more than 95 theses

Jul 03 2009
+
+
Jul 01 2009
+
Jun 23 2009

Everybody seems to think that the Houses of Parliament are a sublime and loveable architectural embodiment of British tradition. In fact, the present Palace is a ridiculous building that is about as much to do with British tradition as my iPod. Its design was a grotesque Victorian compromise between those who favoured Gothic and those who preferred classical. Charles Barry, a classicist by temperament, did the plan and Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, something of a prat, did the Gothic skin and interior detailing. The plan is good and the river frontage is explicitly classical. The rest is basically a bad three-dimensional Pre-Raphaelite painting, a Disneyesque evocation of Britain as a land of knights and churches which has come, in use, to resemble two giant pubs stuck in the middle of a truly nasty and extremely pompous club for fat philistines with occasional romantic longings and an inflated sense of their own importance. Neo-gothic, unlike neo-classical, seldom works.

Westminster Hall, in contrast, is one of Europe’s and possibly the world’s great interior spaces. It struck me dumb the first time I saw it. The hammerbeam roof is a glory of medieval carpentry. The stone structure is almost 1000 years old and its tone is utterly different from anything else on the site. Real, muscular grandeur contrasts with Pugin’s fussy mincing. The MPs, having moved into this great room, should be made to stand at all times, anything to stop them lolling like drunks on those green pub benches. Also standing, ideally on one leg, focuses the mind and would shorten debates. On entry into the hall they should be made to kneel and kiss these old stones. I am serious. Very.

Brian Appleyard. I could not agree more.
Jun 22 2009
+
Oh, we all hated Holden [Caulfield] in my class. We just wanted to tell him, ‘Shut up and take your Prozac.’
— a 15-year-old Long Island high-school student, quoted here
Jun 21 2009
Zito celebrates scoring the second goal for Brazil against Czechoslovakia during the 1962 World Cup final.
Zito celebrates scoring the second goal for Brazil against Czechoslovakia during the 1962 World Cup final.
+
the joy of summer hoses
the joy of summer hoses
Jun 20 2009
I hope I am not too old to take [flying] up seriously, nor too stupid about machines to qualify as a commercial pilot. I do not feel like spending the rest of my life writing books that no one will read. It is not as though I wanted to write them.
— Samuel Beckett, age 31, in a letter to a friend
+
Definition of a park. It’s time to establish precisely what we mean by a “park”. I’m thinking principally of London, but I feel this definition will fit all parks in all cities of the world. There are certain determining characteristics, necessary conditions, for park status. First, there must be tall, mature trees, the older and taller the better. Second, the majority of the trees in the park must give the impression of random planting - no rectangles or neat lines, by and large. An avenue here or there is allowed, an allée, but we need the illusion of spontaneous, unplanned growth. Third, the ground must undulate in a significant way - flatness is not a park-criterion. Fourth, there is the question of scale: you mustn’t be able to see all sides of the park at once - one boundary at least must be invisible from wherever you stand. Fifth, there must be a gated entrance: a park need not necessarily be fenced or walled but it must have a portal - or several. Immediately we see how these five categories allow us to separate, for example, a park from a city square, however large or grand, or from a common. This is a particularly London issue: is Clapham Common a park? Is Barnes Common a park? Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park are perfectly adjacent - can’t Wimbledon be described as a park? By applying my five categories one can see why the answer has to be no (no portals). Is London Fields a park? Is Kew Gardens? The five categories say that they both are. Let’s cast the net a little wider. Is Les Tuileries in Paris a park? No - it’s too flat, there are not enough very tall trees, the trees are planted in straight lines. Les Tuileries is a jardin publique.
Jun 19 2009
+

While the rest of us Americans scurry about with a Blackberry in one hand and a to-go cup of coffee in the other in a feverish attempt to pack more achievement into every minute, it’s the New Orleans way to build one’s days around friends, family, music, cooking, processions, and art. For more than two centuries New Orleanians have been guardians of tradition and masters of living in the moment — a lost art. Their preference for having more time than money was at the heart of what made that city so much fun to visit and so hard to leave.

So when outsiders talked of making New Orleans “bigger and better,” the people of the city recoiled. “Bigger and better” struck many New Orleanian ears as code for whiter. But even more, I suspect, they heard it as a recipe for a city driven — like the rest of America — by the dollar and the clock. Who needs that?

+
Page 1 of 124