures, but simply and intuitively. The character creator is just the beginning and the creatures you create will wind up in the final game, as Maxis plans on seeding planets with user-created animals. In the meantime, the software allows you to upload your animal and even directly create a YouTube video of the lil' critters.
Check out my first attempt at creating life in the video above. I've named it the Japhex. It's highly predatory, but also charming. Also, it has a thing for hip-hop.
Picture it: Christmas of 1962. Designer George Nelson is chugging Brandy Alexander's at a party in beautiful Zeeland, Michigan. Isamu Noguchi is there and Nelson keeps pestering him, saying loudly "You gotta have some 'nog, Nog." Noguchi tries to ignore him, but Nelson's on a tear. He steps over towards the crendenza and announces "Here! I'll even make one for ya, Noggy!", but never gets the last word out. Why not? Because he blows chunks instead, all over the beautiful credenza. Then he slips, cracks his head on the corner and passes out on top of it.
The party looks on, aghast.
Noguchi walks over to Nelson, pulls out his camera and takes a photo of his besotted friend. "There's your fucking eggong, Nelson. Merry Christmas!"
40 years later: The credenza is for sale! Somebody shellacked George Nelson's vomit and blood, so that it could be savored for future generations of mid-century modernist/alcoholic admirers. And while you'd think the bodily fluids of one of the seminal forces of American Modernism isn't something you could put a price tag on, turns out you can. You can get your very own bit-o-George Nelson for $25,000-- on Craigslist, naturally: Credenza included.
I have a piece on L.A. artist Fritz Haeg up on Out.com. Tomorrow, I'll be downtown at the Dwell on Design conference, where Haeg is a featured speaker. Expect Twitter updates.
My goal this week is to "take chances" as those of you following my Twitter account already know. Here are some great ideas worth looking at and thinking about to get you thinking about what kind of chances you might take this week.
My favorite chef, Mark Bittman talks about "What's Wrong with What We Eat" via TEDTalks. Thanks to Corey for pointing this out. If you like this, I recommend checking out Bittman's Minimalist column in the NYTimes. Us foodies read a lot of recipes, but these are ones I find myself actually cooking. He also has his own blog, Bitten.
Cut down on the Ron Popiel automated iced chai latte makers and specialized glass cleaners (one for tinted, one for clear!) by embracing Urawaza, the Japanese habit of utilitarian thriftiness. Clean socks with marbles, Thanks to Nick, for this one.
Spanish designer Agustin Otegui is rocking my world right now. From creating a nano skin of mini wind turbines that could clad a building and generate power to a chair made out of two shovels, he's finding elegant solutions to complex problems. I found this one all on my own.
And finally, if you want to really blow your brain, listen to Susan Blackmore talk about one of my favorite topics: memes.
Imagine for the moment that instead of being a bloviating, gossip and porn-filled time sink, the Internet were a giant game with teams creating and re-appropriating content and services to find new and novel ways with connecting with strangers and you'll get an idea of what ZeFrank's latest venture, Colorwars 2008 is all about.
I've been trying to figure out how to explain Colorwars for a week or so now. Users sign up by following "teams" on Twitter and then engage in various contests. Games so far have included a virtual game of rock, paper, scissors, bingo and a nerd rap. Upcoming challenges include a Gogle Earth scavneger hunt and smack talk haikus. And there are prizes; Jet Blue gave out free tickets in a recent contest. But the point of the game, already a darling of Web 2.0 types is to get people to play with each other and instead of developing elaborate new tech to do it, use exisiting tools like Twitter and GarageBand.
That's the wonky explanation I've been trying to avoid. So let me just walk you through it.
Then I started playing games. For instance, there's a game called YoungMeNowMe where you take a picture of yourself when you were young and restage it. Here's my entry.
Another game invites you to design your own merit badge, which as an Eagle Scout, I couldn't pass up. Presenting the Irony Merit Badge:
And finally, one of the contests going on right now is to create remixes of the Nerd Raps. I was aiming for a Gnarls Barkley-sound (that's me doing an embarrassing falsetto), but sort of wound up with Moby. Someday I'll graduate to Cee-Lo. Click on the photo below to listen:
Not all of the contests are this involved, but while I love that my work requires me to use my creativity, it's a lot of fun just play around and goof off now and then. At the same time, I'm connecting to other like-minded people and seeing how they respond to the challenges. The YoungMeNowMe photos, for instance, are amazing.
Colorwars is ongoing and you can join with no commitment. If this sounds super-rad (it is!) I would love for you to join Team IKB, but you can join any team here. All you need is a Twitter account (which you should have anyway--it's this month's Facebook).
I get a lot of shit for saying that the Pacific Design Center is my favorite building in L.A. My standard defense is that it's one of the few buildings in L.A. that bothers to embrace the utopian spirit of the city. It creates a triad of "big idea conteporary complexes" with Gehry's Disney Hall (which I finally got to see the inside of recently--that carpet is hideous) and Meir's Getty Center (which I loved when I first moved here, but now comes off as elitist and aloof).
The PDC is by far the best of the bunch: while it's ostensibly a cultural center (serving as a design showcase and an outpost for MOCA), it's also a commercial and retail space, home to a couple of Wolfgang Puck venues and also a popular spot to throw a Hollywood party. The complex, which will shortly be complete with the addition of the Red Building is Cesar Pelli's masterpiece. It brilliantly serves as pop-shorthand for the city, with its bold primary colors, abstract forms and palm courts, but refines these gestures so they're elegant, not garish. The scale makes them one of the few landmarks in the city. L.A's decentralized layout swallows up buildings. This is why, in L.A. the entire downtown skyline serves the same purpose the Empire State Building does in New York. The PDC recognizes this and takes up a lot of space in your mind when you look at them. Check out this video showcasing the now under-construction Red Building to get a feel for the completed project.
At the same time, the buildings are friendly. There's a feeling that you're walking in a giant Lego set and while the space's original purpose has changed over time (originally the whole complex was meant to be designer's show rooms, though now only the Blue Building serves that function), the space engages the West Hollywood streets around it, with its undulating lawns and inviting courtyards. Angelinos love complaining about the buildings, but then again they also love Botox and think high culture means American Idol. There's nothing like the PDC in L.A. or in the world. As it nears completion, maybe it'll start to get the acclaim its due.
If ever there was a place for high speed rail in America, it would be California. With it's bifurcated populace concentrated either in L.A. or S.F. the state is in desperate need of a way of tying these two population centers together. It makes sense from an economic standpoint as well as a cultural one. For you transit dreamers, here's SF Cityscape's map of what such a system would look like. While you're at it, check out their map of the L.A. transit system in 2030, where there will still be no simple way for me to get to LAX from West Hollywood.
Storefront for Art & Architecture and the Control Group have an open competition to design a new White House (for kicks). Winners get flown to New York in July for a gallery show. You can keep the original structure ala Renzo Piano, or if you want, knock the whole thing down and put in a Neutra.
If you do, you wind up being forcibly interviewed by James St. James. My shame shows up around 3:24. And though I seemed pretty gung-ho about it, the only thing I went home from the Jared Gold show at Union Station with that night was the beginnings of a hangover.
How Disney Could Bring the Red Cars Back to Downtown
It was Disney's Who Framed Roger Rabbit? that brought the sad story of the demise of the Los Angeles Red Car to mainstream attention. Could the Mouse help bring the Red Cars back?
It's hard to imagine that L.A. once had the best public transportation system in the country, but it's a fact. Just take a look at the 1930's Pacific Electric Railway map and you'll see that it puts L.A.'s present light rail/subway map to shame. The remnants of the streetcar system linger all over L.A. In my WeHo neighborhood, you can find weird diagonal lots that are the result of the tracks slicing through the area, now clogged with congested streets. And while L.A. ultimately embraced Judge Doom's vision of the freeway, L.A.'s Red Cars remain an icon of the city.
Downtown L.A. has talked of putting limited Redcar service back as a tourist draw for a few years, either along Broadway or Grand Avenue, though many dismiss this as another "we'll believe it when we see it" pipe dream for the city's core. However in January, the Community Redevelopment Agency voted to increase funding for a feasibility study to create a Red Car corridor between Broadway an L.A. Live. The biggest sticking point is that costs are expected to be around $60 million.
Here's where the Mouse comes in. Currently, Disney Imagineers are in the process of renovating the stillborn California Adventure Park, which brought such inglorious attractions as a demonstration on the manufacture of sourdough bread, into something more exciting. One of the new attractions: Accurate replica's of L.A.'s Redcars running through the park. This is a perfect opportunity for business and government to work together. Here you have a company whose name is synonymous with California working on building the very one-of-a-kind E-ticket item downtown L.A. is looking to build. While it might be too much to expect Disney to underwrite the whole project, the fact they're currently building and designing authentic Red Cars might just be the thing to kick a downtown scheme into motion.
Surely, the city and Disney can work out an arrangement that would benefit them both. I can't think of a better way for Disney to endear itself in the hearts of Californians (who incidentally, make up most of the tourist trade at Disneyland) then to help bring back a long lost city icon.
Don't Let Heidi Hold You in Suspense- Nick Verreos Has Season 4 Finale Goods
The ridiculously talented Nick Verreos has a gorgeous newish blog that's totally fierce. Sorry, just finished watching the final 'regular season' Project Runway episode and Christian's vocabulary is still stuck in my head. Don't you just love that kid? He's like a chirpy little chinchilla. I wouldn't be half-surprised if we see in the obligatory 'Tim Gunn rides in a Saturn Roadster to the Designer's Homes' segment of the finale that Christian's parents raised him as a cat, complete with a charmeuse-lined scratching post. C'mon, you totally see it.
Anyway, Uncle Nick has a new blog and he's just posted about the Project Runway Fashion Week show. If you want to be totally spoiled, check it out...yo.
To close out the year (and to give you folks something to read while I finish up scripts), tMR is listing the "Top 20 Trends of 2007". But I need your help putting them in order. Starting Friday, you'll be able to vote for the trend you think is the most important. Somehow, there'll be a prize involved. I've got to figure it out. If you have a suggestion for a trend, email me.
2007: Macho Macho Modernism
It used to be that the prevailing trends of architecture transformed slowly over decades; now style turns on a dime. This year, MOCA's "Skin + Bones" show charted parallel processes and techniques between architecture and fashion and brilliantly showed that how the two disciplines had moved closer to each other in recent years. It's easy to see the couture lines in the recent work of Libeskind, Gehry (who was sued by M.I.T. this year for creating a building that dumps snow on students) and Hadid. Each of these architects have been recently called on by cities to build glamorous tourist destinations that could serve as both icon and visual shorthand for renewal, even if they did little to actually improve the fabric of the city. And like fashion, architecture styles now change as fast as hem lines.
A few high-profile projects this year distanced themselves from the swooping digital aerobatics of "starchitecture" by embracing function over form, most notably the Japanese firm Sanaa's New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. Admittedly, it makes use of a mesh skin, but it's firmly rooted in the Modernist tradition of a building responding to a problem, but marries it to the best lesson of Post-Modernism: That a building must be more than machine for living; it has to respond to its environment as well. While PoMo's like Michael Graves took that mandate as an excuse to create buildings shaped like castles and china cabinet's, Sanaa's New Museum is the kind of clever that doesn't break a sweat. That mesh skin recalls the Bowery's dwindling industrial past and the playful arrangement of the Modernist box serves the practical purpose of letting more natural light in. In the process, it avoids the pitfalls of both schools: it's too playful to develop any of the Modernist's self-importance and it lacks the showy insecurity displayed in a lot of the new buildings being created now.
L.A, for its part, hasn't added much to the conversation, other than to prove that like New York, it's perfectly capable of throwing up a bunch of banal overpriced condos with stupid names. One exception is the Wilshire/ Vermont Station, designed by Arquitectonica, the first housing development in L.A. to actively engage itself with the city's mass transit (a number of MTA stations are part of a building, but are treated as afterthoughts). That's all going to change with the February opening of Renzo Piano's Phase I redesign of LACMA, which looks to be both spectacular to look at as well as an intellectually rigorous exercise in function; recreating (well, this being L.A.- - creating) the social dynamics of pedestrian urban space. Originally, the plan was to have Rem Koolhaas raze the existing campus and replace it with an undulating dystopian glass tent. Money (and the question of how to clean the roof of bird droppings) stopped that plan, but it could turn out that Piano's modernist-influenced plan may be the face of the future after all.
Still sick (less so, but my throat is scratchy enough to prevent podcasting and I seem to want to nap constantly), but I know how fickle my readers are, so here are some awesome things I've been doing in between my delirium tremens. Like the title says, these things will swallow up your day, not that you were doing all that much to begin with:
Jericho: the complete first season online. All the major networks have video on demand versions of their major shows. It's pretty frikkin' awesome. Brought back from the dead by a major fan drive, apoco-drama Jericho will air seven new episodes sometime soon (depending on the writer's strike), but you can catch-up on the first season online.
Truth be told, the show takes a long time to warm up and the producers seem to miss the fact that the reason we love Jack Bauer is because he's a bad ass, not a guy just looking to fit in at the bake sale, but once the town next door goes all Lebensraum on Jericho and we see that the army's wearing a new version of the stars and bars, the show goes nuts.
My proposal is for something I call Riverside Park-- using the footprint of San Francisco's Candlestick Park in the railroad area north of Cesar Chavez Boulevard. It's extremely close to Union Station, could be connected by a "game day shuttle" and once you moved the L.A. County jail out of the area, you could infill the project with mixed-use retail and hi-rise condos. It could then be the third anchor for downtown, continuing the sweep from L.A. Live through Grand Avenue, as well as a catalyst for L.A. River development. What's great, though is that this map gets you thinking about these things.
Also, while I despised the 30-second "lightning round" imposed on candidates at last nights Democratic Debate, the guy on fire (and by my estimation, the most straightforward and Presidential) was Joe Biden. Check it out:
"Panos Yiapanis, an influential European stylist who has worked with a variety of designers, said, "The show defined for me what is modern." He added: "It's ironic that Victoria Beckham was here, with her breasts out. This show wipes all that kind of expression away."
Pirates everywhere breathe easy: Misshapes, America's longest running hipster bacchanal, ended last night. No longer will Davey Jones and his crew have their clothes mercilessly deconstructed into glad rag chic by the barbarian hordes of Billyburg. The weekly NYC party ran for almost half a decade, gaining the dubious distinction of being the cultural touchstone for a crowd which scorns the idea of cultural touchstones as out of date and unhip. As for what the disaffected unwashed masses will do now, the NY Times quotes one former pirate-beater as saying that the new thing is "dinner parties". That's so three years ago.
I am "walking" in the Jimmy Fund Marathon this weekend. My Dad has had two heart attacks in the last year and to celebrate his comeback, our family is walking/running/virtually walking (that's me-- I can't make it back to Beantown, sadly) to raise money to fight cancer. If you'd like to donate, click here.
Shocker: New condo not as cool as it's next-door neighbor, classic icon of early Modernism, The Schindler House.
Seminal (tee-hee) queer-punk band Pansy Division is going on tour for the first time in four years this October.
As you might guess, I'm fairly busy today, but I wanted to share for a moment. So, I had to buy myself a desk, and of course I scoured Craigslist and found this beauty -- for $60 with delivery. Now, it's painted over brown and needs refurbishing (only cosmetically), but I started sneaking around it and discovered it's a 1952 Alma Desk, probably walnut. It definitely needs restoration, but overall it's in great condition. But whatever. The great part is, I took out the drawers and lying on the bottom floor of the desk was an old empty mothball wrapper-- and 7 tickets to a Tito Puente concert at Macho's in San Diego.What should I do with them? Because of the volume of them, I'm guessing this desk once belonged to a concert promoter, or you know--an Arts & Entertainment Editor. In any event, it's got bones and soul-- and was way cheaper than IKEA.
As you know, I just recently moved into an awesome apartment, but the downside of all the space Chris and I have is that we currently have little to fill it with. I hope to update with you my dorky home improvement projects soon enough, but today, I'll just show off some neat design stuff for your er, mine home. Well, the home of my dreams. I'm really using these pieces as ideas for ways I can repurpose Craigslist finds. Because, a.) recycling is cool and b.) design is not cheap.
Walteria hecho en los angeles' porcelain dinner plates by kathleen walsh
Hispanic paper-cutting inspired, this set of 4 dinner plates would be pretty awesome even if they weren't inspired by L.A. locales. See the mastodon drowning in the plate at left? I have a whole ongoing saga about those fibreglass figures, btw. Available at Unica Home.
Campfire by Klein/Reid
So I have this whole 'Utopian 70s Summer Camp' theme going on with my stuff (or at least that's what I'm aiming for) and if I had $700 to blow, I would totally spend it on this porcelain campfire. In the product description, it's suggested that these would be even better if they were painted, but that's stupid--they're white hot already. Available at Unica Home.
ESSENTIAL Wall Dimmer by International Fashion Machines
So, umm- it's a wall dimmer made from conductive felt.Unfortunately, the grey part in the middle isn't customizable, but the rest of the switch can be done in a variety of colors. You can tap it, slide it-- I was a kid who couldn't help but touch everything. Finally a wall switch that says, "Yes". Available at IFM.
Wooden Trestles by Paul Loebach
Loebech's my favorite new designer. He's got a mirror that's been shot by a .22 and reassembled and a clever Chippendale chair that would make the perfect going away gift for Karl Rove, but the piece I love the most right now are these simple wooden trestles. One side is a single turned piece of wood and the other resembles a sawhorse. The pair and a glass tabletop make for a simple, but genuinely whimsical piece of furniture. Too bad there's only 8 pairs. Not available (but you can look) at Paul Loebech.
Engage reality Don't submit to it (Whose Reality? Who's creating it?)
Discussion w/ unknowability/contradiction
*There are no operational narratives* We instill and invent value
(A value is something freely chosen, after thought and reflection, that we prize and cherish and employ in our daily lives)<=== Not Thom's, but rather my Boy Scout camp chaplain
Difference ---------- Sameness
Idiosyncratic.
1. Material (Substance) -Diderot- the intelligence of objects -Attach the motion (?) of surface.
2. Landscape (AUGMENTED) -There is no nature, only augmented nature- Baudellaire
The always amazing machine project is holding a workshop this Saturday on sewing with wires and LEDs. 95 bucks gets you all the materials and you'll walk away with a customized piece of sexy tech wear. More info.
Go ahead--take in all the Bradyness-- he of the goofy grin, singing voice of an angel and heart of a good-natured frat boy. I guess he also plays football pretty well, too. I just found out about All-Star Vinyl's limited line of sports action figures. I love the cartoon aesthetic to these pieces. In addition to Tom Brady, the initial line includes Brett Favre, "Big Ben" Roethlisberger, NFL player, Sidney Crosby. If you're like me, you've never heard of Sidney Crosby or professional hockey (they still have that?!), but judging from the vinyl sculpts of Crosby, maybe I should start oggling watching. The figures are being released in limited iruns of 1,000 exclusively throughwww.UpperDeckStore.com.
And your intrepid hero (Japhy Grant) is there. Blog to Blog coverage starting tomorrow. Not that any of you read blogs on the weekend. Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Blue Whale Gets Red Crescent (Green Broccoli Stuck in the Middle)
The ever elusive "Phase III: Red Building", the final section of the Caesar Pelli's Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood makes a cameo appearance today in an L.A. Times article about Pelli's design for Segstrom Hall. Finding info about the Red Building is notoriously difficult (it only gets a passing mention on Pelli's website), so this rendering is pretty exciting stuff. Construction is supposed to begin next year. The PDC is my favorite bit of architecture in L.A. and even though I'd rather see the Red Building without all the windows (originally, all three buildings were to be windowless, but market pressure forced windows to be added to the Green Building), but it's still a pretty exciting addition to the complex. You can't tell from this image, but the Red Building is a giant arc.
BONUS: One of the great things about having a boyfriend (or as I like to think of him- "my talking pillow") is that he reads your blog-- and finds cool renderings. A-like so:
I get a lot of shit for saying that the Pacific Design Center is my favorite building in L.A. My standard defense is that it's one of the few buildings in L.A. that bothers to embrace the utopian spirit of the city. It creates a triad of "big idea conteporary complexes" with Gehry's Disney Hall (which I finally got to see the inside of recently--that carpet is hideous) and Meir's Getty Center (which I loved when I first moved here, but now comes off as elitist and aloof).
The ridiculously talented Nick Verreos has a gorgeous newish blog that's totally fierce. Sorry, just finished watching the final 'regular season' Project Runway episode and Christian's vocabulary is still stuck in my head. Don't you just love that kid? He's like a chirpy little chinchilla. I wouldn't be half-surprised if we see in the obligatory 'Tim Gunn rides in a Saturn Roadster to the Designer's Homes' segment of the finale that Christian's parents raised him as a cat, complete with a charmeuse-lined scratching post. C'mon, you totally see it.
As you might guess, I'm fairly busy today, but I wanted to share for a moment. So, I had to buy myself a desk, and of course I scoured Craigslist and found this beauty -- for $60 with delivery. Now, it's painted over brown and needs refurbishing (only cosmetically), but I started sneaking around it and discovered it's a 1952 Alma Desk, probably walnut. It definitely needs restoration, but overall it's in great condition. But whatever. The great part is, I took out the drawers and lying on the bottom floor of the desk was an old empty mothball wrapper-- and 7 tickets to a Tito Puente concert at Macho's in San Diego.What should I do with them? Because of the volume of them, I'm guessing this desk once belonged to a concert promoter, or you know--an Arts & Entertainment Editor. In any event, it's got bones and soul-- and was way cheaper than IKEA.
Walteria hecho en los angeles' porcelain dinner plates by kathleen walsh
Campfire by Klein/Reid
ESSENTIAL Wall Dimmer by International Fashion Machines
Wooden Trestles by Paul Loebach
Notes on a Thom Mayne Lecture at LACMA.
The always amazing machine project is holding a workshop this Saturday on sewing with wires and LEDs. 95 bucks gets you all the materials and you'll walk away with a customized piece of sexy tech wear. More info.
Go ahead--take in all the Bradyness-- he of the goofy grin, singing voice of an angel and heart of a good-natured frat boy. I guess he also plays football pretty well, too. I just found out about All-Star Vinyl's limited line of sports action figures. I love the cartoon aesthetic to these pieces. In addition to Tom Brady, the initial line includes Brett Favre, "Big Ben" Roethlisberger, NFL player, Sidney Crosby. If you're like me, you've never heard of Sidney Crosby or professional hockey (they still have that?!), but judging from the vinyl sculpts of Crosby, maybe I should start 
www.UpperDeckStore.com.
