riddle me this: do we belong to it? or does it belong to us? then if it's it, who decides what is right? and if it's us, who decides what to write?

To report graffiti in Atlanta, call 404-546-4288.

In his 38 years at the steel mill, Dunn broke his back, caught a burning steel rod through his cheek and lost part of a finger. He stares straight ahead now with sharp brown eyes, but he can't move his neck. If it weren't for the loving attention of his 88-year-old wife, Verneeta, God only knows where he'd be. As it is, he and Verneeta still live in Home Park, just a few blocks from the mill, which is closing next month to make room for a massive real-estate development.

...........

At the site of the old Atlantic Steel Mill, just west of I-75 AND I-85 merge, Jacoby Development has planned a $2 billion project for an intown, mixed use community. The 138 acres will become a highly dense blend of residential, commercial and retail spaces, offering everything from a neighborhood store to a neighborhood nightclub, all within walking distance. This caters to the desire not to be far from the city and is an opportunity of focusing growth in areas that already have infrastructure," says Larry Frank, an architecture professor at Georgia Tech who aids in planning for Jacoby. In addition to pedestrian walkways and bicycle lanes. Jacoby plans to offer a bridge over I-75/ I-85 that will connect the area to the northern portion of midtown with direct MARTA shuttles and service to the arts Center Station.

...........

Er. yeah. Yeah. Graffiti Park. I think there was some old train thing there. Yeah, all my friends who were taggers would go there. Huge tagging place. A junkyard graffiti park. I'm talkin early 90s.

Some December night, as I was tucking into bed, I sleepily wondered what product to choose for a mechanical engineering assignment to render shop drawings and chart production analysis of a given design. The point being, not mere torture, but that in order to design for production one must be able to describe in painstaking detail, along a set of established guidelines, how something is made. Our parameters were to select an object consisting of at least 5 assmebled parts, two of which must be a type of plastic and two of any kind of metal. For time and simplicity's sake, my ideal was something that had the fewest parts required. Aviators were resting on top of my dresser. I dozed off thinking..."aviators, those have like 5 partszzzz zzzz that'll be easzzzy zzz zzzzzzz." yeah, 5, or 26. As I took apart the drawing into the exploded view you see above, there were streaming wtfs to accompany the discovery of all the tiny pieces I'd neglected to observe at the outset.

"Aviators" were created and patented in 1937 by medical supply company Bausch & Lomb, parent to manufacturer Ray-Ban, for an air force lieutenant recently returned from a balloon trip with sun damage to his eyes. B&L, founded in the 1850s, had been receiving army commissions for objects such as binoculars, microscopes, and projectors since the turn of the century via Teddy Roosevelt's presidential campaign to increase the naval fleet's command. Although aviators were immeadiately adopted for use across the air force, thus the popular name, they really went from balloon rides to bad-ass when General MacArthur rolled up 20,000 deep onto the shores of the Phillipines in October of 1944...within a year he was in Tokyo accepting Japan's surrender. It was the shades.

For the remainder of this term we'll spend studio time working on projects related to interactive design. Two projects will address lifestyle support for elderly and two projects will be intergrated with museum education/entertainment. It's been noted that Christa and I are so fittingly assigned - made apparent by our respective illustrative and sculptural elaborations.

the prettiest backgammon board. i like staring at it.

movie, lunch, nap, stich, stich through movie, stich more, dinner. i barely left the sofa yesterday.
and now i get to shove 3 days of work in 24 hours.

worth it.

I come into studio before 6 sometimes. It's a peaceful time to work. At any time day or night, it's rare to find oneself alone in the architecture buildings. In particular, I've seen this one guy in lab on this side of the morning on a few previous occasions. I think he must like to work through the night and, from what I've seen, usually wraps up and goes home by about 6am. In fact, he just left. Here's an especially enlightening insight into his 3rd shift habits:

That's an empty can of NOS and an empty bottle of Sutter Home, something white. I would deinitely pair NOS with a white - a refined choice.
Not pictured: empty pack of oreos.

Caroline wrote this to me in response:
"we actually recommend that pairing with one of our fourth course dishes at bachanalia. we call it "sutternos" and no one ever pronounces it correctly."

Then Christopher had this to say, "I need some Sutternos in my work flow... the ideal balance [of] up and down. It's really like a symphony."

This surprising combination might be a proverbial gin and juice for the 21st century.

Last September we worked on handheld electronics. In the design process our conversations were about ergonomics, usability, emotion, aesthetics, affordances, constraints, and mental mapping. The funny/frustrating thing about alarm clocks is that folks seem to use them in relatively rare circumstance, especially people under 30, like to catch a flight. As for travel alarm clocks, well, that's really called a cellphone, isn't it? The travel alarm clock is a product category with practical obsoletion on the forward horizon.

The challenge was to make it relevant.

With that in mind, my partner Kacey and I conceived Airavata, a travel ready cloud compatible hard drive*, speaker, and alarm-clock. Download, unwind, and wake-up. Airavata is designed to be durable, rechargeable, and widely compatible with integrated connection storage. Here, the design is represented as a 3D form model on the left* side of my nightstand - where i actually keep my phone at night. If this worked, it would live right there.

Speaking of, I just got to the end of that book on the table, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It's rare that I finish a book. I've never been afflicted by the need to finish what I begin as I'm not operating through primarily linear thought processes. So all things tend lead from one to the next without subjectation to defintive starts and stops, and sometimes circling back round again.

Airavata is named for a flying elephant because you can toss it in your carry-on and because elephants never forget...your images, your music, your annual reports, your whatever, and most importantly, always remembers your wake up call. Best of everything, it simplifies life with no confusing alarm sound choices. The only alarm sound is the entirety of this composition of Baby Elephant Walk.

*this is either the future or fiction: "cloud compatible hard drive" allows the Airavata user to back-up or retrieve information locally through Airavata's storage capacity or remotely via cloud computing compatibility and interface with another smart device.
*East. Left-right are relative.

With help from friends, I was able to link 1200 feet of paper chain over the weekend. That's what it looks like. And that's what over 5000 staples looks like. It's hard to believe I can squeeze a stapler that many times in 2 days. I actually don't believe it. How improbable would it be for someone to verify the advertised count of a box of staples? Guess what I'm doing for the next 13 hours.

I love the game "guess how many beans are in the jelly bean jar." My boss at Room & Board had an uncanny talent for it. The other morning I was what-the-fuck is brunching for Christopher's birthday. At the center of the table, there was a large glass jar filled with orange pencils. I wondered how many. Everyone looked and offered a guess in turns. Upon accounting, everyone's guess fell short.

A. northern europe at night

B. star forming cloud

the megalopolis as space camouflage

a classmate sent this my way. the Polyhedra Modular Table was inspired by the geometries of Weaire-Phelan bubbles, honeycombed polyhedrals. the designer, Haldane Martin, suggests the magnetized interlocking variations on dodeca and tetra-deca hedrons could be described as a "post-rational" lego for grown-ups.

light project: moodboard

video still of caroline starring in an instructional assignment, conviently titled, how to rake leaves.

burnt my arm on the oven last week, a crescent shape. a classmate asked what happened. i told her the truth, that it's a birthmark that changes with the moon phases so i know when i'm gonna turn into a werewolf.

galileo made the drawing
tad made the graphic

video from the show in chattanooga a few weeks ago. they're here tomorrow night, wedensday, 11/9.

FFFOK.

the other day my dad was telling me all the navy acronyms he leard via my uncle.

this isn't one of them.

utility

i saw a shooting star for the first time saturday night. 26 years is a long time to have gone without seeing one. and so i made a wish but i don't think it's come true. yet.

this is a photo of the Milky Way above the Himalayas. once upon a time, i wanted to be a production designer. there's a scene in the ballet La Bayadere called Kingdom of Shades that takes place in these snowy peaks among the stars. ballet sets should not be so spare in cases like this. something as beautiful ought not go the way of a dim backdrop (or worse). oh, mercy on idle imagination.

i'm working on a cardboard chair in industrial design studio. by next friday it'll maybe hopefully probably be full scale in white cardboard, appear as flawless torquing origami, and have a gentle rock to it. maybe i'll stage it at presentation like a mountain against the cellulose sky using one million tiny hexagons and triangles i have left from modeling an alternate version of the chair. the living room floor looks like Archidemes Scissorhands lives here.

sweet speakers.

oh

the shakes

chloe dewe mathews

thanks, caroline.

chauffeuring some kittens around w. paces yesterday, caroline asked one, anacar, what music she liked. when anacar replied, "country." caroline asked if she'd ever listened to dolly parton. would you believe she said "no"? caroline popped in a cassette i'd found at my g's last month. later in the afternoon anacar was humming the bargain store. how darlin is that? how darlin is this old clip? it's from the porter wagoner show.

this morning, we were still listening, talking about how we both like the track two doors down. when she sings, "feeling everything but sorry," i grin kinda sly. dolly's a witty gal. in an interview, she was asked if it upset her that whitney houston found greater chart success with i will always love you. dolly replied, "oh yes, i cried all the way to the bank."

click to hear a funny song called i'll oiwells love you.

probably older than homer's odysseus caught between a sea monster and a whirlpool, the saying "between the devil and the deep blue sea" is a deft turn of phrase.in nautical terms, the devil is the seam between a ship's deck and its hull. which reminds me of an intention to live on a houseboat. only for a bit. just to try.

midsummer nights and days in the homelands. it's poppy's bday week. the aim, like every sweet july, is to come back swimming in blueberries, but! rumor is that deer have eaten all of them. can you believe it? i anticipate a confirmation of that fact comin my way tonight and in the meantime, i'll hold out hope that figs have come in a week or two soon. cause i've been thinking up jam all week.

killing time, catching fireflies with neighborhood kids.

caroline walked over to the edge of the cul-de-sac, squated down then beckoned back to me to see what she was seeing.

it was just a ravine blanketed by kudzu, but in a summer twilight it was something to see. dozens at a time, like blown by hidden fans, fireflies rose between the vines. then twinkled light neon stars against the violet tree line, a hazy atmosphere. i paused too.

margaret walked over to see what's up - why we weren't getting into the car.
"look," said caroline
"oh yeah," margie quipped, "this is where we throw away dead mice."

dead moments too.

margaret and caroline are my roommates / two of my best friends - enchanting and spellbreaking in turns. i'm so fortunate to live beside them.

packing/listening to wrfg: click here to listen online.

sexting. waihi.

we were at waimea bay. the beach was closed. it was a speckled shore of tourists, sun worshipers, wave watchers, and pot smokers. we hung out in the grass and watched the waves too big and too dangerous. i wanted to touch them, but instead i just watched a surfer making his way back from the break point. everytime he disappeared for a moment i wondered whether he'd still be swimming or just washing ashore when he reappeared. i think i held my breath on behalf. caroline walked up, and stood right where i couldn't see the tiny figure in the foam anymore. she pulled the strap over her head and handed the camera back. she pointed at these girls. "i would never let my daughter dress like that," she was saying to me. i was listening. the camera had the zoom lens on. so i shot them. like paparazzi.

rule your hair, rule your world.



my mom's mom asked me why the colors in my photos are the way they are. she's hi-fi. i hesitated on what to say. the film, the exposure, how i scan the negatives? this was shot with a high speed film in mid-day sun. i like when pictures look the way they felt in the light of the moment, like trying to catch that visceral.

late one night, i was on foot passing a bike shop on the way back from a show. i had exchanged hellos with the dudes earlier that night in-passing and they were still up working when i passed again at 3. they were working on a honda cb125! i adore this bike. it's so cute! i have no business wanting one, but things that aren't my business are my favorite business. normally i wouldn't know one type of bike from a cat, but i know this one by sight. i probably made a surprise (oh my!) excited face at it. it had a new powder-coated shield in yellow, like the one in the picture only less metallic more submarine. and it reminded me of a bee. the garage dudes seemed to geek out enough on their own and completely indulged my curiosity. the bug of a bike was leaking gas and while it could start, it couldn't really move on account. bug.

Stefanie was accepted to Oxford. Yeah, she's boss like that. Last Thursday, upon opening the letter, the toast-dry brit phrasing sounded initially like a rejection...but it woah-ho-wasn't!

On route that night to celebrate the brilliant girl's success, I got distracted by another kind of light - that which emitted from the red windows of Free Gospel Church on Wylie street. A quiet night in the hood but that place was aglow with what sounded like pure rock'n'roll, burning it up on the inside - soul shakin, fire-starting shouts to the sky. If someone was listening, they'd surely heard. I couldn't help wanting to see some brimstone. So, I stopped and guess what I found...
Jesus?
No.
Marco?
No.
Polo. Bike Polo.
Left turn, right? Stick with me.

Thursday is Bike Polo night at Lang Carson Park basketball courts which happen to be right behind the Free Gospel Church parking lot. I had camera in hand and was ready to run through a roll when I got to chatting with Tim, a polo player. Lang Carson Park is up for renovations and Tim was telling me how nice it'd be to have some documentation of Bike Polo's existence for when the time comes to plead their case. They'd just finished a game, but Stefanie joined me at the courts, they began another and we got a few photos. Hope it helps. I think they played for about 4 hours that night. My favorite rule is that your feet can't touch the ground.


Click here or here for more info about Atlanta Bike Polo.

More photos after the jump...

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standing in a parking lot, figuring out whether our diy filter worked.
enter jesse, tipsy stranger and unsolicited subject.
...close enough for jazz, as stefanie says.

for jazzfest (which was great), we stayed in a house/office owned by a psychologist named susan. susan specializes in treating hoarders and folks with an ocd. there was a 15 degree temp difference from upstairs to downstairs - indicative size and date of the building - three bedrooms, a master, and two suites; sleeping 16. we were 14. so, it was a most excellent set-up. creepiest thing about the house: video cameras in the bedrooms. most reassuring thing about the house: pickapeppa sauce in the kitchen cabinet. in addition to being a vacation rental, the house functions as a study and therapy center for individuals or groups recieving treatment. from time to time, susan appears on the television show 'hoarders' as a therapist. lousiana is probably a breeding ground for hoarders. i spotted an unusual density of sweet antiques around town. makes sense. old port city.) and this is augustine. i found her picture on google. she is a hoarder.
don't get me started on hoarders. i'd become an arsonist if i met these folks. insanity aside, i totes dig that brass eagle. girl makes it work. the room overall is not working, but i think we've got a great point to build from.
ref: the pin from brick. see the film. love that film's noir shaped dialogues.

momentarily wrapping weekly breakfast meeting. i've told you about this. it's a nerdy practice i hope to continue even after relocating from 14th to 10th to begin a master's program in industrial design this late summer. it's rad-city.

in an hour, i'll get in the car to head down to new orleans for days of jazzy jazz and yummy food. looking forward to a mellow ride down with t$(money) and max trapp- during which music selections will alternate between korean pop (KPop) and german hip-hop (?), respectively. terez spent a year in korea and kpop is the legacy. max grew up in berlin (like where were you when the wall fell, berlin? 4, but whatever). he and terez communicate in german. terez and i communicate telepathically. i'm stoked to catch up with all the far-away friends descending to the bayou for good cause.


gonna see bobby 'blue' bland while there...hai!


b.b. is reportedly a really nice guy, good story teller.