» "The basement is full of abandoned science labs, labs that have been empty for ten years maybe, with equipment scattered everywhere, old notebooks, chemical residue, dust, dirt, soot, stacked furniture, whining ventilation. Acids left over in gallon jugs of thick glass. A bottle of wine left as if it had been opened to celebrate the last experiment just before the whole place was summarily deserted. Dark trees shone through the high windows." Abandoned labs as recycled academic space. NOT RELATED: "'Writing about music is like dancing about architecture'. At first blush, the claim is a smugly dismissive one: verbal descriptions of music are doomed to be pointlessly, perhaps even ridiculously, inferior to actual music. Yet writers are never counseled against attempting to evoke paintings or smells or faces or feelings or buildings or the nonmelodic sounds of jackhammers, thunder, or snoring. What was so elusive about music that it couldn't be captured by words?  [07.03.2009 12:00 pm]

» "In a warning to museums snapping up the work of some of today's hottest artists, the AXA Art Insurance book Plastic Art: A Precarious Success Story states that plastic-heavy pieces by Damien Hirst, Matthew Barney, and Jeff Koons will be 'difficult, costly, and nerve-racking to preserve'." MORE OVERPRICED STUFF: "This is pretty hilarious. An MWM Graphics Field Agent in Eastern Washington came across these aluminum Mountain Dew 'Americana' Bottles that I designed last Summer. Yup, in an antique store. And selling for 8 bucks a pop. Not bad, especially considering they made 9 million of them." [07.02.2009 08:00 am]

» Health Architecture Part I: "Different kinds of health architecture in different parts of the world. From Portugal, Netherlands, Japan, Sudan and Burkina Faso." NOT RELATED: "Remove unwanted street clutter including stone cladding, backlit signs, fast food shops and people with this handy interactive Urban Gentrification Machine. Remember, artificial stone cladding is not just aesthetically wrong, it's morally wrong too. If you like it you are a degenerate and a pervert. Move out. Leave this place for the decent folk." STILL NOT RELATED: "To the protesters' relief, Eminem failed to win Best Album that night [in 2001]. He lost to Steely Dan, a band named after a dildo. One song on Two Against Nature is delivered from the perspective of a pedophile." Richard Beck goes on at length about Eminem's latest, The Relapse. [07.01.2009 07:00 am]