I often ask my students to think of what the brick doesn’t want to be. It’s a position asking to exploit what is inherent but not obvious, asking how the brick can transcend being a brick into something new and unusual. This opens up unforeseen opportunities as designers. For example, if the brick doesn’t want to be stoic and solid, can the brick be manipulated to be wild and transparent? The goal is to go beyond it’s obvious brickness, to push the limit of the material in to the realm of the mysterious unknown while still maintaining respect for the brick. Not to create a lie, but to create awe and wonder.

Being reminded of how the conventions that govern the use of an object can be a kind of tyranny, it’s good to step back from whatever-it-is and ask, ‘Can this thing behave or be perceived however I want?’  The post deals almost exclusively with architecture but I would venture to say that there are many varied opportunities in a day to do this, if we’re just on the lookout for them.  You might say that all it requires is the eye of an artist.  I would say, it’s a choice worth making.

In case you don’t know them yet, the authors of the blog hosting the article aren’t just a couple of guys (Well, they are), they’re some of the people who are showing us a different and probably better way forward.  Mark Frauenfelder (Founder of Make magazine and 1/5 of one of the wildly entertaining and influential boingboing.net) and Mr. Jalopy (project maven, garage-saler extrodinaire and author of the Maker’s Bill of Rights - a mantra that will have ever increasing relevance in our relocalized future) combine their formidable talents and shared interest for unique and arcane objects at Dinosaurs and Robots dot com.  I don’t read it everyday, but when I do go for a visit, I usually have to stay for a while.  Enjoy!

Here’s Keith with the backstory and the poem, complete with mood lighting, All I can say is Wow….

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

- John Cleese

To begin, certain books, which are likely not unknown to readers of this blog, open with the William Shakespeare quote,

‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 

How very appropriate.

How does a concerned citizen of the world make this kind of decision?  From green blogger and opponent of most things corporate and bottom line oriented, how, Alex, how can you make a choice like this?  You may have heard about this or may not (I don’t kid myself that my personal job decisions are on your radar screen).  It seems that, entirely by my own volition, I’ve taken a job with a company in the Oil Services industry; A directional drilling company.  Yes.  Yes, I have.  I’m writing from my new part of Colorado where we spend our days poking holes in the surface of the earth, one, maybe two miles deep in search of (and finding) lots of natural gas.

I have been meaning to share this with you, dear reader, sooner than this.  I think that until I actually got out here, it wasn’t quite real yet.  But now, as my training begins, I need to get this all down while it’s still fresh in my head.  I’ll be trying to blog nightly, at least for a while, as I learn about the in’s and out’s, ups and downs, pluses and minuses of this new choice.  Will I stick with it?  I can’t say.  Have I encountered things that make me uncomfortable yet.  It’s only day 2.  Am I prepared to be Okay with explaining myself for the rest of my life?  I think that yes, yes I am.  As much to understand the choice myself as to explain it to others.

So I’ll leave it at that for the moment.  Thanks for indulging me by reading what is more or less and internal conversation between my ethical leanings and my pragmatic self played out in this bloggy medium.  Feel free to chime in in the comments if you are so inclined.  More in the days to come, but for now, won’t you join me in Reel Big Fish’s breakthrough track?  It has seemed particularly relevant this week.

(Apologies for the random language+subtitles here in the beginning but the ‘official’ version of this video doesn’t let me embed it here.  I’ve always loved the song but the vid is awesome!)

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

The first, while not a major issue is interesting:  NPR reports on Wikipedia whitewashing of Palin’s Profile.  The article describing the current Alaska Governor was ’spruced up’ about 4 hours prior to McCain’s announcement of his VP Pick.

“On Friday, 15 minutes before the rumor that John McCain had picked Palin as his running mate, a Wikipedia editor discovered 30 mostly favorable changes had been made to the Alaska governor’s profile.”

Not an issue per se as, anybody can edit Wikipedia- But what you can’t do is blantantly attempt to slant an article in someone’s favor, especially when the person doing the editing is doing so anonymously and has never made any edits to the collaborative encyclopedia prior.

Then there’s this Obama supporter and Alaskan resident’s perspective on the choice of Palin who lays out her lack of qualifications and ‘executive experience’ in plain english. A highly recommended read but do take it with a grain or to of obvious partisan bias….

“I had a good chuckle at MSN.com’s claim that she had been the mayor of “Wasilla City”.  It is not a city.  Just Wasilla.  Wasilla is the heart of the Alaska “Bible belt” and Sarah was raised amongst the tribe that believes creationism should be taught in our public schools, homosexuality is a sin, and life begins at conception.  She’s a gun-toting, hang ‘em high conservative.  Remember…this is where her approval ratings come from.  There is no doubt that McCain again is making a strategic choice to appeal to a particular demographic - fundamentalist right-wing gun-owning Christians. ”

And then, of course, the Piece-de-resistance (my deepest apologies to the French for that butchering of their language).  Daily Kos has the incredible story that Palin’s youngest child may not be hers at all, but in fact her 16 y/o daughters.  Read it if you dare, the pictures seem to tell the whole story. Update: Arrrg!  I’m a muckraker.  Turns out there are no shenanigans other than keeping an underage pregnancy a private family matter.  Who would feel like sharing a minor embarassment like this with the world?  The AP picks up the budding engagement and pregnancy of Bristol Palin.

Holy Partisan Politics Batman…. And yes, can you tell that I’m an Obama Fan?  But it really seems like the republicans are fumbling around in the dark on this one… **Shakes head**

What exactly are we, as a nation, looking to harvest with our current efforts?  In the same way that a neighborhood looks unhappily at a crackhouse on the block, it is becoming more and more apparent that the world looks angrily at a country who continues to pour more than half it’s revenues into the tools of war.

The article(s) sprawl and he doesn’t reach concrete conclusions that we can move on.  But regardless, it is compelling and comprehensive indictment of our national behavior.  It also provides a valuable background to view the ideas and actions of this administration against.  I agree with many of his ideas and think that they are worth your time.  Give it a look and see what you think.  I read the articles over a period of a week or so, so take your time.