2024.12.29
 
451 Rhawn Gallery
2023.12.29
14:24
2016.12.29
How a mobile home community created a co-op and bought its own land
When I was working in very rural Missouri summer 1978, it was not uncommon to see mobile homes parked in front of old rural farm houses. I was even invited to dinner in such a mobile home once. The old farm house didn't have running water and other utilities, so the owners just found it easier to continue living there in a mobile home. I suppose there's a variety of ways to look at "affordable housing."
2004.12.29
Sontag died on Dienstag
from an email to a friend 28 December 2004:
"Today is Horace Trumbauer's and Guy Debord's birthday, the beginning of Leaving Obscurity Behind, the 2005 Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club Convention. Lots of activity at Logan Circle/Hadrian's Tomb."
Hadrian's Tomb was built because the Tomb of Augustus was full. Record numbers of recently dead attend the opening--Leaving Obscurity Behind indeed.
Otto's speech? Impeccable! "It appears we should add some Cret paper to the roster."
The induction ceremony of new members of the Horace Trumbauer Fan Club thrilled all.
Dr. Albert C. Barnes and Susan Sontag
It was great seeing Le Corbusier slap Barnes around during the initiation.
Le Corbusier, too, while on a lecture tour in America, was a victim of the doctor's bad manners, though he almost had a chance to see the collection. His application for admission, he was informed at first, was approved--for a date and time specified by Barnes. When the architect replied that the time was not suitable because of a previously scheduled lecture, however, Barnes was offended. He wanted a fight. In a letter accusing Corbusier of being drunk during his stay in Philadelphia, he informed him that he was no longer welcome at the foundation. The architect's reply was conciliatory, He was not interested in quarreling with Barnes, he wrote; he preferred to fight with those that disagreed with him on artistic matters, and he knew that the doctor, instead, shared his own enthusiasms. He was certain that he would never meet Barnes, but he wanted the senseless state of war that existed between them to come to an end. Barnes never answered the letter; he returned it, with the word "merde," written in large letters on the envelope.
Howard Greenfield, The Devil and Dr. Barnes: Portrait of an American Collector, p. 252-3.
It was also fun seeing Barnes circumnavigate Logan Circle in an envelope with "Shit" all over it. A spectacle suggest by Debord.
The fan club is always in need of more woman members, so Sontag's initiation was a most happy event. Tableau reenactments ensued:
"Against Interpretation"
"Notes on Camp"
"On Style"
"The Aesthetics of Silence"
"The Pornographic Imagination"
Susan is now in charge of the "Unguided Tour" department, and she joins Duchamp and Jennewein in the presentation of "[Learning from] Nudist Camp at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Barnes is so impressed with African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back that he's even further rethinking the display of his collection after it moves to Philadelphia.
2002.12.29
Re: Foul Perfection
Mike Kelley('s work) is not the point. The fact that Diederichsen finds (albeit inadvertently) in Kelley a reiteration of the role of the spoil-sport vis-à-vis the magic circle of play adds credence to the role of the spoil-sport in that the spoil-sport's work and the magic circles' work together form a more true rendition of actual history. The work of the magic circle alone does not provide a full and/or true view of history. Ever faithful to its (own) game, the magic circle only delivers the magic circles' view of history, and the spoil-sports who do not play by the magic circles' rules deliver the rest of the view. Hence, the contradictory material, i.e., art of the spoil-sport that history pretends didn't happen, is the point.
It seems safe to label Kelley as an artist that began more as a spoil-sport, but I wouldn't label him as a spoil-sport that "sometimes happens...[to]...make a new community with rules of its own."
Granted, I'll be more attentive to Kelley's work, particularly with regard to its spoil-sport aspects or not, but I'm much more interested in spoil-sport artists truly outside the magic circle who indeed do make a new community.
1999.12.29
breakfasts with Winka
A number of the INSIDE DENSITY [colloquium 25-26 November] participants, including myself, stayed at Brussels' Sun Hotel. As I result, I had the by chance pleasure of twice sharing breakfast with Winka Dubbeldam. Winka was co-chair (with Jan Verheyden) of the "Mapping, Designing, Negotiating Boundaries" session of INSIDE DENSITY's second day, and we met the morning before her session. I was particularly interested in meeting Winka because without her knowing it our paths had already indirectly crossed. I first saw Winka as a presenter at the University of Pennsylvania's Digital Translations symposium, 1 May 1999; I "virtually participated" with this symposium (see xxx.htm) as well as physically attended the symposium. Winka's presentation at Digital Translations was one of those I liked most -- she used Shockwave and did so without a hitch. At that time, I did not yet know if my paper was accepted for INSIDE DENSITY, nor did I know Winka would also be involved at INSIDE DENSITY. Between May and November, I've seen the book of Winka work, and the online presentation of her project within MoMA's Un-Private House exhibit. (Just this week I've found Winka's website www.archi-tectonics.com and an interview with Winka at http://web.arch-mag.com
Before I presented my paper at INSIDE DENSITY, I was simply introduced as Stephen Lauf, founder of Quondam, an architect from Philadelphia, and hence when Winka and I met the next morning she straight away asked (with a quizzical look on her face) if I was from the University of Pennsylvania. (Apparently, I was perhaps the only non-academic to present at INSIDE DENSITY.) I told her I was not from U of P, but that I was the cad system manager at Penn's Graduate School of Fine Arts (GSFA) in the mid-eighties. I then told her I saw her at Digital Translation, thus I also knew that she (at least then) taught at Penn, and I asked if she lives in Philadelphia. Winka teaches at Columbia in the Fall, teaches at Penn in the Spring, and she lives and works in New York. We spoke about the ongoing distinctiveness of Philadelphia architectur(al academia), and Winka generally characterized it as conservative but valuable nonetheless, for example, Philadelphia's uniqueness may go back as far as its once having been the capital of the United States. I asked if there was a discernible difference between the student at Columbia and those at Penn, to which she replied that the students at Columbia are more investigative but not as hard working, where as the students at Penn work harder but are not as investigative -- she said the differences thus kind of evened themselves out.
I then offered an opinion, and asked if she would agree. I said it seems that architectural students and recent graduates today feel that the 'older' generation (ie, over 35 or so) are generally 'clueless' of the theoretical 'stuff' that's presently going on, or with the technological stuff that's now going on. She agreed that my observation had a fair amount of validity, however, we both concurred that there is indeed a measurable gap between young and old created by (computer) technology in design. (Of course, as a forty-something architect myself, I like to think that the younger generation is generally 'clueless' about what the older generation knows.) In any case, we both see a gap between young and old architects that may be something unique to now.
At the next morning's breakfast, Winka only had time for coffee while she waited for a taxi. I simply asked her what she's reading these days. She mentioned a work by a Japanese novelist, along with Saskia Sassen's latest book. I told her I was reading Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, because of its possible bearing on reenactment. I also managed to quickly tell her about my St. Helena work, and how just meeting two Elenis added much to my thesis [legend], to which she replied, "So, you are having lots of fun!"
1998.12.29
imaginations
The imagination of [omni-]frequency surpasses all other modes of the imagination.
The electromagnetic imagination is the most illuminating and clear.
The osmotic imagination endeavors to find all things equal.
The metabolic imagination simultaneously creates while it destroys.
The assimilating imagination is extremely absorbent of data.
The fertile imagination is the most reproductive.
1991.12.29
911229n1.db ABSOLUT Philadelphia.
1952.12.29
1952. Monday, New York City
Receives a cable from Marceau to say that as they will have help in Milford tomorrow, the truck will bring three men instead of four [23.12.1952] permitting Duchamp to ride back with them as far as New York.
Ephemerides
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