2004.02.04 09:46
Re: Neo Goth
Oh goodie. Now I know what I'm doing today. Finally my Dark Shadows Series of 1985 will be documented at Museumpeace. "Angelique's coffin is at stake," and just wait till you see the phantom opera buffs.
chop chop
When I got my first answering machine, also back in 1985, I used to record the greeting with the TV on in the background. Remember when NJN, the New Jersey Network, was rebroadcasting Dark Shadows every night at 6:30? Anyway, at one fortuitous greeting recording, after saying please leave your message, a voice from the TV in the background then asked, "Quentin, is that you?" As a result, people used to leave the funniest messages.
Wonder what my Goth would be like these daze.
2004.02.04 11:08
forthcoming calendrical coincidence
25 February 2004
The 1609th anniversary of Ambrose breaking the silence regarding Helena and her finding of the True Cross at Milan.
Ash Wednesday
The public release in over 2000 theaters of The Passion of the Christ.
After the events at Milan, Maria and most of her family will return to Philadelphia for Lent. Stilicho, Serena, Honorius and Thermantia, and Galla Placida for sure. Theodosius as yet still a maybe. Of course, Ambrose and Helena are coming as well since everyone will be staying somewhere in either St. Ambrose or St. Helena Parish. Wonder what they are each going to sacrifice.
2004.02.04 12:26
Re: what to do with the art that doesn't sell
Gosh, just about all I do is collect art that doesn't sell.
One of the best qualities of a collector is to be unique. You copy?
2004.02.04 15:40
Re: Neo Goth
Jim Williams (one of the main characters of Afterlife Address of Choice) owned the dagger that castrated Rasputin.
 
"Make that just a pinch.
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2004.02.04 16:39
"This game still has the fangs."
for ages 6 to 14 (their blood tastes the best anyway)
2004.02.05 09:51
Re: Declining Art Attendance
Somewhere in S/Z Barthes writes that laughter is the best form of castration. Is castration a high form of subversion? Well yes, if not also fatal.
I've always been a do-it-yourselfer, plus I've been architectural inclined since childhood and artistically inclinded since my architectural skills became computer-aided (1983), so in these 'wired' days it's somewhat natural for me to have DIY museums--me at my most subversive so far, you might say
2004.02.05 10:32
Re: D.I.Y. Gallery
Apart from administering dosage after dosage of serious medications, real schizophrenia is something that a non-schizophrenic just cannot subvert.
Real schizophrenia, like my brother Otto is touched with, is very much an ultimate subversion itself.
About a half year ago, I was helping my brother clean up his room. I found a 20 year old vile half full of Thorazin tablets. That vile and its contents is now part of my art collection.
Ten years ago, I was working at Venue, my own DIY gallery. Five years ago, www.quondam.com was in the midst of a year long project entitled schizophrenia + architectures. These days I'm mostly working on writing a novel whose working title is Afterlife Address of Choice.
2004.02.08 12:43
Re: Neo Goth
just remembering Batcaves
pieces of Kabul on your coffee table?
2002.01.27 11:54
Rather than returning to the growing and exporting of opium, perhaps Afghanistan should begin globally marketing the millions of pieces of building debris that presently litter its cities and remote terrorist training sites. Of course, cave rocks would be the most expensive, er, I mean sought after. But, if rubble rocks are not appealing to worldwide consumers, maybe there are piles of pieces of Taliban destroyed Buddhist artworks throughout Afghanistan which could be tapped for sale in the global marketplace.
And, (in metabolic dreams only?) perhaps a whole new flowering of Chinese Art and Indian Art will arise with the forthcoming use of WTC steel as medium.
Last night I watched the movie After Hours, and I think I recognized the couch in the Soho artist's loft. In fact, I'm pretty sure I sat in that very couch a number of times. Ron, wasn't that the couch that Jim D. gave you? [Jim D. and I sat next to each other in fourth grade at St. Ambrose Catholic School (c.1966). We used to draw 'Batcaves' to entertain each other. Those long non-existent drawings were probably the first building sections I ever drew. Anyone interested in buying some 'Batcave' drawing reenactments?]
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for the record, Stilicho was half Vandal, half Roman, whereas Alaric was a Visigoth.
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2004.02.14 14:07
Re: of castles, fortifications, etc.
Great stuff. Mecca and WTC, what a comparison. You seem to be asking (and answering) "how does one design a site of pilgrimage well?" I agree that this is an apt question for design these days. Lucky for me, I suppose, my 'pilgrimage' to the post 9-11 WTC occurred the first weekend Lower Manhattan was reopened after the attack. A true once in a lifetime event. I haven't visited the Pentagon or Shanksville yet, however.
Architect Aldo Rossi also held the lighthouse typology in high regard. If you are not familiar with his many architectural sketches (many of which are published in a fair number of books), you might find lots of inspiration related to your own work. His collecting of favorite typologies is much akin to your own collecting of the 'architecture of electricity'.
Last evening Philadelphia was witness to a great 100' to 150' column of fire. Ten minutes before 5 o'clock a small crew of water workers at the intersection of Olney and Ogontz Avenues (about 2.5 miles directly west from where I live) accidentally broke open a 20" gas main, and within a half minute there erupted an enormous explosion resulting in a tremendously powerful vertical jet of flame. Miraculously, no one was injured, and after four hours the pressure within the gas main was shut off, and the column of fire was gone.
Your thoughts about the place of fiction in the reality of modern life is poignant. Late last night I watched the movie (based on the book) Remains of the Day, and it's story seems to relate to what you say. From amazon.com: "The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him--oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking, pitch-perfect novel--namely, Stevens' own ability to allow some bit of life-affirming love into his tightly repressed existence." What I saw in the film is that the aristocrat employer was just as oblivious as his butler, an oblivion, moreover, manifest by grandly organized pretense. In the movie, Christopher Reeves plays a U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania. Before he visits the manor for a circa 1936 foreign affairs conference, the aristocrat and some of his compatriots wonder as to the source of the Congressman's family's wealth--"Perhaps they made their money from trolley cars." This is an obscure reference to the Philadelphia Wideners, for whom Lynnewood Hall by Horace Trumbauer was built. I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon (just across the street from the now derelict Lynnewood Hall, which was once just as grand as the Manor House in the movie) at Our Lady of Prouille, the quondam Elstowe, estate of the Elkins Family, now a retreat house run by the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de Ricci. I had the good fortune of speaking with Sister Caroline who is now in charge of the place. We even discussed Louis Kahn's unexecuted design for a Motherhouse which the Sisterhood had commissioned. Before going home, I went to the art library at Temple University's Tyler School of Art (which is right next to where I spoke with Sister Caroline, whose office is within what used to be the estate squash courts). Because I was looking up books about the art treasures that used to be within Lynnewood Hall (now the Widener Collection within the National Gallery, Washington DC), the librarian also brought out of the rare book room a most unexpected item--the 1946 auction catalogue of the estate of Eva Stotesbury. [Gosh, I love the reality of fabricating a novel/fiction.] '
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2004.02.14 14:52
Re: Stump the guru: Win eternal life!
two favorite movies:
Two for the Road
Spetters
narrative via vehicle motif
2004.02.16 11:02
Re: of castles, fortifications, etc.
My Architect was not discussed, so I don't know if Sister Caroline saw the movie. What she did was explain why the Motherhouse was commissioned, and how, after repeated redesigns to fit the budget, the project was ultimately abandoned. Sister Caroline was actually more curious about "the paper" Saint Catherine de Ricci and Louis Kahn are to present in "the novel I'm working on." I plan to return to have an extended conversation with Sister Caroline, and perhaps some other Sisters as well. The Dominican Retreat House, just north of Philadelphia, now more or less acts as the Motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters.
I told her I constructed a computer model of the project on the site, and I asked about the big hillside behind where the Motherhouse was to be. She said that was "daffodil hill" because it was covered entirely with daffodils. The Dominican Sisters sold the site (at Media, southwest of Philadelphia, just north of Delaware) in 1990; it is now developed with suburban housing.
The Dominican Retreat House (the quondam Elkins Estate) comprises two Trumbauer Houses, Elstowe and Chelten House--one for the father, one for the son. Elstowe (c. 1900) is in the Italian Renaissance style, with a large powerhouse far down the valley, now a home for aged sisters. Chelten House (c. 1898) is in the Elizabethan style, with a separate stable compound and a squash court. The grounds are quite the sight/site; I look forward to going there again in the Spring. Both mansions are used to house religious retreats every weekend.
2004.02.18 13:03
Re: www.nla.gov.au/history/images/sheep.jpg
Back in January 1987, I bumped into an original copy of the Magna Carta in that building (the quondam Australian National Capitol).
2004.02.20 13:35
getting one's symbolic bearings
I just checked at mapquest and the largest angle of the triangle formed by the Dominican Retreat House of St. Catherine de Ricci (point one), the intersection of Ogontz and Olney Avenues (point two--location of the column of fire that occurred at dusk on the quondam* feast of St. Catherine de Ricci), and where I live on Arbor Street (point three--the quelle quondam.com) is approximately 96.8 degrees.
In The Odds of Ottopia, the column of jet flame represents St. Catherine's arrival in Philadelphia bearing the news (for Otto) that both Theodosius and his wife Aelia Flaccilla ["She is venerated in the Greek Church as a saint, and her feast is kept on 14 September."--14 September is also (feast of) the Exaltation of the Cross (i.e., the day Helena found the True Cross), and my father Otto's birthday. I myself recently learned that Helena and Aelia Flaccilla shared an almost identical physical appearance.] will be coming to Philadelphia at dusk 25 February, and staying for (another 40 days of) Lent.
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*Subsequent to the Second Vatican Council, the feast of St. Catherine de Ricci was moved from 13 February to 4 February--Catherine died 2 February 1590. Anyway, the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine de Ricci still celebrate the feat of St. Catherine on 13 February because that is when "most of the Sisters in the Order took their vows."
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