The Moss impact on Culver City

Culver City is experiencing a major re-development at present, spearheaded and contributed to by architect and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss. Mr. Moss and his team of 25 at Eric Owen Moss Architects have dubbed the revitalization Conjunctive Points, and have and continue to work on more than 20 projects in Culver City, many of which are located on Hayden Street alone. Known for unique interpretations and a diversity of form, Moss' varied projects fortify Culver City's hefty reputation as a community teeming with arts. Pictured above are the Ince Office Complex and a city-sponsored Architecture as Art public artwork entitled What Wall. Pictured here is a rendering of the Gateway Art Tower, an "information tower" and office building, constructed at the corner of Hayden and National, marking the primary entry point into the revitalized zone of the city. The building includes 5 screens that advertise messages to passersby pertaining to local tenants' events and news. Another of the Architecture as Art public art works, the Beehive, occupies the front section of a two story office building housing medschool.com.

Finally, this image depicts 3535 Hayden Ave, a unified working environment for a high profile graphics company.

From the Welsh woods a hobbit house springs

Byrne and Mogwai Catherine Zeta-Jones and corgi dogs are no longer the only worthwhile things to come out of Scotland Wales: Today, SFGate introduced to the non-paying American mainstream Simon Dale, a woodsman of sorts who built an earthen yurt/hobbit barn/mudhut for him and his clan as a big "fick oof" to conventional residential building norms and Western consumerism. Dale and another Scot Welshman or two slapped it together in three months for less than $5,000. No mortgage, no neighbors, no meter maids and no Trainspotting bathroom scenes (AGAIN!? Really, is there a difference? Is there?!?) more lamenting Christian Bale's abandonment of his native accent every time a Terminator ad comes on.     

And on a minor yet essential side note, it's come to our attention that a significant portion of our fanboys and girls, as well as members of the more general public, are under the impression that the aforementioned Welsh dog breed is pronounced "cor-ghee," and thus flaunts one of the English language's few relative consistencies (see: bunGEE/GEE whiz/GIZZmaster). Also, according to the omniscient canine authority The Westminster Kennel Club, 'corgi' means 'dwarf dog' in Welsh. I had begun to construct an impassioned criticism of the corgi creator's choice of nomenclature, because everyone knows abnormally tiny creatures with disproportionate limbs and heads are technically considered 'midgets,' when I learned through the endless miracle of Wikipedia that I had the dwarf/midget distinction backwards. Of substantially more use was my discovery that the term "midget," a leftover from the glory days of the circus freak, is now considered taboo. Instead, one should refer to the small-statured by using "dwarf, "little person," "LP," or, as the Little People of America suggest, "their name."

Lamest. Rock band. Ever.

As we approach St. Patrick's Day, my thoughts can't help but wander to all things Irish, including one of Ireland's most famous musical exports (second only to the Riverdancers).... U2. I have recently concluded something very significant about U2, though: they are the least cool rock band in the history of rock bands. There are so many contributing factors to their squareness; let me count them here:

1) Bono's characteristic pink sunglasses

2) their guitarist goes by The Edge (is he a cartoon superhero?)

3) Bono's self-consciousness about being short, and always insisting on being in the foreground of photos (urban legend? I think not, because he really is always in the foreground)

4) they play seemingly every global charity gig, and always speak so smugly about how charitable they are (yeah, it's great, but so is humility)

5) overall lame stage presence

6) terrible styling (where are the likes of Steven Tyler's scarves when you need them?)

7) they called their 1993 album Zooropa

8) Bono recently complained that “Music has become tap water, a utility, where for me it’s a sacred thing, so I’m a little offended by illegal downloading," but concluded that "artists like me are overpaid and over nourished." (Contradictor says what?)

Needless to say, I am not a fan. Well, I liked their early albums, but then they had to go and be all lame, and ruin the music for me. How is it that they've been so successful (winning 22 Grammy's-more than any other band), when they're clearly high school band geeks who got a lucky break oh so many years ago? Bono can never begin to compare to a Mick Jagger or a Patti Smith. I say, boycott the new album and the new-new album, about which I've just heard (supposedly coming out later this year)! The new ones just sound like more of the same anyways. Until Bono and company can learn how to be proper rock stars and inspire generations of future rockers with better posturing and style, I cannot get behind them.

Happy St. Patrick's Day anyhow. Here's to us all drinking so much green beer that we have no problem enduring the numerous U2 songs we're bound to be subjected to tonight!

Behind the wall, punk thrived

I just returned home from a screening of the documentary Flustern & SCHREIEN (Whisper & SHOUT) at the Hammer Museum in Westwood. First of all, accolades to the Hammer for consistently providing great, FREE, programming to the public. Second, this film totally rules. Released in 1988, it follows several East German bands and their adoring fans, as they tour the country. What struck me most, aside from the fabulous German New Wave and punk soundtrack, was the attitude of the young people interviewed. All of them had these really marvelously positive outlooks on their lives and what they wanted to achieve, despite the fact that they had already received government-assigned jobs (like chimney-sweep), and were living in a completely isolated land. It was truly amazing to juxtapose their words against the fact that the wall came down only a year later.

The bands themselves (Silly, Feeling B, Chicoree, Sandow, and more) were required to have government-issued certifications to play concerts. To obtain one, according to the guy who introduced the film, the bands would have to submit lyrics and perform for the state. Obviously, these groups had to master the use of poetic and subversive language to get their rebellious message out to their audiences, while appeasing the state and maintaining their certs.

Overall, a must-see, for the music, for the amazing punk attitude of all the kids featured, and for the radical threads rocked by all!

Downer-town Whitney Brown

While on the topic of crack addiction... oh diss! Whitney Houston made an interesting appearance as a presenter on Sunday night's Grammy awards. Watching her cautiously and somewhat slurringly recite from the teleprompter was congruous in the discomfort department to peeping Farmer Ted cut a rug at the school dance in Sixteen Candles.

And did you catch the oh-so-subtle move wherein she arranged her dress' slit to reveal maximum leg? Whoa mama! Seems like the lovely Whitney has certainly progressed from full-on crazy Bobby Brown days of yore, but she still has a ways to go before she should be getting so much air-time.

Ghost of Chrismas past

Who do I spy from the window of my car as I speed up La Brea, on such a lovely Los Angeles afternoon? Why, it’s the nightmarish previous employer whose mere presence makes my stomach drop, the dreaded mega-gallerist Douglas Chrismas. He who incites pure anxiety in my (and likely many others’) very being. I catch a glimpse of him greedily surveying the large building that is currently destined to become his legacy museum, but may well be sold and end up reverting to a car dealership. Alas, my Sunday has been ruined.

That is, until I cross the threshold into the Louise Bourgeois exhibition at MOCA. Ms. Bourgeois calms my nerves and sets me at ease with her organic sculptural forms and voyeuristic “cells.” Truly, "art is a guaranty of sanity." Vive la France! Et vive le dimanche!