After Corbu

In case it hasn’t been obvious for some time, I’ve all but shuttered this blog.  I just don’t have the time to post enough to make this project real to me, if that makes sense.  I would be interested in some kind of group-blogging situation in the future, so feel free to email me about […]

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Sadly, today my hopes that public transit would be a panacea for anti-social behavior were, once again, dashed. PT: not a sufficient condition for people to develop enough affinity for their fellow man to avoid being mean to beggers.
Today, as I left the metro a woman was asking for money for food. […]

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Light posting of late, as I’m working on a different online project that I’m quite excited about. When it’s of at least beta quality you’ll hear me chattering about it endlessly, but until then…your moment of zen phallacy:

La Live by Gensler
It’s not often you see a building get larger as it goes up. […]

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I should never have poked fun at the new Thom Mayne building and the poor engineers that have to design it; today I was put on a new project team for one of the starchitect’s towers.  It has a crumpled facade.  The steel is kinked at every level.  The diaphragms are discontinuous.  Almost every one […]

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I’ve been desperately searching for a contractor blogger who I can vent work-related frustration on by harassing endlessly. Unfortunately, all I’ve managed to find is Tom Gerdy at Huffington Post shilling for Habitat for Humanity, so here’s my guilt-absolving link. And I’m sure most contractors have hearts of gold, but my antagonists today […]

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In my former life as a high school debater, I once faced a guy who kept accusing me of possessing “audacious audacity” to forward some argument (presumably meaning the words in the pejorative sense).  I’ve long since forgot the matter in dispute — but not the ridiculous word choice! — and so it was hard […]

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Birthdays = existential angst, and so I spent a not inconsiderable portion of the weekend unsure what I want or what I’m doing.  Watching Rocket Science didn’t really help (unsatisfying ending!) and mostly made me feel nostalgic.  I never thought I’d be able to miss high school — and I don’t — but I do […]

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Hilarious.
I meanwhile had a total guys night during the superbowl where:

games were played (chess)
alcohol was drunk (red wine)
porn was watched (boogie nights)
pizza was eaten (after reading yelp reviews for an hour)

So I had like the effete intellectual version of a guys night out.  It was awesome.

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My wife had a school deadline earlier today and amidst technological malfunctions is trying to get her stuff turned while it’s still today. I can’t really help except to suggest things she’s already tried every few minutes and passively experience all the builtup tension in the room. The downside to caring about […]

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I once had a very long philosophical conversation about this very issue with a homeless man at a greyhound station.  He was not amused; he was hungry.  I still don’t understand the best behavior.  There’s too many tradeoffs involved:

immediate vs long term action
individual vs  collective efforts
personal vs structural change

Of course, right now I buy bread […]

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I found an excerpt from this graphic story (is “comic” an insult?) called 976 sq ft. at Life Without Buildings, which “tells the tale of a modern residential tower rising in a quickly gentrifying neighborhood” and it’s detrimental psychological impact on a couple across the street, and I felt a little guilty. Half of […]

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Not to be confused with Centipetal Forces, the militia units of the the Centipede army.
This xkcd got me thinking:  High school physics, where most kids are told about the fictitious status of centrifugal forces, generally sticks to Newtonian physics.  This makes sense because pre-modern, F=ma primitivism are the most useful sort of physics to those […]

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Inexplicably, the electricity is out at my apartment building while the rest of the block continues their powered-up lives.  This leaves me to deploy candles and pirate a wireless connection for entertainment from my only battery-operable device.  I wonder if I could run my fridge off my laptop battery if I had to?  If nothing […]

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Photo by Xispas. Thanks!
Today is the awesome Dias de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever Cemetery,and if you’re in LA, you really should go. Families line the pathways with altars to dead loved ones packed with pictures, favorite foodstuffs, stuffed animals, etc. (It’s something of a mindfuck regarding the ways we’re remembered after we’re […]

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I have been to Disneyland three times.
First, as a child, an experience I do not remember. I am told I sat down in the parking lot and declared I was going to die if I had to walk any farther. My hatred for parking lots started early.
Second, as a teenager to participate in […]

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Now that After Corbu is the #74 Architecture Blog on the web, I wanted to take a moment to congratulate all the readers of this site.  Clearly you are a brilliant bunch, or you wouldn’t visit such an awesome site.
I jest (re: my ego, not your intelligence), but I am legitimately excited when anyone takes […]

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