This is Maddy, leaning back and girthing on Guy while watching the NBA Finals. She's something of a Steve Nash fan. She hasn't cleaned her litter box like I told her to on Friday, nor has she picked up her jingle toys. Just sorry as a cat can be.I've spent most of my weekend putting together the handout for the kidz in the classes next week. Took about 14 hours total, but it's 12 pages, each about 1/3 text and 2/3 photos. Kitty informed me that her friend's school has pretty wired classrooms, so if I want to make a PowerPoint presentation to go with all this, I can just bring a memory stick with the presentation on it and I'm done--no need to schlep a laptop or projector to Georgia. (I mentioned this to Sarge, who quipped, "Now if only Georgia had electricity, you could plug those computers in and use them.") The prof for whom I'm lecturing is reviewing my novel--um, lecture notes--to see what I can ditch and what I should keep. My notes are long enough for a semester-long class, so I've gotta trim it down from its Dostoevsky-esque length and Kafka-esque weirdness. Where else can a lecturer read such architectural historically-significant gems as "Mies van der Rohe had a steel-and-glass simplicity and a big ass," "Gropius received a professorship at Harvard, where he taught Bauhaus sensibilities to those Beaux-Arts candyasses," and "Louis Kahn embraced Modernist-Brutalist concrete exteriors as well as three wives." I hope to convey, when all is said and done, that architecture (and architects) is a product of its culture which in turn shapes behavior and culture right back. west Coast architect Richard Neutra once claimed that he could design a house such that, if a couple moved into it, they would file for divorce in a month. Sounds like a load of crap, but think about it. You ever gotten really pissed at someone having to share a bathroom with them? What if all the outlets are on their side of the counter and you have to reach over them to use a hair dryer? Ever nearly turned on someone with a potato peeler in a too-crowded kitchen with a bad work triangle? Bet you have. Neutra wasn't kidding.
Anyway, if I'm gonna do the PowerPoint presentation, I better get on the stick. I suppose I should wait to see what the prof comes up with regarding my lecture notes before I go through all that trouble.
4 comments:
e sure to take a picture of a Frank Gehry building with you.
Have you heard of an Architect by the name of Paul Rudolph? I had a chance to see one of his buildings very close up when I was in high school. It was the Endo Pharmaceuticals manufacturing plant on Long Island. I was wondering if you knew anything about his work?
Be sure to drink beer with Miss Kitty.
oh my - that kitteh needs serious belly scritches.
mine do that too. suddenly their legs look too small for their massiveness.
heh.
Large & In Charge! Oh, Aunt Kitty wuvs that Squadds.
You better "get crackin" on that PowerPoint, as Daddy would say. :-P
Oh, she's cute! I'm a sucker for cats...
And I sure wish I could sit in on that lecture. Although in my opinion, far better than designing a house to cause a divorce would be designing buildings to put dampers on violence and bigotry. Of course, its always easier to make a mess than fix one...
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