Every Sunday I get up early to sit and enjoy the silence of no construction going on around me. I live on the edge of the gaybourhood and construction sounds have been so continuously present (except Sunday mornings) that I don't even notice workers cutting steel with grinding wheels anymore. And that is an annoying sound. WEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEEEEE-EEEEEEEEEEEW.
I used to know exactly how many condo projects were underway in Toronto and how many tower cranes there were and a lot of other relevant statistics. But then I got a job where knowing those things wasn't important (not that it was important for any previous job I had). If you care you can check the UrbanToronto website. It was a lot of condos and a lot of cranes and a lot of other numbers that were counter-intuitive or just plain excessive. And if you talk to anyone about the condo market for more than half a minute they will tell you most of the units are bought by Chinese investors. How would anyone know that? If you are the best condo salesperson in Toronto and you sell 90% of all the condos by yourself - ok you would know. Maybe. You would know the name on the mortgage (or the name of the person who handed you a sack of cash / big cheque / other method of payment). Plus it's against the law (or so I've read) to release information like that or possibly just to keep track of it. I'm not a lawyer. It makes sense that you can't just tell the newspapers who owns what and when they bought it. At the very least it would be bad business. So unless this whole China buys condos thing started by someone drinking too much and telling tales out of school I don't see it.
This seemed to me like a simple urban myth. The condo market doesn't make sense. People like things that make sense more than things that don't make sense. Someone says it's overseas Chinese and people start telling each other that because it makes them seem smart or knowledgable or whatever and people believe it because it's easier to believe than the other prevailing theory (ie. that in two years the population of Toronto will be 175% larger than the population of the whole world or is it that everyone in the world will own 175 condos in Toronto?). Simple. Who else could be buying all those condos? Maybe George Soros is buying them all as part of his plan to take over the world through the UN. Or maybe I've been watching too much Alex jones on Youtube.
I don't know how I feel about this theory. I don't believe it. Sure some of the condos are being bought by actual Chinese people from China. Some are probably being bought by actual Paraguayans from Paraguay. China is bigger than Paraguay therefore...
At its root this theory feels a little racist. Because of that whole inscrutable thing people like to believe. I have never found Chinese people to be less scrutable than anyone else (except those I have dated). But that's part of our mythology so it's going to interact with other myths (semi-myths, pseudo, or part myths). More importantly it says something about the construction of the fake world we wander around with in our heads.
40 years ago strange, improbable, and maybe threatening things were either the US acronym agencies or the Soviets. 20 years ago it was the Japanese (although mostly in fiction and / or gameshows). Now it's China - the land of boundless weird. Anything that is too complex to understand but doesn't involve heavyweight physics, the answer is going to be China. Maybe not in so many words but still, China. 1.2 billion people of disputed scrutability, crap news agencies, a vague and menacing government, a whole lot of mystery and a whole lot of money.
Read apocalyptic fiction - the Chinese are doing fine after the End of the World. Or at least they haven't been reduced to eating each other. Or know one knows because China.
And while I feel bad about the racist part, the whole crazy maybe myth - maybe truth of this makes me feel vaguely hopeful. We are like a small town on a planetary scale; China is that weird house on the end of the street that sometimes seems deserted and sometimes seems like a giant party and G*d only knows what they are doing in there...
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Paolo Bacigalupi
First, let's get the obvious out of the way - he needs a new name.
That said The Windup Girl is a fantastic book. PB (there is no way I am typing Bacigalupi more than twice) has, according to the blurb on the back page, written a lot of short stories that won awards and acclaim and some people read. I didn't TS:DR. So Windup is kind of like a first book. Fuck, google him if you give a shit about his biography. I want to talk about TWG.
Yes, this is going to be filled with acronyms. Live with it or go back to looking at kittens that look like celebrities.
TWG takes place after two significant events: the end of oil and global warming fucking everything up. So instead of measuring energy in joules or watts of whatever, they measure it in calories. Easy to forget the calorie is a unit of energy. When characters in the book think about industry they wonder how anyone could get the calories to power such a great enterprise. Which brings us neatly to PB's first wonderful invention - the calorie man. This is the derogatory name for employees for one of the big agri-combos that control most of the worlds food production. They are almost omnipotent in most of the world but Thailand has successfully kept them at arm's length.
Setting the book in Bangkok was another brilliant idea. Anywhere else and the action would have to take place in several different cities but Bangkok is the political, religious, and economic center of Thailand so one stage fits all. And, to my very white, very North American eye the politics and social realities of Thailand could be as fictional as the Windup Girl herself but I wouldn't know. It's extremely weird and very sci-fi to read about murdering rapists deeply shocked by a perceived insult to the Child Queen.
The agri-combos competitions with each other have introduced new pestilences and plagues that have forced most of the world to the brink of starvation and humanity's future is measured in planting seasons. Generippers (genome hackers) try to keep one step ahead of them but everything they come up with must be hidden and protected in case it infringes on the agri-combo's patents. Everything the characters eat is ripped one way or another - by the combines or the generippers.
Up against the calorie men and the Ministry of Trade and just about everyone else are the White Shirts - the kamikaze attack squads of the Ministry of the Environment. The White Shirts combat invasive species, including plagues. They're preferred tool is the torch. They are hated and feared and corrupt as hell.
The other great sci-fi invention is the Windup Girl. Japan have the opposite problem than the rest of the world - too many jobs, more than enough calories and not enough people. So they created New People. And, being pragmatic, they anticipated the desire of New People's owners to fuck them senseless. Think genetically engineered Geisha. They are called windups or heechy-keechy because they were engineered to move in a stuttering / clock work kind of way so no one could think they were human. Except they are people - smarter, healthier, faster, and more intelligent that "from the womb" humans.
What stands out, even in a book that is filled with invention, is PB's view of humanity. It is bleak but not brainlessly so. Some sci-fi I have read recently takes the position humanity being what we are means everything we do must finally be fucked up by our small-mindedness, short-sightedness or other-flawedness. There is nothing so passe as a hero in TWG and no clear villains either. People are self-interested, selfish, flawed and still interesting. The end is bleak but not completely so. If one accepts oil running out will fuck us up and global warming is a threat and yet, senselessly, we are doing nothing about either, PB's view of humanity isn't hard to accept or endorse.
Reading this again it sounds like an amateurish book review. Which I guess it is. I'm trying not to drop any spoilers because TWG is really worth reading if you like sci-fi and so is the follow up The Water Knife. I can't really think of anything profound or even amusing. I blame the fact I'm listening to Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell while I write this. Fucking love this album. So hopelessly cheesy and wonderfully great at the same time. Also Todd Rundgren is a genius.
Fuck it. Buy the book. Read it. Enjoy. Also listen to Bat Out of Hell more. You can skip Two Out of Three Ain't Bad. I give you my permission. If you want to read something at least a little inspired about modern fiction - try my thing about Murakami called "Piblokto Madness". It's a good one.
That said The Windup Girl is a fantastic book. PB (there is no way I am typing Bacigalupi more than twice) has, according to the blurb on the back page, written a lot of short stories that won awards and acclaim and some people read. I didn't TS:DR. So Windup is kind of like a first book. Fuck, google him if you give a shit about his biography. I want to talk about TWG.
Yes, this is going to be filled with acronyms. Live with it or go back to looking at kittens that look like celebrities.
TWG takes place after two significant events: the end of oil and global warming fucking everything up. So instead of measuring energy in joules or watts of whatever, they measure it in calories. Easy to forget the calorie is a unit of energy. When characters in the book think about industry they wonder how anyone could get the calories to power such a great enterprise. Which brings us neatly to PB's first wonderful invention - the calorie man. This is the derogatory name for employees for one of the big agri-combos that control most of the worlds food production. They are almost omnipotent in most of the world but Thailand has successfully kept them at arm's length.
Setting the book in Bangkok was another brilliant idea. Anywhere else and the action would have to take place in several different cities but Bangkok is the political, religious, and economic center of Thailand so one stage fits all. And, to my very white, very North American eye the politics and social realities of Thailand could be as fictional as the Windup Girl herself but I wouldn't know. It's extremely weird and very sci-fi to read about murdering rapists deeply shocked by a perceived insult to the Child Queen.
The agri-combos competitions with each other have introduced new pestilences and plagues that have forced most of the world to the brink of starvation and humanity's future is measured in planting seasons. Generippers (genome hackers) try to keep one step ahead of them but everything they come up with must be hidden and protected in case it infringes on the agri-combo's patents. Everything the characters eat is ripped one way or another - by the combines or the generippers.
Up against the calorie men and the Ministry of Trade and just about everyone else are the White Shirts - the kamikaze attack squads of the Ministry of the Environment. The White Shirts combat invasive species, including plagues. They're preferred tool is the torch. They are hated and feared and corrupt as hell.
The other great sci-fi invention is the Windup Girl. Japan have the opposite problem than the rest of the world - too many jobs, more than enough calories and not enough people. So they created New People. And, being pragmatic, they anticipated the desire of New People's owners to fuck them senseless. Think genetically engineered Geisha. They are called windups or heechy-keechy because they were engineered to move in a stuttering / clock work kind of way so no one could think they were human. Except they are people - smarter, healthier, faster, and more intelligent that "from the womb" humans.
What stands out, even in a book that is filled with invention, is PB's view of humanity. It is bleak but not brainlessly so. Some sci-fi I have read recently takes the position humanity being what we are means everything we do must finally be fucked up by our small-mindedness, short-sightedness or other-flawedness. There is nothing so passe as a hero in TWG and no clear villains either. People are self-interested, selfish, flawed and still interesting. The end is bleak but not completely so. If one accepts oil running out will fuck us up and global warming is a threat and yet, senselessly, we are doing nothing about either, PB's view of humanity isn't hard to accept or endorse.
Reading this again it sounds like an amateurish book review. Which I guess it is. I'm trying not to drop any spoilers because TWG is really worth reading if you like sci-fi and so is the follow up The Water Knife. I can't really think of anything profound or even amusing. I blame the fact I'm listening to Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell while I write this. Fucking love this album. So hopelessly cheesy and wonderfully great at the same time. Also Todd Rundgren is a genius.
Fuck it. Buy the book. Read it. Enjoy. Also listen to Bat Out of Hell more. You can skip Two Out of Three Ain't Bad. I give you my permission. If you want to read something at least a little inspired about modern fiction - try my thing about Murakami called "Piblokto Madness". It's a good one.
On Smart Phones
I own a smart phone but I don't use it. I use a stupid phone. The stupidest cell phone I could find: Motorola's FONE. Google it if you don't know what I am talking about. I bought it because it is a phone and that's all.
I don't like coffee makers with clocks in them. I own a clock and a coffee maker and I like it that way. In the words of Master Tsunetomo, "It is not good when one thing becomes two." I wanted a phone that was just a phone. Not a camera, not a calculator, not a computer, not anything other than a phone and FONE was as close as I could get.
Someone gave a a smart phone out of charity and, I think, the deep suspicion that anyone without a smart phone must be cripplingly poor. Or that not having one was wrong in a fundamental, existential way. But I don't use it because the manual is two inches thick and that just describes the functions. To learn how to use them you have to download a 15 GB pdf file. My life is confusing enough, thanks.
Everyone in the construction industry has a smart phone. Or at least a cell number. It is bizarre to encounter someone who doesn't. While I do have a cell (and consequently a cell number) I don't give it out to people I work with. For one thing FONE is too dumb to hook up to hands free (or I am too dumb and I am just blaming FONE). Most people's cards have their work number, cell number, alternate number, fax number (what? no telegraph number?), email address, alternate email address. Mine has my work number and the firm's mailing address. And my name spelled incorrectly.
I don't like the way cell phones make you permanently available to every single person who wants to reach you. I figure if my firm wants me to have a cell number, they should buy me a smart phone and teach me how to use it. I could then call it my "work phone" and turn it off whenever I want.
This is the thing with cell phones smart and stupid - if you don't answer it the person calling you will assume you are screening them. People who are not middle aged will probably not understand this but I have a few hours every day and at least one day a week I guard very jealously. In that time I don't want to see anyone, speak to anyone, or even consciously ignore anyone. I want to be left alone. And my being alone during that time shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings. I have structured my entire life to protect those precious hours of solitude. I don't have a wife / partner / significant other, or kids, or pets, or anyone who can reasonably demand my attention in that time. When my jobs demands as much time as it is now the only way I can protect my solitude is driving around (a poor substitute but what I am left with). A smart phone, or stupid phone I carried with me, would wreck that.
The cell phone has a very strange and unprecedented place in most people's lives. It is the first thing they grab in the morning and the last thing they put down. I misplace mine for days at a time.
So I am that guy who sits in site meetings without first putting my phone on the table. I never carry it with me. In some ways this is aspirational. When you are important enough you don't have to carry a phone - someone else carries it and relays the messages to you. Someone (I forget who) remarked no celebrity can dial a phone. They all have people who do it for them. They just say, "Get so-and so for me!" and they are handed a pre-dialed phone. I wouldn't mind that.
This isn't me saying, "look how special I am." This is me saying, "If you want to reach me, email" Kurt Vonnegut took a job at a University because they let him choose the writers who would be invited to a conference and he really wanted to introduce William Styron to Pablo Neruda. He and Styron were just leaving his office when Neruda arrived on the campus - some grad student picked him up at the airport. So Vonnegut introduces them and stands back. Let the magic begin! They say hello to each other and the conversation just collapses. Both of them are trying desperately to think of something to say and failing. So they start walking. About five minutes later Styron turns to Neruda and says, "So you're from Chile! It must be nice to come from a country to long and narrow."
The point is even really smart people say stupid things if you don't give them a chance to think first. Phones are a bad way to communicate generally and every extension of them makes the problem an order of magnitude worse. I am currently dealing with some severe fall-out from a conference call. Something that would never have happened if we had been emailing and will probably cost someone (but thankfully not me) about $60,000. I email. I'm good at it and I take perverse pride in that. And I want to do it from a big screen I can fucking look at, thank you.
I don't like coffee makers with clocks in them. I own a clock and a coffee maker and I like it that way. In the words of Master Tsunetomo, "It is not good when one thing becomes two." I wanted a phone that was just a phone. Not a camera, not a calculator, not a computer, not anything other than a phone and FONE was as close as I could get.
Someone gave a a smart phone out of charity and, I think, the deep suspicion that anyone without a smart phone must be cripplingly poor. Or that not having one was wrong in a fundamental, existential way. But I don't use it because the manual is two inches thick and that just describes the functions. To learn how to use them you have to download a 15 GB pdf file. My life is confusing enough, thanks.
Everyone in the construction industry has a smart phone. Or at least a cell number. It is bizarre to encounter someone who doesn't. While I do have a cell (and consequently a cell number) I don't give it out to people I work with. For one thing FONE is too dumb to hook up to hands free (or I am too dumb and I am just blaming FONE). Most people's cards have their work number, cell number, alternate number, fax number (what? no telegraph number?), email address, alternate email address. Mine has my work number and the firm's mailing address. And my name spelled incorrectly.
I don't like the way cell phones make you permanently available to every single person who wants to reach you. I figure if my firm wants me to have a cell number, they should buy me a smart phone and teach me how to use it. I could then call it my "work phone" and turn it off whenever I want.
This is the thing with cell phones smart and stupid - if you don't answer it the person calling you will assume you are screening them. People who are not middle aged will probably not understand this but I have a few hours every day and at least one day a week I guard very jealously. In that time I don't want to see anyone, speak to anyone, or even consciously ignore anyone. I want to be left alone. And my being alone during that time shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings. I have structured my entire life to protect those precious hours of solitude. I don't have a wife / partner / significant other, or kids, or pets, or anyone who can reasonably demand my attention in that time. When my jobs demands as much time as it is now the only way I can protect my solitude is driving around (a poor substitute but what I am left with). A smart phone, or stupid phone I carried with me, would wreck that.
The cell phone has a very strange and unprecedented place in most people's lives. It is the first thing they grab in the morning and the last thing they put down. I misplace mine for days at a time.
So I am that guy who sits in site meetings without first putting my phone on the table. I never carry it with me. In some ways this is aspirational. When you are important enough you don't have to carry a phone - someone else carries it and relays the messages to you. Someone (I forget who) remarked no celebrity can dial a phone. They all have people who do it for them. They just say, "Get so-and so for me!" and they are handed a pre-dialed phone. I wouldn't mind that.
This isn't me saying, "look how special I am." This is me saying, "If you want to reach me, email" Kurt Vonnegut took a job at a University because they let him choose the writers who would be invited to a conference and he really wanted to introduce William Styron to Pablo Neruda. He and Styron were just leaving his office when Neruda arrived on the campus - some grad student picked him up at the airport. So Vonnegut introduces them and stands back. Let the magic begin! They say hello to each other and the conversation just collapses. Both of them are trying desperately to think of something to say and failing. So they start walking. About five minutes later Styron turns to Neruda and says, "So you're from Chile! It must be nice to come from a country to long and narrow."
The point is even really smart people say stupid things if you don't give them a chance to think first. Phones are a bad way to communicate generally and every extension of them makes the problem an order of magnitude worse. I am currently dealing with some severe fall-out from a conference call. Something that would never have happened if we had been emailing and will probably cost someone (but thankfully not me) about $60,000. I email. I'm good at it and I take perverse pride in that. And I want to do it from a big screen I can fucking look at, thank you.
Monday, July 20, 2015
On Doctors
I don't know if I've mentioned this before but I work on schools. Pre-K to 12 - I do it all. And here's the thing about working on schools: you can design the most beautiful school in history, one all your friends and associates and architecture students and architecture critics and magazines love, and it could be so good that every student who goes there wins a Nobel prize and you can bring it in for $8 a square foot and have everyone in the world think you are the greatest genius to design a building since Mies van der Rohe and F. L. Wright knocked each other up BUT if it isn't ready on the first Monday in September your clients will hate you. So from May 24 to Labor Day I work 12 plus hours a day, 7 days a week. Which means, like a dumb ass, I let my prescriptions run out.
I'm not going to list the medications I'm on. It's not your business. If you really want to know I'll give you a hint: I've talked previously about the problems lazy people have in a world that doesn't understand laziness is a medical condition. Seriously, mind your own business. Anyway,
My doctor will see you as a walk in if you don't have an appointment. But you have to wait. Typically the wait is about an hour. Today it was more than two. And when I finally get in to see him he expects me to feel bad about how long the wait was but he expects me to feel bad for him. He kept saying, "You think you're busy!" I thought that was funny. Brightened up an otherwise kind of shitty Monday.
Sometimes I wonder about doctors. I think spending your working life having to deal with people who have real problems like cancer or leprosy or some other nasty shit really fucks with your sense of proportion.
I have terrible skin. No kidding. It is like having the worst dandruff in history but all over my body. I also have the worst dandruff in history. It is embarrassing as hell and I'm very self-conscious about it. So I'm writing about it on the internet because that makes sense. I've tried everything I ever read about and everything I could think of to fix it. Nothing worked. If you aren't from Canada you probably think our socialized medical care is great (and it is) but try getting an appointment with a dermatologist if you live in a small town. You can hang it up. It's not going to happen. So when I moved to Toronto, I finally got an appointment to see one. And she told me, "It's dry skin. Live with it. Some people have real problems."
Which is true. But also, fuck her.
And when I was unemployed (long story) I got depressed. So I went to see a psychiatrist. Here is our conversation - slightly condensed:
Me: I'm depressed.
Dr: Why do you think you are depressed?
Me: Because I'm depressed.
Dr: What are your symptoms?
Me: Depression.
Dr: You sound like you are suffering from depression.
Me: Really?
Dr: You should take these pills.
Me: What are the side effects?
Dr: In some cases they cause depression.
Me: How often?
Dr: It's rare.
Me: More rare than clinical depression?
Dr: Clinical depression occurs in about 5% of people.
Me: And how often does the drug cause depression?
Dr: About 5% of the time.
Me:[laughing]
Dr: Are you feeling better?
He helped me about as much as the dermatologist but at least he had a sense of humour.
I'm not going to list the medications I'm on. It's not your business. If you really want to know I'll give you a hint: I've talked previously about the problems lazy people have in a world that doesn't understand laziness is a medical condition. Seriously, mind your own business. Anyway,
My doctor will see you as a walk in if you don't have an appointment. But you have to wait. Typically the wait is about an hour. Today it was more than two. And when I finally get in to see him he expects me to feel bad about how long the wait was but he expects me to feel bad for him. He kept saying, "You think you're busy!" I thought that was funny. Brightened up an otherwise kind of shitty Monday.
Sometimes I wonder about doctors. I think spending your working life having to deal with people who have real problems like cancer or leprosy or some other nasty shit really fucks with your sense of proportion.
I have terrible skin. No kidding. It is like having the worst dandruff in history but all over my body. I also have the worst dandruff in history. It is embarrassing as hell and I'm very self-conscious about it. So I'm writing about it on the internet because that makes sense. I've tried everything I ever read about and everything I could think of to fix it. Nothing worked. If you aren't from Canada you probably think our socialized medical care is great (and it is) but try getting an appointment with a dermatologist if you live in a small town. You can hang it up. It's not going to happen. So when I moved to Toronto, I finally got an appointment to see one. And she told me, "It's dry skin. Live with it. Some people have real problems."
Which is true. But also, fuck her.
And when I was unemployed (long story) I got depressed. So I went to see a psychiatrist. Here is our conversation - slightly condensed:
Me: I'm depressed.
Dr: Why do you think you are depressed?
Me: Because I'm depressed.
Dr: What are your symptoms?
Me: Depression.
Dr: You sound like you are suffering from depression.
Me: Really?
Dr: You should take these pills.
Me: What are the side effects?
Dr: In some cases they cause depression.
Me: How often?
Dr: It's rare.
Me: More rare than clinical depression?
Dr: Clinical depression occurs in about 5% of people.
Me: And how often does the drug cause depression?
Dr: About 5% of the time.
Me:[laughing]
Dr: Are you feeling better?
He helped me about as much as the dermatologist but at least he had a sense of humour.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Really? Actually? Literally?
So William Gibson published a new book earlier this summer, The Peripheral. I've been thinking about writing something on it for a while now. I even made some notes trying to figure out if there is some kind of pattern or meaning I could attribute to single versus multiple narrative POVs. But, fuck it. Two things.
First, you know things are completely fucked up when a Gibson book ends, "and then everyone got married and started living a healthier lifestyle (watching what they eat and how much they drink), some people had kids who will grow up to be caring adults and useful members of society, and everyone started doing yoga and shit because it's good for you."
Seriously, look at how Gibson's books end and watch the pattern emerge. There is an inverse correlation between the ending of his books (the beginning of the unknown and unknowable future from the perspective of the private universe of the novel) and the actual unknown and unknowable future from the perspective of the author. When the real future is kind of chaotic and dangerous as hell but still exciting and a cause of optimism the narrative future is dismal and bleak. And vice versa. Or maybe Bill is just getting old. Who can say?
The second thing is Gibson has been infected with the virus that causes him use the word "actually" way too often. "He was actually quite excited...", "She was actually sick...", "It was actually big...". It isn't as bad as "literally" but it's still annoying. And when I thought about it for a while and realized he meant "really" instead of "actually" it got even more annoying.
[Author's note: Since I haven't been writing in this too often I ACTUALLY proof read this one and found I had ACTUALLY used the word ACTUAL above, "the ACTUAL unknown and unknowable..." I did, however, use it to mean what it ACTUALLY means.]
My theory is people use actually instead of really because saying actually is kind of fun and saying really feels silly. AK-chewly. Or, if you are Canadian and pronounce your diphthongs like you are supposed to, Ak-chewel-ee.
Really sounds like everything else that ends in EE - like a stripper name of a word made up for little kids.
My theory about literally is people say it for the pauses. "It was...literally...something that wasn't figurative".
And my theory about all this micromanaging of our own vocabularies, our syntax, our speech, is because of the fucking internet. Twenty years ago there was no way for "literally" to enter our consciousness as something you should make fun of people for. The trolls have us policing our own speech to the extent we now use actually just because it sounds smarter than really. But on the other hand, porn. I guess we call the whole internet thing a wash.
Throw in DLing music for free and the internet starts to look like a win. Maybe. I'm still going to bitch about it tho.
First, you know things are completely fucked up when a Gibson book ends, "and then everyone got married and started living a healthier lifestyle (watching what they eat and how much they drink), some people had kids who will grow up to be caring adults and useful members of society, and everyone started doing yoga and shit because it's good for you."
Seriously, look at how Gibson's books end and watch the pattern emerge. There is an inverse correlation between the ending of his books (the beginning of the unknown and unknowable future from the perspective of the private universe of the novel) and the actual unknown and unknowable future from the perspective of the author. When the real future is kind of chaotic and dangerous as hell but still exciting and a cause of optimism the narrative future is dismal and bleak. And vice versa. Or maybe Bill is just getting old. Who can say?
The second thing is Gibson has been infected with the virus that causes him use the word "actually" way too often. "He was actually quite excited...", "She was actually sick...", "It was actually big...". It isn't as bad as "literally" but it's still annoying. And when I thought about it for a while and realized he meant "really" instead of "actually" it got even more annoying.
[Author's note: Since I haven't been writing in this too often I ACTUALLY proof read this one and found I had ACTUALLY used the word ACTUAL above, "the ACTUAL unknown and unknowable..." I did, however, use it to mean what it ACTUALLY means.]
My theory is people use actually instead of really because saying actually is kind of fun and saying really feels silly. AK-chewly. Or, if you are Canadian and pronounce your diphthongs like you are supposed to, Ak-chewel-ee.
Really sounds like everything else that ends in EE - like a stripper name of a word made up for little kids.
My theory about literally is people say it for the pauses. "It was...literally...something that wasn't figurative".
And my theory about all this micromanaging of our own vocabularies, our syntax, our speech, is because of the fucking internet. Twenty years ago there was no way for "literally" to enter our consciousness as something you should make fun of people for. The trolls have us policing our own speech to the extent we now use actually just because it sounds smarter than really. But on the other hand, porn. I guess we call the whole internet thing a wash.
Throw in DLing music for free and the internet starts to look like a win. Maybe. I'm still going to bitch about it tho.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
A Hierarchy of Firms
When I was a student I heard Peter Clewes (sp?) lecture. I don't remember anything he had to say except for his neat hierarchy of architecture firms. He said there are three types. Type one are grinders; they take every job they can get and generate product. They are workmanlike and architecture is just a job to them. Type two are the boutique firms who can turn clients away if they don't care for the project (or the client). Type Two firms usually have another source of income (teaching, publishing, inheriting, etc.) because it is very difficult to run a boutique firm on architect's wages. The third type are the firms who take what they can get and then try to do it better. His firm Architects Alliance was a Type Three Firm (and might still be but I don't know if it is still his or if they are still Type Three!!!). When I heard this I immediately thought two things - that is really true and I want to be in a Type Three firm. I also thought I was the one making value judgements and turning his typology into a hierarchy.
Which goes to show what a dumb shit I was and probably still am since it took me the better part of a decade to figure out what complete bullshit that is. It is true there are boutique firms. And it remains true I don't really respect them (even when I admire the shit out of their work, like Williams Tsien). But almost everyone I have ever met in this profession is trying to do it as well as they possibly can. The only thing that makes a distinction between One and Three seem plausible is economics. Some firms have people who can sell. Sell the client on a project, sell the product to the media, sell the firm to potential employees. Sell sell sell.
There are also more ways of doing really good work than are apparent to people like I was at that time - people who consume architecture thru books and magazines. There are firms I could mention whose idea of a really good project is one that runs right on schedule and has almost no change orders. Just very professional work all the way through. And if you don't know how difficult that is to do on a big project don't think it is "less than" because it isn't.
I used to work for a firm that are well on their way to having the ability to turn away potential clients and they are very talented people who work extremely hard. Between the group of them they collectively possess brilliant designers, artists (who make the pretty pictures to sell the projects), big thinkers, poets, and a facility with selling themselves and their work many architects would kill for. And the people I work with now would dismiss them as dilettantes and amateurs. Which is okay because they would dismiss the people I work with now as ambitionless hacks.
I think the reason I fell for Clewes simple typology was I like rules that are easy to remember. The world is too fucking complicated and I crave simplicity. Except, in my experience almost nothing you can say about architecture without pausing at least once for breath is really worth remembering. Well, you could say, "Bjarke Ingels is over-rated and his only real talent is manic self-publicizing". That at least, remains true.
Which goes to show what a dumb shit I was and probably still am since it took me the better part of a decade to figure out what complete bullshit that is. It is true there are boutique firms. And it remains true I don't really respect them (even when I admire the shit out of their work, like Williams Tsien). But almost everyone I have ever met in this profession is trying to do it as well as they possibly can. The only thing that makes a distinction between One and Three seem plausible is economics. Some firms have people who can sell. Sell the client on a project, sell the product to the media, sell the firm to potential employees. Sell sell sell.
There are also more ways of doing really good work than are apparent to people like I was at that time - people who consume architecture thru books and magazines. There are firms I could mention whose idea of a really good project is one that runs right on schedule and has almost no change orders. Just very professional work all the way through. And if you don't know how difficult that is to do on a big project don't think it is "less than" because it isn't.
I used to work for a firm that are well on their way to having the ability to turn away potential clients and they are very talented people who work extremely hard. Between the group of them they collectively possess brilliant designers, artists (who make the pretty pictures to sell the projects), big thinkers, poets, and a facility with selling themselves and their work many architects would kill for. And the people I work with now would dismiss them as dilettantes and amateurs. Which is okay because they would dismiss the people I work with now as ambitionless hacks.
I think the reason I fell for Clewes simple typology was I like rules that are easy to remember. The world is too fucking complicated and I crave simplicity. Except, in my experience almost nothing you can say about architecture without pausing at least once for breath is really worth remembering. Well, you could say, "Bjarke Ingels is over-rated and his only real talent is manic self-publicizing". That at least, remains true.
Monday, July 6, 2015
How to Exponentially Increase Your Chance of Winning a Governor General Medal for Architecture
Move to Saskatchewan.
I was going to write a bunch more about the political reasons for this but if you are the sort of person willing to move to Saskatchewan for the sole purpose of increasing your chances of winning a GG - have a safe trip and good riddance.
I was going to write a bunch more about the political reasons for this but if you are the sort of person willing to move to Saskatchewan for the sole purpose of increasing your chances of winning a GG - have a safe trip and good riddance.
Friday, July 3, 2015
On my (non-triumphant) return to the internet and HOV lanes - in that order
So, been a while since I wrote in this thing. There is a reason for that. I don't want to turn this into one of those "I deal with my psychological / medical / social problem by blogging about it" things or some kind of assignment from my therapist but I do have a condition that makes it difficult for me to work a one thing for an extended period. The technical term is laziness. I know it looks made up but it's a real thing - you can Google it.
I decided to start writing here again because 1) my Facebook status updates were getting way too long and 2) someone requested I do it. If you are thinking 2) is weird and not very believable you are right - although in this case it happens to be true. And it wasn't my therapist. He told me to up the dose on my meds and stop complaining.
So there's that.
I live in Toronto. A few years ago some people here thought it would be fun for this city to host the Pan Am Games. If you don't know what those are you are not alone. What I know about them is this: they fuck up traffic. The city had three years to prepare a plan to deal with the anticipated increase of several thousand additional drivers on the highways during July and August. The plan they came up with was to ask commuters for a "voluntary 10% decrease in the number of cars on the road". No shit. I commute. That's one care. Or, using the math of the Games Organizers, 1.0 cars. I have tried to figure a way to get to work and back in 0.9 cars but it won't work.
I would like to know which cars belong to the 10% of people who are out on the highways at rush hour voluntarily. That is a fucked up hobby.
Anyway, the Organizers knew this wasn't a plan so much as a complete lack of a plan and so they added a couple hundred kilometers of HOV lanes. Three lanes going each way and one is reserved all day for vehicles with three or more occupants, taxis, and official games vehicles. Parenthetically, I have yet to see an official games vehicle - unless they are all driving modded Honda Accords. I've seen plenty of those with one person in them in the HOV lane.
The most annoying thing about this (and it is the top of a very long list) is the media have all agreed not to shit on the games because Go Canada! The traffic report now takes 50 minutes of every hour but the other ten are callers who love the HOV lanes because they are car-pooling. Fuckers.
It's not okay to gloat about car-pooling. It's like bragging about how much you recycle. Not cool. On the plus side, it has helped me understand why some Americans are so dead-set against socialized health care. It's obviously better than a private system but you just know some asshole is going to wreck it by gloating about not dying.
I decided to start writing here again because 1) my Facebook status updates were getting way too long and 2) someone requested I do it. If you are thinking 2) is weird and not very believable you are right - although in this case it happens to be true. And it wasn't my therapist. He told me to up the dose on my meds and stop complaining.
So there's that.
I live in Toronto. A few years ago some people here thought it would be fun for this city to host the Pan Am Games. If you don't know what those are you are not alone. What I know about them is this: they fuck up traffic. The city had three years to prepare a plan to deal with the anticipated increase of several thousand additional drivers on the highways during July and August. The plan they came up with was to ask commuters for a "voluntary 10% decrease in the number of cars on the road". No shit. I commute. That's one care. Or, using the math of the Games Organizers, 1.0 cars. I have tried to figure a way to get to work and back in 0.9 cars but it won't work.
I would like to know which cars belong to the 10% of people who are out on the highways at rush hour voluntarily. That is a fucked up hobby.
Anyway, the Organizers knew this wasn't a plan so much as a complete lack of a plan and so they added a couple hundred kilometers of HOV lanes. Three lanes going each way and one is reserved all day for vehicles with three or more occupants, taxis, and official games vehicles. Parenthetically, I have yet to see an official games vehicle - unless they are all driving modded Honda Accords. I've seen plenty of those with one person in them in the HOV lane.
The most annoying thing about this (and it is the top of a very long list) is the media have all agreed not to shit on the games because Go Canada! The traffic report now takes 50 minutes of every hour but the other ten are callers who love the HOV lanes because they are car-pooling. Fuckers.
It's not okay to gloat about car-pooling. It's like bragging about how much you recycle. Not cool. On the plus side, it has helped me understand why some Americans are so dead-set against socialized health care. It's obviously better than a private system but you just know some asshole is going to wreck it by gloating about not dying.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)