Book Pile
Originally uploaded by millinerd
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Ecclesial Brilliance
Matt Schultz, Youth Minister at Nassau Presbyterian Church and a Princeton Seminary classmate of mine, hit the ball out of the park on national television. His testimony to the non-ultimacy of money was itself worth a million dollars. I'm continually staggered by the quality and character of some of the people I went to Seminary with. Thanks to another of them, Jon Kershner, for the link.
Some of the smartest and best people out there - brace yourselves for this earth-shaking assertion - are not in academia, but in churches. This gives me reason to announce an important initiative, the Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology (SAET). Here's some more info, and check out some of their recent opportunities. When an array of the finest living minds are located in the skulls of pastors, it makes sense to take at least some of your academic directives from them.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Year in Beer
I cannot improve upon my liturgically-minded Thanksgiving food and drink recommendations from last year. What I can do is update the beers.
Come to think of it, I've let an entire year pass without alerting you to my brew picks. There was no Spring beer that particularly arrested me, but the beer of the summer was Smuttynose Star Island. I'm sorry I didn't tell you then.
As summer faded, Magic Hat continued to try a bit too hard and their labels grew even weirder. If you could find it, a not-too-heavy autumnal brew of distinction was Southern Tier Harvest Ale. But nice as it was, it still couldn't top Tröegs HopBack Amber, which is delectable year-round (as is their Pale). Fortuitously, it's not too late to share with you the perfect Thanksgiving beer, Victory's sensational Yakima Twilight. Tröegs and Victory remain the nation's two micro-brewing standouts, and they're - that's right - East coasters. Pennsylvania represent.
And lo, winter approaches. The solstice-celebrating culture of micro-breweries is not in principle disturbing (God is the cosmos-maker), but I fear that some Pacific Northwest breweries have neo-pagan intent. Hence I prefer to vote with my dollars for Christmas ales, but I can't drink them just yet because it's not even Advent (though I know what I'll have when it's time).
Happy Jeudi Gras everyone. Get on the Yakima. Cheers.
Come to think of it, I've let an entire year pass without alerting you to my brew picks. There was no Spring beer that particularly arrested me, but the beer of the summer was Smuttynose Star Island. I'm sorry I didn't tell you then.
As summer faded, Magic Hat continued to try a bit too hard and their labels grew even weirder. If you could find it, a not-too-heavy autumnal brew of distinction was Southern Tier Harvest Ale. But nice as it was, it still couldn't top Tröegs HopBack Amber, which is delectable year-round (as is their Pale). Fortuitously, it's not too late to share with you the perfect Thanksgiving beer, Victory's sensational Yakima Twilight. Tröegs and Victory remain the nation's two micro-brewing standouts, and they're - that's right - East coasters. Pennsylvania represent.
And lo, winter approaches. The solstice-celebrating culture of micro-breweries is not in principle disturbing (God is the cosmos-maker), but I fear that some Pacific Northwest breweries have neo-pagan intent. Hence I prefer to vote with my dollars for Christmas ales, but I can't drink them just yet because it's not even Advent (though I know what I'll have when it's time).
Happy Jeudi Gras everyone. Get on the Yakima. Cheers.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Blogging c. 2010: The State of the Art
Blogging is dead (2007), and dead again (2009), providing occasion to comment on its next interval of aliveness. Here are twelve related assertions, some obvious, hopefully some original (number 6 is the heart of the matter). Rebuttals or amendments welcome.
1. Blogrolls barely matter anymore. Updating them is tedious, and rarely do they reflect a given blogger's current reading habits. They've been replaced by feed aggregators such as google reader, which do accurately reflect reading habits.
2. The quick "check this out" post is less relevant. That's what sharing on google reader is for. I usually only post what I find interesting here if I think it fits the niche of this blog, which facebook has declared "uncategorizable."
3. Hit counts are becoming increasingly unreliable as more readers are relying on RSS feeds rather than clicking through to favorite blogs (see point 1). Hit counters have, accordingly, been replaced by RSS count.
4. Blog design is still important, but less so. I'm due for a redesign (and perhaps I will undertake one, suggestions welcome). But with most traffic coming from google reader, slaving to create an interesting design may not be that important.
5. The bane of blogging was (and to some extent, still is) narcissism, as so well evidenced by the film Julie and Julia where the gracious Julia is far preferable to her blogging counterpart. And yet, the what-I'm-up-to post still has a certain appeal. Twitter and facebook have not killed blogs, but have quarantined that sometimes helpful daily update aspect into a more appropriate forum. If you care what a given blogger is up to on a daily basis then friend them or follow them on twitter - but they have less excuse now to bore you with that information on their blogs.
6. The aforementioned quarantine of personal detailing has, at least in theory, liberated blogs to abound in actual content. Hence, the potential birth, not dearth, of blogging at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Granted, one might outsource the best stuff to alternate forums (notice, eh hem, my "offsite articles" category on the left sidebar). Furthermore, at least when it comes to academia, there is little reason to post specialized academic work online - that's for conferences, talks and publishing. But, my professional interests will often lead me to encounter things which can't be squeezed into, or wait upon, the normative academic process. So, for shorter reflections, choice flickr photos, a photo essay, or when one reads a brilliant paragraph somewhere and wants to share it with a brief comment, there's the blog. Doing this for a while leads to an invaluable personal, yet public, archive which can often serve as a launching point for larger projects. In short, for posts somewhere between a bona fide essay and a tweet, blogging is perfect.
7. For those of us who make our living (or, more accurately, our stipend) by reading and writing, a strong case can be made for a blog as a personal hub or aggregate point. Twitter, amazon, flickr, facebook, shelfari, etc.: A blog is where they meet, gathering up the diaspora of one's online identity. Blogs consolidate web presence, help you control (to the extent possible) where people end up when they search your name, and can go much more in depth than facebook. Why burden facebook acquaintances with your extended reflections? Just provide a link to your blog in case they're interested, which - realism insists - they may not be.
8. Most importantly, blogging is about writing well, or at least learning to write better which only comes from writing often. The allure of an audience, however meager, is just the spur some of us need to do so more often. The exercise may or may not lead to fascinating content or gorgeous prose, but will certainly hone anyone's writing skills. As Augustine said, "I am the sort of man who writes because he has made progress, and who makes progress - by writing."
9. Comments still work. Personally, I cherish them, and while I know they don't necessarily indicate the relevance or popularity of a given post, I can't shake the sense that, to some extent, they do. Web overload means comments are rarer, but they can still generate interesting discussion on a specific topic in a way that a group email, facebook comments, retweets, or something else cannot.
10. Ours is the era of the blog merge, when larger sites pick up smaller blogs or like-minded friends band together to create a blog, which happened before, but seems to happen more often now perhaps as a result of the changes in the medium listed above. I don't know what to make of this. I have friends I'd like to guest post here, and I have had invitations to guest post elsewhere. But the autonomy of one's own blog is a valuable asset, and I rarely have enough content to fill more than one blog. More importantly, one should not write for the internet at large, but for a particular audience. I usually have a given group of friends or individuals in mind. No doubt cross-posting (posting the same material at different sites) can be done with integrity, but the directedness of given material to a particular audience is why I have slight reservations about the practice.
11. Fame has proven fickle. The best place to be is on the verge of being discovered, with interesting content that should have a wider audience, but doesn't; as opposed to less-than-interesting content that has a wider audience than it should. At least that's what I keep telling myself.
12. The criticism that the architecture of blogging privileges new over best content can, to an extent, be answered. This can be done through a good "best of" list (see "millinarcissism" to the left), solid categories, or through the new feature linkwithin so nicely modeled by A Bloomsbury Life. One day I'll fix my home-rolled defective HTML and see if I can get that going here. There are ways to encourage depth of engagement.
What all this means for this blog: If you want to see what I find interesting on a daily basis, enable my shares through google reader. If you care what I'm up to, follow me on twitter or friendify me on facebook; I try to only post relatively interesting status updates, but I won't bore you with that here. If you're not on my blogroll, don't worry, I rarely check it anyway. If you read this blog, your comments are never solicited, but they are always welcome, and your reading along all these years (going on six) is warmly appreciated.
All in all, in case things get interesting, a blog is a good thing to have around. The informational homesteader still does well to cultivate an autonomous plot on the virtual frontier.
1. Blogrolls barely matter anymore. Updating them is tedious, and rarely do they reflect a given blogger's current reading habits. They've been replaced by feed aggregators such as google reader, which do accurately reflect reading habits.
2. The quick "check this out" post is less relevant. That's what sharing on google reader is for. I usually only post what I find interesting here if I think it fits the niche of this blog, which facebook has declared "uncategorizable."
3. Hit counts are becoming increasingly unreliable as more readers are relying on RSS feeds rather than clicking through to favorite blogs (see point 1). Hit counters have, accordingly, been replaced by RSS count.
4. Blog design is still important, but less so. I'm due for a redesign (and perhaps I will undertake one, suggestions welcome). But with most traffic coming from google reader, slaving to create an interesting design may not be that important.
5. The bane of blogging was (and to some extent, still is) narcissism, as so well evidenced by the film Julie and Julia where the gracious Julia is far preferable to her blogging counterpart. And yet, the what-I'm-up-to post still has a certain appeal. Twitter and facebook have not killed blogs, but have quarantined that sometimes helpful daily update aspect into a more appropriate forum. If you care what a given blogger is up to on a daily basis then friend them or follow them on twitter - but they have less excuse now to bore you with that information on their blogs.
6. The aforementioned quarantine of personal detailing has, at least in theory, liberated blogs to abound in actual content. Hence, the potential birth, not dearth, of blogging at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Granted, one might outsource the best stuff to alternate forums (notice, eh hem, my "offsite articles" category on the left sidebar). Furthermore, at least when it comes to academia, there is little reason to post specialized academic work online - that's for conferences, talks and publishing. But, my professional interests will often lead me to encounter things which can't be squeezed into, or wait upon, the normative academic process. So, for shorter reflections, choice flickr photos, a photo essay, or when one reads a brilliant paragraph somewhere and wants to share it with a brief comment, there's the blog. Doing this for a while leads to an invaluable personal, yet public, archive which can often serve as a launching point for larger projects. In short, for posts somewhere between a bona fide essay and a tweet, blogging is perfect.
7. For those of us who make our living (or, more accurately, our stipend) by reading and writing, a strong case can be made for a blog as a personal hub or aggregate point. Twitter, amazon, flickr, facebook, shelfari, etc.: A blog is where they meet, gathering up the diaspora of one's online identity. Blogs consolidate web presence, help you control (to the extent possible) where people end up when they search your name, and can go much more in depth than facebook. Why burden facebook acquaintances with your extended reflections? Just provide a link to your blog in case they're interested, which - realism insists - they may not be.
8. Most importantly, blogging is about writing well, or at least learning to write better which only comes from writing often. The allure of an audience, however meager, is just the spur some of us need to do so more often. The exercise may or may not lead to fascinating content or gorgeous prose, but will certainly hone anyone's writing skills. As Augustine said, "I am the sort of man who writes because he has made progress, and who makes progress - by writing."
9. Comments still work. Personally, I cherish them, and while I know they don't necessarily indicate the relevance or popularity of a given post, I can't shake the sense that, to some extent, they do. Web overload means comments are rarer, but they can still generate interesting discussion on a specific topic in a way that a group email, facebook comments, retweets, or something else cannot.
10. Ours is the era of the blog merge, when larger sites pick up smaller blogs or like-minded friends band together to create a blog, which happened before, but seems to happen more often now perhaps as a result of the changes in the medium listed above. I don't know what to make of this. I have friends I'd like to guest post here, and I have had invitations to guest post elsewhere. But the autonomy of one's own blog is a valuable asset, and I rarely have enough content to fill more than one blog. More importantly, one should not write for the internet at large, but for a particular audience. I usually have a given group of friends or individuals in mind. No doubt cross-posting (posting the same material at different sites) can be done with integrity, but the directedness of given material to a particular audience is why I have slight reservations about the practice.
11. Fame has proven fickle. The best place to be is on the verge of being discovered, with interesting content that should have a wider audience, but doesn't; as opposed to less-than-interesting content that has a wider audience than it should. At least that's what I keep telling myself.
12. The criticism that the architecture of blogging privileges new over best content can, to an extent, be answered. This can be done through a good "best of" list (see "millinarcissism" to the left), solid categories, or through the new feature linkwithin so nicely modeled by A Bloomsbury Life. One day I'll fix my home-rolled defective HTML and see if I can get that going here. There are ways to encourage depth of engagement.
What all this means for this blog: If you want to see what I find interesting on a daily basis, enable my shares through google reader. If you care what I'm up to, follow me on twitter or friendify me on facebook; I try to only post relatively interesting status updates, but I won't bore you with that here. If you're not on my blogroll, don't worry, I rarely check it anyway. If you read this blog, your comments are never solicited, but they are always welcome, and your reading along all these years (going on six) is warmly appreciated.
All in all, in case things get interesting, a blog is a good thing to have around. The informational homesteader still does well to cultivate an autonomous plot on the virtual frontier.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Mixed Messages
So the Vatican wants to support art to the point of backing the 2011 Biennale, but they won't back the cinematic art of Twilight 2? What's the deal? "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be." -James 3:10
Please note: This post is intended to be humorous.
Please note: This post is intended to be humorous.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
In Praise of the National Mall
The National Mall is best experienced not on a Middle School field trip, but in adulthood, and not amidst sweaty throngs in August, but alone on a mist-heavy Autumn morning, with half the yellow leaves on the trees and half on the ground. I had the sober pleasure of such an experience today. Originally envisioned in L'Enfant's early plan for the city, the Mall was perfected by Charles McKim, Frederick Law Olmstead, and Daniel Burnham - a dream team of architecture and landscape design.
Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian has regretfully ensured the cliché status of the Lincoln Memorial for a new generation. All the more reason, therefore, to redeem it by looking more closely, considering the fact of its near perfection. Daniel Chester French's Lincoln sits, about to stand. The gesture of his right hand signals a generous measure of compassion, and on the right wall are his tender words from Gettysburg. Lincoln's left hand signals determination, a fist nearly tense in resolve yet not clenched in anger. Illustrating this on the left wall is his Second Inaugural, for my money, the finest speech in American history. Lincoln's gentle eyes and face combine the temper of both hands in a look of humble certitude upheld by the providence to which he deferred.
To move down the stairs to the Mall itself is to step onto a synecdoche of America itself. Fittingly, the physical space seems held together by the Memorial to the man who held the nation together. But were it not for the General Washington Memorial, which looms over everything, there would be nothing to hold together. While we can hope for a John Adams Memorial, it would be wrong to say the first generation of Americans don't have their place here.
Moving from Lincoln towards Washington's presiding obelisk, the silver figures of the Korean War Memorial to the right catch the eye. They walk as would anyone anticipating battle, afraid. The figure to the rear greets the oncomer with a look of controlled terror. These men, so the inscription reads, "answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met."
Looking across the reflecting pool, the Vietnam Memorial reads like an open scar, the great American wound that it was. I am with Nathan Glazer in proclaiming Maya Lin's design a triumph of modernism, a monument for which the very limited modern style is perfectly suited. It is spartan, yet due to one's reflection in the marble, unsettlingly interactive; conceptual, yet crystal clear in the awful message that comes with the barrage of names. Both the nearby bronze soldiers and the Nurse's Memorial (left) provide an important, albeit somewhat cartoonish, complement to Lin's design. The fear in their eyes, as they look up to an impending attack, are a reminder that the actual skies above us have seen few.
The World War II Memorial is boldly in line with Washington and Lincoln, a triumphant proclamation of laureled victory on both the Atlantic and Pacific fronts. There was much controversy over the classicism of the monument, as there was over the Jefferson Memorial, but fortunately the voice of the public won out over that of the architectural establishment (not so with the 9/11 memorial debacle). There is as little ambiguity to the World War II memorial as there was to the moral cause of the war. However, it's lack of figures (excepting Roosevelt nearby) can be contrasted it to the recently unveiled Battle of Britain Monument in London, which is perhaps too much of an indulgence in high relief sculpture - and yet it speaks. Possibly the best memorial would lie somewhere between the two designs. Meanwhile, because there are soldiers in both the Korea and Vietnam designs creating the virtual battlefield effect, it seems strange that there are none in the WWII Memorial, a fact which I suppose is compensated for by the actual veterans who visit it, for now.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Mall is its faithfulness to the original vision. Despite extraordinary pressure, this democratically essential public forum hasn't been ruined yet. The plan was realized just before brilliant but misguided modernists like Lewis Mumford could have their way. For Mumford, who hoped to sanitize the present from the past, insulating us from death, memorials were "the hollow echo of an expiring breath... completely irrelevant to our beliefs and demands." In a word: Poppycock.
Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian has regretfully ensured the cliché status of the Lincoln Memorial for a new generation. All the more reason, therefore, to redeem it by looking more closely, considering the fact of its near perfection. Daniel Chester French's Lincoln sits, about to stand. The gesture of his right hand signals a generous measure of compassion, and on the right wall are his tender words from Gettysburg. Lincoln's left hand signals determination, a fist nearly tense in resolve yet not clenched in anger. Illustrating this on the left wall is his Second Inaugural, for my money, the finest speech in American history. Lincoln's gentle eyes and face combine the temper of both hands in a look of humble certitude upheld by the providence to which he deferred.
To move down the stairs to the Mall itself is to step onto a synecdoche of America itself. Fittingly, the physical space seems held together by the Memorial to the man who held the nation together. But were it not for the General Washington Memorial, which looms over everything, there would be nothing to hold together. While we can hope for a John Adams Memorial, it would be wrong to say the first generation of Americans don't have their place here.
Moving from Lincoln towards Washington's presiding obelisk, the silver figures of the Korean War Memorial to the right catch the eye. They walk as would anyone anticipating battle, afraid. The figure to the rear greets the oncomer with a look of controlled terror. These men, so the inscription reads, "answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met."
Looking across the reflecting pool, the Vietnam Memorial reads like an open scar, the great American wound that it was. I am with Nathan Glazer in proclaiming Maya Lin's design a triumph of modernism, a monument for which the very limited modern style is perfectly suited. It is spartan, yet due to one's reflection in the marble, unsettlingly interactive; conceptual, yet crystal clear in the awful message that comes with the barrage of names. Both the nearby bronze soldiers and the Nurse's Memorial (left) provide an important, albeit somewhat cartoonish, complement to Lin's design. The fear in their eyes, as they look up to an impending attack, are a reminder that the actual skies above us have seen few.
The World War II Memorial is boldly in line with Washington and Lincoln, a triumphant proclamation of laureled victory on both the Atlantic and Pacific fronts. There was much controversy over the classicism of the monument, as there was over the Jefferson Memorial, but fortunately the voice of the public won out over that of the architectural establishment (not so with the 9/11 memorial debacle). There is as little ambiguity to the World War II memorial as there was to the moral cause of the war. However, it's lack of figures (excepting Roosevelt nearby) can be contrasted it to the recently unveiled Battle of Britain Monument in London, which is perhaps too much of an indulgence in high relief sculpture - and yet it speaks. Possibly the best memorial would lie somewhere between the two designs. Meanwhile, because there are soldiers in both the Korea and Vietnam designs creating the virtual battlefield effect, it seems strange that there are none in the WWII Memorial, a fact which I suppose is compensated for by the actual veterans who visit it, for now.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Mall is its faithfulness to the original vision. Despite extraordinary pressure, this democratically essential public forum hasn't been ruined yet. The plan was realized just before brilliant but misguided modernists like Lewis Mumford could have their way. For Mumford, who hoped to sanitize the present from the past, insulating us from death, memorials were "the hollow echo of an expiring breath... completely irrelevant to our beliefs and demands." In a word: Poppycock.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Beauty Quintet
As beauty does its work of reinvigorating theology - and it's doing a fine job of it - a sort of Dionysian hierarchy of books seems to have emerged, a cascading waterfall of aesthetic reflection. Gushing its riches from the top is Balthasar's five-volume The Glory of the Lord. Down one step, but nearly as ambitious, is David B. Hart's The Beauty of the Infinite, which admits to being "extended marginalium on some page of Balthasar's work," and which furthers that project by taking on Deleuze, Lyotard, Derrida, etc. Next in difficulty might be Francesca Murphy, whose God is Not a Story and Christ the Form of Beauty sparkle in their own fashion, imparting a similar vision in a way somewhat more hospitable to initiates. Down a step further (not in quality, mind you, but accessibility) there is Aidan Nichol's Redeeming Beauty, which mercifully provides some intellectually serious cartography to the theological aesthetic turf. Contrary to theoblogger bluff protocol, I should confess that though I've made a good dent in all of these books, I haven't finished reading any of them. For those of us who aren't full time theologians, there is still need, it seems, for a wider entry point to this critical discourse of theological aesthetics, which is far too important to be left to specialists.Fortunately for we mortals, there is Stratford Caldecott's Beauty for Truth's Sake, which places these more vaulting projects in immediate reach. In addition, it's far more wide-ranging. Caldecott aims to not only redeem theology with beauty, but quite literally everything with beauty - hence his book will appeal to those outside professional theological circles in ways that the aforementioned books probably (and most unfortunately) won't. My review of Caldecott's book was put up at Public Discourse yesterday. I urge you to read it simply because I think it's a very important book. Better yet, skip my review and just buy the thing.
It was initially disconcerting for me to realize that the beauty quintet of Balthasar, Hart, Murphy, Nichols and Caldecott (there are many more), are all interested in, if not thoroughly committed to, the analogy of being. I did not seek these authors out for that reason, but it just so happened that the theologians I find most helpful in the task of engaging non-theological disciplines, all - in one way or another - frankly confessed the importance of the analogy to their respective projects. (I'm happy to provide the exact quotations should anyone desire, but I'm wary of becoming obnoxious on what has become a perennial millinerd agenda, so I'll hold off on listing such "endorsements" for now.) Suffice it to say that if the theologians most committed to beauty as a reinvigoration of theological discourse and influence are equally attached to the analogia entis, it's probably not a coincidence.
Monday, November 09, 2009
The Urban West: Bad, Better, Best
"Resistance to urbanism goes back to the very beginnings of American identity," argues Wilfred McClay. And yet, Lewis Mumford's realization that the city is in fact the "the form and symbol of an integrated social relationship" has crept its way into North American life as well, most slowly perhaps to the tireless horizons of the West, which have not been naturally conducive to urbanist principle. Having grown in my urban enthusiasms from reading Plumb Lines and conversing with its Princeton area contributors, I took the opportunity on a recent trip out West to do some investigative reporting on the state of urbanism. It didn't start well. I will not soon forget flying into "America's friendliest airport" (Phoenix), and seeing just how big this "city" - or megalopolis - actually is. If there is a discernible center somewhere in the Phoenix area, it was not visible from the sky.
BAD: Tucson was an even sorrier sight. In the town center I noticed some fresh vegetable and bread stands along with local jewelry merchants attempting to create a public market, but there were up against a town plan that merchants could do little to counter. Some local Goth kids tried to build around themselves a scene, but the architecture worked against them. One horrifically inhospitable modern building (a bit of which is seen here) effectively ripped the urban fabric, destroying 50 % of the view towards the one notable piece of architecture, the Pima County Courthouse. What may have once been a town square had been literally stabbed to death. There were several notable attempts at downtown revitalization, but all in all I felt little hope. A challenged business environment seemed best expressed by a decaying Wig-O-Rama. I mentioned to one jewelry maker that her town seemed to be up against a challenge. Here response was a sarcastic, "D'ya think?"
BETTER: Driving back to Phoenix, I expected something similar. I braced myself for a strip mall meal at best, but after driving for a bit I spotted a pedestrian complex through some highrises. There was a convenient parking lot nearby (the top of the image to the left), and I dispensed with my vehicle for a time. What I found was a rather successful two story urban promenade with restaurants on the bottom and offices on top, as well as a grove of trees and an impressive fountain complex with an inordinate amount of birds. Police patrolled on horseback, and there were attractive stores, a movie theatre, and - not to be taken for granted - people. Best of all, the Catholic Basilica and a park were in sight, so one could conceivably spend an entirely car-less Sunday in downtown Phoenix. Granted, the Sheraton does not exactly qualify as mixed-use, habitable urbanism, but at least it's a start. There was something of Victor Gruen's original hope for the American mall reflected here, and due to the cathedral, maybe even something of the medieval town square.
BEST: Then came Vancouver, which I've already discussed. Oh, the neighborhoods. The onetime loading docks of Yaletown are now a raised promenade of restaurants and shops. The nearly suburban feel of Commercial Drive is nevertheless well served by public transport and is as urban on the main drag as the downtown core. Best of all, the onetime no-man's land of Granville Island, tucked under an overpass, is a bustling market packed with craft stores and eateries. Healthy neighborhoods can, to an extent, be judged by the guitar factor: Can the street life of a given neighborhood sustain a street musician? Granville Island passes so successfully that there were several guitar-players and a violinist in the Granville Island grocery store - nay - market, with delicious food, and a variety of attractive postmodern apartments (no doubt expensive ones) nearby. One local boasted to me that one can bike a loop around the entire city without encountering a car. And while the city is effectively planned, Stanley Park, in contrast to Central Park, is intentionally unplanned and downright jungly.
Good urbanism, however, is not just a Canadian thing. Americans have reason to be proud as well. Vancouver and Seattle, like Venice and Genoa before them, seemed to spur one another on to more effective urban realizations. On layover in Seattle, I visited the new Olympic Sculpture Garden. Like Granville Island, this was once no-man's land but is now an attractive public playground overlooking Elliott Bay. There were some very successful outdoor sculptures, like Louise Bourgeois' odd benches. However, it was a disappointment that the same sculptures one sees in, say, Princeton (Richard Serra) or Chicago (Alexander Calder), now decorate Seattle as well. More local artists - if such a thing is even possible anymore - would have been preferred. If contemporary art prides itself in originality, why do all sculpture parks have to look the same?
Starbucks Addendum:
The last moment of my urbanist tour in Seattle was a revelation. As I tried to argue back in 2004, Seattle has a way of imparting economic sense. There I visited one of the oldest continually operating urban farm markets in the U.S., Pike Place, up and running since 1907. It is no secret that this famous market gave us the first Starbucks. How silly of me to forget that this supposedly heartless multinational corporation, whose original building remains unchanged, began as a best-case urbanist scenario: A coffee-stop in a walkable, thriving urban produce and fish market. Furthermore, by pushing their original logo (which I've exegeted before) and the Pike Place blend, Starbucks seemed intent on reminding the world of this encouraging reality. Accordingly, perhaps Starbucks is less as an attack on good urbanist principles as it is a chief propagator of such ideals. Of course, the same critique could be made of that statement as I made of sculpture gardens - why should urbanism always look the same? Yet, I've noticed much more variety to Starbucks storefronts than to Serra and Calder designs.
Visitors should keep in mind Emerson's dictum (the citation of which I owe to R.R. Reno) that "Travel is a fool's paradise." I have no illusion that mine was a complete engagement of these various urban scenarios. There is a strip club right around the corner from Pike Place, a major drug problem in Vancouver, and perhaps some excellent urbanism in Tucson that I may have missed. Still, my brief trip imparted an important reminder: Yes, the vast expanse of North America has much (retrofittable) sprawl to answer for, but it also boasts some of the finest contemporary urban solutions as well. To return to Mumford, if the city is "the place where the diffused rays of many separate beams of life fall into focus," then we have our share of homegrown North American resources with which to combat the blur.
BAD: Tucson was an even sorrier sight. In the town center I noticed some fresh vegetable and bread stands along with local jewelry merchants attempting to create a public market, but there were up against a town plan that merchants could do little to counter. Some local Goth kids tried to build around themselves a scene, but the architecture worked against them. One horrifically inhospitable modern building (a bit of which is seen here) effectively ripped the urban fabric, destroying 50 % of the view towards the one notable piece of architecture, the Pima County Courthouse. What may have once been a town square had been literally stabbed to death. There were several notable attempts at downtown revitalization, but all in all I felt little hope. A challenged business environment seemed best expressed by a decaying Wig-O-Rama. I mentioned to one jewelry maker that her town seemed to be up against a challenge. Here response was a sarcastic, "D'ya think?"
BETTER: Driving back to Phoenix, I expected something similar. I braced myself for a strip mall meal at best, but after driving for a bit I spotted a pedestrian complex through some highrises. There was a convenient parking lot nearby (the top of the image to the left), and I dispensed with my vehicle for a time. What I found was a rather successful two story urban promenade with restaurants on the bottom and offices on top, as well as a grove of trees and an impressive fountain complex with an inordinate amount of birds. Police patrolled on horseback, and there were attractive stores, a movie theatre, and - not to be taken for granted - people. Best of all, the Catholic Basilica and a park were in sight, so one could conceivably spend an entirely car-less Sunday in downtown Phoenix. Granted, the Sheraton does not exactly qualify as mixed-use, habitable urbanism, but at least it's a start. There was something of Victor Gruen's original hope for the American mall reflected here, and due to the cathedral, maybe even something of the medieval town square.
BEST: Then came Vancouver, which I've already discussed. Oh, the neighborhoods. The onetime loading docks of Yaletown are now a raised promenade of restaurants and shops. The nearly suburban feel of Commercial Drive is nevertheless well served by public transport and is as urban on the main drag as the downtown core. Best of all, the onetime no-man's land of Granville Island, tucked under an overpass, is a bustling market packed with craft stores and eateries. Healthy neighborhoods can, to an extent, be judged by the guitar factor: Can the street life of a given neighborhood sustain a street musician? Granville Island passes so successfully that there were several guitar-players and a violinist in the Granville Island grocery store - nay - market, with delicious food, and a variety of attractive postmodern apartments (no doubt expensive ones) nearby. One local boasted to me that one can bike a loop around the entire city without encountering a car. And while the city is effectively planned, Stanley Park, in contrast to Central Park, is intentionally unplanned and downright jungly.
Good urbanism, however, is not just a Canadian thing. Americans have reason to be proud as well. Vancouver and Seattle, like Venice and Genoa before them, seemed to spur one another on to more effective urban realizations. On layover in Seattle, I visited the new Olympic Sculpture Garden. Like Granville Island, this was once no-man's land but is now an attractive public playground overlooking Elliott Bay. There were some very successful outdoor sculptures, like Louise Bourgeois' odd benches. However, it was a disappointment that the same sculptures one sees in, say, Princeton (Richard Serra) or Chicago (Alexander Calder), now decorate Seattle as well. More local artists - if such a thing is even possible anymore - would have been preferred. If contemporary art prides itself in originality, why do all sculpture parks have to look the same?
Starbucks Addendum:
The last moment of my urbanist tour in Seattle was a revelation. As I tried to argue back in 2004, Seattle has a way of imparting economic sense. There I visited one of the oldest continually operating urban farm markets in the U.S., Pike Place, up and running since 1907. It is no secret that this famous market gave us the first Starbucks. How silly of me to forget that this supposedly heartless multinational corporation, whose original building remains unchanged, began as a best-case urbanist scenario: A coffee-stop in a walkable, thriving urban produce and fish market. Furthermore, by pushing their original logo (which I've exegeted before) and the Pike Place blend, Starbucks seemed intent on reminding the world of this encouraging reality. Accordingly, perhaps Starbucks is less as an attack on good urbanist principles as it is a chief propagator of such ideals. Of course, the same critique could be made of that statement as I made of sculpture gardens - why should urbanism always look the same? Yet, I've noticed much more variety to Starbucks storefronts than to Serra and Calder designs.
Visitors should keep in mind Emerson's dictum (the citation of which I owe to R.R. Reno) that "Travel is a fool's paradise." I have no illusion that mine was a complete engagement of these various urban scenarios. There is a strip club right around the corner from Pike Place, a major drug problem in Vancouver, and perhaps some excellent urbanism in Tucson that I may have missed. Still, my brief trip imparted an important reminder: Yes, the vast expanse of North America has much (retrofittable) sprawl to answer for, but it also boasts some of the finest contemporary urban solutions as well. To return to Mumford, if the city is "the place where the diffused rays of many separate beams of life fall into focus," then we have our share of homegrown North American resources with which to combat the blur.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Gambling with Faces
Maura Casey's Gambling with Lives and David Schaengold's A Dicey Proposal are both worth a read, the latter especially because of the positive urban vision that inspires it. The articles give me chance to mention Seattle's brilliant covert anti-gambling ads. At first this Seattle airport banner for the Tulalip Casino seems straightforwardly promotional. Who doesn't want "luxury and fun"? But on closer look, would anyone really want to look like this? Or worse, like this? Ever?
Good work Seattle. Such ads approximate the "this is your brain on drugs" fried egg level of effectiveness. Vancouver's River Rock casino is not far behind.
Good work Seattle. Such ads approximate the "this is your brain on drugs" fried egg level of effectiveness. Vancouver's River Rock casino is not far behind.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
The Ph.D. Solution
The string of articles (like this one) involving academics whistle-blowing on academia continues. This time Louis Menand analyzes The Ph.D. Problem in Harvard Magazine: "The most important function of the system is not the production of knowledge. It is the reproduction of the system." In short, Menand argues that the system is designed to produce A.B.D.'s (cheap teachers), not Ph.D.'s, for whom there are no jobs. Accordingly, long dissertation completion times benefit institutions, which may help explain why "You can become a lawyer in three years, an M.D. in four years, and an M.D.-Ph.D. in six years, but the median time to a doctoral degree in the humanities disciplines is nine years."
Add to this the fact that graduate students "are uncertain just what research in the humanities is supposed to constitute, and graduate students therefore spend an inordinate amount of time trying to come up with a novel theoretical twist on canonical texts or an unusual contextualization." Still, Menand infers that the theoretical twists are rarely original because most graduate students, in order to enter the system, conformed to its thought-patterns long ago.
Menand suggests the solution to a self-validating system where everyone thinks the same is Iconoclasm (and, eh hem, his wish is my command). Furthermore, he suggests the "academic world would be livelier if it conceived of its purpose as something larger and more various than professional reproduction." For starters, why not return to the medieval roots of graduate education by considering it a form of the contemplative life? According to John Henry Newman, the intellectual life, at its best, "has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the music of the spheres." In an academic world where the very notion of an objectively beautiful cosmic order is dogmatically, instinctually resisted, that would be very Iconoclastic indeed.
Add to this the fact that graduate students "are uncertain just what research in the humanities is supposed to constitute, and graduate students therefore spend an inordinate amount of time trying to come up with a novel theoretical twist on canonical texts or an unusual contextualization." Still, Menand infers that the theoretical twists are rarely original because most graduate students, in order to enter the system, conformed to its thought-patterns long ago.
Menand suggests the solution to a self-validating system where everyone thinks the same is Iconoclasm (and, eh hem, his wish is my command). Furthermore, he suggests the "academic world would be livelier if it conceived of its purpose as something larger and more various than professional reproduction." For starters, why not return to the medieval roots of graduate education by considering it a form of the contemplative life? According to John Henry Newman, the intellectual life, at its best, "has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contemplation, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the music of the spheres." In an academic world where the very notion of an objectively beautiful cosmic order is dogmatically, instinctually resisted, that would be very Iconoclastic indeed.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
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