• A really excellent site called Edible Geography (just added to my RSS feed) explores the rich overlap between food and place, including an entry about Pratt’s You Are Here show (on view in the Manhattan gallery until November 6) about mapping the psychogeography of New York City, including artist Liz Hickok’s awesome gelatin New York (San Francisco is shown below).

• A great interview by Paola Antonelli with Rob Walker in conjunction with an upcoming MoMA exhibit called ‘Talk to Me,’ about his relationship with objects. Below is an object from his Significant Objects project.

• Loft cabins by architect Terri Chiao elegantly and humorously separate out space from a large Bushwick loft. I love this and hope to steal it—I mean be inspired by it—some day.

• Louise Naunton Morgan has a new twist on pointillism—she is The Human Printer, and will draw pictures you send her with halftone dots, in CMYK, B&W, or spot color.  Pretty amazing.

• Did you know there were a half dozen Lustron homes in New Orleans?  I  had no idea. Here is one of them. Found at Regional Modernism, a repository of New Orleans Modernism info.

• New York City had to call in help to deal with all the post-tornado fallen trees. Responders included the Cherokee Hotshots, as documented in The New York Times.

That’s enough for one day. Happy reading!

Fedora’s is (until Sunday) nothing fancy, but everything special. It is presided over by Fedora herself: aged but enduringly charismatic, and tonight—as every night she makes an appearance—her entrance was greeting with applause, because she is a star. Not the kind who headlines movies or rock shows, but a star nonetheless.

I will say some things even though I am in no position to say anything about Fedora’s because—and this breaks my heart—I only went there a few times. I remember reading before I went there the first time that it was a gay bar full of regulars, and I somehow got the idea I wouldn’t have been welcome. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and I have rarely felt so welcomed anywhere.

Fedora’s has everything that matters: warmth and welcome, casual acceptance and lively history, neighborhood roots and enduring style. It’s the kind of place where you can’t help but engage in conversations with people sitting next to you at the small bar, you can’t help but bicker with the bartenders (and please forgive any typos or grammatical mistakes—G., that second gin & tonic was a doozy), and you can’t leave without a smile on your face. You can’t build that or decorate it in; you can only inspire it if you are the right kind of person.

Fedora certainly deserves a rest after all these years, so I can’t say I’m sorry to see her choose to close the place up, and I’m not a fan of eulogies, obituaries, or dirges (and make no mistake, Fedora herself is very much alive—she even had the temerity to thank me when I acknowledged her on the way out), because I would rather celebrate what continues to be good rather than waste too much time on what has gone. So I will just take a moment now to raise a glass in celebration of goodwill, of history, and of the passage of time, and in acknowledgment of missed opportunities. May I learn from my mistakes.

Mostly, though, I would like to thank Fedora for creating such a remarkable place that in just a few visits taught me what a place should be, if you know what I mean. I think it must have inspired more extraordinary places (how could it not?)—not in the same place or doing things the same way, but extraordinary all the same. So all that is left is for me to seek them out and remember not to take them for granted.

OK, maybe I’m a little defeated by the heat—or not defeated, but slowed down a bit. But I’m still in love with the expansive space of summer, the bike rides, the adventures. Summer may be a stinky, sticky, sweaty beast (especially here in the concrete jungle), but it’s a stinky, sticky, sweaty beast I want to hug and give a big sloppy kiss. Though I wouldn’t mind if the heat island effect were tamed a bit with more cool & green roofs. New York is a tricky city to design for, though—a cool roof doesn’t melt snow and ice as well, and we’ll certainly have plenty of that come February. If only we could build deciduous buildings. Until we figure that out, though, I’m just happy New York has planted so many new street trees in the last few years. They’ve transformed many blocks from summertime deserts to oases of shade. Street trees are the best. Give them some love if you can by watering, keeping dogs away, planting flowers to shade and protect their tiny patches of soil, and avoiding stepping in that soil (soil compaction keeps necessary water from reaching their roots through the tiny opening in the pavement.)

I am loving these summery little prints of paintings (all based on photos) by Etsian Leah Giberson. They help me remember what’s so great about summer when I occasionally get cranky and crazy like everyone else in this overheated metropolis:

I think I need to buy one…  I just have to decide which one.

I hope you’re all staying cool and eating plenty of ice cream. And if you’re short in the ice cream department, just give me a call and I’ll bring some over—my new ice cream maker has been getting a real workout for the past month.

I was at a discussion of culinary micro-histories (a really interesting topic, yes?) and got to doodling as I am want to do when sitting in an audience listening to people talk (some habits of architecture school are difficult to uproot) and started drawing about allergies. Thus were born the cards for the season the big greeting card companies have ignored: allergy season. (And by the way, allergies and their evil sidekick asthma, are not unrelated to urban design—building materials, landscape choices, and ventilation design can all affect them both.)

Whether or not you have allergies yourself, you can now let the allergy sufferers in your life know you’re thinking of them this spring with these handy dandy pollen greeting cards. Just download the PDF (click on the image to open the PDF file), print, trim, and fold. Three designs to choose from!

The fine print:  you are free to download, print, and share these for personal use, but please don’t repost without a credit and link to this page, and don’t sell them.  Thanks!

Above:  The former
micronation of Waveland.

I think micronations are particularly enticing in the age of internet landgrabs and virtual territories. The idea of a physical space, however tenuous or tiny, anchoring an ideology, an aesthetic system, or even just a  joke is appealing in the age of intangibility. Plus there could be capes. And there definitely needs to be a capitol.

Micronation, a kind of semi-serious travel guide from Lonely Planet, came out while I was in architecture school, so of course I completely missed it, but I’m going to pick up a used copy somewhere or other so I can brush up on my microgeography and micropolitics. Speaking of micropolitics, you can become a lord or lady of Sealand — one of the more highly publicized micronations — for a mere £29.99. A steal! Now you know what to get me for my next birthday.

I don’t actually own any land at the moment, so it would be difficult for me to found a nation, but a girl can dream. And wouldn’t it be brilliant to cross the concept of Gordon Matta-Clark’s “Reality Properties:  Fake Estates” project with the heady internationalism of micronation-building? The Republic of Traffic Island. Surveyor’s Errorland. Minisculanea. The possibilities are fantastic!

I need to get going—I have an entire nation to design. Applications for various ministries will be accepted at the usual address.

Give attribution where attribution is due, but remember that no idea is completely original, and inspiration is just another word for thievery. (Obviously I’m using ‘thievery’ loosely here—I don’t think people should straight-up claim someone else’s ideas or works as their own, but we should recognize that translation is itself a creative act.)

I’m also in the process of consolidating my two Flickr accounts by transferring photos a few at a time from the catasterist[dot]com Flickr account to my main Flickr account. I had originally had the idea that it was important to keep architecty stuff separate from pictures of kittens and whatnot, but I don’t really see the point anymore, especially since loging in and out of separate Flickr accounts is a pain in the ass and I’m always forgetting my logins. So eventually everything will be together in catasterist and all the links here will be updated. And eventually I’ll fix a lot of little things about this blog setup, but probably not anytime soon—for explanation, see the study requirement above, which does not include the additional weekend hours…

Oh dear, the kittens have gotten into my coffee lid collection. I’d better go…  But please let me know if you find anything broken around here, and I’ll keep pecking away at making it a nicer place to hang out.

New Denizens of Catasterist World Headquarters

When I send myself emails—which I do pretty much constantly with reminders, internet findings, and other miscellany—I usually just type in ‘cat’ and let autocomplete do the rest. Well, now that abbreviation is more appropriate than ever. Meet my two new pals, Scout (black and white) and Jo aka Mojo Jojo (striped), the Kitten Sisters. Right now they are sleeping all wrapped up around the heating pipes:

But sometimes they are awake:

You can see more pictures at the Flickr set reserved for them, Kittens!

The kitten sisters came to me from a foster/rescue nonprofit called Anjellicle Cat Rescue, who rescued them from the Brooklyn Pound. Jo survived 2 weeks of pneumonia and an eye infection (you can see in her left eye it’s not totally healed yet). She’s one tough critter! They both are, and they’re both lively beasties as well, but total sweethearts happy to cuddle up. And they are gonna help me study for the ARE. I’m working on teaching them how to hold flash cards right now.

Having kittens around definitely makes me look at my apartment differently. I cleaned thoroughly in anticipation of their arrival, but they still find dust balls to roll in every day. And no one is more aware of vertical space than a cat. These girls are young enough (they’re about 11 weeks old) that they often miscalculate jumps, but they’re amazingly springy, and they’re also small enough they can shimmy under drawers and squeeze behind anything.

Cats are yet another thing that make me jealous of people with big, blank, loft-like spaces. It would be so fun to design a space for cats. Something along these lines. Fun!

I have to say one thing that always put me off a bit about cats is the design of cat stuff. Man, 99% of cat stuff is UGLY. I’m getting them some nice vintage Pyrex for food dishes in lieu of the horrible cheesy dishes more commonly on offer. Their bed for now is a box with a $3 blanket in it, which is more aesthetically appealing to me than the usual bows, ruffles, and pink polka dots. I foresee a lot of DIY cat projects in the near future, especially since what modern cat stuff I’ve seen is kinda pricey.

Candela Update Coming

Hey, I’m working hard to *finally* update the Candela website with all the info from the show. Expect an announcement when it’s up, hopefully within the week.

Decorator Refrigerator

Check out this ad for a ‘great new kitchen idea’ from International Harvester. Yup, it’s the new Decorator Refrigerator, which is apparently a fabric fridge front. Wow, what a pain in the ass to clean. But how cool to be able to make that hulking machine in the corner a little cheerier. Maybe oilcloth would work better? Or if the fabric can be removed and washed, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to clean after all. Hmm, maybe I should do some experimenting…

Thomas Beale

Thomas Beale is an artist who has done a couple of interesting architecture-related projects: Emergency Arts, enclosing walls and a sink with found wood and tin:

…and Dream Raft, a raft for, as it says, dreaming:

Bamboo Bicycle

If I had $1,000 that needed spending, I would love take this build-your-own-bamboo-bike project:

Technical Note

I’m aiming to update the hopelessly out of date WordPress version that’s powering this blog sometime in the next few days. So if catasterist.com is down for a bit, don’t panic! Just go outside and play, and by the time you come back everything should be better.

Architecturally yours,
cat.

Afterwards C       and I went down to Trinity Church (yo, Neo-Gothic) to hear a full peal of the bells—it takes about 3 hours to complete, and Trinity has 12 bells, the most in the country (that’s 2 more than the National Cathedral in D.C.) After perusing some of the tombstones (including Alexander Hamilton‘s), we walked past Federal Hall, where George Washington’s inauguration happened in 1789. All in all a very presidential day, without every leaving New York.

Then to welcome in the new year last night, Paul and I went to this fantastic Brooklyn tradition, the steam whistles that the Cheif Engineer at Pratt collects and hooks up to the steam feed from the engine room every New Year. It was LOUD! and cold, but did I mention LOUD! And steamy. And there was a calliope conrolled with an electronic keyboard. The engine room was closed to visitors sadly, but we could peer in through the windows.  It’s in a beautiful building (it’s an historic landmark building). A great Brooklyn New Year’s Eve. (Here are some better pix−I was too cold to be a good photographer.)

Here’s wishing everyone a happy, healthy 2009.