Ideas worth sharing

http://www.TED.com

"Modernist architecture means big white box."

CNN Youtube Debates

As usual, I ate breakfast this morning and sat with Julie while watching CNN. This morning, the CNN Republican Youtube Debates was going.

Awesome.

Best Quote yet:
when asked, concerning the death penalty, "What would Jesus do?", some candidate (I don't know their names) said, "Jesus Christ was too smart to run for public office."

That candidate probably doesn't realize that he just insulted himself.

SAT

Thanks to the SAT on Saturday, I will be getting off work everyday this week...before 10pm!!!

That gives me exactly.... no time to study!

Why is it that no matter what I do, I always wish I was doing something different?

Things mildly or less or more important to me.

I first met El Lissitzky at a coffee shop, horribly inappropriately named "CBGB in Tokyo" or something like that, in the back streets of Ikebukuro.

I was attempting to read a book about the Bauhaus, but my German is, virtually nonexistant. A frequent conversation between me and the German at the office goes as such:
me: dieses ist eine Scheißearbeit
him: at least your japanese is good.

Anyway, I was flipping the pages of the book, when I came across a something of El Lissitzky's, but, being me, I have completely forgotten what it was, but I was smart enough to write his name down on my hand so I could look it up when I got home.

Pity I didn't like anything I saw in the book.

I try very hard to not like things for their shape, as thats not the important part.

Unfortunately, that is a lot harder to do than one would think.

Art is oh so very important to me, or at least I think so, and yet I still tend to hate everything I see.


I've been very very very busy recently, and have mostly forgotten most of what has happened, but all I know is that I am getting cold.

And bored. And a handful of other adjectives, most of which can't seem to make it from my mind to my fingertips to the keyboard to the input text box.

F-Day

Today, November 20th 2007, is "F-Day".

Starting today, all foreign nationals who enter Japan will be fingerprinted and photographed.
There was a poster somewhere that was put out by the government that has cute little drawings of a white woman, smiling the whole time, going through the procedure, the immigration officer is also smiling, and nobody else is around.

The lines at Narita are going to be sooooooo bad.

I really want to see the numbers concerning drop in money that comes from tourism.

Blatant and atrocious racism, in such a first world country.


There are just some things in this world that drive me crazy. The pure ridiculousness of it, the anger that I fell, the this feeling, and the that feeling, it all makes me sick.

Things I Dislike:

leaving work past 11, which means getting home past midnight, which gives me no time to write about whats been going on, even if that isn't much.

Off to sleep, work and calligraphy again tomorrow, that's gonna be a fun one.

ps. why do people crack up but break down?

Worked

It is 1:15 in the morning, and I am just about to go to bed, didn't get home until past midnight from work today, and I have work again tomorrow!

I started working on what will be my main project while I am there, more of which can be found out about here:
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ito/taichung/taichung.html
If you scroll down on that page until you see a big white model, that is basically what I am building.
I am building a 1/50th scale, which means big, and that means time consuming. The problem with modern architecture is that it makes lots of nonlinear shapes, which are all very difficult to achieve with linear materials.
I have 4 blocks to build, which, as the I guy am working for said to me, "sounds like a lot of work, but once you get used to it, you will probably be making about one a month."

Steady employment!!!

Except that I am not getting an money.

The process to make the damn things is difficult, and very time consuming, and very materials consuming including wasted paper, wasted this strange mat stuff and wasted styrofoam, but I think I should be able reuse most of it, but that takes even more time and effort, and oh my god I don't know what to do about that, I want to save the world, but this is just ridiculous, and my arm is about to fall off from using a heat cutter for like 4 hours today so I am going to sleep.

ZZZ

Smily Faces on the Scantron

I took the "Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students" today.

First, I had like 2.5 hours of Japanese. 20 minutes of writing, which I did no problem. Then there were 30 minutes for reading, which was not nearly enough, I had to guess on the last 5 or so(only 20 questions!) Then was listening until the end. First was pure listening, where you listen to a dialogue, and then answer spoken questions. Then was a dialogue to written questions. Both were too slow, too long, and too boring and so I slight dozed off and missed some, so I guess, but I know I got the ones I was awake for right!
Then came lunch.
Then was 90 minutes of "Japan and the World" which is geography and history and econ and poly and stuff.
"Which country on this map is mostly likely Spain?"
Too much time, half of the problems were super easy and half of them I had no idea what they were talking about. Ombudsman?
Then came a short break.
Then was 90 minutes of math. Let's just say that I drew a really nice picture of the room.

Brilliant

Design

Tokyo Designers Week sucked.

The theme this year, as it was last year, was something like "Love and Earth"

I spent a very little amount of time looking at the work of pros, and most of the time looking at the student works (but only the student only works, not the corporate sponsored student works), and still didn't like any of it.

Firstly, even if any of the ideas had been lovely and or Earth friendly (which I didn't see any that particularly were), I think that design for the sake of money defeats the purpose of Love and Earth.

Now, when I, an 18 year old with no design education, no experience, no nothing, says "I think", I highly doubt that anyone will pay any attention to me.

Well, Fuck them.

Design for the sake of money defeats the purpose.

I want to save the fucking world, and I don't give a damn what designers think about it.

What person in their right mind would, for the theme of "Love and Earth", build something out of wood?!?!?!

What needs to be done, is attention. People need to be aware of what is going on.

We need to redesign design.

You want to build a nice building, don't design a buiding, redesign architecture.

I don't know anything about graphics (yet?) so I will just post the words for a rubric that I am designing, this one is focusing on urban design.

Engineering Materials Earth Sciences
Architecture Environment Ecology
Art Humanity Life

Put each one of those into a cube, and you have a 3x3 box. A total of 14 (9 1x1, 4 2x2, 1 3x3) boxes. Each adjacent box relates to the ones on its' edges, and without anyone of them, your design isn't good.

You want to build a building? You have to have all of the walls.

You heard it here first people, Common Sense is Avant Garde!

Mash

Tonight, completely by accident, I bumped into the Tokyo premiere of the new Mash movie.
Mash is a group of cyclists from San Francisco who are notoriously, as the media probably calls them, "reckless".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTEWIiFPDN4

I have never really liked stuff like that, sure I ride a fixed gear and love it, but I started riding one because I actually raced on the track.

The movie wasn't great, but I stuck around for a little, because I wanted to ask some of the guys some questions. In only about a dozen clips in the entire movie does anyone wear a helmet. I thought that if these guys, who have a very large influence on new entrants into the bicycle community put a little more thought into it, they could really flip the image around, and show that they aren't so reckless, and that might get more people onto bikes.

At first, the manager or director or whatever was a jerk towards me, but after I helped them with some translating stuff, they all lighten up a little.

Here is the truth about me, put so very eloquently by this other foreigner, who I have disliked for a long time, but now that he lost his job at Nova, I at least feel a little sorry for:

"You piss people off. Nobody likes you." Or something like that. I think he used the word "shit" somewhere, but I can't remember where.

Yeah, I know. I'm glad that I am myself, because that way I won't ever have to meet me.

Not super proud of that.

Lost

What on Earth am I doing?

Yesterday, I left work early (just before 7pm) to go to a party with my calligraphy teacher. That was kind of strange, being the youngest person by about 5 years (read: drinking party). I made it home around 1am, got up the next morning and went to work again. This week I get to start late (just after lunch), but today, I started working a little past one, and didn't get to finally leave the office until 11:30!

It is Halloween! I got invited to a party! I'm 18 fucking years old and I work 1o hours a day!

This isn't right. This can't be write. Something is terribly horribly wrong with my mind and body. They just don't match.

I would REALLY like to met someone with a more atypical life for them environment then me.